Transcript

We'll take the ones that we haven't said to you. That's probably a license I'm going to be honest. Welcome, everybody, to this meeting of the Partnership Council. Partnership Cabinet on the 24th of April, 2024. My name is Councillor Simon Riner, and I'll be chairing this meeting. This meeting is being held in person at York House Windsor and via Zoom being streamed live to the public on YouTube. I remind all attendees in the meeting that participation indicates consent to the audio and video being streamed live and acknowledgement after the meeting it will continue to be available in the public domain. Firstly, I think it'll be useful if all the Cabinet members could introduce themselves. Beginning with me, I'm Simon Riner, I'm the Leader of the Council. Good evening, I'm Councillor Lin-Jones, Deputy Leader of the Council and Lead Member for Finance, thank you. Councillor Ritchie Coe, Lead Member for Household and Regulatory Services. Councillor Amy Teasy, Lead Member for Children's Services, Education and Windsor. Sorry, I'll repeat that. Sorry, Councillor Amy Teasy, Lead Member for Children's Services, Education and Windsor. I'm told that the microphones are on maximum volume, so. We're just bringing them closer when you sneak. I'm feeling the pressure now. Councillor Karen Deavere, Sleep Member for Climate Change, Biodiversity and Windertown Council. Good evening, I'm Councillor Adam Burman, I'm Lead Member for Planning, Legal and Asset Management. I'm Councillor Catherine Del Campo, Lead Member for Adults, Health and Housing Services. Good evening, Councillor Joshua Reynolds, Lead Member for Communities and Measure. Thank you very much for all Councillors and officers who have not introduced themselves. Once I've invited you to speak before you do so, please state your name and the capacity in which you're speaking if appropriate. Now we've got four public speakers tonight registered for this evening's meeting, all speaking on the No Hello Theatre sale of property item, the Lead Petitioner suggested that I have him for two minutes, then the three speakers, Jenny Jackson, Peter Harris and Jane Richardson, and then Adam will come back with three minutes, which I'm fine with. So we'll now start on the agenda items, do we have any apologies for absence? Yes, Chair, apologies from Councillor Hill. Okay, and any declarations of interest? No, minutes, is everybody happy with the minutes? I presume we've all read those. Great, excellent, have we got any appointments? And what are the changes to the forward plan? So two changes, so the School Transport Policy 2024/25 was scheduled for the second of October, has now been brought forward to the 22nd of May, as the item is actually ready to go now. The Adult Social Care Re-Alignment is a new item for the 22nd of May meeting. Okay, thank you very much, anything from the cabinet on the forward plan? No, okay, Councillor Price. It's Councillor Helen Price, who are in Deadworth East. On the new item, Adult Social Care Re-Alignment, could we have a brief explanation what that is, because the, if it's the over-inscrutiny panel would probably want to know a little bit, just there isn't anything, I have no idea what it means. Councillor? Thank you, Chair. Yes, this is something we've been talking about for a while, which is the insourcing of the statutory element of the work done by Optilis, but we'll make sure a paragraph is written up and added to the forward plan. Thank you. Thank you. And then on the existing plan, with the bus service improvements, there was a consultation, which is now about four months ago, but we still haven't had any results of that consultation, so residents are unaware of what are the results of that consultation on the bus, so will that be coming out shortly? Unfortunately, we haven't got Jeff here, but I'm sure he'll be able to give you an answer in writing. Right, thank you. Okay, so now we'll move on to the first item, we've got the Nogbello Theatre Sound and Property. I'm going to bring in Elaine, who has some recent information. Hi, this is just to confirm that the Council has made the decision to list the Nogbello Theatre as an asset of community value. The interested parties, if they haven't already, they will receive notification from my colleague in legal services. Thank you very much, Elaine. And now, Adam, would you like to introduce the item? Yes, thank you, Chair. I'm pleased to propose the recommendation in this report, which I believe offers the best way forward for the Nogbello Theatre, seeking the successful sale of the theatre, while supporting the opportunity to see this venue retained for continued community use. The Nogbello Theatre in Sunny Hill High Street was built in around 1910, and for much of its life was an independent picture house cinema. However, since the late 1980s, after films were no longer screened there, it continued as a theatre venue. The Council and its predecessor have owned the property since 1966. The property was rented to an individual tenant in 2003 on a full repairing and ensuring basis for a 20-year period. For much of that time, the tenant's use of the property was for staging theatrical productions, although, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic led to an abrupt halt of this use. Prior to the conclusion of the lease term in July 2023, the Council negotiated a settlement in relation to the rent arrears and general state of repair and took possession of the property. However, it was identified that the Council would have to incur significant costs like the in the region of at least £100,000 to ensure the property could be brought back up to a modern relatable standard. Therefore, the recommendation is that the property is sold and no longer forms part of the Council's assets portfolio. Given the strong feeling in the community, and we can see that in evidence this evening, including, of course, the largely subscribed petition which was seeking to keep the venue as a community asset, this recommendation tonight proposes to make the property for the sale for a community-related use that could support a wide range of local community user groups in the Sunning Hill and Ascot area. The marketing of the sale only to community uses would be for a minimum of a six-month period to enable interested parties to come forward with proposals and fundraise during the dedicated window. I believe that there has been a very constructive engagement between the Council and local campaigners to date, and it's genuinely great to see how much passion there is out there for the Novello and how much this has captured the imagination of the local community. However, whilst we are very keen to ensure there is a long-term benefit to the local community in Sunning Hill, it is essential that we also are also conscious of our wider responsibilities to the public as custodians of this asset, and the fact that we have a duty under Section 123 of the Local Government Act, 1972, to ensure that any sale is for a consideration no less than that of best value that can be reasonably obtained. To quantify this, the Council has sought an independent valuation advice based on the assumption that the property remains in community use by an organisation owning and occupying the venue. The valuation on this basis is £300,000, and therefore, to demonstrate best value, it is incumbent upon the Council to seek to achieve this level of return. The valuation was conducted in late February 2024 and was conducted in accordance with the Royal Institute of Trust Surveyor's valuation, Global Standards 2022 together with the UK national supplement to that. Now, I appreciate that there are questions regarding this valuation. From studying the reporting detail myself, I'm confident that whilst the instruction has been made on a special assumption as a general community asset, it is clear that the narrative from the narrative that the valuer is aware of the planning constraints of the theatre as a standalone sewer generous use class, and is also aware of the physical constraints of the property, in particular the sloping floor, which of course would significantly limit the potential types of community uses. The recommendation does allow, in circumstances, where no community bid, which meets the