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Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday, 27th February, 2024 4.00 pm
February 27, 2024 View on council website Watch video of meetingTranscript
I don't want to hold things up Councillor Colmon, Councillor Colmon, I'd be delighted if you could join us. Thank you so much. Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to the overview and scrutiny committee, Tuesday the 27th of February. Before we kick off on the agenda, let's just introduce ourselves because we have some people in the room who may not know us all. I'm Gary Sowin, Councillor for Watermore. I'm the Vice Chair of this committee, but I'm substituting for the Chair who is away, so I'll be chairing this afternoon. Perhaps I'll go around this way and we can all introduce ourselves. Good afternoon. I'm Clare Lott, I'm Assistant Director for Cotsaw District Council and the supporting office of this meeting. Good afternoon. I'm Councillor David Fals from the Colmon Valley Ward, I'm substituting today for one of my Conservative colleagues. Good afternoon. I'm Councillor Patrick Colmon from Stratton Ward in Sirensister. I also am substituting for one of my colleagues. I'm Delisneel. I come from, I come from, I represent still on the walls in the north of the district and I'm not substituting for anyone because I'm regularly on the ONS. Good afternoon. I'm Councillor Juvia-Jab and I'm substituting for Councillor David Cunningham. Councillor Michael Van, Fairford North, I'm here as a member. And I'm wearing a Borton Village Ward. I'm Clare Lott there for the Broccoli Ward and I am acting Vice Chair for this afternoon. Thank you everybody and particular thanks to those people who substitute Councillors for this meeting because I know there's a fair amount of background information that you have to enjoy in preparation for this meeting and I'm sure you would enjoy it as much as I did. Apologies. We have received apologies from Councillors Gina Bloomfield, Tony Slater, David Cunningham and Angus Jenkinson. As you said, apologies, Angus Jenkinson. Councillor Jenkinson has miraculously appeared. Could I just check whether you're on your substituting for your substitute? Be delighted to have you up here, Angus. Do take a seat, Angus, we'll welcome you up here. I took care not to be specific about for whom I was substituting, so I'm very happy if I am substituting for Tristan Wilkinson to do that. Who are you substituting for your substitute? Councillor CUM will sort out the subs on the minutes accurately once we've actually got everybody present and correct in the same place. Councillor CUMMING, Councillor MURMING, Councillor CUMMING, Councillor MURMING. Thank you. Excellent. Substitute members, we've just thank accurately cover that, so we've done both in one time, declarations of interest from any colleagues or officers. I will, of course, introduce other speakers when they come up to the front here. We've got two sets of minutes to approve. We have the minutes of the meeting held on the 30th January, and the special meeting held on the 20th of November. I think agenda item 4 on page 5 is the minutes of the meeting on duty, the 30th of January. Are there any comments for accuracy that anybody wishes to draw for attention? Councillor CUMMING. Thank you, Chair. At minute, oh, Oscar Sierra 32, at the top of page 6, Chair's announcements, the Chair welcomed Councillor Tristan Wilkinson, but Councillor Tristan Wilkinson is not actually shown as present, either he was welcomed in his absence or he was here, don't ask me to remember, but they can't both. It's not quite right. I think it says welcomed onto the committee. Okay. So he wasn't here. Bottom of page 6 is a D missing from Hodgkinson, sure he doesn't mind. And we have a paragraph repeated twice or a minute repeated, not twice, only once. Oscar Sierra 36, this is on page 8, 24, 25, upico, business plan engagement. It appears to be identical to Oscar Sierra 37 underneath it, or word for word. I find it extremely unlikely that that can be accurate. There's so many what it complained if everything had been repeated word for word. Again, don't ask me to remember. Noted. Thank you. Any other? Councillor bother. I noticed that on a number of items, such as 36, 37, 38, 40, and 43, there's discussion that takes place amongst the members, which is, I think, normal, but no discussion seems to have taken place on item 42. Noted. Thank you. I'm just scanning that down. Officers will pick that up. Thank you, and respond. And just a small one for me, the time of the 30th meeting with 30th was accurate, but that's going to be corrected. Thank you. Yes, I remember Councillor CERN had emailed that. And finally, I hope Councillor Neill pen ultimately Councillor Neill. Councillor interjecting. We are now doubly accurate on that one. Thank you, Councillor Neill. Councillor interjecting. Councillor interjecting. The same point, yes. We know we were still going 18-21. We do know harm to decide whether to do the 24-hour clock or the AMPM system and stick to it. I'm overwhelmed by the committee's forging ahead for complete accuracy. Congratulations everyone. Bearing in mind that we are limited on this committee to a three-hour time limit, so forgive me if I do try and move us along slightly. Any other observations or comments on that particular minute and if those that were there could vote for their agreement of them? With the modifications. With the modifications we've noted, of course. That's by four. Thank you. I'm abstaining I wasn't at that particular meeting and then we have the special meeting held on two to the 21st of November. Again, this was the discussion on the future plans for revision of railway services when we had the GWR business development, I think director of business development. So again, any comments on accuracy or amendments on that? Good for those that were there. Councillor Jenkins. I have a comment but not on accuracy. Could we just go for accuracy and vote on that one if we could? For those there please. It's 6-4. Thank you. We made it to item five. Matt has arrived in the minutes of the previous meeting. I haven't had a chance to scan this because it landed on my desk only just before the meeting. For those that were at the previous meeting again, are there any comments or observations from any colleagues? Yes, Councillor J. I said I had a comment on the previous minutes and it's because we said that we would be tracking the performance by GWR and I wanted to let the committee know that the bridge has not yet been repaired and the alternative route on it is now deteriorated and I believe is starting to become dangerous. We are supposed to be keeping in touch with GWR on this matter. Help for point, Councillor Jenkins. Thank you. We will ensure that that is picked up during the course of reviewing these. I take it there are no further comments from actions arrived in the previous meeting. Thank you. Let's move on to item six. Chair's announcements were the only thing I have apart from to rethink those substitute members. This is a very packed agenda and therefore I will be trying to keep us to the times listed in your agenda papers because we do have a legal cut off time and there are some very significant things that we would like to comment and discuss. Also, contrary to the fact that some are new to this committee and management summary comments would be most welcome. Too much specific detail means we won't get an adequate hearing for some of the more important aspects that you might like to raise. So your forbearance on that one is most appreciated. Moving on to public questions and I believe we do have some public questions I am delighted to see and just to remind those people that haven't got the minutes we have because of the packed agenda here. We only have 15 minutes for this section. It is allocated for an open forum. No person may ask more than two questions, including supplementary, and no more than two such questions may be asked on behalf of one organisation, maximum length of oral or supplementary by the public will be two minutes. Questions must relate to the responsibilities of the committee but questions in this section cannot relate to application for determination at the meeting. So I would perhaps move on if you have another list of those public speakers and I can introduce them. Very public questions. So I got the name of one public speaker but I noticed that a few more members of the public have just come in afterwards so they may have a question as well. Super. I'll do a call for other people after we have heard from then Samantha Frith. If you would like to come up Samantha, thank you. I don't know if to do my question or the questions of my colleagues. Will they have an opportunity to submit them in writing. A pleating compliance on their sewage discharge permits. Some of these permits however are ancient and outdated. The sewage pumping station for instance in Morton and Marsh was issued in 1984. Morton has increased by 40% in the last 10 years alone and there are plans to increase the population even further in the near future. Will the council ensure that the Environment Agency updates the permits before any further pressure on the sewage network increases the already high volume of untreated spills going into our rivers and streams. Thank you extremely briefly. I do have a second question. It's a bit more ambitious. You've still got two minutes so go. Given that the quality of a treated effluent being released into our rivers and streams is currently unacceptable. With high levels of unstripped phosphates and chemicals flowing straight through the process have been untreated and then not being removed. Even more concerning is that this toxic cocktail will then be abstracted from our rivers and then given back to us diluted as drinking water. We have a flush and forget society and poor education on the consequences of what we pour down our drain including highly toxic household cleaning chemicals. There are now plenty of plant-based environmentally friendly alternatives so chemicals labelled harmful to aquatic life with long lasting effects should not be allowed to be freely poured into our AONV community. So I ask you will the council lobby for a ban on the sale of these off-the-shelf toxic household chemicals. Thank you very much. Well done. The response to the question can either be a direct or a response or where the information is in the publication of the council. We could refer to it or which is where I would suggest we go with this one where the reply cannot conveniently be given already. A written answer circulated later to the questioner. So we have your email address and I will ensure that we get a written answer to you probably for our cabinet member Councillor Spivey. Unless Councillor Spivey is in the position to happily answer and address those issues now I would be more than happy if you would like to. Please do. Thank you Councillor Lisa Spivey. Well thank you very much for those questions at Sam and you know can I just thank you on behalf of the cabinet, the council and probably this members of this committee for all the work that you do and as citizen scientists so thank you for all of that. On your first question I will give the answers as much as I can now but it may be that I want to get some extra information and come back to you with a written response but I'm here today so I felt it was appropriate for me to come up. So on your first point about permits and compliance I mean yeah you sum it up don't you. I mean 1984 that is just you know it's ridiculously outdated. We all know that the Environment Agency has been stripped back to the very bare minimum and do what they can with what they've got but I think that it's largely inadequate and so yes I would be more than happy for this council to take that lobbying role on and to ask them. Unfortunately we are not in a position where we can insist on that or where we can have any enforcement powers on the EA but I definitely would be more than happy to take that up and to speak to them about what is happening with permits for the Morton area in particular. On your second question about the gash of quality of treated effluent yes we know and that will be part we are going to be touching on this later on the presentation on water quality and it is something that I am very much aware of you know whatever goes into our rivers and these forever chemicals are obviously you know like it says on the tin forever and not doing any good for our environment for the ecology etc of the rivers around here so again I am happy to look further into that and I think on this one I would need to refer back to officers about exactly what powers and what we could have but certainly you know the lobbying and campaigning issue and yeah happy to take that on. Thank you very much indeed it is very helpful to get