Transcript

Okay good evening members, any members of the public listening in and anybody else. Welcome to the 3rd of June over in the Scrutiny Committee meeting held here at the Bexhill Town Hall in the Council Chamber. First things first, you'll see we have Lisa this evening. Louise is unavailable because it's her birthday, so she's going out. I expect she's probably, if you're probably listening online while she's eating a fancy meal just to make sure everything's done correctly, but we can say best wishes to Louise. I have no idea how old she is, you don't ask a lady her age. So anyway, probably about 34 or something. Maybe less. I'll stop before I dig a hole. So minutes, do I have your authorization of Chair of the Committee to sign the minutes of the meetings of this Committee held on the 22nd of April and the 20th of May? Is that a correct record of those proceedings? Thank you very much. Apologies and substitutions. We have Councillor Byrne has apologised and she is substituted by Councillor Gray. I have apologies from Councillors in the Numerical Barnes, Mary and John and Councillor Maynard. And Councillor Thomas has indicated that he's travelling from somewhere far away like Lewis and we'll attempt to get here, but maybe late. We probably will be late now because we started. So I think that covers us all off. Additional agenda items, there are none. Disclosure of interest and dispensations. I would probably look at it and say there's probably none, but if anything comes up. Oh, Councillor Byrne. I'm a member of Bexhill Town Council, so I think that's probably a disclosure I need to make. Any others? Item 5, performance report, fourth quarter, 23-24, January to March of 2024. What have we got? Monitored delivery of the council's key performance indicators. Recommendation is resolved that this committee consider these findings and recommend any actions to cabinet as necessary. So Anna, over to you. Thank you very much. It's nice to see everybody. Can everyone hear me OK and online? Good. So I'm delighted to present the performance report for the fourth and final quarter for 23-24. As you will see from the report, everything is going very well. There's lots of greens across the board. And where there are a couple of ambers, they tend to be quite marginal. So Deborah's just pointed out to me that one of hers is very marginal if you look at the end of the year rather than quarter four. As you know, what we do with this report is we report by exception. So if the performance is either significantly over or under the target, I include a narrative in the report. So my laptop is just going to stand by. So just one second. The first one that we've got, which is an exception, is the FOI request. Our current target is to achieve 95 percent in 20 working days. And you'll see that we're a bit below target. However, you'll see from the narrative that Mark has provided that although we're outside of that target, we did actually adhere to all of our legal requirements by requesting an extension. Would you like me to take questions as we go along? I'm happy to do it either way. Yeah, I think. Yeah, should we do that? Should we ask a question as we take each one? We were sort of just thinking about this, the Freedom of Information request, and there's quite a rise. And you'd like to think that it's not that we're doing things badly and everybody wants to just ask more questions. But you mentioned at my briefing last week, there was a number of Freedom of Information requests come from people studying at university. So it's easier to swing off an email to half a dozen councils asking specific questions. Have you got any numbers on those? I haven't got the numbers on the ones of people that are researching from university. But I did get some information from Mark that showed we had 93 different categories of Freedom of Information requests in the last quarter. And they can be anything from actually I've got them in front of me, so I won't read out all 93. You'll be pleased to hear. But they range from social and council housing to Covid marshals to apprenticeship levies to pay scales. It could be so many weird and wonderful things that most quite a lot of these won't will be people doing research and stuff like that. One of the things I put in the narrative is that we're trying to improve the process by putting more information on the website. So if we do get people wanting information, hopefully they can go to the website and see that the information is already there. So we're going to get better at that over the coming months and put more on. But I think just by highlighting the fact that there are 93 different types of FOI requests with those different subject matters, you can see how vast it is and how wide ranging. Obviously you've got that sort of spread of question. You haven't got one or two people who would know that level of knowledge from maybe a special person, someone who knows 97 different elements of the council. But it's a little awkward I would think. And very time consuming. We sort of, I would sort of say, I suppose legally you're not allowed to ask where people come from. Because if you're a rather resident, and yeah I won't charge you, but if you're from Durham and you're doing a university course and you're costing us time and money and effort, then surely you can pay for it. But I don't think that's legal is it? I seem really loud. I'll go back a bit. Lorna's shaking her head on that. And also it doesn't really matter the reason why people ask for an FOI request. It's just they're right to be able to do it. Thank you. Last time you talked about this we did say how many of these FOIs were repeat FOIs. And if many of them are, do we have a kind of vexatious policy whereby you could say to somebody we've spent this amount of time on this. You know you're clearly not getting the answer you're looking for. We have not got that information. So you know we're going to have to close this freedom of information request. Yeah from memory last time I think the answer was about 26 were repeat ones, but I can clarify that. And I'm not sure if we have a vexatious, yeah Lorna's nodding. We do have a vexatious policy which you know isn't just about FOI it's around people that are constantly contacting the council with repeated requests. I think if it has been asked before there's something about publishing the outcome of FOIs and letting people know online where to find that. And that has to be a more efficient way of working. But sometimes they're subtly different you know. But I think actually that's where we can actually save ourselves an awful lot of time and effort. Sorry just to clarify when I said repeated I meant you know so does Mr X write to 25 of his friends and say let's all write to the council, but also does Mr X keep or Mrs X sorry keep writing to you again and again Liam for more information. So you know is that because that is vexatious. Yeah we do have those I think last time it was about 26 but I'll check but that's some FOIs from the same person. Do we do we put the answers on Lorna's just sort of touched on it but do we do we put the question and the answer on the website. Yes we do but hand on heart it's not that easy to find. So I think we need to do a bit more to make it easy to find for everybody. Yeah it might be you know it might whether it fends anybody off or not I don't know it might be just interesting to be able to actually if you're that way inclined want to search for some random question and a random answer then might be interesting. There we go. Terry thank you. Yes mine isn't. Yes do we do we look at the areas that people seem to want more information on and use that to maybe educate the AIMI system so there is a flow there. OK. Yes I believe we do and Mark has come up with a pie chart and it shows categories as well. And so we do get quite a lot about council tax and things like that. I was just going to question the vexatious reference to my hometown of Durham chair but you know that's OK. I'm happy to move on. So the next one is the number of telephone calls answered by customer services. And this is one where we're just looking for a channel shift and a reduction of calls to be presented. However if you see from the narrative we actually have more calls received in quarter four compared with quarter four last year so we had 8 percent more calls presented. However we did have an increase in the number of calls answered from 69 percent to 77 percent. And we also had less calls abandoned which is good. So it's good in terms that we're answering more calls but it isn't reflecting the channel shift towards the digital offer that we would like. OK for me to move on. Just quickly if I may. At the digital transformation task and finish group one thing that came up was we don't shout out about our successes enough and maybe we should be putting that on the website. Our average call time in the last three months has been four minutes twenty three. I think that would you know it could really impress people it could encourage people or it could make people who are waiting on the phone for six minutes and forty three could make them really angry. But I think we don't we don't