Transcript

That data gives one view of one thing that is measured and my advice to any parent that's coming into the area and have no knowledge of any schools and they want to pick a school for their for their children is to visit the school talk to the head teacher and that would be the the best advice that I could give. Data gives you a snapshot out of context. Thank you I understand. Now I'll go to members questions I think Councillor Gareth was first. Thank you chair. We have to go back in time once upon a time I think. Education this report was from 2018 that's six years ago that's half a decade ago. Education in 2024 certainly in Denbyshire is led by a different lead member, a different head of service, different team members. The service has changed a lot lot differently since the pandemic. How are we going to how are we focusing our resources in 2024 and my subsequent question is what is the future of Quare? Okay you are right the the leadership within within the education team has has changed completely since well no it hasn't I was here in 2018. I think I'm the only one that that was that was here at a sort of principal manager head of service lead member sort of position and and I remember the the estin inspection week of 2018 well. So so yes it has it it has changed the leadership has changed the world has changed education has changed considerably and obviously focusing our resources and prioritising our resources is an an increasing complex issue that we deal with. Finances and the you know the financial position of all local authorities Denbyshire included make sure we have to focus our energy, our resources, our information in a very specific place. We spin plates daily some of those plates are big dinner plates some of them are smaller some spin quickly some start to wobble but we always make sure that none of them drop. That's that is the you know how we aim to sort of keep things going but how do we prioritise? We we have an excellent relationship with with our head teachers we know what the priorities at the chalk face are we know what the issues are in in in schools and you know we do prioritise those schools tell us attendance behaviour ALN these are the the main priorities that are coming from schools to us which we we are we are prioritising. There are other priorities that come down from Welsh Government or from Estin as the Inspectorate that we must prioritise as well and you know we we juggle those to make sure that the the resources we have are used effectively. We have a risk register we have an education risk register so we we sort of you know rag the risks and we know which ones are our greatest risks and you know they are the ones that obviously you know we we have to give some some time to as well. From a priority point of view as well we meet with schools weekly we have a weekly briefing session where it is an open forum that I chair and you know any priorities or any issues coming from schools there is a weekly opportunity to unburden themselves and you know share those with with my myself. The people may have changed and I think this is the main thing the people may have changed but the processes haven't. The processes have been developed fine-tuned you know and and sort of they develop as communities and you know and you know the world changes but in essence the processes are the same. Our Estin profile is strong, we have a good Estin profile, the support for school is proactive, responsive and I think that we manage our resources quite well. The secondary question was around the support we receive from from the Regional School Improvement Service Square. I'm sure you're aware on the I think it was the 30th of January there was an announcement from the then Minister Jeremy Miles following a middle tier review or phase one of the middle tier review that the regional working would come to an end and that's not a quote I'm not sure what the exact words were but regional working would come to an end with a more more of a focus on local school improvement and collaboration with with another or other local authorities and phase two of the middle tier review is ongoing and I think it's due to end in August. We are in discussions as a region as six local authorities. In the north we are in discussion with Welsh Government as to exactly how this may look. At the moment there are no decisions concrete decisions made for the long-term support. Those discussions are still in the early days. For the next 12 months when we know where as they are are still supporting schools there is there is a there is information around what the school improvement offer will be until April of next year and the the service is changing to a to a commissioned service I think is the is the term we would use. The core work that GWEIR did in schools will continue. The statutory work they undertake on behalf of Denbyshire will continue as it always has. The additional work there will be a differentiated offer and schools will have a different offer depending on what their priorities are and for those schools that require additional offer there is an option they can they can buy in even more support if they want to. So the future of GWEIR, we know nationally that the the direction of travel is away from regional working. As a local authority we will be developing our own systems in collaboration with others and that is for post 2025 and in essence for the next 12 months it is virtually business as usual with a slight difference in the differentiated offer that GWEIR will be offering our schools. I don't know if that answers there. Thank you. I'm very conscious with very tight time scale today. We've only got about 10 minutes left on this slot. Can I bring in Martin Hogg please. Thanks chair. Thanks Geraint. I have to challenge that 4.8 on the data. I feel I read it and I just have to say something. I totally agree with you. We cannot compare data between these years and previous years. We have the training on that. I 100% accept that but within a year, within one data set, I think you're making part two. I really feel uneasy about saying we are unable to report on this. You are completely able to report on this but you need to add context to that report. Where you've got a statement there should not be used to drive decisions that are not in the best interest of learners. It can be used to inform decisions that are in the best interest of learners. It sounds like you are doing that. You are looking at the variation in outcomes within schools within one year and you are able to see which schools are not performing as you'd hope and target resources to do something. I think you can report on this but it must come with a caveat. Like any data set, you cannot trust the data. You always have to look for biases, for errors and to take these into account. It makes me feel suspicious when you're saying you can't report on it. You can report on it but you must tell the whole story and understand and help us understand everything we must take into consideration when looking at that data. You can still use it and I believe you are still using it. Make it part two if you don't want parents to start thinking I don't want to send my kids there because it's not scoring very well or you don't want members to start highlighting certain schools that is unhelpful. But you can still talk about how you can use that data and I believe you are still using it and you will still use it in a good way. I have no criticism but when you say things like we are unable to report, I have to say something I'm afraid. I respectfully disagree with that statement and think you can report on it. Thank you. Do you want to respond? You are right. I could report on it. I have the data. We use that data internally. So you are right. We have got the data. We have sort of looked at this across North Wales and wider really to see how other local authorities also report on data without going against the direction from Welsh Government. We are in a very similar position to other local authorities when it comes to reporting on data but you are right. It is something that we have to a working group across the North to look at a consistent approach in reporting on outcomes and standards so that we were all doing the same without going against the directive. But you are right. We have got the data. The data is out there. You have got the data if you want it. It is published on my local school. It is there for anybody to look at. What we are saying is that we don't put that list of schools with that data in the public domain as a local authority. There might be a conversation I can have with Gary about part two and so on which I have no issue with that. We have the data and we can report on it just that in this instance we decided not to because of the direction we have been given. Thank you. Thank you. I suggest it might be something you could take offline with Councillor Hogg. Do you wish to add something Gary? Only just to agree with Geraint and I think that as well as education I contacted my counterparts across the region and everybody is taking a similar approach at the moment so we will be continuing to work on how we can present the data to members in a way that complies with the direction. Thank you. Councillor Elliott. Good morning all. My question is how do we check Geraint? The pupils educated in the outer county settings and then the second question is whether or not we have got time for me to form supplies. I've read about the five times 60 and the dragon sport in the 2018 report. Has it been replaced since Covid due to finance restraints and or is are the children still being offered activities after school? Okay. Yeah how do we monitor the progress of pupils who are educated out of county or not in mainstream education in provisions? The simple answer to that we look at that fortnightly. We have a group of officers who have you know knowledge and understanding of these areas. We look at the information we have. It's not in isolation. We work closely with children's services so for example somebody in an outer county placement the primary reason may be social care reason and education is a secondary reason or it might be an education reason for that placement rather than a social care issue. So we work closely with colleagues in children's services and that is the beauty of the the joint service in that we know exactly what's happening with every child. We have a strong relationship with neighbouring local authorities for so for pupils that are educated outside of Denbyshire and neighbouring local authorities. We have a close working relationship with those where we make sure there is a consistent approach when we place children in each other's local authorities. We discuss pupil progress fortnightly and you know any issues that come up they are taken forward. I visited an outer county provision with a few of my officers. It was before Christmas sometime. One of the provisions that we use quite a bit and went there and met with the head and had a look around. When we do identify issues if we are concerned that a provision is not providing what that pupil requires well there are steps that are put in place. There are visits because at the end of the day it is that the primary concern is that the pupil get the best offer. The secondary concern for me and I've got head of finance behind me but the secondary concern is value for money. You know the primary concern for me is the quality of the education and I would always say that and I can feel Liz's eyes in my back when I say things like that. But yes we have these processes in place. We monitor it closely. We receive reports and if it doesn't work we challenge that and we take it forward. With regards the 560 Dragon, it was Dragon Sports back in the day. It was Dragon Sports programme. These things evolve and these things change and grant funding changes and they are called other things. The Dragon Sports officers that used to travel around the authority they don't offer, they don't exist now. However you know they have been replaced. I know that DLL for example have a strong community offer and they work closely with schools offering all sorts of opportunities. The main obviously sports is still a major component of the curriculum and is statutory so that continues but also you know the focus now is around the sort of the holistic approach to whole school well-being. Well-being including physical well-being and mental health and so on of the pupils and I think the you know the offer that Dragon Sports historically offered has sort of been amalgamated possibly or joined into you know what is now a bigger wider offer. Yeah. Thank you. Okay Elie and Councillor Terry Mendes. Yeah okay just two very quick questions Mr Chairman. We've discussed the use of data. How often is that updated? That's a quick question and then the other thing that Gareth Anderland's brought up was the this estimate inspection is six years old. When's the next one due? The use of data, the data we get annual data sets for schools so you know for secondary schools because you know the annual exams, the annual exam season that pupils are in the middle of now so we do get data on outcomes annually. However you know attendance data we collate that. We have a monthly officers meeting to look at things like attendance data so depending what the data is it depends on the frequency of it. With regards to the next Estin inspection if any members have got any insight as to when Estin will visit Dembisher I would be very very interested to know. That's the million dollar question. You know we don't know. However in the Estin working cycles of six years and in the last cycle of inspections Dembisher was the first authority to be inspected. We were a pilot as it turned out. We were the first authority to be inspected. All 22 authorities have now been inspected in the current cycle. The new cycle of Estin inspections starts in September 2024 with a new framework. So in theory we could be inspected anytime after the next September. But when? Who knows. Thank you. I think that takes us our allotted 30 minutes there unless anybody's got anything burning and very quick. Otherwise I'll thank the director for that comprehensive and swift report. Thank you very much indeed Gerhard. And take you to the recommendations where scrutiny have been invited to discuss the details of the report and consider if all possible actions to address the recommendations have been completed considering the current position following the pandemic. So is there anybody feel able to move that recommendation for me? Council Mendez is it seconded? All in favor? Anybody against? So we've adopted that and we thank you Gerhard for your time. You're always very illuminating when you come here and very informative. I'm just sorry I'm curtailing you a bit but I've been given a timetable and a large agenda. Thank you very much for your time. We can move now members to item seven. Members you'll find this if you haven't already done so. Page 39. We welcome the lead member Councillor Gwyneth and of course Liz our head of finance and audit. Thank you ladies for coming in today. You've been allotted not by me but by those that set this agenda up 45 minutes and I will have to try and keep you to it. Thank you very much. The future will try our best to keep things as brief as we can. An update on the median term financial strategy and plan for 25-26 that's what you have before you. It's a report that gives you the latest information about the 24-25 budget and gives you the background to the process of setting the budgets up to 27-28. And with me is Liz and thanks to her for preparing this report. As you can see there is a lot of information before you including appendices and we ask you as a committee to consider the report and give feedback to the cabinet on the information. I'll go through the appendices one by one if I may briefly. The first appendix gives you an overview of the situation as it stands at the moment with 24-25 budgets. Appendix 2 shows you the tracker for the major savings and as you can see some have been completed there are others in hand and the tracker is reviewed regularly by the senior management team and also by the cabinets so we are trying to stay current with what is happening there. In appendix 3 you will see the middle term plan for the next few years. These are figures for the future of course and as you haven't quite got the skill of foreseeing the future yet but we do use data as we have always done and historically the estimates are usually quite correct from what we've seen during the past few years. When we try and foresee what is to come we're usually within that range that we have and there's no reason to doubt whether that is true at the moment. The latest information that's used in the scheme but it can change often and we don't respond in too much of a hurry because we know how things can change quickly. Appendix 4 maybe is the most comprehensive in front of you and it gives you the medium-term strategy and this explains the methods that we've used to come up with the figures in the medium-term strategy and it's a document that I think this is the one that there's more discussion likely to be on this document. The information refers to the reserves we have, the changes that we must consider in the short term even and the document discusses how members can have a full role in the discussions and decisions that are taken on the budgets, the communications plan with members, staff, the local councils and members of the public and so on. And of course we do have a great interest in your views on all this. And the final appendix, appendix number five, that is the response to something that the Governance and Audit Committee did and that was a report that considered whether we are healthy in terms of the budget and according to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and the Countesses, I've got it. And if you want more information about appendix five, I think it may be an idea for Liz to give you that information because it's very technical. So, that briefly is the report. Liz, I don't know whether you want to come in here. No, I've got nothing to add. The lead member has covered everything and given a summary of the appendices very well, so I've got nothing more to add. Anybody wishing to speak? Yes, I see Ellie. Yes, morning all. My question is, appendix four, and it's the medium-term financial strategy, have the meetings with town, city and parish councillors been organised for the month of June? So, that's just my question. Thank you. Well, thanks Ellie. The meetings have been planned. I'm looking at Liz. I don't think it's June, is it Liz? I think we're looking at July, maybe. July is correct. Yeah. So, the meetings have been planned. They haven't been arranged as yet, but I think that the offices are in the process of making those arrangements now. So, thank you for the question. I think, you know, personally, I think that it's really important that we do communicate better than we did before with the local councils. Yes, thank you. Thank you for that answer. Did you hear me, Councillor Gareth? Thank you, Hugh. I'm looking at appendix two now and I'm looking at adult and social care and homelessness. I've noticed that red is being put on at £104,000 for that and I noticed other savings, how they're not going to be achieved. Does this mean they're never going to be achieved or are they going to go on next year's savings list? How are you going to balance the books? Are they still in process or is it draw a line in the sun, they can't be done full stop? And I'd love to know when it says other, a bit more detail because that is quite ambiguous to me. Thank you. Just trying to locate it, sorry. It's on page 52 of our pack, which is adult and social care, homelessness, other, red, £101,000. It's one of their largest savings in the £3 million. Thank you, Councillor Mendez, it just passed me one in colour, which is very helpful. Oh, you've got it in black and white. There we go. It's very helpful there. Yes. Thank you. It's difficult because we're in public session. The categorisations that we've given, obviously as a member, I can provide additional information to the committee, but I'm conscious that we're in public session. And it's the timing around information that's being really but I have got further information that I can share with you as Councillors around that. But these are the categories that we've designated for this set of category at the moment. So that's the adult social care other 104. And then the secondary part of the question then was around some of the savings where we're saying not achieved. I think that's quite minimal. You say quite minimal, it's still amounting to nearly £200,000. Yes. But in the scheme of achieving savings of 10 million for the whole year, I think we're going to have to, we've estimated a lot of some of these figures. And so there will be change. The process we will adopt though is one that we're tracking it and that we're reporting it. And secondly, then there is an expectation on services that if there is a saving that they've put up that cannot be achieved, that they look to and there will be reasons for that things change as we go through and we you know, we need to be pragmatic around that. But the service is expected then to look within their service to see what else can they do. So we will be in discussions around what was the saving. And it might be that yes, we agree that saving can't be made, something has changed and it's not applicable anymore. But then the onus will be on the service then to come up with a different proposal in order to achieve the saving. But of course, we might have a bit of a time lag within the year that that happens. So I hope that covers the question Gareth. Yeah, thank you. It does reassure me Liz, but I think I'd like to see Demba should work on a culture of we're constantly looking at finance, we're constantly looking at budget, rather than say stop, start, stop, start. It's a constant ongoing thing. And we've changed the culture. Oh, well, we don't need to do that till next month. So we'll wait till next month. So it's a constant thing. And it's good to see that you've got the management of that. Thank you. Thanks, Gareth. I think that's what we're trying to do as well, actually. So I would definitely agree with you on that, that we need this constant culture of looking at the budget. Yes, thank you. Yeah, just a couple of quick ones, Liz. You put here, this is why I thought you might need it back. You put adult social care and homelessness together as a cost. Is there any way of splitting that? Because obviously they're two different subjects. That's one question. And then the second question is what is the biggest drain on council resources? Is it still adult social care? Or is it schools? I've