Council's valuation is received after six months for the property to be marketed more widely. This, of course, won't exclude community groups from making a later bid, but would mean that other bids would also need to be given to consideration. It's worth noting though that the independent valuer also provided evaluation on the assumption that the theatre is sold for mixed use redevelopment, and the result was a value only £25,000 higher than the community use valuation. To conclude, I believe that on balance, this recommendation is the best way forward. The Council is not in a financial position itself to bring the Novello theatre back into something that can really add value and bring benefits to the local community. However, this proposal will give a bona fide opportunity for community organisations to make this venue one that the whole of Sunny Hill can be proud of whilst acknowledging, of course, the Council's wider legal obligations to seek best value on asset disposals. I commend this report to Cabinet. Thank you very much Adam. Thank you very much Adam. Are that called Alan Everett, who's the lead petitioner, who's going to speak for two minutes? Thank you, Councillors. I'm Alan Everett and coordinator of the Save the Novello campaign. When I first heard about the Novello theatre coming to the end of its lease to red roofs, I was overjoyed. As for many years, we'd been trying to perform there as indeed I had done 33 years before. The end of the COVID lockdown happened and we still found we couldn't gain access to spite requests, and then we saw that red roofs held another show there as recently as December 2022. After that, further inquiries were made to the borough about the availability and the lease, but still no answer came to us from any Councillor until in November last year we heard that the theatre had reverted to the borough, but they weren't offering it out to anyone in the community. We reiterated our request to gain access, but still no joy. Imagine they might surprise when in January I explained to an aspirate borough Councillor our dilemma and he said you need to speak to Josh Reynolds, and so our conversation started. With positive conversations and useful dialogue by web text and all other media, they seemed a high level of desire to work with us and to recognise this as a community campaign, not least because we've nearly had 2,000 petitioners, and I've been assured by Josh and by other Lib Den Councillors that community was at the heart of their policies. Further in February we held a public meeting where a huge number of turned up and Councillor Tizzy very kindly made himself known to the 250 odd folk present. What he had to say was really well received and many of us truly believed that the future of the theatre was in safe hands. I'm now going to ask for three people who are actively involved with this to talk to you. Peter Harris, who runs our finance side, Jenny Jackson, who many of you may know, who can help with the legal side of things planning and also Jane Richardson, who has run the courts hall for the last 10 years or more, really successfully and supports our petition. Okay, so Peter, would you like to step up to the microphone? If you can get so. I think you've got three minutes. Yeah. Don't start just yet. No. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to address the cabinet about the future of our much loved but much neglected local theatre. My way of introduction I'm Peter Harris, the Treasurer of the appeal, I'm a Chartered Accountant and I have extensive experience in community and charitable activities. Firstly, I'd like to give you confidence that our business plan for the theatre is realistic and robust and will enable us to bring the theatre back to life for the benefit of our many thriving local dramatic groups. Additionally, working together with the novellas vibrant and successful neighbour, the Court's Hall, we will be able to deploy the combined facilities to enable much greater utilisation of both for other community activities. The detailed knowledge made available to us by the Court's Hall team has helped us build a comprehensive forecast for the day-to-day running costs of the novello. Likewise, their knowledge of activities that have sadly had to be turned down because of lack of capacity coupled with our extensive consultation with local stakeholders has also allowed us to realistically indeed conservatively model the income that can be generated from the two buildings working in partnership. Our minimum income projections come in at £53,000 per annum and our maximum expenditure forecast is £48,000 per annum. This means we expect to generate annual surpluses of at least £5,000. Combined with regular fundraising events, this will give the capacity to make ongoing investment in the building. The highest standards of governance evident at the Court's Hall are proof that the controls and disciplines necessary for sustained successful management can also be embedded into the theatre operations. Of course, the business plan means nothing if we cannot raise the capital to acquire the building and to foot the substantial renovation bill to bring the theatre back to life, a situation that has not been helped by unexplained decisions not to enforce the depedations payments on the previous tenant and to allow the theatre seating and other theatre equipment to be removed, which will impose costs of at least £70,000 on the new owners. We are though confident that we have the capacity and track record to reach our funding target. One minute remaining. Indeed, before we have even kicked off the appeal, we will already secured a cornerstone donation of £100,000. The pace of the renovation will be very much governed by the price we have to pay for the business itself. That is money we will not be able to reinvest to put right the years of neglect that have left the building in its current state of disrepair. We know that a win-win outcome for the Council and the community is there to be had. Remember, the sale of the theatre is not just a capital receipt, but also receives the Council of its liability for repairs to the property. That is why we are asking you tonight to agree the principle of selling the developer back to the community, but to leave the price open for further dialogue informed it necessary by the valuation we are commissioning with the support of the theatre trust, so we can mutually establish a price that the community can afford, its fair value to the borough, and most importantly of all, be assessed as the financial headroom to move at pace to bring the theatre back to life. Thank you for the constructive engagement that we have had today, and for giving me this opportunity to address cabinet on this once in a lifetime opportunity to fill some real gaps in our community offering. I am happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much. I think we have got Jenny Jackson next. Welcome back to the borough. Thank you. I am not used to being this side of my name. As you said, my name is Jenny Jackson, and I am here to address the planning position specifically this evening. So whilst the novella as you have heard has been used as a cinema in the past, it has been continuously used as a theatre for some considerable time, and for that reason is special to many in the local community who have seen productions or performed in them over decades culminating in the last production of Cinderella in December 2022 before the lease was surrendered. It is quite clear from a pending seed to the papers this evening that at paragraph 1.5, the valuation relied upon it is not based on the continuation of the theatre use. Neither is the cost of works needed to continue the theatre use, including replacing the seats reflected in that valuation. Theatres have a specific protection in planning, but theatres trust is the statutory body. Any use of the building other than as a theatre, including any other community use, would require planning permission, but theatres trust would be a statutory consultee in any such planning application. It is clear the valuer was not aware of this or perhaps the writer of the report. Further, the valuation does not consider that the council's own planning policies that protect community uses like this theatre would apply. That does seem poorly joined up given the council is also the planning authority. The paper makes no reference to the general dispensation provided by the Secretary of State to the council's ability to dispose of this asset in less than less obtainable consideration to the local community to promote social wellbeing, having been considered as an option. I wrote to the Chief Executive and the Director last week and asked for a response on this point before the meeting tonight. I have not received one. Now the theatre is an ACV. A community asset transfer mechanism would of course be available if the council wished to consider a voluntary transfer of this asset for continued use as a theatre. To conclude, it's my view that the options section of the report you have before you is if it's remaining. Other options exist which have not been considered and are not set out before you in this paper this evening. The recommended option is based on a valuation for community use, not a theatre use. