Transcript

I don't know if officers want to come in, or should I just carry on? Should I just carry on? Yeah, okay. And then you said about hoops that, you know, some people said that they feel that there's hoops for them to jump through to get things done. But that is just the way it has to be, really. I know that over the years, the hoops have got smaller, not smaller, better, less challenging, maybe that's a way to put it, but in comparison to the previous cycle, we've learnt from people saying that actually, you know, it's a bit difficult, so we've streamlined it slightly. But as Rita said, when we went to audit, these were things that were identified, and to enable us to get our green ticks and, you know, a fully green slate from audit, there were things that we had to put in place to ensure that the money was being used effectively and that there was proper safeguarding and monitoring, et cetera, in place. And we also mentioned about people, about equalities and people being time for, and that they may not be able to participate in the way they might like to. But that's the beauty of People Power Place, is that people can participate in all different ways. They can be working with members, they can just vote, they can come along to the meetings to hear what's happening in their community. There's all different ways that people can get involved. And with the next cycle, if we're lucky enough to continue with another one, there are different ways that people can get involved. And there are plans, I'm sure you may have read within the paper, about, for example, alumni and ways that people can get involved in different ways. Because, you know, some people just don't want to pop projects forward, some people just want to see their neighbourhoods becoming a better place. It's not a sacred cow. I've just got sacred cow. I think that was Rita. No, no, no. Sorry, no, I think it was Rita that mentioned, Councillor Chadder mentioned about sacred cows. I was scribbling, I was trying to get it down. Trust for the record, Chair. Count to the chugger. It's not a sacred cow. It's not a sacred cow. It's just a cow. Well, I'm joking. But, yeah, it's not a sacred cow. You know, I know that the mayor said that, you know, you quoted the mayor's theme, but, oh, what was it? I should notice it said enough, isn't it? That, you know, we were in different times, which is fine. But I think on this one, this is the opportunity for residents and for the voluntary sector. And residents and young people to actually make a change themselves to identify something and to make changes. I mean, I think that if it was from general funds, and I know that all money is still money that could be spent on something else. So I would completely understand that. I mean, the NCIL part, you think, is over 4 million currently, and it grows, you know, as developments happen, it increases. So there's nothing to say that, you know, it could be used for something else in addition. But, you know, it's not a sacred cow. But it is something that I think the community values as an opportunity for them to be more involved. Oh, yeah. I need to bring the questions. Now, are you finished with your induction? Yes. Yes, I was just responding to that. OK, I need to bring the question. But you said I've got half an hour, Chair. No, everything. Oh, OK. I'm just having... Oh, no. I have a question, sir. We don't have to ask a luxury in scrutiny. But I've seen the concert, Garfield and Charger. Thank you. Councilman McClain, before People Power Places was implemented and its predecessor that had a different name, which I forgot. How was SIL money spent by the Council? What was the process by which other projects were implemented? The neighbourhood element of SIL, I don't believe it was spent. It just... Accumulated. Just accumulated, yeah. So, yeah. It was changed in, I think, after the Democracy Commission, it was that actually the amount of paper from SIL is increased. So it was 15% and now it's 20% of the SIL money is into the neighbourhood of SIL. Given the number of years it had accumulated for, I imagine, and so I ask, was there a study done into how the Council could spend that money most efficiently to deliver the most value for residents? I believe that planning colleagues in line with legislation have determined how that money can be spent. I don't know if you want to add anything. Presumably, you would have made a decision to spend it this way rather than another few options that might have been established at the time. You're nodding, ma'am. Well, at the time, it was, there was no distinct, from my understanding, no distinct way of spending in SIL in the way that it was done previously. So, and I think it evolved at the back of this administration's aspirations around people power and trying to address some of the negativities around people not feeling engaged. So this was a vehicle that addressed certain issues that this administration saw around being in the heart of everything we do at a time, yeah, and moving on to building a fair and new room. So the concept around people was that increasing participation, increasing civic involvement, and it kind of evolved from the legislative process around having committee assemblies, SIL in assemblies, and then mature programming, that would be quite a moment. So, which given that aspiration, were no other options of ways to spend the money explored? Back in 2018, not to my knowledge. Okay. Yeah. So this was decided from the output, regardless of a comparative study with other, perhaps more efficient ways of expenditure. But it grew over time. Okay. And so it grew over time, and it was done in a phased approach, a considered phased approach, where the amount of money was far smaller than it is now. And we used that process to learn, and it grew from 25 – it grew from 200,000 to 800,000 to where we are now. So we used those different stages to actually evolve and learn, and we had independent evaluators, yeah, to kind of look at the programme. And hence, the Democracy Commission came in and recommended that it should be scaled up. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I think perhaps what the committee might be missing, and which would probably benefit the council, is essentially an efficiency graph, an efficiency arrow of how much money goes into the scheme, including officer hours and officer timing, setting up these assemblies and establishing these meetings and staffing them. And then the end of the efficiency arrow, how much of the money is spent on actual projects, because I suppose my presumption, having participated, is that a great deal of the arrow falls off in administering this scheme. And the argument that it was established for democracy, as opposed to because there was a study that this was the most efficient way of spending the money, perhaps is why we might be where we are at this present time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Can I just like to put a clarification before we just move on? So, sorry, Councillor Gartlewood, are you saying in terms of the measurer, in terms of how to measure the impact and the effectiveness and value for money for this piece, is that all aid? No. Or can we start for it now? Actual pounds spent, if it's determined by a people of power place initiative and meeting over the course of the year, to spend the money on a community garden, if 20 grand is spent on the garden, how many more pounds did it take to get to that decision? Through officer hours, venue hire, and all the effort that goes into it. Thank you. So, I've noticed Charder, Masters Hudson, in that order. Yeah, Professor Charder. So, just kind of following up on the finance questions. I think what Councillor Gartlewood has just highlighted is fundamental to the discussion, which is about the – you've got librarians pretty much, or library staff, fronting a lot of this work. Is that right? No. Not library staff. Not library staff? No. It's the neighbourhood offices. Okay, neighbourhood offices. Yeah. So, part of their role is about engagement. And are they funded 100% from NCIL? No. So, there's actually more money that the council's using. How are those posts funded? This is just part of their core work. So, PPP is just another bit of what they do. Okay. It's not the entire thing. So, the full cost of NCIL – the full cost of PPP is the 1.6, which is your NCIL money. Is that right? Yeah. So, it's $10,000, whatever we're putting in to staffing. There were two offices that are dedicated to the programme. The other offices, they – it's part of their job role, but they – it's used as an engagement tool. So, it's – so, yeah. So, I wouldn't quite allocate to this. And it's still costing us. It's still costing us, whichever way we wrap it. So, one of the challenges challenges for this is and perhaps it wouldn't have come to a calling if we'd been able to see the full unpacking of the finances it's not just the end product it is the process as councillor garfield said up to that leading up to that a couple of other quick points as well in october 2024 the finance review recommended that you have greater alignment to council uh council priority deliveries did the team do anything about that did you look up that's a cue or that's a prompt isn't it is it not to actually look at alternative mechanisms of efficiency of delivery did anybody take up that challenge of looking at it or actually looking at your faces no no no i'm just trying to absorb the question so um the local priorities were aligned to the corporate priorities yeah so the corporate prize was set out as a framework and the the local assemblies um were people power places um were able from the menu of the priority that set out corporately to come up with their projects and vote and vote for their most important priorities for their locality absolutely yeah so it's not real participatory budgeting then is it because real participatory budgeting when you look at it around the globe is a blank envelope it's human centered design you've already aligned with certain levels of council priorities the question the real number the question is are we losing efficiencies and are we wasting time money and resources and the resources of residents by going through this long kind of allegated uh creative approach at a time when maybe we can't spend that you could do the same thing in a very different way couldn't you and i'm just a little bit interested to understand how why have you settled on this method since 2018 you've been going around kind of evolving this but have you stopped at any point to look at what this is and i will just also add to that at several points you've said in in the papers that this has been internationally acclaimed but i will point out that on one place you've said that you know you're one of your cheerleaders is go vocal yeah who run new and create which i presume is a platform that doesn't come through there is an administration fee for that that platform can i just encourage you and i think this is symptomatic across the council that we don't mark our own homework and that if people have kind of said we're good at something we actually interrogate the source for that but going back to the original question why not look at alternative methods why are we so stuck in this rut to say we will not look elsewhere well can i i'll say something and then charlene you may want to so i so i i do think it is participating budgeting it the the corporate plan creates a framing for it but then from that point it's a very genuine conversation about what matters to people um and you know