read somewhere in here. It's been appreciated a bit, a lot of bedtime reading. It's in there somewhere. And I couldn't remember which was which. Thank you. Thank you. So the reason adult social care and homelessness are grouped together is because we report along the lines of the head of service. So Anne is the head of service for adult social care and homelessness. But we have the figure. So you know, so we will know what the what, what the figure is for adult social care. And we will know what the figure is for homelessness. And in some of the member workshops that we've got coming up on budget, we are trying to break down these categories into more so that you've, so not just for say adult social care, but you members get a better understanding of within adult social care, what are we spending on mental health? What are we spending on older people? You know, there are there are there are groups of services within that. So yes, we can provide that split. And we're preparing to give even more information to members through the medium of workshops. That's the first element. Then the question about what's the biggest drain on council resources? So in terms of the pressure, so the pressures are listed there. And it's different kinds of pressure sooner. What's the what do I mean by pressure? So what I mean is the difference in other the additional cost of providing that service from from year to year. So all services will be subject to inflationary type increases. And that will be in the form of inflation on pay, but also in terms of commissioning. Parts of the service or part of social care is about commissioning. But also, then you've got the demand. And I think it's fair to say that where we continue to see an increase in demand for services is coming from social care. But that's because of demography. You know, we have an ageing population, people are living longer. And therefore there are more more people requiring our support. And not only that, as people live longer, the complexity of the services that they require, because we're living longer, you know, we need more, more services around that. So, you know, to answer it in a nutshell, I think it is it is fair to say social care because, you know, the because birth rates, we, you know, have demographic changes within our schools. And we've got different sectors within schools as well. Remember, we've got primary, secondary and special as well. So there are demographic changes there. But in the main, that's where we tend to see the demographic changes is in social care. I think so. Yeah. Thank you. Councillor Andrea. Thank you, Chair. Hi, Liz and Gwyneth. My question is regarding the updates on the voluntary exit scheme on page 47. Insofar as we are becoming aware day to day of other officers who are leaving Denbyshire, not via that scheme, but almost in parallel with it in so far as it seems as though that sort of prompted others to think about moving on for other reasons. So all of those officers who are going not via the exit scheme, but who do seem to be quite significant in status in some cases, mostly being replaced, or has the exit scheme accidentally and or unexpectedly given the budget and a boost in so far as more officers are leaving that could be a money saving outcome for us this year. Thank you. Thank you, Andrea. Yes. I'll bring Liz in in a minute. But I think the vacancy controls are still in place. So, you know, if any head of service wants to replace people leaving, that has to be confirmed by the CT. So the voluntary exit scheme may have contributed to that. I don't think we know yet. So I'll bring Liz in. She may know. But I think that the vacancy control is still in place. And I think it's going to remain in place for the foreseeable future, I think. So I'll bring Liz in if she has some more details. But thanks for that question. Yeah, thank you. So, yes, the recruitment controls that we put in place last year. So throughout last year, anybody wanting to recruit to a post that we had some exceptions in things like HDV drivers, things like those and some exceptions, their social workers, things like that. But they had to be approved through CT. There is a recruitment control panel which senior officers from finance and HR sit down to discuss it with the heads of service. I suppose my comments on that would be, are they being replaced? I suppose it's dependent on the head of service and the direction of travel that the head of service is going to take that service in based on the need to make savings looking ahead to 25/26. So, of course, people will reflect on the position and will make decisions in their own interest. And then there's an opportunity at that point, I suppose, when somebody is leaving the organisation for the head of service to review and will consider a range of options about what's best for their service. So I don't think there's one answer, but that's what I'd add to it. But thank you for the question.

Is that all right for you, Angie, for the moment? Thank you. Gareth, you've got your hand up again. Is it just legacy or? No, no, it's the different question. It's regarding process of the whole financial data. So these figures are from March. How up to date can we get this data? Because it's important when we're dealing with finance, the time lag could be crucial. Is there anywhere we as elected members can monitor this spend and savings achieved? Similar to the Virto system. I know you've got a new financial system in place. What does that give us for analysis? Do you wake up in the mornings and as soon as you put your computer on big red lights or whatever, Liz, come on your screen and say we've spent so much money more than we should have done? I don't know how accurate you are. But the data should be ready on a virtual system almost on a minute by minute basis. And obviously, we've got future predictions using artificial intelligence now, which I know is Martin will keep it put his ears up with probably, because I think we need to look at future analysis and with that, we're counting the pennies all the time, but are we ready for it? And the other second part of this is we've got so many different committees looking at this medium term financial plan all the time. We've got scrutiny, we've got full council, we've got cabinet, we've got CT, we've got SLT, we've got other financial instruments, all we time is money. Are we duplicating the work? And where does each committee fit in? So it's different analysis that comes out. Thank you for that. Are you able to? Gwyneth, you're going to take this? Yes, I'll start again. Yes. So thanks Gareth for that. I'll start with the second part of your question, if you don't mind with the committees that are looking at it. So I think you named them all there now. I think, you know, Liz and her team do the sort of data crunching to come up with the medium term financial plan. This is discussed then by the senior, the executive team. So, you know, this is part of the process of developing the medium term financial plan. It's then discussed by cabinet. Council's role is to approve it or to, yes, I'm looking at Gary. Council's role is to approve it. Cabinet's role is to recommend it to council. In this case, we then have two different scrutinies looking at it. The governance and audit will look at it from the point of view of, are we following the correct procedures? Are the correct procedures in place? Is the governance good? And so on. And then this scrutiny committee looking at it from the point of view, are the processes for making decisions correct? Are the decisions, the right decisions to be made? And maybe, you know, challenging those decisions if it needs to be challenged. I think personally that this is such a significant thing for the council at the moment, that it does need to be looked at by, you know, by not too many, obviously, because you're right, the time is money and you don't want to be duplicating work, but I don't feel that the work is being duplicated at the moment, that, you know, each committee that's looking at this has their own specific role. In terms of the figures, you're right, there's a new system in place, T1, I think it is called, that's quite new. I'll bring Liz in a minute because I think there may potentially be a mechanism where members can see some data from it, but I don't think that exists as yet. And I am going to bring Liz in to explain why the time lag is there, because I think that's a very technical and accounting thing again. So thanks for your questions, Gareth. >> Thank you for that, Gwyneth. Liz? Thank you, Chair. Yeah, so going back to the committees, I don't believe we're duplicating. You know, I'm going to quote Graham, the Chief Executive, there's nothing more important than the budget. That's what, you know, at the moment, there's nothing more important than the budget. So the more engagement there is around the budget, personally, I think that's better. I think we've got it, I hope in this way, we've got it set out right. You know, cabinet are setting the executive function, they're making the decisions, they're setting the policies and the priorities, and the budget needs to go alongside that. Council, then, is setting the council tax and making sure that we're setting a balanced budget. The Governance and Audit Committee is focusing on the budget process. And this committee, then, is scrutinising the decisions the cabinet are making. And I think that all fits together as a jigsaw. So, you know, as an example, Governance and Audit Committee should be saying, we haven't got a fees and charges process, where's the income, where's that? That's not part of the process. It's then cabinet's role, then, to say, okay, here is the process, this is what we've done, here is our fees and charges process. And then it's this committee's role, then, to scrutinise, well, what are we charging for? Should we be charging for something else? That's the way I see it working, if that helps to sort of understand. But you're right, we don't want to be wasting anybody's time. Everybody's incredibly busy. But I think that's where it's important, then, that everybody understands what their role is, what their function is. So, yeah, and, you know, the feedback that we get from committees like this, and from Governance and Audit Committee is really important, because we're coming to council-wide decisions, the more that people understand it, the better quality, the better outcome that we will have from it. That's the first question. So, then, the second bit around our time log, there's lots of information in the report. So, and both of what's in, so I suppose there's two bits to what's in there, is the tracking of the savings for 24/25, and also then the figures that are in the medium term financial plan. These will both iterate over time, and so, therefore, we're regularly updating it, but we are constantly looking at it. It's just the reporting process. So, there will be an update of the MTFP coming to cabinet in July, and then there will also be an update on the savings to the July cabinet as well. There is, you know, there's always a bit of a time lag, you know, somebody makes a commitment, and there's a time then between when that actually gets paid and when that gets reported. So, there is always a bit of a, there's always a bit of a lag. We will always focus though on risk, you know, we're looking at the more volatile, higher risk, bigger cost item, you know, our budget is 264 million. It's a big budget. So, we will focus on the higher risk area. What I would say about monitoring though in this council, it's high quality and it's very efficient. You know, we close the reporting period, and within three days, a report is being produced. It's quite, you know, I haven't worked in a number of North Wales authorities. That's a really good system to be having that well tuned. And our aim now over the summer is to get T1 into that level of efficiency that we had. So, that information, you know, I haven't spoken to my financial systems guys, you know, if council has wanted to, we can show it to you. But to give you some assurance that, you know, I think we've got pretty good monitoring systems here. But we're trying to strengthen that because of the savings position that we're in. But we need to get the new system up to speed with what the old systems could do. And we will get there over this summer. Thank you. I know we're talking medium term financial plan here. But just to bring us very, very quickly back to the here and now. Does these systems actually give you any indication as we get close to the first quarter of this financial year? Are we on target with our spending? Or don't we know yet? Thank you. So, we will take a report to cabinet at the end of the month. And that will have the later, so it'll have the out turn for the financial year just gone. And also the first indication of 24, 25, the year that we're in. There is always a bit more of a lag as you close one financial year and start another. Because, you know, it takes time for things to go through the system. More detail will follow. But the indication I'm getting from the finance team and from talking to heads of services, there's no major issues that are being brought to my attention. So, I think the word I'd use is, as far as I know, we're on track. But, you know, I will touch the wood and cross the fingers as I say that. Thank you for that. Councillor Martin, hold. Thanks, Chair. Yeah, we dream of the day when we can switch our laptops on in the morning and see a colourful dashboard of charts letting us know as soon as we've spent too much on potholes. One day, maybe. I wanted to comment on the CIPFA lessons learnt report. I think that's really good. And I would really encourage the SLT team to keep using that as a sort of self-scrutiny within their meetings to make sure this plan is up to date. It mentions right at the bottom, monitoring the use of reserves or having healthy reserves is a good sign. Do we monitor what we use reserves for? I mean, sometimes it's emergencies, isn't it, like the Clannock Bridge and things like that, unforeseen things that crop up with no warning. Sometimes, presumably, we have to use reserves because we overspend in certain areas that perhaps we should have allocated more budget to. So, do we do that retrospectively? Do we look at how we've had to use reserves and were they purely unforeseen circumstances or could we have foreseen the use of them? Thank you. Thanks, Martin. I think one thing I've come to realise is that the reserves are quite complicated and it is something that we want to look at. I think, for example, reserves may be because of money allocated for future projects that have not yet been spent. So, it's not always that reserves are a pot of money somewhere for a rainy day. I'll bring Liz in because I know she can explain it better than me, but it's a good question and it is something that we're looking at. Yeah, reserves are sort of, they do cover a range and the reason we've included, you know, the reason why SIPPA say there is because if people are always having to go into reserves because, you know, what does that indicate? Does that indicate that your medium-term financial planning isn't sound enough, that you're not forecasting things well enough? Is there other issues there? Is it a lack of budget? It can give you indicators, so that's, so I suppose that's the point you're making. We will bring to the June cabinet full list of reserves, so members will be able to see those reserves and it quite helpfully shows where we put money into a reserve, where have we taken money out of a reserve, and also for the next iteration of the MTFP, there is a section on reserves, a reserve strategy, that's one of the areas I want to develop for the next iteration of the MTFP, which will come to cabinet in July, so it will provide some of that analysis, I think, Councillor Hogg is talking about. Councillor Carroll. Thank you, Chair. Your new system, I've got a couple of questions, your new system, I know you're saying that probably September that we'd have a better day, I'm just wondering if it would, if it's too long for it, with the changeover, whether it might flag a, be a shock at the end that, you know, are you concerned about that, Les? It's one. The other thing is retirement, if people come along and saying that, or they come to the age that they want to retire, or not, if they are leaving a post, you know, high-grade post, will they replace, or is this the other ones that you're looking at to sort of see whether you need the replacements or not for? Thank you. Thanks, Carol. So, I'll answer the second part and then pass it back to Les. So, in terms of the retirement, I would say that's exactly the same as what we discussed earlier for people that were leaving the post, but not through the voluntary, so it will be down to the head of service, and it may well be now that the head of service will, you know, because of the financial constraints and so on, maybe might be looking to reorganise and they might do something differently if they want to replace, and then they have to go through the recruitment panels that we've already talked about. So, retirement will be the same as, yeah. In terms of the new C1 system, then I'll pass over to Les. Thank you. It's a risk, you know, that's why it's in the report, because, you know, it is a risk. To provide some assurance though, what we're talking, you know, we have access to the data and we are looking at the data all of the time. It's about being able to report on that data, so it is still there and we are able to see it. And of course, when we're talking about T1, it's called T1 because it's one system. So, we're holding the data once, whereas previously we had a number of financial systems. So, we had a financial systems to collect income in. We had a financial system that was to pay people. We had a financial system then that was what we did budget monitoring on. So, T1 is called one system, so it has different modules within it. And so, we have focused primarily on being able to collect income in and being able to pay people. That was our major focus for that. And of course, it's always, we try and do it at the end of one year and start of the new year, save needing to run things in duplicates. And it's gone well. You know, a number of authorities have either had to delay or have encountered issues. Like all new systems, we will have teething issues and there are teething issues that we're working through. The focus though is around the, for the September is random, being able to get to that monitoring port, being able to do that as slickly as we were previously. And that's what the focus is on now. But the raw data is still there and we will be still monitoring and tracking that raw data. It's the ability to report from it efficiently. Just wanted to come in chair, if I can say so, because I've been in meetings about this, the new system and implementing it. And representatives from the company who make and sell this product, they're very, very complimentary about the officers in Denbyshire. It's gone well, much better here than it has in, in the local authorities recently. So I think, you know, that's something that we can really be proud of our offices for. Andrea, thank you chair. Thank you chair. Just a quick one, Liz, just on the major savings, the car parks, that came in at the beginning of March and we've had four bank holidays since then already. So can you tell us, or are you in a position to let us know if that projected figure of 700,000 is actually feasible from how it's gone so far? What is the early indication that that is working as was purported that it would in the proposal figures? Thank you. I've not, so I suppose I can answer it with a double negative. I can't answer with a positive. I haven't heard that it isn't, that anybody's concerned about it. I keep asking, I haven't heard that it isn't, but I haven't directly asked the question. So let me get an update specifically on car parking for this committee, accepting that, you know, it's early days, you know, things can change if we have a poor summer that, that can have an impact on people's behaviours and habits. But let me get an update for you. Thank you. I've got a question on behalf of Councillor Bobby Feeley. Can you please explain what mitigating steps we take to make sure that we set and deliver balanced budget this year and forthcoming years? Thank you. So, I think, especially the medium term financial strategy presented for you here gives a lot of information about the mitigating steps that we're taking. I think that the main one here is that if you look at the medium term financial plan, you'll see that for the next three years, things look bad. So the process that we're going through at the moment of making savings and at the same time cutting services can't really continue. You know, if we carry on like that, it will get to a point where either we're not able to deliver statutory services or we're getting to a point where members are going to say this is not acceptable and they're not going to be able to vote on the budget. So what we've realised is, you know, something has to change and that's what the transformation agenda is all about, I think. And I'd say that that's probably the main mitigating step for making sure that we can carry on in, you know, the years to come to set a balanced budget is that we have to do things differently. And we don't know what that is yet. You know, ideas are being developed and we're moving forwards. But I think that's the main mitigating step is that we have to take transformation seriously if we're going to be able to deliver a balanced budget year on year. Thank you. Thank you. At this point, we're just about two or three minutes left of our allotted 45 minutes. So if there's nobody pressing quick questions, I'd like to thank the lead member and the head of finance for very comprehensive report and take the committee to the recommendations which that we consider and provide feedback for cabinet on the updates listed in 2.1, which were outstanding matters relating to the 24/25 budget, budget strategy setting for 25/26 that Alan Hughes has just mentioned, financial projections for the three-year period and the self-assessment of the council's financial resilience and sustainability. I'm not sure we touched on that, did we? So that's fine. So if members are happy with that recommendation, can somebody move that for me, please? Alan Hughes, is it seconded by anybody? Paul Keddie. Thank you, Paul. Then all those in favour of that recommendation. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank the officers and lead member for coming in. Thank you for being succinct. We're keeping the meeting on track for me. Thank you. Yeah, right. It's now 11, 11.30. So we're going to have, we're going to reconvene hopefully at 11.40.