an immediate response rather than a delayed write up so thank you very much. Is there anybody else who would like to ask a public question? No thank you very much indeed thank you. No we have not received any member questions. Sorry I had not got my mic on. One of the things that I thought was going to be very clear to the committee we had previously agreed and the old committee were written to so it may come as a surprise to the substitute members we were moving item 12 to now so if that is a surprise to you my apologies but because of the various people that we need to have and here and this is a quite a substantive motion so item 12 we will hear now perhaps I could introduce our Chief Executive Rob Weaver and he can introduce the people that he would like to accompany him on this journey. Thanks very much Chair yep so I firstly will come to the front but I'd like to introduce colleagues Vivian Holland from local partnerships the author of the report that's in front of you today and Andrew Pollard the interim program director for the public review. The plan was very much as I'm aware this will be the first time the committee will have had an opportunity to meet Andrew and there'll be useful for Andrew just to introduce himself as part of this item set some context and see before opening up to questions if Chair you'll indulge that additional 10 or 15 minutes I think it'll be useful context and then what we'll be keen to do is pick up and answer any questions and points that you might have. Thank you. You coming up here Rob? While those sitting down colleagues I'll just draw your attention that we have an hour on this item and when we get to an hour I will move on to the next item. Rob? Thank you if I could just add that cabinet support for this item will be from Councillor Tony Dale. Thanks. I'll splend it. I'll introduce myself. Please do. Sorry about that. I'm Andrew Pollard. I'm the interim program director here appointed for the councilors, the four councilors and publicer to support the transition programme and I'm delighted to do so and thank you for welcoming me here today. So I joined at the end of January. My background is principally in the commercial world. I've served at board level for the last 18 years but in 2015 I began working with councils in the tech or company world setting up a vehicle called Place Partnership with a number of authorities, West Mercia Police, Warricia Police, Harvard or Worcester County Council, Worcester City Council, Reddish Borough Council as a joint vehicle to deliver certain property focus services with cabinet's office packing as a cabinet's office pilot and I led that vehicle for a number of years and then I disaggregated that vehicle after six years with a change in the political landscape. I then went on to lead another tech or vehicle called BD Group in East London. I have chaired a tech or vehicle B&D energy in East London. I am chair of a tech or vehicle Bristol Waste here in the southwest. That's a current role and I'm also chair of sustainability West Midlands. So over my career I'm professionally qualified as a solicitor and a chancellor surveyor. I have brought a commercial experience that I can bring to this role and I've seen how these vehicles are set up and have been actively engaged in this and disestablished and work with the authorities to do that. So I hope in some way that might be helpful for the authorities in this very interesting venture. So I joined on the 22nd of January. Coming into the door, the first thing I wanted to do was understand the baseline and I understand the baseline to be option six of the human engine reports that came before you back in the autumn and I then sort of set to work understanding what the mandate is, testing some high-level priorities and as part of that work set up a workshop with a number of the senior executives at Publica and the council officers, which is very useful to gain some early thoughts on what might be viewed from a programme point of view. At that workshop meeting, Vivian Holland on my left was also engaged. Vivian had been engaged by the council from local partnerships to support a report which is in front of you. I have then gone through to meet as many key officers as I can through a listening tour at Colford, the Forest of Dean here in Syren Sester and Whitney for West Oxfordshire. I know this part of the world pretty well. I live in the Cotswolds myself, although not in the Cotswolds district. I know the Forest of Dean less well so I've spent a couple of days there just getting to know the territory but I'm close at hand and I have a stake personally in the Cotswolds region that I myself live in. I established a programme office at an early stage and bringing on that journey with me in this programme office is Zoe Campbell who's an assistant director in Publica and will support on HR-related matters and that's going to be absolutely key when we get to things like Chupie and the structure for that and consultation of course. I've also brought into that programme office Alex Phillips who is a charter accountant and it's really important to ensure that everything that's done is tested and the numbers are behind it and available. That's clear to be key. Currently I'm in what I call the build-up phase. I'm beginning to think about what a detailed transition plan might look like, how that might work. That's going to take some time but I'm delighted that we've had the initial report from local partnerships. I think that's been incredibly helpful because what it's done is it's done several things. The things that that report has done to my mind builds out the work of the human engine reports and it verifies much of the early stages work that was carried out there. It clarifies I think for everyone the portfolio services that might remain with Publica, the kind of services that might be sovereign and the kind of services that might be shared albeit with some flex because clearly there needs to be flex because we need to do the impact assessment modelling that goes behind that. It also helps design guidelines and it confirms the target to extract the first charge of services in six months from April. Plus it confirms the need for programme officers to drive this work. It's absolutely central that's done. So it may be said you can look at the reports and say well there aren't any numbers there while I wasn't expecting any at this point and there are a number of reasons why that is local partnerships had a limited brief in time. It was 20 days of time free provided free by the local government association which I think is well worthwhile doing. That's the first aspect. Then there's the limited not just limited time but limited brief and given that I have a much wider brief and much more detailed brief. And finally even if there'd been more time and the brief had been wider wouldn't it be impossible to present any numbers at this point or that kind of depth of analysis that's to come with the work that I will do. And the reason for that is that when I walked in I first thing I asked for was a detailed organisation structure chart and an establishment for the organisation publicer. That's not available. That's never been available. That will soon be available once we've done the modelling work. So a key part of my work is to get together an organisation structure chart that can be relied upon and an organisation establishment and cost that can be relied upon. And once that's done there's then a baseline. And with a baseline you can build models and with models you can build analysis and with analysis you can build a report. So there is a way to this and in a methodical way and it's a way that I intend to work with colleagues on all of the stakeholders who I've begun engaging with and that process will take some time. And in that process we've established a series of work streams for each of the technical areas and those technical areas that the outset include communications legal, ISETI finance operations and it's important that this is done because it's important that this is risk assessed and actually the dependence is between risks are understood as part of this process will work through and then with mitigations and that's the kind of work that I will be undertaking. And probably by way of introduction I've said quite enough about a chair but I hope that's helpful in terms of the introduction that I wanted to provide for the purposes of this meeting. So thank you Chair. Thank you very much indeed and I'm sure you all have some facts and observations already. Would you like to do similar? Good afternoon everyone I'm Vivian Holland I'm a director at local partnerships. My background is I spent many years at Grant Thornton as an adviser of the public sector working with local authorities and I've been 18 months at local partnerships. My focus in the last 10 years or so has been all about local authority trading companies in particular tackle companies so I've got lots of experience in understanding how they work and where they work really well or where they work less well. So this is the experience that I've brought to this piece of work. As was previously mentioned this piece of work has been funded by the LGA. Local partnership is owned by the LGA and we received funding for some transformation pieces of work and this was selected as a really interesting and informative project that could help others across the country as they deal with the challenges of their tackle companies as well. So this piece of work has was mentioned as Andrew mentioned was a very short piece of work 20 days given free to the councils and so this was the purpose of our work was to really create a reaching between the previous report done by Human Engine and then for Andrew to take on as the as the program office director. So it's really to set the scene provide some high level recommendations to move this project forward. Thank you very much indeed. Rob anything you want to add to this Councilor Dale anything you want to add at this particular point? I'm wondering Chair if you haven't already heard from quite enough experts. All I would do is direct over and over your scrutiny members to the recommendations and in particular the adoption of the design led principles, the three columns which have been notably laid out by local partnerships in those services retained in publicar, those that we anticipate to be sovereign and those where we see opportunities to share and then finally to direct councillors to look at the transition plan which at this stage you will see is in good shape in terms of its topics but is awaiting the sorts of detail that I've been asking for for a little while for implementation planning. Councillors might also be delighted to know that having met for the first time with Andrew only a week or so ago you'll be delighted to know that the first question I asked was well how many people sit in each of those columns and what is the spend in each of those columns so it would seem as if the program manager and director is thoroughly well aligned with cabinet requirements at the moment. Thank you, yes, I was expecting some questions from colleagues on exactly that point that you made. I suspect we may all have views so Councillor VAN, first off. Yes, did I understand you correctly? I may have taken it down wrong that when you arrived there was not a structure analysis provided by publicure. You are nodding, I thought I heard you. There is there was no overriding overarching organisation structure chart for publicure. That's right. Councillor Fletch. Thank you. I was going to ask that same question and you said there wasn't one currently, there wasn't one historically although I remember there being one when it was set up so I'm a bit confused how we set up an organisation where there was no structure and but you said there would be one available is that being written post as a result but my bigger question is on accountability. Rob is down as the accountable officer yet you've obviously got huge expertise which is very impressive so I'm kind of interested do you report into Rob and therefore he's accountable to us as a councilor to this organisation. I thought Rob said that the author of the report was Vivian yet he's down as the report author on the on the item on beginning of page 121 so I just spent clarity about who ultimately is responsible to the council because you obviously brought in a huge expertise yet Rob's name appears as the accountable officer and the report author. Rob we will address that. Thank you. Yep thanks Jo and thanks for the question so just for clarification I'm the report author for the covering report that complements the piece of work that local partnerships have done. I am ultimately the accountable officer so Andrew reports into me and mops it numbers across the three councils and so Andrew will be responsible for delivering the