Transcript

So, good evening committee, I would just like to convene this first meeting of the ONS committee. And I would like to welcome new members of the committee, and first of all I will read the webcast introduction. This meeting is to be webcast and the chairman will read the following announcement. I would like to remind everyone present that this meeting will be broadcast live to the internet and will be capable of subsequent repeated viewing with copies of the recording being made available for those that request it. By being present at this meeting, it is likely that the recording cameras will capture your image and this will result in your image becoming part of the broadcast. You should be aware that this may infringe your human and data protection rights and if you have any concerns, then please speak to the webcasting officer. Please could I also remind members and officers to activate their microphones before speaking. Welcome to new members, everyone, and also welcome to new members of the ONS committee. I am Councillor Roger Baldwin and I will be the chair of this committee. I would also like to introduce to my left the chief operating officer and lead officer for scrutiny, and also Andrew Small, who is the strategic director and section 151 officer. To my right is Laura Kerman, the democratic services officer, and the webcast officer is Steve Mitchell. Vice chair for open scrutiny, Councillor McCann, will be on teams tonight, so I would like to invite Councillor Jodie Lucas to act as my vice chairman and the chairman tonight. Can the committee confirm that this is acceptable? Agreed. Thank you, Councillor Lucas. Okay. Apologies for absence. Chairman apologies for absence have been received from Councillor Sunga, Parsons and Rackham, and from Councillor George for lateness. Thank you. Are there any substitute members this evening? Councillor Ardakarni is substituting for Councillor Rackham. Thank you. And do we have any declarations of interest? Thank you, Chairman. As a non-executive director of QALIS, it's mentioned several times in various papers, but it's a non-peculiar interest, and if I think it's getting a bit on the edge, I will obviously just keep quiet. Thank you very much for that. We have the minutes of the last meeting. Can we confirm the minutes of the last meeting? Are we in agreement? Agreed. Agreed. Thank you for that. And agenda item six, matters arising and outstanding actions. There are no matters arising or outstanding actions, Chairman. Thank you. And item seven, public questions and requests to address the overview and scrutiny committee. No requests have been made, Chairman. Thank you. And item eight, executive decisions calling. No requests, Chairman. Thank you for that. Right, so item nine, Council's corporate priorities. I'd like to invite the leader of the Council to present the priorities for the coming year. Can I just say thank you for attending, and I very much look forward to working with you over the coming year. So thank you. I hand over to you. Thank you, Chairman. And I'm delighted to see you in the Chairman's role up there, and I'm sure we're going to have a very productive year and a collaborative year along some of the big issues that face the Council. And I think last year I probably started by saying that we were living through unprecedented times and real challenges as a Council. I am pleased to say that we are starting to see some normalisation, if limited. We are now starting to see inflation in particular come back into the area where the Bank of England class is normal, at 2.3%, and there are some promising signs in the general situation in the outside world. I think we're getting there, but there's lots of challenges ahead of us, and I think we have to see that as the backdrop for what we're doing, and the impact that it's had on our communities over recent years, whether that be the cost of living issues that people face with higher interest rates, or whether it be over the rising cost of fuel and other such circumstances. So I think we have to, as a backdrop to a Council, take all that into account. But what do we do as a Council? We are real facilitators of the needs of our community, and we have a lot to do. We have a busy agenda ahead of us, and some of that was set out at the Cabinet meeting a week ago, when we started to talk about some of the big agenda items that are there. And I would first and foremost pick out planning as one of the key areas that we need to look at in the year ahead, and we need to move very quickly on it. Planning is really important we keep control of. If we don't have control of planning, what do we do? And when you look at some of our neighbouring Councils, nearby Uttersford, where they've lost control of planning, you see the results of what happens. And this Council has done so much good work over the years to maintain control of planning. We were one of the most difficult areas to get a local plan. We're 93% Greenbelt, and we managed to get a really good local plan in place. Not everyone likes it. There's something for everyone to hate about it, but we've got a local plan in place. But what we brought to Cabinet was the PAS report on our planning services, and it's really important that we address that as soon as possible. And I think we've brought forward a way that members can be fully engaged, whether that be through an all Council, full member workshop, down to the constitution panel, which Councillor Lyon will chair, and then it will come back to full Council in August, so that we can make decisions, so we can get in place the new planning system in the early autumn. It's really important we keep that control. So I put that very high on my agenda for the coming year. We have got a really good record on housing. We've made really good progress, and I have to pay tribute to the officer team that has done so much good work, along with my colleague, Councillor Holly Whitbread, in making sure that technically we've got a really good housing department. But there are issues out there that residents want addressing, and it tends to be around our estates, and it could be people parking on grass verges, it could be I know that Councillor Murray will pick up on Oakwood Hill. There's a whole range of issues that we need to address, and I'll pick up on the Culver's in matching green. There are things that we need to do, and I know there are funds there that we can use to unlock to make things happen. And housing is really important, because when it comes to determining health outcomes and other issues, housing is top of the list. I'm a Council house boy, and I know how important that is to our residents, and I want to make sure that they get what they deserve, and we are going to do that, and we are continuing to do that over the past year. And I'm very mindful of improving place, and probably what many people didn't notice in the budget last year, we actually set up a place fund. Now, a place can be about a whole range of issues. Personally, I think it's a bit like that old saying, it's the broken window syndrome. And we want to address that as much as we can from our local area, and I know some members will be critical and say, well, that's the role of the county or it's the role of town councils. To me, it's all our roles, and we work in partnership. I think that's the most important thing that has come from the pandemic. Partnership working is essential, and we need to bring ourselves together. Whether that be with the health boards, I know Jen Gould is actively engaged on, or it's any other partnership that we have running locally, and you would have heard at the last cabinet meeting how keen we are to bring the library here for Epping into the civic offices. Well, that's part of place, but there's more to it than that. And I was talking today to my colleague, Councillor Williamson, who has got the role of implementing the local plan. And we were talking about parking on grass verges, and we were talking about pavement parking and the powers that we can use to enforce some of that, and we will do it. I think that's going to be the next step forward. I know that Councillor Williamson has already had conversations with officers, and I'm really, really focused on making sure that we start to improve the place and stop some of the things that really irritate people, and that will come through working with scrutiny very closely, the different select panels to make sure that we get that done. So that's really important to me. And we're lucky as a council, because whilst we've had really challenging times, really hard times, I think from the budget process last year, and I know that members will appreciate how tough that was. We've kept in place our highways ranges where the county took them away, and we made a conscious decision to do that. And I was looking at some of the things they're doing, whether it be in Sun Street and Wolf Mabie, Epping High Street, whether it be out in the villages, where they're replacing signage. That's really important to us. And some of it seems small in the big scheme of things, but replacing finger posts, which were part of our local heritage, you know, it's important. It's important that we care about the area that we live in. And I personally, that's what drives me forward. That's what made me become a Councillor in the first place. And I know Councillor Murray will share with myself and Holly when he stands outside shops and does street surgeries like all my colleagues are doing. It's what people talk to us about. How do you improve that pavement? How do you make sure that things get done? Well, we're going to be very engaged in that as the year goes ahead. And of course, that place fund will be used to do that with. And there are other areas we can do that in as well. Now, one of the other things, as you all know, we struggled with our waste contract for a period of time, post-pandemic. And I think BIFRA have done a brilliant job to recover that position. Thank you in great part to my officer team and of course, to Councillor Balcombe, who have all been really engaged in doing that. And I think we've got to numerous weeks now where we've not had missed collections on any scale and we've got things back to a normal position. The exciting thing we will be doing later in the year is our own waste company. As the contract comes to an end with BIFRA, we are now in that process of our own arm's length waste company. And that's a big challenge. And it's also a very big opportunity to this council. It's almost taking back control, which is really important to