blow our own trumpet enough and I think we should. I think the amount of calls just mind boggles don't it. It's one every year if you work it out over the course of the year it must be one every two minutes or something ridiculous which is a lot. That's what we're for. Carry on Anna. So the next one is a good exception. Again this is the average call wait time and note your comments about publicizing more of the things that are going really well. The average call wait time for this quarter is much better in comparison to last year. So it's four minutes and twenty three seconds compared with ten minutes and fifty six. So that's really good. You OK for me to move on. So the next one is another good one and I've got Deborah sitting next to me. So this is the missed bins per one hundred thousand. Performance is really very good. The target is sixty two and the quarter for performance is thirty eight. I don't know if there's anything you want to say Deborah. Just to thank the contractor really for providing a very good service. And I think we all reflect on previous service levels and are very happy that we're achieving this. Thank you. Yeah I think we should echo that as members because I can't be honest I can't remember the last time I had a phone call or email about missed bins or waste collections or anything. So as long as long may it continue. The next one is the percentage of public land found with unacceptable levels of litter when surveyed. So the quarter for performance was slightly below where we would like it to be. But over the year it's where we would like it to be if you look at the whole year. I think, again, I think you've spoken to Biff I haven't you just reminded them of the need to make sure that everything is up to standard. I'll carry on again. The next one is that it's a success story. It's a number of households either prevented from homelessness or relieved from homelessness. And as you can see, there's been a big increase in successful homelessness, preventions and relief. It's 54 percent higher when compared to the previous year. And, you know, it's 205 preventions compared to 133. Can I quickly just mention the fly tips? We've buzzed over the fly tips. I would say that if I've ever reported a fly tip, they are cleared extremely quickly. They're really, really good. So I think it's just worth mentioning. Cassa Clark. Thank you, Chairman. I was looking at the number of cases where you've been able to prevent homelessness. I mean, you can't calculate it, but the money is saved to be able to do that is phenomenal, because although we've got a figure of what it does cost for some accommodation. At the moment, housing costs continue to rise. Placements are costing more as well. And it can vary. I mean, I've dealt with a case recently where somebody's having accommodation out of the district at 2,000 for a month. We've now gotten housing entitled to housing for 535. It's a massive. So you can't equate the figure, but it must be quite a lot of money that we're saving for every family that we do prevent from being homeless. So I know this policy goes back a few years. And it's a very important part of our scheme of things. Yeah, so I just wanted to pick up on that as well. Absolutely agree with Councillor Clark. Councillor Clark's comments there. And but if the human impact as well, you know, preventing homelessness and getting upstream of those issues is just so important. I think I mean, 54 percent is real. You know, something to really shout about and celebrate and have those two Homelessness Prevention Officers in place is something I think we really should be so proud of. And that the fact that they're having such an impact isn't is that worthy of a, you know, a press release, you know, along with every other, you know, with some of the other stories that we've got to tell. But I think that in particular in the current climate is really something we should be celebrating. Thank you, Chair. Just to echo what Si has just said there, if we are to issue a press release, we should also mention that we are investing an extra 12 million in buying hopefully another 50 units of accommodation, which is which again will have a dramatic effect on the bottom line of our budgets in terms of temporary accommodation. So it's pretty good news, I would say. And yes, perhaps we should be singing it from the rooftops. Thank you. Can I ask a really dumb question? The average cost of placing household in temporary accommodation, I'm assuming that's per month or is it per week? I think it's per month. That's what I was hoping. And I will take an action point to investigate the press release as well. Thank you. Terry. I think it's worth saying that, OK, we've taken on two more people in the homelessness prevention team, and we say this as if homelessness prevention, you do this, you do that. It's very much customer driven. And by increasing the team, we have enough people to actually look in depth at the reasons and come up with that. We have multiple solutions and everyone who works in housing and in homelessness prevention has really good contacts within the town, within agencies, with landlords, which this all feeds into the success story. So it didn't just we didn't just buy accommodation and it may be OK. It was part it was a very central plank, but it was a central plank in a platform of an all round approach. And I think that stemmed initially from Joe. And he's had very good support from all of his team and other departments. So hopefully we'll carry on with that. And I think I'm right in saying that we are taking the lead in quite a few countywide initiatives who are learning from what we've done. So as you say, it's a very good news story. I'll go on to the summary comparison very quickly for the end of the year, because this encompasses paragraph 16 on the revenue and benefits average calendar days to process a change to an existing housing benefit claim. So where possible, I've just put a summary where we can compare the KPIs from this year to last year. We couldn't compare them all because they're not the same KPIs. But there are a few areas where I could compare them. So the first two are about revenues and benefits. So the first one is council tax collection rates. So for twenty to twenty three, the annual average was ninety seven point six six. And this year it's ninety seven point five five. So it's very, very similar. The business rate collection rates, it's ninety seven point eight three in the on which year is that average was ninety seven point eight three compared to the annual average of ninety six point seven zero. So, again, it's only a very slight decrease in performance, but it's quite comparable, really. And if anyone's got any questions, Chris is on the line to answer them. But they have faced some staffing challenges this year and we're putting more resilience into the team. I think they've done an amazing job with the resources that they've got. Chris, if you're on line, do you have anything you want to say? Really further to add than what Anna's just said, really. Yeah, the collections are very similar to previous years. I think they are down slightly. I think that's understandable with the current climate. But yeah, I think, as Anna said, I think the team's done brilliantly considering the resource issues we have experience to to maintain the levels of performance that they have. That's good. Thank you very much. Any questions? Anybody? I just wondered, Chris, has there been any, you know, fallback for the people who have gone on to zero council tax? This is very loud there. Sorry. This this is obviously quarter four. So this is before the new construction scheme came in from the 1st of April. So the figures at quarter one should should give us a better picture of how how the new council tax reduction scheme has affected the collection. Thank you. Yes, my mistake. Thank you. Can I have we got any update on the brown waste bins? Deborah, is this part of this? Yeah, I've mentioned that never what I made a note. Can I ask Deborah? We got because that's obviously a budget related thing. So I think you might be mentioning it in relation to the telephone calls received. Yeah, we were wondering about subscriptions on, you know, how that goes into into this. I don't know whether that would might want my that flag a if the number of subscriptions goes down, it might flag an issue with income. So we've got anything on that so far. We're in the renewal process at the moment. The actual start of the subscription year is the 15th of July. So we're literally just taking the first direct debit for those who've already applied. We have had quite a few cancellations, but that's nothing unusual at this time of year. People moving, leaving. We've also had people coming on and the cancellations today have been higher than previously, but not at this moment in time, outstanding high. But then we find people come back on again later in the year because you can join the subscription service at any time. So it's really in the past, it's proven to be swings and roundabouts. So it's really too early to give a clearer picture than that at the moment, I'm afraid. OK. Yeah, I just think so going