program but ultimately that project sponsorship or the accountability sits with each of the council's chief executives and moving forward it's highly likely that you'll see Andrew's name on some of the covering reports to reflect that as well. Thank you very much Councillor Dail coming back in on that. Yes if it assists Councillor Fals I've also had a conversation with my cabinet peers and the leader of council will expect to take the political leadership role in the transformation along with his peers in the other councils and the deputy leader will be held accountable for the financing and financial aspects of it working closely obviously with the CFO David Stanley a council district council and regarding operational delivery and implementation matters as you know on the portfolio holder for that. Thank you very much we've got a Councillor judder then Councillor Colman. Councillor Judd. Thank you Chair. I've got a couple of questions just going back to the organised structure chart which I know there isn't a structure chart because I never know who works for who and it's sometimes it can be among trying to find that out and who's responsible for who and we know that services get shared between the different councils. Have you ever worked in such a situation before where the tech or company is actually working for several different councils? Is that a common thing and your that's my question number one? I'm going to say to that that clearly it's up to the council shareholders when they set up a joint vehicle to decide exactly how the governance and function structure works. The governance function structure of place partnership the organisation I described in my opening was several different authorities the two police forces fire county and a couple of district councils and I took an early executive decision in that particular organisation to put in a time recording system from day one knowing that different people would work for different authorities at different times and probably mixed up between authorities and that way you identify quite easily who did what for who when because people would record their time sheets weekly and work out which time elements of their day they spent on one matter or one client or another particularly given it was a trading vehicle and was going to not just work councils but for others here that isn't the case and you know it's a shared vehicle being set up in a shared way but there is no time recording system like that so that makes it quite important that in considering down the track as we will need to when we consider aspects of chuvie which is a matter of law that we again quite close stakeholder understanding of who's doing what where that's why I'm spending that time doing that now and just go to building on us a little bit so are the other councils engaged with this with you as the report in the same way as you are do you have to make this presentation to those other councils in exactly the same way? I'm going to overview and scrutiny and Whitney on Thursday in the similar vein and I suspect my my path to the various organisations will end up being quite well travelled I suspect there'll be quite a well-trodden path between siren Sester and Whitney and Cheltenham and Colford so I'm engaged with all of the authorities as Rob described in exactly that way reporting to the chief executives of each of those councils in exactly that way and secondly my question about the timing for producing this structure which is obviously completely critical for you to move forward and that is going to take some time because it's a it's a cat's cradle I mean you you won't get conclusive answers on a lot of the things like when you probably will have to but have you got an idea in the back of your mind how long that will take? So I think you're right that the the the likelihood of getting absolute perfection on this is limited so you have with something like this you have to accept near perfection and that's probably as good as you get I want to know that I've got enough to better build a sound model one that can stand up to scrutiny and one that you can build on and create appropriate options that will come forward in terms of getting to it so I've set up the program office as described and I've got some working on this now who's the model builder and I'm getting on with that and applying what's needed to it so you know I it's something I'm going to be discussing with senior officers at each councilor I don't want to commit to a specific date in time there because I think it's too early to do so. And my third question my third concern before the staff of publica who is going to be responsible for comforting them and encouraging them that this is not a danger zone for them and to encourage them in their work and keep them morale up. So you're right that good communications is at the heart of this and it's absolutely essential that there is an appropriate and structured communication plan as part of the program that I developed so as part of that program I mentioned that communication was one of the work streams that I saw is absolutely key to this and it is one of the key work streams. We've had a first meeting with all of the work streams now and in terms of the communications piece a comprehensive communication strategy and plan will be developed. And I beg your pardon sorry this is my last one will members be involved with that because we need we we can help with that I mean if if we're if we're asked to that's something we can help with but we we can't if we don't know. So I'm I'm probably going to defer to the officer that deals with communications on a day-to-day basis that's Mark Pritchard and Mark is leading on that on that particular area of work. So he will engage with you as part of his routine. A very helpful suite of questions there thank you very much indeed. Thank you. A Councillor Colman. Thank you. Most interesting times I was around here and Publica was set up. I won't go into the pros and cons but it's my impression I'm telling me if I'm wrong. First of all that many staff in Publica who are told that they may well transfer to a member council might actually be quite positive about it because they may assume that they'll be able to join the local government pension scheme. First of all is that generally going to be true. I think it's difficult to speak for Publica the person that must speak for publica the organization is the person that leads Publica and that's Frank Wilson. So I think in those terms I'm a I'm a mere and humble program director and I would probably expect Frank to speak for the organization he leads on that. Well now I was really putting the point about the welfare of staff. I have a role as vice chair of the planning committee. We have a vacancy list I'd rather not have as long as it is. We have for instance people joining us now who are clearly going to be part of the core team and therefore need to have a cotsaw.gov.uk email address and they need to be assured that they'll have the more attractive conditions of service as soon as that can be laid down. It seems to me would you agree with me that it's important to get that settled as soon as possible and in passing would you agree that this might be an unusual reorganization in which the flip over from resisting change to why can't we get on with it comes rather earlier than later. I should add I spent my working life in the railway so I was reorganized a number of times. Insourcing could be back with great British railways and touching on a subject earlier today. Insourcing could be back with the water companies if a way of financing it can be done. So insourcing appears to be the mood of the moment but you can ignore those comments if you wish. I agree. Splendidly brief. I like that a lot. Thank you. Councillor JANKENSEN. Sorry. Thank you, Stanley. Our Deputy Chief Executive would like to respond to that. Thank you, David. Thank you, Chair. Just on the pension issue, the Council as an employer offers only one pension scheme, local government pension scheme. As individuals are employed by the Council, they will be all to enrolled into the local government pension scheme. There are very few exceptions to all to enrolling and individuals would have to opt out. So those employees currently within Publica's employment that aren't in local government pension scheme are in the Royal London pension scheme as their employment transfers from Publica to the Council. They would be all to enrolled into the local government pension scheme so they would see that benefit accrue to them upon commencement of employment. Thank you for that, Andy. Clarity, David. Councillor JANKENSEN. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your introduction. I have a few questions and I'm hoping that you would be able to give some detail in answer. Quite a lot of this document is very high level at the moment as you will be only too aware. The first is that you've talked about design-led modelling. When I became a Councillor, which was only last May, I went and asked, well, do we have a system model? And the answer was no. Do we have a process model? No. And I'm not at all surprised because, of course, it was also clear, as you've heard, that there wasn't really an organisation chart model as such, either. So that particular situation may be wonderfully flexible, but at any rate it wasn't very clear. I also asked about identity. Almost every systems model starts off with an assumption that the companies or organisations' identity is fundamental. So my question is this. When you talk about designing a new organisation, it's some decades since the organisation chart was taken as the fundamental representation of the organisation model, the way it actually is organised to operate. So I wonder if you could give us some detail on the kind of systems or organisation models, the methodology that you have in mind in the theoretical base for what kind of models you are contemplating, or perhaps you already have one in mind. I have, for example, was discussing the viable system model only last Friday at a conference. So could you give us some guidelines on your thoughts about what a model for an organisation in the 21st century needs to look like? I'm going to ask Vivian Holland, who was the author of the report, to pick up what she anticipated by design there, and then maybe I'll add something to that. Thank you. Yes, the design low principles were discussed as part of this piece of work in association with chief executives, and we held a workshop with a wider staff membership to understand what it was that they felt were important principles to have in the new organisations as they build up their new ethos, if you like. So we, on the back of that, we identified a number of design-led principles which are the ones set out at 2.5 in the report, including being responsive and business-like, for example, shaping the services, being more efficient, developing new, working methodologies, and so forth. So those were all identified. There's six in in total, and those form the backbone of the new structure, if you like, of the organisation, we're certainly for Cotswold, the new organisation. So on the back of that, then Andrew will take those design principles and put more detail onto those, and if you look at the table of recommendations at 2.7, the target operating model in the first phase, that would be where all of those. Time is short, so I apologise for interrupting you, but it seems like my question hasn't been understood. I do understand those kinds of things. Those are the set of values or principles that would be one element within the overall structure of how the organisation would work. I'm not asking what those are, and it's routine to have those kinds of activities. What I'm asking about is the way the organisation is actually structured. A lot of companies used to assume, and there are still some who do, that the organisation chart, he reports to him, and he reports to her, and she reports to him, and up to the CEO, and all the way back down again, in some kind of tree chart, that's the company organisation chart. To be limited to that is pretty old hat in terms of how you actually run an organisation in order to be able to be responsive to the world and so on. So without going into the details here, I'm trying to understand what methodology, what systems model you have in mind, because there's quite a lot of science now behind how you organise an organisation to be performative. Initially it will depend on which services come across and when, and that is still to be determined. So however many services come across in the first tranche, for example, will partly determine, or will partly answer your question. That's normal when it comes down to the detail of how the particular model will be actually populated, but it's unusual at the level of choosing the approach that you're