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much, Jenny and next we have Jane Richardson. Thank you. My name is Jane Richardson and I'm in here as part of the Novello action group but also as the Chair of the Coords Hall which sits next to the Novello and as a local Sunny Hill resident. The Trustees and Management Committee of the Coords are fully behind the Save and Lovello campaign and excited by the opportunities restoring this theatre for the benefit of the local community present. We are encouraged to hear that following the swell of public support for the campaign, the community will have an opportunity to raise the money needed to purchase the theatre. We are delighted that the ACV application for the building to be registered as a theatre has been adopted. The Coords Hall will work in partnership with the Novello to maximise use of both buildings creating a fantastic arts and community hub. The two teams have the wealth of experience in managing a public hall, working with the community theatre, fundraising, finance, marketing and publicity, making us well placed to take on this exciting project. There's been much investment in the Coords Hall to bring it up to date creating a fabulous multifunctional hall. Events include live performance, cinema, gift fairs, private events, fitness classes, public meetings and business training events. However, we currently have no regular space available during the week for one off or regular activities. We have recently had to turn down the rock choir youth group for young people with special needs and two local schools and also the NHS looking for a regular higher space. We have three drama groups currently based at the hall who are between them put on eight productions a year. However, because of the structure of the hall, which has manually assembled raised seating, the hall has to be closed to other users during productions leaving them without space for activities. The changing room space is also limited to one room behind the stage, proving a challenge for groups needing to separate changing space, particularly for children. The no-vellow theatre will not have these challenges. There are a number of rooms behind the stage for changing. The seating will be permanently in place on the raked floor and the cafe bar bar set up are ready to go space for performance. There's very much an appetite for live performance locally. We know that as all of the productions at the hall are well attended as as is the monthly cinema. In fact, the comedy night has already sold over for October has already sold 75% of its tickets. We'd like to put on more events like this and the no-vellow theatre will make this possible. Together we can produce a very program of activities and events for the community to enjoy. Local schools will be given the opportunity to use the theatre for productions and concerts. The headmaster of St Michael's primary school, which is located opposite the novello, has spoken of his excitement at the prospect of being able to give his pupils the opportunity to perform in a proper theatre. It will be wonderful for the young people in building their confidence for the future. This is a fantastic opportunity for the community and I hope that the cabinet will agree and support our campaign. Thank you. Thank you very much. So, have we got any speakers from the? Oh, I'm sorry, you wanted to come back. Thank you. So, moving forward, we want to work with you. We've met many community representatives so far. Lots of interested parties and the response from both parishes, Sunning Hill and Ascot and Sunning Dale, parish councils have been very positive indeed and happy to support us. A great community theatre hub connected to the chords hall which allows us all sorts of performing arts groups to find an audience and allows the chords hall to function more fully given the constraints placed upon it by its current users. Local state schools, St Michael's, Holy Trinity, Cheap Silence and Francis have all expressed a desire to use the novello and fee-paying schools that said they would love to hire the theatre for money. A real win-win as we can subsidise state school activities, we can see that we can really make this work and I feel we have conveyed this well to you and spoken well and you've been well received in those conversations. So, what's happened now? We find ourselves in a bit of an impasse. One minute we hear community is your mantra and then the next we hear that property services have not valued the novello as a theatre but just as a community asset which is different. Their figure is really going to be tough for us and just seems a bit unfair to dig in as a value that is not actually based on fact. I've spoken to six different theatre surveyors and valuars and they say it's really really difficult to value a novello or a theatre like it for more than about £100,000 i.e its commercial value. Our net profit of £5,000 yielding a 5% yield is about £100,000 that's about the best they can come to it. As a building in its current state with no seats, the value is zero. So, where did they get their £300,000 valuation from? I think it's from thin air but we'll have disagree about that happily. But here we are. We have the chance to produce a super community theatre space on a level with Northern Farm in Maidenhead and the fire station in Windsor and we're happy to pay for it and not even expecting it to be subsidised. Just let us pay the right price and we can demonstrate to the community how highly your policy of placing the community first really is. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much, Alan. And here's the cabinet I'd like to speak. Josh. Thank you, Simon. Thank you everyone for speaking. First of all, I'd like to thank Alan for all of his hard work on this and the Saint Novella Theatre campaign over the past few months. As Alan said, we've worked with each other for quite a long time on this and I'm glad that we've been able to work with each other constructively. I think we've been quite frank with each other but, as I said earlier today, I think I've spoken to Alan over the last few months, more than I've spoken to some of my family members. So, I'm really glad we're able to work through and come to the place where we are today. I was at a meeting in Ascot this morning where we discussed community spaces over on this side, over on that side of the borough and I was hearing how community spaces really are in short supply compared to demand and with the courts all next door, the fantastic community assets that that is. However, it is really busy, often booked out and having the Novella as that community asset really would boost the amount of community space in the area and allow more things to happen and that is why I'm really supportive of selling the Novello to the community and I'm really supportive of the Saint Novella Theatre campaign as I've said many times in the past. I think it's really good that we've decided to treat the Novello as an asset of community value even before we received notification that that was being submitted and I think for me that just shows that we do want to work with the community. Having said we're going to give the community the six months to put together that bid before we act to as it were within the asset community value. Obviously there's a process to go through and that's what this process is part of which is where the paper sits. I just want to bring out how encouraged I am by the amount of work meetings put into this and how we've been able to work together over the last few months and I'm really encouraged to hopefully be able to work with the community over the next few months as things move forward. Thank you very much Josiah. I think I saw Julian waving. Do you want to say a few words? Yes, yes I do. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to speak at this meeting. First of all I'd like to thank especially Alan for getting this project to the status that it's gone to. I think he's done sterling work and obviously thank you to everyone in his team as well who supported in a magnificent way. I'd also like to say thank you to the council for getting the ACV sorted out so quickly. I think that is really really useful. This does however raise the issue the central issue that we have here which is the valuation of the asset of the Novello theatre and how much is expected to be paid by the community for this. The ACV classification will certainly change the value and of course the fact that it is a theatre and has been a theatre for many many years would also have an impact on the valuation as you heard from Jenny Jackson who I think we have to acknowledge is an expert in this area. I've lived in something hill for 30 years and the Novello theatre has always been a mystery to me because people have not been able to get access to it on a regular basis except as an audience member for one of the shows that was put on by the Red roofs theatre company. Now I happen not to have been able to get tickets for it because they set out very quickly not unsurprisingly to parents friends and relatives of a little talk to a performing there. So they're like hens to eat those tickets but I was surprised and delighted to see it for the first time earlier on this year and I was surprised because it was actually in quite a reasonable state. It seems to be waterproof and weatherproof and it didn't seem to be leaking too badly but it is highly dilapidated and to get it back into proper use it will need lots and lots of TLC to bring it up to the modern standards required for the range of activities that people have been talking about and you've heard about this evening and it really is important that it's able to get that TLC because everybody in the community wants to ensure that it is brought back to life and is a vibrant part of the community in the years to come. What I do find strange is that the novella theatre was valued in the council's accounts only a couple of years ago at zero. I then saw a valuation of £200,000 with a stated demolition cost of £300,000 which is still there. So the community in effect is saving you that demolition cost, absolutely saving you that demolition cost and thereby putting an asset of community value back into use. So I'm sure everyone here from the community tonight would agree that the value of £300,000 which the council has unfortunately put on that the novella theatre is not one which is a community valuation. It's one that's aimed at it seems extracting the maximum value from a village which is keen to use its assets and preserve the heritage of the village and create a new vibrant asset which has been severely underused and allowed to get into a dilapidated state. So I would suggest, Councillors, that this evening you in fact defer the decision pending clarification on the valuation so that we can get to a realistic value for the novella theatre that the community has to pay. It realises that there will be a price but the valuation that we have in front of us at the moment does not seem like a realistic community value and I'm sure everybody here from the community would agree with that. So I'm really pleased that we've got to the state we're at but I think the requestions and I think people need to take careful action as we roll forward and get to the right answer for the community in Ascot. Thank you. Can I invite John or Genevieve if they want to speak to the meeting? Thank you very much. Okay well as comes price. So general point I want to make is on listening to this and this isn't my area of expertise that there was a dilapidations and repairing lease when it's in the ownership of the council and if I've understood correctly that wasn't enforced and therefore the building is in the state it is so I'd like to know what lessons have been learned from that if something that should have happened didn't happen and if we have assets at the moment that have a similar lease that those are being enforced so we don't end up in a situation of having an asset that has decreased in value when it wasn't our responsibility it was the person we'd rented into. Thank you very much and for the question it's a very personal question. I was absolutely horrified at the failure of the council to actually enforce this dilapidations the lease over the last I don't know 16 years. I think it's a real failing of the council and when when I found out about it I immediately ordered a full review of all the assets to make sure there's no other assets that the council owns that have been so acknowledged by the previous administration. It's an absolute scandal Helen you're quite right. As you all know I'm a huge fan of the theatre in fact I'm going to Oxford Theatre in a fortnight. See Jesus Christ Oops stop. We have amazing theatres in both of our two main towns which I visit often we've got the Windsor World Theatre and the Old Court in Windsor and in Maidenhead we have Northern Farm and I often travel to Windsor to both of those theatres and it's tragic that how many villages don't have the same facilities. Cookham, Datchit, Hurley, Old Windsor and all the other villages and yes indeed Sunning Hill. I'd love to see community theatres in all these villages and I think that's where the parish councils can be so important. My heart is definitely in support for having this over to the residents. However while my heart would my annoying headbuds in and it's saying we must maximize the amount of money we received from Sunning Council assets. We have inherited a huge financial nightmare from the previous administration and we have committed to fixing that mess. One of our manifesto pledges was to not sell land cheap to anyone anymore, developers or anyone else and we're determined to honour that pledge. As a council was skirting at the edge of bankruptcy one full smooth and we are over the edge. Thanks to the legacy we've inherited we cannot sell land off cheap. Now my vision for the villages is where the parish councils come in as I'm sure the parish councilists amongst us know the parishes get a big amount of money from the community infrastructure level. I'm told that year 2223 the two parish councils Sunning Hill and Sunning Dow received a million pounds of community infrastructure level. Now this theatre project is a perfect example of what this seal could be useful. The paper makes clear that our intentions has always been to give the community every opportunity to take this asset. We have done this by treating their value as if it were already an asset of community value by giving them six months to fundraise to meet the independent valuation even before we received your nomination. So I'm really keen for the bow out and the parishes and your community group to work together on this and I suppose I'm really calling on the parishes to step up to the plate and make this happen. This is a really really exciting initiative and I wish the team the best in delivering air. As one of your speakers said it really is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Thank you. Anyone else on cabinet? Lynn. I'd like to thank the speaker tonight and I completely understand the position that has been expressed very passionately. But as financially you must realise that I have to support officers in attempting to achieve best value for any of our asset disposals. With a debt of over 200 million we must ensure every effort is made to reduce the burden such a debt has on our revenue budget. Which is currently approximately £13 million a