Transcript

(people chattering)

• There we are, right, now I'm on. Okay, hi, good afternoon, everyone. Good to see you here. How the step counts, everyone. Hope you're all fit and well. Can I just say, welcome to Cabinet for Warwickshire County Council, Thursday, the 13th of June. And I am going to start with the agenda, which is apologies for absence. And I have, from Cabinet, I've got Yusuf Dharmesh and Sue Markham, but also, I've also got Monica Fogarty, who isn't here today, and Sarah, thank you for stepping in. Are there any other apologies? None that you have, right, thank you. Okay, can I then ask if anyone has a disclosure of pecuniary or non-pecuniary interest on items on the agenda? I see none, and then I'll move us on to the minutes of the previous meeting. And I'm gonna just run through those on a page-by-page basis, please. So that's page five, page six, page seven, page eight, nine, 10, and finally, page 11. Can I ask, then, if we can take that as a true and correct record? Agreed, thank you very much. And that then moves us on to public speaking, which I have been notified there are no public speakers. The first item on the agenda is the Integrated Performance Report for '22 to '27. This would normally be the responsibility of Yusuf Dharmesh, who is not with us today, so that little pleasure falls to me. And I'm just gonna run through it quickly. These, of course, we get on a regular basis, and I just wanted to identify a couple of particular things. Can I get you to have a little look at the 2.4, this is the paragraph which really looks at the notable aspects of positive performance that we need to look at. And we have got four items there that we need to just have a look at. There are some, obviously, there are some areas of concern that we want to just note. Despite having had, during COVID, a reduction in sickness levels, these are just beginning to move upwards. So we're keeping a very close eye on that and trying to manage that. So that is an area of some concern to us. And on track, we have, at the year end, we had 64%, and not on track, 36% of our target areas. So what I would just say is that there are some areas that we feel are concerning. So the sickness absence has increased slightly over the last quarter to 9.86 days per full-time employer. It's attributed to a number of areas which you can see in 1.4, and that there is an increasing trend in line with the national picture as well. But for us, we need to keep an eye on that. And I think finally, the area that is a constant concern to us is the demand over resources and how we perform against that. So as a quick overview, I'm gonna leave that as they are. I will answer what I can. And if there are any areas which I can't respond to, I'm very happy to get Yousef to come back to you. Thank you. Can I open up, please? Sorry, I should say. Are there any questions or any comments at this stage? Yes, Sarah. Thank you, Yousef. I was just struck, really, and I promise, I absolutely promise I'm not pinking on Councillor Corr, though she'll think that I am. I'm not on the children's scrutiny panel. I know many of these go through scrutiny panels, so I'm not questioning that they're not being checked. But I was struck that we're kind of five out of seven, although we were better than six out of seven that weren't on track, that a lot of them, it's not just send for our young children, but there's quite a lot of things across the county. I thought hospitalisations because of alcohol, that was really quite a surprise to me. And I just wondered if-- and again, this may not be Councillor Corr's. I'm looking at it and thinking this is really a public health question, so you might have to pull out the person who deals with public health. It'd be interesting to know with public health, as we're picking up these trends, starting to act and react to them, because I think that's really key and critical. And again, with the obesity question, that was on the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment that I inherited when I became a Councillor. And it's always been an interest about what are we doing, particularly around children obesity, because it's quite a worry. Absolutely. And I think that's going to sit in Margaret's area of responsibility. Margaret. Yeah, Sarah, sorry. I picked up the children obesity. Did you have one at the beginning? Yeah, it talked about the rising number of children in-- well, young people, probably not children, hopefully. Young people admitted to hospital due to alcohol issues. And I was quite surprised by that, as well. Absolutely. Yes, both of those areas we're really well aware of. And I know our public health team is really focused on the obesity issue. And we have a Warwickshire [INAUDIBLE] Drug and Alcohol Committee, as it were, that are looking at how we can look at that. But it's very worrying that it's young people. And it's something that we'll have to try and address. But I'm afraid that's where society is at the moment. But we are very aware of it and are focusing on it. Thank you. Anything else? I guess, probably, the issue about childhood obesity has been a national trend for, goodness, probably about 10 years, something like that, which culminated in the sugar tax. And I don't know. It's a trend which I think is really very unfortunate. We've done quite a lot over the years. And probably, Margaret, this precedes you, as well, which was around in schools, particularly in primary schools, around the walking mile and areas like that, taking out the sugar drinks machines out of schools, as well, to try to help. But of course, that is down to local choice in schools. Because a lot of schools themselves, they get resource out of that. Margaret? Yes, just-- the