us. And to have control back of our waste contract is first and foremost amongst what we're going to be doing over the coming year. Both myself and Councillor Balcombe have been working hard with the board that's been set up. In fact, the whole officer team are focused on making sure that works for us. Very close to my heart, and I know close to my colleague Holly Whitbread's heart, is the delivering of the new sports centre in Epping. We've already delivered, in my time as leader, a new sports centre in Waltham Abbey, and of course improvements, further improvements to Loughton Sports Centre and across the board. Leisure is an important factor in people's lives, and the fact that we can continue to do that as a council is a tribute that even through challenging times, that we care and we do want to deliver what our communities want. I know whenever I go down to the sports centre in Waltham Abbey how busy it is and how it actually helps to get those local shops thriving in that location, and it's a great pride to me alongside all the work that's been done around that area in recent times. So I'm particularly proud of that. To make an area thrive and do well, you have to have economic development, and that's something else that I'm very focused on. I was delighted at the beginning of the year, not just financially, but because it really sends a signal to people that Epping Forest means business, that we achieved a contract with Google. I think that's really, really good news for Epping Forest, and I hope that it opens up other opportunities, particularly now that we're developing that master plan for North World. It gives us a chance to actually bring in the businesses and the professional jobs and opportunities for our young people that they really deserve, and that's so important as we emerge from the period of time that we've gone through, get back to growth, get back to opportunities for local people. That's what it should all be about. On top of that, I want to make sure, and this is challenging, that we make the best of our asset base. We are lucky as a council. We own much in the way of property, particularly commercial, whether that be the Epping Forest shopping park, whether it be Debden Broadway, wherever, and especially, most importantly, those small business units that exist in Waltham Abbey. They are important to our future, they are important to our residents, and they are important to the rent role that they bring in that helps to protect those frontline services that our residents care so much about. In some ways, during the pandemic, they were the saving grace, because as we saw the revenue streams from our car parks fall as commuters didn't go into London, they were there, and they were a staple of our revenue stream. So that was really, to me, one of the most important things to us, and we need to continue building on that. That doesn't mean to say we haven't got to put in place our faults with regards to community value, because that's important to us as well. And as members will know that I'm always happy to meet with people and talk to people, as I've done in recent weeks and times, and I continue to do that. And I'm going to say something controversial now to some members, I want to pay tribute to the work that is done by Qualis and the importance of Qualis in what we're doing. Qualis has been a source of income to this Council, whether that be through the loan repayments and such, and it has delivered on much of what it promised with regards to our housing repairs. There's always room for improvement, as I know members will say to me. It's also helped to deliver better outcomes for our commercial assets, which I've just spoken about. It's doing a good job, I believe, on grounds maintenance. There's always room for improvement. The only area where it's really been challenged is on development. Whilst it's delivering lovely units in Spring Grove, just next door to the Council offices, it has been challenged, because the economy's been challenged and the housing market has been very difficult, whether it be new or second-hand properties over recent times, but they are making progress and they are delivering those homes that people need. So I think that's very important to bear that in mind. It will be choppy waters for a period of time to come, but we have to hold our nerve and we have to look forward. And I believe there will be opportunities in the future where we will be thankful that we have Qualis, and I think that will, in its time, prove to be very successful. But we have to keep our nerve. And I have to say to you, we are a Council that is in a changing world, not just for looking at the outside world, but looking at ourselves as well. We heard earlier in the year that devolution was put on hold, which was more aimed at higher-tier authorities, but just as important to us. And as you know, I've been the Chairman of North Essex Councils and I'm actively engaged, and I have to say I am a supporter of change. I think for a Council to survive in the modern world, where we have the financial challenges that we face, we have to change. And that will mean some difficult decisions and it will mean doing things differently. And I am pleased that Epping Forest is at the forefront of some of those changes. Not only are we leading the North Essex Councils, we are at the head of shared services. It gives me great pride when I hear our Finance team talked about very highly by other Councils. Colchester worked very closely with Andrew, and they worked very closely with Chris, and I get this great feedback, well, your officers are brilliant, and that gives me a great deal of pleasure from that level, but it also means that shared services are very important to us in the future, and there is more to do. We've been working for years on procurement with the County Councils Procurement Hub, which is more of a collaborative, led by Braintree District Council, and is delivering great things for us across the county. So that's a really important collaborative that we do. There are other things that we do, and just recently it really paid off for us when you look at the challenges we had during the election period, and it was to do with a cyber threat that we faced, and the fact that we could call upon help and support from other Councils. That's because Epping Forest is part of a team of people who are leading the way on shared services, and I have to say to you that it's going to be very important in the future, and part of this wider transformation process that we're going through. The world has changed not only through technology, who would have believed back in the pandemic within 24 hours we could switch on teams and become a very different Council, and now we live in a hybrid world where some stuff is done on teams. I personally prefer the personal touch, I like collaborative meetings, you can get a lot from it. I like face-to-face, I like seeing people, you know, staring people in the eye and actually doing the business together. You know, I think that's great, but we have to bear in mind we now live in this new hybrid world that's so important to us. And it's just changed so much of what we do, but of course now we have AI, and I still get into grips with it, but if you type in to co-pilot, write me a speech on the future of Epping Forest, it will write you a speech on the future of Epping Forest. It might be about trees, but it's not Epping Forest, but it does the job for you. So the world is changing, it's changing really rapidly and we need to be a part of that and we need to be engaged with it. And I'm pleased to say under the transformation piece that Shruti is doing for me, we are doing that. But it's not just about transformation. And I think one of the things we've not been great on is we've recovered from the pandemic and returned to the offices and done the things we should be doing. We haven't been good with the public and customer services, so I think we have to hold our hands up and say we need to do a bit more, we need to engage with the public, we need to be open to the public, and I'm hoping over the current year, I know that Ray and I know that Shruti have been working very much on this, of really engaging together, because it's teamwork, it's not just about me or you, it's all of us. It's us as a team, whether it be us as councillors or officers, it's all of us, but our residents need us and they need us to engage. And one of the things I hope to do over the coming year is more actually being here in the office to see people myself as well. I have regular meetings with residents all the time, but I'm open, I want us all to be open and actually I want a big sign on the front door saying open for business because it's come to an end of that period of time. In coming to conclusion on all that, it's all about sound finance, because without sound finance you can't do very much. I have to say that it's all about the money in the end. I would say that as Councillor Murray will laugh at me and say the Chancellor of Essex but I have to say that my Councillor Holly Whitbread now has the role of the finance portfolio holder and we need to do more work. We have a challenging year ahead. We saw off the savings we had to make last year because we were not lucky because it was great negotiation and great deals of hard work by officers that we got the Google piece over the line in January and that helped us to buy time. But we still have to structurally change and we still have to deliver savings and we still have to make sure that we rebuild our reserves. That is really important to us, a council without good reserves is not in a brilliant space. Now we saw at the out term figures last week that came to us as a cabinet that we've managed to put $950,000 back into the reserves. That's good news. There is still a big piece of work to be done. I can remember when those reserves were much higher and we need to get back there. So the Google deal has brought us time. We now need to do the hard yards, make some tough decisions, change as a council in order to make sure we have sound finances for the future and I have every confidence that will be done and we are going to do it in a way that we can do it with the least pain to anyone, especially out there in our community but most importantly to here in the council. That means a big piece of work and it means being more efficient, it means changing the way we do things and how we deliver. So I make no apologies for that but what I do want to see happen and I want to make sure the council starts happening very early, that