actually taking to organise. For example, if you're doing a process-led organisation and you're trying to manage processes, then you say so and you have an approach to how you do that, and of course what processes will actually need to be run are the ones that belong to the organisation. But if you take a process-led or you take a viable systems model, or this model, or that model, then it affects, and I'm trying to understand, perhaps you don't have one, and if you don't have one, then please say so. So very briefly, I think I've mentioned in my early opening that I'm a commercial creature really at heart, and so looking at this through that lens, I come back to some very simple principles. What do you need, what do you want, and that may be different from what you need, and what can you afford, and those things need to be passed the considerations to my mind, and what you need is allied to your corporate plan, and each counsellor's corporate plan, because that's what you're delivering. So you want delivery against your corporate plan for whatever it is that comes out of this work, because if this work doesn't support your delivery of your corporate plan, it fails first hurdle as hard I would see. So it's very important that in coming to a conclusion on this, that there's a lot of reflection on your corporate plan objectives, and ensuring that what is designed reflects that. There's then the subsidiary questions that were picked up in human engine, which services are in public are which are shared, and in what form, and which are suffering. Those are kind of subsidiary to that first point. I'm going to say that a lot of my early work, and I've been here what, four or five weeks or something, it has to be about exploring, who does what, how, and what do you need, when, in the future, and then the modeling is going on in the background whilst this is happening, and we can then do some scenario planning and some options appraisal, that I think will help inform what you're looking for. But I think it's all of those things, Councillor Wilkerson. Can I just, Councillor Wilkerson, Councillor Dail, behind you wants to add it. We haven't switched to my question. Yes, in Charlie Awful. Councillor Dail would like to add something to that comment. Yes, if it helps respond to your question, Angus. I understand the nature of what you're asking, and it is coming, as you know, from a strong academic background. I think I would recognise that what has been historic here is that we've had a largely hierarchical structure, and what has been happening over a series of years in terms of improving the cost efficiency within publica is that in many respects we've been moving to a more system or process-based structure. What that's led to is increasingly matrix-based working effectively, where you have service leads, and if you like, behavioural customer leads, working across multiple functional areas to give you an idea of that. And I think whilst your question is perfectly valid, and there's perfectly rational to say what is the theoretical or hypothetical base you're going to use to do the analysis before you do it, we're probably at relatively early stages in this transformation. I think we all recognise we really need to sort out who does what first, which is exactly the question that Andrew has quite rightly asked. Then we are probably in better positions when we know exactly those that are going to be shared, those that are going to be sovereign, and those that might remain in a publica-type organisation as to whether those are going to be provided as a process or a system output, and whether we then manage them in our own ways or not. So it's a very sensible question. I don't think we're yes in the position to answer it quite definitively. Thank you, Councillor Daille. I think with where we are now, you certainly have the opportunity of informing the cabinet member of the views and the modelling. Is there anything briefly you want to add to this debate, or can I move us on, Angus? Thank you, Chair. I'm not going to pursue that particular line any further, except to say I don't disagree with what is said, but I'm left unconvinced. What I'd like to do is to ask a different question. There are methods of designing change that are available, and they include such things as single session and brief therapy and minimalist intervention and on and on, and there are approaches to the design of change that can enable things to go very slowly or very quickly. So in principle, since most people are going to be doing the same job as they were doing before, albeit in a different kind of organisational setting, what do you see as the main things holding up, the ability to just, as it were, click your finger and say, well, let's have it all happening in two months time. So you're right, Councillor Kingston. There are different ways of going about this. My own view of a transition like this is you want to do this at pace. It's important to do it at pace, not least because one of the key stakeholders in anything like this is the people who work in the organisation, publicer, and you know, I've had lots of good conversations with the folks on the ground, and they want to know what's going on for their own purposes and their own livelihood and their own futures, and taking time, taking too long over this is not going to be helpful. It's really important to get this going and get this going at pace, and that I think is why essentially we, Vivian and I would agree on this. There is a process that leads to a phase one transition around September October and a phase two transition, and I'm expecting that my work will be done by the end of the financial year next year with both phases moved, and that's a good chunk of publicer. That's, you know, around half something, more than half of publicer, but that's working at pace, and it's working at pace because I'm expecting that probably by June or July the maybe a cabinet meeting at which a detailed transition plan is considered. To get to that point, there's an awful lot of work to be done. Once your council cabinet, if that's the one, has considered and approved that, then there's a period of consultation of course, and it's important that that's appropriate, and done in the right way, and, you know, we're then entering the summer period, of course, and you can see quite easily how you get to September or October. There's a lot to be done. There may be opportunities ahead of September or October to do some pilot moves for easier things, but in an organization where things are very interlinked, it's throughout publicer, it's very interlinked, so everyone pretty well. Just take an EA, an executive assistant, an executive assistant to Rob Weaver, has Rob as a line manager, but also a line manager in publicer. It's not so straightforward, so this needs a little bit of unpicking, and I suggest it's striking that balance between ensuring appropriate pace for the good of the entire organization structure and the service, but also not slipping up, not missing a trick, not kind of getting caught on something, which could then cause a delay and therefore go against the very principle that I opened up with, which is that, you know, for the benefit of all this wants to be at higher pace. Thank you colleagues. We have four more people wishing to speak, and I think after that we will pause. I will remind you that not only are we scrutinising this report, and I've heard a great deal of quite detailed scrutiny, thank you very much, but of course it's the opportunity to make recommendations to Cabinet should we so wish. So the last four people to speak before I pause would be Councillors Fours wearing Wilkins and Neil in that order. David. I'm a bit worried that we've got an hour, and we haven't yet got on to the report, Chairman, and you said that you were going to push this item along. I'm certainly no academic like Angus, well, and not as qualified, I'm a simple guy, and I really was refreshed to hear you say, this whole report is about what do we need, what do we want, and what can we afford. I also wanted to say, there's a statement that in this committee there are, the majority of this committee is relatively new to the Council, and we're not involved in the setting up of the public. You've already heard from Councillor Coleman that he was around at the time when public was set up. I certainly was, and I was one of the people that voted for it. So, you know, for me, I'm looking at this, you know, very interesting, still confused as to why there's no organisational structure, et cetera, but I'm urging colleagues that if we can get into the report, I was going to run out of time. That's what I'm worried about. I don't particularly want to get into the theory of it. I just want to get through the report. Councillor Fauci, we have an opportunity of doing exactly that right now. Thank you. Do you have any comments that you want to make about the content now? No, no, I just want to, it's just a moment. Because I'm not going to go through the report page by page, so if you have any observations for the contents of it, now is absolutely the time when you would be focused on the content, right? You can focus on any aspect you want, Councillor Fauci. I thought people were making initial introductory remarks. So, just to be clear, any member of this committee can pick up any bits that they wish to, whether it's the commentary on what you've heard, all those as they detail in the report. I don't mind provided we actually end up with most people feeling as though they have an opportunity to air their views and comment on what they've got in front of them. You can absolutely comment on any aspect of what's in front of you now, Councillor Fauci. I thought we were talking about design? Exactly. Well, I come back to you, Councillor Haus. Yes, if you could. Thank you. Can I bring in Councillor Waring then? Thank you, Chair. So, I'm actually going to talk about some parts of the report. In particular, the on page 1 for a warm, so there's a bit of active communications, employee consultation and managing change protocols. We know that 70% of change programs fail to deliver on their goals, primarily because the people in the organisation are just resisting and the management do not fully support what's happening. And the reason that people resist or don't support is because they're not involved. They are communicated to, they're modelled and they're told what's going to happen to them. So, I'm really focused on understanding how do you see involving employees, for employees to be thinking about when we make this change, it's not just a matter of moving the deck chairs. It's actually about how do we do things smarter more efficiently? How do we involve our people to focus on removing interference that they've been living with to make their work that is better, more enjoyable, more satisfying and smarter in line with the values that you've got in the report. So, that's really my question. How are we going to really ensure that our people are at the heart of driving this? Okay, so I hear what you say about change programs. They have a patchy record at times and my experience of something like this is that it's really important that the work isn't just done here at the beginning of a process and then it ends as a phase transferring. In a sense, that's the end of the beginning. It's not the end, it's the end of the beginning and it's always important. I remember when I did my first corporate transaction as a junior lawyer and I saw how that got put together. There was an awful lot of emphasis on post transaction work and then I saw in a subsequent arrangements where I came in as a director of an organisation that had been six mergers in acquisitions in short order and I was basically asked to sort it out and there'd been no post transaction work and I saw the contrast and I found that I would never wish to operate in the latter. Now, I won't be here for the latter. I will be gone because my work is specifically for a program and a project but I think it's really important that what is built in is when the transitions happen that there's also then appropriate support for colleagues who work in the organisation into the future in that improvement mechanism because there should be in any organisation a culture of continuous improvements and I established continuous improvements in the organisations I led through committees and councils of people inside who were employees at all levels of the willing who wanted to participate in particular things to bring those ideas forward and so it's really important I suggest that I'm not going to be here. It's not for me that when colleagues move into the councils there is appropriate space for them to have that discussion and debate to improve service because that's how you improve service. I always think it's amazing what you find when you ask the