year. So obviously I would love to completely support the suggestions made tonight. But as lead for finance that is not my role and I must put it out there that we are financially looking at our financial position is very very hard and cabinet need to be aware of that. Thank you. Thank you very much Lynn. Have you got any other speakers from the cabinet? No. So can we approve the recommendation of the in the paper? Is that a good? Thank you very much. Okay. So moving on to the next item we have quality of education. If you want to pause Amy while they have a quick leave. You're more than welcome to stay on for the other items on the agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So the report in front of you tonight is a very detailed report. It covers all aspects of education in the borough for the academic year of September 22 to July 23. Now I can't draw up every area because it is so very detailed. But if you're interested in reading more about home education social emotional mental health support levels of children with particular special educational needs all of that is in the report. And I've had some residents recently asking some questions which would definitely be answered by it. So do you have a look? I'm just going to draw out some of the successes from the past year and also some of the areas that we're really focused on for improvement because I think that's that's key. The quality of education in the borough is high. 92% of our schools are rated as good or above by offset which is one of the measures that we can use. Obviously we know there are other ways of telling if they're good. And this was the first sort of normal year after COVID that schools went back to their regular testing. And so obviously COVID did have an impact and we have to be aware of that. But attainment across all the key stages from the little ones right up to the eldest it is good. It is good. And in most cases it's above national averages. So that is really good that our children are performing well. Obviously our youngest pupils definitely are the brunt of the pandemic. And so we're really focused on getting things back to normal for them and helping them be ready for school when it comes. And one of the things in the report is it tells us that we know historically our VWM has had a gap between the performance of our disadvantaged pupils and their non-disadvantaged peers. And I think this is unfortunately something that the gap has only widened in the last years under the conservative government shall we say. It continues to widen. So that is a big focus for us. We have to get on top of this. It's not fair that some of our most disadvantaged pupils are not performing as well as their peers. So we have a huge focus on quality first teaching, what goes on in the classroom day to day. Because we know the evidence says if you get that right you can really give your most disadvantaged pupils the best start. So that's what we're doing. We're working on a teacher development project that's really exciting and getting our schools to be even better. With special educational needs there's a growing need. Young people in the borough and numbers continue to increase. But what we do do well is getting the assessments for the education health care plans within the required 20-week target. We hover at sort of 80-90% of getting those plans done within that time which is a real achievement given some of our nearest neighbours only manage about 16%. So that is good. What we do know though is that sometimes those plans aren't being delivered as well as they could be and so we're working really hard to make sure that schools can help deliver those plans so that young people get the best possible outcomes. And obviously these plans do create a large draw on our finances, the high needs block which is what we use to fund them. And our target is to bring more of our young people with special educational needs back into the borough so that they're educated here in our schools and so we're opening more units and resources to be able to give them the best the best start. There is loads, I mean I could go on all night but generally the picture is really good. We're on top of education but there are lots of areas we know we need to develop more and that's what we're going to do. Thank you very much. Some very good points about dysfunction children. Any one else like to comment? Any questions? Helen? Thank you. It is excellent what we're achieving and if I look at Para 2-4 it explains that the schools that were previously outstanding didn't have to be inspected and now they have been but of them a proportion had dropped down a grade and so I'd just like to understand is that because the criteria and inspection has changed or is it the standard isn't as great? Thank you Helen that's a really good question and you're right there was a very long period of time where schools who were graded as outstanding just weren't inspected and we're talking sort of a decade. Now we all know that schools can change they have different head teachers they have different cohorts things like the pandemic happen and within that time they just weren't being being looked at unless something drastically went wrong. Also when that policy was changed there had been a change of the office inspection schedule so what was required of schools to achieve an outstanding now is very different from what was required say in 2005-2008. So there is a certain amount of fact that the bar is set much higher and those schools that were outstanding then wouldn't necessarily that they wouldn't be outstanding now or it wouldn't have been outstanding then if the the criteria had been applied but obviously we're keeping a close eye on the results in the schools to make sure it's not that the standards are slipping. Thank you. Thank you Helen Thank you um I'd just like to comment on table three at paragraph 2.6 that table shows a marked increase in educational health and care plans for autistic spectrum disorder and social emotional mental health along with speech language communication primary now obviously a lot of that could be seen to be covid related but with that big increase how how we how we actually coping with that because that is a huge increase in the numbers. Thank you. Yeah obviously you know this is the increase it's something we're actually seeing nationally there is a huge increase of the number of pupils being diagnosed with things like autism but also in asking for the education health care plans I think it's we're working really hard to make sure that all our schools have a really good understanding of those pupils needs and that they can address those needs without necessarily having to go for the plan. I think we always say an autism friendly school is a child friendly school will help all pupils but we need to make sure that they they can do the best with their quality first teaching and the support within the school before necessarily needing the plan and that's part of our work that we've been involved with the delivering better value project and that that's some of the work that's been going on to that I don't know then wanted to add anything else. I've also got Mark I want to bring in. Thanks very much Chair. Yes just wanted to I guess I have a question I see in a couple of the schools in Windsor that I'm close to the boys school and also Queen Anne that's the the staff are very much at full stretch dealing with sorry not dealing with the overall challenge of providing those pupils within special education needs or mental health challenges with the right support so it's great to see that we as a council are focusing on that and doing what we can what I also see is that there is a real shortage of the likes of teaching assistants and mental health specialists in schools and the question is really what can we do to access more external funding for that I know a property appreciated council's position but this is almost a case of how can we access more funding or lobby upwards because I think this is obviously not an issue unique to us. Okay thank you. Yeah absolutely Mark and it's it's not just limited to the borough it's a national issue we know since Covid that our young people are more stressed and you know have more mental health