Transcript

Good morning everybody. Welcome to this meeting of the Performance Scrutiny Committee being held on Thursday the 25th of January 2023. The meeting is being webcast with the exception of any business that the committee resolves to exclude the press and public because of the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined by the local government act of 1972. This meeting is being held as a hybrid meeting with Performance Scrutiny Committee members attending in person at the Council Chamber, County Hall in Nothing or remotely via video conference. For transparency purposes I will ask Rianne, the Scrutiny Coordinator to identify which Scrutiny Committee members are in attendance and whether they are attending in person or remotely. Here in the Chamber in County Hall in this meeting we have the Chair, Councillor Heywervin, Councillor Martin Hogg, Councillor Carol Holliday, Councillor Terry Mendes, Councillor Bobby Fealey and Councillor Diane King. Also in County Hall we have the co-op and members Neil Roberts and Colleto in. Attending remotely we have Councillor Alan Hughes, Councillor Ria Tomlin, Councillor Velie Chard, Councillor Paul Keddie and Councillor Gareth Sandalins of the Vice Chair. Also in attendance in County Hall we have Gary Williams, the monitoring officer, committee services officers and other officers who will be speaking to the committee at some point during the meeting. Thank you members, those attending remotely are kindly asked to mute their microphones unless they are called upon to speak. Performance Scrutiny Committee members are also asked to have their videos switched on throughout the meeting unless I specifically request you to turn your video off to improve the quality of the audio link when you are speaking. You will be expected to restart your video once you have finished speaking. Please also refrain from using the chat facility as messages sent to all are visible on the webcast. Those present in the Chamber are asked to make sure that they speak directly into the microphone to improve the quality of the sound for those attending remotely. To aid transparency all the meetings business must be conducted through the chair. Take you now please to apologies for absence. Do we have any apologies please Mayor? Yes, the only apology I have received is from Sir David Lloyd, a co-operative education member, secondary parent-governor sector. Unfortunately David can't make it today and after today's meeting he won't be no longer be a parent-governor so he has resigned his position on Scrutiny so we will have to go out and recruit again for that sector. Also while I am just saying that we welcome Colleto in first meeting as the Catholic Church representative on education items. Welcome. Item two, direct declaration of interest. Does anybody have any interest? Members will be aware of the requirements of the Council's code of conduct to declare any personal or prejudicial interest in respect of any business to be considered in today's meeting. Such interest should be declared now or as soon as the Councillor or member affected becomes aware that they have a personal or prejudicial interest in today's business. All members declaring an interest are required to state clearly what the interest is and to advise whether it is a personal interest or a personal and prejudicial interest as defined in the code of conduct. Any member declaring a prejudicial interest is required to leave the meeting for the duration of the business and can take no part in the proceedings. Members with a personal interest only may take part in the debate and any vote. If a personal or personal and prejudicial interest is declared today that has not previously been disclosed and recorded, the Councillor or member concerned will be required to complete and sign a declaration of interest form which is either available from the committee support staff in attendance here today or online. Any interest to declare? Yes. Can I help? Yes, thanks. I'm a parent governor at the Assiph EEP. I met the time council representative at Turf and Marva and the Clant author. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Anything on the screen? Yes, Ellie. Yeah. I'm an L.E.A. Governor at the Assiph EEP. Thank you. Yes, I'm a governor at the Assiph EEP. Yes, it is. Paul, do you want to declare an interest? You've got your hand up. Yes, please. Thank you. I have a personal acquaintance with a member of the team at item five, but that interest would be personal, not prejudicial. Thank you. Hello. Hello. Yeah. I'm a governor in cadre, we need to call away. Thank you. Great. I've got to put my hand up. I'm an L.E.A. Governor at Rose Street in within. Thank you. Do you think I've missed anybody there? Thank you. No, thank you. Right, we can move on now. Item three, urgent matters as agreed by the chair. I haven't been asked to present any and I've been given none. Are there any other? No. Item four is the minutes of the last meeting, which you'll find on pages seven to 16 of your pack or certainly in the hard copy version. I'm not sure whether the numbers match. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So firstly, I will go through them for accuracy and then I'll go back and ask for any matters arising. So for accuracy, page seven. Page eight, page nine, page 10, page 11, page 12, page 13, and page 14. Nobody raising anything there. So I'll now go back through them for any matters arising. I'll take those by page seven. Page eight, which is item five, which runs into page nine. Page 10, which runs into item six, it was into page 11. And 12. Mr chair. Thank you. Yeah. On page 12 at the top of page 12, it still says still waiting for attainment measures from Welsh government. And I was just wondering if we'd heard anything about that. And also on page 12, we've got a greener denbershow. We're still looking at the mythology around measuring carbon tonnage reduction from supply chains. I was just checking to see if we'd actually got that methodology right yet. So two important points to carry on that we need answers to come back to the committee on. Thank you. Thank you, Gareth. Do we have it? I think to report. No, I haven't got anything to report on that. And I don't know if Gary, because Gary is here today, if he can answer the one about the attainment measures from Welsh government. Otherwise, the other items you asked for coming from those minutes. There was a couple of information reports sent around to yesterday. Right. Okay. Sorry, I haven't got a copy of the pack in front of me. What was the last the question again, then it was regarding we were waiting for the attainment measures from Welsh government to be able to understand the performance of schools, given the context of what we discussed last time as a performance scrutiny committee. We were always looking at where we are attainment wise, but due to the curriculum changes. There's obviously where do we stand at the moment? What do we measure, basically? It's a very important principle of this committee. And I think we should have some guidance. We were waiting on the guidance from Welsh government. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, at the moment, we're still waiting for the attainment measures and also how best should we report that information so that we also stick to the Welsh government guidance around the sharing of comparative data between schools and so on. So at the moment, but we will be able to bring a report back to scrutiny at the appropriate time with further information. Okay. Do we have a date on when that's likely to be? Top of my head. No, I haven't, but I will. I will look into it after the meeting. Okay. Thank you very much, Gary. Cheers. Thank you. Thank you for spotting that, Gareth. I'm sure get go. I will feed back to us as soon as he's got the relevant information. So carrying on a matter item that runs into page 13. And then item over the page, page 14, items eight. That completes the report. So if no other questions on the on the minutes. Okay, so can somebody move, move by the vice chairman. I'll be seconded by Carol. Okay. Thank you very much indeed. Over the page now, we now go to item five on our agenda. Extremely important item. So I hope we will be able to scrutinize thoroughly. It's on pages 17 to 74 of your pack. I'm very pleased to welcome Paul in now. Thank you very much everybody for coming today. So if you're going to take us through the report, I hope. So, the, the old cadre. So, so we're looking today. I know that something that's been of it. It's a, it's a concern. It's something that that members are aware of, and that's to do with education and attendance in our schools. I know that post COVID, you know, life hasn't got back to normal quite yet. And that impact has been felt most greatly, I think, with our children and young people. So, and so we've come today to talk about the things that we have in place. The work that we do with our schools, and the work in partnership, wherever we can, just to mitigate where there's difficulties and get as many of our learners into school and learning in a way that there should be the. Thank you. Thank you. And firstly, I hope you all have a very nice Santes doing when day it is the patron saint of Welsh lovers today so I wish you all a, a nice during of Santes doing when, and it did glad in my heart really at the beginning of, of the scrutiny meeting, hearing all the declarations of interest from members that were school governors because the, the message and the, you know, the purpose of the report today won't be a, a shock won't be news to those of you that our school governors, because this is the bread and butter. This is one of the fundamental principles of education is attendance pupils need to be in school, generally need to be in school to learn. So, you know, as, as many of you are governors, you will know, you know, you will have heard the name Wayne weekly, you will know of, you know, some of the strategies and the processes that we will talk about today. As the lead member, I'm not going, I don't intend to go through the report point by point because I assume that that you have read it. And, you know, maybe the most valuable part of the meeting will be the questioning and the answers, but as a broad overview, as the lead member said, you know, there has been a national decline in attendance and engagements, especially since the pandemic. Welsh government. This is a major priority for Welsh government. They released the belonging engagement of participation guidance recently, with regards to their plan to improve to improve attendance and engagement in our schools. And only, I think it was last Thursday or maybe last Friday was definitely last week. Estin released their review of improving attendance in secondary schools, although it is specific to secondary schools, the messages that come out of the report are quite relevant for all schools. So you can see that this piece of work is right at the front of everybody's attention. And it is something that as a local authority, we are working really closely with our 55 schools, because improving attendance, improving engagement and participation in education will have a positive impact, not only on standards, but also on well being, and also on the, you know, the wider benefits because in primary school, each and every pupil of primary school receives a nutritious, hot, balanced free school meal as well. So there are benefits across the board for good attendance. There, as part of the report, there were numerous, the challenge I had, and you know, we had writing the report was keeping it to the required five pages because it's such a huge area of work. We could have written War and Peace on this area, hence the numerous appendices that were included with the report from the policy, the current, the current position, and some of the guidance for parents and all the other documents that we included in the appendices. The position that we are at the moment is that our attendance in Dembyshire is slightly below the average attendance across, across Wales, pre pandemic, we can't blame everything on the pandemic, but it does have a role to play. Pre pandemic, our primary schools were running on an average of about 94%, secondary schools and about 93, whereas now from September to June, we were running on an average of about 88.9. And so you can see that for various reasons that that that has had reduced, which is a concern, and it is something that we are, you know, we are working very hard to improve to the point where we do have staff knocking on doors. I'm trying to ensure that pupils are attending, are attending regularly. So I could, I could talk all morning on this point, but I understand that, you know, you will have some questions that you would like to ask, and to scrutinize. So, if that's okay chair, I am happy to take any questions between us. Hopefully we can answer them all. I think the lead member wants to come in. So just to add a couple of things to that so, so obviously I mentioned in my introduction about the position that we're in post COVID. And I just wanted to mention that through visiting schools and through working with schools that another key aspect of this is, as Gary quite rightly says, it hasn't magically happened since we had the pandemic. And where families are in a difficulty where there's economic circumstances that they're struggling with, where they're struggling with things like poor housing or not able to get into housing. So that the word poverty is used more often than ever, I hear from schools. So we're dealing with, we're dealing with a perfect storm really that we've had the pandemic, we've had the position that our families found themselves in. And the children, of course, I have two 16 year olds, almost on Monday, and they missed the key part of their secondary school. So those families who are, who are experienced disadvantage in in a myriad of ways will have felt that impact even more. And now they've gone on to find themselves in a cost of living crisis in a position where they're struggling to pay the bills, they're struggling to get through the day to day life, and that of course has an impact on the children. So we very much, we have a focus on working with families as a whole. You'll apparently speak many times about community focus schools. And that's exactly what it is. It's looking at the child in the round. So we're working with the family. We're working in the circumstances that family find themselves in. And also we've spoken quite recently at SAM, a members workshop. And I believe we've covered it here as well about the trauma informed schools approach, where we know that if we can drill down into experience, perhaps parents have had and prevent those experiences repeating themselves. Then again, we can make a real impact on engagement and attendance, like Aaron, I could go on forever. But I just wanted to make that point. Thank you. Good of you, Councillor. I think now we'll launch into the questions if we can, because time is not overly generous in the room here. I think I've got Councillor Diane wanted to speak. Thank you, Chair. Firstly, I'd like to say that we all appreciate the difficulties in attendance post lockdown, and the importance of full attendance to improve the outcomes and opportunities for all the pupils, especially for the free school meal cohort. My question is, could you enlighten us to what interventions have been put in place, especially for the free school meal cohort, and explain how these interventions are measured and evaluate evaluated, and sort of compare schools or what interventions and wherever you've got the data from, or those interventions and are they working. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'll start off, and then I'm sure Wayne and Ruth will want to come in as well. You are at the interventions that are in place are critical, and the main interventions, one of the main difficulties that staff levels haven't increased as the need has increased. And Wayne has four members of his team who carry substantial caseloads to be able to intervene and support families. We have received additional Welsh Government funding through the local authority education grant to support this agenda. I have to say has been a challenge to a point to those posts. As you can imagine, however, we have managed to increase increase the team. The interventions are on on it varies from school to school, depending. We have got schools that their data, they have returned to their post panda their pre pandemic levels, or better. So we have got schools where, you know, attendance is strong and continues to be strong. We have got schools where the impact has been greater so for those schools that might be causing more concern from the point of view of, of their attendance, they get far more interventions. I won't steal Wayne's thunder because he will talk more about the interventions on from an operational point of view from the point of view of the, you know, free school meals cohort. Obviously, there are a number of vulnerable pupils that we monitor and they include and this list is not exhaustive. You know, we are talking now looked after community. And then our children, we are talking about children who are EAL English as an additional language, our refugee cohort gypsy Roma travelers, free school meals, additional learning needs, these are all children, these are all groups of children that have certain vulnerabilities that might impact on on their attendance that we monitor. And then the various departments within the service would be working with those families. So, for example, if it's the refugee cohort, English as an additional language, our team of EAL staff would be working with those families and those schools to improve their attendance. It would be a very targeted intervention. In that case, we have got obviously the blanket, you know, the one hat fits all approach through the policy through the fixed penalty notice and warning letters and you know the meeting and the general monitoring. But then there is the targeted side as well. Wayne, I don't know if you want to. Good morning, thank you very much for inviting me here today. Yes, obviously from an education welfare service point of view that we do monitor and track that our schools regularly, terminally in terms of those young people and we're talking about those young people who are vulnerable. And I think when we draw down from vulnerability, what is vulnerability, preschool meals forms part of that, but then there's the categorization of children, and we don't want to categorize children as such, but there are those children who are higher level of need. In terms of we are a blended service with working with our colleagues in children services, the hyper portion of the children that we do get referrals from our schools from do have a profile as such, they are those young people who are vulnerable. So in terms of that vulnerability that can be quite widespread, but one of them is around FSM. So the hyper portion of children who are referred from schools, I do have free school meals as a profile, but there's also broader and wider issues in terms of, you know, the wider family needs of those children as well. They're cared for by an adult, and very often the needs of the children have to be addressed by dealing with the needs of the adults who care for those children. And I think that's one of the areas when from a school perspective, we can engage with the child, but we have to engage with the adults and engaging with the adults sometimes is more difficult, because they have a choice in some areas to either engage with us or not engage. And that's the area I think the thematic area, not just for Denver should but across the country and not Wales only but it's around how do we engage with our families. And I think that's the broader issue here, because the needs of the families have changed the climate is changed within a current economic crisis in terms of the country. The issues and impacts that has on those children who are FSM is pretty significant, the impacts for those families, and some of the issues that we kind of pick up from for families and even for young people is the apathy of what is the future hold. So there are children daily, we were talking about those types of issues, what is my aspirational needs, what is my future hold, both primary and secondary, and in terms of living in those types of families and deprivation and difficulties. There are fundamental issues around, for example, housing needs, my staff go to particular situations where housing is a significant concern. If you look at the plight and the living conditions of some of the children in Denver and broader, they are significant. It is an achievement in itself that those children do get to school every day. But when they are in school, they're in a safer place. We are providing them with a meal every day. It's that socialization, but it's also around their needs of those children being met. And I think that's where the focal point of my service and certainly from a local authority point of view is we are better placed families. If your children are in school, it's broader and wider than education. It's around the social needs. It's about the development of those children. It's about engaging with you, the families in Denver. And I think that's the more global issue that I'd like to get across certainly here today to scrutiny and broader and wider, really, in terms of how do we collaboratively work together as a local authority across services and wider. Because it's across agencies because health is another significant factor in terms of many children. And again, it's not all post pandemic in terms of, but there are lots of children with well being and mental health need. Those children sit on waiting lists. They are, there is no diagnosis. Those children have needs. That in itself, again, with families sometimes is the parents are looking for an answer and a solution as to why their children are the way that they are and how they are presenting. What we have discussions around is that isn't a reason for your child though not to be in school waiting for a diagnosis. We need to have those children in schools that the diagnosis in itself is the out turning in terms of that situation for the parents, but very often we are trying to educate our parents and young people around. That isn't the answer and solution to the difficulties you're experiencing. We need to look at the broader and wider needs of those children around engagement and education in its broadest sense. How do we use education to engage our learners? Thank you. Sorry, yeah, can I just respond to the final aspect of the year about how it's evaluated. We have a monthly meeting with management where Wayne brings the data to our team meetings and we then rigorously go through where the schools are responding well to interventions. And those that still need and we then can target specifically those schools that need in particular. We also then are able to look at whether it's good practice. For example, we're resting are able to, through their school inspections, identify whether it's rigorous processes and monitoring any particular agency, you know, successful agency working. And those schools then share at head teachers conferences, for example, and we're able to share practices so that, you know, schools can learn from one another as well. So the evaluation is done on a monthly basis. As a result of that, for what, another example is that we identified that a communication strategy would be good to engage with parents on the border. So we'd already instigated a communication strategy discussion with our communications colleagues for the local authority. And that will hopefully be, you'll be seeing that the fruits of that on a regular basis, which was aligned with what came out in the Estin report. So we were well, we were, you know, relieved to see that we were well placed for that. Just very briefly, I don't want to take up a lot of time, but I just, at this point, and I'm sure at other points, it will come up as well that I want to pay tribute to the work that our education workforce is doing. I use that word deliberately because it's not just teachers who are out there dealing with this. From speaking to schools, from going into schools, there are extremely, extremely creative and sensitive ways that schools are dealing with this. Going to school or being a being part of that education workforce in schools now is it is incredibly different than it was perhaps in the times that that members here can remember in that what schools deal with. And unless they can actually deal with these engagement and attendance issues and break down barriers to to education itself, they can't even begin to teach them to read and write and, and those academic skills. Our schools are incredible. They're incredible in membership that as Wayne has alluded to, you know, this is something that's UK wide, and they've had to be very creative and a very difficult circumstances, economic circumstances that are challenging, all of their own. And, you know, we'd love to plow as much money as we could into schools to deal with this. However, we're in the position that we're in. We know what local government finances are like. We've talked about them at length, but schools aren't giving up. They're very solution focused in what a very trained circumstances, sometimes something I really do want to pay tribute to them and the work that they do. And just very briefly, what you were talking about the wider society, and as counselors, we also have responsibility as corporate parents. What support would you like us as a committee to help you in this particular area? What would you like us to, to assist you in there? Yeah, well, yeah, it's, it's, you know, the, the, you know, yeah, you know, somebody said more money, money to my, my left here, which, yes, you know, that that would be fantastic to plow money, but we're all aware of the financial situation that that we're all facing. You know, the, the, the kinds of support. Obviously, it is the, the messaging that, you know, we have got a tight policy on, on attendance that, you know, that we follow and all our schools, 55 schools have adopted this policy. It is a consistent message that goes out and obviously, you know, reinforcing those messages. As Ruth mentioned, we, we are working with colleagues now on a communication strategy that it will be a dripping tap technique so that, you know, there will be something out on Dembyshire social media numerous times a month. In for not highlighting the importance, you know, things such as, if your, if your child is late for half an hour, every day, he or she is missing out and I don't know the numbers and the stats but missing out and maybe three weeks of education that will never be taught again. You know, it's those kinds of messages. And, you know, around taking taking holidays during term time, you know, and, and reinforcing those, those messages all the time. So, that parents and, you know, Wayne's mentioned that there is at times difficulty engaging with parents, you will be engaging with them in a different way. And it is just, you know, reinforcing the message and the value of, of regular attendance. Wayne, I don't know if you've got a list. Just to answer your question, I think, and obviously as members, I think it is that thematic kind of messaging in terms of, you know, for families, you will come into contact with families daily in terms of your work and otherwise. I think it is that message that Dembyshire does, it does matter. We do care for these families. I think sometimes, you know, that engagement with families is very difficult. And, and that takes time. And, and I can prove that in terms of some of the funding, obviously, I've got a core team of four people that has been expanded by three with wealth government funding community focused schools grant. However, what we've shown is those staff members literally have to have daily contact with certain families to build that relation. My, my core team, I'm not able to do that