having sat in those conversations in neighborhoods i think that's a very open open conversation and the journey that people go through through this process is very much a journey of participating collectively in that in that decision making process i think the commitment to this kind of process is and i guess it goes for me back to the challenge that you you made at the beginning council masters which is about the strategic nature of it and and i think there's a legitimate there are different things you can do with strategic content and the strategic content here is about involving the community and decision making and that's the that's the primary outcome that's being focused on on being delivered and the participatory budgeting being the mechanism for doing that so that's that's that's why this is this says there are lots of other things we do with other strategic purpose but the reason this is done is that's the strategic that's the primary strategic purpose to increase democracy to increase engagement yeah okay so and i'll just put this will be my final comments at this stage i will say i'll push back again on this notion that this is purely participatory budgeting because an animal charity that wasn't linked to therapeutic outcomes would not qualify under this program if it wasn't linked to some sort of environmental or therapeutic outcome it would not be able to get any money from this program if its work wasn't within the parameters of the corporate plan so in which case that's not participatory budgeting because you haven't got the freedom to express exactly what you want it's contained within corporate priorities and i think we need to move away there's nothing wrong with being aligned to corporate priorities we would actually encourage that um as a safeguard but the point is we've got two narratives here one running that said this is happy and this is everybody's welcome and stuff but it's not quite like that you've only got two percent of the population voting in these uh outcomes the actual engagement rate is really low and i think you know we i'm sure as a committee we probably have some recommendations on how you can keep the intent but you can actually deliver this a lot more efficiently and a lot more effectively but i think it takes a commitment to actually be prepared to be bold to be courageous and change the narrative and say think top times evolve we're in a very different world from 2018. thank you council masters i think i wanted to come back on uh description that uh councillor mclayne gave of um neighbourhood still and ways it could be spent because i think it it perfectly illustrates one of the weaknesses of the current model and an issue that was brought to me by a resident and that probably ended up for me sort of being on the committee off the back of it um my resident really cared about um the neighbourhood she lived in she wanted to have the local park refurbished and her argument was you know if we've got all these people in temporary accommodation with children they need decent parks all she wanted was that park refurbished now a little pot of five grand is is not going to get you very far but if residents have been offered a much bigger a much bigger choice like taking that whole 200 grand pot and saying okay we could refurbish central park for that or we could do something totally different with it but big things that are very very visual to the residents and they immediately know whether it's something they they want or not they can vote with it and then in in terms of actually delivering there would be ways for residents to be involved as volunteers yes there is i mean what i'm saying is this is another way of doing things that would be so much more strategic but would still be looking at what residents want to see in their own neighborhoods it's just giving one example and why at the moment it fails for so many of my residents who's going to um comment it's something that can come in yeah i was thinking yeah okay okay so um but i'm taking a board um yeah sorry okay you can go no no you can go no no you can go no no men first no you waited yes i won't laugh i've got a couple of questions the first question on is on section 8.1.4 which is small page 15 big page 25. i just want to check whether that statement is accurate um i'm just trying to get the uh uh it's on the financial implications of the report yeah i assume it's a fairly broad question but do you want to clarify part of it that you should think is not accurate no no i just the question i'm asking is that um in in appendix b options savings options it was about the substitution principle for sill that's what that says to me i'm just i'm really not trying to be unhelpful but i'm just not quite clear what the question is i've got three bits i think it is accurate and i'm saying that um what this says is that as part of the budget strategy um there was a you were looking at substitute the use of seal as a substitution for actual spend taking place within the council and then the next question i was going to have is on the appendix c it has a list of schemes that you can spend seal on which is in your i haven't read the whole budget but i just happened to um quickly go go through it but it's i'm not that sad to read that and then my final question is are there any items that you have in your budget that this that the 1.6 million can be used as a substitution for no i see i see where you're going now so just to clarify the report timely that matters obviously this report was taken before the report on the budget and therefore the financial indications had to consider the possibility that in the budget this proposal might not be agreed and therefore it was setting out yeah that if you like this was sort of setting out what would happen if the