forward, maybe, maybe. Well, it'll probably come up in a budget report. If there's a big hole, but we can see swings and roundabouts. Sorry, I should add that we probably have a clear indication in end of August that that's far off. That's good. Thank you. You've been out there Anna? Nearly? I'm pretty much there. I think under the rest of the summary, I've covered everything. And there's only one other thing, which is income from all assets went up for this year. And we're hoping that that will increase further when we do the strategic asset management review during this financial year. I think Andrew would agree with that. Deborah, you want to come back? Thank you. Would you mind if I just took a saw back to the fly tips? Just a reminder, really, to think about the fact that we closed all the BRIN sites and we weren't sure what impact that would have on fly tips. And it just shows you what a good result we've had to date, because they've gone down, they haven't gone up, which is quite remarkable. It was an interesting risk, but it's paid off. That's really good. Thank you. Good. Thank you. Everybody? Richard's here. Good. Right. Well done. So resolve that this committee recommend consider these findings, which we've done, and recommend any actions to Cabinet. I don't think there are any, are there? I think we're pretty happy as it is. I'd just like to thank Anna for a really good, you know, conclusive and clear report. It's been very helpful. Thank you. And I pass the recommendation. So it's moved by Councillor Cook, seconder. Thank you. All those in favour? That's carried. Thank you very much. Thanks, Anna. Welcome, Councillor Thomas. That's right. Next one. Item six. Where do we go? Present the State of the District report for 2024. Resolve that this committee reviews and notes the State of the District report for 2024. Nicola, your bag, this one. Thank you. Attached at Appendix A is lots of interesting facts and data drawn from several sources, which just gives an indication of what the District looks like at the moment on various aspects for population, people, population deprivation, personal wellbeing. It highlights strategic challenges across the District, as well as what we're doing well across the District. This will be used to be taken forward for the Inversion Corporate Plan that's coming forward. So, again, helping identify our challenges and our weaknesses and our strengths that we're doing, going forward. Key information extracted in the report highlights, so it's about the average age of Robert has increased by three years over the last 10 years. And the number of people aged 65 to 74 has risen as well. It's also important to note that the working age population is half of our District. So it isn't all over 65. It is half of us. We do need to ensure that we are targeting our services towards that 50 percent as well. We've got slightly more residents that are classed as disabled compared to the national average. Employment rates are generally good, but the salary is lower. The average salary is £31,000, which is 17.5 percent lower than the average at £38,000, and the gap on that is increasing. 38 percent of the voters working age has a degree or higher, which is below 43 percent for England. We've got lots of information there on our businesses as well. We've got information there about our housing. So we've got 75 to 73 percent are owner occupied compared to 61 percent nationally. So, again, that has challenges for the homelessness that we talked about earlier on with actually the sourcing of accommodation for people. So it does put pressure on affordable housing and also the use of temporary accommodation. The availability of broadband has seen stark improvements over the last few years, but it is still lower than what it is compared to national rates. So there's lots of information on there, facts and figures, things that could be drawn out. Is there anything else that you'd like to know that you feel could be included? This information will be published on the website over the next month. Thank you very much. Councillor McGurk, by hand. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to make or wonder if there's a connection and just, you know. Express concern about the increase in carbon emissions, which are up 15 percent. And that's when we're when we've got such a great climate strategy. As a council, that's hopefully we'll see it because I think that's for 2021, isn't it? So, you know, hopefully that will be coming down. But I wonder, you know, it makes me wonder about active travel availability locally, the state of public transport. And also, I wonder if there's a connection with or there could be an increasing connection between that and the broadband availability. You know, as you mentioned, gigabit availability is 52 percent compared to 75 percent nationally. So, you know, in during times, there are lots of sound effects tonight. So, you know, just wondering these days, obviously, when we're all working from home and many of us are working from home. And there's a relation to that in travel. It would be interesting to to, you know, have some more detail on that if there is any. Do you get to that level of detail? The next emissions is due out at the end of August, I think it is. And I think it's presented to the climate change steering group in October. So at that point, let's see what the latest data is. But because looking at the trends and the correlations, it'd be something that would be beyond what we would be looking at. Councillor Clark, you had your hand up. Thank you, Chairman. There's a lot of very useful information in here, which is very good for points of reference to keep. One thing I would say is maybe not all Councillors are aware of it, but if you go on to each subject in figures, you can get massive information about your own particular ward, even about how many people work, anyone who houses, people who have got qualifications. Really, really useful information. I use it because I can use it for when I want to get some funding for certain groups because I've got the figures of how many there is in a ward. And so it also highlights a lot of the work we're doing in each subject at the moment because the number of people overrated is going to rise by between 50 and 20 per cent over the next decade. So there's a big issue there for obviously RAD or social care. And also, in the wider picture, it also proves how important the anti-quality working group was because it highlights about deprivation in different wards in different parts of Robert where people want benefits or people don't own cars and have transport issues and that sort of thing, which we need to ground down on and continue to work and try and address those issues. So it's a very useful report and very good reference. Thank you very much. Councillor McLeish. The court. Thank you, Chair. It is invaluable, this sort of information. Just a couple of questions and a political observation, if I'm allowed to make that as well. You use the 2019 figures of the indices of multiple deprivation. I'm presuming that's the last deep dive into it. Although, as Councillor Clark has said, the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment run by the county is a mine of information as well. I was just looking at the map of deprivation across the district. Quite shocking, really. When I first came to live here just over 10 years ago, these areas were areas of entrenched poverty then. Sidley, Central, Rye and Eastern Rother. And after 10 years of austerity, there's been absolutely no shift in the dial here. I'm hoping that when we have a Labour MP, Christine Bader, sitting next to me here, she will convene that anti-poverty group. A joint attempt at attempting to prove the situation. All joking aside, it is a major issue. We've had generational poverty, which seems to be entrenched and doesn't seem to be going anywhere. And it is something that we need to do something about, because these are people's lives that are being wasted. And, you know, their health is suffering and so on and so forth. Thank you, Chair. I sort of get a bit confused, if you like. I'm sort of told Eastern Rother has a lot of deprivation. But you see, Camber, possibly. But, you know, we've got we think there's 38 per cent of all the properties in Camber, second homes, or hardy lets or Airbnb. The same cylinder goes for Winchelsea, a lot of Ries now. You know, you go into Iden, you can walk around Iden and there's houses worth fortunes which are hardly ever lived in. Same in Peas Marsh and on the other fringes. I don't get, you know, maybe I'm looking at the wrong sort of side of it. You just think, is there this massive level when you've got so many second homes? I don't know. But then the trouble is you get priced out of them yourself. You can't afford to live there. The question I've got on the average salary of $31,000 for Rother, is that sort of per adult or is that sort of household income? Do we have sort of an average household income? So that's sort of an adult. So you could potentially double that, for argument's sake, if you like. But is there any way of getting a figure for sort of average household income? I'd have to