other thing, of course, that's happening and has been happening for a while is the child measurement program, which goes on in school. I have been talking to our public health colleagues about the letter that goes out if your child is found to be overweight. And it sometimes has a negative effect. So we can use the data. We can use the data in order to target resources. But I think sending a blame letter out isn't always the right thing to do. So we're talking about how we can-- because obviously, this is a government program. But I think there's some flexibility in it. So we are in active discussion about that. Thank you. [INAUDIBLE] Apologies. Sorry. There's no further questions on the paper. So can I move us back to the two recommendations that we have on page 13? And can I ask governor if they support those recommendations? Agreed. Thank you. The next item is financial out-turn report for 23-24. Peter, can I ask you to present that? Right. This is a kind of financial report as a kind of a Q3. And I'm glad to report we've managed to kind of remain-- although we do have to report an overspend of $7.314 million, that is 1.95% of the net revenue budget and is within the 2% tolerance set for the authority of Warwick, Chicanec, Ainsley, Sowes and Complexity. Although it is an overspend, it is kind of something that we're kind of beginning to kind of get to grips with. Money market investments have performed stronger than expected, partially offsetting them at many financial presses as a result of the effective investment strategy, which I will go into further onto the next paper, which in terms of our treasury report. I'm going to itemize a few of the kind of the demands, the pressures on the county. That's demand for our services, inflation still, which is kind of playing through the system, and the high needs block, and transformation as a background to all the other work that we're having to do. The key overspends are with the DSG overspend of $17.117 million, and I'll just draw out in terms of detail on that one. High needs remains a key concern, and work with VFEs delivering better value programme has shown that the deficit cannot be mitigated by the council action alone. In other words, we're lobbying for some kind of further legislation to make this come possible. Home to school transport is another issue which has been brought up before, and continues to be a problem in terms of overspend. Social care and support, and CNF overspend of $11.978 million. The children placements costs, again, are the key driver to that one. Also, in terms of IT services to schools, because of increased head counts, there's also been an increase in the costs come from the schools element. In terms of underspends, the key one there is kind of corporate service underspend of $23.89 million, which comprises a number of components, including $19.2 million from savings in capital financing costs and higher returns on our investments. Again, something I'll go into on the next paper. So the overall, the additional points overall, $12.846 million. $84.75, our planned savings of the $15.58 million were achieved. So our performance levels have gone up significantly in terms of our planned savings. So we're getting back to where we would like to be. In terms of revenue investment funds, $7.475 million was spent on projects in '23, '24, leaving our cash balance of $27.944 million at the end of the year. And finally, a little bit of a good news story in terms of the most significant investment was made in terms of our capital investments. We've spent $175.518 million capital expenditure was incurred in '23, '24, $138.042 million was controlled by the council. In other words, it's kind of the capital expenditure which comes in and out, which is basically controlled by other people, and we are basically kind of the accounting body for it. Although there are some inevitable reprofying schemes, this should not take away from the fact that this level capital expenditure is a significant increase compared to prior years. That's where we kind of referred to in the past, where I've said, we've got slippage, and we're basically spending money to a schedule that we can control and better. And the most significant investment was made in education, $65.879 million, building new schools and extending existing ones to ensure we are able to meet both mainstream and special education needs as pupil numbers continue to increase. So hopefully that's a whistle-top store of basic kind of our spending over the last quarter and basically kind of an indication of where these trends are coming from. So I'm willing to take any questions.
• Thank you, Peter. Are there any questions on that? Jerry.
• Thanks. Just around the children and families, really, the element there. I mean, graph one shows the savings elements quite clearly where there's some major issues. And I don't know whether there was some extra comment around the children's families element, where we look at the marketplace and the overspend relating to children's placements and the costs of that coming through. Was it page 77 paragraph there? It just seems to me that the market is just totally broken and fractured now. And we are making some improvements. But I think when you look at the market overall now, the costs just keep spiraling. And that seems to be a major problem that's going forward as well. Hopefully, it does say about the children's homes and the overspend there. But there's been a problem around that. Hopefully, assurances about that being back on track would be useful. And then the last comment is about the staffing issues within that paragraph as well, where we seem to be having to use a lot of agency staff because of the increased workloads.
