Transcript

Okay. Good evening, colleagues, and thank you very much for attending this evening on a rather miselere. My name is Derek Long. I'm chair of a view in scrutiny. This is the last meeting, fall meeting of the committee of the year. There are no people present in the council chamber apart from those around the table, so I won't go through the normal reading out of stuff. Suffice it to say that we're here to try and do our best in terms of the council and its residents, not only to look after the legacy of the council, but also the community, but also to think about current residents' challenges, but also to think about the future as well, so we try and balance those three positions in our deliberations. So I'm going to start by just running around the table, so those watching the stream can actually be clear about people's names and backgrounds. So, as I say, I'm Derek Long. I'm a very proud council on behalf of West Park Ward and it's Matt. It's been sabotaged by the microphone. Thank you. Evening, Matt Jones, head of legal and democratic services. Good evening, I'm Karl Alder and I'm a scrutiny support officer. Good evening, everybody. I'm Councillor Michel Sweeney. I represent the Town Centre Ward and I'm the chair of the Adult Health and Social Committee. Good evening, I'm Mackal Mack, also representing Town Centre Ward on behalf of the Labour Party and the residents of the Town Centre. I'm pleased to be here tonight. Hello, everybody. I'm Trish Alung. I'm the Councillor, one of the Councillors for Moss Bank Ward and also Chair of Children and People Services, through City Committee. Hi, everyone. I'm B.C., Oshinigor Council of the Power Ward. Thank you. Hello, Jeannie Bowell, Councillor for New York, New Eloise. Janet Johnson, Councillor for Sutton South East. Councillor Brownies, Ben Sirlsville, Councillor Sutton South East. James Haskier, I represent the Regal Ward. Good evening, Vicki Willett, Director for Policy and Transformation. Martin Bond, like the Chair and Council for West Pack and I am the portfolio holder for Corporate Services. I am John Regin, I am the Head of Financial Management for the Council. I'm James Morley and I'm the Senior Screwing Officer. Thank you, colleagues. I should also point out for the benefit of the stream that whilst we strive to be a paperless council of colleagues we'll be looking at computers during the presentation. And we do the best, but we can't always manage to make it entirely paperless. So can I move on then to apologies for absence, so do you have any apologies? Yes, to other apologies from Councillor HATCESly and Councillor MESSEL. Okay, thank you very much. Minutes of the meeting held on the 5th of February, can I sign that as a correct and proper record of the committee's that agreed? Agreed. Thank you very much, colleagues. Declarations of interest from members, we strive to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest. Any declarations of interest on the business here today? Okay, thank you very much and equally, the procedures of this meeting are subject to a condition that there should be no party whips applied. Anybody got a party whips? I wish to disclose, thank you very much. Okay, can we move on to item five, which is Chair's updates and we have the two today. So shall I start with Councillor CUNCELLE, Councillor Sweeney is looking enthusiastic at me, or is this okay? Councillor Sweeney, you get to go. Chair's to do it the way if you want. Thanks, Chair. This year we held our final meeting on the 15th of April of the municipal year, yeah. What work that we've undertaken this year of most significance has been reviewing our mental health services across the borough in light of some increases in need for the services. That's increased year on year since although we're still not out of COVID, but COVID there's been an exponential demand placed on our mental health services. We started at the beginning of the year looking at the services that we had and we held a review of those services on the 15th of April to look at how that is going across the whole piece. And again, it was confirmed that there's never been such a demand on services, certainly from those who presented in her 25 years of working within mental health. So we have nothing but challenges ahead, not to make this a political debate, but we understand the devastating impacts of defunding of these vital services within our national health. However, the current ICB, most sad and Cheshire will be taking more ownership of this and looking to do a more measured and balanced approach to mental health services across the as sad and Cheshire piece, hoping that Centalines obviously gets an improvement in service and delivery. So that was a significant piece of work. We also had at the beginning of the year preparation for the offset, sorry, not offset, for the CCQC inspection. We had an update from our new director of services, Jamila Hussein, on the 15th of April. Again, we have no dates, but we are reassured that a lot of work has gone into that preparation. They're looking for peer reviews, they're looking at those who potentially may be in the first tranche. And we're hearing that London may be being focused on initially, and those who have already had one, section one, one, fours. Obviously, they've been a significant impact in those areas already. We've looked at the delivery of alcohol and substance services, and we were fortunate enough to do a site visit. CGL really, really impressed with the work that they're undertaking, and also the outcomes that they're getting with many of our residents who have been struggling with alcohol and substance misuse. We've had reviews on our suicide policy, and again, that is a priority of the Council. We'll continue to be so. We also did a spotlight review on dentistry, and that was very timely, as it was literally – it wasn't planned that way, but it was literally the day prior to the government making announcements along what they're going to try and do to improve dental services, and time will tell if that will be an improvement. We've got just been really thankful to the committee for the level of commitment that they've undertaken some really robust questioning, also along the CERS community, to try and improve access to our GPs. That's been a significant piece of work that's been undertaken, and we also had a review of that. And again, the committee has some really, really intrusive, but I suppose probing questions. What needed to be asked, because of resident's approach, was about limited access to our GPs services, and just grateful to all those who've attended the committee throughout the year, and given their time undertaking presentations, we see ourselves as a