have a look for you. Yeah, if you could. You just sort of, you know, when you see houses now that are, some income comes up for sale and it's 350 grand for a two up, two down cottage. And you think, how do you afford that? When I bought my first house it was 6,000 quid. So there you go. Thanks to a nice chance. Councillor Bayliss, I will say no political statements, please. No, thank you. Thank you, Chair. I mean, I was just going to comment on this, this whole business around wage levels. I mean, I think our XMP now, Hugh Merriman, once pointed out to me that actually we have one of the lowest wage levels for jobs based in Rother in the entire country compared to house prices. And that, I think, goes, points to the point that you're making, Councillor Osborne, and that gap between house prices, rents and the low wage levels, what causes so much poverty and hardship for some of our poorest residents. I will say that because of that, one of our, well, not key indicators, but one of our objectives has always been through our regeneration and economic development strategy, has been to actually bring in quality jobs into the district. We know that if we can increase the number of jobs like the hospital, for example, that's been built up in Old Town Ward, you know, if we can increase the number of quality jobs, we're actually going to, you know, improve that statistic. And it's something, personally, I want to be measured on that we get, you know, basically off the bottom of that scale and increase that. Thank you. Anyone for any more? Councillor Byrne. Thank you, Chair. I think the various points that have been raised indicate how important it is to look behind the statistics. We have an ageing demographic, which means a lot of people are going to work in the adult care industry, and this is always low paid. But do the care firms rather pay lower than average? I don't know. So just because we've got a low, because we come low on average wage, does that necessarily mean we should be putting our efforts into any specific sector? Now, I totally agree with Councillor Ballas. If we can move, if we can move to change that to move other industries in offering higher paid jobs, that will be wonderful. But I think we will always be weighted in any national league table by the number of people who will be working in adult social care. Thank you. I suppose the other could be said, you know, we are sort of tourism dependent. And as I said, restaurant work, bar work, cleaning apartments and houses and everything else isn't the top grade of pay, is it? So you're sort of in that. You go for something that costs you a fortune, but serving you up doesn't get anything. So, yeah, it's a difficult one because tourism has always been a low wage sort of economy, to a degree. But the trouble is, you know, like in Ryan and surrounding areas, the people who live there to service, you know, work in the bars, work in the restaurants and everything else, I can hardly afford to live there now because I've been kicked out because it's better for the landlord to take 700 pence a week as opposed to 700 pence a month. State of affairs. Thanks, Chair. Yeah, absolutely agree. And when you live in a town like Rye or a small town, many of us do. It can be quite obvious who is the better employer and who is not the best employer because the better employers, you go in and you see the same staff time after time and they maintain their staff and they look after them. And we may know them personally and we may know, you know, who is being looked after and who isn't. If you go into somewhere that doesn't pay well, that doesn't look after their staff, there's a churn, there's a turnaround. People don't stay and people don't tend to live locally. And so in that sense, it's quite it can be fairly visible. And if you choose to spend your money in a business with a business that does pay well and that, you know, does treat staff well, then for me, that's that's that's really important. And it's one small way of supporting decent employment practices. I think with the care industry, like Councillor Byrne was talking about earlier on, that's less visible because you only come into contact with that. Either, you know, when you're getting on a bit or you you are needing some support in your home for whatever reason, or if a family member or a friend is relying on that care and that's when you come across it and you realise the issues. And I think it's really important for us to, because actually there is a sense that we can, we could be part of a joined up approach to training and valuing our social care workforce who do such. I mean, looking at Covid, looking back at Covid, people when people were working, they were pretty much one of the only workforces of people who were going into people's houses when they were poorly and sick, putting their own health at risk and sometimes actually dying. And I've worked with people who did lose their lives through Covid who were going in to people's homes during that time. And so, you know, they really deserve our recognition and support. And the only real way to show our recognition and support is by paying them properly and training them properly. And at a county level that we can influence that at a county level, you know, talk about adult social care, because, you know, if we have, and obviously budgets are tight and we have very little manoeuvre and room to move on what we paid on domiciliary care agencies. But we can recognise and incentivise agencies that have decent employment practices and decent pay for their staff and who aren't taking profits offshore like some of the very large agencies do. There are ways of building into commissioning models, supporting agencies that do pay staff properly. And sometimes the better agencies actually employ a sort of a John Lewis model where the staff share in profits and are paid properly and receive recognition. And if we were part of a partnership, for instance, where I think I'm probably going beyond the bounds of overview and scrutiny now, to be honest. But if we were to look at something like a partnership around training, apprenticeships and really support when the opportunity arises. But, you know, how to develop the kind of well-paid jobs that Councillor Bayliss was mentioning in care. This has to be something which, you know, hopefully we can support and use, you know, use some of this data to support if we did take that position in future. But for me, it's something which is very close to my heart. And I think it's just absolutely vital that we do do that and take any opportunity that it may arise to work with other districts and boroughs and especially County to support that agenda. Councillor Thomas. Thank you, Chair. I agree very much with what Councillor Bayliss had to say about the importance of the highly professional jobs will be available at the new mental health hospital. And I also agree with Councillor McGurk about the importance of paying people in social care a proper wage. It's going to be very, very key. One of the most turning statistics, I think, in the report is the increase of three years and the average age of the population. If you compare that with Eastbourne, which is a place that had a very similar reputation to some 20 years ago, the average age in Eastbourne has declined in the last 20 years from 78 to 45. A stunning change, whereas our average age has increased. And I think that's a very important point because it's because of that increase in the average age that we had such a heavy dependency on the care industry. But I think we might need to learn some lessons from Eastbourne about how they've been able to achieve this. And that's by putting a very strong emphasis upon the cultural author, which is a growing strength of this town, and the entertainment author there. And they've had enormous success in all the different things they've done to draw people into the town. We've consequently decided to settle in the town. And we saw evidence of this. I saw the change in Bexhill. Just the other night, with the Bextest, I was walking down Sackville Road and suddenly here was Bexhill, full of teenagers singing and dancing and laughing and joking in the streets. It was a completely different town from the town that we used to have. And if we can move more in that direction, we can start bringing in a more balanced demographic. I think that can make a big difference to the economic prospects of the town. Councillor Clark. I agree with Councillor Bailey's. I can remember years ago working with the regeneration department. And companies were coming down here looking to purchase premises and bring in some good welfare jobs. But they didn't want the infrastructure. You know, there was lack of it at the back that very often stopped them coming here and moving. And something else that's not just here but is depressing the local economy is we should get rid of zero our contracts will start. That's something companies should do. And also allowing supermarkets and other shops to employ young people on so limited hours that they're not entitled to sick pay or holiday pay, this sort of thing. You know, it's something that has to be addressed on a national level. But all that suppresses people's income and their ability to spend. There are national issues involved as well as local. Thank you. Councillor Grant. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for this Nicola. Lots of really interesting information. Page 55 is the one that worries me. And the proportion of non-decent dwellings, it's 18.3% in Motha. That's really worrying, isn't it? People living in substandard accommodation. Which is higher than the national average. Can we do anything about that? So what did the page numbers to you? Which page? Page 55. It's where you got your 21. That's something we probably have to look into. That's about the non-decent dwellings by 10 years. So the difference with the unoccupied and that's the information that we have got that's been supplied by the luck. It's probably would need to look into and it's similar with the fuel poverty as well. So again, it could be a symptom of where people are asset rich, cash poor. There is lots of that in particular pockets within Motha as well. So it could be something to do with that. But it is something that is being looked into with funding that environmental public up. So it is something that we can do something about as well. There's a project with them. They've got their fuel assessments project at the moment that's going really, really well. So again, there's things that we are doing, which then hopefully will then have a knock on effect on those bits. Well, I think we've reviewed the notes of the State of the District. I think that's what we have to do. We've reviewed it. We've looked at it. We've asked questions. Nicholas answered them as many as we can. Terry, one more. Not so much a question, but it takes an inordinate amount of office time to produce this. But I think the questions prove that it is all of interest and it does relate to Rother as we see it. So it isn't a report that's gone off and had a life of its own. I must admit, one report I was regularly party to that had a life of its own was Southern Housing, which seemed to say 98% of this is good and 95% of that is bad. And I still have residents with their front doors hanging off and had been for two years. So this report seems to have a firm foundation in reality, which I think makes it worthwhile, the officers collating and presenting this information in such a particularly good way as they have. Not just this report, but all the reports at the moment. The level of information is not too much and it really does enable us to take action. Thank you. Chief Executive. Yes, I just wanted to add to that, I think Nicholas did a great job in bringing this together. Of course, as a document, it needs to be almost out of date as soon as you produce it. So keeping up to date is going to be the trick and we're looking at some digital ways of doing that. But I think it is what happens next with the data and how we use it, how it informs our strategies, our corporate plan, our economic development strategy, regeneration strategy, housing strategy. Using this data to actually see what impact we're having and how we're affecting change. And that's really the evidence base for a lot of strategies that are coming forward. So I'm really pleased that we've gone. This is something we used to do quite quite a long time ago and haven't done for some years. I'm really, really pleased that we've managed to bring this forward. I know a lot of hard work went into it. Again, do we put this on the website? Do we have a go on there? It will be on the website by the end of the month. I'm working with the web team at the moment. Cool, because that would be a reference point for people. But again, it's just information for anybody to have. Thanks, Thomas. So can I just draw everyone's attention to what I thought was the most worrying of all the figures here, which is that we've got a very high percentage for intentional self-harm. It comes to 269.3 per 100,000, as against a regional ticker of 197.5 and a national ticker of 163.9. So we've got an extremely serious problem locally of intentional self-harm. And so I think sort of following up on what Lorna thought I had to say. Now we've got this sort of picture of what are the particular things that need a concentration upon. The next stage is to say what strategy can be introduced to do something about that. That's the great moment of this. It's not just statistics for its own sake. It's statistics, as Lorna said, to inform policy. Sorry, me again. So thinking about what you're saying, Lorna, are there opportunities to engage, and we might already be doing it, with East Sussex College, for instance, to develop the opportunities for thinking about what workforce we need and the sort of quality that we like. Would there be opportunities to engage with colleges and employers to develop training opportunities and then maybe link with – I know commissioning is a county issue, but maybe there are forums where we can engage to push that agenda, more positive approaches to commissioning and valuing care workers. I think, you know, we can't do everything, you know, and we need to be really, really clear about that. But understanding and being an advocate for the issues in our district, every meeting we go to, if we're thinking about, actually, I really need to mention this one bit of data and make sure that it gets on somebody else's agenda. And sometimes there are projects that we can work together. You know, the town board is an interesting one. We can tackle things in a different way that perhaps we haven't worked together before. But I think it's making – it's spreading this message far and wide. What are some issues that bother? What are the things that really, really stand out and just making sure that staff members are all aware of what those issues are and trying to get buy in from our strategies as well and make those shared priorities and working across the system. I know that's a bit of a – you know, it's no used term, but it's so true, isn't it? So, yeah, absolutely. Yes, I was just going to come back on that point. During the pandemic, our catering and hospitality industry obviously suffered quite a great deal. And when we started the economy coming back, there was a big, huge shortage of staff working in the hospitality industry. And to this day, some of our restaurants in Bexhill, for example, don't open seven days a week anymore because they just can't get the staff. And I started an initiative around skills, cooking up community skills, and have been invited onto an East Sussex County Council skills training committee, which is where I'm able to sort of keep pressing the point home about how do we improve the quality of the jobs involved in catering? Why is it seen as a sort of second class sort of occupation or for those – why is it still, you know, people who don't get A levels are seen to sort of go into that sort of industry? Should be open to all and they should be roots in for people irrespective of their, you know, of their sort of qualifications. So we're doing that in the in the in the Catering and Hospitality Skills Board. Now, I know that there is a social care equivalent committee, as I say, it's run by Sussex County Council. Councillor Clark is nodding at me, so he's obviously aware of it. So I do think there are opportunities to actually push this through, but you have to find the route. And then I just stumbled across it and was asked to go on it because I'd raised, you know, I had raised it as a challenge for us. Right. Oh, Councillor Clark, quick one. Any subjects we're working out on promoting social care as a career, we have got officers going into college and also arranging work experience or days in various establishments. So this is something that we had a subcommittee and was concerned about that college students should understand the value of a wonderful career can be in adult social care. We are. Good, right. Well, I suppose it's resolved that we. This committee reviews and notes take this report, we've done that. Move that, Councillor Cook, Councillor Gray. All in favour. That's carried unanimously. Thank you very much, Nick, for the work you put in and hopefully. Yeah, you have to review it. So keep it up to date. But no, thanks very much. That's very interesting. And for anybody watching it be on the Web site. So that would be good, interesting stuff. Right. Item seven. We've got an additional item seven is the housing ombudsman special report into southern housing. Now, Joe is not here. So and Joe asked for this to come on. So I think that the gist of what I've got is southern housing has had a. Review. Ombudsman review, which isn't favourable. So that and given given that they're our largest social housing provider in the district, if not the whole of the southeast corner. Where do we want to go with that? Do we want to do we want to drag someone down here and say, well, what gives? Do we want to sort of leave it with with Rory to say, well, do you bend here? And if you need our assistance, we drag him in here. It's a shame Joe's not here because he could have sort of told us what he wanted. You read it out. It's not a very long note, but it is, as the chair describes that. How do