Transcript

and start the webcast. So welcome Borodar, welcome to this meeting of the performance scrutiny committee being held on Thursday the 6th of June 2024. This meeting is being webcast with the exception of any business that the committee resolves to exclude the press and public because of the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined by the local government act 1972. This meeting is being held as a hybrid meeting with performance scrutiny members attending in person here at the council chamber in nothing or remotely via video conference. For transparency purpose I will ask Ream, Scrutiny Coordinator, to identify which performance scrutiny committee members are in attendance and whether they're attending personally or remotely. Those attending remotely. Right here in the chamber and within we have the chair, Councillor Hugh Irving, Councillor Carol Holliday, Councillor Alan Hughes and Councillor Terry Mendes. Also the monitoring officer Gary Williams is present and the committee staff. Joining remotely we have Councillor Andrea Tomlin, Councillor Martin Hogg, Councillor Gareth Sandilands, Councillor Ellie Charge, Councillor Paul Keddie and also Collette Owen for the item on education. She is one of our co-opties. Those attending remotely are kindly asked to mute their microphones unless they're called upon to speak. Performance scrutiny members are also asked to have their videos switched on throughout the meeting unless I specifically request you to turn your video off to improve the quality of the audio link when you are speaking. You will then be expected to restart your video once you have finished speaking. Please would you refrain from using the chat facility as members sent on mass are visible to all on the webcast. Those present in the chamber are asked to make sure they speak directly into the microphone to improve the quality of sound for those attending remotely. To aid transparency all the meetings business should be conducted through the chair. So I can now move to the declaration of interest. Apologies are there any apologies? Yeah apologies have been received from Councillors Bobby Feeley and Councillors Diane King and also from the lead member on the first first item on education Councillor Jill German. Thank you. Thank you chair. I'd like to make us a preemptive strike please in that I know the meeting is due to finish at one today but if it does run over I do have to leave at one for a following commitment sorry. Thank you. I quite understand that it's a very heavy agenda and I'll endeavour to keep us to time throughout it. Declaration of interest. Thank you chair. Members will be aware of the requirements of the council's code of conduct to declare any personal or prejudicial interest in respect of any business to be considered at today's meeting. Such interest should be declared now or as soon as the Councillor or member affected becomes aware that they have a personal or prejudicial interest in today's business. All members declaring an interest are required to state clearly what the interest is and to advise whether it is a personal interest or a personal and prejudicial interest as defined in the code of conduct. Any member declaring a prejudicial interest is required to leave the meeting for the duration of the business and can take no part in the proceedings. Members with a personal interest only may take part in the debate and any vote. If a personal or personal and prejudicial interest is declared today that has not previously been disclosed and recorded the Councillor or member concerned will be required to complete and sign a declaration of interest form which is either available from the committee support staff in attendance here today or online. There are two people waiting to speak, I think I'll take Ellie first. Good morning chair, just to report that I'm an inspector, a governor of Scotty & Morpeth for agenda item number six. Thank you, Martin Hogg. Thanks chair, agenda item eight, I'm on the climate change and ecological change strategy panel so that is I guess personal interest and also my current governor at St Asa VP. Thank you and thank you for recording that climate and ecological change panel. Sorry to butt in. No, please do. Pedant in the corner, I do apologise. The governorships are interests that need to be declared. Being a member of another working group or panel within the council isn't actually an interest that requires to be declared but clearly for full transparency, you know, happy for members to make it clear there on the panel. Paul Kelly. Governorate of Scotland council. Thank you. Anybody in the room? Yes, Carol. Councillor Carol. I'm a governor at St Morpeth, Tres nothing and cloud offer. Thank you. Councillor Alan and then I'll take Councillor Gareth. I'm a governor at Caidrow in Corwin. Thank you. Councillor Gareth. LEA governor at Escort cloud offer. Thank you. Not everybody. Thank you very much. We can then move to item three on page seven which is the appointment of a vice chair for the committee for the municipal year 2024-25. There is a copy of the role description has been attached which hopefully people members will have read. Are there any nominations, please? Councillor Carol. I'd like to propose Gareth Sandilow because I know he's been doing a good job for us on this committee as vice chair. Okay. Councillor Carol. I'd like to second that. Excellent. Thank you. Are there any other nominations? No other nominations. We don't need to have a vote. Just a quick show of hands. Everybody happy? Councillor Gareth. You're now back in your hot seat. Thank you, Mr Chairman. As long as I have a copy of your holiday diary, I'm totally happy with that. Thank you. Yes. Can I say that Councillor Gareth has been an excellent and supportive vice chair. Any urgent matters? I haven't agreed any personally. No, we haven't. Lovely. So we can move to page nine, which is the minutes of the last meeting, which is pages nine to 16. If I take you through them page by page first for accuracy and secondly for matters arising page 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Thank you. Go back and take you through them again. I mean, don't dealt with the accuracy. Now, if anybody has any masses to arise to masses arising from these minutes, page nine, page 10, was there something on the elective home education round? Yes. That letter actually was circulated to members last night. Yes. A copy of the letter that's been sent to the Welsh government. Yes. I think the director might have something to add. Yes, thank you to Fionn for giving me the prod and the reminder and apologies for since March. It was something that sort of slipped my mind, but the letter has gone to Welsh government recently. I have had the response and officers who are dealing with this piece of work are going to be in contact because it does feed into an ongoing piece of work. I think that's been taken forward around the missing children's piece of work as well. So, yeah, so we have had the response back from Welsh government as well. Nothing to report as yet, only that the letter of concern has been sent and we've had an acknowledgement that they are currently looking at it and will be in contact. We can look forward to getting an update as and when. Thank you. So that page 10 and then page 11, page 12, page 13. Thank you, chair. Just on page 12, are we able to be informed whether or not the role of digital officer has been retained within council? Please. Thank you. I think on that one, when it was discussed last time, I think it was said that we would fit into part of the budget setting process for next year. And because I think that role is a three-year role. So I think it's going to form part of that discussion later in the year. So that's something to look forward to in the upcoming budget process. Is that, is that right? Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. All right. For you, if you can note that Andrea and come back at the appropriate time, that would be very helpful. Thank you. Item page 13, page 14, and page 15. So are all in favor of those minutes, please. So proposed by Carol here and Councillor Allen. All in favor. Thank you. Nobody against. Thank you very much indeed. Over the page then will take us to the page 17 to 38, Esten inspection report. This is the report that was, or the inspection that took place in 2018, which I know it was six months ago, but six years ago, but that doesn't mean it's not relevant. Although a lot of the personnel have changed, but the director is going to take this item forward. Thank you. Go on. Thank you. Feel quite lonely this end today. Yes. As, as you stated chair, this was an inspection back in 2018 in an ideal world. I would have liked to have bought this before scrutiny quite a few years ago. However, you know, something has a pandemic and other priorities obviously, you know, took over sort of time and, and efforts. I'm sure we're all aware Esten, Esten is the crown body. They were established under the education act in 1992. They're independent and they visit schools and local authorities and other provisions to come to a judgment on the standards of the work that those establishments offer and deliver. There is a new framework that will come into force in September, which is a different sort of inspection framework, but the framework we were inspected against, we're concentrating on three main areas, which were the outcomes, which is, you know, standards of pupils, quality of the education service that the department provides and the leadership and management. It was a, a very positive inspection report. We were asked to to write a case study for Esten on, on the good work the local authority did. And the outcomes were good, good and excellent in those three, three categories. But obviously with every inspection, there will always be recommendations, you know, that, that's, you know, that goes without saying. And there were two recommendations from the inspection at the time. One was around the variability in outcomes in secondary schools. Basically what they were saying, there were some secondary schools performing far better than other secondary schools in, in the authority. And we, we needed to work and look at how we, we raised standards. We didn't want to bring the, the high performers down, obviously, but raise the performance of some secondary schools so that the, the gap wasn't as wide. And the second recommendation was around the evaluation of the services that we offer and how do we measure the outcomes for children and young people through those services, such as an example out of county placements and so on. So I'll be, I'll be quite brief going through the paper. The, the first recommendation around the, the variable, the variability in outcomes in secondary schools, that's a really difficult, difficult recommendation to report back on because of what happened over the last sort of four years. And, you know, the clear guidance that we are now getting from Welsh government and the directive we get from Welsh government, that we should not publish and use data to make comparisons with results from year to year, from school to school and compare because we never compare like for like. Each secondary school is different. Each primary school is different and it is not a fair, a fair comparison. We shouldn't use the data, the results data to judge or compare schools, but schools still have that data. We still have the data, but we don't publish it. And that data is used to drive decisions. So schools use that data as part of their self-evaluation to sort of drive decisions for, for improvements. Schools now place a far greater focus on the use of data in their self-evaluation rather than publicly comparing themselves with the school next door. Comparing a school with a school next door does not improve things for the pupils. Using data to focus the attention where it's needed in a school does improve outcomes for, for pupils. So Welsh government expects schools and local authorities to use the data to sort of better understand the context and to, to drive those improvements. We are aware that scrutiny, I'm sure, wants to know, you know, how are Dembisher schools performing to compare with schools and other local authorities. And we will be, we will be putting a date in the diary where we will compare, we will bring a paper to compare outcomes in Dembisher with outcomes nationally. So that we won't go down to the school level and saying which schools are performing where, but we can give the, the Dembisher anonymized data in relation to, to standards. So on recommendation one, where around the variability in, in outcomes, there's been so many changes in the way that schools use data now. It's a really, really difficult one to report on. As, as a department, we are aware where there is variability and we work with our partners, with the schools, with the governing bodies, and, and with our school improvement partners to address those, those variabilities when, when we see them. The, the second recommendation was around the procedures that we have in place to sort of monitor the provision for pupils educated in out of county placements or resource spaces within the authority and outside of the authority as well. And we have made a lot of, there's been a lot of steps with regards to addressing these. You know, we, we meet, we discuss standards. I know it says monthly there, we have got a panel that look at outcomes fortnightly to make sure that they are appropriate. We visit out of, out of county placements to make sure that we, we get what we expect and that we get what the pupils that attend those facilities deserve. We work with health colleagues as well, because quite often pupils who are out of county, educated out of county, there are numerous reasons. They, they are not specific behavioral or not specific health or education or social reasons. It is a mix and, you know, there is a whole host of, of reasons as to why that, that provision is the right place for those pupils to be. So I will say since 2018, I do feel we have got quite a good grasp of, of the, the standards and the progression and the progress that these, these pupils, pupils make. We, we discuss it regularly, not in isolation. We discuss it with partners and it is part of the beauty of the, the joint service because we have that conversation from a social care perspective and from an education perspective. And we, I am, I am confident that through the systems we have in place, we are aware of the, where these pupils are at and where things are not working, we know they are not working, and we put things in place to address that. Thank you. I will just have a quick question and then I will pass it on to members because I got some pre-notified questions and I can see some hands up. But if a parent was coming into the area to live in the area and they were trying to make a decision knowing nothing about Denbighshire and its education, they would not be able to look at any statistics that would say that this secondary school is not better, appears to be performing better than the neighbouring one or that, that would not be available. They, they would have to go around, look at the schools, talk to the head teacher or whoever deals with new parents and make their own decision. They would not be able to get any comparative data. Is that correct? No, it's not. It's not. There is data available on, on the outcomes in schools. It's on a Welsh Government website called My Local School. So the individual data for each school in Wales, around attendance, around outcomes, around funding, around staffing levels, there's a whole host of information there on My Local School. It is there. What Welsh Governments don't want us to do as a local authority is to use that data to compare schools, one school with another. If I was a parent coming into the, into the local authority with no knowledge at all of any schools, I could look at that data and make a judgement. However, that data is not in context. That data gives one view of one thing that is measured and my advice to any parent that's coming into the area and have no knowledge of any schools and they want to pick a school for their, for their children is to visit the school, talk to the head teacher and that would be the, the best advice that I could give. Data gives you a snapshot out of context. Thank you. I understand. Now I'll go to members questions. I think Councillor Gareth was first. Thank you, Chair. We have to go back in time, once upon a time, I think. Education, this report was from 2018. That's six years ago. That's half a decade ago. Education in 2024, certainly in Denbyshire, is led by a different lead member, a different head of service, different team members. The service has changed a lot, a lot differently since the pandemic. How are we going to, how are we focusing our resources in 2024? And my subsequent question is, what is the future of QWER? Okay. You are right. The, the leadership within, within the education team has, has changed completely since, well, no, it hasn't. I was here in 2018. I think I'm the only one that, that was, that was here at a sort of principal manager, head of service, lead member sort of position. And, and I remember the, the Esten inspection week of 2018 well. So, so yes, it has, it, it has changed. The leadership has changed. The world has changed. Education has changed considerably. And obviously focusing our resources and prioritising our resources is an increasing complex issue that we deal with. Finances and the, you know, the financial position of all local authorities, Denbyshire included, make sure we have to focus our energy, our resources, our information in a, in a very specific place. We spin plates daily. Some of those plates are baked dinner plates. Some of them are smaller, some spin quickly, some start to wobble, but we always make sure that none of them drop. That's, that is the, you know, how we aim to sort of keep things going. But how do we prioritise? We, we have an excellent relationship with, with our head teachers. We know what the priorities at the chalk face are. We know what the issues are in, in, in schools. And, you know, we do prioritise those. Schools tell us attendance, behaviour, ALN. These are the, the main priorities that are coming from schools to us, which we, we are, we are prioritising. There are other priorities that come down from Welsh Government or from Exston as the Inspectorate that we must prioritise as well. And, you know, we, we juggle those to make sure that the, the resources we have are used effectively. We have a risk register. We have an education risk register. So we, we sort of, you know, rag the risks and we know which ones are our greatest risks. And, you know, they are the ones that obviously, you know, we, we have to