critical friend in that area, and we've had some real positive transparency from people around, and the difficulties that many services are facing, so that about sums it up, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Sweeney. Councillor Long, who was also looking enthusiastic, so Councillor Long, you're welcome. Thank you, Chair. So March 4th, I chaired a spotlight review of the work done to reduce and prevent child neglecting St. Hallens, and the importance of that goes without saying, I'm sure we'd all agree. Along with committee members, the review was attended by 17 practitioners from 14 different service areas. There was an open, honest exchange, airing good practice, areas for improvement, and staff commitment and energy was almost tangible in the room. The outcome was a good set of recommendations for collective action, which have already informed a key document for the safeguarding children partnership. The report will come to the committee, Scrutty Committee in July. I'd just like to thank the safeguarding children board, business manager Andrew Passie, and James Morley, our very own Scrutty Manager for their help and support with that work. CYPS Junior People Services Scrutiny Committee, the last one, was on March 25th. The new children services director is going to be Tracey Steven, who brings huge strategic experience to the role in the post she's leaving. She manages children's and adult services along with youth justice. We were assured of a good handover, which is important, including at least one or two weeks mentoring by Hillary. And of course sincere thanks to Hillary for a leadership and to the whole department for the commitment to improving children and people's services. Hillary will be greatly missed. A summary of some of the positives in children's services includes much greater stability in social worker workforce, improve foster care recruitment and progress made towards our own children's home, residential home offer, which is all good news, most importantly for vulnerable children and people, and of course the council budget. Demand for services though is still high, and this includes in terms of our syndrome the increase in demand, free HCPs in the face of staffing capacity problems and ed psych shortages, which is a national experience we're experiencing here locally. And we know the difficulties for children and young people and their families this brings. And it's clear that Joe Davis and a team are doing everything they can to address this issue. We received a focus report on the work to reduce high rates of young people being admitted to hospital due to our calmest use. A lot of good work is going into this, including strengthening to visit, is strengthening visits to young people who are admitted to hospital to try to avoid their re-admittance. But other substances are a worry in this area including, for example, catamom use. We approved the report from an earlier review of TASA, the triage of education support and specialist guidance for school, and are screwed to new resources in a valuable additional recommendation aimed at widening parents and care access and saving money. Lastly, we're looking forward to visiting the summer to see one of the new family hubs in Sutton, and to the young persons drug and alcohol team following the joint visit to the Change Grow Live service. And I'd just like to end by thanking all members of the committee for that commitment and dedication to the work over the last year. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor. And obviously, Councillor HASSLEE ends the triumvirate, or essentially the wrong Latin actually is it. I'll have to say the trifemorate, I think that's probably the correct Latin. But for her coverage of the place directorate, which she's done with, great zeal and focus as well over the past year. So those are the three sort of thematic groups that work within the overview and scrutiny. And I'd like to thank the chairs for their work at this point, and we'll quite more about the officers at the end of the meeting as well. So thank you very much for that. Can we then move on to financial monitoring report period three? You're not Richard Reibson, but you'll have to do in the circumstances, John. All right, over to you. Thank you very much, Chair, and I'm a pale limitation of Richard Reibson's apologies. The report, as to gender item six, is the financial monitoring report for period three. It was reported to cabinet on the 28th of February. And the report presents the financial forecast for 23-24 as at the end of period three. It covers both the revenue and capital, financial forecast position, and also summarises the reserves and balances position, the treasury management position, and detail on delivery of the savings programme for the financial year. The covering report sets out in section 1.5 onwards. The revenue position and reports a service overspend of circa 11.8 million pounds, and focuses on the pressures that we face within children and young people's services and integrated health and care, which are resolved predominantly of demand for those services. What we then have is some treasury management underspends and corporate underspends, which help alleviate the financial position. They're underspends of circa 5.4 million pounds, but then sets out and finishes with the net overspend position for the revenue budget of circa 6.4 million pounds. The recommendations are set out in section 2 of the report. And I'm happy to take any questions from members. Councillor BONN, do you wish to add anything to that at this point, or perhaps later up soon? Yes, nothing has happened. We said before, really sure. The finance and monetary reports through the year have been consistent in worthy blood. Obviously, now we're in a position with the up, so it's going to come next. And this report's up to the end of December. So it's been consistent throughout the year. We know the pressure is out. I just had to what John said. There is increasing demand in children's and integrated health and care. But there's also increasing cost. So it's not just the demand, it's the increasing cost. And we know some of the reasons why that is in children's. And it's become a cash cow for hedge funds, etc., so it needs regulated to be able to do that. I think the character Charles has spoken before about how in Italy as an example, as you want to settle for children's care home, it's got to be not the profit. You can't make money out of the children in need, do what are vulnerable in Italy. But you can in the UK, and so we know that. There's not enough money in the system as well. You've all heard me saying from this issue for many years about it. And this character manages it best