because of the numbers of referrals and another work that they have to undertake, which is the statutory area as well that is in our papers around fixed financing notices, core work and other works. And what it's shown is though, and I'll just give you a couple of examples really, in terms of some of our schools, we've had feedback from certain parents who have said, and these are children who are down to like 10, 20% attendance. We've got them all to like 80 and 90% attendance. Those parents, though, now say they've got a value and worth and they've got an identity in their schools. But that has not got happened overnight. This takes time. It's, it's working with. There are those apathy we've been with parents that, you know, I didn't have a very good experience in my own education, my own childhood experiences. And that's not for all, but that is for a high proportion of the cases that were involved in. It's making that change, but that change, unfortunately, costs in terms of time. It costs in terms of staffing. It's very people led in terms of this area of work. So you can have systems and systems are very important in terms of attendance. But it ultimately means around, there has to be people, it's people led systems to actually engage with those families, go out, have those discussions, work with them, build up relationship, and then work between home to school, school to home. And that's what those staff members are doing daily. Has that proven to work? The answer to that question is yes. And that's been fed back to the world's government in terms of this funding to say, are we getting value for money? Yes, we are getting value for money. But actually, you know, the resources, the demand is greater than the actual resource. To what's been said, or is it a new question, I'm afraid I've got about 10 people in front of you. Sorry about it. Just very quickly, Garrett, as mentioned social media and in response to Diane's questions out in the community, something that members can do is, is to be mindful of the kind of thing that goes on to social media. To see terrible pylons on threads of things to do with children and young people in in Denver sure as far as what's going on. And just, I don't know if you can speak to people and just set out the picture that Wayne and I have of the circumstances some of these children are living with and facing with. There's a very much a blame culture and we see it in social media a lot. It can be vicious. So, if members can just be mindful of that and just spread the word that it's a tough old world out there for these children and young people. And, and yeah, it's not just a case of them misbehaving a lot of the time there's there's real social reasons behind it. Council Bob it. Thank you chair. People keep talking about being brief. I will try and be brief. We all know there's a consistent increase in the incidence of mental health with, you know, with children in Wales in general, not just because of the covert 19 pandemic, but exacerbated by it. Are we doing a no do you think to help children and families when it comes to mental health. This can obviously lead to attendance issues as well. Have we ensured teaching stuff and other stuff as as you say it's not just teachers are trained and able to help in these cases. And can I ask another question as a supplement a short supplement. Is the proposal to change the school calendar year encouraging parents to holiday outside of school times leading to attendance issues. That's a sort of supplementary different question. Thank you. Thank you. If I learn if I'll start off, you are right. And you know it's in what it's in appendix three of the report that we win team there. There is an on call help desk from, you know, 9 to 4 every day. So any school that's got any concerns about any attendance issues with with children. There is a, you know, there is a an emergency service that they can call. And somebody will answer that that phone and take whatever action is required out of all those calls that come in about 54% of them of the issues around non attendance and issues around engagement and participation. So 54% relate to anxiety mental health issues. Since January 2022 of the referrals that school send into the service, 87% of them cite some form of mental health concern with regards to the reasons possibly behind poor attendance. So mental health and and the issues associated with with poor mental health certainly has an impact on on attendance. What do we do. I can spend another three hours on that because we did we did a a members workshop for some of you that will remember. I think it was last term, a members workshop on all the work around trauma informed schools friends resilience and all the various programs we use to to support the mental health of of young people. We filled three hours in the in the in the workshop and everything that is done. So there's a huge amount of work that goes on to support to support the mental health of young people. It does help. But, you know, it is, as Wayne said, it is wider than what we can offer as well. And it is something that we are very, very aware of. And, you know, as as we evaluate what we do, when we see there's an emerging need, maybe in the referral that are coming through. Well, our ed psych department, then they will think, okay, what, what, how can we react to this and provide that additional support to schools to be able to support the, you know, the families that they care for. So mental health is, is, is a massive contributing factor with regards of proposals around the school year. Obviously, the consultation has been out about changing the, the, the dates and the terms. And obviously, you know, everybody are free to answer the consultation. I know there is, there's conflicting opinions around changing the school year. My personal view is that the, the first term is always very, very long students and teachers and staff in schools. Report by, by Christmas, they're underneath. You know, it is a long term. This, you know, next half term, I think it's five weeks. And we've got that, you know, the difference between a five week term and an eight, nine week term in a seven year old build life is a long time. So a more consistent sort of regular breaks and regular terms could have, and I can't measure this at all at the moment, could have a positive impact on on attendance, which is part of the consultation. Time will tell, we don't even know what the outcome of consultation will be at, but time will tell if it does change. You know, how, how does that have a, a positive impact, and it could have an impact with regards to school holidays, for example, because the terms will be very different to what they are across the border. So, you know, that, that has an impact as well. I don't know if that answers your question or if we want to. Just a very quickly, just to supplement that point, I mean, just to give from an operational point, you do terms have an impact upon us within demonstrate. Yes, they do. And we just had the Christmas period where obviously schools were open to very close to the Christmas break. Those do have an impact upon families and others. So you do find a detailing of, of attendance in that last week, simply because, you know, there are families then who have other priorities, not necessarily the right priorities, but they have other priorities. And because of the terms and the length of the terms they do have an impact. Thanks. It has helped. I was just wondering if parents have sort of preempted the possibility of the new style of, of, you know, holidays, if you like, across the year. And they were sort of thinking and thinking, Oh, well, if this is coming in, well, you know, could have, could have increased their sort of keenness to go on holiday outside of the, the main holiday. We haven't seen that yet. No. Okay. All right. Well, next one on the list is Councillor Gareth. Yes, I think Councillor Bobbie had just stolen some of my thunder here, but I will carry on section. So back to the report on 4.1 to 4.1 to the current position of them, Mr. We are lagging behind, unfortunately, the rest of Wales. I was just looking at the data a bit further. What is the range of schools? So, for instance, what's our lowest performing school versus our highest performing school and leading on from that question, sharing of good practice within our school is so very important. I mean, this whole subject is the bedrock, you know, we can give them a quality education, but it's getting them there in the first place and reading what Estin say in their reports recently on improving education attainment and attendance. It's quite interesting that we share this across Wales, but just the data on the lowest to the highest would be great. And then going on from there, the use of the use of fixed penalty notices, it's quite a controversial area in some cases, but I'd like to ask how affected these tools are, I think, particularly in the cases of unauthorized holidays, where parents can save literally thousands of money, particularly when a holiday is very important to people and families to relax their mental health. How are we going to stop them going on term time? And how much is this down to enforcement by headteachers? The headteachers already have to run the whole school. It seems like we have put a lot of onus on the headteachers here, and I just wanted to know their training and development that this is not just headteachers, but across the whole school. That's my opening questions, and I will come back later on about something else, but if you can come back to me on those two points. So there's a question on the data, the range of what we have from the lowest to the highest schools in attendance, and also the fixed penalty notices on the use of unauthorized holidays, and your view on how we can get away with not putting that in. Thank you. Thank you. I will, I will be brief. I picked a few sort of questions, so around sharing good practice. Yes, we do that. I think it's interesting to read some of the estan recent, this term estan reports. You will see, and I know that Ruth's picked them out. She's got the call to their ready. But there are, you know, it is, it is highlighted that there is exception, good, exceptionally good practice in our schools. We do share that when we are aware of things that work. We share it through different meetings and you know, headteacher conferences and so on. The penalty notices how effective they are. You know, we, we had two members of the team in, in court this week. And, you know, it is the process that we've got when we reach the point of fixed penalty notice. It, it means that is the, that is the end. We have tried absolutely everything to get those pupils into school by that point. You know, that is the final straw where, you know, there is, there is action against the, against the parents of the carers because they are breaking the law. You know, and when anybody breaks the law, there is a consequence and it's usually a fine. You know, that is the process. You know, you could, you could argue, you know, speeding fines, how effective, how effective are they? You know, packing fines, how effective are they? You know, it's, it's in some cases, it is effective in other cases where they've already made savings of 2000 pounds on a school holiday. A fixed penalty notice is, is not going to be as, as effective, but that is the process that, that we, we follow and that is the current guidance that we adhere to. The, the lowest to the highest performing schools, Wayne will have to help me out. I'm a, I'm a linguist, not a mathematician. So hopefully, Wayne will have remembered. Obviously, we don't name schools. No. Yeah, so that we're not making comparisons. Thanks, Wayne. Okay. So just to answer your question, the lowest performing school is just over the 80% mark. The highest performing schools are, I've actually exceeded the position of COVID. So that not all schools in Denver are below the performance pre COVID. They actually have attained the same level that they were in 2019. And in fact, exceeded that. That's rural primary schools across the county. That's not specific to a particular area in, in Denver, up to 95, 96% attendance. So we've got schools at 95, 96% attendance, and we've got a schools just over the 80% mark as well. In terms of fixed penalty notices, what I would say is the issuing of those and there is data in the report. The primary focus I've found is that is an early and early intervention bar where we schools, we're working with schools, we're saying to parents, we can't tolerate them on attendance of your child. We've, we've notified you, we have a responsibility to notify them. The warning element of a fine has shown the greatest impact than actually define itself. So the warning. Usually has, and we've got data again, 78% of the warning letters that go out. We then analyze the attendance of those children after receiving that letter. There is an improved performance of those children. What we find is those that are entrenched, i.e. those families that are ultimately attendances an issue and it's a core element. They do end up to a fine, but then define the fixed policy fine, reverse back if there's a nonpayment of that fine back to the original offense and the original offense is the non attendance of the child at school, which is under the Education Act. That if then going to court potentially a parent can be found up to a thousand pounds. Every case in my management of this area of work in the last 15 years, there hasn't been a case that Denver has not taken to call where the case has either ended up with a conditional discharge, or there's been no out turn. So from a positive point of view, there's been justification why we have taken those cases. It's comprehensive in terms of the report writing, and it out absolutely outlines why we've had to take that course of action. In every case. Sorry, chair, just very quickly on that, just on that figure in that range. So, so as you say, we are kind of sort of slightly under the average and you've heard