give some, some time to as well. From a priority point of view as well, we meet with schools weekly. We have a weekly briefing session where it is an open forum that I chair. And, you know, any priorities, any issues coming from schools, there is a weekly opportunity to unburden themselves and, you know, share those with, with my, myself. The people may have changed. And I think this is the main thing. The people may have changed, but the processes haven't. The processes have been developed, fine-tuned, you know, and, and sort of, they develop as communities and, you know, and, you know, the world changes. But in essence, the processes are the same. Our Estyn profile is strong. We have a good Estyn profile. The support for school is proactive, responsive, and I think that we manage our resources quite well. The secondary question was around the support we receive from, from the Regional School Improvement Service Square. I'm sure you're aware on the, I think it was the 30th of January, there was announcement from the then Minister Jeremy Miles following a middle-tier review, or phase one of the middle-tier review, that the regional working would come to an end, and that's not a quote, I'm not sure what the exact words were, but regional working would come to an end with a more, more of a focus on local school improvement and collaboration with, with another or other local authorities. And phase two of the middle-tier review is ongoing, and I think it's due to end in August. We are in discussions as a region, as six local authorities. In the north, we are in discussion with Welsh Government as to exactly how this may look. At the moment, there are no decisions, concrete decisions made by the long-term support. Those, those discussions are still in, sort of, in the early days. For the next 12 months, when Gwe, we know Gwe, as they are, are still supporting schools, there is, there is a, there is information around what the school improvement offer will be until April of next year, and the, the service is changing to a, to a commissioned service, I think is the, is the term we would use. The core work that Gwe did in schools will continue. The, the statutory work they undertake on behalf of Denbyshire will continue, as it always has. The, the additional work, there will be a differentiated offer, and schools will have a different offer, depending on what their priorities are, and for those schools that require additional offer, there is an option, they can, they can buy in even more support if they want to. So, the future of Gwe, we, we know nationally that the, the direction of travel is away from regional working. As, as a local authority, we will be developing our own systems in collaboration with others, and that is for post-2025, and in essence, for the next 12 months, it is virtually business as usual, with a slight difference in the differentiated offer that Gwe will be offering our schools. I don't know if that answers the question. Thank you. I'm very conscious with a very tight time scale today. We've only got about 10 minutes left on this slot. Can I bring in Martin Hogg, please? Thanks, chair. Thanks, Geraint. Look, I, I have to challenge that 4.8 on, on the data. I, I feel like I read it, and I just have to say something. I, I totally agree with you. We cannot compare data between these years and previous years. We have the training on that. I, I 100% accept that, but within a year, within one data set, I, I think, you know, make it part two. I, I really feel uneasy about saying we are unable to report on this. You, you are completely able to report on this, but you need to add context to that report. So, where you've got a statement there, should not be used to drive decisions that are not in the best interest of learners. It can be used to inform decisions that are in the best interest of learners, okay? And it sounds like you are doing that. You are looking at the very variation in outcomes within schools within one year, and you are able to see which schools are not performing as, as you'd hope, and target resources to do something. And I think you can, you can report on this, but you, you, it must come with a caveat, like any data set. You, you cannot trust the data. You always have to look for biases, for errors, and to take these into account. It, it makes me feel suspicious when you're saying you can't report on it. You can report on it, but you, but you must tell the whole story and understand, and help us understand everything we must take into consideration when looking at that data. You can still use it, and I, I believe you are still using it. Make it part two, if you don't want, you know, if you don't want parents to start thinking, I don't want to send my kids there because it's not, it's not scoring very well, or you, or you don't want members to start, you know, highlighting certain schools that, that, that, you know, is, is unhelpful. But you can still talk about how you can use that data, and I, I believe you are still using it, and you, and you will be, still use it in a good way. So, I have no criticism, but when you say things like, we are unable to report, I, I have to, I have to say something, I'm afraid. I, I, I, I, I respectfully disagree with that, that statement, and think you, I think you can report on it. Thank you. Do you want to respond? I can. You are right. I could report on it. I have the data. You know, we, we, we use that data internally. So you are right. We, we have got the data. We have sort of looked at this across North Wales and wider, really, to see what, how, how other local authorities also report on, on data without going against the direction from Welsh government. And we're, we're in a very similar position to, to other local authorities when, when it comes to reporting on data. But you are, you are right. And it is something that we have to a working group, we've got across the North, to look at a consistent approach in, in reporting on sort of outcomes and standards, so that we were all doing the same without going against the directive. But you are right. We have got the data. The data is out there. You've got the data if you want it. It is published on my local school. It is there for anybody to look at. What we're saying is that we don't put that list of schools with that data in the public domain as a local authority. You know, there might be a conversation I can have with Gary about part two, and so on, which I've, you know, I've no issue with that. You know, we have the data and we can report on it. Just that in this instance, we decided not to because of the direction we've been given. Thank you. Thank you. I suggest it might be something you could take offline with Councillor Hogg. Do you wish to add something, Gary? No. Only just to agree with Geraint. And I think that as well as education, I contacted my counterparts across the region and everybody's taking a similar approach at the moment. So we'll be continuing to work on how we can present the data to members in a way that complies with the direction. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Elliott. Morning all. My question is, how do we check, Geraint? The pupils educated in the outer county settings. And then the second question is whether or not we've got time for me to upload the slides. I've read about the five times 60 and the Dragon sport in the 2018 report, the Estings. Has it been replaced since COVID due to finance restraints and/or are the children still being offered activities at the school? OK. Yes, how do we monitor the progress of pupils who are educated out of county or not in mainstream education and provisions? The simple answer to that, we look at that fortnightly. We have a group of officers who have knowledge and understanding of these areas. We look at the information we have. It's not in isolation. We work closely with children's services. So for example, somebody in an outer county placement, the primary reason may be social care reason. And education is a secondary reason. Or it might be an education reason for that placement rather than a social care issue. So we work closely with colleagues in children's services. And that is the beauty of the joint service in that we know exactly what's happening with every child. We have a strong relationship with neighbouring local authorities. So for pupils that are educated outside of Denbyshire and neighbouring local authorities, we have a close working relationship with those where we make sure there is a consistent approach when we place children in each other's local authorities. We discuss pupil progress fortnightly and any issues that come up, they are taken forward. I visited an outer county provision with a few of my officers. It was before Christmas sometime. One of the provisions that we use quite a bit and went there and met with the head and had a look around. When we do identify issues, if we are concerned that a provision is not providing what that pupil requires, well there are steps that I put in place, there are visits. Because at the end of the day, the primary concern is that the pupil get the best offer. The secondary concern for me, and I've got the head of finance behind me, but the secondary concern is value for money. The primary concern for me is the quality of the education, and I would always say that, and I can feel Liz's eyes in my back when I say things like that. But yes, we have these processes in place, we monitor it closely, we receive reports, and if it doesn't work, we challenge that, and we take it forward. With regards to the 560 Dragon, it was Dragon Sports back in the day. It was Dragon Sports program. These things evolve, and these things change, and grant funding changes, and they are called other things. The Dragon Sports officers that used to travel around the authority, they don't offer, they don't exist now. However, they have been replaced. I know that DLL, for example, have a strong community offer, and they work closely with schools, offering all sorts of opportunities. The main, obviously sports is still a major component of the curriculum, and is statutory, so that continues. But also, you know, the focus now is around the holistic approach to whole-school wellbeing, including physical wellbeing, and mental health, and so on, of the pupils, and I think the offer that Dragon Sports historically offered has sort of been amalgamated, possibly, or joined into, you know, what is now a bigger, wider offer. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, Ellie, and Councillor Terry Mendes. Yeah, okay. Just two very quick questions, Mr Chairman. We've discussed the use of data. How often is that updated? That's a quick question, and then the other thing that Gareth Anderland's brought up was the, this estimate inspection is six years old. When's the next one due? The use of data, the data, we get annual data sets for schools, so, you know, for secondary schools, because, you know, the annual exams, the annual exam season that pupils are in the middle of now, so we do get data on outcomes annually. However, you know, attendance data, we collate that. We have a monthly offices meeting to look at things like attendance data, so depending what the data is, it depends on the frequency of it. With regards to the next Estin inspection, if any members have got any insight as to when Estin will visit Denbisher, I would be very, very interested to know. That's the million dollar question. You know, we don't know. However, in the Estin working cycles of six years, and in the last cycle of inspections, Denbisher was the first authority to be inspected. We were a pilot, as it turned out. We were the first authority to be inspected. All 22 authorities have now been inspected in the current cycle. The new cycle of Estin inspections starts in September 2024, with a new framework. So in theory, we could be inspected any time after next September. But when? Who knows? Thank you. I think that takes us our allotted 30 minutes there, unless anybody's got anything burning and very quick. Otherwise, I'll thank the director for that comprehensive and swift report. Thank you very much indeed, Gerhard. And take you to the recommendations, where scrutiny have been invited to discuss the details of the report, and consider if all possible actions to address the recommendations have been completed, considering the current position following the pandemic. So is there anybody feel able to move that recommendation for me? Councillor Mendez, is it seconded? Oh, Councillor Elle. All in favour? Anybody against? So we've adopted that, and we thank you, Gerhard, for your time. You're always very illuminating when you come here, and very informative. I'm just sorry I'm curtailing you a bit, but I've been given a timetable and a large agenda. Thank you very much for your time. We can move now, members, to item 7. Members, you'll find this, if you haven't already done so, page 39. We welcome the lead member, Councillor Gwyneth, and of course Liz, our head of finance and audit. Thank you, ladies, for coming in today. You've been allotted, not by me, but by those that set this agenda up, 45 minutes, and I will have to try and keep you to it. Thank you very much. We'll try our best to keep things as brief as we can. An update on the median financial strategy and plan for 26, that's what you have before you. It's a report that gives you the latest information about the 24/25 budget, and gives you the background to the process of setting the budgets to 27/28. And with me is Liz, and thanks to her for preparing this report. As you can see, there is a lot of information before you, including appendices, and we ask you as a committee to consider the report and give feedback to the cabinet on the information. I'll go through the appendices one by one, if I may, briefly. The first appendix gives you an overview of the situation as it stands at the moment with 24/25 budgets. Appendix 2 shows you the tracker for the major savings, and as you can see, some have been completed. There are others in hand, and the tracker is reviewed regularly by the senior management team and also by the cabinets, so we are trying to stay current with what is happening there. In appendix 3, you will see the middle-term plan for the next few years. These are figures for the future, of course, and as you haven't quite got the skill of foreseeing the future yet, have you, but we do use data as we have always done, and historically, the estimates are usually quite correct from what we've seen during the past few years. When we try and foresee what is to come, we're usually within that range that we have, and there's no reason to doubt whether that is true at the moment. The latest information that's used in the scheme, but it can change often, and we don't respond in too much of a hurry because we know how things can change quickly. Appendix 4, maybe, is the most comprehensive in front of you, and it gives you the medium-term strategy, and this explains the methods that we've used to come up with the figures in the medium-term strategy, and it's a document that, I think, this is the one that there's more discussion likely to be on this document. The information refers to the reserves we have, the changes that we must consider in the short-term even, and the document discusses how members can have a full role in the discussions and decisions that are taken on the budget, the communications plan with members, staff, the local councils, and members of the public, and so on. And, of course, we do have a great interest in your views on all this. And the final appendix, Appendix 5, that is the response to something that the Governance and Audit Committee did, and that was a report that considered whether we are healthy in terms of the budget and called to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancies. I've got it. And if you want more information about Appendix 5, I think it may be an idea for Liz to give you that information because it's very technical. So, that briefly is the report. Liz, I don't know whether you want to come in here. No, I've got nothing to add. The lead member has covered everything and given a summary of the appendices very well. So, I've got nothing more to add. Anybody wishing to speak? Yes, I see. Ellie. Morning all. My question is, Appendix 4, and it's the medium-term financial strategy, have the meetings with town, city, and parish councillors been organised for the month of June? So, that's just my question. Thank you. Well, thanks, Ellie. The meetings have been planned. I'm looking at Liz. I don't think it's June, is it, Liz? I think we're looking at July, maybe? July is correct. Yeah. So, the meetings have been planned. They haven't been arranged as yet, but I think that the offices are in the process of making those arrangements now. So, thank you. I think, you know, personally, I think that it's really important that we do communicate than we did before with the local councils. Yes, thank you. Yeah, thank you for that answer. Did you hear me? Councillor Gareth? Thank you, Hugh. I'm looking at Appendix 2 now, and I'm looking at adult and social care and homelessness. I've noticed that red is being put on at £104,000 for that. And I noticed other savings, how they're not going to be achieved. Does this mean they're never going to be achieved? Or are they going to go on next year's savings list? How are you going to balance the books? Are they still in process? Or is it through a line in the sand, they can't be done? Full stop. And I'd love to know when it says other, a bit more detail, because that is quite ambiguous to me. Thank you. Just trying to locate it, sorry. It's on page 52 of our pack, which is adult and social care and homelessness. Other, red, £101,000. It's one of their largest savings in the £3 million. Thank you, Councillor Mendez, it just passed me one in colour, which is very helpful. Oh, you've got it in black and white. There we go. It's very helpful there. Yes. Thank you. So yeah, it's difficult because we're in public session. The categorisations that we've given, obviously, as a member, I can provide additional information to the committee, but I'm conscious that we're in public session. And it's the timing around information that's being released. But I have got further information I can share with you as Councillors around that. But these are the categories that we've designated for this set of category at the moment. So that's the adult social care other 104. And then the secondary part of the question then was around some of the savings where we're saying not achieved. I think that's quite minimal. You say quite minimal, it's still amounting to nearly £200,000. Yes, yes. But in the scheme of achieving savings of 10 million for the whole year, I think we're going to have to, you know, a lot of, we've estimated