budget was agreed as was currently drafted at that point and that's why 8.14 contains what i suppose looks like the ambiguity but it's relevant at the time so that's that first part of the question right yes okay and then on the second part uh it is of course the case uh the council could choose not to do this you could choose all sorts of things can't you and to use the money for something else uh if you chose to use it for something that uh was already provided for elsewhere in the budget then it would reduce the cost of that and therefore there will be a saving to the council so i'm sure this example isn't correct in fact but if you just take it as an illustration we know that there is considerable capital spend on council's roads each year if it is permissible to use ensil for that i'm sure it's not but if you just take it as the illustrative point then of course you could do that that would cut the council's borrowing costs and therefore represent a direct saving to the to the council so provided you could identify other schemes that were already within the council's budget which ensil could be applied then yes what you're saying is absolutely the case there would be an alternative not to do this to use the funding for those schemes instead and therefore that costs that way yes that's fact too true apologies for the way that's okay that's okay and so my final part of the question is i mean i haven't read the i will at some point over a large bar of chocolate to get me through it but are there any items which are included there that can be that the substitution principle can be applied for the 1.6 million i mean uh you would need to be careful about the sort of specific terms of ensil but my understanding is that that's sort of you know fairly broadly drawn uh and so you know it is i would assume highly likely that there would be alternatives to do to do that obviously there is then a choice as to whether or not one would do so i know that colleagues have done some work to looking at options in there i'm not sure we have planning colleagues in the room but i mean you know the essential point the essential point you're making is correct yes that is a uh viable option subject to confirm detail about the application events okay thank you very much sorry all right and is that i'll just i'll just add to that that i'm not saying that that comment's completely wrong but you remember that this is from the ensil so seal monies can be used in in all sorts of different ways without any any you know any many not as many restrictions as ensil so so it says in in the the guidance or in in statute or whatever you want to say that you have to consult upon the use of the the money so you know we we could plug a gap but we couldn't just say okay well there's something here and it's 1.6 million we can use that for that you have to go through a meaningful meaningful consultation and and i i mean i can quote the the the actual lines to you um but it does say that it sets a high bar for transparency and engagement investment considerations to go great from 20 so you have to so it's in legislation that you have to have a proper consultation on it so but planning colleagues could obviously explain it better than myself because it's not really mine okay thank you chief exec but we're looking at the time now i need to make this point it's okay i don't cut you off in meeting but i'll take it um but in relation to that it's just it's just just to make it just a clarification point so in the budget in c7 you will see that there is some work around savings and optimization of neighborhoods seal in particular from 26 27 and 27 28 but if approved it will be looking at this bit in terms of and and in consultation with residents so it's just not to miss that point but in relation to there is a significant difference between how neighborhood still should be used and how high level strategic seal is used and applied i'll keep it that brief and that comment wasn't meant to cut you off it's just that i said it just when you were about to speak um because we only have less than 15 minutes now thank you chair i just want to ask questions regarding the why we've adopted the direct democracy approach of residents when we have an elected representative democracy and is this because we don't trust elected members to make the decisions for residents um about things that matter to them so for example 20 000 pound being spent on a garden that's been delivered by residents through a prolonged process that's costing the council offices why cannot that money be spent in the elected process that we have already got um and a elected member make that decision with the the same 20 grand and get that done why is it why is there why have we got two systems well we haven't really have we because the elected members have been pushed out of that process and that's one for you yeah i mean i would say that elected members haven't been pushed out the process as you you know you have been very involved in the process you've been part of it from the beginning you've been part of the working group um i think i'll go back to the whole consultation aspect of it so if a i suppose could a member ask residents how they would spend the money possibly um but i i i wouldn't really think that that would be as meaningful i mean it's it's it's putting power back into the hands of the the people in a way and are we not trusting politicians no i could throw it back table we could trust people to you know know what's best in there in their neighborhood but going back to something that counselor chatter said i think she quoted the two percent two percent of residents um is that does it really justify does it really justify the means i appreciate i don't get me wrong i don't disagree with what the work the pvp