we want to handle this? Apparently, pre 2019, I think we did regularly have southern housing to overview and scrutiny committees. Is that right? I wasn't I wasn't here then. But Lisa will probably know. So it was a regular report, probably an annual report, I would have thought. And over time, that's that's not happening now. And really, is that something we want to resurrect? Joe suggesting in his note that we invite some housing along July overview and scrutiny committee to present report highlights and crucially how they are addressing these. And I think that would be a very useful discussion to have. Rory, your cabinet member for housing. Thank you, chair. Yeah, I think it would be a good, very good idea to invite the chief executive of Southern Housing, Paul Hackett. Vanessa Biddis, the regional director. I know that Doug, Councillor Oliver and Councillor Bailess are meeting with them tomorrow. They're actually a meeting that's been arranged at 1230. Unfortunately, I can't attend as I'm working. I think, I mean, I have a major problem with this. I have worked in housing and in a previous life, I was a director of an LSVT large scale voluntary transfer association. And even then, I could see the problems that were inherent in the fact that they often become remote from their customer base. They become quite aloof. And what we've seen with Southern Housing, because having lived in the district for over 10 years, they're originally Amicus Horizon and Optigo and now they're Southern. And these mergers, usually driven by economic necessity, but in truth, they're not really mergers. It's the wrong term. They're really takeovers of what are often failing housing associations. And this compounds the problem. And I think that's exactly what's happened with Southern. They've overreached themselves in terms of the merger. The rise is an issue. I think 78,000 spread throughout the country is a massive ask in terms of trying to be remote and clued in with your customer delivery. But it's the lack of control and democratic accountability of these organizations as well. And if there is to be a Labour government, and I'd like to see the regulatory powers of the social housing regulatory considerably beefed up with teeth so that they can, if necessary, enforce the breakup of failing landlords, because as I said, 78,000 is just a massive monster organization. Something has to be done about it. I would personally like to see a partial reverse stock transfer. I know that's probably not going to happen, but we can but dream. But back to the Ombudsman report, it's delineated that they were guilty of 92% maladministration, which is unbelievable. And I've never come across that. So I think I'm sure Councillor Bayliss and Oliver will be holding them to account tomorrow, the Chief Executive, because something has to change. They're failing our residents, they're failing their own tenants, and we can't go on like this. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councillor Bayliss, you rang me this morning and asked to come in and speak to us. So I just remind you, no political stuff, but ward specific on your constituents issues. Yes, thank you, Councillor Osborne. I read the report, it's horrifying reading the Ombudsman report, the sort of mismatch and the way that there's sort of a complaint system, because it's basically looking at complaints that residents have raised. But the way that they're, it's sort of, if you were going to sum it up in a sort of one word, you'd sort of think to yourself, this is shambles. You know, some that there isn't anybody who's taking charge in some areas of the, you know, that the Ombudsman found there was nobody in charge of the report. I mean, Councillor McCourt and I went to Thalia House to deal with a string of complaints that have been building up over a number of times. Six pages, just on one property. This is the response that Optibo sent us. Very defensive. We know that the Ombudsman report from the complaint in Councillor Clark's ward and Councillor Delaney's ward in Pabstian about a person. And you read that report. I mean, that's horrific. And I know that the particular tenant there, it feels vindicated actually by this Ombudsman report, actually demonstrates that she was really, really badly treated. These are our residents. These are people that live in our wards. And I know that other Councillors have similar stories to tell. So I do believe that this committee is the right place, actually, for us to ask Southern Housing to come and present and to tell us exactly how they are going to sort out this complaint system. And for once and for all, any large organisation, it just fills me with horror, really. Sorry, they don't even see that actually complaints or having complaints, monitoring them, working out, you can get data. You can sort of like you can use that to inform your action plan about how you improve your organisational structure. There's none of that. And where people have multiple issues, so like with a plumbing problem, electrical problem, you know, they're using different contractors. And so there's not one person who comes in who's in sort of taking responsibility for sorting out what could be a complex case. Yes, I have picked up that if you've got one issue, they will respond. But as I say, when it goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong. And, you know, I feel as a Councillor that it's my duty to stand up and speak up for my residents. And I want to you know, I do want them to come and explain what they've done and what they're going to do to improve the system for our residents. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I think when I was first elected, I'd spent eight years on the original Robert Holmes board. It was a couple of years after the large scale voluntary transfer. And during that time, we've redeveloped many of the old concrete houses. They were flattened and the places were sort of tidied up. More houses were built, including bungalows and all sorts, especially in Rye. And it was it was really good. And I think it went, I can't remember who it went. There's so many sort of takeovers. I think it went Amicus, then it was Amicus Horizon, then it went Octavo. And now it's gone, and they just get bigger and bigger and bigger. And you think wasn't really the best sometimes. Was it, is it for the benefit of the residents? No, it's probably for the benefit of somebody else. Because, you know, it's such a massive, the fire for almost now that, you know, they think it's like talking to a bank. They don't know they shut a branch. They don't even know where the town is. You know, they're alone without a branch there. And, you know, and I have issues in my own ward where we've got bungalows which were built for retirement people by this council back in the sort of late 70s, early 80s, which are now under the ownership of this group. And they sit empty for two or three years. And you go and you think, oh, you finally get hold of something. So why is it extensive? Oh, they've gone into a nursing home. Well, they might want it back. No. Sorry, nursing home is generally a one-way ticket. You go into a nursing home and you ain't coming out. So we're not going to leave your bungalow. You know, it's not like going to a hospital for a new knee. Because, you know, if you get to the station in a nursing home, you don't need a bungalow just in case you get better. You're getting older. And they might want it back. We've got 16, 17, 1800 people on a waiting list. Get someone in there. Don't sit empty in case poor Doris gets better because she's 94 and she ain't going to get better. She needs looking after her and she'd be quite happy in her nursing home. You don't want bungalow with Budley have grown out the front path. So there is right. So now we got to do is Councillor Cooper. Sorry, Councillor Cooper. It was mentioned that it was a regular reporting by the housing company. And I don't know what your definition of regular is, but you mentioned possibly yearly. And we are talking about residents who are weekly reported to counselors about electrical mold, damp drip, you know, whatever. And we have a yearly report from the housing company. I think what I was talking about was it was a report to this committee. There is obviously lots of ongoing monitoring of southern housing and operational meetings that officers have with southern housing. Yeah, yeah. So but what would be a proportionate? I mean, it might be that you want to monitor certain aspects of how they're getting on with the delivery of the action plan that's come out of this report. That might be something that, you know, you want to look at on a more frequent basis. But I think the question I was posing, what would be a you know, the fact that we don't do it anymore. Is that something that we want to address and we can have a more sort of formal way of actually this committee holding southern housing to account? That's that. That's really what I was saying. But obviously, there's ongoing monitoring of the situation. Does that answer your question, Beverly? Probably not. Not specifically, no. No, I think the awkwardness is that I know, you know, us dragging in someone to