issues and one of the interesting things that's come my way recently is a local sort of charity that's beginning of made up of parents and other interested parties who really want to help to support the council with helping to fund and provide some extra services as well as all the amazing things that we're already doing so there's definitely a will out there to try and help even more. Fantastic we we've also people scrutiny came up with a small amendment to the recommendation to congratulate local schools staff and pupils on their continued success. I'm sure you're happy to accept. Yeah absolutely and I would all heartedly agree with that. Fantastic okay Adam yeah thank you Simon. It's just a quick observation looking at the key priorities in table four and it's something you touched on already Amy but you know one really important priority there is this transformation of the therapy services with health and additional needs and you know the fact that that has to be done hand-in-hand with Berkshire Health Foundation Trust. I know yeah I know from personal experience going through the pandemic obviously those sort of therapy services were particularly challenging to deliver during that time and it's yeah really key like he was saying not only to be able to wear appropriate form BHC plans within the except three time periods but also then to really you know be able to implement those and also review and I think you know the therapy services play a really important part through our children with special education needs and and disabilities so I think that focus is really important. Yeah thank you Adam yes and one thing that parents have fed back to Berkshire Health Foundation Trust is that they don't when we're talking about these services therapy services we're talking about things like speech and language occupational therapy physiotherapy those kinds of services and parents have said it has been hard to access them they don't know how they're waiting lists are too long so absolutely there has been this joint working to try and transform these services to make them easier and I was really pleased to attend a session of our send voices group which is our parent care reform percent where BHFT actually came along and spoke to parents and listened to their concerns and they helped feed into that transformation process which you know parents know the difficulties and it's really important we listen to their voice and thank you for just highlighting those key priorities just one more to say on there. One of the areas we are looking at is children risk of exclusion and we've got a team that's really working hard to make sure that pupils who are at risk of exclusion can be brought back into school that's having some really good impact and one of the things that came out of the overview scrutiny was that overview scrutiny panel were keen to look at why although our levels of exclusions are quite low and then they are not not huge and why children with special educational needs seem to be playing a larger percentage of those and also why some of our youngest children seem to be having more exclusions and that's something we're really keen to delve into and get to the bottom of and try and put right as well. Fantastic thank you very much everybody I'm sure we can all agree this paper agreed. Fantastic okay now over to Lynn for the monthly 11 budget monitoring report. Okay thank you very much um yes well the report before you ask you to note that the forecast revenue position of the year to the 31st of March 24 is an overspend on services of 6.75 5 million once contingency budget is allocated and the reserves are projected to fall to 11 4 million by the end of the year. The majority of the overspend is in statutory services and despite processes being strengthened and cost being mitigated it's obvious that the budget approved in February 23 was inadequate for things services. There is actually an adverse movement of 686 000 for the last month. 378 000 is made up of continuing pressures in adult social care but it's actually 478 000 and mitigated by the focus on reviewing funding arrangements and additional invoices bringing in an income of 160 000. So there's always this balancing off so it's not always just an increasing costs. 84 000 is children's services made up of new placements. 90 000 of that though is an application of the ready and council for unaccountable unaccounted chargement hours for legal. Now this is being reviewed and again there's a mitigation by an increase in income of 77 000 and a reduction in transport cost of 35 000. So there are positives in this where we're seeing costs coming down but unfortunately it appears that the raising costs or the things we're finding out are overtaking them. Place has an adverse movement of 291 000 due to a late billing of temporary housing costs. In 7.1 you can see that there was delay in authorising a significant batch of invoices and that process has now and a better process now but in place to ensure prompt authorisation. There's an adverse movement of 52 000 in resources direct rent. There's actually 115 000 of additional costs as a result of a 2021 consultancy cost not being approved for in the correct year and that's one of those things that we're now finding out. We have been focusing on reviewing and reconciling balance sheet items and bank statements that haven't been addressed for over two years and these historical issues will not be resolved until we complete year at end. I cannot further how decisions could have been made in the last two administrations without a complete understanding of the financial position. Without reconciling bank statements and balance sheet accounts the figures were not robust. In fact I wouldn't have believed them have been able to give an assurance that reserves were as high as they were reported. On a positive note as part of this focus finance have been delving into the backup documentation to some of the funds we hold that we have previously paid interest on annually and a review of these and a corresponding challenge on the amounts due has saved us over half a million pounds in 2324. The recommendations also ask you to note that the forecast capital out turn is expenditure of 41 million against a budget of 89 million. The final slippish figure will be confirmed in the year and out turn report. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions for Lynn? Helen? I recognise that we'll be looking at this overview of scrutiny so there'll be a chance to look in more details but I just thought there were some things I think were wider that I wanted to bring up. So one is the mention of the 4 million pound reserve. Oh we're going to go below the 4 million pound reserve. Is that because that's the reserve that was assumed in the budget for the year we're now in or is it because that is a critical figure that we shouldn't go below? Shall I do all my questions? Yeah. Then with things that are happening at the moment in the year for sorry month 11 where things are spending higher than you thought will any of that roll over to actually mean that the budget that was set for the year we're in is going to make some of those figures suspect. I know you had a zero base budget which was a very healthy approach so I'm hoping the answer is it won't affect them but I'd like to have a reassurance on that. And then in council we were told that the spending review panel doesn't apply to silver money and how silver money is spent. In our household we have a phrase same pair of trousers different pockets but it is the same pair of trousers so I'm surprised that we're not looking carefully as carefully where silver money is spent and I'd like to be assured that there aren't any other areas where actually the spending review panel isn't looking at that spend. And then finally just listening to what said about more and more is being discovered I still come back to how can all these years that we paid auditors to go through that none of them in all those years and at one point we had three level auditing have revealed the sloppiness and the lack of processes and procedures that we're now paying the costs on. Thank you Helen if I forget anything please let me know. The reserves the four million reserves are just a