as it can. And Charles has spoken to us about Section 11444 and about that being a focus for inspections. We are not in that position, although the whole sector continues to match towards it. Because of government policy. Thank you, Councillor Bonner. We repeat the same things each time because the fundamentals don't change. At 1.22, there is a very clear indication on page 13, I think it has. In the absence of any significant additional government support to address inflationary and demand pressures, further reductions to the Council's service office will be necessary. So this is not just St Helens, this is across the board. The local government select committee in Parliament reports in February that there was a £4 billion shortfall for the next two years, covering the next two years across local authorities. And I suspect that's just to keep the show on the road. That's not to engage with systemic problems and quite a stunning observation. The government elected after the select committee reports, the government elected after the next UK general election, regardless of political persuasion, must embark on a fundamental review of the systems of local authority funding, local taxation and delivery of social care services. That's as blunt as I've ever seen it in terms of a response from a select committee in terms of local government over my nearly 40 years in terms of local authority activity. So we're very, very clear, I think, that the inherent problems which are coming forward in terms of overspend, each are a function of something which is a national problem, which the local government select committee in Parliament has said there are systemic requirements that need to be addressed by the next government, and I sincerely hope they are. Councillor McCormack, you had your hand up. Yes, thank you, Chair. Since our last meeting, we've seen the collapse and the Chamber having gone into administration. Will that have any impact on any financial impact on this Council? I'm concerned about the learners who will be no longer able to continue with their apprenticeships and the difficulty of finding apprentice places for them, who will pick that up. And also, did we draw down any funding which would help local businesses that can now not be used and may have to be returned because of that? If you can help me with that, please. I'm sure I can't help you with that. I'm not sure John can off the top of his head here. So I think, unless I'm doing you, doing your service, but you come in and then I'll give you a remedy. Yeah, unfortunately, I don't have that detail off the top of my head. It's not one of the areas that I particularly look after, but I can go away and get a response for you on that, just simply clear for members. I think if you could circulate that to the committee, that'd be helpful as well. It's a helpful question rather than type, timely questions. Are there any other Councillor Spencer, yes? Thank you, Chair. It's not so much of a question. Probably the officer's not here who you could probably answer. But it is on children and people's services, which is an increase in costs within them, and we know that we are trying to bring children back into bother with children's homes, which is not 100% family that, because a lot of them are small. But I do know that there was four children taken into care and they were fostered out, but they were fostered to a family in a league for St. Helena and I know we've had problems over the years getting foster curers. But that must have some financial impact on the authority. They still attend their own school and its intelligence, so it's transport, cost involved, and all those issues. So it might be something sweet to me I want to look at in terms of how do we encourage more people to foster parents and any issue around that nature. I think Councillor Long has got some substantive comments to make on fostering, and then Councillor SWEEN coming up. Yes, that's that comment. What I will say is that the Department is doing everything it possibly can to increase the number of foster carers, and especially, for example, foster carers with specialist skills, you know, there are more and more children with complex needs. So this is an issue that we've looked at in scrutiny time and time again, and all that I can say is I can assure you that the Department is doing its best, looking at all kinds of innovative work, and we are doing, the Department is doing far better this year than last year, but the issue is high demand. So it's recruiting more people than last year. Sorry, we are recruiting, yeah, more foster carers than last year, but the issue is rising demand. Okay, Councillor SWEEN even, Councillor Osendeko and then Councillor Tasska. Chair Mann's not on that point because I knew Council longer sits on the fostering and would, you know, would address that as the chair as well, you know, it is something that she says we have, you know, discussed at length and at officers in front of CYPS year after year, haven't we? You know, and it has increased. Mann was around adult health and social care. Can I come back to that in that case? Sorry, we'll come back to that in that case. Are we still talking about fostering at this stage or are you talking about fostering? I've had a feeling you were Councillor Tasska, and then once we've done that, we'll move on tonight. So you're not talking about fostering? No, just saying we'll come back to you in a minute. I'm going to deal with the fostering conversation first and then come back to you. All right, just to tidy it, tidy up the loose ends, at least in my mind, if nobody else is, Councillor Tasska. Thanks, Chair. It was just a question around the rates of pay. When you look at the – unless anything's changed, you do apologise, but when I looked previously at rates of pay for fostering, and you look at the rates of pay for private kids' homes and the costs, it's massive, you know, the difference between them. Is the pay being reviewed for foster parents, foster care, is because they say you should be encouraging kids to be in an actual family environment. I know we call these children's homes homes, but they're not their businesses, and the kids should be with a family or a former family, if possible. Ideally, and I know when I was a leader, I ensured that the foster care payments were increased for the first time in a long time. I'm not sure what progress is going on about, given the financial conversation we've just had, Councillor Bond, you may have have a view. Again, that's an operational massive in the department, another time we recruit. So, obviously, remuneration forms found to that. You kind of touched on the Councillor Tasska. I just want to find out some points