give them a grill is not going to get someone's dripping tap fixed, is it? No. That's their management or lack of management, which is the issue. So we've sort of I'm sort of getting the feeling that we want someone in. We go from there, but a couple of hands up, three, four, five. I'll take the table first now. Right. It was first. Let's go, Cheryl. Right. Before I retired, I worked for an orbit housing association and I worked right across this district. I went into all sorts of homes and people were changing. And the Octavo that was a southern that is was an absolute shambles. Since I have been on the district council, I have been to homes where there is sewage running through the properties and they don't move the people out. I had a family with three school aged children who were living in a ground floor flat that had been flooded with sewage. And they wouldn't move them. It was absolutely appalling. We tried. Even the MP tried to get them some help. I walked around Tilling Green at times and I would love a look. And there'll be lots of homes that are empty, a bit like you're saying where you are. So these people are not doing their job. They're not communicating with the community. We have very many vulnerable people, whether it's financially or otherwise, in social housing. And so therefore it is the responsibility of the social housing provider to make sure they get it right. And these folks are definitely not. And I've witnessed it. I also had the pleasure of waiting for three hours for a meeting that was supposed to be at Tilling Green and the bloody woman never even turned up and never even contacted me. When I came back to them, I just got ignored. I was absolutely hopping mad. And when I used to do this sort of thing, that never happened. They need to have a maintenance team that actually works and monitors what's going on and not just use people randomly. And ignore elected members, because I've got I've got so many people who are coming to me and saying, can you help? So I'd like that raised to them as well. Yeah, what I want to do, I don't really want to get stuck into each individual housing issue. We know we've got a problem with. With the Ombudsman report, so let's sort of try and stick to that. Someone in so. Yeah, I mean, I would like to propose it's very difficult for us to discuss this, having not seen the Ombudsman special report. I would think it would be really interesting for us to see that. Also, to get a report on the meeting that Councillor Bayliss and Councillor Oliver have tomorrow and then convene and put together so that we can all then ask particular and specific questions of the people who are going to come in. And we can talk to them then. I think that would be a lot more helpful. So I would like to propose that we add this at some stage to our work programme. Yeah, hopefully, hopefully soon we've discussed the work programme next week and we can adjust. Mark, Councillor Legg. Thanks. It's obvious that Southern are not doing their job very well. And I'm listening to what Lorna's just said, that it seems to me that if there is a way of monitoring their progress on their action plan, that would be a very, very good start. Yeah, just on that, I might disagree with you actually a little bit, Paul. I think the principle of pulling Southern Housing in here on a quarterly basis, certainly while we're monitoring their improvement strategy, would be something that I would very much support. And just in a general sense about the problems with Southern Housing, I would certainly see the issue of how the whole business is sort of predicated on the use of outsourcing contractors. There is a real lack of ownership of the repairs that are done and where repairs, where problems are complex and you have a series of contractors coming in, there's no ownership of the work and the work is frequently needed to be repeated, including delays in between. So, yeah, I would certainly want to see if Southern Housing, Southern Housing in here on a quarterly basis, if possible. Thank you. Anyway, Councillor Maggert. Just to agree with Councillor Delaney's point, if we can get them in more frequently and I'd like to see them in in July, really, I think this is, we're looking at systemic, I think like we mentioned before, the next overview and scrutiny committee, if we could have them in July's meeting, that would be really positive. We're looking at systemic issues with the provider, like various people have mentioned, their attitude to complaints is really indicative because if you've got a functioning organisation, you want to learn from your complaints, you want to engage, that's the first place you engage with the problems as they arise. And if you're not doing that, and the Ombudsman's report demonstrates that they're not doing that, then that is a big issue because that's a rich source of information about where you're getting it wrong. If you're not using that, then, you know, they're not paying attention when it really, really matters and that is systemic and it's a serious systemic issue. Councillor Clark? Yeah, I don't want to extend this too long, but if you imagine Amicus Arising, Orbit or Southern Housing, they're very difficult to deal with because we don't own the properties now. When I first got on the council, we actually owned the housing stock and it was very easy to get repaired and you just rung a number and the guy used to tell them to do it. They deal with us Councillors at arm's length, that's another thing, that's another issue. I've had problems in my ward where they've not replied to my emails, I've written letters in turn and not been answered, or two months later, I've got a letter from some guy sitting more than he said, Thank you for what you've said, we aren't aware of it, we're speaking to the tenant. I said, Well then will you give me updates of what you're actually doing? Never give me updates. They talk to the Councillors as a courtesy, but they don't allow you to get involved or get feedback and in that case, in my ward impression, it got so bad that the Ombudsman made them pay out of compensation to the tenants in money terms because they were so upset at the way the tenants contributed. They don't seem to be, they've all got these different names and titles, but it doesn't seem to be a strong customer service division that deals with the complaints, links them to that tenant so that they're an ongoing conversation. It's so fragmented and they just, from my point of view, I'm pretty persistent, they just run me around in circles, not replying, not emailing me, not keeping me in the book, in the picture. So they've certainly got an issue with the way they deal with tenants, I've heard about it. Can I ask, did you say Christine, you were meeting someone tomorrow, with the leader? So you've heard the conversation now, so you've got a bit more armoury, if you like, some more weapon. I'm just trying to sort of think of a way forward. Yes, we can, we need someone in here for the feed-ins, do we sort of do that on a, should we try and put it into the committee structure or do we just say well we have to have an extra meeting? You know, but we can work that out when we get to next item, which is a work programme, so we can work that out, can't we? Terry? Thank you, Chairman. When I was a cabinet member for housing, there are two regular quarterly meetings, one is the residence panel, which is southern housing are very bad at canvassing for residents to come forward. What we tend to get is for each block, the man that mows the lawns, or he comments on the progress he's made on the conifer he planted in the corner of the lawn. And as Councillor Clark said, when you go to the management meeting, it's like trying to nail a jelly to the wall. I tried and tried to come up with some way of measuring. And in my previous comments, I told you that they presented 98% of this is good and 94% of that is bad. And it's almost a wall you can't go through. So I don't just want to carry on beating them up, but I think we need to look at the structure of those two meetings. I personally think that Councillor McCorty is the right person in the right place to attend those, but maybe with a brief from ourselves, maybe after the first one, as to how those meetings should go and to try and look at some better metrics than the ones they've got at the moment, which seems to hide the problems rather than highlight the problems. And that's something I think a council can do. Southern Housing continually hide behind the financial imperative. And they are up against it. The government is giving them some targets that they can't meet, whilst there's no way they're going to update and retrofit properties to a proper standard, while still maintaining customer service for their existing properties. Now, we can't do anything about that, but hopefully if we can pressure them in a structured way, not just beat them up, but try and give them some ammunition to take further up the chain. So there are two meetings. I think we can carry on with those. How often we want them in front of this committee with all people fired, we'd be in danger of doing the same as they did to me, which is firing from so