person at reception they know a lot, they see a lot. Amazing what you find when I have a Bristol waste I ask the person emptying the bins into the wagon what you learn and that there needs to be forums and mechanisms for that. For this I think it's really important that we don't confuse processes. It's important that we drive forward with this and it's important that we use the consultation to employ this productively and appropriately. There will undoubtedly be a need for finessing and design as we go through that process but I absolutely support that you know in all of the work I've ever done. The ideas and thoughts that you can gain from those who are actually engaging in front line is very valuable. Thank you very much. Council now. Thank you Chair. I'm not sure if I'm looking at the town or the dog in that our CDC to make CDC work we need what public are doing at the moment. So it's CDC coming to you and saying can you do this to provide these facilities or are you going to do it the other way and say this is what public has this is what we want to give you. Sorry. So you could let's be clear you could just say we'll have tomorrow what we have today but to have tomorrow what you have today you're going to pay something more for tomorrow aren't you because it's already being confirmed and it's clear and it's correct that employees transferring gain low government pension scheme that's part of the deal. So it's a choice as to whether you want exactly what you have tomorrow what you have today that's choice it's also a choice to decide actually want to do something that looks at efficiencies means of operation future proofing delivering against your corporate plan those are all things that need to be in consideration here and I suggest that options should allow that degree of flexibility to be able to make the right decisions which will ultimately be yours. In that case are you a separate cost center because we were told originally 150,000 each council and that went up to half a million a couple of weeks ago so can we will be identified what cost of the transition program? I think in terms of that that so I'm going to be looking probably to my colleagues section one five one officers no I my objective here is to do this work efficiently cost effectively and in a timely way there is a cost to any transition in terms of finalising what that cost is the cost associated with the program office for example that's the process I'm working through with the section one five one officers at the moment I think and just bringing David Stanley you may have something to add on that right behind you. Thank you chair just in terms of the numbers the human engine report set out a series of numbers that have not been updated in the local partnerships report is too early to provide members with that confidence at the extensive due diligence that we certainly need to be undertaken as being completed. On the point raised by Councillor Wilkins in terms of the cost increasing from 150,000 to half a million there are two numbers being conflated here so the human engine report did suggest that the cost to each council will be 150,000 that's what's being worked through now but the council in response to that did set aside 200,000 an earmark reserve to cover off the costs of the transition program. In the budget and MTFS report the council approved last week that was increased to half a billion to recognise that given the complexity of the transition and the need to ensure that we get robust advice from experts at the appropriate time that has been set aside that does not necessarily mean the cost has increased from 200,000 to half a million it's just we're prudently setting aside an appropriate amount of funding in the reserve to enable that transition to take place with our undue delay should we need to engage legal experts around cheapy or undertake some further due diligence with other specialists. Thank you very much. Much helpful. Thank you. Councillor Neill. Yes, you're working with sort of four different councils through this process and I wondered how many of it is really at the moment. So I just quickly looked at the corporate priorities as detailed on the forest website and West Oxford to website and although they're really quite similar in many ways to also corporate priorities are they're not identical. Just looking at what you said under 1.3 on page 131, 2, 3, 4, the fourth bullet point down under that was talking about the importance of being in lock step the different councils together and I don't know if you can make any comment about that. So I would just look clearly that on the table that you've got on page 135 where it's decided which counts which services are going to be retained in public are presumably those services have to all be agreed by all of the councils. The sovereign ones and the opportunity to share presumably that could be a little bit of post transition negotiation. So I just wondered how many things were at the moment and whether there's a facility for mediation or discussion if there's a disagreement between the councils. I'm a good mediator but you know I've worked with many different public authorities in the past in ventures of this kind. So as I say the place part of what was a really good example you had not just different councils and not just different kinds of council, county and district but also blue lights and central government in there as well. Of course there are different competing priorities because each authority is sovereign in its own rights and their own decisions to make. That said the lockstep point I think comes in from the fact that at some point there has to be a level platform between the shareholders on some core things and it's what you identify there. It is essentially the core array of services that it's agreed by everyone remains in the organization for common delivery. Now that's a common platform delivery. There may be flavours of change in variation between a common platform delivery but ultimately there has to be an agreement that these stay, these go, these are shared. So that's kind of a common platform we have to get to that point. I'm confident that with the offices that we have here and in the other authorities we can get to that point. There are some really good offices in the council to help that happen but our mediators might have to don't anticipate having to do so. I think it's important through this process. It goes back to communication doesn't it? It goes back to engagement. It goes back to transparency, all the hallmarks of good governance and that's something that I hope to promote through this process. Thank you very much. Please do. We're also saying that as part of the governance structure, this will be a key component to make sure that members across all four are in sync and in lots of, as you said. So I think that's a really important thing and even things, for example, like meetings, cabinet meetings and other meetings to make sure they're not too far apart. So if there is an issue with one authority then that can be captured quickly and resolved. Thank you. There's a plan here for the services to be transferred. Would the same services have to be transferred back to each council at the same moment? Or could there be a little bit of variation? Well, it would really need to be at the same time because we've got a very short timeframe. So as we said earlier in relation to trying to get things moving quickly but not so quickly that we dropped the ball to have that short space of time so that people are reassured that things are happening. So it would be better if everybody were on the same page and moving at the same speed. Otherwise it would be very confusing because of the offices that should employ across the different councils. Exactly. You know, there'd be some remaining in public care and others having moved and that would be very complicated. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Thank you very much. Before I try and squeeze enough time in for Councilor Turner, Councillor Coleman and then Fours, you've both had a stab at it. So could I ask you to be on your secondary to offer a bit brief or if you could possibly squeeze it in? Councillor Coleman. Yes, first of all, just two points. I think there's an acronym I didn't see defined which I couldn't recall but it might be PID. Project initiation document. Project initiation document. I'm sure Councillor Daye knew what it was. Honey and he probably Councillor Jenkins. Yes, Chair, I think it's very, very important. Very good. Who writes it? That would be... Good. That's very encouraging. What's your experience of member transition boards which are indicated as an option and what would be the criteria by which you would suggest we decided whether we wanted one or three? I suppose what I had in mind was that there would be one across all so that you were all aligned across the project. It was my impression that because each Council was going to be at least in some ways different from each other. They might each need a member transition board but you think that the common area would be the areas where they were going to do the same thing would be enough that a single member transition board would help some of this. That's what I've seen elsewhere. Andrew may have a different view but we haven't really looked at that in great detail I must say other than that the one would be needed at a program level. I think I'd agree with my colleague. I suggest to colleagues that we listen to our own chief executive to decide whether we want one or not because the last thing we do is members getting in the way of this process. Thank you. That's a magnificent quote which I'm sure officers would like to use frequently. Councillor FALLS. Yes, thank you, Chairman. I've got three very quick questions. Under one three, our approach, you talked about stakeholders and the engagement with stakeholders. I look at section four, talks about the list of consultees and they're either chief execs or I can't remember Claire's exact title but assistant director. Has there been engagement either let's take Claire for an example maybe she can answer. So when she's giving her views is she getting input from the people that report into her? Because basically people in the engine room, no pun intended, people have been trying to make this work. Have we had sufficient input to you feel from them through their assistant directors? Because it all seems very senior people that you've engaged with. So that's question one. Were there any panels for example or group discussions with people who are actually working in say planning or council tax and benefits? They weren't unfortunately. That's really because of time and we only have time. So we relied upon the likes of assistant directors. Yeah, kind of. So this was a very short type workshop that was part of the local partnerships programme of work. So I can't speak for senior officers within public but it would be my expectation that they would bring to the forum views but I'm not banking on that. So I'm doing what I have always done in the past which is my way of these things is always to start poking in from the side at different levels as well. So that's my discovery that I'm doing. That's why I'm spending a long time in all the different council offices and on site in different places and I'll pop up at different times. And it's why I've shot a video blog today which will appear at some points on one of the websites, probably the public or one. The gist of it is I may come and stop. You and I'll ask you a few things. Please, please feel free to come and stop me and talk to me. And I think that sort of cross-cutting approach I found very useful in the past because it just helps. Second question, thank you. On page 135 where we have these, what Councillor Dales referred to as the three columns retained in public as sovereign and opportunities to share. And in very broad terms, the four partners as I understood it, Cheltenman were sort of effectively opted out. Forest of Dean were heading that way pretty fast and that kind of left West Oxfordshire and Cotswold who have a very strong historical relationship. So you say that, or the report says, the detail around alternative delivery models has not been considered this report, but is there a scenario where basically it's a two column approach which is that public are ceases to be and that effectively we either have sovereign operation or we share with one other. It seems to me that very, very simply that we're going from a two column approach which is the current one to a three column approach and it seems to me that could even be more complicated. Just wanted to make sure that you do have the flexibility to make a recommendation that says actually there is no real role for public or its question of keeping its sovereign or working in post-partnership, either through UBCO