of you. It costs less money to get children fostered than it does to put them in private care homes. I don't know about the example that Councillor Spencer mentioned there, but if you've got four children from the same family, and you split them up and put them in more in different care homes, or you try and keep them together in a home, slightly out of butter, but they all stay together, then we've got to think about what's best for the child as well, ultimately, in that situation. The way you do fostering is better value. I don't want to use the word value for money. We're talking about children's lives. Fostering, sex, less money out of the budget than private care homes. But it is about looking after the children. They have the most important thing. Yep, OK, so that those points are noted, and it's in this world of trying to do the primary thing, what's best for the kids, and then what makes best financial sense. The points are well made, and I think that offices are not insensitive to them, but that's helpful. Right, so back then on to track to Councillor Sweeney, and Councillor Austin Decker. Councillor Sweeney. Thanks, Chair. And again, just coming in from just what the back of Councillor Tasska, the reality is this authority has done everything it possibly can to increase foster care is we absolutely recognise that we want children to be placed with families, you know, at best three and again, sadly, as much as we've increased that by tenfold, it's still not enough. And that we have not got enough foster care as coming. We're looking at innovative ways, as Councillor Long said, to try and, you know, improve that offer, but the fact that we're not getting so many people forward is indicative of the fact that we have many children with very complex needs, and hence the need for complex care. We absolutely, as all members of the CYPS, it's why Councillor Long's kept it on the agenda, certainly for the last three years, you know, that I've worked to try and keep it going, keep a look at fresh ideas, and there is nothing that we haven't tried to do to try and improve that. And these things do take time, as alongside the children's homes. Children's homes are there, though, because we have to have specialists where children can't go into a family unit for whatever reason. And again, this authority is looking to provide four of them. I get that's something new, given the financial pressure that we're under. I can only, you know, say what an amazing thing to try and do that at this time. But again, it's what's needed. We're an ally for children in care, unfortunately. But we are where we are, and, you know, we would suggest that we're trying to do everything, but just in terms of adult health and social care and that being, again, further pressure. What I am confident of, certainly, is some of the things that we've looked at in scrutiny is, again, our new director, Jamila, who's saying she is absolutely trying to keep people within their own homes for as long as possible. Again, something that we've highlighted at our committee that is best for the residents. As long as we can keep someone safely at home, that is what is best in their best interests. Cur costs also are increasing, and sadly, they're another area of edge fund, which anyone who knows our politics knows that that's something that we are absolutely against. But she's also really trying to focus on working at length with the hospital. She comes with a wealth of experience with the integrated care boards as well. That's her background, and, obviously, we're at the, you know, in the infancy, really, of ours. Her experience in this area is very welcome. And I know that she's already formed really positive links with the hospital, but just to be clear, although we are an integrated care system, we are not fully integrated at this time. As Councillor Quinn pointed out at our last committee, we have to be very clear about that. We still have a way to go in that area. But what we are trying to do is look at specialisms in assistive technology, AI, that will help people to stay in their homes. And, yes, that will improve the Council's financial sector, and, obviously, we always have to look at that, but we do recognise from a health perspective that that is an improvement for people's well-being, and that is our focus. Absolutely, financially, it reduces our costs. We're not going to be, we're not naive enough to say that that's not an area, but it is ultimately in the interests of the person. And that is, I'm confident, the Adult Health and Social Work team. That is their focus as well. So, although we are limited in terms of financial, they do a lot with what they've got. Indeed, thank you for that, Councillor. Councillor Osindecker. Thank you very much. My question is, as regards 1.6 to 1.9, that's page 6.7. I'm just reading through this report yesterday. I think these paragraphs are the highlights of this report for me. Oh, apologies. A pound for a mouse fund. Sorry, that's my alarm. So, for me, these paragraphs are the highlights of these reports, and I'm very concerned about the use of our reserves, and I understand the importance of us as a Council making an effort to actually help to protect our reserves. And there was a mention about the robust actions that we have to take to really try to mitigate the issues that we are sort of facing or about to face, because there's the saying that to be forewarned is to be forearmed. So, do we have any sort of information at this stage as regards the line of actions that we might take, even if they're not achievable at this stage? What sort of actions can we take to ensure that we can sort of try to mitigate this significant consequences, because there was a warning that was stated in the open aid that if the projected overspend is not reduced permanently, our Council will actually continue to use our reserves to fund our revenue budget, and I appreciate that. This is going to be monitored all through the year. How regularly are we going to be receiving updates about this, as well as members? Thank you. Okay, so two parts. The last part was about receiving updates. I think that's part of this financial, what we get already. The previous thing is what attempts are being made to address the fact that essentially we have a bath with a plug hole that's leaking 7% this year out of our budget, as are all other local authorities, as well. I don't know if Martin or John do you want to comment on that? Just the person to say about that is this is up to December. So, that is reporting on the end of December. So, we'll get an out-turn report to finalise it shortly now. But in terms of what's happened now is the budget's been set, a balance budget's been set