• Sorry, let me just check if there's any other. Yes, Sarah.
• Probably a very similar concern to Jerry's. When I looked at the explanation of the overspending residential placements and extra care, I think I was really concerned that some of our children are in care that probably isn't best suited for them. But it costs them 30,000 a week. And I just wondered if there are any plans. I know we're looking at more of our own homes where we're keeping more actually children more actually, which I think is really critically important. But is there any thoughts about developing some kind of higher needs placements as well because when I look at 30,000 pounds for a week, that's a phenomenal amount of money. And I suspect that that child is out of Warwickshire as well. And it'd be good to have them in Warwickshire being looked after by our own people, I think would be absolutely the best thing for them.
• [INAUDIBLE]
• --placement costs first. As you know, and I think I've stated before, we're all continuing to invest in our own homes, basically kind of the underpin the market. You're absolutely right. And I've said it before, the market is broken. And we're looking to basically kind of underpin it by using our own homes. And hopefully, there are odd instances that where we're kind of like the places that are kind of put into wouldn't necessarily be a place where we would normally do them, but we always check to make sure that the children are in good care, although it might not be a registered care provider. But we continue to work tirelessly and can invest in kind of a considerable capital sums to make sure that we're kind of addressing this problem and hopefully will stabilize the market. In terms of staffing, again, we're completing as an authority overall with the private sector all the time. And we're kind of hamstrung in some respects in terms of basically how much we can pay because we're kind of on pay structures. But we're kind of altering some of those things and also kind of trying to attract further people back into the authority. And we find also sometimes that people go and leave the authority for what they think to be a rosy future. And kind of 12 months later, you find them back working for us, which is kind of a credit to the fact the ethos that we've got in terms of being a good employer. So it is kind of a challenging process in terms of trying to keep staff, but I think pretty well every large organization in our issue is having the same problem. So if there's any other questions, I would like to recommend this as laid out. Thank you. So we've got the recommendations supported by Peter. Can we agree those? Thank you. OK. I think the next paper is the Treasury management. And investment downturn reports. Again, it's you, Peter. I've said this twice before, that we owe a debt of gratitude to our Treasury management team. Increased interest rates basically kind of made it such that we can basically kind of get better return on our money. And where we had a planned kind of return, our interest income of 18 million was recorded from Treasury investments, significantly exceeding the budget of 4.7 million. So you can see where we have budgeted for 4.7 million. We've got an extra basically kind of 13 and 1/2 million pounds that we didn't anticipate, which has helped us basically kind of balance the books going forward in terms of kind of relating back to those overspends that we've got in our books. I also must point to the fact that we kind of basically invest our money wisely. Also, we invest in Warwickshire, which comes back to WIF. And also, this is also a very good news story in terms of WIF. We kind of use that money to invest into new businesses coming into Warwickshire, and Martin will bear this out. But I'll kind of point out that so far, WIF, especially through the LC fund, which is a smaller fund which goes out to a lot of smaller businesses, has created over, I think, 283 jobs so far. So if you're creating jobs in the county, you're creating basically people with jobs and creating, in many cases, rateable value and basis rate value for the kind of people of Warwickshire. As you know, the big investment was closed down, which was no longer required. PIF continues to thrive, and we're kind of getting constant applications for funding to kind of create business opportunities along the county. In terms of the property company, this has also got a refreshed business plan. I think I mentioned that last time. And two business cases were developed to approve the capital in October '23. And we are now basically building houses. And I think we're so far at Wharton, we have now sold about six houses and a lot of interest going forward. So that is a big news story. And also, as far as I'm concerned, and also we're providing housing, affordable housing for the people of Warwickshire. So we are investing in and also getting good returns on our money as kind of an investor of money, which is helping us to balance the books and keep delivering services. So on that point, a highly good news story. And I'm willing to take questions. Yeah, absolutely. And congratulations to all who have helped us in managing this because it does pay a very important part in trying to manage the paper that we've just also had. Andy. I thought I might because I thought you might be inundated with questions from-- but I seem to be, yeah, seems to be the only one. But I did like the fact that you started off with a debt of gratitude in terms of our treasury staff. So whether that was an inadvertent pun, I was impressed with that. But on a serious note, obviously reducing the debt from 321 million to 273 in this final year is something to share. I'm sure many of the local authorities would wish they were in a similar position. Certainly having done treasury