a lot of some of these figures. And so there will be change. The process we will adopt, though, is one that we're tracking it, and that we're reporting it. And secondly, then there is an expectation on services that if there is a saving that they've put up that cannot be achieved, that they look to and there will be reasons for that things change as we go through and we you know, we need to be pragmatic around that. But the service is expected then to look within their service to see what else can they do. So we will be in discussions around what was the saving. And it might be that yes, we agree that saving can't be made, something has changed, and it's not applicable anymore. But then the owners will be on the service then to come up with a different proposal in order to achieve the saving. But of course, we might have a bit of a time lag within the year that that happens. So I hope that that covers the question, Gareth. Yeah, thank you. It does reassure me, Liz. But I think I'd like to see Debenbisscher work on a culture of we're constantly looking at finance, we're constantly looking at budget, rather than say, stop, start, stop, start. It's a constant ongoing thing. And we've changed the culture. Oh, well, we don't need to do that till next month. So we'll wait till next month. So it's a constant thing. And it's good to see that you've got the management of that. Thank you. Thanks, Gareth. I think that's what we're trying to do as well, actually. So I would definitely agree with you on that, that we need this constant culture of looking at the budget. Yes, thank you. Yeah, just a quick one, Liz. You put here, this is why I thought you might need it back. You put adult social care and homelessness together as a cost. Is there any way of splitting that? Because obviously, they're two different subjects. That's one question. And then the second question is, what is the biggest drain on council resources? Is it still adult social care? Or is it schools? I've read somewhere in here, which appreciates a bit of what a bench I'm reading. It's in there somewhere. And I couldn't remember which was which. Thank you. Thank you. So the reason adult social care and homelessness are grouped together is because we report along the lines of the head of service. So Anne is the head of service for adult social care and homelessness. But we have the figure. So you know, so we will know what the what, what the figure is for adult social care, and we will know what the figure is for homelessness. And in some of the member workshops that we've got coming up on budget, we are trying to break down these categories into more so that you've so not just for say, adult social care, but you members get a better understanding of within adult social care, what are we spending on mental health? What are we spending on older people, you know, there are there are there are groups of services within that. So, yes, we can provide that splits. And we're preparing to give even more information to members through the medium of workshops. That's the first element, then the question about what's the biggest drain on council resources. So in terms of the the pressures, so the pressures are listed there. And it's different kinds of pressures, you know, what's the what do I mean by pressures or what I mean is the difference in other the additional cost of providing that service from from year to year. So all services will be subject to inflationary type increases. And that will be for in the form of inflation on pay, but also in terms of commissioning. Parts of the service or part of social care is about commissioning. But also, then you've got the demand. And I think it's fair to say that where we continue to see an increase in demand for services is coming from social care. But that's because of demography. You know, we have an ageing population, people are living longer. And therefore there are more more people requiring our support. And not only that, as people live longer, the complexity of the services that they require, because we're living longer, you know, we need more more services around that. So, you know, to answer it in a nutshell, I think it is it is fair to say social care because, you know, the the because birth rates have we, you know, we have demographic changes within our schools. And so we've got different sectors within schools as well. Remember, we've got primary, secondary and special as well. So there are demographic changes there. But in the main, that's where we tend to see the demographic changes as in is in social care, I think. So, yeah. Thank you. Councillor Adria. Thank you, Chair. Hi, Liz and Gwyneth. My question is regarding the updates on the voluntary exit scheme on page 47. In so far as we are becoming aware day to day of other officers who are leaving Denbyshire, not via that scheme, but almost in parallel with it in so far as it seems as though that sort of prompted others to think about moving on for other reasons. So all of those officers who are going not via the exit scheme, but who do seem to be quite significant in status, in some cases, mostly being replaced, or has the exit scheme accidentally and or unexpectedly given the budget and a boost in so far as more officers are leaving that could be a money saving outcome for us this year. Thank you. Thank you, Andrea. Yes. I'll bring Liz in in a minute. But I think the vacancy controls are still in place. So, you know, if any head of service wants to replace people leaving, that has to be confirmed by the CT. So the voluntary exit scheme may have contributed to that. I don't think we know yet. So I'll bring Liz in. She may know. But I think that the vacancy control is still in place. And I think it's going to remain in place for the foreseeable future, I think. So I'll bring Liz in if she has some more details. But thanks for that question. Yeah, thank you. So, yes, the recruitment controls that we put in place last year. So throughout last year, anybody wanting to recruit to a post, we had some exceptions in things like HDV drivers, things like that, and some exceptions, their social workers, things like that. But they had to be approved through CT. There is a recruitment control panel, which senior officers from finance and HR sit down to discuss it with the heads of service. I suppose my comments on that would be, are they being replaced? I suppose it's dependent on the head of service and the direction of travel that the head of service is going to take that service in based on the need to make savings looking ahead to 25/26. So, of course, you know, people will reflect on the position and will make decisions in their own interest. And then there's an opportunity at that point, I suppose, when somebody is leaving the organisation for the head of service to review. And, you know, we'll consider a range of options about what's best for their service. So I don't think there's one answer, but that's what I'd add to it. But thank you for the question. Is that all right for you, Angie, for the moment? Thank you. Gareth, you've got your hand up again, is it just legacy or? No, no, it's the different question. It's regarding process of the whole financial data. So these figures are from March. You know, how up to date can we get this data? Because it's important when we're dealing with finance, the time lag could be crucial. Is there anywhere we as elected members can monitor this spend and savings achieved? Similar to the Virto system, I know you've got a new financial system in place. Does that, what does that give us for analysis? You know, do you wake up in the mornings and as soon as you put your computer on big red lights or whatever, Liz come on your screen and say, we've spent so much money more than we should have done. I don't know how accurate you are. But the data should be ready on a virtual system almost on a minute by minute basis. And obviously, we've got the future predictions using artificial intelligence now, which I know is Martin will keep it put his ears up with probably, because I think we need to look at future analysis. And with that, we're counting the pennies all the time, but are we ready for it? And the other question, second part of this is, we've got so many different committees, looking at this medium term financial plan all the time. We've got scrutiny, we've got full council, we've got cabinet, we've got CT, we've got SLT, we've got other financial instruments. All we time is money. Are we duplicating the work? And where does each committee fit in? So it's different analysis that comes out. Thank you for that.

• Gwyneth, you're going to take this, yes. - I'll start again, yes. So thanks, Gareth, for that. But I'll start with the second part of your question, if you don't mind, with the committees that are looking at it. So I think you named them all there now. I think, you know, Liz and her team do the sort of data crunching to come up with the medium term financial plan. This is discussed then by the senior, the executive team. So, you know, this is part of the process of developing the medium term financial plan. It's then discussed by cabinet. Council's role is to approve it or to, yes, I'm looking at Gary. Council's role is to approve it, cabinet's role is to recommend it to council. In this case, we then have two different scrutinies looking at it. The governance and audit will look at it from the point of view of, are we following the correct procedures? Are the correct procedures in place? Is the governance good? And so on. And then this scrutiny committee looking at it from the point of view, are the processes for making decisions correct? Are the decisions, the right decisions to be made? And maybe, you know, challenging those decisions if it needs to be challenged. I think, personally, that this is such a significant thing for the council at the moment, that it does need to be looked at by, you know, by not too many, obviously, because you're right, the time is many and you don't want to be duplicating work. But I don't feel that the work is being duplicated at the moment, that, you know, each committee that's looking at this has their own specific role. In terms of the figures, you're right, there's a new system in place, T1, I think it is called, that's quite new. I'll bring Liz in a minute, because I think there may potentially be a mechanism where members can see some data from it, but I don't think that exists as yet. And I am going to bring Liz in to explain why the timeline is there, because I think that's a very technical and accounting thing again. So thanks for your questions, Gareth. Thank you, thank you for that Gwyneth. Liz? Thank you, Chair. Yeah, so going back to the committees, I don't believe we're duplicating, you know, I'm going to quote Graham, the Chief Executive, there's nothing more important than the budget, that's what he, you know, at the moment, there's nothing more important than the budget. So the more engagement there is around the budget, personally, I think that's better. I think we've got it, I hope in this way, we've got it set out right, you know, cabinet setting the executive function, they're making the decisions, they're setting the policies and the priorities, and the budget needs to go alongside that. Council then is setting the council tax and making sure that we're setting a balanced budget. The Governance and Audit Committee is focusing on the budget process. And this committee then is scrutinising the decisions the cabinet are making. And I think that all fits together as a jigsaw. So, you know, as an example, Governance and Audit Committee should be saying, we haven't got a fees and charges process, where's the income, where's that, that's not part of the process. It's then cabinet's role then to say, okay, here is the process, this is what we've done, here is our fees and charges process. And then it's this committee's role then to scrutinise, well, what are we charging for? Should we be charging for something else? Is this the right, you know, that's the way I see it working, if that helps to sort of understand. But you're right, we don't want to be wasting anybody's time, everybody's incredibly busy. I think that's why it's important then that everybody understands what their role is, what their function is. So yeah, and you know, the feedback that we get from committees like this and from Governance and Audit Committee is really important, because we're coming to council-wide decisions, the more that people understand it, the better quality, better outcome that we will have from it. That's the first question. So then the second bit of time log, there's lots of information in the report. So, and both of what's in, so I suppose there's two bits to what's in there is the tracking of the savings for 24/25. And also then the figures that are in the medium term financial plan. These will both iterate over time. And so therefore, we're regularly updating it, but we are constantly looking at it. It's just the reporting process. So there will be an update of the MTFP coming to cabinet in July. And then there will also be an update on the savings to the July cabinet as well. There is, you know, there's always a bit of a time lag. You know, somebody makes a commitment, and there's a time then between when that actually gets paid and when that gets reported. So there is always a bit of a lag. We will always focus though on risk. You know, we'll be looking at the more volatile, higher risk, bigger cost item. You know, our budget is 264 million. It's a big budget. So we will focus on the higher risk area. What I would say about monitoring though in this council, it's high quality and it's very efficient. You know, we close the reporting period and within three days a report is being produced. It's quite, you know, I haven't worked in a number of North Wales authorities. That's a really good system to have it that well tuned. And our aim now over the summer is to get T1 into that level of efficiency that we had. So that information, you know, I haven't spoken to my financial systems guys, you know, if council has wanted to, we can show it to you. But to give you some assurance that, you know, I think we've got pretty good monitoring systems here. But we're trying to strengthen that because of the savings position that we're in. But we need to get the new system up to speed with what the old systems could do. And we will get there over this summer. Thank you. I know we're talking medium term financial plan here. But just to bring us very, very quickly back to the here and now. Does these systems actually give you any indication as we get close to the first quarter of this financial year? Are we on target with our spending? Or don't we know yet? Yeah, thank you. So we will take a report to cabinet at the end of the month. And that will have the later so it'll have the out turn for the financial year just gone. And also the first indication of 24/25 the year that we're in. There is always a bit more of a lag as you close one financial year and start another because you know, it takes it takes time for things to go through the system. More detail will follow. But the indication I'm getting from the finance team and from talking to heads of services, there's, there's nothing there's no major issues that are being brought to my attention. So I think the word I'd use is, as far as I know, we're on track. But you know, she I will touch the word and cross the fingers as I say that. Yeah, thank you for that. Councillor Martin. Thanks, Chair. Yeah, we dream of the day when we can switch our laptops on in the morning and see a colourful dashboard of charts letting us know as soon as we spent too much on potholes, one day maybe. And I wanted to comment on the CIPFA lessons learned report. I think that's really good. And I would really encourage the SLT team to keep using that as a sort of self scrutiny within their meetings to, you know, make sure this plan is up to date. It mentions right at the bottom, monitoring the use of reserves or having healthy reserves is a good sign. Do we monitor what we use reserves for? I mean, sometimes it's emergencies, isn't it? Like the Clannock Bridge and things like that unforeseen things that crop up with no warning. Sometimes presumably, we have to use reserves because we overspend in certain areas that perhaps we should have allocated more budget to. So do we do that retrospectively? Do we look at how we've had to use reserves? And were they purely unforeseen circumstances? Or could we have foreseen the use of them? Thank you. Thanks, Martin. I think one thing I've come to realise is that the reserves are quite complicated. And it is something that we want to look at. I think, for example, reserves may be because of money allocated for future projects that have not yet been spent. So it's not always that reserves are a pot of money somewhere for a rainy day. I'll bring Liz in because I know she can explain it better than me. But it's a good question. And it is something that we're looking at. Yeah, reserves are sort of they do cover a range. And the reason we've included you know, the reason why SIPFA say there is because if people are always having to go into reserves, because you know, what does that indicate? Does that indicate that your medium term financial planning isn't sound enough? That you're not forecasting things well enough? Is there issues there? Is it a lack of budget? It can give you indicators. So I suppose that's the point you're making. We will bring to the June cabinet full list of reserves. So members will be able to see those reserves. And it quite helpfully shows where we put money into a reserve, where are we taking money out of reserve. And also for the next iteration of the MTFP, there is a section on reserves, a reserve strategy. That's one of the areas I want to develop for the next iteration of the MTFP, which will come to cabinet in July. So it will provide some of the analysis I think, Councillor Hogg is talking about. Councillor Carroll. Thank you, Chair. Your new system, I've got a couple of questions. Your new system, I know you're saying that probably September that we'd have a better day. I'm just wondering if it would, if it's too long for it, with the changeover, whether it might be a shock at the end that, you know, are you concerned about that or less? It's one. The other thing is retirement. If people come along and saying that, or they come to the agent that they want to retire or not, if they leave in a post, you know, high-grade post, will they replace or is this the other ones that you're looking at to sort of see whether you need the replacements or not for? Thank you. Thanks, Carol. So I'll answer the second part and then pass it back to Liz. So in terms of the retirement, I would say that's exactly the same as what we discussed earlier for people