we engage as a council through scrutiny, through the process to make sure we get the best outcomes for Epping Forest. That's my agenda, that's our corporate priorities for the year ahead. I hope that members can accept that as my report. Thank you leader for that contribution. Thank you chairman. That was extremely enlightening and I thank the leader for that information. There's a couple of points I wanted to raise, particularly around place if I may. One of the things that does bother me and it seems to be an issue, which is probably a point of detail, is pride of place or pride in our place, fly tipping, litter, parking on grass verges, the same thing. How can we improve the pride of place and get our residents to accept that sort of thing? The second thing that I wanted to pick up on that was about transport and particularly walking and cycling. Chigua was a case in point, we've got many side roads without any footpaths and one of the things that has been considered is perhaps the upgrading of public rights-of-way to actually make them accessible for cycling or walking and I'm just wondering, you said about funding being available, wonder whether there's anything that could be done in that particular area. The other point I wanted to pick up again was the place issue, which was about the BT switch-off of the analogue network, so that's going to be a major issue in terms of service to people with telephones being able to actually have broadband and I can say from the work that I've done previously, Epping Forest is the best connected district for broadband in Essex, so perhaps you may be able to address some of those issues. Thank you, Chairman and thank you, Councillor Lyon. Good list of questions, digital analogue switch-off is going to be a big issue and I know I've had an email through today that I need to start looking at my digital champion, I may be just looking at him, so that's going to be really important to our people across the district, especially some of our older people who are going to be really, really confused by this, so that needs to be got to grips with very early on. With regards to detail on the place fund, there's 180,000, I believe, in a place fund that we have, 150 I'm being told now, already had it snatched away by finance, so I've got 150,000 in a place fund and we will be looking at how that works, it's not going to go a million miles on the things that you're talking about. Some of it will be dealing with partners and lobbying, I know you're on to Councillor Scott on a regular basis from the County Council's perspective and I think it comes down to some of the conversations we've had at full Council recently as well, he's calling people in to talk about things to us and I'm sure, Chairman, under your Chairmanship of the Scrutiny Panel, particularly TFL will be in your sights, I know your members have already said that, but I think there will be other people that you want in to have a little bit of scrutinisation. Okay, that's noted. Yes, Councillor Murray, please. Thank you, Chairman, I always think it's important that on an item like this a member of the non-majority groups respond in some way, it's probably the hardest thing to respond to because it's always a verbal report and I understand that and so we don't quite know what we're going to react to because we haven't heard it before, but I want to share some views, but can I first of all just remind members of something I've said previously, I think scrutiny plays a really key role and obviously we're the senior scrutiny committee, we should be asking challenging questions, we should be challenging the cabinet and individual portfolio holders, but it should be done in a constructive and not obstructive way, so having said that I'm going to divide my comments into two really, one's where I'm in complete agreement with the leader for what it's worth and then one's where I thought it didn't quite get it right or perhaps I would have given it a slightly higher profile if I was sitting in the role that he's sitting in, so let's do where I completely agree, I mean he's absolutely right with planning, you read that past report and it's absolutely essential that we look at that, what we do not want is to hit the 10% figure and all that could mean for the council, so he was absolutely right to identify that as an early corporate issue, again he was absolutely right in terms of what he said about place and the housing estates and I am glad that we're beginning to implement on the Oakwood Hill area what we've learned from Shelley and Waltham Abbey and that's now beginning, that's something I can explore in more detail in a later item on the agenda, again he's absolutely right in terms of the crucial nature of partnership working, he chose and I understand why to emphasise the issue about working with other councils, but I would also add and I know he believes in this, I would also add community groups to that, really important that we continue to cement those links, in his wide ranging contribution tonight he mentioned the waste contract and I would endorse that, I think after all the difficulties we had and like other members it was quite frustrating to drive around every week coming up with a list of roads that hadn't been done properly for the officers to act on and we did have that period, but we've had a settled period now, but getting that transfer of service right is absolutely crucial and I'm sure that we will because we've got a portfolio holder on the task and we've got a good set of officers behind that transfer to our own company, but you know we all understand that that's a front line service and we have to get it right, so I agreed with him there. Lezia, again he was absolutely right, I think our role in scrutiny as regards the Epping Sports Centre is to make sure that it's delivered on time and it's delivered to budget and what scrutiny we can do on that, that's our two key objectives on time and on budget now that the plans have been developed. Two other areas that I thought he was absolutely right and I might not have said this 30 years ago because I've kind of matured I would hope, he's absolutely right, without sound finance a council can't do anything, so that's a key piece of work and he mentioned the master planning for North Wild and that's absolutely right and he knows but he didn't actually mention it tonight, within the master plan the fact that flying is going to continue at North Wild is really important to this council and I know it's important to him as leader in terms of our heritage which he did mention, in terms of the importance of a sense of place which he did mention, the fact that flying is going to be maintained is absolutely important and the plans for the new control centre show that. The areas that I, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't go as far as to say I've got disagreement but I didn't think were mentioned and needed to be mentioned as corporate priorities. The housing building programme needs to be continued and I know he probably thought that that was a given but I just want to kind of pick that up tonight. The housing building programme does need to be continued, I mean within my new ward I've got at least three sites at the moment that are kind of on hold and in the pipeline but we do need that building programme to continue. Two issues that I didn't think that he did mention and perhaps should have mentioned, we've still got a real problem with food poverty in Epping Forest believe it or not. I know it's the year 2024 but you talk to anyone involved in the food bank or our food hubs in the district and the problem at the moment is growing, not diminishing so I know that we've got more of a supportive role in that but to me that's still very important. The other thing I want to mention and I think, I accept that this lies more with county but he did argue about a partnership approach and I get this all the time as a ward councillor and I'm sure other members do, transport links across our district are still not particularly good in some sections and the road network, I'll just have to mention the condition of the road network is still very poor and that we should do what we can to try and improve that. I realise it's not our direct responsibility. I've just got two other comments to make Chairman and then a word of warning hopefully. He talked about QALIS and QALIS is where QALIS is and I understand that and we've got to make QALIS work as in no one's interests but I have to say a big question with QALIS still and I'm beginning to pick it up because the nature of my ward has substantially changed. It might have the same name but it's 80% new to me so it really is a new ward. It's still not getting housing maintenance right. The number of complaints I've had since May 2nd about housing maintenance issues and inadequate response or delayed response or not liaising with tenants, apparently appropriately to me anyway, they're still not getting that right and that's something that we will need to explore as a scrutiny process during the year. He mentioned change and he kind of talked about change as if it's always going to be more efficient and always going to be an improvement. I think that's something that scrutiny needs to tease out. I'm not a great believer in change for change sake and I'm sure he wasn't advocating that. On a lighter note, I've just got one other question. He talked about artificial intelligence so in future can we expect all the officer reports to be written by AI rather than by themselves? Thank you, Chairman. If I may just come back because actually I have seen an officer report written by AI. Not at this council but another council that I sit on so I have seen one and it was actually quite good. Not quite human but it was quite good and you make a good point there, Councillor Murray. Change for change's sake is never the right thing to do. Change is always good if it's done with purpose and principles behind it that make it work for you so I agree with you completely. Can I go on to the Council Housebuilding Programme because you know how important that is to us and to you and to all this council. I am particularly proud and I've been kicked under the table for not mentioning it. The Council Housebuilding Programme has delivered really well. I've had the privilege to see all of the sites over a period of time that we've delivered and they are first class. I have to say to you as a council we should have great pride in them. I saw the new ones in Waltham Abbey, I've seen the new ones in Bucker Steel, in Loughton, Joan