with savings targets. We meet the Australian tax set, robust action in departments to control and suppress spending. That then should lead to the budget being fulfilled in terms of what happens. If you're looking for indications in CYPS about what they're doing to do that, then CYPS is the forum to be able to do that. As Jonathan and in this department, they're monitoring and reports rather than taking the actions in departments, the actions in departments that need to be ported back through to scrutiny, which we can do. We can ask CYPS to report into commission, but Tisha's gone. Within the portfolio and with the scrutiny panel, there's a huge amount of information going through and is monitored there. So, in those, that's in the operational detail. That shrubbery portion, I agree, chair, but if you wanted to do for everybody, then it should go through the panels in my view. But this is a matter for you, chair, and the chairs about it. So, this is a snapshot up to the end of last annual year. So, we're getting out to the report of what the end point was. But within what's going on now, actually, has been taken in every department to make sure they can play with the budget testing process that we've gone through to meet the savings. Do you want to comment on that? I've just added to what Council upon said, in terms of the budget, we have approved the budget to Council on the 6th of March that sets a budget for 24/25 and includes some difficult decisions that members had to take in terms of setting that budget. But that also has a medium-term financial strategy in there to look at a three-year period and to look at the actions and the position over the three financial years. And Richard Gibson, as our Section 151 officer, has to kind of put a statement in there about the robustness of those budget estimates. All the budget estimates are reviewed to look at the position over the forthcoming financial years. That's how we come up with a forecast of the budget gap and therefore the budget savings that are required to try and enable us to set that balanced budget. So, action has quite clearly been taken in doing that. It's then part of the monitoring moving forward. And also, you know, the potentially changing position. We talk about the increasing costs and the increasing demand. You know, again, that's flattered into the forecast, but we have to see how the position goes moving forward as well. I think that there is a fundamental problem with local authority finance on a number of terms of income in terms of the organization of supply in terms of social care and also the funding of social care, which are beyond our position to handle. The upshot of that is that to use another analogy, we're running faster and faster up a down escalator, and we're just staying put up best rates and tripping backwards by a substantial sum of money by the end of the year. So, I think there's a bit of caution in terms of how much you can review that because the bottom line is we know that the escalator is going downwards. But I thank Councillor BON for his helpful suggestion. We'll perhaps look at ways that we can perhaps say wait. In future, as this committee can have a look at ways that the interaction of some of those financial concerns can be looked at in terms of the thematic committees. But we don't want to create an industry also because in terms of the pattern of our expenditure, we've concentrated expenditure on people, and that means that corporate services has been squeezed, and it makes it more difficult for them to meet all the needs as well. But we'll look into that and have a conversation perhaps outside about how we can best do that. Okay, there are any other points at this stage on this? Okay, can we vote the recommendations? And thank you, John, for your helpful help and impersonation of Richard and various other people over the past year. I very much appreciate it. Okay, can we move on to Court Three Performance Reports, page 51? Your turn, Vicki here. Good evening, everybody. Thank you, Chair. So, yes, this is the Court Three Performance Report, which is the October to December period. It's in the usual format, so part one is the statistical analysis of performance. Part two is commentary on performance against the six borough strategy priorities, and this item focuses primarily on progress in relation to priority six. So, in summary, Court Three Performance shows that 72% of indicators have either been exceeded, met, or fully met within the 95% target. This compares to 73% of indicators in Court Three 2022/23, and 28% of indicator targets were not met compared to 27% in Court Three 2022/23. Looking briefly at priority six, we can see that there has been the volume of complaints remains a challenge. However, complaint response times have shown very strong improvement over the course of Court Three with the indicator now performing above target, which is very positive. In terms of FOAs, we have seen a slight dip in performance, but continue to apply the same performance improvement approach to that in complaint, and remain hopeful that that would now have a positive impact into Court Four. And then, finally, in terms of customer contacts, very similar to the previous Court, with a slight spike in increasing calls due to the change in recycling and waste scheme. So, overall, performance is not dissimilar to Court Three, and some areas of focus for us. Thank you, Chair. Okay, thank you very much. I just wanted to give you some context of some of this in regards to where we are, and Captain Austin Deco talks about what are we doing with regard to the overspend there. So, one of the things that we did last year in October was to have an recruitment freeze. So, that was second. The financial support covers that period, sort of this financial performance report. We are now at a stage where that recruitment freeze means that we have over 400 vacancies. That will impact performance in any organisation, probably apart from, well, even the NHS, even the biggest employer in the country. So, we already seek through that lens, because some of the steps that have been second to deal with the overspend will have an effect on performance, because people aren't there to do that job. So, I just wanted to put that into the mix before we do that. Thanks, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Martin. Sorry, I missed you. I was just trying to quantify my recollectures. We have 3,000 staff in the Council, so that if that's correct, then we're looking at 10%, carrying 10% plus vacancies in the organisation. However, we're just trying to define what that coverage was. It's a downlot, frankly, so it will have consequences. I think this committee has commented on the