that were leaving the post, but not through the voluntary. So it will be down to the head of service, and it may well be now that the head of service will, you know, because of the financial constraints and so on, maybe might be looking to reorganise and they might do something differently if they want to replace and then they have to go through the recruitment panels that we've already talked about. So retirement will be the same as that. In terms of the new T1 system, then I'll pass over to Liz. Thank you. It's a risk, you know, that's why it's in the report, because, you know, it is a risk. To provide some assurance though, what we're talking, you know, we have access to the data and we are looking at the data all of the time. It's about being able to report on that data. So it is still there and we are able to see it. And of course, when we're talking about T1, it's called T1 because it's one system. So we're holding the data once, whereas previously we had a number of financial systems. So we had the financial systems to collect income in. We had a financial system that was to pay people. We had a financial system then that was what we did budget monitoring on. So T1 is called one system. So it has different modules within it. And so we have focused primarily on being able to collect income in and being able to pay people. That was our, our, our major, our major focus for the, and of course, it's always, we try and do it at the end of one year and the start of the new year save, needing to run things in duplicates. And it's gone, it's gone well. You know, a number of authorities have either had to delay or have encountered issues. Like all new systems, we will have teething issues and there are teething issues that we're working through. The focus though is around the, for the September's random, being able to get to that monitoring port, being able to do that as slickly as we were previously. And that's what the focus is on now, but the raw data is still there and we will be still monitoring and tracking that raw data is that it's the, it's the ability to report from it efficiently. Just wanted to come in chair, if I can say so, because I've been in meetings about this, the new system and implementing it and representatives from the company who, who make and sell this product, they're very, very complimentary about the offices in, in Denbyshire. It's gone well, much better here than it has in, in the local authorities recently. So I think, you know, that's something that we can really be proud of our offices for. That's it. Thank you chair. Just a quick one, Liz. Just on the major savings, the car parks, that came in at the beginning of March and we've had four bank holidays since then already. So can, can you tell us or, or are you, are you in a position to let us know if that projected figure of 700,000 is actually feasible from how it's gone so far? What, what is the early indication that that is working as was purported that it would in the proposal figures? Thank you. I've not, so I suppose I can answer it with a double negative. I can answer it with a positive. I haven't heard that it isn't, that anybody's concerned about it. I keep asking, I haven't heard that it, that it isn't, but I haven't directly asked the question. So let me get an update specifically on car parking for this committee, accepting that, you know, it's early days, you know, things can change if we have a poor summer, that, that, that can have an impact on people's behaviours and habits. But let me get an update for you. Thank you. Thank you, Jay. I've got a question on behalf of the council, Bobby Feeley. Can you please explain what mitigating steps we take to make sure that we set and deliver balanced budget this year and forthcoming years? Thank you. So I think especially the medium term financial strategy presented for you here gives a lot of information about the mitigation steps that we're taking. I, I think that the main one here is that if you look at the medium term financial plan, you'll see that for the next three years, things look bad. So the, the, the, the process that we're going through at the moment of making savings and at the same time, cutting services can't really continue. You know, if we carry on like that, it will get to a point where either we're not able to deliver statutory services, or we're getting to a point where members are going to say, this is not acceptable, and they're not going to be able to, to vote on, on the budget. So, so what we've realised is, you know, something has to change and that's what the transformation agenda is all about, I think. And I, I'd say that that's probably the main mitigating step for making sure that we can carry on in, you know, the, the years to come to set a balanced budget is that we have to do things differently. And we don't, we don't know what that is yet. And, you know, ideas are being developed and, and we're moving forwards. But I think that's the main mitigating step is that we have to take transformation seriously. If we're going to be able to deliver a budget, a balanced budget year on year. Thank you. Thank you. At this point, we're just about two or three minutes left of our allotted 45 minutes. So if there's nobody, no pressing quick questions, I'd like to thank the lead member and the head of finance for very comprehensive report, and take the committee to the recommendations, which that we consider and provide feedback for cabinets on the updates listed in 2.1, which were outstanding matters relating to the 2425 budget, budget strategy setting for 2526, that Alan Hughes has just mentioned, financial projections for the three year period, and the self assessment of the council's financial resilience and sustainability. I'm not sure we touched on that. Did we? Councillor Hargitay, Councillor Hargitay. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, right. So that's fine. So if members are happy with that recommendation, can somebody move that for me, please? Alan Hughes, is it seconded by anybody? Paul Keddie. Thank you, Paul. Then all those in favour of that recommendation. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank the officers and lead member for coming in. Thank you for being succinct. Keep in the meeting on track for me. Thank you. Great. Yeah, right. It's now 11 1130. So we're going to have we're going to reconvene, hopefully at 1145. So I'm going to say, which has been allocated 30 minutes. So who's, who's presenting the report? Yeah. And the council, Barry Miller sends his apologies. He's our lead member. But he's going to be here for when this discussed at cabinet and full council. So he wanted to just need to say that he would be here if he could. And so my name is Helen von Evans. I'm the head of service, which has responsibility for climate and ecological change team within her service. I'm also here with Gary, who's the CET lead for climate and ecological change and climate ecological change programme, senior responsible owner. So we came to you in performance scrutiny to launch the review process back in June last year. We're now here today to take you through kind of the output of that in preparation for cabinet on the 25th of June and Council on the 8th of July. So the strategy was first adopted in 2021. It's been reviewed every three years. And this, this year 23 24 was when we needed to do that first review. A lot of input and work from across the organisation, but in particular, Liz Wilcox-Jones, climate change manager, who's joining us on screen, has gone into this. So a massive thank you to Liz. And the document has been developed with services across workshops, ideas from the public, reviewed by SLT, the Greenard Ambershire board, and obviously overseeing a lot with the, with the climate ecological emergency political working group. And nice to see some representatives from this political working group who are also part of this scrutiny committee. So in the papers, you have the strategy document, which is appendix one. So this is the strategy document that went out for public consultation. We've had some feedback from that public consultation and some edits and changes are going to be done to the strategy document. But the one in appendix one is without those changes made. The timeline to get papers for this committee was tight with the end of the public consultation. But you, you'll have appendix two and appendix three, which takes you through what people said in that public consultation and also what changes are going to be made to the document thereafter. And appendix four is the updated wellbeing impact assessment. Big headline from the online public consultation, which ended end of May, is 88% of people are in favour of us adopting the strategy. And we're also going to be creating a youth version and a high level exec summary document. So the document is a bit more accessible to a wider body of people. I think as part of the review thing that Councillor Barry Meller wanted me to say was, it's showing that we're making good progress as an organisation in key areas, including biodiversity, reducing fleet emissions and lowering emissions of our building estate. But as an organisation, along with all local authorities, we're facing huge budget pressures. And whilst our progress is a positive one, the council is aware that the pace of change is not currently at the level to feel absolutely guaranteed that we're going to meet our 2030 target. But whilst we recognise that achievement is difficult, we won't maintain our ambition as we go into the next three years of the strategy. So the strategy document shows that we're mainly committed to go as fast as and fast as and as far as we can with the resources that we have available to keep making our contribution to tackling climate change and delivering nature recovery for the benefit of wellbeing and future generations, communities and partners. Happy to take any questions, Chair, and the recommendations are there in the report as well. Thank you. I can see Ellie's got her hand up. I'll take you first, please. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Helen. My question is, can you please provide an update on the current position with regards to the installation of EV charges points at school, council buildings, we could say schools as well, and to tourism facilities? Also, how confident are you in relation to the proposal to install EV charging points in council-owned housing between now and 2030? So it's looking into the future, Helen, but just want to know. Okay, thank you. Chair, I'm going to ask Liz to answer this question. Yeah, thanks, Helen. And thanks, Ellie, thanks for your question. So in terms of the stats, yeah, we've got 85 electric vehicle charging units available at the moment, 45 at council buildings for our fleet vehicles, 40 in public car parks for anybody to use. Most of these 85 have two sockets, so they can be charged by two vehicles at the same time. So for example, there's 18 units at West Kimmel Street, so that's available for actually 36 charging points and car park spaces. There's also 12 units currently being commissioned at the new waste transfer station. And there's two or three on order for installation at council buildings when contractors have availability as well. There's also a handful number of home charges used by staff who charge their vehicles at home overnight. And if you do want to have a look at the charging points, you can see them on the online mapping on the council website as well. If you go to transport and infrastructure and then EV charging, there's just a few that need to be added to that at the moment. In terms of council housing, we don't provide EV charging points that are tenanted houses as a rule. Most of our homes don't have off-road parking, they don't have drives, and installing a drive isn't something that we'd normally do. We do have a couple that I know of where they do have drives, but they've actually made their own arrangements for charging. So in terms of future installations, we are keeping our eye out for funding opportunities. So if we do have the opportunity to install charge point for our tenants and the capabilities there, we are discussing the possibility of doing that. The likelihood is tenants will use our community charging facilities in car parks, and we're looking to review our council-owned land that may provide future charging opportunities for that as well. We're pretty confident that we've got a good geographical coverage in towns across the county now, and we've got quite a resilient network for our fleet of EVs. There is budget allocated to continue the EV transition for our vehicles and charge points for Denpisher Fleet, and it's worth noting that running costs for low-emission vehicles are lower than traditional diesel vehicles as well, and we've got a good track record of securing external funding to support this EV transition as well. But of course we don't need to do all of that on our own. There are others out there supporting the community provision of EV charging as well, such as TFW and private providers. It's early days, but we've made really good progress at the start of the program. I hope that answers your question, Ellie. It certainly does, and of course I do realise maybe if we're building in the future, and of course I'm on planning, we would be good idea for the the newest housing estates. When we do start commencing building, we'll make sure that they've got charging points at the homes. But thank you, Liz. Looking forward to seeing the developments. Thank you. Thanks, Ellie. I've got a follow-up there, please, Liz. When one has a car and finds a public charging point, like on one of our car parks, how do you pay? Is it a card machine or what's the process? It's a card machine. Helen will come in if I'm wrong on this, but I believe it's a card payment point. Is that right, Helen? Yeah, you tend to have to register with a particular app which is associated with that particular charge pointing brand. They're getting better at the same app. You can use multiple different brands of charging point, and then it's like PayPal. You've got your card details loaded on there, and then you just charge it. Yeah. This income, does it go direct to the electricity provider or do we get it? So for our charging points, we've got a back office system, so they take a little percentage of it to fund the hosting the system for us, and then we get the income from the charging that takes place. But obviously, it's a proportion of what they're paying because obviously they're paying for the electricity to the electricity provider as well. Would there be a profit element in that for the authority? So we need to be careful about profit, so it's to fund the maintenance and management of the EV charging estate. But yes, we are getting- Perhaps I should have rephrased that and said, is it a drain on our resources? Quite a way to put it. No, it's not. And actually, as we build the charging network, it means that more of the supporting staffing and maintenance and management can be picked up more from the income that we're getting through. It was just the profit word. We're not allowed by law to make a profit on functions that we charge for, but we can cover costs and we can make sure that we have full cost recovery in respect to those things. Gareth? Thank you, Hugh. With the advent of financial cost cuttings and having to restrict our activities, how well are we looking at partnerships in future with public and other private sector to really join up together and make the most bang for our buck? This technology is changing all the time, particularly in solar and EV charging. And I'm just wondering, would it be cheaper to partner with other private companies such as RWE, who we've got the Renewable Centre for in rail, and also other housing authorities? So we're buying in bulk to put on our solar panels. I just wondered, has that got any thought to it? And how in contact are we with the grant awarding bodies such as Welsh Government when they make decisions about awarding new energy grants? Thank you. Can you take that, Helen? Yeah, that's fine. So in terms of partnerships, I definitely think we've got some good track record there, but we can do more. In terms of buying in bulk and joint procurement, so we've just been involved in a pan-Wales joint procurement of EV vehicles. So that did deliver us slightly cheaper vehicles. But actually, the main thing around EV transition is the availability of the vehicles. So it meant that we were able to skip the queue a little bit to actually get those vehicles sooner to us, which have a cheaper running cost so then we can realise the saving quicker. So that's just a recent example in terms of joint procurement. And kind of Liz's point around, we don't need to do everything ourselves, we can encourage and we can influence others to do better for our county on some of this agenda. And that's something that I think whilst we've got a good track record on it, we are going to need to do more going forward. The team are linked in regionally and nationally in terms of that networking. Liz is in eager conversations with her peers across the six North Wales local authorities. In terms of the grant awarding bodies, how much are we at the table there? Again, I think we're pretty strong on that. So Graham Bowes, our Chief Exec, he is a member for North Wales and Chief Execs on the Pan-Wales Climate Strategy Panel, which is a panel set up under the Partnerships, I can't remember what it's called, but it's a WLGA and Welsh Government-associated Partnership Council, sorry, completely lost my words, Partnership Council, Pan-Wales Partnership Council, the subcommittee of that. So he's at the table. I also sit on that. He is the chair of the subgroup around reducing carbon from buildings. And we recently fed into how Welsh Government relaunched their Low Carbon Heat grant, which we were successful in being in receipt of. And actually, Martin presented at a Pan-Wales conference just the other week, just with regard to a project around low carbon heat using that grant. So again, we can always do more, Gareth, but I think we've got a good reputation around not only receiving grant, but delivering on that grant in an innovative way, and showing other people how to do it as well. And so we have a listening ear. So just to come back on that, we have spade-ready projects, just in case there's a last minute grant awarded, or in six months time that something comes up with something, or we've got a little bit of cash here to send us, we'll be ready for them to take that full advantage of any money that comes our way. - Particularly in buildings and in fleet, yes.
• Thank you. - Yeah, can you hear me okay? I've just had a power cut and gone to a mobile, and then the power's come back on. - Yeah, go back.