calculation. We started with 10.2 and the only spenders reduced it that's all it is that's the forecast of where it's going to be at the year end but as you've heard with all the balance sheet ricks we're doing and banks don't grip ricks that could change both ways yeah we won't know till year end. So will it go over to next year? I can't completely reassure you because you know it was a base budget that those were the spending that we thought it was. I think we've got a much more robust chance of keeping to our budget because of the way we processed it and calculated the numbers. We're never sure because of the demand services exactly what's going to come through but you know that was the best estimates of directors and officers and finance that we could come to at that point. I cannot give you an absolute cast-on guarantee but I just know they're going to be more robust. The auditors have only audited external to up to 2021 and that was the last time the recent reconciliations were done. So that's and I believe in our in case somebody you know somebody might come in and explain a bit better but I believe the silliness 106 goes through a different process not the spending panel doesn't mean it's not scrutinized it's scrutinized and set as part of the budget process not ad hoc but I think Stephen would like to take that. Yeah I mean there was a detailed review of sill in setting this year's budget so we maximized the amount of sill that could be used to deliver this year's capital program to make to minimize borrowing so that that process went through his part of the budget. We have had a discussion amongst the leadership team about putting in a capital review board to monitor the sill and the delivery of those programs so that will be separate from the spending control panel because I think that needs a slightly different cast list and it probably needs a bit more scrutiny so so it has been through assurance and we've talked about putting in place further assurance around that. And so with that panel and the spending review that means everything that we're spending is being looked at carefully. So the point of the spend so we get some grants that come in for example the public health grant that goes through the normal process of reports coming through executive leadership team and many reports coming through cabinet around new contracts and new procurements for public health so there is a process that many of those grants go through in early years and many of those come to cabinet as well. Did I cover all of this? Thank you. Okay thank you very much Lynn any other questions from the cabinet? No any of you on month 12 yeah any early indications? As I've said previously without doing, without finalizing the balance sheet recognitions and the blank statement recognitions we just don't know but we are going to do that and they would all be reconciled so we start the new year with robust figures. Fantastic. Okay if that's all agreed, everybody happy? Fantastic. Okay well now moving on to the quality assurance report called 3 2020 24. Now obviously this is based on the previous Bible plan rather than the new council plan that we've been developing over the last six months. You're all very aware of all the consultations and discussions going through scrutiny and council and cabinet to to produce the new council plan. This is looking back over what we've done over the last quarter. I think the risks that are identified on page five of the report are probably the most important and have been ignored over previous years in the previous administration but really should be at the forefront of our mind at all time. I feel that it's not far more of a knock or where we are as a council than we used to have. So have we got any comments from the individual areas Josh? Thank you Simon. I just wanted to pull everyone's attention to leisure centre attendance which I think is absolutely fantastic. It shows that at the end of the third quarter we are already at 340,000 more attendees than we planned for the entire year or targeted for the entire year. So it's fantastic to see so many of our residents 2.34 million people have been going into leisure centres. Fantastic to see so many people in our leisure centres and let's hope that continues and we've got a paper on leisure later tonight. Fantastic. Amy? Yeah thank you. Just wanted to highlight the success of children's services showing really good progress. 82% of the indicators there are raised as green or amber which shows them underway and that's considering that some of them have actually been raised so the indicators are higher to achieve. They've set the targets even higher and they've still managed to hit them so that's really positive. Obviously on the flip side demand is increasing in children's services so there are real pressures there and eventually otherwise but that's positive. Fantastic. Anyone else? Catherine? Thank you Chair. I think I've probably said before how much I like this report. The way it lays out is actually the challenges and the risks that we face and also the key performance indicators so we can see how we're actually doing. It just really lays everything bare and you know there's no way to hide. It's fantastic and of course it highlights significant pressures on both our adults and our housing teams. Costa living pressures and the impact of asylum seeking as sorry asylum seekers leaving the hotels once they get their refugee status means that demand for temporary accommodation is phenomenal at the moment and that means that currently 64% of households are placed out of borough, albeit the majority of those are in slough. It's still very difficult for families to plan their lives, get their children to school, get to their jobs at what is already a difficult time in their lives. So we're working extremely hard to increase temporary accommodation in the borough with securing government funding. We're talking to various partners like Popco and registered housing providers and we're also looking to provide flexible accommodation as part of the refurb of John Westhouse which includes much needed accommodation for people with disabilities. So there's a lot of work going on but none of these projects will come to fruition overnight and the situation does remain challenging for our homeless residents and the teams helping them demand for adult services is also high but there has been progress made in safely reducing permanent admissions to care homes and that's a result that's good for residents as well as the finances. I'm delighted that we've secured funding for the new IT system for adult services and once this is delivered it will not only deliver better financial oversight but it's also going to enable residents to have more autonomy and control over their care. We already know residents rate the care they're receiving extremely highly but our ambition is that this will have even more of a positive impact on their quality of life. Finally I'm really excited about the work we've been doing with the OGA and our partners in the NHS and the Health Sphere to bring about, I mean a lot of time general health outcomes residents through the Health and Wellbeing Board. So yesterday we agreed to develop a 10-year joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy to start in 2025 and I'm really looking forward to seeing how this longer-term approach can bring about generation or change to benefit residents for many years to come and also to help mitigate those challenges we're seeing in adults and housing. Thank you. Thank you very much, very well said. It's really impressive to learn it's going into adult services to change things around so well done. Anyone else? No, can we agree the paper? Really? Fantastic. We're now going to move on to Adam. You've got like some lease renewal of office space at your house. If we don't agree with it it's not that we're not going to be kicked out of this room. But there you have it. What I wanted to propose to see is a very straightforward report seeking authority for the executive director of place services in consultation with myself to conclude the renewal of the lease over the second floor and then Cidory car parking here at York house Windsor. The current tenants five-year lease expires in July