does because actually it makes a difference in those those residents lives yes as an elected member i am part of that process because we're we're mandated to be but we're not we're not delivering for our residents we're delivering with our residents it's a difference we're part of the conversations we're not the decision makers in that space and it's been made very clear through the audit process that that's not that case so i guess the question is is does the two percent qualify the amount of money that's been spent and can that not be spent in a better way through the elliptic process that we have i mean i i might there are all like loads of different things that we could do to try and activate community and to build community um participation and power and so so this is not a like as council mccain said shouldn't you know neither you said shouldn't be treated as a sacred cow i think when we think about the outcomes of it it's not i think the 10 000 is very impressive by the way i think in the discussions the team have with other places um you know that that level of reach i know it's two percent but it's it's it's a lot more it's a kind of significant bit of engagement and involvement and i don't think um i think we should see the 10 000 as quite a substantial achievement over over time but i also think the outcomes are very much about the other kinds of participation so the numbers of people in the community are submitting projects the involved in projects in different ways so i think that reaches goes well beyond the 10 000 people who come in and participate just in the kind of the choosing process um check if you don't all right i am seeing um three members now with less than 10 minutes so you don't have to choose your most important questions no comment and stand questions all right and may you finish um thank you i hear what you're saying i don't disagree with what you're saying but what we don't what we're not talking about here is the cost it that is incurred to the council to ensure that these projects happen so let me give you an example a wasted space in a garden or in a what was a playground that goes through a bureaucratic process of changing planning permission that takes 16 to 18 months and a project not being delivered but yet still has been given the money for that sat on it hasn't delivered anything for the community we then go into another cycle and that's still not delivered what we're not hearing in this space is the wasted time money effort that that has happened that we don't seem to be accounting for and so i i'll ask the question again because if it was an elected member in the space they would be able to say can't get planning permission for that space i'm really sorry or actually that's owned by housing over here in ha and actually it's over here that you need to be in this space the process could maybe be tightened or there's an opportunity to that would then stop the wasted time effort and money that takes place in in the whole process so i guess that's why i think that's right and i think a lot has been done in the last most recent wave to really tighten outside i don't know if you want to say anything about that we've definitely got better processes in place um we if we can see that there's a bit of an issue we do calls projects and look into why and how we can speed up processes we're certainly working more closely across the council with different different directorates we work really closely with our est colleagues our youth empowerment teams across across the organization so that's really unlocked projects and how they can work with our residents and the speed in which they're delivered but there are always going to be a few casualties and i think the one that you're talking about is one of the tricky ones to be honest but it's still happening okay thank you and so we have three members um only one question one minute then we are masters and concert public right that's it hot button round how much money does the council spend on local elections every four years yeah would you you haven't got a round ballpark figure how much does an election cost i can probably try and find it out but i don't go off i don't want to guess let's assume it's a large quantity of money i would i would argue to your point jason that when 30 and 30 isn't the best turnout but it's better than two percent when 30 of the borough turn out to elect councillors and elect the mayor after the council has spent a considerable amount of money to ensure that they can do so for them to then be usurped by two percent of the population who have the time and the resources to attend these meetings and take decisions the agency is actually being robbed of the people who turn out to elect councillors who they trust in a representative democracy to take these strategic decisions and spend money wisely if it costs a third of an officer's time in the library or in the neighborhood team throughout the year to administer this program it costs a third of their salary to spend the money and that's the cost that we're not factoring in which is doing two things is a concern to this committee it's costing money for spend money and creating an elongated bureaucratic process and it's robbing people who vote in a local election of the agency to entrust councillor mcclaine to take the decision when she instead passes it off to two percent of the population to take that decision i don't think that is a system we should praise and the process in and of itself creating the participation you don't make a speech i give you a question okay i'll end it with a question why why is the success of the process that you talk of the the end in and of itself surely the success of the process the success of the whole program should be the projects it's delivered not how