• All right, okay, good stuff. I think it's worth mentioning to members about the EV charging network. The slower 22 kilowatt chargers are as cheap, if not cheaper, than what you pay at home. So I can charge my car at the St. Assel's Bowling Green car park for less than I can charge it, cheaper than I can charge it at home. The fast chargers come at a premium, but I think this is really good at the end of the year. It's not something I've seen elsewhere in the country, I'm sure it does happen, but it makes it more accessible to people who don't have off-street parking and who can't necessarily have a home charger. They can charge without being penalised at a council charger. So I wanted to just highlight that to members. I wanted to ask about, and I've asked this throughout, ever since I've started at the council, I've asked about how we measure carbon emissions and how we project our targets going forwards. It is difficult to do, I appreciate that. You give me lots of information on this book, but people are getting better at this now. Are we getting better? Are we going to be better able to have a more up-to-date measure of what our carbon emissions are and a kind of, rather than just a straight line going from where we are now to zero, a kind of line that shows us when expected projects come online to give us a sort of clearer picture of how we are going to reduce carbon going forward. So are we better able to do that now or is it still a real challenge to have that measure live? Thank you. Yeah, I think it's fair to say that it's still a challenge and I think it's this age-old sort of concern around accuracy. So I think we could probably mid-year have a bit more of an accurate feeling on how we're getting on or at least seasonally with our building emissions. We've got a separate energy management system. A lot of our sites are on half hourly metering. We do have live monitoring on that which the team use to pick up on any discrepancies in terms of something that's gone a bit awry with a building system, building management system etc. That system allows that to be translated into carbon. But that's just one element of our wider net carbon zero goal and I think that's the challenge is that certain types of emissions might have more granularity and more live reporting in the year but not to make up the whole picture. So that's probably what I'd say on that and in terms of the target line, again, it's about being able to have a list of everything that we're going to do and exactly what that's going to achieve and exactly what year that's going to happen. We do that annually and it's kind of linked to our budget setting cycle which we can only do annually as well. So we do do that but probably looking ahead for a year, maybe two years, maybe the 18 months, not six years which is what this programme is about. And again, whilst that absolutely would be excellent, I wouldn't prioritise resource to do that. I'd prioritise resource to getting those projects oven ready for the next 18 months, not the next six years, just with being realistic about what the resource is available. So yes and no, Martin, but I share with your ambition. I think it would be excellent. And just quickly to come back then, you know, a lot of carbon emissions can be linked to the money we spend, can't they? I don't know whether the new financial system would, maybe not straight away because they've just commissioned it, but I wonder whether that new financial system could actually track carbon because it's linked to what we spend, doesn't it? So you might get an automated measure. I mean, I know it's not going to be accurate. I think we shouldn't get too hung up on being accurate down to the ground. You know, it's more of an indication that we're happy that we're going in the right direction and fast enough, really. It's something that could be looked at. It might not be that T1 can do it automatically. That would be the ideal. But we've got our, again, not for all sources of emissions, but we've got our price of electricity, its price per kilowatt. Again, it's not that simple because we've got different rates for different sites. So you'd have to take an average and we're getting back to the accuracy issue again. But something that we could look at. But just from the modelling that we've done for the last three years, a pound invested in reducing carbon from our buildings has realised £2. So the case is there. And it's just the ability to look forward and live as well as look back. Isn't it, Martin? Thank you. I have a question. Oh, sorry. Oh, Liz, sorry. Thanks. Yeah, just to add to what Helen's already said, just to come back to Martin as well to say that we are looking to prioritise the actions as well, aren't we, Helen? So if the strategy is adopted, we're looking to review the huge number of actions that we've got in our strategy to prioritise them for the largest carbon reduction actions and cost savings as well. So that will help us to have ready to go projects for any funding opportunities as well to come back to what you said as well, Gareth. So just to add to that, that there is being work to be done to prioritise our actions going forward as well. But as Helen says, it's time and resource to do this analysis in terms of future planning, isn't it? Thanks, Chair. Thank you for that contribution. I've got a question from on behalf of Councillor Feeley who asks, what is the financial cost of reviewing and delivering this strategy in its entirety? Given the financial constraints we are facing for the foreseeable future, can we afford the measures that we have put in place to deliver the strategy? Will we have sufficient staffing resources to realise our ambitions? What will the impact of staffing and financial cuts be on the strategy's delivery? That's a fairly lengthy one, I'm afraid for you. That was about four questions, wasn't it, Jeff? No, that's fine. Thank you. Thanks, thanks, Bobby. So I'm going to sort of break that down. So in terms of reviewing the, doing the actual review of the strategy, so all of the costs in relation to that have been absorbed to existing base budgets. It's mainly been around staff time, not to downplay the amount of work it has been. And again, thanks to Liz and the team for that. The only thing we did spend external was we ran a external, sorry, a public consultation in November. And it was really important that we had an independent facilitator for that workshop. It was really important, I think, for both the council and the public. And that cost about 6,000, including the room hire. So that's kind of a live bill in relation to the review. In terms of delivering on the strategy, so a key part strategy that's been updated is the finance section. So, and the cost for the next six years has been estimated at 48 million, if we were to achieve our net carbon zero and ecologically positive goal. It's a proxy measure, so it's looking at the projects that we've done over the last three years, how much carbon that saved, and then sort of projected that forward. Any major investments would be subject to a business case and firm costings agreed before proceeding. And equally, we wouldn't be paying for all of that ourselves. So our current grant success rate is about 36% for projects so far. And I think that needs to increase and continue going forward. In terms of do we have that cash to deliver, affordability is the number one risk for this strategy and the programme that's set up to deliver it. We also said that many projects that reduce carbon also reduce cost, and those will be prioritised particularly for the next two years. It will get trickier as we get closer to 2030 because those easy wins have been completed. We're going to be ending up with trickier things to sort in terms of decarbonising. So in terms of mitigating actions around affordability, so we'll continue to capitalise on our track record of securing external grants, our good reputation on delivering well, which we've already discussed with Gareth's question. Coordinated bids, bids externally where it might not be about carbon or environment, but we can take that particular angle. We've been quite successful with doing that for the shared prosperity fund. Having ongoing dialogue with my section 151 officer, which is Liz, you've just talked about the median term financial plan this morning. You'll see in appendix three of that report that the mid range scenario does include a provision each year for net carbon zero as a corporate priority. There's a long way to go, isn't there, between now and the 1st of April next year, but the fact that it's there listed in our medium time financial plan I think should give Bobby and other members some reassurance that we're taking this seriously and we are accounting for this. Obviously that 250 can pay for potential borrowing, so it has more weight, that 250, than just being 250 cash as it were. In terms of staff resources, we can always have more staff, but if that isn't possible then it's about prioritising the resource for the biggest bang for our buck. Liz has identified that some prioritisation is happening to see where our resources should really lie to make the biggest difference. In terms of a bit of reassurance though, the only staffing cuts that have been felt within the specific base budget associated with this programme has been the two roles within waste around changing behaviours and trade waste. You talked about that and you reviewed that in your over 23/24 and that's come live for this financial year. But it's the same with everyone that's been faced with this, every head of service, every director, every team manager, in face of the budget savings that are required. So we'll make the best decisions at the time and we'll monitor the risk going forward. Yeah, thanks Jeff. Taking Bobby's question, what is the financial cost? Do you actually have that figure or you don't or is that something that we should have addressed to Liz? It's been estimated at £48 million. For the next six years to get to net zero will be at least £48 million. My simple mind, that's £4 million a year. Yeah and I don't have it to hand but would £2.50 base budget give you £4 million-ish? It depends because it depends what you're borrowing it for and how long you're, again it's not a simple answer, but if we are able to keep that and again that's a big if, isn't it? If we are able to keep that as an option for our future budgets then we would be on track for the £48 million but as I say it doesn't all have to come from us. Actually the last three years it hasn't at all. Some projects have been 90% funded by external grant but on average it's 36% external grant. Thank you very much for that. I'm sure the minute takers are writing frantically. Yeah thank you Mr, thank you Chair. I don't know if this is to Liz or to Helen but not enough, coming back to EV charges, there's not enough particularly in what rural wards. I have two community councils that are building at least three car parks at no cost to the council before we have a thrombosis, Liz England, and they are looking to put some charges there. They don't have any money, the council doesn't have any money. Are there grants available from Welsh government or power companies or whatever that you could steer me to? Thank you. There certainly is. It's difficult in the rural counties, some you don't have to pay at all if you've got land in the centre of Oxford for example, people will be paying you to rent the land to put an EV charging point because there's a commercial case, not quite the same on rural. I'm sure there will be and the team can get in touch with Eteri and signpost G. Thank you. Thank you Chair, just really more than anything is just to thank Helen and Liz for all the work that's done. This has been a big piece of work. We've had really good engagement from members and really grateful to members who've been involved in the political working group and to the public who've responded to the consultation and as you can see it's broadly positive. It's a big challenge for us. As you've heard, it would take a lot of money to do everything but the strategy is peppered with where resources allow. There's a very realistic approach being taken and again, in this sort of agenda, there's lots of grant money available and we do have a good track record of hitting those grant providers and maximising what we can do. And I think the other thing that's a big change, the first three years of the strategy was concentrating on us as a council and what we did with our buildings and our vehicles etc. And we're slightly broadening the focus now to make sure that we're looking at how we can influence people across the county to do things to contribute towards net carbon zero, not just our own. You know, because we do have influence, we are able to help facilitate people to do those things. So it's just really a thank you and you know, we've done really well so far. We're well regarded in this field. Helen and Liz are very well respected by their peers in this sort of work and I was involved in a meeting with an external body not long ago where they were very complimentary about the work that Denver should have done in this space. So I just wanted to put my thanks to the staff on record. Thank you, thank you. I'll take the committee now to the recommendations which are on page 80. Scrutiny to review and provide feedback on the development of the year three reviewed and refreshed climate and ecological change strategy and state their support or otherwise for its adoption and implementation by the council for scrutiny to determine whether it wishes to monitor its delivery going forward with a view to supporting the council to deliver its net carbon zero ambition by 2030 and for scrutiny to confirm it has read understood and taken account of the well-being impact assessment which you can see in appendix four. So I don't know whether there's any any views on that whether you would like to take that item by item or whether I can take that as a recommendation that we do agree all those points. Anybody says I can see some nods some wise nods. I'll propose that we accept it as Gary. Gareth you're proposing that we accept the recommendations as they're stated here. Thank you. Is that seconded by anybody? Alan Hughes has seconded it so therefore can I ask? Thank you. Rhianne reminds me how often do we want to monitor the delivery of the of the of the program annually or is there a thought from the officers? A lot of the data is only annual so if you wanted to have both the data and kind of an update on the project then I would suggest annual or more and but just if you did want it more frequent just to manage expectations about what you'd be presented with to scrutinize. Conscious of officer workload as well under the circumstances. If the committee were to decide on annual how would that fit in? Yep so if you wanted annual I'd probably suggest sort of September October time each year that means we'd have all of the data from the year previous and then you'd have a feeling about projects as well that financial year. September 25 for the first monitoring and thereafter each September or thereabouts. September October you could start in 2024 that'd be fine. I won't start this year. Yeah I think well you might be busy. Yeah well yes the work programs actually are full now until January anyway as things currently stand so happy happy with 2025. So September 25 and thereafter annually. Terry. I just think it seems that they're sailing along peacefully so yeah September 25 it would seem pertinent. Right basically the recommendation has been moved and we'll we will note that the first monitoring will be September October 25 according to the the meeting calendar for that for that year. Thank you. All in favor? That's carried I think. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you Helen for fielding that on your own without your feedback. Thank you. Where the council's performance self-assessment report which you can find on pages 205 to 344. So we're joined now by the lead member now and Yolo and Emma that's correct? And Helen I said joined by because I realize she's staying. So who wants to introduce and it's been allotted uh 30 minutes. Future and I'll try and be brief again. We're looking here at the performance self-assessment for 2023-24. This report gives us a picture of the progress that we've made and the challenges that face us too in terms of our key performance uh aims and these come from the themes in our corporate plan. This document is totally essential I think to help us reflect on our performance as a council and how to plan for the future and moving forward. So I'm very grateful to Yolo, Emma and Helen and all the team who have been working on this report. It's important to note that this document is a live document so it can change as we work on it before going to council in July to be approved. The document has already been discussed by the senior management team and the cabinets and there are some changes already. I won't go into detail on that if you want the details the officers can can provide you with those. I think this document shows that we as a council is a very ambitious council but we must also understand that performance is seen in connection with our limited budget at the moment. So there are some items that appear red in the report but we are still working on those. The fact that they're red doesn't mean that it isn't happening. Maybe things will be happening slower because of the finance available but we don't want to be less ambitious. The corporate plan will be reviewed regularly in light of this and maybe Helen or the officers can elaborate upon that if you wish to know more. You will also see that the report gives details about the assessment by the peer panel. This will add to our own self-assessment. We will invite the panel to give their views on our performance and our governance and this will be the first panel of its kind for us counting the first in Wales since that duty to do that was introduced. Thank you chair. Thank you for the introduction. Do you want to go straight in and ask for questions or do the officers wish to add any further points? We can go to questions. Take questions now then please. Ellie's come up first I think. Afternoon now Helen. My question for this agenda item is, now let's see where is it. Yes, forgotten. Sorry yeah, page 232 in Appendice 2 refers to trauma informed status in schools. Does this entail more training that will have to be undertaken by the school? Okay, that's my question because I've never heard a bit so I thought I'd ask the questions. Yes, so it is a framework that we're supporting the rollout across Denbyshire to inform practice to support learners who are facing adversity or experiences of trauma. It does involve training and there's different kind of approaches that are happening so that we've got one school already that has got trauma informed status and then two are currently working towards it. It does involve training and it's quite intensive and it's dependent on Welsh government funding. We have started doing training for senior leaders in schools and other staff so that they can become what's called trauma informed practitioners. So 87 school leaders between June and November last year have undertaken that and what we're waiting to hear about is a commitment to roll out free general trauma informed training, awareness training that we can hook on to because we are dependent on grant funding. So I hope that answers your question. Thank you for a good answer and I'm glad to hear that it's 87 schools so it's not just one or two schools in the county because we've got trauma everywhere haven't we? So thank you very much, thank you. Just to clarify it was 87 staff. Yeah oh staff yeah not schools yeah okay thank you. Gareth? Yes thank you chair. Just to bring to the attention of page 282 corporate service and budget variation it seems like this is always going to be read and although we've improved it better by about a couple of hundred thousand, 2.76 million is still a lot of money. Will the T1 new financial platform help reduce this and become a lesser variance or is this a sign of things to come where the variance between budget and what is being delivered will always be oversized and I would like to stay at this point a lot of these figures in here they're looking red they're looking yellow more and more as we go on with financial budgets but some are of external pressures so in the general society that we face we're going to have also external pressures without going into governmental issues but by other organisations and public institutions affect these figures thank you. Have you checked that? I'll take that thank you chair thanks Gareth for the question. I think it's important to understand that the the the variant that you're talking about the 2.78 million is down to demand that we that you know we have to satisfy that demand it's there's no indication whatsoever that it's down to any kind of financial mismanagement so that's the sort of thing that we you know we can be subjected to any we just we don't know what the demand is going to be and when that demand comes and it's often expensive then we have to satisfy that demand and it leads to to overspend. I don't think that the T1 system can do anything about that but I'm turning to Liz to see. Oh she's shaking her head Gareth I don't know if you can see. Hopefully it'll