Davis Court. They are all great properties and as a kid growing up in a council house I would have really loved to have lived in one of those places. They are first class. When I was growing up and it starts to show my age, Councillor Murray, which is probably why we are starting to agree on more things, is we had lino on the floor. You had a guy come around on a bike to paint the front door of your council house every five years and if you give him an extra few bob he'd change the colour of the paint for you. So I know what that's like and I have to say I'm really proud of what we've achieved. Again I said it earlier on when I was doing my presentation which was just done off a few bullet points, I'm sorry if I haven't covered everything, but I've got to say to you that as a kid who grew up in a council house I'm delighted to see what we've achieved and I'm delighted that we've got a good standard property. That doesn't mean Qualis can be let off the hook and you need to scrutinise them and call them in and hold them to account. That's your job and I expect you to do it and I know you're doing it, especially now that Jean is on Communities with Jodie. I know they're going to hold it to account really hard into the future. I want Qualis to not just succeed, I want it to thrive, I want it to work for us because having that arms length of company is really important and by the way I just want to make it clear to the public out there I don't sit on the Qualis board, I never have done, but I am an advocate for it because we used to pay other companies to do this job for us. I'd rather us circulate the money, it's that virtuous circle that makes the difference and gives you sound finance eventually. That's really important to me. Food Poverty Councillor Murray I take on board your point, I happen to be on the green here where our brilliant staff done a wonderful community fair for Ride London. I spoke to the food bank and I was very, very struck by what they had to say. I've said this before, I come from a background that is, I'm a working class lad, I grew up in a working class family. Over the years I've seen my own family struggle, I've seen my mum and dad struggle, my dad always had this saying that you know the most important thing you do is put food on the table and my mum and dad would do without food to feed the kids. So I know how important that is. It's not a great thing, I'm not proud of the fact we have to have food banks in 2024, but I'd rather them be there than people suffer. So you know I take that as a, personally I want to see people thrive, I want to see people succeed, I want to see people move forward in their lives. I'm always that kid who grew up in the council house, looked up a hill, there was an iron foundry and I wanted to do better. When I was a kid, the best you could hope for was to go and work in a supermarket or if you were really lucky, go and work in an office in London. I want people to have opportunity, that's what this council should be about. Aspiration and opportunity are the most important things that we do. And that's certainly within my, what I've worked for over these 20 odd years I've been on the council. I hope that answers most of your questions and I think we're probably in tune with a lot of things more than what we used to be. Yep, thank you leader. Right, shall we move on to item 10, which is the corporate plan key objectives and actions, 2024 year end report and the report starts on page 10. Okay, so shall we go over to Paula McGinnis or Niki Gambrelli, if you'd like to go through the highlights of the report please. Lovely, thank you chairman. Yeah, I'm Niki Gambrell, I work for Epping as their continuous improvement specialist and I was helping develop the corporate plan in 2023 and was supporting the key objectives that were set to deliver the aims within that corporate plan. So the report that I've submitted today is to consider the corporate plan key objectives for the year 2023/2024. So the corporate plan for the 23/27 was approved by council on the 20th of December in 22 where the KPIs were set for 23/24. The appendix that is supporting this report outlines the overall performance against the original actions and their specific commentary that's provided against each action within that report. We are currently doing a review of our KPI suite at the moment so that it can be more closely aligned to the corporate plan and it will also include the fit for the future program priorities and we will be bringing that to the next overview and scrutiny for you to be able to have a look at that KPI suite and make your comments. So I'm happy to take any questions and this is an opportunity for members to scrutinise and focus specific attention on how areas of improvement will be addressed, opportunities exploited and better outcomes delivered for local people. Thank you. Thank you, thank you very much for that. Over to you Councillor Murray. Are you doing it page by page? I'm not saying you should, I'm just saying this is what your former chairman would have done. No, we're not going to go through this page by page, we've decided not to do that. Okay, I'll try and find them as I go along then. On page 12 can I, can I comment on the success of the anti-social behaviour operations, particularly the one that took place in the broadway. I wouldn't say that it's solved everything and as the communities select committee made clear in their scrutiny of this, I'm talking about the one that was funded by the home office with the police commissioner, the extra patrols. It's very important that we have in place a sensible transition from that extra anti-social behaviour patrols back to a more normal level of service. On page 13, I just wanted to comment on the multi-agency hub in Oakwood Hill and Debden, which is on the Oakwood Hill estate. That started in March, takes place on a Thursday, has developed. I don't want members to take this as an official comment or an official complaint, but I happened to be down there with Councillor Necki on Friday and the lady who runs the community centre where the hub takes place from Restore did give me the feedback that one of the issues in the running of this hub is the irregular attendance of some council services. Now there may well be good reason for why that has happened, but this is the whole point. We're reviewing the corporate performance from last year and that's one piece of feedback I want to give. I've had that fed back to me that for whatever reason, some of the council services that we're expecting to be in attendance haven't been in regular attendance, which does work against the success of the hub. I'm just trying to see, Chairman, if there's any others that I wanted to comment on. No, I think those were the main ones. I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for that, Councillor Murray. I can also bring in Councillor Lucas to ask a question. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you for your report. I'm really pleased, actually, that the KPI suite is going to be reviewed and we're going to look at that in detail. I think that is absolutely essential for the scrutiny process. I think that when we're looking at KPIs and when we have in the community's scrutiny committee last year, it's absolutely imperative that we're actually able to compare the right things and to be able to see the progress that has been made. I'm looking forward to doing that once that's available. I would just like to just make a couple of comments on page 16, one around council operations with the 14 electric vehicle charging stations, which I'm pleased to see, and especially in Wolfram Abbey, we've now got the electric charging stations in the car park behind the town hall, which is really great. I'd like to really know what we can do to promote that. A lot of residents of Wolfram Abbey don't actually use that car park and are using our other car park by the co-op or the one that's behind the post office. A lot of people aren't necessarily aware that we've got those charging stations in place. I'd like to know or I'd like to encourage the officers where possible to look into that and see what we can do to actually promote those that we have in place and what we can do to better that because looking at the volume of electric cars that we now have, and I know that we're encouraging residents to have them on their own houses and especially on our new planning permissions that are being granted, but we're still in a position where we can't be relying on Tesco's for people to go and charge their cars, so that's one point. And then the second one is on transport, and I saw again in Wolfram Abbey, it says that there will be, and it was going back to what Councillor Lyons actually mentioned earlier, with regards to walking and looking here, it says that there was due to be a report for a walking infrastructure plan, published in April 2024. I haven't seen that. I wondered if that was available and where I could find that, and that's all, thank you. Councillor Bassett, if you'd like to come in, please. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. It's a little thing I should declare here. I'm Chairman of Community Transport for Epping Forest and Harlow, but when we're talking about West F6 inclusion project, one of the main things we found in community transport is it's all right having all these things, but if people cannot get there because there is no transport in the rural areas, and we are being asked more and more to fill in the services, shall we say, and I did in fact attend a meeting of community transport for Essex where we discussed how we run things like community transport to the benefit, and I think there's got to be a lot more partnership and working together to, shall we say, get these people that otherwise will be sitting in their homes doing nothing engaged with all these programs, because there's a lot there, but it's getting them there and getting them home afterwards, and it is proving very, very difficult. Thank you for that. Any other? Do you want to come in, Councillor Lyon? Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Just a couple of points on statistics and anything else. On page 13, it's mentioned about Lyons Farm, and it's saying, without the football team, to reduce antisocial behaviour. Have we got any statistics or analysis to say what it was before and what it is now, whether that's improved? And there was also one on the charging point, council operations, on page 16, where we've actually installed quite a few charging points, but do we know the usage of those charging points? Thank you. Who could come back to answer? Nicky, would you like to come back and respond to that point by Councillor Lyon? Yeah, thanks, Chairman. I've made a note, so we'll come back to you with that. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, okay. All good. Councillor Murray, do you want to come in, please? I just wanted an assurance that someone will take on board which services should be attending the hub and the need to regularise their attendance as far as possible. Is someone going to take that on board? Okay. Yeah, thank you. Yes, yes, Councillor Murray, I've made a note, and what I'll do is I'll go back and check with the officers and I'll come back to you. That's fine. Thank you, Chairman. No problem. Yeah, Councillor Lucas would like to come in. Could I just request that the officer, sorry, Nicky Gabriel, could I just request that if possible with their responses, if they could be written responses and included in the next minutes, that would be quite useful for us all, please. Thank you. Thank you, yeah. Sorry, Councillor Whitehouse, keep you waiting, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. My question is about page 16, the climate action plan, climate change action plan. It says that a steering group has been set up to meet every two months of the Clinton Steering Group of officers. I do think it's really important the members are kept in touch with what is being discussed and planned and happening, so I don't want to clutter up the scrutiny committee with asking for regular reports to come back, but I wondered if every six months we could have a report in the member's bulletin as to what how the action plan is progressing so that members are kept in touch with what is happening. My second question is page 17, which is about the home upgrade grant phase two. It says this is for private residents who have houses that are hard to heat. This scheme goes on until March 25. I just wonder how people who are eligible are actually hearing about this. Thank you, yeah. Yeah, Councillor Whitehouse, the progress against climate change action plan is actually coming into scrutiny panel, communities or place, can't remember which actually off the top of my head, but you'll see that later in the work programme, I think. But absolutely noted, I've made a note to put some regular updates within the member bulletin as well. And sorry, could you just repeat what page you were looking at for the? It's page 17, right at the top. It's talking about the home upgrade grant phase. Just wondering how people know about it. I'm going to have to come back to you on that, so I'll get an officer to respond and put it in the minutes. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other questions relating to that from the committee? Shall we, we can move on to item 11, which is the... Chair. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, Councillor Cairn, I didn't mean to exclude you. Sorry. Yeah. That's okay. No worries. Apologies, can't be at the chair. So a question just on page 19, just around plan. So objective three, it's the bottom of page 19. So 76% of all non household repeal decisions against the Caltrans refusal have been dismissed on appeal. Does that then necessarily entail that the remainder were granted or is there an element of that number that await a decision? And is that number different to the second piece of data there that says obviously central government mandated performance major planning application decisions requires no more than 10% of appeals being allowed. So the council are under the 10% target, that threshold. Is that target different to the non household repeal decisions? It's just a little bit confusing for me that there's two possibly different data sets being articulated in the same box. So that could just be clarified for the place. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Good. Thank you, Chairman. Yeah, Councillor McCann. I'm going to take that question back, I think, to Nigel Richardson and come back with a full response. I don't want to give you the wrong information here. So I'll do that for you and we'll include that within the minutes. Okay. Thank you. Okay, then. Yep, let's move on to item 11, which is the budget monitoring quarter for provisional out to 2023 2024. And that that report starts on page, page 20, page 23. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Okay. So Chris, you're going to present that report for us. So thank you for that. Thank you, Chair. And good evening, members. Item 11, which appears on pages 23 to 48 of your agenda this evening, then this sets out the quarter for provisional out term position for 23 24. I say provisional, but I'm pleased to confirm that there were in actual fact, no further amendments to the position prior to the publication of the statement of accounts on the 28th of May. So this report was produced before then. So that means basically that it does represent the out term for the financial year subject to external audit, of course. So onto the detail then, if you'll forgive the football cliche for a moment, the financial year was definitely a classic tale of two halves. Of course, in quarters one and two, we reported to this committee a forecast overspends of well in excess of 1 million pounds. However, the position brightened considerably in December with the Google capital receipt for the land disposal at Northfield airfield. And this immediately gave us funds to invest as well as providing an opportunity to repay some short term loans without recourse to replacement borrowing. So the net impact to that was immediate. And with a forecast surplus approaching 600,000 reported to this committee at the quarter three stage. And I'm pleased to report further strengthened in quarter four to actually become an out turn of 918,000 surplus. This provided the council with a significant opportunity to replenish the general fund reserve back up to its minimum adopted contingency balance of 4 million pounds. It also allowed us to create a capital investment risk reserve of 1 million pounds. And also we were able to deliver on the council's commitment to create a transformation revenue reserve available for 24, 25 as part of the Fit for the Future programme, which ended the year with a balance of 808,000, which was again, marginally better than what we'd envisaged when we set the budget. So again, good news. As with any financial year, of course, there were many ups and downs, many thousands of transactions that the council undertakes each year. And therefore the significant general fund revenue variances are highlighted on pages 26 and 27 of the report. This section covers a significant shortfall on planning applications income in the year, 965,000. Members should note that most of this shortfall was actually addressed in developing the 24, 25 budget, which included a much lower or more prudent expectation for income from planning applications in 24, 25. So there was a 600,000 pound adjustment that went through there, which we should reap the benefits of in 24, 25. So I hope to come back to you at the quarter one stage and report a much brighter position on planning applications. Famous last words, of course, but hopefully that'll be the case. Just to finish off then, the report also covers the HRA and capital out turns for the council for the year, the HRA housing revenue account, which is summarised on page 32, also recorded a surplus 200,000 in this instance, which has helped maintain a healthy balance of 4.8 million on the HRA reserve. Members may recall that we have a minimum target balance of 2 million there, so that's more than double the target minimum balance. There was also some slippage on both the general fund and the HRA capital programs as presented on pages 35 to 38 of the report. The unspent funds will be rolled forward into 24, 25 to ensure the completion of the underlying capital schemes. Most notable perhaps is a new epic leisure centre, which is a scheme that is now beginning to really gather pace following the completion of the cottage yard multi-storey car park. So I'll stop there, but as always, chair, I'm happy to take questions. Thank you. Councillor Bassett. Thank you. Yeah, reading on hold, I think it's on the good side, shall we say. A couple of questions though. On page 26, customer service is overspent. This was all to do with housing benefit overpayments for various reasons. And some of this was because of the Department for Work and Pensions, how the accuracy and how it was calculated. Have we got that money back or do we have to write it off? And if it has cost us, can we reclaim some of it against DWP? Right. I think he's first to emphasise that no money's been lost here. It's a tale about budget assumptions. So when the council raises a housing benefit overpayment, which is routine, all councils do it, there's a credit budget that's actually embedded in a budget. And at that time, they also reassess the cases for entitlement. So some of that credit is offset by a debit. Sorry, this is complicated, so I'll do my best to explain it. But it's offset by a debit because the person, you know, the benefit recipient, if you like, becomes entitled to partial, shall I say, partial entitlement to the overall claim. So that reduces the claim. Now, historically, the council has operated this system. It's highly complex and it's difficult to forecast. So you may recall at the end of '22, '23, we also had an overspend on there. And that was because the debit budget wasn't in place at that point in time. However, at the point in time it was discovered, the budget for '23, '24 had already been set, so there was nothing that could be done about it in '23, '24 in effect. So had to sort of take it on the chin and build it into the '24, '25 budget. So that's half the story on the debit side, but also on the credit side. Again, there's been some significant volatility there this year that wasn't foreseen. So the actual number of credits that went through in the year, the number of cases, housing benefit payments that were overpayments, shall I say, that were raised in the year was lower than previous years, and that wasn't foreseen. So it's a double whammy, if you like. Half the problem's been fixed for '24, '25, but I've got to be honest and say that probably, although I can't be sure, that we might have a hopefully smaller but a further budget pressure in '24, '25. Yes, certainly. Thank you. The other one's on page 31, where you look at the movement in general fund earmark reserves. In the other reserves section, we have a few