of this year and in terms of being agreed in principle to renew the lease for a five-year period on similar terms to the existing lease with annual rental income of 182 and a half thousand pounds exclusive of that plus service charges and rates. The tenant has been granted a short rent free period of three months as an incentive but in fact due to our improved bottom up zero budgeting process a six-month period was actually anticipated so there is going to be a small upside in the current year because of that. The existing lease includes the right to use 20 car parking spaces doing business hours. The new lease will allow 10 of those spaces to be used at all times to meet their operational requirements but this is not expected to have any impacts on the pay and display income from the car park as it's only very likely used and never you know add a capacity where that would become a problem. Just to point out Councillor PRICE did spot a typo in Faradoff 1.5 which talks about the Windsor office market being subdued. It should have said it's over the previous 12 months but not the previous one month so I hope that's not going to basically impact anyone's use on this paper but I do thank her for her very thorough review of everything we do. Thank you, Helen. Yeah, happy to propose this recommendation. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Adam. Any comments or questions? Helen? No. Okay, can we agree? It's really fantastic. Thank you. And finally the LBWRA and the leisure management contract review procurement, Josh. Thank you, Simon. You'll remember back last year we decided to terminate the procurement for a new 12 year leisure contract which was due to start in August 2023. We did this as we needed more time to consider the implications of changes to the way that HMRC treated V80 around leisure centres for our local authorities. To make sure all of our leisure centres didn't close overnight we agreed an interim contract for which we are currently providing leisure focus that ends March 25. The process of doing that took a lot of work from the team. I know Andrew and Lee's Michael as well as Lynn in procurement working very hard on that and a lot of work is in a really very short space of timing. Our leisure centres are vital to the community and to us as a council. Obviously our two large leisure sites in Windsor and Main Head as well as our community sites in Sunningdale or in Cox Green and Firs Platt. Combined generate RBWM around £2m in income annually and they're vital to our community health and for our residents. We've done the work to go through what the implications of the HMRC changes are and we've have recommendations from Max Associates as outlined in the paper and the paper before us asks us to go to Pecuen for a new leisure contract in starting in April 25. The paper also asks us to allow Andrew as well as myself to work out the final implementation of the operations of the LTA deal that was decided under the previous administration. The paper goes through the timeline of implementation on table two of the reports. It's a short timeline, it's a tough timeline but I know everyone's working really hard to achieve that because it's vital that we keep these services running and that's what we're working towards. Thank you very much Josh, that's really good. I was really impressed with the nimbleness of the council when this change in the back rules happens and I think Michael Shepherd needs our thanks for spotting this one Friday night and getting it sorted. So well done Michael, thank you. So any questions or comments on this? Mad. Thanks very much. Just one quick question in terms of the contract length that I know is potentially 12 years with an extension for five and I know we've had some challenges with contracts that we've inherited that have been quite a lot. I just wondered if Councillor Reynolds could explain a rationale for that length or where we are. I appreciate it's still in progress where we are in terms of that thinking. Thank you Mark. So the original procurement exercise was for a 12 plus 5 contract. In 3.8 of the report you'll see that we haven't actually determined the length of this new contract because actually that's something which we don't need to turn at this stage, that's something which myself and you can have the conversation along with the wide team, see what is right for what we're doing and then make that decision based from that. Thank you very much. Helen. I just liked clarity on the tennis courts because there's a bit of confusion amongst residents to whether they're actually being charged with them now or they're not. And if that's to be decided to later date if you could just clarify when that might all be agreed so people know where they stand. Thank you. Thanks Helen. So the previous administration signed the deal with the LCA for tennis courts. As part of that deal the Council had to be able to prove that we could keep the courts in the same condition as the LCA put them in today in 15 years time. And the only way that was to charge for them which is what the previous administration decided to do. I was against that decision at the time and I spoke over in scrutiny at the time against that decision. It was one that we couldn't undo and therefore we are with it today within the fees and charges document that went alongside the budget shows the charge of the cost level for those courts. And we'll go into more diesel on that. But I think the important thing to pull out is that it's not going to be charging for those courts 24/7. There are going to be and we've been able to secure three sessions and three times for those courts and that's something that we're working on at the moment to work out exactly when those are going to be. I'm very keen that we don't just open the courts up for free at 10 o'clock on a Thursday morning by limiting the amount of people that are able to use it but we make sure we get a full range of our residents who are able to to access that benefit as well which that includes weekend time that includes after school so it gives that real range. And do roughly when you might be able to implement that? Very soon. All your routines. Okay, any questions Richard? Just following up on Helen's question, will will the three opportunities be targeted to the particular groups like children or deprived groups or anything like that? Yes. Fantastic. I'll ask you another time. Yeah thank you Simon. I was just looking at the summary of options and I think it's really important to note that as an administration we will commit it to always considering the possibility of insulsing and having an insuls bid but we're clear that isn't a sort of dogmatic approach where everything has to be in source no matter what we always look at the evidence and look at the risks and opportunities so I'm pleased to see that the offices are following through it and you know doing that analysis each time but you know where it's not appropriate to really be thinking of insulsing we are looking at retaining the procurement model but you know where there are opportunities in other areas I'm sure you know things align that we will be seizing those opportunities. Josh? Thank you. I think that's really important and if you look at some of the other contracts recently when you look at the street care inspectors that's being sourced where it's right to insuls. He said we're looking at insourcing but it's important that we consider it in everything we do which is why obviously you've got the table one there and in the part two items you've got a much more detail and in depth understanding of what each individual model of operation would be from a benefit and from a con. Obviously the in-house model has many benefits to it as well as some of those risks but overall it was weighted that the procurement was the best option to put it in this case so I think it's great that we're doing that piece of work and thank you to the team for really pushing forward on it and like you said where it's right it's what we'll do. Okay thank you very much any other questions comments can we agree that paper? Amazing. Fantastic thank you very much we don't need to go into part two because we didn't talk about any of those issues in the lives of management contracts.