enable tighter and closer restrictions on where we are. I think that you know as time goes on we hope that we will be able to have stricter sort of monitoring in place possibly because of that but it's down to demand largely and then that's something that we have very little control over which is similar to the second part of your point really wasn't it about the external factors I think it's just if only we had crystal balls eh? Yes. Thank you. Yeah my concern is working from home what's the working from home policy at present? So for example how many days do staff work from home or work in the office? Is that likely to change because I have concerns about the lack or delay in responses not only to me but other offices and so is this likely to change in the future? So thank you Terry. I think in this report Helen will correct me if I'm wrong here but in this report we don't have data on working from home. I think our policy from working from home is that you know we have flexible working where that's not going to affect the job so if it doesn't affect the work if people can do their job at home then they're allowed to. Helen is nodding so I'm guessing I'm correct on that. I don't know when you say delay in responses and so on I don't know if you're referring to the data in this report. My question is the subjects I'm talking about are not in this report and that's why I'm asking the question. Most companies would have a policy that three days at home two days in the office or vice versa is there such a thing in the council? Okay so at the moment we don't have that policy and Gary? Okay so Gary wants to come in on this but I've already noted Gary wants to come in yeah it's the oracle of these matters. I wouldn't go that far. Effectively what our flexible working policy says is that people should be able to work in a way which achieves an appropriate work-life balance whilst the priority always being the needs of the business. So nobody it will be required to work at home every day, nobody is required to work in the office every day but wherever they work has got to be something where they're doing work that's in the interest of the business and if in the interest of the business people are required to be in for any particular purpose then they're required to be in so it's not completely flexible. I think it's important to understand why we have that policy so we have that policy for a number of reasons. First off it saves us money so we are able to release a building because we don't have everybody in all of the time that achieves a revenue saving, achieves a reduction in carbon emission and it might produce a capital receipt. We have staff who spend less time traveling between sites because they're in more or less one location. Again we remove the inefficiency of that traveling time, we reduce the cost of that traveling time and we reduce the carbon emission from that traveling time. And actually what I would say is that if you're experiencing delays in response from any particular part of the council that's a management issue whether people are sat in this building or sat somewhere else and we're very keen that people manage those things appropriately and if you're not getting the service that you think you should get then you should take that up with the relevant head of service or corporate director etc. I know we've discussed this before but where people are sat, you know I used to work in an organization, not this one, where there were some people who were very good at sitting in the office from very early in the morning till very late in the afternoon but they didn't necessarily do as much as other people who were working in a more flexible way. So the important thing is that we measure the outcomes and if you're dissatisfied with the service that you get from anybody then you need to take that up through the management line but I don't think there's any evidence that people working from home are less productive than people who are working in the office and actually I'd suggest that it's the other way around. So for example I often want to get hold of people. I find it much easier now than I used to when I might either try and find them but they weren't where they were in the building because they were in a meeting or they were at court or they were whatever whereas now I know they're probably sat in front of a machine somewhere and I can jab a message them to say can you give me a quick ring about this and I get hold of people a lot quicker than I used to so that's just my personal experience. But the bottom line is you should be getting the service that you need to get as a member and if you're not then we should be doing something about that but I don't think it's necessarily related to where people sit. Sorry that's a very long-winded answer I do apologize. Okay so just for clarity there is no requirement to be in the office one day a week, two days a week, five days a week. There's no so that's one question so that's for clarity and the other my second question that hasn't been answered is is this work-from-home policy likely to change in the future? Two things there's no set rule for everybody there are some people who can't do their jobs from home are they so they've got to be in there are other people who need to be in for various reasons so take me for example very rarely I might have a week where I'm at home every day this week I'm in every day most weeks I'm in two or three days a week that's just the nature of my job it's what we want is people to be wherever they can do their job most effectively and most efficiently that's the bottom line and if managers felt that they needed people to be in the office for particular reasons then they're perfectly entitled to say to people I want you to be in the office for this particular thing and it's it's I wouldn't want anybody to get the impression that people can just say no I'm not coming because I don't want to they can't if their managers tell them they need to be somewhere they need to be somewhere but we also have to remember we're in a very competitive labour market we can't always compete on salary what we can do is to make sure that we offer a flexible working policy which to be honest we always have after the pandemic other people have caught up with us so most employers are offering a degree of flexibility both in the public and private sector I know because my children work in the um sorry they're not have chimneys I I'm I'm I'm older than I look sorry uh so my children are in their in their 20s they both work in the private sector and they both have similar arrangements to the to the arrangement that we have so it's it's not right for every job and there are people who work in the council who need to be in a specific place at us every day and they are and we do have people who prefer to work in the office they come into the office every day because they like that um separation of of home and work and there are other people for whom working at home works better so the idea is that we maximize what we get out of everybody in in an appropriate way uh and I'm waffling now Terry so I'll stop I thought you were bringing Helen well in that waffle was going to be a lot of what I said um Gary that's fine but it was it's just a little bit of sense checking on this so we are a multi-service provider across Denvershire and about 80 percent of our staff are frontline and cannot work from home so we're actually talking about a comparatively small proportion of our whole staff group that have this as even an option so just to just to put a little bit of sort of context to it you know the majority of what we deliver as an authority they have to it's on the front line it's not an option but for that small proportion comparatively that do have that option everything of what Gary just said completely is true and just from my experience of my service I don't see any change in quality from my offices with them working from home or working from the office and actually because of productive time because they're in a space that they're comfortable and they're able to bet to work around their life it means that I'm actually getting really great outcomes and productivity from my staff and it won't be changing from my service anyway if I've got a policy where I've got flex and bend any more questions no I don't see any more questions so I could take you then to the recommendations here which I think are on 206 haven't they ever got the right set of recommendations performance scrutiny committee considers the reports agrees any further actions required to respond to any performance related issues highlighted within the reports that the committee reflect on key messages arising from self-assessment and provide feedback on the draft scope while the panel performance assessment which is contained in appendix four so I don't know whether that's sufficient of a recommendation for the committee from the panel have we got yes I got so I got that yeah is there any feedback we would want to take to the panel performance performance assessment panel members is there anything you would wish to for the committee to recommend to go to the performance assessment panel no there's a deafening silence on that one no right do you feel able to adopt these recommendations that we've considered the report which we have in some detail we agree any further actions required to respond to any performance related issues well I don't think we've introduced any new ones have we really so chair if I can so in terms of just to support with with that it's section 4.4 of the cover report which is the improvement actions that have been identified those have been slightly shaped and tweaked following going through SLT and cabinet and you'll see the final version that goes to GAC next week and cabinet and council thereafter but nothing vastly different to what's in 4.4 of your cover report so if that helps chair just to to to frame that 3.1 the second part of that 3.1 if that's helpful well yes I mean it relates to poor performance relating to repair of damaged roads and pavements being made safe within target time so I think that is something the committee is very conscious of and I think we we would want that to go forward and that the new economic strategy should take into account the county's cultural offer how it contributes to wider economic and well-being outcomes we consider what barriers there are to delivering the sustainable transport plan and whether to pause the project or allow more resources to ensure its completion we should consider the stakeholder survey 2023 24 responses and we should consider the findings and recommendations of the well-being of future generation commissioners new ways of working journey checker I suppose the one that might affect the counselor on the ground as it is is of course the first one isn't it performance concerning damaged roads and pavements that's that's important isn't it to me anyway and then there's the economic strategy the cultural offer which I take it to be the Russian jail type of offer I got that right and then the sustainable transport plan and then of course the stakeholder survey responses so are you happy that we pick up those five improvement activities please and they go forward as our recommendation Helen can I just bring in Emma just to add so I think there's a sixth one isn't there a particular particularly there's tweaks to some of the wording of those five but there is a new one which I just want Emma just to to shout out for me yeah the nature of these reports mean that they remain in draft until we take them to council for final approval in July they follow in SLT and a cabinet briefing we've now got six improvement actions so just focus on the changes it's being proposed that following agreement and to allow the council to focus on the regional transport plan that we close the sustainable transport plan that we were project that we're doing just for denvershire and amend that commitment in the corporate plan so that just moves that one on slightly and there's an additional new sixth one which reflects some of the flavor of what councillor Gwyneth was saying in her introduction around keeping what we've got in the corporate plan constantly under review looking at performance continually within that context of the challenging financial environment that we're in thank you so if we pass this recommendation you're going to pick up these five improvement activities with your tweaks is that right yeah there will be already here there will be there will be six with the change yeah sorry difficult to read this massive report just on the the massive report um you know thank you to the officers who pull it together because it's a big piece of work and you know a lot of effort goes into it um it's just to reassure you as members this is the beginning of its journey through the democratic process and has been mentioned before but this will go to governance and audit committee it will also go to cabinet and it will also go to council for final improvements so if if you find something else in this document you want to ask there are other opportunities to to ask about it as well and clearly as Emma said it's a it's an iterative process until council finally approves it at the end that's the purpose of going through the the various bodies uh are there any can i have a recommendation or any prepared to move these recommendations okay has thank you will anybody second them for me uh carol holiday has so all in favor yep fine i don't see anybody voting against so that completes oh sorry gary i just want to thank you from don't share my man over quite on time but um this is the last performance scrutiny that yolo will be attending oh sorry to you your power eloquent and um you know many of us work with yolo for many years officers and members uh and he's also always been a constant source of uh information advice uh really uh analytical and detailed and and a really good person to work with so i just wanted to say um i wouldn't want to mark not mark his last meeting by saying a big thank you from me and i know from lots of your colleagues for all the support that you've given over the years and i'm sure many members as well thank you very much gary that's very kind and i'd like to thank everyone on the committee as well for all their help and support over the years um it's 15 years now i've been working in denvershire and i've been working with the performance scrutiny particularly since its inception i was i worked on the project in fact that uh created the committee um so it's uh been a long journey for me and i'm going on to new things new challenges but um again thank you very much and i wish you all well thank you if i can add my personal wishes good wishes as well i was horrified when i heard you going i thought you can't possibly going on voluntary early releases far too young anyway you're moving on to bigger and better things and we can only wish you all the best thank you thank you uh right thank you and thank you officers for your time today that's really good of you thank you and we'll take you now to the final item although the second and ultimate item scrutiny work program which which rian will report on it's at page 345 thank you very much officers thank you chair um yes this is your usual forward work program report um now your forward work program itself is on page 351 um um your next meeting on the 18th of july at the moment there are four items on the agenda but i am aware that it's likely that the economic and business development strategy is likely to be moved i think they have had a consultant in now to work on this so it's i don't suppose it will be ready the data the possible date i've had is january next year it is possible to move that to january that doesn't cause any problem as long as you're happy with that and then your next meeting after that will be in september and there are four education items on that agenda too and also we have the report on recruitment retention and workforce planning so there are five items which is too much so i don't know which one of those uh you'd like to move sorry uh sorry just um because rianne's done this in welsh i'll answer her in welsh i would suggest that if you've got four items on education for the agenda in september the one to move would be the one on recruitments because you'll have the co-opties in to deal with the education matters and if you were to move one of the education issues to another meeting you'd have to get them in again so that's just a suggestion so you're suggesting we might think about moving the recruitment retention and workforce planning and where might we move that to real um one possibility is we could move it to um november's um there are two items on november's which have to be confirmed you've already got three but there is a two there one on council processes and procedures for applying for high value grant funding in the post-exit era and also the library one-stop shop service um the working group now i have had some correspondence i think it was from liz grieve on that one that actually might not be available until january anyway um so that is a possibility so move uh item five isn't it to january is suggestion from uh from november to january so we're going to be scrutinizing education pretty pretty heavily in september you'll have four items yeah sorry yeah september you'll have four items on education then next your next meeting july also has got christ the word on yeah now whilst get out the head of service isn't available that day he has made arrangements that other people will be for that item yes um i won't be available that day i don't think uh but i've already mentioned that to vice chairman uh and he's been well versed in this because he's done the two previous scrutiny um so i'd like to hope that that because of all we've done and work we have done on christ the word that this is more of an update in a way yeah rather than a really heavy item but so if that would be if that would be um if that would be all right so right could we summarize what we're going to do here then so we're going to move that's okay with you um economic development strategy to january um and then from september we're moving recruitment and retention to november and from november we're moving the uh libraries also stop shop service provision that into january as well that works well because in january we've got the library for service standards at the same time yeah okay okay so can i take it that somebody would move those amendments to the all and ellie got down and kind of take it no objections members could show they approve thank you that should just spread the load out a little bit more yes you've got something else to say yeah i was just going to say that uh the student chairs and vice chairs we've met um a couple of weeks ago and as part of that you had the the report today on the medium-term financial plan in front of you now that's going to come to you on a regular basis as well they've uh they put the next one in i think in for no for november but that has an information report that time because they don't think that there'd be many changes to report but at least you have the opportunity to read it and also part of the scrutiny chairs and vice chairs group discussion was around another thing that was mentioned this morning the council's transformation program and there are three um themes that will be coming out of that transformation program and what they've agreed is that each of the scrutiny committees take a theme each and the one you've been allocated is the influence influencing demand and digital the other two are commercialization and enterprise and collaboration and partnerships so the collaboration partnerships will go to partnerships commercialization and enterprise will go to communities um they won't come forward as yet because there is a very very early stage of developing that program but you will come you will see them coming to you at some point in the future okay um if you have any scrutiny items in mind please fill that form in and send it to me then i can present it to the next chairs and vice chairs group meeting um in appendix three you've got the cabinet forward work program report in case there's any items on there you think marriage scrutiny and then in appendix four you've got the latest on the recommendations from your last meeting so that's just just an update on them and of course during today's meeting you've added the climate strategy down for september october 2025 as well thank you thank you thank you so hopefully hopefully members are comfortable with this forward work program no comments so take us to item 11 the final item which is feedback from committee representatives which is to provide an opportunity for any updates from committee representatives who've attended various council boards and groups um is there anybody got anything to report some great silence i've got nothing to report nothing i'd be i've not been to anything since the last meeting so at this point uh i'll thank you all for making this a much more comfortable event this morning than i feared it was going to be when on one side i knew a lot of you want to get to rill for two o'clock for the workshop and i thought heavens above what's going to be going on here so anyway i'm personally grateful to everybody officers and members for that uh so thank you and i will bring the meeting two o'clock