items there which we have money and we haven't spent. No income, no expenditure, and the money's there. And I'm wondering what we're actually doing about them. Are we just leaving there? Things like we've got North field Inland Port, which was where we used to have the nice lorries come in ready during the pandemic. And there was 617, another 100 in, and then 482 out. But I thought that had been stopped a long time ago. I couldn't. My colleague, Andrew Small, knows more about this than me, but rest assured that that is one of the reserves that is quite active, actually. So it is being spent gradually. Yes, I think that reserve's been particularly useful around some of the Google sale transaction to pay for fees associated with legal rights and access and so on. So we've been using it gradually for that. There's a small balance on it, but I think that's also going to be used in the early part of this financial year, just with some issues around that transaction. So it's actually currently sort of a catchall fund for everything that happens at Northfield rather than, should say, Inland Port. It's not actually Inland Port. Thank you, Chairman. Just a couple of points. Page 30, Transformation Revenue Reserve. What is that aimed at? Is that just a pot of money that can be used, or is it aimed at anything else? And the second question was the prosperity fund. That seems to be under spent. Is that allocated or is that surplus this year? Thank you, Chairman. If I come back on the first one, I'll leave the second one to Chris. But obviously, the Fit for the Future Transformation Fund is very much there for carrying out a number of issues that we're dealing with. Some of it will be spent on technology. There's a whole range of issues that we'll have to address over the coming year. And of course, as Councillor Murray quite rightly said earlier on, you'll be scrutinising me. Or actually, more correctly, scrutinising one of the cabinet members. Just to sweep up on the prosperity fund, I take it you're referring to the table in paragraph 3.6. It opened the year with a balance of 33 and closed with 34, but in between, income and expenditure virtually matched each other. So we received 120 and spent 119. So it's been very active. Thank you. Andrew, did you want to respond? No? Councillor Bassett, please come back. Sorry, I'm a painful person. Hear me again. Can you tell me what commuted sums actually is? Because we've got 605,000 there and money's gone out of it, but I don't know what it is. I couldn't give you a detailed definition, but this is basically quite historic sums of money that the Council's received back in the day, shall we say, for taking on certain bits and bobs, parcels of land and things like that. So what's happened is that that money was held in the reserve to maintain those various things. And over the years, the actual maintenance of those things has been swept up in the Council's wider budgets. So if you think about grounds maintenance, for example, we now got the grounds maintenance contract and it would take care of those various odds and ends, if you like, pieces of land, et cetera. So the reserve in question had become dormant, if you like, and surplus to requirements. So it was returned to the General Fund Reserve. So I couldn't give you the detail off the top of my head, but it is something that I inherited. It was here long before I arrived. Well, all I can say is some of these, they are obviously catch-alls, but they don't actually explain and we see large sums of money going in and out of them. It will be useful if we actually knew what was included. And if they're misnamed, please can we rename them? No, I accept the point really. I think as Mr Harker said, some of these are historic really and have fallen into disuse really, but we ought to periodically review the balance on the reserves and make sure that they're adequate and held for a specific purpose. So a review will be undertaken to make sure that the reserves are either consolidated, amalgamated or kind of returned to General Fund if they're not required. Thank you for that. Yes, Councillor Whiskin, would you like to come back to your question? Just a comment on page 24 about the shortfall on planning applications, presumably it's the income which has fallen short. Given that the, it's noted that the fees have gone up by 35%, has that been some sort of disincentive for planning applications? But secondly, given that there's quite likely to be substantial pressure on the planning department with the upcoming review and outcome of the PAS report, it will put significant pressure on the staffing and manning of the planning department, of which having read the report, we'll be putting a lot more emphasis on the professional officers rather than the elected members. Any comment on that? Thank you. Councillor Williamson, would you like to respond to that, please? Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councillor, for your question. This is a historic problem that we can't judge which planning applications come in, and with the change in the investment current conditions, people aren't doing as much as they were. Bless you. The increase only came in recently, so it had little effect on the figures, but it is in the budget. So going forward, a lot of the local plan sites will be coming in as well, so the position will improve greatly. We've been aware of this for a couple of years. We've been working at it, and this is where the PAS report really starts to bite on sorting out our planning overspend. It's a work in progress. Budgets are budgets, and, you know, things come along and change those, but I'm confident that with what we know now, maybe in six months' time it might be different, but what we know now, we're on a good trajectory to sort this out. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Whiskin, did you wish to respond to that at all? Okay. Thank you. I think Councillor McCann has a question. Would you like to come in? Thank you very much, Jim. I don't propose this is going to be answered in this meeting. It's quite a detailed question, but at page 33, section 4.3, the first of the bullet points there, repairs and maintenance, £2 million overspends. I was particularly drawn to the sentence where it says, Most notably, the cost of the board repair significantly increased, mainly due to the rise in major repair works, including garden rubbish clearances conducted on several properties. So £1.145 million of taxpayers' money. So it's just a commitment, really, to say that I will be following up after this meeting. I think it's something that sits within the purview of the community scrutiny meeting. Indeed, I've picked up a comment previously on a Saturday committee. So I will be contacting both Councillor Lucas as the chair of the community scrutiny committee and the portfolio lead for housing and the relevant officers to get a little more detail as to what's driving over a million pounds of money, taxpayers' money, repairing our council stock and to really get some assurance that we're pursuing individuals that need to be able to account for damaging housing stock and pursuing all criminal, civil opportunities, civil prosecution opportunities, really. So it's just a point that I'd like to raise. I don't propose it's going to be answered at all, but it's something I'll be exploring further. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor McCann. Thank you, Chair. Just to respond in part, I think, Councillor McCann, it's HRA money, so it's tenants' money as opposed to being part of the general fund. There is a piece of work going on at the moment actually in housing looking at the specification for void works, and we are changing the service level agreement for the way we work with Qualis on voids to make that more efficient and cost-effective. And we're hopeful that that change will take place in September. And that will absolutely go back to the community scrutiny committee as they wish. So, yes, we can absolutely do that, but just wanted to give some comfort around the fact that it is being looked at by officers at the moment and we are putting a new sort of charging regime in place as a result. Thank you very much. Councillor Murray. Yeah, I must respond to that. The office is absolutely right. I just get really frustrated with people who think council housing is funded through the council tax. I would expect members of the public to tell me that, and they do on a regular basis, but I wouldn't expect fellow councillors to come up with that. And I understand it was a genuine mistake. The HRA is ring fenced. It is a completely separate account from the council tax. So let's make that absolutely clear. The issue the member raises is important and we've had an assurance, but can I just say, and this is more controversial and the leader and former housing portfolio holder might disagree with me, but can I assure the member where we have any discretion about whether something is an HRA charge or a council tax charge, I have found over many years this council always exercises that discretion in favour of the council taxpayer rather than the council tenants, much against my wishes, but in the small areas where there is some discretion and it's not very much because it's laid out in law and the experts will be able to tell me, but in the very small number of areas where we do have some discretion, this council has always used it against the council tenant and in favour of the council taxpayer. Thank you. Councillor Bassett, would you like to come back, please? Just on that, one of the things I should say, and I had a meeting on this yesterday, is when there is a void, decisions are made as to whether to do upgrades to the property because we've got this programme of new kitchens, new bathrooms, bringing them up to modern home standards. Now, obviously, that would not normally be within a void cost, but we take the opportunity as the place is empty and we can get access to bring it up and consequently that's more expensive in the short term but saves money than having to wait until someone's in there and trying to replace a kitchen as I'm sure you've done at home, it's total chaos breaks out. Thank you. Councillor Cairns, do you want to respond to that? Yeah, I think just taking Councillor Murray's point, wasted money is wasted money. When we look at the costs here around repair, major repair work, this isn't a case of repairing a kitchen, this is a case of major repair work and it's come up in a previous meeting. So I don't really care where the money comes from, I think we can all think of better things that we can spend over £1 million on in terms of services to the public. So I will be picking this up and I will be pursuing this further. Just to reiterate that point, I'd like to think that we'd all be expecting that we'd be pursuing all means to make sure that any money is spent wisely and not wasted. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Whitman. Thank you, Chairman and Chairman, we always take good value for money as an important priority as a council and it doesn't matter whether it's from the HRA or from the general fund, good value for money, best value is something that always drives a good council forward. And of course we will review anything where we think there's something we can do better or differently. We've always done that and over many years, even when I used to sit on the old housing committee back in the day, I know Councillor Murray when he chaired it was religiously hard on making sure we got good value for money and I know that's the case now from the previous portfolio holder and the new portfolio holder, we will all be driving for that. And we should also remember that council tenants are council taxpayers too. They all deserve the same level of respect and we want to make sure their pound goes as far as possible. Councillor Lee. Thank you, Chairman. I've got a question because I was in the army and travelled around as an army wife and if a person did damage to their place, and I'll give an example, a certain man cut holes all through his skirting boards all around the house for a train set. So every room had a train, but I mean that's alright but if you go to move in there and you've got all these holes everywhere it's not very nice. But that person then had to pay for that to be repaired. Now I know by where I go around there are certain people and I don't mean all people because most council tenants are brilliant and respect and look after their place but not everyone does. Now if they've caused damage are we then having to pay to repair it or are they made to repair it because sometimes it's deliberate damage. So I'd like to know who pays that. Thank you. Jen, would you like to come back on that? Thank you for that, Councillor Lee. Thank you, Chairman. Yes, so Councillor Lee, we have a system in place where somebody moves out of their council house, we do a pre void inspection while they're still there and we have a look at the property and we tell them what is their responsibility to make good. So we do that before they move out. If at the time they move out and they haven't done it, we will absolutely pursue a recharge if we know where they've gone, which most times we do. And certainly if they're transferring to another property then we're much more able to get that money back. So we do have that system in place. That's not to say, however, that we recover 100% of the costs because we don't but we do put a lot of time and effort into doing that and the pre void inspections are a really important part of that. Councillor Whitford. Yeah, thank you, Chairman. And Jen has just made a really good point about driving for value for money and making sure that people do the right thing. And I think Councillor Lee also makes a good point about what people do sometimes, but it's their home. I think you have to remember that at the same time. However, if Councillor Bedford was here this evening, I know he would be picking up on responsibility that people have when they've got a council home to look after it. And they do, you know, 99% of people really care about their home and do their best. However, it's really important that people respect their tendency and respect the opportunity that they have, but that's just a general aside. And I know as a council and I know the housing team do their best to make sure that happens and it needs to be picked up on when it's not happening. Thank you for that. Okay, Councillor Bassett. Sorry, I've definitely read the report. This one's going to page 40 about sundry debt. Top of page 40 there in the table, one of the things I've picked up, average age of outstanding sundry debt in days, 1,576 days. That's over four years. Yeah, not good. And yeah, I'll not dress that one up. The council has got the sundry debts function has got quite a lot of old outstanding debt, which is distorting the figure. I think it's probably worth emphasising that the over, you know, the bulk of the items, the day-to-day stuff is far more up to date than that. But the figures are skewed at the moment. And part of the reason is the legacy of the, there was a change in system a few years back and there's some old credits that are distorting things in the system. So the team are working on that now and expected to complete that work. They've got a target to basically cleanse the data by the 30th of June, which will help see the wood from the trees. But, but rest assured it, things are improving there, but it's accepted that progress has been a little bit slower and we would have liked so far. I don't know if Mr. Small wants to comment on that at all. Okay. Yeah, thank you. Thank you chair. Yes. I mean, as Mr. Hargreaves said, I think, you know, it's, it's definitely a focus for us really. It's not good enough. And it's an area where we need to see improvement if I'm honest with you. But one of the things we should recognise is, is things like housing benefit over payment recovery, for example, that then you will have very small amounts of repayment over very long periods of time because the people in the circumstances mean that we can't recover a large amount or the debt quickly. So the average to the debt stays outstanding for many years with small amounts of recovery in each individual year. And that elongates the average recovery period, if I'm honest with you, for our debt profile. But there are also amounts that probably need to be written off, having passed the point where they can reasonably be recovered. And again, we need to, we've, we've, we undertook a bit of an exercise last year to review some of that aged debt and wrote off those debts that we thought, you know, were recognised, we weren't actively going to recover any more. But there's still more to do in that space. And so we'll be going through that again this year to, to kind of shorten the average age of outstanding debt as a consequence. Thank you. Are there any more comments, questions from the committee? No, doesn't appear to be. Okay. And we can move on to the next item in the agenda, which is, oh yeah, sorry, yeah, just before I do that, can we just move on to the, the, draw attention to the, the issue of single, single issue. Okay. We go to agenda item 12, which is on page 49. And is it for noting here? Yeah, just for noting that on page 50, 50, 51, sorry, 52, 52, on page 52, the first two items, C1 and C2 are for community scrutiny only, and this will not go to cabinet. So that, that is for noting. Okay. Most certainly, yeah. Can I bring up the proposed single dedicated security meetings? Again, with community transport, item D, sustainable transport issues as liaised with key partners, which is TFL S6 county council to consider issues pertaining to transport across the district, then bus services should be in amongst that because that is rural transport and the problems. Yes, we can certainly add that in. Thank you for that, Councillor Jackson. Councillor Murray. Yes, I, I understand this, if this is from noting, though by noting, we're agreeing the programme of work for the committee for the year. I would like to think if we wanted to make changes, we could. I'm not saying we should. So I think it's more than just noting. I just wanted to say a couple of things on the main committee. I think what we're doing is right. And it kind of mirrors what we did last year. We've got quite a few new members on O&S tonight. When I say new members, I mean new members to the council. I think I can count at least five. A really important set of meetings is when we meet jointly with the finance people and go through the budget. And I think the leader would agree that the scrutiny process, particularly last year, the year that's just finished was particularly strong and actually helped to produce a budget that was not only better, but one that we could all agree on. I do think it's really important and though I accept what Councillor Bassan just said, I do think that in terms of sustainable transport issues, one of our key parts there must be to try and get TfL. The leader mentioned this at the annual meeting. I think we all, and I know Councillor Kaufman senior, if you don't mind me saying that will, mentioned it from the heart at the annual meeting as well. So I really do think we need to bring TfL along. And then just one thing I wanted to clarify, partly because I'm really interested in it. And secondly, I'm actually on communities. Are you saying there's information C1 and C2 are going to communities, but they're not actually going to cabinet? Is that what you, is that what you said from the chair? So I'm referring to page 52, C1 and C2, are you saying that it's just going to communities and it doesn't actually go to cabinet?

• Councillor Murray, yeah, that is correct. Yeah. What are you saying? Thank you.