it, but that was quite a range there that that that Wayne went through. And I was here on Tuesday, as part of cabinet cabinet discussions on the budget, and we heard that Dan Bish's settlement was was slightly higher than some of the other areas. One of the reasons for that is the rise in our free school meal numbers. And we've already heard today that the correlation between disadvantage and poverty and the issues that we're dealing with engagement and education. So, I just wanted to make that point that, you know, we're living where we are. There's things going on that we know, and they say a rise in the free school meal data is a really strong indicator that our families are struggling more and more. And also that we've got that, that section who aren't eligible for free school meals who are very often struggling in similar ways. So just wanted to put that context on. Thank you. To Alan who's. Thank you, chair. From the recent estimate report. I'm looking at the recommendations for schools. Do we feel that they're relevant and realistic and what can be done to meet them. Yeah. The, the, the estan report that was published in January was published last last week. Obviously, it's, it's a thematic review with a review that the estan. Inspectors have taken in, you know, talking to schools, talking to local authorities and to Welsh government. And they do highlight, you know, there are recommendations for schools. There are recommendations for us as a local authority and for Welsh government as well. The recommendations for, for schools when I read the report and looked at the, the recommendations. There wasn't anything there that we, that we, that I felt. Worryed about that we are not currently working on the only one that we've had recent discussions on. And I think it is an area that as an authority and as, as schools, we may. Be able to, to develop further and we've had the discussions already before this report came out actually about that around engaging with the pupils themselves. And as part of the comms strategy, we know if we send a questionnaire out to, to young people who are not engaged with education, the likelihood of them filling out that consultation is quite slim. Therefore, but every pupil, every student will be glued to a mobile phone for hours of that day. So, you know, what we, that the, the direction we are looking with our comms partners is to look at, can we gather the views of these pupils who are not engaging through medium of social media. Because you will have seen on social media, you can have these, I don't know exactly what the technical term is like questions on, on Instagram questions on Facebook, that, you know, you click on it and then you see the data of what everybody else has said. And, you know, we are looking, you know, could we further engage with families, with young people through the use of, of that. And because it is something that we need that, you know, we do currently do, but it would be beneficial to try and sort of further, you know, further develop that the monitoring, the evaluating the improving of attendance. That is Wayne's team's bread and butter. And, you know, a lot of the appendices that we've included show you some of the approaches we take to achieve that. So from the, you know, and our schools, this is a high priority when you look at school development plans, you know, new curriculum, a land reform, attendance, these are the, the, you know, the issues that our schools are prioritizing at the moment. So, looking at the, at the report, you know, there was nothing there that stood out to me that made me worry. But there's always room for improvement. Oh, thank you. I just want to ask, is there any indication that non availability of school transport or the cost of public transport plays a part, particularly in winter in pupils from all the prime not attending schools. Yes, well, you know, you could argue I have no data to, to back this up, but you could say if we provided free school transport for every single pupil in Denver share all 16 and a half thousand pupils that attendance may improve. You know, you could sort of summarize that and that might be the case. However, there are other pieces of legislation such as a learner travel measure that dictate in law, who is eligible for transport, and who isn't eligible in transport. So, you know, there we from a passenger transport perspective, we adhere to the legislation with regards to passenger transport and and buses. So, you know, to answer the question you could anecdotally say, yes, if we, if we provided them with transport, they might not everyone, but they might, we might see an increase in attendance. However, we are not in a position to do that we in a financially not in a position to do that we're looking at savings in in transport that you will have seen from other report the council has has published, rather than increasing because it would be a considerable financial increase. Should we do that. But yes, you know, it's, I haven't really got the answer to that without, you know, a lot to win. Councilor Terry. Thank you chair. Most of my questions have been answered so far, but I want to try in a moment, but yeah, one of those are the punitive measures for the parents that don't send them but I think you've asked that and you in the data it shows 103 warning letters, as opposed to 25. So they're obviously working the warning letters. Yeah. Coming on to travel, we've come on to that. And I do know from previous conversations that we've had DCC spends about 7 million is it a bit more, which is a substantial sum. And I understand also you've just been given some more money from the L.A.E.E.G. Yeah, from Wales from Wales government you've been given additional money. Are you using that wisely? That's the thing. Basically, for example, in rural areas where a lot of taxis are being employed to take pupils from rural villages if you like to the main bus rail. The additional funding we received out through the L.A.E.G. the local authority education grant has been in relation to family engagement officers and the education welfare officer officer team. As with every grant, there are terms and conditions of that grant that dictate what we can we can spend it on and what what would be approved as an appropriate expenditure. Out of those two additional if they're the ones that you're referring to those two additional grants from the L.A.E.G. that in relation to attendance. Transport would not we would not be able to spend that funding on additional taxis in rural areas to promote to promote education because it would go against another piece of legislation, which is a learner travel measure. Unfortunately. Okay. And as I understand it, the three mile policy was reviewing that. When is that likely to be finished? And will it be more than three miles or will it be less than three miles? And obviously, it's less than three miles. That's going to impact on the transport budget. Less than three miles, you know, if in in primary schools is two miles secondary school, there's three miles, if that is, is reduced, more pupils will become eligible for transport that will have a considerable impact on that seven million. We, we already spend on on pupil transport. When will Welsh government review the learner travel measure. I honestly cannot answer that because I don't know. I don't know if Jill from the politician side. I know we've, you know, it's been discussed new. It's been it's been raised numerous times that there is an intention to review this policy, but from a time scale point of view. I don't know. The answer is I don't know either in a nutshell, but what I do know when I have asked about this previously is that like we find with our management of school transport, it sort of cross departmental so. So colleagues in education here deal with with colleagues in another service in order to deliver the transport so that the picture itself is when you ask the question on education basis with Welsh government, there's they have similar issues as in, well, it depends on another department as well. It's unclear is the nutshell answer, but we do keep asking. It's in the pipeline. Or just clarity, it's not a policy it's legislation. So it would require legislative change. It's not just a change of policy so they so whatever they do when they review it, they'll have to amend the legislation to change it. I think the simple answer is it's complex on there on it. Okay, Council Andrea. Thank you chair. I was interested to hear Wayne's explanation that the threat of a fine has far far more impact than any fine or indeed core action. So we're obviously spending a disproportionate amount of time on that end of the punishment scale to the outcomes. In fact, I do wonder what happens once the processes happened and the child still doesn't go to school what's next. Anyway, that's a quick question. But I was also concerned enough to ask Wayne and the team is so far as 4.3 of this report where it suggests that where it stays that Welsh government have announced plans to bring the threshold down to where the measures for dealing with non-attenders kick in and how will that impact on the team and their resources. It being a very small team. When that comes in, please. Thank you. Thank you very much for your questions. In terms of the actual fines, yes, when we end up in a court arena, obviously we're at the end of whatever the disposal is from the courts. We still have to work with those families. So we come out the court arena, but then we are still working with children who are eligible and should be accessing education. What I would say is, depending upon what the proposals are, the proposals are, sorry, from the courts, we can sometimes be working with other colleagues in the local authorities. So, for example, children services with particular families and daughters. In terms of engagement, it does give a focal point, I think, and a refocusing for some of those families that actually they do need to work with education, simply because the courts make it implicitly clear to stipend a bench that they appear with. Make it implicitly clear they could be back in that arena in the short term, if they were not to adhere and cooperate with education. So I suppose that's the focal point of that answering that question. In terms of the change that's just taking place just before Christmas from the 20% and bringing Wales now in line with England in terms of 10%. I mean, that equates to if a child is off for 19 days in any school year, that is the now 90% attendance element. And with the threshold changing, bear in mind the climate work that we are in in Denver, and again, across Wales, that puts more pressure on that actually schools after the six week period, the child is not in school on a regular basis. Potentially, that is a referral through to local authority services. So yes, that is a significant increase. If that was implemented and should be implemented across every school in in Denver and across Wales, then I think having spoken to my colleagues, managers across Wales, we all know what that significance will be in terms of demand on service. Thank you. Is there any other any plans to increase your team size then Wayne, please. I'm going to answer that one. The, you know, the, the, the increases we are, we are reliant on Welsh government grant funding. We are aware that there are there are changes proposed with regards to the funding of grants to the local authority. And, you know, we, we, we use those grants to increase increase the team, but we are reliant on, on the grant funding to be able to achieve that. Yes, if I could just come in on that Andrea, it's a really good and practical question. So thank you. And the, the plans that that Welsh government have spoken about, as we've seen with other plans for change will come with discussions with people like myself as far as how we make it work on the ground. And, and I would, I would be surprised if that announcement is left to just say and get on with it to local authorities. I think there will be discussions. And, as Gairain says, the way that grants and the way that we spend money on schools is shaped and changed as we go on. That will be part of the discussion, but it's a really good point from a practical level. And it will be something that I'll be taking forward during those discussions that that can have a real impact on on a local authority team. Thanks, Andrea. Thank you, Chair. Many thanks for your really detailed report, which obviously gives us a really full picture of the support that you give to schools with regards to attendance. Could I just ask that, obviously, in your report and in the recent estimate report, it's obvious that it really works most effectively when it's when schools are in partnership with the local authority. Having been on the school's budget forum yesterday and being very aware of the constraints on budgets for schools, my concern is how are schools going to be able to fulfill their role in that partnership. And do we know, perhaps this is for Jill, where the Welsh Government's got any future plans to ring fence money for schools to support something that they've obviously identified as a huge challenge within Wales. Thank you, I think the key word that stands out there is partnership. And that is the only way, you know, I think it's highlighted in the report, but it was highlighted in one version that I had, it is highlighted. There is no one solution, you know, one group or one service, we are not going to crack this problem alone. You know, it needs a sort of corporate and everybody buys into this within the council and from outside as well. And the key partnership for us is that partnership with school. I obviously my background, I was a head teacher and I always used to use to joke that the fourth emergency service for me was Wayne's team. So, you know, when there was, you know, when I needed that support, there is a member of Wayne's team available all week, every week there for schools to advise in some cases, and take action in other cases. That happens only 365 days