many people took part in the decision to deliver the project no i well i don't think i think the primary strategic goal of this work is is about community power and community participation that is you know the the projects we want to absolutely maximize the outcomes whether it's a youth safety project or diabetes or a greening and the cumulative impact of all of those is obviously really important but that those are not the strategic intent of the program the strategic intent is around community power and community participation and i think the other question is more of a political one which yeah i mean i'm not i'm sure um council garfield if you've managed to read the 200 over 250 pages that was part of the cabinet report which included the the theory change the the um the evaluation and about the projects and that will give you the information about exactly what the program is about so it's not just about the numbers um and admittedly you know for an election everybody gets a bit of paper through their door to say go and vote from what everybody does but well actually people per places doesn't go out to everybody like that and actually we've got quite good figures but we won't dwell on the figures because it's more about figures it's more about the the outcomes and the output from this um program and yeah i can give lots of wonderful examples of projects of how people have got involved in their communities and have progressed thank you yeah and we must move on and colleagues we always start with the best of intentions in terms of our time then we get carried away so if we're going to finish by seven we must so it's going to be um come to master's our question sorry um it was just a factual answer to councillor garfield's earlier question the cost of bringing an election a whole election is somewhere in the region between eight to nine hundred thousand pounds each time thank you no i just i just don't quite know where we are on resident participation because on the one hand you know we've powered into a new cycle of people powered places uh with no real debate about it going in the face of everything we're meant to be sort of doing finance to address our new financial landscape but by the same token i read in today's cabinet papers that um we're looking to pause the systems assembly process so i i it to me it just feels we we need to pause and we need to review which i think was one of our budget working party recommendations and i'm sticking with that thank you and president charlie the i'm looking at the new statement of community involvement and its reference to neighborhood seal there's nothing in there that stops you consulting in a different way there's no legal impediment to this is there to change it there's a requirement around around consultation and how you do it this is depending on but you can frame consultations in many ways and again going back to the budget uh strategic recommendations we recommended last year probably the year before that and again this year that actually this council does not have a clear understanding of resident engagement or participation or consultation which is why we sometimes end up in the message that we do i would also just say looking you've referred councillor garfield to the theory of change looking at the theory of change what was really noticeable about all of this is it's numerical there is no qualitative data that you're seeking from here so how do you know if residents are even happy even if the two percent that do turn up i wanted to raise a point about this because this comes back to the figures where it's people marking their own homework because the charlie still and people people involved in the process 85 percent of people involved in the process were happy to be involved in the process but of course they are if they weren't they'd have disappeared off and it's the ones who've disappeared off that we're kind of missing okay okay you're you've not got your point there which you shouldn't have no it's not of it it built on what okay greece was saying sorry council's charge um so i mean i think you know the the the issue around we don't know what we don't know and i'm i'm actually thinking about it now reflecting on hearing what you've said as well what we're hearing about this and what we're reading about this don't quite match up and i don't know where the disconnect is coming from um because we're hearing this is a wonderful or singing project we're accepting that there are shortfalls and let's let's be very clear we're not saying it isn't good for those two percent of people that get involved this isn't a criticism of any individual but the point is in this moment there is nothing to stop us doing more with this money still consulting and engaging with people but doing it in a very different way and i think it's really you know it's up to us how we shape some recommendations that help you on your journey and i think also a final point i make is that if you read all of these papers and the evaluation report the first evaluation report was the only independent evaluation report the rest are all done internally every single one of those reports reads as if you're going to a destination but none of them actually say where you're going to end up what does success look like for people power places or do you have a percentage of the population that you do want to reach we can have much higher and better figures than we do lots of local authorities up north have much better figures same deprivation indices so i think you know there is a lot of work to be done we can't carry on in the same way and that's what this whole call is about thank you for sharing that um and now um i need to ask the question in terms of the logistics and the fact that we are here we're here now um there's