• Yeah, particularly looking at page 51, the sustainable transport issues. I was more concerned about the, and I think this is what Councillor Murray was talking about, was the performance and service of TfL with trains on the central line. Looking at some of the publicity material, they were supposed to have refurbished trains ready for December 23. And we still haven't seen any. And the number, the amount of rolling stock is being reduced because of failures of the motors. I know we don't normally scrutinise external organisations, but we need someone to come and talk to us because I'm getting residents talking to me on a regular basis about performance of the central line, particularly on the Hainault loop. And I think that was something that's been mentioned by Councillor Coughlin as well. So I think this is a major issue and I think it needs to be brought out separately that we need to have a look at that and find out what we can do, what TfL can do to support us. And I know because we are Essex and we don't vote for the mayor, there's an issue there as well, but we need to look at that. Yeah, thank you. I think this was brought up at cabinet and has been mentioned to me that we do want to bring TfL in for a discrete and dedicated overview and scrutiny meeting. And I think that is something at which definitely have a strong intention to do that. And I think that is, we are in the process of trying to summon TfL. Yes, absolutely. We are making moves to invite TfL in. We obviously can't oblige them to attend, but we are making contact to invite them in for a dedicated session. I have seen some correspondence between Eleanor Lang, the MP, and TfL. She wrote to them on behalf of Epping Forest and got a reply back from one of Sadiq Khan's TfL people, so he didn't reply, but it was raising that issue. And I think it is a significant issue we do need to address urgently, sooner rather than later. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for that. Councillor Lee. Thank you, Chairman. Yes, I have a question. It might sound stupid, but TfL, does that cover the buses, or is that just the tube? Because we need someone to come, if we are getting someone, they need to discuss things. Because the buses used to come through from Chingford all the way down through Waltham Abbey to Waltham Cross that you could get on a bus. They now stop in Chingford and start again in Waltham Cross. So none of those buses now that always came through Waltham Abbey do not come through any more. And it appeared I think when we changed from coming from the Metropolitan Police area that we went into Essex. Now surely that is something we should be fighting for, because we hardly have any buses in Waltham Abbey at all. Thank you, Councillor Lee. Thank you, Chair. When we talked about the work programme, we were very aware that the ask was not just around TfL, but around buses and other sustainable transport as well, which is why you will see that on the work programme as it is at the moment. So it says about sustainable transport issues and is sort of all encompassing. So that was in there. But we can certainly go back and have another conversation about whether we do, we invite different partners in to address that issue in one single meeting, or whether you want a separate issue for TfL, and then as a single item agenda, and then another meeting for sort of all other sustainable transport issues. So we can have that conversation with the Chair and the Vice Chair, and come back to committee with that. Thank you. I think so. Councillor Whitehouse. Thank you. Chairwoman, when we used to have external people come down before, they usually had about an hour, hour and a half of the meeting, and then we did other items as well. You know, we have quite a lot of things that ought to be coming to scrutiny, so I'm quite interested in this idea of a single topic. It seems to me that, you know, there are the two issues as the performance of the central line, but in the wider sustainable transport. And I think we really need to address both in one meeting. We can't afford to have two meetings on this topic. There's so many other things to talk about. So we just have to carefully structure this meeting so that we do both. Yeah. I quite agree. I'm sure there will be a wider remit than purely talking about the central line. We want to talk about all the TfL's services. Yeah. Do you want to come in? Councillor Lucas, please. Thank you, Chairman. I was just going to make a couple of brief comments on the work programme for all of the scrutiny committees. So when we looked at last week, I met with the chairman of ONS and vice-chairman of ONS and also myself and Joseph Parsons and vice-chairmans as well. And we looked in detail at this and the officers had addressed some of the issues to kind of balance this out so that the place and communities are going to be having a similar amount of meetings and covering a similar amount of topics. So hopefully members are okay with what's been put forward. And the other thing that I was just going to mention was, I know previously, earlier in the meeting we mentioned Qolis and there's a couple of mentions of Qolis that overview and scrutiny. So it's something that we need to be definitely mindful of and making sure that they are coming in at the right times and we are keeping an eye on that. And then the other thing that I, the last thing that I was just going to mention as well was the, sorry, one second. I think it was just when we were talking about the, again, I think it's already been covered, but the TFL, sustainable transport, I just had a note on that, but I think that's already been covered as well. But thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other comments on that item, that agenda? No? Okay. So we can move on in that case to item 13. Any comments on the forward plan, cabinet business and that's task page 56. Yes, sorry, Councillor Bassan. Sorry, just I've observed that the names of the portfolio holders happened to be all wrong and the portfolios have changed as well. Yeah. So it's a bit out of date. Yeah, I also made the same observation, some others made that observation, but if Laura could come. The forward plan is produced as part of the cabinet process. As you're aware, it's about key decisions so they can use. If you look on the bottom of that forward plan, it's actually dated the 29th of April and it's one of those things where we have to produce agenda. So there was a little election in between and a new cabinet who are here tonight. So I wouldn't dream of saying that, but I think the thing is there will be a new forward plan actually is available for you to look at now. But when the agenda was produced, it was the latest forward plan that was published. So that will be addressed in due course. Yep. Councillor. Yeah. Thank you chairman. Yes, indeed. Councillor Bassett is it is my fault. The cabinet has changed in its structure quite considerably since this report was done. And obviously as a result of the election back in May, and I know Councillor Murray did raise this at cabinet the other day, the full list things of the cabinet and its roles will be forthcoming. It's with Mr. Woodall at the moment waiting for the report to be formalised and then everyone will have a copy of it, but it is different. There are different people there now, as you quite rightly said, and it will all be sorted in the next few days. Thank you for that. Thank you. Councillor Murray. That was one of the points I wanted to make under this item. I think it's essential that we get that as soon as possible. It's really important for cabinet members, I would have thought, and really important for scrutiny members that we know exactly which cabinet member is responsible for what issue. So we want that sooner rather than later. Secondly, I would just politely say that I've noticed that we haven't got a full attendance from cabinet tonight. I'm sure there's good reasons, but I'm sure the leader will do his best to ensure full attendance for future O&S meetings. As this is the last time I'm going to speak tonight, Chairman, can I thank you for how you've chaired the meeting tonight, because I think it is always difficult, your first one. I then have got a precise question, please, and this may be delayed because of something happening on July the 4th, and I understand that, but we've got a timetable for the review of polling districts as regards to new boundary review. Can I just make the point, and I've made it before, but I think it's worth making again, unless I've misunderstood the process, but I don't think I have. Polling districts are really important, because a polling district, unless there's exceptional circumstances, votes at one polling station. That's why it's called a polling district. In terms of road networks and what's difficult to cross and so on, I think local knowledge that only members can have, really, rather than officers, it's absolutely essential that there's some member involvement in drawing up these provisional polling districts. Otherwise, I think we're going to be presented with a report that might have lots of failings. Because the nature of the district walls have changed substantially, I don't think it's just a question of updating the polling districts. This has got to be a thorough review, and I just believe very strongly on this one that it can only be local members that kind of really understand what polling districts work and what polling districts don't. It's another plea for substantial member involvement in that, in the initial recommendations. Thank you, Chairman. I won't take the blame for the election. I would assume that we will have a proper review post-election. It's not going to happen before then. I've got to pay tribute to our election staff who are working extremely hard, bouncing off the local elections, all-out local elections, police and crime commissioner and parish and town council elections at the same time, and now they've got a general election to deal with. It's a really important thing that we need to do, and there's always lessons to be learned post-elections as well. We did very well, I thought, in May. I think the team did brilliantly, but there are lessons to be learned, as there will be lessons to learn around polling stations and everything else. But I'm sure we'll have a proper wash-up when we get through July 4 and look forward from there. Thank you for that. Are there any other comments from the committee at all? Anyone else would like to pose a question? Yes, just on the forward plan, local government LGA peer review, could the leader say anything about that? We were due one before the pandemic. We do need to get one done. Even the county councils had their peer review delayed because of a certain event on July 4, but it's something that's going to be coming forward. We do need it, and it's a really healthy thing to do. As we know, the government, looking very closely at local government, we need to make sure that we're as fit and ready for action as possible. I'm sure there will be lessons to be learned when we have a peer review. You'd hope there would be, at least, because no one is perfect. Chairman, is this as we had one before, where they changed the structure of the council, or is this a different sort of review? It's different. It's looking at how you provide services, what you do, how you do it. It can be led by finance, it can be led by a whole range of different issues, but it's really important to get that peer review done. Anyone who takes part in a peer review knows how they can really help you to learn a lot about your organisation. Thank you, leader. Does anyone else want to make any further comments about the forward plan? Okay. Then I can go to item 14, which is exclusion of public and press, but we don't want to do that. I thank members for their input. I close the meeting at 8.45. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]