Transcript

Welcome, everyone, to this meeting. There's no fire drill expected today. In case of an emergency and a fire alarm, you all know what to do. Mobile use and social media use, again, providing it doesn't irritate the chairman, it's perfectly fine. We're webcast of the first part of the meeting, of course, then we go into part two. And there are some colleagues who are online who, of course, can participate. It's difficult to see whether a hand has gone up on the screen. So, if I'm ignoring you, please just shout. And you know how to use the microphones. So, apologies for absence received from Andy Lynch and Councillor Natalie Bramhall. Are there any other apologies? No, no more have been received. Thank you very much. Minutes of the previous meeting have been circulated. Are you happy that I signed those as a correct record of our last meeting? Thank you very much. Item three, declarations of interest. Are there any declarations of disposable pecuniary interests, significant personal interests, or gifts or hospitality accepted? Thank you very much. Thank you very much. There are no questions or petitions. Item five, cabinet response to select committee recommendations. Very sensibly, the cabinet have agreed with our recommendations. And so, I'm not sure there's anything to say unless any colleague has anything they want to add to that. That's good. Thank you. Item six, performance monitoring session notes. Is there anything anyone wants to say about the notes to our last performance monitoring meeting? No? Okay. Thank you very much. Item seven, the recommendations tracker and forward work program. Any comments on that? I have a comment in relation to the second item, the EDI session. It plainly, as indeed it says on page 57 of this report, it says that the draft EDI framework has been consulted via the political groups. That isn't actually the case. And my understanding it's not been to the leadership team yet either. But hopefully in advance of that meeting, we can see whatever emerges at that point. Okay. The action. Yes, Steve. Thanks, Chair. Just an item just to call out the kind of the elephant in the room, the local government reform. At some point, we will look, I assume, to have something on our forward work program for the select committee to look at LGR. And just mindful of the tracker that we've got in front of us and trying to find a slot for whatever kind of scrutiny we may be asked to do on LGR. So I'd just like to get that on there at some point or at least noted that we may have to add this on to our work program at some point and in the near future. Thank you very much. I mean, as we discussed at our pre-meeting, I think we have to be aware of the things we can and actually can't productively do with a council that has a maximum of two years of life. And indeed, once we know the approach being taken by the new effectively select committee chaired by Hazel and fitting in with that program, there will be a lot of work for us to do almost in two phases. Firstly, in the first year, making sure the council and the bits that we scrutinize are ready for what's going to happen. And in the second year, potentially changing the way we approach things in terms of those elected to the unitary authorities, because they will have strong views about issues. And it would be we don't want to stand off on any of these things. We want to make sure that services are transferred in the best way and to create or maintain the best services that we can. But no, thank you for raising that point. Anything else on this note? Thank you very much. That brings us to item eight, exclusion of the press and public. And the recommendation is that under section 100A of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they may involve the likely disclosure of exempt information under the relevant paragraphs of part one of schedule 12A of the act. Is that agreed? Agreed. Agreed. Thank you very much. If we could stop...