of the year, but it's through the holidays as well. There is an encore rotor system throughout the school holidays. So it doesn't end at the end of term. They might have a day off Christmas and boxing day, but apart from that it does happen throughout holidays as well. So that partnership with schools is is key. We have got an excellent relationship with our schools. We have the team around the schools where all the relevant staff attend. And, you know, the children that are discussed in those meetings, the children that we are talking about today, the non-engaged children, the ones that don't participate with poor attenders and so on. And then it is very much a joined up approach, then, as to how we provide that support. How are schools going to cope? They are, you know, that is a challenge. It's all about spinning plates, isn't it? You know, we've been there. You know, we all do it. We all go that extra mile and we're all chasing that. That's sort of 25th hour in the day. It is a priority and it's all about prioritizing and, you know, attendance and engagement is a priority. And, you know, working with the local authority, with head teachers is working and, you know, it does work in the majority of cases with regards to Welsh governments. Intention to ring fence funding. I'm not aware of any intentions to ring fence this funding. However, when we do receive grant funding, for example, family engagement officers, the terms and conditions of that grant is always quite tight. And therefore, it might not be something I would call a ring fence, but it does state you can spend it on X, Y and Z. So you could argue that that is some form of ring fencing. Are you trying to ask a supplementary or was it additional? Yes. Yeah, it is a supplementary and it's following on from that. If I can ask it, please. Okay. Sorry, am I asking the question then sorry. Are you asking a supplementary question? You said, yes, I am. Yes. I mean, it's, we talked a lot about the, the sticks, if you like what what we do when it happens, but it should be about the focus. And if we're going to prevent things, we need to listen to people and get their feedback. We're just wondering what feedback we'd had on this on this action that we're taking and it's going forward today in this plan. From not only the internal, the teachers and the head teachers, but also the buying of the parents, which is the most concerning and the pupils if peer to peer pressure could be put on, come on, let's go to school. That sort of attitude. It's that culture we need to change. What practical measures and feedback have you received from this. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. You're right, prevention is is is far better than cure. And, you know, there is a lot of preventative work that that goes on. You know, the vast majority of the 16,000 pupils in the authority are not referred through to the EWA service. They, they are not referred through as, as having attendance issues. In part, that is down to the preventative work that we do that schools do those positive messages that go out parent communities families also play a part in that preventative role as well. And obviously, you know, prevention is is is key. And, you know, our comm strategy that I mentioned will be a part of that sort of preventative message. We're even looking at trying to get some famous people to give us the messages, you know, sort of successful people that appeal to the younger generation. And, you know, obviously I have asked some younger people for ideas because my ideas might be dated. So, you know, to promote that message, I wouldn't be where I am today, if I hadn't have gone to school type of messaging as as part of this, you know, prevention to stop these families and these children falling into the sort of pitfall of non-engagement and non-attendance feedback you write again is is feedback and evaluation going back to the original first question feedback and evaluation. A crucial part in this because what we can do and it goes, you know, I'm going back to social media side again from from regard to the social media comms strategy we're working on, we will get feedback on that and what works, you know, how many, who's engaged, how often have they engaged. You know, that is just one part, but feedback through school councils, feedback through the youth council and feedback from schools and teachers, it is something that, you know, we discuss regularly. But, you know, as I said, one of the recommendations from the improving attendance in secondary schools paper that has been published on Thursday around developing more effective methods to gather the views of pupils. That was the one that I do think we can develop further to get that sort of live feedback. Okay, if I can just come back as a governor, I feel positive that this culture change in Denver shows happening more and more, and the, you know, we are focusing now our attentions on this, and it is a whole school approach and I welcome that. And I'm just so reassured today that both Geraint, Jill, Wayne and Ruth are here and I hope that it's in 12 months time or whatever that this is a significant improvement, but thank you very much for today. Thank you chair. I understand the problems, I understand the issues and the monitoring of the absenteeism or lateness and what have you. Is there any data to show any partners, whether it's like Mondays and Fridays or Mondays, Tuesdays, just wanted for that for what one question, and can we put a figure on what it's costing for this pupil not to be in school that we can use that as a threat or, you know, in the highlight in your account And I think it's just a thing to sort of say, you know, by missing school, it's all many days, and I, you've, you've lost this, so you're not going to get it back. And so, and I do believe that the parents got a lot to do to help and ensure that their children get to school. So, there is some apathy with some parents, but there are, and how many times did they get a letter to say that their attendance isn't to the map before you go into the penalties or the fines or whatever you like to. Thank you very much for your questions. It's quite a number of points. So I'll go through them from a monitoring point of view. Obviously, we monitor our schools. Basically, weekly, monthly and terminally, and there's data there. Obviously, those schools that we feel are underperforming. It's based upon the data and we have attendance codes. So every child is registered every day twice a day, AMPM, the coding that we have. It takes then the kind of level and actions to be taken. So it gives a focal point for the schools and it gives a focal point for us the local authority right down to the individual pupil level. That's where we scrutinize to. So we scrutinize the school as a whole school, but then we scrutinize the school down to year groups and then year groups down to individual pupils and even down to individual families. So you could, for example, have, and we do have examples of in a particular school, the attendance is affected by 10 families. We can, we can go down to that level. We know exactly what that situation is. So that's the detail that we scrutinize down to. We then ask the questions of the school, how are we effectively working with that 10 families, for example, what are we doing? What are the interventions? What are the supports? That's the level that we go down to. In terms of overall, in terms of patterns and attendance, yes, in terms of actions that we take, the letters we've got an attendance policy. It's not clear processes that the schools can follow, but the schools understand you don't have to follow letter by letter. There are cases where, for example, we can accelerate situations where, for example, the families are not making contact with the schools. Well, then we wouldn't continue to send out multiple further letters. We asked the question, what actions need to be taken. So the attendance policy is there as an apology to out given out frame for the schools as to how to proceed with this, but obviously they can accelerate those matters as well. And they're fully aware of that. We have regular trading with both the administrative staff and with the senior management teams in our schools, literally every single year. And many cases will be fast tracked through to that type of level of support. Thanks, Chair. I'd like to say, firstly, as a parent, that the message about the impacts of absenteeism does get through. It's predominantly on every newsletter. We've had written letters come home. So, for those of us that engage in that, the message does get through. And I think you mentioned before that, that's the challenge is getting people to engage with that. But it's there in a nice, clear, colored chart. Unfortunately, the colors are often red and orange instead of green, but it's clear for us to understand. I wanted to talk about how you are recording reasons. I think this is crucial. I couldn't see either in the Eston report or in the policies. A clear policy of how you are doing it. I think you are doing it. I don't know whether it's consistent across schools. You do mention you have a good idea of what the root causes are, the main impact impact in reasons are. For us as Councillors, those clear charts can be really useful for talking about this on social media. They often follow a Pareto rule. So 80% of absenteeism is probably caused by 20% of reasons. It might be 70/30. But when we can see that in a clear graph, when we're trying to engage with people on social media who might be dismissing this as all the fault of poor parenting or, you know, some reason like that, we've got a clear data that we can put down. We don't have to get into some political discussion and spend hours ranting on social media. So I'd like to be able to see in these policies that there is a consistent method for schools to record the reasons why someone is absent. I understand it can be tricky. One child might say they were ill, and it turns out they were being bullied. So that's the reason. Someone might say the car broke down, but it might be because they couldn't afford the bus fare. So I understand it's a challenge. But I think it's crucial because when you have that Pareto analysis and you know what 20% of reasons are causing 80% of absenteeism, you can direct your limited resources at the biggest impacts, at the biggest causes and have the greatest impact. It's going to really help us all get this message out. So I'd really like to see that it might be there. It might be just that I've missed it in these reports, but I couldn't see it in the nesting report either. There's mentions. We're clear that free school meals and poverty play a big role. It's mentioned about school transport, but it's mentions here and there. And to me, it doesn't fit. It's difficult for me now. I want that, I want that graphic, that simple graphic like the bar charts we get on the newsletters that lets me go. No, this is the problem. And this is what we're doing about the biggest impact. So thank you. In the monthly reports and the monthly meetings that we have a seat as senior managers in education Wayne provides a report. And that is the level we get so from a school's point of view on their sims on their information management system where they record attendance. There is a national coding system that every school in Wales follows. You know, schools don't make it up. It's set there. So for example, M, if there's an M code that's medical. That means the school has seen a dentist appointment letter or a doctor's appointment letter or something. If it's I, it's illness. So that's where the parents have said, you know, John was ill, ill today and he couldn't come in. You've got, you know, there's a full page of these codes for various, you know, if there's an approved sporting activity. If, for example, you know, they, they play for some sporting team or something and the head teacher approves that, you know, request comes in to say, you know, they're playing for Everton Academy. You know, can they go have an afternoon to go and play football? The head teacher would approve that and that would be marked as an approved sporting activity. So when the data that Wayne's team provides us as managers, as senior managers to scrutinize is we can see on a school by school basis. There's, there's a vast majority of these non attenders. It's all illness. So that's when we engage with the school nurses and health to say, you know, what, what's, and it might be the case that chickenpox has gone through that school. And, you know, that, that is a reason. But the data just raises questions that we need to answer. So it might be that, you know, conversation with a school nurse then provides that reason why most of the codes are illness. If we see any end codes, N is no reason given. So that is, we don't know why these children aren't in school. Wayne's team challenges that because we need a reason for every absence. So N, any end codes are challenged. And then the school, then chase those up with with the with the families to make sure that the records we have, we are able to analyze based on the reasons given. We have to go on what the parents tell us the reasons are, and that's what record did. So, you know, an approved holiday has one code, a holiday that hasn't been approved, gets another code. You know, there's there's codes for days when the schools closed due to snow, you know, there's all these codes and we can analyze and we do analyze that monthly to try and find the the patterns we could on a county level, not going down to school level. So we could, and it's not who you haven't missed, it's not in the report. We could, we would have the data as to, you know, for, for schools, if our average is, I think was 88.9 or ever our averages. So, how is that remaining sort of 11.1% made up in, you know, is it holidays, is it illness, is it medical appointments, is it sporting activities. So, you know, we do have that data and each school has it on a school basis as well. However, the sort of the schools that we identify