impact in terms of complaints, in terms of the way that the Council kind of goes. And I note that we set a target for the number of complaints received, and that's clearly going – we're exceeding that target according to this, on page 71, I beg your pardon. In some sense, I do think it's a very heroic thing to do to set a target for something over which we've got effectively no control, really. So, I think there's, in one sense, that I think we'll find most local authorities will have increasing complaints, and that's to do with what we've just been talking about. But nonetheless, I think it's worth kind of flagging that we are concerned about that. I'm aware that there's certainly been concerns about FOI, which I've spoken on, and I'm aware that I suspect Councillors won't speak on that, so I won't speak any further. So, I'll take Councillor Sweeney, then Councillor CUMMING. Thank you, Chair. I'm just with Vicki Raisinger. I was concerned in relation to the DEP in responses to FOIs, but I'm also aware that there's been a number, in fact I think, 24 councils have received the same FOI around MIRIL vehicles, MIRIL insurance, costs incurred a whole range of costs incurred by councils. So, I'm just conscious of the facts. We've got a reduction in staff, obviously, as a result of freezers. But if you look at this just in either black and white, it could look quite high number, but then if you look at the context behind it and you see that those same freedom of informations are being put in, again, to stretched councils across the country, the resources that that's taking up. So, I'm not as overly concerned, and are we finding that? Is that a common theme coming up to elections that we start to get that number of FOIs, increasing? Is that the case, Vicki? Is that something that you could answer? From my previous experience of FOIs, there are always typically a combination of genuine requests, and then some that are also genuine, but from different sources in terms of media or interest groups, and quite often shared out across all authorities, in fact, a whole range of organisations that doesn't change our responsibility or our requirement in needing to get back to them within their statutory guidelines and we would treat all FOIs in that respect. The one thing that we do have is our publication scheme, whereby when we see a trend or a theme coming through in the numbers of FOIs that we're receiving, we'll capture that information once and republish it through our publication scheme so that we're not just repeating the same request, and instead we can point. So, if we get another similar request, what we'll do is we'll then point that person to where we've previously published that information. So, for example, in the case of the mayoral one, which is quite a regular recurrence, we do keep that track. Whether we've had any increase in relation to the elections, I'll have to find out and have a look for you. But at the moment, that's how we would treat them. Thank you. It may not be this year, maybe next year. Councillor McCormack. Thank you, Chair. Excuse me. Do we have greater detail on the areas in the establishment that has the highest level of vacancies? Understanding that the rest of the staff who are imposed have to work to cover, as much as we possibly can, all the things that we promised as a council, all the things that we think our residents are entitled to and deserve, and it puts greater strain on the staff who are working here, which will result in greater sickness absence, greater levels of stress. And are there any particular snapshots that we can see of where this, where the level of vacancies is impacting on the current staff, and also where the biggest number are, perhaps I don't know, amount in particular? That's not contained within this report. I was just giving that as a flavor of what might be affecting it. In terms of where the vacancies are, if that's easily gleaned, easily able to be produced, then we can get that, can't we, but I don't know whether, you know, once a quantitative assessment of it, that will probably suck up quite a lot of time for an officer to do that, or officers to do that, but in terms of where those vacancies are, we can ask the question and supply it. Thank you, Councillor BONN. I appreciate that. I think the, my, it's a lot, it's having been through this on a number of times over a number of decades that a freeze is a blunt instrument deployed by an organization, and I've worked in organizations that have done that, and I've been in local authorities, I've done that, because they've had no choice, and certainly it was a feature of the '80s. And I think from my experience, the turnover, the high turnover areas, tend to have a lot more, a lot more turnover, a lot more problems. In qualitative terms, in qualitative terms, it's the fact it's that key professional person who can only do X or Y. If they're not replaced rapidly, then you've got to leave a big impact to the customer. So it's two, two kind of dimensions to it. Yeah, sorry. I know that we are all very concerned about the staff who work for the Council. I know that isn't a Council who does not value all the work that all our staff do, and the support that we get as Councillors throughout this, and I'm sure I'm speaking for everyone here, that we are cognizant of the fact that vacancies will put extra strain on them. And, well, I want to thank them for all the work they do, and also just to remind ourselves that they are human beings. They've gone through all the stresses and strains of the cost of living crisis COVID and everything else that we've all, but they're also doing a job as well. So I want to make sure that they're well-curred for. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor MACK. Any other points on this report at this stage? Can we then note the recommendations? Thank you very much, colleagues. And then can we move on to item eight, which is the UN Sustainable Development Goals? And before doing that, it's remiss to me. It's happy Easter. Edo Futter and Karg Wasser today. So the first two belated, this one, no. But also, it's happy Earth date. And so that's where we're really about. Thank you, Councillor. Oh, nice. OK, Councillor BOND, indicated to me that he had to go beforehand, and Councillor TASS is going to have to go as well. Vicky, can I hand over to you, please? Yes, of course. Thank you, Chair. So this is the requested update on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which the Council included in their performance report. You will have seen them in the front of the other paper, so it's the nice colourful little tiles. There are 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and we report on those in