or some other model. I think there's lots of different moving parts going back to an earlier point raised by another member about the timescale. That's why we're not recommending that this is done too quickly because there are opportunities to share in different ways as opposed to just being moving services back into the sovereign council. So this was taken from the Human Engineering Report as a starting point. What we're saying is that this needs to be looked at because this is not the absolute recommendation at this point. It's too early to say and even now it's too early to say and there's so many different things to consider. So it could well be that you don't want to move something back solely into Cotswold District Council and discover that you might want to share with Westminster. Could I just bring in Councilor Dale, I think who wants to add something to that response, if I may? Yes, just if it's helpful, I think it's a little premature at this stage to go beyond the three columns that we've got there. Having looked in detail a number of these different services, there are ones that I know today that already work very well under what I would describe as a shared services arrangement where there is an extraordinary amount of very positive goodwill working depending on the demands and nature of the functional process requirement on the particular discipline. That ranges across all sorts of services whether it's HR IT, finances, etc. And there are very effective shared services arrangements in place which are neither wholly dependent on public or the individual councils. So I would just suggest at the moment, much as Fivian Holders suggested, it's a little premature to say there could be a model which is much more simple than this. I think at the moment we're in the right place, there are those that the councils who've worked on this who agreed could be and should be retained in public. There are those that the councils want to be sovereign and there are the third column other opportunities to share and I think we do leave our options open on those. I suppose that the second part of that question, I'd defer to Councillor Dail because he's more involved and I certainly am. Does that therefore mean that of the four partners, there is still an appetite amongst the four to share things or I have this perception that it's two that want to share but I will be saying that there are actually four councils that are still happy to share services that are currently under that column on the left-hand side retained in public. Because I've got this mental feeling that Cheltenham have pulled away and Forestedina heading that way. Just on that, in the field work I've done to date, that's not the impression I gained at all, that in fact there are, I think as has been said, there is confidence and appetite around a core block of services. Over the phasing because we've currently got these two columns and someone's commented on, couldn't you move it ahead very, very quickly. Those that are in column one, I first six months and those that are in column two, what was the thinking behind which service stayed in, which column in terms of the phasing? It seems to me that some of the ones that are in the right-hand column, again from the position of ignorance, could easily be in the first column, move them across relatively quickly. So is it a sort of detailed analysis or is it just a question of workload or what? Initially, this came out of the workshop with colleagues and that was what was decided in the groups. So this is not written in stone, this was just what people's views were. We thought it was important to record what people in the room felt was appropriate, but of course, yes, some of these on the right-hand side could be done quickly and I know I recognise that you do want to get some early wins to show some traction and that could well change and that will be found through to work. So the workshop with the keynotes that are mentioned as the stakeholders was a really important ingredient in understanding perhaps where the easier areas could be. There's no such thing as easy but easier. In terms of the right-hand column, you may look on some of those things and think, well, those are easier as well. Not necessarily so because many of the activities are systems-driven, ICT systems-driven and then you're into ICT license arrangements and so forth. And it's the work that the work streams are working through when I described analysis of risk, dependencies and impact assessment on operations. That's the work that's going on now that needs to be worked through and it's very important that that's done, but at this stage, there's nothing that I would see that I would change from this list from the early that I've done because there are other dependencies quite often. Thank you very much. Anything you want to add to that, Bob? Super. Well, look, can I thank both of you and Rob and David and Councillor Dael for all of that. That was extremely interesting and very helpful. I really think that you have delved in and raised a whole range of very interesting issues contained within, even down to the modeling of how this structure is actually progressing. So that's very helpful. Although I haven't got any specific recommendations, we have, of course, the Chief Executive and the Cabinet member here. And of course, this will be scrutinized via film. So there's a very good sense of everything that you've said has been captured. So thank you very much for that. And I think what we'll do now, because we've been running for nearly 90 minutes, we'll have a five-minute break and we'll come back and talk sewage, if that's OK. Thank you. Good afternoon again. We've moved on to item number nine, a river quality in sewage. We've given ourselves 30 minutes to review this. We're going to receive a presentation on the work of the Council around river quality and sewage. And we have with us at the top table a Councillor Lisa Spivey cabinet member for Communities and Public Safety. And do we have film art? Oh, and we also have Phil Martin in the room, Assistant Director of Business Services. You're very welcome. Let me hand over to your whole. Well, hand over to Phil. Phil, you're very welcome. Right. Well, that's the first step done well. We've got it up on the screen, so I can start to relax. Thank you very much for the invitation today. My colleague, Lawrence King, would normally be with us as well, who is more of an expert in regards to sort of flood risk management. Sadly, couldn't be with us tonight. So, if there are any specific questions, I'll probably take those away rather than sort of have a stab at them. So, OK, right. It's not death by PowerPoint, I assure you. There's only a small deck. Really, these are the areas we're looking to cover. So, again, I think it was important right at the start to actually point out who's responsible for what. We're then going to talk a little bit about improving partnerships and the way that we're looking to do that. We've done a couple of things in regards to some workshops, and we've got our sewage summit event coming up. So, I'll talk a little bit about those, and then I'll sort of sum up the actions that we're investigating and looking to take forward. So, hopefully, that will give everybody a bit of a flavourful where we're at. OK. So, first things first, responsibilities. As you can see, there's a huge list of people involved. Many of those, I'm sure, we're all very familiar with. The Environment Agency, Offwock and Defra. You've got the companies themselves, and one of the things I think people are not necessarily aware of in the district area is that we've got three water companies serving us. Thameswater, who are by far the largest supplier, but then we've got Wessex and we've got seven trends as well. So, a little bit of an unusual situation in respects that we've got three companies involved. Ads to, shall we say, some of the complexity in regards to sort of the way that we work with them. We've got the lead local flood authority, which is Gloucestershire County Council. We've got ourselves, and we're at obviously a planning authority. We've got the Highways Authority, which again is the County Council. Then we've got what we call riparian owners. So, riparian owners are really land owners. In regards to land drainage and sewage and flooding, they do play a key part because they do have some responsibilities in regards to maintaining the water courses that run through their land. Then last of all, we've got property owners who have degree of responsibility, but largely within their own property. So, again, a very big mix, and in some respects, this perhaps highlights why there's no silver bullet in regards to resolving the situation that we're all very familiar with at the moment. Okay, so moving on. Just a little bit of a quote now. Water infrastructure not kept pace for development growth over the decades. Probably not as surprised to any of us that in many ways. The figure that did surprise me, those in regards to the amount of wastewater that houses actually produce on a daily basis, a significant amount there. So, again, just a sort of interesting fact. And then back to the regulations and legislation. So, there's a raft of different legislation in place, some of which such as the sort of the land drainage act. It's quite specific for us in regards to sort of what local authorities can can't do. You've then got the Water Industries Act itself, which, again, is very specific in regards to the water industries and how they should operate. I went bore you with this, but I think the important thing to say is actually none of this legislation empowers district councils to be able to actually enforce or demand change in many ways. So, again, that adds to the challenges that we are faced with. The Environment Agency is a key organisation and one that we do try and work with. However, you know, their resources are very stretched at the moment off what actually play. And also a very key role in regards to the fact that they're the regulator and they set the framework, which ultimately then signs off the water company's business plans, which then follow through into the bills that we all pay. So, again, you know, there's an important relationship between off what the water companies and the Environment Agency there. And, again, how we try to certainly work with the Environment Agency. Okay. So, how do we improve things? So, I think we as a council recognise that, you know, the only way to really start to move things forward is to work in partnerships. We've recently set up a water working group, which is led by the cabinet member, Lisa Spivey, but also we've got Councillor Paul Hodgkinson and we've got Councillor Angus Jenkinson as well with us. Myself and Lawrence support that group and really what we're starting to do is meet with the water companies and actually start to get under the skin of what they're doing locally. So, we've held two meetings with Thames Water. First one was an introduction so that we also started to get to know each other and understand really everybody's roles. The second one we started to actually get under the skin of things. So, we were starting to ask them about, right, you've got assets in regards to pumping stations and sewage treatment works. What's the problems with them? We know what residents are telling us the problems are, but actually how are you going to resolve these and what's your investment plans going forward and how do those investment plans then feed into the growth that we know our local plan and other things are outlying. So, you know, where are the links there? Because obviously if they're not linked in with the way that we're writing our local plan, then all of a sudden the numbers are not going to add up and they could be saying, well, okay, I'm going to invest in this location, but actually that's not where we're going to be seeing growth in the next decade. So, again, really, really important. We've got Wessex Water coming to see us tomorrow. Again, their patch is much smaller, but again, it's an important conversation and then we're seeing seven Trent in early March as well. So, that group's in its infancy. We're finding our feet, but we've got a little bit, I suppose, of a template in the respects that our colleagues in West Oxfordshire District Council, who we've worked very closely with for many, many years, have been doing this now, probably for the last sort of 18 months. They've only got Thames Water to contend with rather than we've got three. And what we've done is we've actually learned some really, really important things and actually, it was really helpful when we met with Thames Water because some of the things that I know where it's Oxfordshire battled with in regards to sort of the technical calculations as to how you work out what volumes are being processed in a treatment works