as the schools that require that additional support. We provide that level of data for the schools. I have a good discussion to run on. It's such an important topic featuring not just a county level, but nationally, not regionally and nationally. That's why I've allowed this quite considerable over over on. But I think when everybody had the question to ask, I think has been accommodated. So I would like to take you now to the recommendations, which were initially that scrutiny are invited to discuss the details of this report and to identify any matters raised that require further clarity or examination in the future. Well, we've discussed the detail. So members, can you add to those recommendations, anything that you would like further clarity or examination in the future on please any comments. Can I challenge you then to do me that graphic. You know, it sounds like you've got the data. You know, I'm looking for graph of the year. There's a council a whole graph of the year competition. The currently in first position is Liz Thomas's funding gap chart. It was because it was clear and it told it was an easy to understand message. You don't have to be a data specialist to understand it. I think you've got the data there to be in a contender for graph of the year. We have we have got the data. I am meeting with our data officer tomorrow on another matter. And I will set him that challenge because personally I would have a skill to do it, but I know a man who can. Right. Well, can I just add in there then. I think probably, you know, the committee have real concerns like we all do about about this situation. So, how would you feel now then if we were to add in a recommendation about further, a further ongoing report and in future to see how we've progressed. And if so, at what sort of interval, how would six months be reasonable or would that be. Sorry, would I'm just thinking six, six months. How about the, if we did in September, we would have the academic year data. If you know, I know it's a bit longer than six months, but. If that's acceptable. It takes every sense to link any subsequent reports to the academic year, it might provide a bit of structure and context. So if we say, you know, there's a light come on down here's up Terry is this. No, it's fine. Well, I was just going to agree and propose that we do include that in Monday. Okay, so Bob, he's made that recommendation. Diane has seconded it. Do you want, do you want some, what's the quite word information report. It will be full of graphs. You're, you might have opened a channel where the accounts. Right. So we haven't, we had to move the recommended that we, we, we, we've adopted the report, discuss the details. It requires ongoing, ongoing reports, I think, but linked to the school year for some sort of clarity. So that's moved and seconded are all the members in favor of that. Good. Thank you. Well, thank you very. Thank you very, very much, as ever, your reports are very, very clear, as always. So at this point, I'm going to call a short break in the meeting and then move on to the library's team and apologize for keeping them. That was a very broad break. Thank you very much for your help. Apologies to the visiting team for running late, but I think you'll understand the importance of the previous item. So we now go to item six on the agenda, which is library service standards and performance, which you'll find at pages 75 to 94 in your pack. And this is to consider a report by the principal librarian, which highlights the library services performance against national standards and seeks the committees of observations in relation to the committee's report. So I think we have the lead member on the head of service and the principal librarian. So welcome all. Thank you very much for coming in. Thank you for the welcome. And thanks to everybody for the presence. The information that I have, to be honest, has been summarized entirely in the report before you today. I will keep it brief from read from the first paragraph before transferring to Liz Greve, who will take us through the report. And then you can go through it in detail then. Dembyshire is performing well we're talking about 2022 and 23 of course this is this report is almost a late, but during that year, the report states that Dembyshire performs well in many areas, especially with relation to admission with the attendance at events, visits, and borrowers above the median. The service also serves well for with the issues and shows an awareness of the changes and the development of it in libraries. Although, Dembyshire performed well at the moment, and it has plans for the short term in future, there are concerns regarding how the service can respond in the medium term. And if there will be cuts, as foreseen to library services, for 25 and we know that that that fruit is on the tree as it were. So in that context, it's very important that the service can hold users reviews in the next year, and we hope that that will confirm what the recommendation gives to us. Thank you. Bora Darpal, I just want to take this opportunity to introduce you to Debbie Owen, who is on the principal librarian, Deb has been in post since November. And this is her first scrutiny meeting. So I think I'm going to be doing most of the talking, but Deb is here. I said to answer all the difficult questions. Welcome, welcome, Debbie. I'll make sure that they don't bite. Okay, so I won't go through the reporting detail, but I just want to give you some key points. As, as Emma has mentioned, this is around our library performance in the financial year 22 to 23. We submit a report to Welsh government and then Welsh government commission somebody to look at everybody's reports and then we get a letter back from them just before Christmas to say pretty much what we've just told them. So that's why we come to scrutiny. It feels a bit late, but it's just the process that we follow. Just take your mind back to the beginning of that financial year, 22, 23, we've still very much in COVID time. So our access to library was still quite disrupted at the beginning of the year, but it's really gratifying to see that our performance really improved very quickly on the, on the ending of lockdowns, which I think shows you the, the value of the library service and the way that we were able to pivot during lockdowns to be able to make sure the service was available to customers and remain consistent through significant changes. The Wales Public Library standards themselves are due to be reviewed. I think you'll note that the current framework has simply been extended for a couple of years, but we are expecting a new framework for Wales public libraries to be published next year. So we might see some slight change from Welsh government policy in respect to the library standards, but the current standards. I think we hold our own in terms of delivering them. And they are also very much in line with what our library customers themselves tell them, tell us that they value an area. Sorry, we do try to respond to people's needs. So you'll note that where we talk about access to IT and the use of our computers has gone down significantly hasn't come back to pre COVID levels. But we have changed our access so it is possible now to be able to use our Wi-Fi printing directly from your phone and your mobile device, which was something that wasn't possible before. So it's still about using libraries to access services digitally. It's just we're responding to how customers choose to be able to do it. So I won't go into any more detail, but we'll be glad to take any questions. Thank you. I hope members of the opportunity to study the report and we had a chat about it at the briefing meeting yesterday, so I can open this for questions and council feely was first up. I think it was Gareth, if I'm being absolutely up. Oh, well I've got you first and Gareth second. But Gareth, if you don't mind going second, I'll continue. Well, as you can welcome Debbie and hope you enjoy the job. As you can see from this report, we have an excellent library service here in Denvershire, one of, if not the best in Wales. Denvershire's met all 12 core entitlements, eight of the 10 quality indicators with targets achieved in full. And I have to say what a shame it is. This report is historic, what a shame because the savings to be achieved by a 40% cut of 360,000 seems a drop in the ocean in terms of our 24 million pound gap. Anyway, I won't go into that. I would like to pay tribute to and thank all those who have been part of delivering and expounding our excellent library service. And I do wish you well going forward. I have got a question. Where library services elsewhere have experienced funding difficulties, they've been run with the help of volunteers include, and they've included some of them have included cafes and meeting places. And I believe they can become thriving community hubs. Have you had any time at all to research into this or is this too soon to us. I'll pick it up. I know you're looking at it. Yeah, no, obviously this is. So, we just just a point of clarification in the first place. I just need to say, I know this isn't a paper about the cuts, but the 40% cut is a reduction of 40% average reduction in opening times. The cut, the budget cut is equivalent to 21% just as a point of clarification. In terms of thriving community hubs, it's very much part of our library strategy for our libraries to be the beating hearts of our communities and the use of libraries by stakeholders and partners, both in the third sector and the private sector. It is representative of that. We do derive significant financial contributions from example banks that use our libraries for offering their services there. Colleges as well use our libraries. And that's definitely an area that we will be looking at going forward. We've been able to to date to be quite generous in our offer of those community facilities, but we will need to be reviewing our charging policy to to be able to cover our costs going forward. But our library buildings are really well maintained buildings often right in the centre of our towns, and it would be nice to see them being made use of more and more going forward. And that's something that we'll be looking at. Speaking on Debbie's behalf, she's joined a nationwide group of librarians that are looking at opportunities for greater opportunities to bring down alternative sources of funding for libraries. So we'll be bringing best practice into Denvershire through the establishment of the library's task force, which I think was mentioned in cabinet on Tuesday, Monday, this week, earlier this week. And we look forward to involving members with those discussions going forward. Yeah, I was just hoping that realistically going forward, although we have taken a massive in terms of the service budget cut, that the 40% sort of opening hours could be up with the help, or is that's the wrong way to put it, isn't it? It could be reduced in terms of bringing in volunteers, so it wouldn't be, although we've had a massive cut to the service, that the actual opening hours could maybe expand again if we relooked at it and embraced the community, if the community indeed were prepared to be embraced. Yes, absolutely. And that's the purpose of the task force to look at alternative models. And we do use volunteers currently in our libraries. We've not picked up great numbers since COVID, but that's certainly part of the mix going forward. Certainly, thank you. Yes, thank you, Chair. My question is around 4.9, we seem to be using, we seem to be, our digital offer seems to be quite comprehensive, as according to the report it was 12 months ago. Going forward, I won't go on with what's already been discussed, but we're looking at transformation, we're looking at what will be the catalyst for this change. How do we compare in Wales on this report to other people in terms of digital offer, and going forward, how are we going to reach out our digital offer to the non-digitally educated, or excluded. In some cases, how is that, how are we going to do that, because that is the serious challenge we face in the environment we've currently got. So, a comparison in Wales on why we are in this report, and going forward looking positively at what transformation on the digital front, and including the digitally excluded. Thank you. Thank you, Gareth. The Welsh government doesn't compare library services anymore. I think they might have done pre-COVID, but certainly since then they haven't done any comparisons. So, I'm not able to give you an answer on that, except that we do meet the standard. In terms of people who were not digitally enabled, it's a big part of our librarians work, because of our integration with one-stop shops, we have a lot of people that come in seeking help with paying for bills online, blue badges, bus passes, et cetera, et cetera. And that is something that takes quite a bit of our time. It's something I'd like to see, perhaps more volunteers being utilized for that. We also host projects which do seek to expand digital engagement. So, hopefully you've seen recently come pass have been advertising access to learning about digital access, and the libraries are hosting a great number of those sessions, informal sessions and more formal sessions, and that's something that we will continue going forward. Digital access to library services absolutely shot through the roof at the beginning of COVID. So, people who were choosing books, traditional hardback books from libraries very, very quickly went on to accessing digital resources, which is why our spend on digital resources did go up substantially, and we continue to meet the needs of our digital customers as well. Thank you. Okay, if I can just come back. I think communication and the way we market it is really important. We have a schools library service as well. What integration with schools have we got currently, and how well are we going to advertise it in the future. Thank you. The digital offering I mean sorry. Yeah, I don't think that we have a