relation to our Burish strategy. As far as possible, we capture the same metrics that tell us how we're performing against those goals, but where there are gaps we've looked for a proxy as far as possible. And the report outlines the performance and the trend that we see in relation to our progress against those goals. So at points 4.3 and 4.4, we outline that actually what we see in St Helens is comparable to what we're seeing nationally. These are big global issues that we're looking to change. And actually, given the current context, the cost of living crisis, and the issues that we're experiencing right across the country, St Helens is very much in a similar situation, albeit we have that additional dimension of having significant deprivation in many areas. So we report on these indicators, the performance and the status against each of the themes is shown at 4.1.3, so you can see in the table it shows the development goals, so for example, no poverty, zero hunger, and it shows the indicators and the metrics against which we're seeing slightly while we're seeing areas of challenge. So I think this is a very high level update against those goals. They are very broad global goals. We're representative of a national picture, and actually I think the key message to take away from this report is that you will see progress against these reported in our usual quarterly monitoring reports, and we capture all of those metrics. So it's something that we've got a track on all the time through the regular performance monitoring, and we will always be able to reference back to these 17 sustainable goals because of the way that the performance measures and the performance indicators that we see have already been mapped back. So we've always got that ability to look back and see how we're performing against these development goals, even though we only actually look at this annually. So happy to take any questions, but I think broadly, not a huge amount of shift and we wouldn't have anticipated it to be. Adam, I think this is a brave initiative to take on board to turn and report on these goals. I think the difficulty is that this is beyond strategic in terms of the way that the world works and the way the climate works, but it's important to keep our fingers to the fiery Braille as somebody once said. And I just make the observation. It is perhaps frustrating that we're trying to do this with our limited resources, and at the same time, the government has gone backwards in terms of its commitments to achieve progress over climate change. And we're now in a situation whereby the chief executive of the climate change, independent climate change committee has resigned and is going to move on to another organisation and the chair of that committee who, those of you who remember John Sullivan, Gunner, Lord Deben, he stood down in July 2022 and has yet to be replaced. So I cannot possibly comment on ancient history. However, it always crosses my mind as well, but I'm old enough to remember that as a good answer as well. So I just think that where we're trying to do our bit, I think the government's got to stand up and do it as well. Councillor Sweeney. I'm just also conscious of the facts as well. There's been an announcement made today for Scotland that the Greens are going to be given the potential to step away from the SMP because of their inability to meet the targets. Again, it's just, it's all gesture politics because the reality is, you know, what is happening globally, you know, with wars in Ukraine and, you know, Israel and Palestine and, you know, all of those absolutely horrific and tragic events that are occurring as well as, you know, the fuel, fuel crisis, the food crisis, you know, that people, it's just, you know, to say it's happy Earth Day. I just think it's, it's on happy Earth Day really chairing. I think as much as we try and, you know, make these commitments and without the wills of governments globally, we can't reach them. They're just unattainable wish lists, you know, and it's not something that we're all absolutely passionate about, that we recognize the climate is, you know, the biggest issue of all of our lives, but the reality is that combat it against people living in poverty, people not being able to afford where the next meal's coming from, you know, that's the priority and, you know, just want to put on record that absolutely we are committed as any council, you know, to keep those global builds, but the reality is. The reality is difficult. Thank you very much, Councilor Swen. Any other, Councilor Sandeckel? Thank you very much for the report. And I also note that, that these reports certainly is mainly seen how we can use all those global metrics to see how they also affect us locally here in St. Williamsville. I'd like to ask about the climate action, because I understand from the conclusion of the report that it is very, very difficult to sort of link these indicators to also locally, but also just thinking about the fact that a very high percentage of our land in St. Helens is green. I mean, we have lots of parks. And I'm just thinking about how, you know, how this isn't really impacted on our populations, because obviously we know that the more trees and parks you have, the more your eggs like to be cleaner. So just wondering why, you know, just trying to look at that particular metric, why we're not performing as well as we showed. Thank you. It's a good question, but I think ultimately measuring the CO2 emissions is the difficult bit in terms of being able to capture all of that. Often it's quite focused on an organisation and how you measure, how an organisation is performing rather than an area is something I'll go back and have a look at in terms of how we measure it and what the specific metrics are, perhaps I can provide an update after the meeting. Councillor MACK. Thank you. Thanks for being here. There's an air quality monitoring station in the car park opposite Oldie and in the college, the college car park. And I wonder where those details are collected, that are generated by that monitoring station. There must be others throughout the town, just to notice that one, and I just wonder who collects the information and who's going to tell us what it tells us. We do have our climate change strategy, so I'll have a look at that, which will have the metrics in it, and then I should be able to get you in updating. There are some, I'm not sure, forgive me, I'm sorry I have to date with looking at this recently, but there used to be maps which actually had indications of free, freely available maps on the reports of all of these emission kind of things. So maybe we can kind of pick up on that as well. I'll propose that in terms