management in a previous incarnation, I recognise that the amount of great work that's been done. And obviously, when you're getting an extra 14 million paying compared to your budget, if any or services did that, we would be in a better position. But seriously, they are helping us with the peaks and troughs and unexpected items. So it's really making a-- glad to see the accountants making a really positive contribution to the council, as I used to do when I was in my previous role. So thank you very much. The pun was unintentional, but I do have a tendency to take on financial terms. And also those I'm congratulating are also wondered and understand in that respect as well. So yeah, like I say, they have done remarkably well in controlling and managing our money. So shall we just move to the recommendation, which is that we endorse the treasury management and investment reports? Can we do that? Agreed. Thank you very much. That moves us on to agenda item five, which is-- Margaret, this is you. Well, on behalf of the overview and scrutiny committee, this is the menopause services task and finish group, which I'm sure we want to thank them too. Thank you. To you. Absolutely. Yes, a very welcome report on a topic that affects all of us, not just the women in the room, but all of us. And as Izzy just said, this was commissioned by the Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee. And they were asked to assess the sufficiency of services, identify any gaps, and make any recommendations focusing on the services provided by both the integrated care board and by Warwickshire County Council. And I would like to thank all the members of the committee. I'd also like to thank Councillor Claire Golby, who actually initiated this review, and also Councillor Kate Rolf, who chaired the committee. So thanks very much to everybody, particularly those two. So the group looked at the evidence from the integrated care board, obviously from Warwickshire County Council, and not just the services we provide, but what we provide inside our own organisations. And they also talked to people with lived experience. And as a result, they got a great deal of information about the menopause services that are commissioned. And also, they found a lot more, many more services in the third sector environment that they didn't know of before. So that was really reassuring. And the other thing that they found was that the Warwickshire County Council is very, very good with the support they provide for their own employees in this area, a model, actually, of how menopause services should be supported within an organisation. So as a result, there were five recommendations. And the first one was that there should be more communication and information about the services available outside in Warwickshire, because a lot of them weren't known of. So that's something that the ICB and partners could do through their usual channels of communication. And also, to improve access to primary care specialists. And 80% of women with menopause problems can be-- they can be addressed within primary care. But there aren't specialists in every primary care practice. However, the access to those people could be improved by telephone communication or by having drop-in clinics that people can go to. So that was another recommendation, recognising that we could have even more voluntary support. And we particularly noted that in the north of the county in Rugby, there are far fewer of these services than there are in the south. So we need to try and energise those areas. And the county council itself should share how it supports its employees in this area with other organisations, so that we can become a model out there. And then, finally, that the Oveons Graduate Committee should monitor how this is progressing. So this report's been to the Health and Wellbeing Board, which welcomed it. And it's currently with the ICB. And we're waiting for their response. Thank you. Brilliant. Thank you very much. It's a very clear report and very much welcome. And it's good to know that there's some good practice going on within this organisation that hopefully we can share with others as well. Can I ask if there's any comments or any questions on this report? Yes. Thank you, Sarah. It's just a comment, really. I was to thank them, because it is a major piece of work. I haven't yet gone through the menopause, but have supported a number of women who have. And it can be quite a traumatic period in somebody's life. And I think one of the things people have said is their mental health, as well as their physical health, that concern that they're going mad. And sometimes GPs have not always been as sympathetic as possible and don't necessarily always recognise that it's a menopausal symptom. So I was really grateful that Margaret highlighted that and highlighted that, working with the ICB, there is some more work to be done. So thank you, Margaret, for highlighting that. Back to you. Thank you. Yes, I'd just like to say that it's a real investment to support women with menopausal problems, because one in 10 women at the moment are resigning at that stage, because they're not being supported, and they can't deal with what they're having to deal with and work. So it's something that is really important. So the recommendation is on page 233 that we accept this and endorse the recommendations. I would say I think we welcome it, actually. So if we can add that change, I think it's generally. Yeah. OK. Can we agree that? And the next paper is the Portage Education Sufficiency Strategy, 24 to 29. Cam, you're going to take us through this. Thank you, Chair. So the council has a statutory duty to ensure there is sufficient education provision encompassing early years primary and secondary school provision, post '16 and special educational needs and disabilities, as mentioned in the report itself. Appendix 1 to the report is a core strategy, which sets out how the council will plan, develop, and commission this education provision. And in planning for the education places, there are a number of challenges, as mentioned in the report, and considerations which the strategy seeks to highlight and address, and those include population changes, housing growth, the increase in pupils with recognized SEND, cost pressures, sustainability, and meeting the demand for early years provision as a result of the recent legislative changes. I had to put my teeth back in there. Just to draw your attention on page 271, as part of supporting information, over the next five years, we expect a further increase in total age population between 4 and 16, which that equates to a requirement of an estimated 2,000 additional school places, which is considerable. And therefore, to facilitate the delivery of this strategy, there are four priorities that have been identified within the report. I won't go through each and every one of them, but just to outline them, the first is around strategic planning, and then that's around right places at the right time, which I think is really, really important. Priority 2 is around effective commissioning, priority 3-- and again, this is really important-- partnership and collaboration, and priority 4 is managing and supporting change. Again, none of this can be done without the strategy heavily reliant on the continued communication and engagement with our education settings, our providers, and the wider stakeholders. So that is really, really key whilst delivering this strategy. So I'll end my summary there, but I'm happy to take any questions if there are any. Thank you, Cam. I'm just going to open it up by saying I think this is a really interesting report and great to read. It's very informative, so it's worth spending the time and having a look at it all. But are there any questions or comments on the paper? I haven't got any, Cam. Yeah, this is true. So back to you. You're going to have to wait for Council. You can say them now, do you know? Dress of rehearsal. Dress of rehearsal, yes, beforehand, but no. OK. It's quite easy, then. The recommendation is cabinet endorses the Warwickshire education sufficiency strategy for 24 to 29 and recommends to Council for its approval. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, thank you. And then the agenda item 7 is the concessionary travel all-day travel trial review. Thank you, Jan. Yeah, thank you very much. I'm really pleased to be bringing this paper to cabinet today. It's a fantastic new story. Just to give you some background, back in April '23, cabinet approved the 12-month trial for this concessionary trial for the disabled person's bus pass, which allowed the disabled person, which held a bus pass, to travel all day instead of after 9 AM. The trial started on the 1st of August last year. And it was primarily done to support the passholders to get their education, training, and employment. When you actually look at the report, you'll actually see that the three top uses has been medical appointments, work, and shopping. So it is really pleasing to actually see that it's being used. So the pass at the moment is only available to people under the state retirement age, which is 666. And for those over the age of five and at 66, they get a elder person's bus pass. And we think about 20% to 30% of passholders have actually benefited from this scheme. We estimate it's going to cost us about 40,000 pounds this year, which is being paid for from existing funds. And we expect it will cost approximately the same per year moving forward. And we're proposing to extend the scheme until the 31st of March, 2027. The good thing is we're also going to make some savings with this, because the county's independent travel team, who work with 16 to 24-year-olds to get independent living and to use buses. There is going to be potential savings on paying for transport for those people. I'd just like to draw your attention to figure two in section 4.5 of the report. Please ignore the last line. So before you get excited about the big numbers there or the savings, that is an error. So please ignore that last line. The savings are as on the line above, which is approximately 73,000 pounds for 23-24. And then for 24-25, probably around about 41,000 pounds. So as I said, I propose to extend the trial to 31st of March, 2027 using the current eligibility. And I'm happy to take some questions. Well, can I just go to figure three, which is in 6.4? Because I think what struck me in this was particularly when you look at the item about work and how many people just would not travel. So that's people who would not take up work and employment and positive outcomes for themselves, 48% if they didn't have this. That is not to be sniffed at. This is a significant people who we are aiming to change their lives. And also looking at the medical journeys, people who would not travel, 10%. We know one of the big challenges for our partners in health is people not turning up for appointments and the cost that that has. So not only are we helping individuals, we're also helping our partners in trying to get people to these appointments as well. So this has turned out to be a really good and positive policy, which I think we knew it would be. But it's good to see it highlighted here. I wonder if anyone else has got any comments on this. No, no, but thank you very much. So thank you for that. And so I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the responses that we've had from the people who used the passes. These are on pages 322 to 328. So if anybody's not sure if this is a good idea, please read through