and what happens if you move certain functions around. We don't need to do that. So, we've already understand those mechanisms and actually, some of the changes that that group is driven, we're going to benefit from. So, again, that's really, really positive. Other things that have been going on for some time is the MP meets with representatives from the Environment Agency, the LLFA, which is the County Council and ourselves, meets generally on an annual basis. Those meetings have been in place for quite some time and some sort of actions flow out of those. Also, what we've seen is localised, focused meetings. So, and I've just sort of mentioned Fairford and Thames Water, those, I think there's a meeting, another meeting coming up. They're really, really good. So, they help us sort of focus on the key issues in that locality. And I know Councillor Spivey has been heavily involved in that one. I think you even chair that one, don't you? So, that's been really, really good. And then, let's not forget sort of our catchment partnerships and local pressure groups, again, and we had questions from individuals today. But we do work quite closely with the likes of Wasp and others. So, again, I think, you know, we see our role in many ways in terms of sort of trying to pull together various organisations and going forward. And we'll touch on that when we come to the sewage summit itself. Okay. One of the things we did last year, actually, and this is sort of part of the policy changes, and this is an area that we do have some influence over, was we ran two technical workshops where we brought in a consultancy to help us start to understand sewage and all things in regards to sort of how it all works in many ways. As I said, the workshops were very structured. So, we understood what the water industry was looking to do, the role of the planning system and the local plan, more importantly, the water cycle, and then how we could go forward. So, I've got an example of one of the things we looked at, which is the water cycle. And again, you know, we've got our reservoir at the top, you know, feeling into our housing. So, obviously, what comes out of our taps, also what goes down our lose, the sewage infrastructure, how it's cleansed, then ultimately sort of what comes out of the pipes and then back into the reservoirs. So, again, it's all interlinked and clearly, you know, you can't just concentrate on one thing because you're not going to get the desired changes. We looked at sewer outflows. You know, we've seen this becoming more and more prevalent over time. Thames water introduced what we refer to as the measles map. So, effectively, what that is is it's a map of the areas that they cover and it highlights when the discharges are coming out of their sewage treatment works and the frequency. What the great thing about that map and we're encouraging others to follow suit is at least it's raising awareness of how often the treatment works are sort of discharging where and enables us then to start to sort of think about, you know, lobbying and giving people actually that awareness and that ammunition to say this is not right, you know, because I think up until now, we all knew it was happening, but it's until you get that data that you can really start to understand the prevalence of it and it is quite shocking. Again, I'm sure this doesn't come as any surprising regards to the impact on biodiversity on people and obviously the emerging impact of things like microplastics and forever chemicals which was picked up earlier actually. So, again, you know, I think we're very aware that, you know, this is a practice that has to stop and how do we best making roads into this? Bear in mind, the legislative framework doesn't enable us to say you must stop this and you must stop it by this date. You know, that's not our gift. I've got a, this is a little video clip which may or may not work. Technology is always great isn't it, especially as I'm head of IT. Because of work, okay, all it was is it's just showing there's a sort of pipe that it pans round to and it's discharging lots of unpleasant things into the water course, but I'm sure we pretty much all seen that in different arrangements. Also, what we did as part of that to workshop is we actually started to look at, you know, what are the issues, what are the drivers and then sort of what are the interactions. So again, taking quite a sort of, I suppose, a sort of structured approach and I suppose the availability of EDM data and EDM is event data monitoring and effectively this feeds into actually part of potentially the solution because once you start to understand what's happening in regards to volumes and outflows, you can start to think about, well, okay, what changes do we need to make? And that's why the map is really helpful because it does give us an insight in terms of when and where and how often. So again, data is a key to actually starting to battle with this along with those other aspects. You know, we can't sort of, we can't forget that our climates are changing, our weather patterns and our rainfall is changing as well and storm events are becoming more and more prevalent. So therefore, how do we actually go forward? How do we plan that? Because we know that what we have now is not necessarily fit for the future. Okay, second workshop was really pulling together all that information and starting to look at a couple of case studies. We had a number of cancers who joined us on that day. It was really, really fascinating actually the case studies in regards to sort of focusing in on certain information and I think everyone probably who attended did get quite a bit of information out of that. So again, what we did then is we sort of came up with some sort of policy considerations. So again, in terms of what sort of things because we're redoing our own local plan, should we be thinking about what should we be building in? Suds is obviously the sustainable drainage systems which again is now having to be built into all new housing and again, helps to hopefully combat some of the problems that we see certainly with sort of flash flooding certainly from sort of hard runoff areas and that. So again, this was an output of one of the outputs that came out of that and I thought it's just useful to give you a bit of a snapshot of that. But really, what do we get out of it? So produce a brief report summarizing discussions and learning. So that's that seems sort of draft, it should be finalized very soon. Then the second bullet point was something which again we've developed with West Oxygen regards to sort of sharing learning and best practice and the idea of being really that we are very short document that we can share with others who are facing exactly the same problems and it really just prompts the questions that you should ask. So and we've gone into some of the lessons learned around the sort of the way that the calculations are formed and such like. Again, we updated our water cycle study and that will support the local plan and obviously revision of some planning policies. And again, those case study examples help us with our planning process as well. So some really, really good outcomes from both those workshops and they've fed into the policy type arena, which again, with an organization do have some control over. So so really, really important. Okay, I mentioned a sewage summit event. So what we want to do and again, we see this very much as our role in many ways is it's really representatives from the three water companies from the environment agency, local environmental groups. So I've mentioned wasp, but there are many others out there and and citizen scientists are key to this as well as local residents and counselors as well. So we want really that event to raise awareness of the key issues, also get updates from what these water companies are planning to do with their money going forward. The investment plans at the moment are with off what they are likely to be signed off probably at the end of this year that will then feed into what they call investment or amps. So water companies generally do their investments in chunks of five years. And what will happen is they will then be able to sort of finalize their investment programs and be able to say we're going to upgrade, you know, this sewage treatment work, we're going to be able to do this, we're going to be able to do that. Invariably, it's not going to cover everything what we need. However, I think, you know, it's important to get that update and this is where again, our working with the water companies whilst, you know, we don't have that ultimate power to say don't invest in this invest in that, you know, we are a voice to be heard. And again, I think that's very important. We're really keen to identify practical ways forward. We've all been to events where we listen to speakers, it's been fabulous, interesting and the like, walked away and thought well, see you in 12 months. You know, we want to try and do something which, even if it's just small change, that helps. And lastly, we're linking up with other councils that are doing something similar. So I mentioned where Sotsicha, who again, we've got very strong links with, they've done two waterways days. And again, we're looking to use that format in many ways. So that's where the likes of Thameswater and others will come along, they'll have a slot, they'll present what they're doing and they'll be a Q&A. So there'll be an opportunity for people to challenge and ask questions and they'll will invite the likes of Wasp and others. And they'll come in and they'll give information on their research and what they know. So again, hopefully thought-provoking but also quite a challenging event. And lastly, you know, sort of we know that there's quite a large event going on in the East of England that there's an event sort of, it's going to be much larger than what we're aiming to do, but we will sort of grow into that and that's covering not only sewage, but water quality and so on and so forth. And I and others will be attending that on the 8th of March. So we'll bring that learning back. And we're going to be actually doing a little video clip which they will play at their event. Councillor Spidey is doing that tomorrow. And that'll be showing, you know, in many ways just showing our support for them and they're going to do something in sort of in response to ours as well. So again, I think if we can link up all these events, we're learning from each other, but also we start to have a bit more of a more powerful voice. Okay, and lastly, so what are we looking to do to take forward the outcomes of the sewage summit, so hopefully some practical things, the outcomes from the technical workshops which I've just touched on. Again, one of the things that we know that our colleagues at Wesaltzshire have done and have done successfully is they've introduced a validation checklist and whilst we've got that involved within our planning application process, the local plan review at the moment, we'll make that mandatory. So that will give us more teeth because at the moment we can use it, but there's always that risk of challenge. Gramping condition and again, we feel really strongly that, you know, one way that we can start to control maybe how the infrastructure sort of is aligned with the house building and the growth in the relevant areas is to start to use these conditions. And we've learned sort of over time that it's no good sort of using the condition just on the sewage treatment works. There's multiple functions and aspects to this, so it's like a matrix rather than a single silver bullet. And again, we'll be looking to introduce that with all three water companies. We know that Thames Water, because we've done the work with them already, are comfortable with the wording, we need to get the other two on board so that we've got some degree of consistency. Again, there was a recent motion and I've got an example of one of the things that came out of that that we'll be looking to do to introduce as well. That's me. Hopefully that's given you a bit of a snapshot where we're at. Happy to try and answer questions. Thank you very much, Phil. A very interesting topic and I congratulate other Councillors who have for quite some time been trying to raise the profile of this by pointing at pipes. We've moved on from pointing at potholes to pointing at pipes these days and I think probably the pipes are even more relevant. Can I just see if the Councillor Spive wants to add anything and then I'll go around and direct any questions to you, Phil? Yeah, I mean, I think Phil covered that very, very well and I just hope that members here are reassured that this is something that we take very, very seriously in our actioning as much as we can. I think that part of that role, I think we've got to separate as well as that what