of the clean water, which is a challenge in terms of a gap in terms of our coverage, I'm just wondering whether there is an opportunity to contact the United Utilities and just say, actually, on the sampling that they do, if they could give us a subset of the sampling of the water, because I don't think, I think, as defined, it's a measure for covering the whole of the world, and clearly, it's not an issue in terms of that the water purity is not quite the same issue as it is in other parts of the world, but if we perhaps talk to you in other utilities about sampling, et cetera, that may be helpful. Chair, I was just going to say apologies, I just wanted to double check, but for our quality on the St Helens website and the local in-site portal, there are maps which show the air quality against a range of different types of particulates, that's the word I'm looking for, yes, so you can see that and it has it all in nice colour coded maps across the city. Okay, colleagues, oh, sorry, who's sorry indicating, is it Councillor Bell? Sorry, I missed your hand, sorry, I didn't see. No, don't worry, sorry, it was just to say, the data is held by Public Health, it usually forms part of the JSNIS assessment each year, along with environmental health, who keeps the information on water. Thank you, Councillor Bell, can we agree the recommendations and we'll take the report next year again to see if there's been, hopefully, some pause to move, set a foot somewhere on the line. Okay, thank you very much. Can we then move on to scrutiny work program, James, do you have a brief update for us? Thanks, Chair, so everyone is aware this is the last meeting of all four scrutiny committees of the year, we are going to put some workshops together sometime, sort of mid to late June for members of each committee to think about their long-term work programs and anything that I want to look at in terms of task and finish, spotlight reviews, so I guess potentially going to be some changes to committee memberships at annual council, so we will send invitations to the current memberships for workshops, and if there are any changes, we will inform the right people about those dates. For the July meetings, we're conscious that the workshops in June is a short turnaround for the July meetings, but there will be some items on work programs that will be carrying them, that committees have agreed or resolved to follow up on, so that there will be items for scrutiny committee agendas in July, not reliant on outcomes from those June workshops. And we will, as was suggested before, look out ways in which we might be able to improve the way we do the finance scrutiny, so we might consider having the thematic committees receiving financial data specific to their areas rather than just coming to the commission, the way we do with performance, there's lots of other options we can consider in the sort of interim between this meeting and the first meeting and the next municipal year, so that's what people want to do. Thanks, Chair. Okay, thank you for that. I think several observations. The first one is that I think July is awfully late in terms of the municipal year, because essentially here we are now in sort of just over mid-April, so it's rather tight year when you take out August and stuff like that, so that I think it would probably be however whoever is chair of the scrutiny committees to maybe have a get together fairly early on, try and give some, at least some indications to give some content to the July budgets, which are more proactive than or prospective than there have been, because frankly they could be complete. Different set of people may want to focus on something different, so I think it's fair to next year's Councillors that they have a chance to do that. Second I was very sure I'd make is I think it's very important that if the scrutiny committees agree a program and a set of reports, the executive stick to those reports and don't change them without due reference to the chairs of the committee, because I think that is a very, very bad habit to get into and should not be counter-minced as a way of operating. Because we recognise this as a partnership in terms of ourselves and the executive, however, and as part of that partnership, we have reduced our expectations fairly substantially just in year, in this current year, but also relative to what scrutiny was, perhaps even two or three years ago, there's been reductions in the content and the timing and the responsiveness of the executive to those things. And I say this not out of a point of making any particular points, but just to make the observation that a strong council is one that has a strong scrutiny function and it's a strong organisation, organisations have been in not just local authorities, but a good scrutiny function helps the oil the wheels and make the organisation work well, so that I hope that that would be a future of the future set up. So any other comments on that at the stage? Okay. So this is the last item for this year. Obviously there will be an opportunity for a report to be constructed and I hope you'll be able to connect with the existing chairs to ensure that they have an opportunity to shape that report before it turns up in the first cycle of the new year. But I'd just like to thank all colleagues around the table here in terms of their contributions and all the thematic subcommittees as well. It's not always the most attractive and exciting thing to do, rock up on a Monday morning at rock and then have a conversation about some detailed aspect of a council or other organisations activities, but it is essential it's a bedrock of democracy and it's important but that continues to function well. I'd like to thank all the staff of the executive, the staff of the council who've contributed and there are dozens and dozens of them and I know they have other jobs to do as well. We respect that, we've worked in jobs as well so we don't forget that, we don't make requests idly but I'd like to thank all of them for doing that and please pass that back on to the chief executive on behalf of the committee. I'd like to thank colleagues of three officers who are sat with me and of course officers who come in and you're both nailed on as permanent representatives I think to this committee as well. I'd like to thank you for your contributions and your input. I do appreciate that you may be had a career that didn't necessarily entail sitting listening to me, flat my gums, that's when you should be at home with your friends and family but thank you so much for your contributions input throughout the year and I hope we have a really good year going forward. Thank you very much and I'd declare the meeting closed.