that. I'll just sort of quote two or three here. One person said, It's a brilliant idea. Another said, Gives me a freedom I've never had before. Another said, Having the bus pass work before 9 AM has made my daughter's life much better. That's what we're here to do, to make our residents' lives much, much better. I'm extremely proud of the scheme. And I ask you all to approve the recommendations as laid out on page 313. Can we do that? Yes, thoroughly. Thank you very much. And I have to say, from the report author's point of view, it is very good to have those pages of comments because it really explains exactly what it means to people. Thank you. So da-da, da-da. Where have we got to-- why is that moved? OK. The next item is the Adult and Community Learning Service Accountability Agreement. [INAUDIBLE] I know it's really long, isn't it? So local authorities delivering adult education provision in the excess of $1 million are required to create and submit to the Education Skills Funding Agency an accountability agreement for the academic year of '24 to '25. So that's September to September. This is our second year an accountability agreement has been required to be submitted to the Education Skills Agency. This requirement emerged from the government's skills for jobs white paper. So therefore, we have to do it. The Council's Adult Community Learning Service received approximately $1.6 million for this year, which is-- although it sounds like a lot, it's not a lot, really. But actually, it has a huge impact on a considerable amount of people. And once this is signed here and approved by cabinet, it then is submitted to the skills agency and needs to be sent in by the 30th of June, 2024, as it's mentioned in the report itself. The agreement must be signed by the providers of the governing board, and that, as I just mentioned, is us. The agreement sets out the services strategic aims and objectives. And I just want to draw your attention to the page where we talk about the deliveries. And it's towards the end of the report, and that's page 368 and 369 and so on. This is a report where we talk about the impact and how we're going to deliver the service and actually what are those priorities and the reason for the objective. So it's a really useful tool for us to use. Not only that, it actually drives how we do our delivery in community learning, with also us working jointly and not only with our own team, such as Dave Aidan Hill's team in the skills hub, et cetera, but actually really targeting those people that wouldn't normally be able to access these types of skills or education pathways. So for me, it's a really important document. It helps us steer direction for the year forward. And I'm happy to take questions, Chair. Brilliant. Thank you so much. Yes, there's some very good news stories in here, too. I'm looking to see if I've got anyone wanting to come in on this. And I don't think so. Cam, back to you. Please, may I have cabinet's approval? Can we agree that? Thank you very much. OK, that's the last of the agenda items. I've got the minutes to do under confidential, but there's a couple of announcements I'd like to make, which I probably should have done at the beginning, but now's good. And I wanted to just tell everyone some good news story. Were you at the LLG? I was, and Nick was. Nick was, OK. So on the 7th of June, up in Leeds, there was the Local Government Legal Services, Lawyers in Local Government Spring Conference. And I am very pleased to say that we had two members of our team who were in the finals of the final category of the Excellence in Training. And one of them came away with a highly commended result, which was fantastic in the Lawyer of the Year category. That was the category, and they were both in that. So the first was-- let's get to it. In the Lawyer of the Year category, Alison Freeth got legal executive in the Young People team at the WLS and was highly commended for her recent work on the accelerated procedure for discharging care orders and for her long service and dedication to law in the past 25 years, alongside her ongoing promotion of careers within local governments. So I think that is fantastic. And in the same category, Sinead Harper, who's here? Oh, well, with name and shame. Name and acclaim, actually. Well done, Sinead, who was also there. She was the finalist for her commitment and dedication, ensuring that the public can be confident that Warwickshire County Council is a well-run local authority with good governance, transparency, and accountability. I think that deserves even more. [APPLAUSE] Well done. So really well done. And it is so good to hear that your service, Sarah, goes from strength to strength again. And just another little bit of good news as well, in the West Midlands Insider Property Awards, the-- I'm going to read this, because I'll get it wrong. The Insider Media Midlands Residential Property Awards on the 6th of June-- so that was the day before-- Brookmill Meadows in Wharton-- you probably know that. Yeah, oh, you meant-- oh, you've done this. No, I just mentioned the fact that [INAUDIBLE] OK. Oh, right. Well, that was shortlisted for the small residential development of the year. So that means it's under 100. And it was highly commended in that category. So again, a really good recognition for property services. So well done, everyone, on that. It's good to know some fruits of our investments. Brilliant. So that's it. I'm going to move on and say that member-- can I ask that members of the public be excluded from the meeting for the items mentioned below on the grounds that their presence would involve the disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph three of schedule 12a of part one of the Local Government Act 1972. Can we agree that? Thank you all.