schools library service. Oh, we don't anymore. Right. Okay. But we do engage with schools and just as an example, we do try and work with the school librarians where they are. So, yeah, that's what I meant. Yeah. I've recently been working with the new librarian at Preston High School. Last year we went in and we did some assemblies to the two young, is it the year seven and eight students became an assembly and told them all about the ebooks that they were able to download audio books, all the online resources that we offer, and we did see a little bit of a take up from them. So going forward, that's what we want to do more with that. Just the other thing with that, kind of what makes librarians so special is they are so good at helping people find information. And, you know, when we were all youngsters, that was about being pointed to the Encyclopedia Department of the Library, whereas now it's about finding information online. And librarians are information professionals, so they can advise on seeking truth on the internet, which is quite a skill. And those are the sorts of kind of professional librarian skills, which we really want to be able to maximize as much as possible going forward. Yeah, thanks very much Liz, and a big thank you to those past and present employees, the librarians on this report. Thank you. Councillor Evelyn. Do you like to come in? Yeah, just to mention briefly about the connection with schools, no, we haven't got a school library service at the moment. But school libraries are important to people for many pupils in terms of learning and also a place to go when they want peace and quiet. And from my experience as a former teacher, seeing school pupils volunteering to be in the library and working and learning about the system, it puts them in a very good place when the time comes in future, when the school library or local library asks for volunteers, and when they're when we're also looking for new librarians. Thank you, Councillor, Ellie, John. Yeah. Thank you. Is it? Oh, it's yes. Afternoon. Can you hand up how I think some of my questions already be answered, but I'll just read it out again. I agree that future surveys will change, but my question is, is the library service, is it going to ensure that provision will meet the needs of residents' customers in the future? So it's, I know we've got the e-books, and I was so pleased to learn about the fact that you're helping the one stop shop, shop residents who don't do internet, blah, blah, blah, but it's the future surveys list that I want to know. You know, what, what else ideas have we got to expand, even though we've got the, the reductions in hours? Okay. Yes, Debbie's planning on doing a customer survey this year. So we will be getting feedback from customers on how they'd like to see the library service respond to their needs. So we'll have information about that in future performance reports. Yeah, that's lovely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I use our library in, it was fantastic. You know, we go there on a Saturday, we could get 10, 10 books, kids books for reading through the week, we played with a Lego, and it was really good. I could never understand why it wasn't busier, you know, with such a free, great thing to do with your kids on a Saturday morning. I'm interested in the library use quality indicators, I think they're called on here. And number eight, I don't understand what visits per capita means, where capita are calculated per 1000 population. It says 2,495 visits per 1000 population. Is that right? I don't understand what that means. So I'm asking the librarian to find some information for me, which you said they're really good at. What I'm trying to understand is, how many of how many of the people I represent in Saint Asif use the library, and what do they use it for, you know, is it, is it a handful. Is it a lot? I mean, I can, as, as, as counselors, we can do surveys of residents, things like that, but I'm just wondering whether we have, rather than this seems to be a kind of standardized way of, of indicating the library use, but for me, how many of my residents use the library, whether you can drill that down per board. I don't know. Can you give me a better picture than than whatever that number is? Yeah, football figures are a very, very blunt instrument, because, you know, you could have the same person coming to the library 100 times. So, you know, we do have, we have to submit the reports that we're asked for from wealth government. And we could tell you not here and now, but we could tell you how many of your constituents are library members. And we can tell you how many are active library members. So there are people like, you know, we all join a gym and perhaps don't go to it as often as we intend to. I think possibly the same with libraries. So we can tell you how many people are library members, how many active library members. But we can't, but, you know, I agree with you about the Saturday morning in St Asif, because if you might remember that when the, when the consultation was first launched with proposal was to stop the Saturday morning. And there was a lot of kickback saying, please bring that back. But we haven't seen the football in St Asif that we would have liked to have seen. So we have brought that back, but I'd like to see, I'd like to see more. We do do, I mean, press that in. If anybody goes to press that in library on a Saturday morning, it's absolutely healing. So it's interesting how different towns respond differently. So we could give you that information and we can, we can send that out for in this meeting if you're happy with that. Yeah, thanks. So it really helps us, because it helps us try and sell the service as well. You know, if we can understand, you know, residents, behaviors, you know, maybe we can, we can alter our message in accordingly. Thanks. I kind of just, if I can just come in before I take the next speaker location, I think we'll have a lot to do with football, that pro satin library is really well situated in the center of the town. And I visited regularly because my banker there once a week. So I enjoy going there and I enjoy seeing what else, what else goes there. And it's nice and warm and comfortable if you've got to sit for a minute or two. But so that's if library requires a journey and down a road, doesn't it, to a rather wet car path at the back of it. So that may be a feature. But we can't just pick the dust of library up and move it. But I remember when I was lead member for libraries going to call when there was an empty bank had come available, but it was all a sort of an island, which required when we got there with your predecessor. It was all an island in the middle of Corwin, which involved crossing main roads to get to it. It was clearly a no no on the road safety grounds. So I think location is all important and that may be part of what you're saying, but that's just the person. Yes. You're right. You know, I think the locations of just all our libraries are a great and instant as if we do have a group of people that meet up there regularly before they go walk in the dogs along the river. So I think for them, they'd like to say fantastic library is perfectly placed. Would say something happens before. Yeah. Could you say I'm going to win? Could there be mentioned car when chair. I know where the bank is that you mentioned, I go there for meetings with another body that temperature works with that being cut to include. But the current library in card one is far safer and closer. To the main to main car packs in card one. So it's very practical in terms of ensuring that the visit visitors in the library are able to do so quite freely. Now, Catherine. Thank you. Liz and Debbie and just I'm bringing us back to the fact that we are performance scrutiny and part of the recommendation is that the report can report comes back. A report comes back to us next January a year away. And this isn't going to be an ordinary year. We can't report as we have in the past. This is going to be the year that we see our libraries close almost 50% of the time. Okay. 40% of the time. So it's going to be different. We need to know. Up to the minute, day by day, week by week, what impact that is having. We can't just be looking at maybe having a survey later in the year because these are going to be damaging impacts to people. So I wonder is there a plan going forward following these closure announcements. Oh, how the impact of that is going to be monitored from day one. We can't wait for a survey six months, 10 months, 12 months down the line. This is going to be impactful straight away. So are we doing it differently this year in so far as progressing towards reporting back to this performance committee. And I would suggest that that is before January 2025 as well as part of the recommendation currently suggests. Thank you. Yeah, just just to clarify this, this report that we're bringing to you today is for the financial year, 22, 23. So next January, the report will be 23, 24. So the annual reports that will cover the changes will be the year after that. So you're right. It's, you know, I'm talking about blunt instruments a lot, but this is a blunt instrument to be tracking the impact of changes. So I wouldn't, you know, we will be reporting on that in the in the fullness of time. But actually we will be working very closely with our libraries to to plan for the changes because we need our customers to know what changes are going to be happening for their local library and also to to register the impact of those changes. So that is something that we'll be doing. And the, the survey is all part of the mix. The survey is about us asking library members about what's important to them in terms of the services that we offer. So won't be it won't be another consultation about the closures. This is about what sort of services they want to see in the libraries week, week by week, and that will inform our service development going forward. So that was, I mentioned that in response to the digital question, because it might be that people are asking will be asking us for more access to more digital things. I mean, when I've wanted to borrow a book from borrow book, sometimes I've been told I'm going to have to wait an awfully long time for it because there aren't that many available to us. So it might be that the feedback from our customers is can you spend more money on the on the digital versions of books. So those are the sorts of things to inform our service going forward. So yes, we will be monitoring it. It'll come out in this report in the fullness of time, but certainly when we come back to scrutiny next year. And if you accept the recommendation, then we will be talking about the year, the report on the year 2324, but in that report, we can, we can mention some highlights of what we've, what we've tracked in terms of the, the immediate impact. And then finally, I'd expect that the task I've called it the task force. It's just my working title for it. The library's task force would be, would be shut them, fed that information to inform their deliberations as well. Okay, I do. Yeah. Yeah. I'll close it down, I think. Oh, no, I took my hand down. Sorry. I was just about the card with the thing. So it's sorry. I'm just going from what Andrea said, I wasn't happy that it would be so out of date. And I'm just wondering, because if it's a 24 year end, why can't we have it. After the short, shortly after the 24, if you've got all those statistics. So I wouldn't like to recommend the proposal. As it stands, I would like it earlier. So I would like to throw it back and say, what's the earliest opportunity that you could bring this back. I believe this is because we've canceled meetings again and again. So it's fallen out of kilter with the actual calendar are going forward. So I'd like to bring it back into line and bring it more information. I mean, previously, you know, we just had a report which showed data, which was, you know, the other month, the last quarter. I'm not expecting that, but I am expecting. I am not expecting it over a year late. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, I can, I can respond to that, which is the report that we're bringing today. We couldn't have bought you any earlier because we didn't receive our feedback from Welsh government until just before December before Christmas rather. So, as I say, the, what we do is we submit our, we submit our information into Welsh government in June. And then we get their response in December. So, you know, why do we have to wait for Welsh government. Sorry. Because it's what we're bringing to you is our is our report. Our report for how we meet the Welsh government library standards, which, which is a report that comes from Welsh government. So, that's what we're bringing today. But as I say, we submit our information in June. So it scrutiny do have an option to see what we've submitted, but it's not, it's not been authorized by Welsh government. So, okay, no, that's, that's day. So after June, you could bring it as a draft version to us. That would be great. Thank you. No, I was just, I was just going to say, but I'm probably being clarified since, but I think what I was going to say was what you're asking for is a different report to the purpose of this report is to feed back to you. If you like Welsh government authenticated performance report. If members want a different report, then it's perfectly within the power of the committee to ask for that, but it wouldn't be this one exactly. So this one would need to come the next time we've had the Welsh government authenticated ones doesn't stop you taking a different report. So we could have the draft report essentially at the same time that they submit it. Or a different report tailored more to the questions you want to ask, rather than the standards that Welsh government have published. Okay, but I wouldn't like to see too much work be given the fact that we haven't got that many more. We haven't got any more employees. So I'd leave it there, but earlier the better. Thank you. Yeah, because you looking at two different things here, as I said, this report is an annual report and it does come this time every year. After Welsh governments have given their feedback. You mentioned there having like the draft report in June, no problem with that either. But you may also want to be looking at possibly in six months time or a bit later looking at the impact of the reduction in hours on the service. And perhaps some feedback possibly from the task, task group or whatever it's going to be called, that you may want them to feed back to you on their findings. And what, you know, their proposals going forward. Okay. Yeah, I'd like to propose that going forward and the initial findings of the task and finish group tied into the draft report. Yep. And that was perfect. Yeah, second. Yes. Sorry. I think that what pre-end suggests is a really, really great idea. I'm just thinking about the timing that would be would be a meaningful time to do that because the changes aren't going to happen until June, you know, the implementation of the new model isn't going to happen until June. So I think probably it'll be September or October before we can bring anything very meaningful to you. Right. Well, it's an excellent report. I think very encouraging results. So I can take you now to the recommendations, which are item 3.1. Yep. Yeah, you want to speak before recommendation. Yeah, I just mentioned the closure of libraries that no library is going to close. I've said that numerous times in meetings. It's also been emphasized and the libraries will continue to be open, but for shorter hours during the week, the library building will be available on the other days to as well as during their usual opening time. We're not closing libraries and we're looking forward, hopefully, that we can increase the hours again in the future. It might take a few years for that to happen. Maybe we should think about it like this. You often see in a football match when a footballers send off the match that the other 10 then work harder in order to make up for that loss. And I'm hoping I'm sure I'm hoping that will happen in our libraries as well. We will have the staff we have can then hopefully fill the gaps that might happen in as a result of losing staff in the future. Thank you now to the recommendations at 3.1, that the committee considers and comments on the performance against the sixth framework of Welsh public library standards and considers requesting a progress report in January 25. We have considered, I think we've had a very positive response to the report, we're all pleased with the library service as we know it, but I can see Councilor Feedy's got something to say. I would just hope that we have an addendum to that. Yes, yes, the recommendation. I'm moving to that now. So, vice if you may, I'm just wondering, that report in January 25, that still stands because it's the normal one. You can then either have in June, July a report on the data that the service is going to submit to Welsh government. Now, you can either have that as a report on your work program, which is rather full, or you could have that as an information report. And if you see anything in that, you want them in earlier, that's fine. And then that in the autumn, we look at having the initial findings of the task group or whatever that group is going to be called, but looking at the impact of the reduction in service hours now. And, you know, the proposals that are coming, being drawn perhaps for a new type of service going forward. Okay, can I just alter the word autumn to September, please. We've got four. Or we can juggle them around and I'm sure. We have to all day meetings. So, we've got the original recommendation. I don't think there's any problem with that. But in simple terms, we want to know, by September, some sort of an indication of an impact of the changes to the service. And then next January, we've got the progress report again. Is that right? Do you want the mid-year report, if you like, the annual stats that Liz and the team sent to Welsh government? Do you want them as an agenda item report, during the July time, or do you want them as an information report? I mean, your hands, members, do you want not in person? No. Other views? Everybody happy that that's an information report? Yes. Something in it that we're concerned about, and then we might change your mind. I just think that we are more concerned as a committee on the impact that the changes call them what you like have on the service. And I think if it's a very busy agenda in September and October would be better, I think that would give us a bit more knowledge as well, in terms of the months since, you know, since now. So I would suggest October, if that's got a freer agenda, so as we could give it a proper end, airing. September, November, November, you've got meetings and both at the moment of the report. But we can look at that anyway near the dates, but. This is a forward scrutiny and we're busy. It's the mitigation measures. I'm really concerned, you know, where we're up to there as well. So I'd just like to put that on record. It's what we're doing about mitigating it. Thank you. Sorry, can I just jump in and say that, you know, it's gratifying to see members so engaged with this. And the intention is that members are involved in the task force. So we will be coming subject to lead members agreement will be coming to mags and asking for a rep from each of the mags to be part of the task force. So, you know, there is an opportunity for members to be engaged with it outside these these committees. I just wanted to give you some assurance on that. Good to hear that. Thank you. We were the wording of the recommendation, please. Well, you have considered and commented on the performance against the sixth framework. And that you in June type that you have an information report detailing the statistical return to Welsh government for the 22 23 24 years. That's the one. And then in October, ish, we have the initial findings of the task group that will be looking at libraries going forward. And then in January 2025, you will have this annual report, but the next year of this annual report as normal. It's a move, please move. And seconded Terry. Thank you. All in favor of that. Nobody again. So that's, that's, that's caring. Thank you. Thank you very much. You're confirmed. Can I take you now members to item seven? Thank you very much, officers. Thank you. Thank you. Take you to item seven, which is the scrutiny work program of which you've got a copy in your pack. Rianne, are you reporting that? Yes. Hello. Thank you. This is your usual report. The work program, as it stood up to today is an appendix one on page 101. The next meeting is on the 7th of March, and you've got four items that quite substantial items. We've got the two education reports, one on elective home education, one on the 2018 Austin inspection recommendations. And there's also a report there, the economic and business. I know the chairs got an interest in that and also a report from Wales or the office on how we respond to that. We've got four items there. There's also a meeting on the 18th of April. There are three items there too. So as a committee out to the three scrutiny committees, you're busier than the other two. So we're not so rather concerned. We're not concerned about your work program. In appendix two, you will see the application form for the chairs and vice chairs group. If there's any subject that you've or issue that you feel that it would be useful for it to be scrutinized in more detail. It doesn't have to be within this committee's remit. It can be any subject to do with anything that the council is responsible for. Please complete that form and submit it to me and then the chairs and vice chairs group will consider it and decide whether they agree that merit scrutiny and which scrutiny committee should do so. The group are meeting Monday afternoon, next Monday afternoon. So if you've got anything at the moment that you'd like to put down, fill it in today and give it to me today and I can ask them to consider it next week. In their last meeting in November, they did look at one application, one request and that has been put down for November 2024. And it's to do with the council processes for applying for grants of substantial amounts similar to what the leveling up funds did after leaving Europe. So we want to ensure that the process we have in place fit for purpose for that job. In your final meeting, somebody raised the question in terms of the corporate plan. There are nine priorities in that at the moment, and whether we can continue to achieve these in the current financial climate that we're in. There are a few discussions have taken place as I believe regarding that and there is a paragraph in the report there paragraph or point eight. And what they're asking there is in terms of the pressure on officers to provide reports to committees. I think a decision was made to get rid of the quarter one, quarter three reports that would come to you for information. They weren't being discussed in the meeting, but they were there for information. Those in future won't be prepared. Quarter two report and quarter two for quarter four and the annual report will continue to come as previously, but they also remind you that you have got admission to the virtual system. So, if there's anything that concerns you and you want to look into it further, then you're welcome to do that on that system. And if anybody needs training on that, let me know and I'll make inquiries on your behalf. And then in appendix three, you'll see the cabinets forward work program just for information and then appendix four, you'll see the latest on the recommendations from the previous meeting. I don't think there's anything else that I need to raise unless you've got any questions. I'll try and answer them. Thanks. Thank you. You mentioned about the leveling leveling up funding process. Will that include shared prosperity funding allocation? Because I think it could be, well, I assume it is managed by the same team or in a similar way. It's something I'd be interested in because I've been involved in local businesses trying to claim those funds. So I'll be interested in that. Okay, it's not actually about the funding itself. That's about the processes for applying and some of these funds are announced with quite short time scales for applying for them. So we want to make sure that the processes we've got in place to help the council under this to apply for them are robust. That's what I mentioned is the process, not the funding because we went through a process with a small business and I'm interested in the process, but it was on the shared prosperity fund. So is it the same or is it the same? It's for any high value fund grant funding that will become available. So it will include that. Okay. And the other thing was on the Virto system. I have tried to use that. I have found though it's been the date is not always up to date. So, yeah, I don't know what we do about that really, as long as we're aware it's not up to date yet, you know, sometimes I've gone looking for measures on that. So it might be, I was in, I think, a strategic equality and diversity group meeting and I looked at what the corporate indicators on Virto that were in the report that we were looking at to see if there was any more details. Obviously, on Virto was a little bit more historical data and things like that. And the measures weren't on Virto that were in the report and it was Virto was kept playing catch up. Maybe the other way right on that you mentioned. Oh, I'll make some inquiries on that. Okay. It's a no question. Yeah, just to respond to Martin actually about the shared prosperity fund. So there are two sides of it. There is the business side, which has been run and also the DBSC side the third sector. Both are going to be having to be spent within 18 months. So there is a deadline. About that. I don't know how so by the time it comes up to committee, it will be 12 months left of those funding pots to spend those that money and not only spend it but get the feedback back to people so just bear that in mind that the timescale might be slightly off. Right point taken I think just just for together. It's not about those friends. I just use those as examples of funding. It's from the process for applying for those grants funding or similar grant funding in future. And whatever will be next in the future. Yeah. Right. Take you then to the recommendations, which are on page 95 that the committee considers the information provided and improves revises or amends its forward work program. As it deems appropriate and determines whether any key message or themes on the current meeting should be publicized by the press and or social media. I don't think we have determined. No, no, no, no. So is somebody move the recommendation that we have considered the report and approved it. Terry Menner has done that. I'm probably seconded. All in favour. Very good. Nobody against. Thank you very much. Which takes us then on to. I know. Yeah. Item eight. It is to receive any updates from committee representatives who've attended various council boards and groups. I don't think there's a lot to report. My own case, I sit on the Queen's building project board. Only to report that we haven't met since the new year. The January meeting was cancelled or postponed. So I've nothing much to report there, except that the building nears the handover point. And that's all I can report there. Has anybody else attended any boards? Carol. I was at this service challenge for adults such as care and homelessness. And it was just out there. But the state of what, you know, the people that needed sort of accommodation and trying to tackle it. And it's cut cause. Nobody's been anywhere since we last met. No, just to say the capital scrutiny group meets tomorrow morning. So it won't be anything to discuss. No, that's fine. At that point then, we're back, not far on time, just 10 minutes over.