many angles, it's difficult to come up with an action plan. So I personally would like to see Councillor McCork coming back to us with how he feels the meetings could be moved and anything we could then do to support future actions. Let's say that we're happy to get someone in here if we need to. There's a meeting tomorrow where we can get further updates from after that. The strength of feeling in the room will obviously be passed on by Councillor Bayliss and the leader and Rory. So I don't think there's much else we can say on this for now. We need some feedback, but if we go in, so if we say yes on that, that's what we can do. If we go on to the work programme now, you remember we had the sort of online meeting to sort of go through some considerations and everything else. We've got various tasks and finish groups up and running at the moment. Housing Development Start task strategy, task and finish group, local enforcement plan, task and finish group, digital and customer services strategy and we've got some health and wellbeing board update. So if we look at the work programme, so the July meeting at this moment in time looks pretty full up. But we can adjust stuff if we need to. Now, one thing that Andrew would like is a item each month on the savings strategy. Do you want to explain any of that, Andrew? Thank you. Just to monitor progress against savings that were in the budget this year and give you the assurance that officers have taken the actions necessary to deliver those savings in advance of budget monitor reports coming out later that will show the financial results of that. But the first call would be to say people have put in place the measures needed to deliver those savings. So you're really acting as a sort of assurance on the budget. I'm not sure if I was going to mention this or not, but Anna's been working on something called the productivity plan, which was a recent request from the government that we answer a number of questions that I'm going to hand over to Anna to talk about the detail of it. But it has a timetable attached to it. And this is quite new to us. So we haven't quite worked out how we're going to deal with it. We've been finding out more information about it, but it is clear it needs some kind of member sign off. And we think that overview and scrutiny committee is probably the place for a report like that to come. I have got some good news, though. The corporate plan consultation, which is down for July, is going to go to September. So that helps a tiny bit. But Anna, do you want to talk a little bit about that report? Because it is quite time bound, isn't it? Well, first of all, apologies. As Lorna said, this is a bit of an unusual one. We've been asked by DLAC to complete a productivity report and every local authority in the country has been asked to do a productivity plan. And it covers quite a lot of different things. Obviously, how productive you are, what your lobbying priorities are. And we have to get this back within about the next month, six weeks. And it looks like the only committee that it could go to for proper scrutiny is the one on the 8th of July. I'm still doing a report at the moment. It requires a lot of collaborative working from all service managers. And it asks a lot of questions. I mean, I'll do anything to avoid making your workload really heavy, but I think it might have to come to the July one. We have to synthesise it into about five pages. So it will be appendices and probably a covering report. I think it will be useful once we've done it and it has to be published once it's approved. OK. Can I ask how is the digital and customer services task and finish group going? Is that ready to do? It's ready to bring to overview and scrutiny. So that's ready. So we don't want to lose that. Active Robert Partnership. Any news or thoughts on Active Robert Partnership? I think that is due to report. We thought it was a good idea to bring that report with the health and well-being board update and the task of finish group and kind of have a bit of a focus on health and well-being. I remember us talking about that. It does does create quite quite a hefty agenda. Especially if we've got southern housing as well, as Lisa points out. Well, that's that's what I'm wondering. What sort of double-edged sword. You don't want a three hour meeting, but equally. Yeah, southern housing. You know, if they're this bad, then it needs as soon as. But to a degree where hands are tied, because it could be some movement tomorrow, which satisfies in the short term. Chair, we also did have notification from Mr. Ben Hook that he wanted to bring the seal policy to us as well. So perhaps we could move the review of progress against recommendations of health and well-being from the task and finish group, from the health and well-being board and active Robert Partnership strategy and take those to another meeting, because all three do go well together, as you said. And that would that would take three things out of that particular meeting that we could slot in. Andrew's report on the financial savings, the southern housing, as well as Anna's report that she needs to bring to us. Yeah, I don't think there are any consequences, but we can we can find out and report back. Well, I think I think it'd be worth looking at. Yeah, we so we've got Andrew wants us to look at savings. That's similar, similar to your DLUC productivity. So that's the same. So those two tie together nicely. Ben wants us to look at seal. That's probably sooner. Is that right, Theresa? You want to look at sort of July, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I think someone mentioned earlier on having a bespoke meeting, having a specific meeting to meet southern housing to convene the committee. You know, that that may be an option. I don't know what members feel about that. I wouldn't mind. Yeah, I think the thing is we've got to get someone down here and they're not sitting at home waiting for our phone call, are they? They're busy people, same as anyone else. So so I think, you know, we if we want to, we can we see what happens tomorrow. I think we'll see what happens tomorrow. See if we can see what the feeling is. If if, you know, if it's a leader, I should be a cabinet next week. Maybe I can see someone can and Christine, then we can sort of work out from there. Really, the agenda can't win. And if and if, you know, if that doesn't work for someone from Southern Housing, we'll find another day if we have to come over or even if we do a team. I suppose it's not the end of the world. Just thinking, I mean, we do have the member briefing process to know that doesn't replace it coming formally to overview and scrutiny committee at some point in the future. But perhaps if we want a more immediate discussion with Southern Housing, a member briefing might be might might be a route to something thrown to the mix. It could be a plan because then it gets everybody online. And it's sort of a bit. Yes, a bit more informal. So you can you can bend here if you like. It might be quicker. What I don't want to do is sort of drag it out. And all of a sudden you're looking at October and if people got water coming through the ceilings and the rest of it, you want you want to you want to give grief now. There is something about the governance attached to overview and scrutiny and the sort of input that we place on it that I think it's it would fit with us. Remember, if we're talking about a member briefing for Southern Housing, it's sort of, you know, it's a briefing doesn't necessarily imply scrutiny. I mean, yeah, just because I don't think it replaces the need for a formal report to come here. But our programme is pretty packed. So and we want to, I imagine, understand what's going on here and now. So that that might be a way of addressing some immediate concerns and having a report back a bit later in the year. Yeah, I think that might be an idea. It could be a could be an idea or we we just have to have an extra meeting. Because if you've got a standalone meeting, the current programme is is is fed in to sort of feed into to the cabinet meetings and the structure and everything else in the court report. So that's why that's the dates. But if you've got a single item, then you could push as long as there's room in the town hall and staff want to come in. No. August is a no. So. Yeah. Should we should we leave it? Yeah. Let's see what comes out on the house, on Southern Housing. Let's see what comes out tomorrow and then we can go from there and then we know. So have we decided that these three, the review of the Health and Wellbeing Task Force, Health and Wellbeing Board and Active Robert move. To make space for Anna's deal and Andrew's new one which ties up with that and Ben's. Yeah. Yeah. Move. Yeah. Move those for you to October. Does your medium tail financial strategy is not going to be super mega is it? It depends if there's any money left. Yeah. Well, yeah. We don't get those very often. I'm sure we can do that. Yeah, we do that. OK. Right. Happy. Cool. Thanks for your attendance. Meeting closed. Seven minutes past eight. Thank you very much. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]