two things scoring which will have been hard but we're hearing it now this week because we need to hear it before um council pass the budget now conrad you said um when we spoke sometime last week but this has budgetary implications depends on what happens tonight and i don't know what the recommendations are going to be as yet but if um members decided to uphold the call in and make recommendations um i suppose they might and may have a temporary implications but if they do and the executive does decide to agree with the recommendation what happens okay so let me take that that question that's the reason why we arranged the timing as we did and i'm grateful to everyone for sort of flexing to accommodate that following the evidence that you've heard you will now form recommendations or not as you choose and the executive has set uh time aside and scheduled a cabinet meeting for the 24th of february to consider those uh they may of course not agree with those recommendations in which case it would do is unchanged uh but there are changes that could arise from that in the most extreme case if you were to recommend uh the extreme you know the immediate cessation of the uh program and no further expenditure on it on the money until some other purpose was determined uh and the executive then agreed with that budget going to uh council would then be changed uh in effect to reduce uh 800 000 a year for you going into it so practically uh we have uh if you like sort of worked up the areas of the budget and all the underpinning spreadsheets that would need to be changed to affect such a change or the variation of it just as we have also done on the second calling to be heard tonight so that in the event that you made such a recommendation and that the executive then agreed with that and amend the proposed budget uh we would issue revised papers for council uh realistically that would have to be on the 25th or perhaps more likely the 26th uh of uh february yeah i think one appreciates that that on the face of it would give some members of council a little difficulty in sort of receiving an amendment at such short notice having said that i think the changes would be largely points of detail so if you take the example i've just given it might be the 20 references in the report would need to change but actually be very apparent or concerned that what has happened is this program has been removed from it and we've just made various consequential adjustments to budget tables and so on so i think practically in those circumstances we could certainly manage getting out information to enable council to hold a reasonable and plausible meeting uh on the 27th obviously that depends on the outcome of your deliberations and cabinet's resolution okay um so i don't quite understand how it would affect the figures within the budget as per se with it coming from and they could still rather than um the general fund but i mean it might just be i mean the point is that the funds could in theory be re-diverted to other programs and that therefore there would be consequential knock-ons to sort of you know capital financing and other calculations certainly uh you know it's a very minimum and again i'm simply illustrating most extreme examples make the point depends what the recommendations are uh the budget uh as currently drafted includes spending money on this program funded by nsil but nonetheless still part of the budget and policy framework which is what council agrees so in the event there is a decision not to do that but you have to be mended at least in that respect to make sure such expenditure is no longer within the budget and policy framework regardless of the source of funding thank you thank you okay what um we are going to um be doing now now that we have um forward from both sides and we would um deliberate and when we started deliberation we as i said before we would decide whether to take no other options or to answer recommendations which we will present to yourselves i suppose within the first five minutes or so we would then make that determination so um if witnesses um would leave us for that time and we would then make that determination and we want us to stay around yes just um outside because we need to deliberate yeah we need to deliberate um if we just take us for five minutes to determine whether whether we i'm going to afford this or i'm not and then what's the place i think we're going to afford this we're going to go into the operation with the recommendation and i think you may go you'll get it tomorrow okay just not to get into deliberation time um and prepare the other officers to come down at 11 30. okay will somebody just text me yes i need to but um yourselves don't need to go they said two officers don't need to go and at this um stay it's not nice we could pause now but then this is just to make the um decide whether we um have all enough to make a decision either way are we early enough because we are yes yes so we are going to uphold we're going to uphold yes okay it's does that um agree to everyone i didn't hear the top of the table i'm so sorry okay yes the question is we can resolve to take no further action or we can decide but we are going to approve the call in and then now revert to recommendation what say you chair we would be failing in our duty if we didn't uphold this okay all right and so that seems to be the consensus okay thank you so we are going to communicate can you do as the audience of letting the witnesses know that we are going to be um upholding this quality so we're going into recommendation stage now we're going to do that we can expand now because based on the evidence this is where the recommendation they're coming to your recital everything could be okay are we doing that with the live stream still uh