we can do locally and have power locally to do and the national picture. So I know that lots of us get sort of caught up and there was very big kind of national issues about what I've been trying to focus on is really identifiable things that we can action locally. So I think that work with fostering relationships with the water companies and I think that it does have an effect. We had a meeting with Thames on Friday, we've had a lot of issues in Fairford and we were able to have very, very robust conversations with them about their response to that which is just not adequate for our residents and I think that's the kind of thing where that is something I think that is been important and I hope that we can have the same kind of relationship with Wessex and Severn Trent as we move forward. And I think, you know, Phil touched on that and that really is, I think, where some of our focus should be as well which is the work that has been done in West Oxford which are very much following the template with our colleagues across there, especially on what we can do around planning. I think that is something, you know, we are the local planning authority and it is something within our gift to make some changes on as much as we can so that work on the planning validation checklist and the grantee and conditions and all the work that we're now doing on forward planning looking at, you know, how our district is going to grow and what the requirements will be on the infrastructure to service the district properly as we move forward. And I think, you know, next steps, we've got the sewage summit coming up. Again, you know, as Phil said, this is very much an opportunity to get the key stakeholders and players involved and, you know, have that as a sort of open forum. And then the other things which I would like to look at, that's just going to be about specifically about sewage. I'm not trying to make this the Water Ease Day or what the East of England are doing, but what I would like to do is build on that and then look at specifically water quality which will include things like agricultural runoff and highways runoff, which is really, really important to look further at flooding and then at water neutrality, which, and it was that part of the motion that Julia brought forward about, you know, because I think it's really, really important as we move forward to look at not just the quality of our water, but the actual supply and the whole system. So hopefully this is, you know, work that will continue to progress. Thank you. Very helpful. Thank you very much indeed. I've got Councillor Fails, followed by Councillor JANKERS. Is it urgent you need to go first? Yes. Then you can go first. I just wanted to say that I've already been mentioned. I'm in this group, so I won't be commenting during it except to say that I think that they're doing a great job. It was helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you. Councillor Fails. Comments and questions? Right. The first comment is what is the, when you refer Phil to the MPs meetings, it wasn't a very exhaustive list of who attends those meetings. For example, you left off Thames Water and Residence. It's predominantly resident driven and it's been going for 13 years. I don't know whether you've had a chance to go to any of the meetings. I don't know whether Councillor Spivey or Councillor JANKERSEN or Councillor Hodgekinson have been able to go to any of those meetings. But it is an all-encompassing meeting, so you've got FAG there, you've got the LLFA, you've got the Environment Agency, both parish councils and obviously ourselves, but particularly Thames Water and Residence. So whether this presentation is going, could that be amended? I was a bit confused because on several occasions throughout the presentation, you refer to councils. In my head, there are parish councils, us as a council, and then the other, particularly the Gloucestershire County Council, that we liaise with, which is the LLFA. So, for a bit of clarity, when you say councils, I was a bit confused. My main question though, is the Water Working Group. I don't know what status it has, but it seems to have on it three members from one political group. And I'm assuming it's not a political group. So, is there a reason why it doesn't have representation from the independent group, the Greens or the Conservatives? And it seems to me that if it's going to be looking at the broader issue, it's not a political issue, it's affecting all residents. So, if it's been driven by Councillor Spivey under her portfolio, perhaps she could give some thought to maybe a broader representation from members on it. I'm thinking particularly of someone like our green colleagues and indeed my own party. I know that people who feel very strongly about it. So, the Water Working Group is a great, great initiative, but I think it should be more representative of all of us, not just one political group. That's what I was trying to say. Thank you, Jim. Oh, and the last question is the sewage summit event. I find it difficult to say that. When is it and who's being invited to it? Can we all go? It said Councillors, are we going to be invited to it? And will it involve parish councils and residents as well? Yeah? Okay. So, when is it likely to take place? So, George, to pick up all the questions. I can start to do reverse order. So, sewage summit, yes, will be open to all, and it will be a ticketed event via Eventbrite. It's free to enter, but because we'll have a capacity issue, I'm hoping to have it at the Coronium Museum, which means I think it's got about a capacity of 70, which will include the speakers, et cetera. So, it would it will be open. We're just trying to finalise date. So, at the moment, we're looking at May. So, I'm just, we're just now liaising with the key stakeholders of, you know, the presenters, terms of water, seven-tround, west-six, wasp, citizen science, et cetera. So, you know, what to make sure that they can make the dates that the museum has available. So, we're just, that's a work in progress. And, yes, it will be open to anybody that wants to come along, and very much in the same way that the water ways day in West Oxford works, it's just much, much smaller event, but that, yeah, everybody's welcome to attend, and, you know, first come, first served, really. So, it's not, you know, there's no sort of invitation list. It will just be advertised, and anybody who would like to come along is very welcome to come along. The water work group, I think, yeah, I mean, I think that's possibly something that feels kind of made up, in a way, in that it's not a specific working group in that kind of technical term of what we might suggest, like, you know, cabinet transformed working group or something like that. It's not, it is basically the meetings with the water companies in advance of the sewage summit, and the previous one I invited, Councillor Hodgkinson, Councillor Jenkinson, because we were talking specifically about work that was happening in Borton, and also in Morton. So, therefore, they were involved in that, and I had invited them along to that. But I, and the part of what I have, in conversations that I've had with our colleagues in West Oxford, which are what we found, and, you know, with Phil's input, is that the less amount of people that are involved in those meetings, the more information you can get from the water companies. So, what I didn't want to do was to have a very big kind of room full of people, and then not be able to get down to that nitty gritty. So, I know that in West Oxford, you know, there was four in total, yeah. So, but that was only the two Councillors, so that was, oh, four Councillors. Okay. Yeah. So, I'm just keen to ensure that that becomes a meaningful meeting, but it is not a specific working group, and if the Council, and, you know, perhaps one of the recommendations of this committee might be that a water working group is set up, and therefore it would have, you know, terms of reference in a proper remit. So, perhaps you'd like to make that as a recommendation, of course, we can go forward that, but that is not what this is. This is a meeting with Thameswater. And previously, I've had a meeting already last year with Wessex Water, which Nikki End was involved in. In fact, she was key at setting that meeting up. So, this is kind of like a second meeting. So, just out that sort of explains the context. And the MPs meetings, yes, I mean, I've been to a couple of those. And, yes, that is a much bigger meeting, in fact, than what, you know, like I said, at the moment, the concentration is very much on what we can do here as the district council and looking at sewage and the issues that we have locally. So, the MP meeting is a much, much bigger forum with a lot more people involved in that. So, I mean, this presentation was only for here. It wasn't, yes, I'm sorry if you think there has been anything that's missed out on that. I'm not going to talk to the meeting, but when you say there's a water working group, that gives completely. And then the portfolio holder explains that it wasn't a working group. It's just a gathering of... I mean, I find that a little bit concerning. And I do think that it wasn't representative. I mean, with all due respect to Angus, he is only one of the two more representatives. I defer to Paul Hodgkinson, obviously. But, you know, there's one of the recommendations would be a working group. And let me just pick up that point. It seems to me a perfectly sensible recommendation to go to cabinet to note perhaps the formation of a formal working group with the usual caveats that we might want to have political balance involved in that. And I'll bring in Councillor Jenkins, who might want to amend that immediately. Yes, and it's worth saying I have an ecology brief. I'm not, it's not just that I'm connected to Morton, where we've been looking at it, but I have an ecology brief, which the other Councillor in Morton does not have. And it's also worth noting that the other member of the group is also a cabinet member and has relevant interests for that. So we're just trying to tackle a problem, that's all. Noting the clarity that Councillor Fouss is seeking, I still think the reasonable of having a recommendation suggests that, which means the cabinet can consider that in its entirety should cabinet with. Yes, please. And I think it would just be good to know as well what the committee was minded that that working group should look at specifically. So I think, you know, rather than just saying we should set up a working group, I would be interested to know what the potential remit of that group might be in your opinion. And in your opinion, Councillor Fouss, that might look like what? Well, until I asked the question, I thought this group existed and that clearly it doesn't. So, but one thing I do know, having been the former portfolio holder for the environment and having been the person that's set up for, I hope you're going to withdraw that comment. No, of course it can't all be awful, David. Because going back to 2007 and several of us were very involved in the Morton scheme, which has proved huge dividends. I do know the problem with the whole subject of sewage and flooding is fragmented and we have very limited powers as the District Council. We get all the grief from the parish councils and from residents, but of all the organisations, the MP and the leading local flood authority, with the ones with the least amount of power. So anything we can do to pull that together and speak with one voice with all our relevant expertise and political representation is great. So if it could give me a bit of time to think about it, I would definitely, and it seems that Councillor Spivey would be supportive of something if it had a clear focus, and I for one would love her to be the person who chaired it. But it would be nice to be politically more representative, that's what I'm saying. Point noted, and by all means, right, the chair and the deputy chair who would liaise with Councillor Spivey about whatever your recommendation would be, you have several days because Cabinet doesn't meet until the seventh, I believe. So let's take that offline and you can write back and let me know your considered views when you've had it. I appreciate you. You haven't had an opportunity to consider it until now. The last, I'll bring you in straight after. We're running at a time, so let me bring you Councillor JUDD, followed by Councillor WERRING, and that will be it. Thank you very much. I'm always quick as you know, but yeah, I was actually going to pick up on something that Councillor FAIL said about the MP meetings. They are very, very impressive. Lawrence King is the most extraordinary officer and his knowledge goes back years and years and years. I've forgotten in the name of the chap at Gloucester County Council. He is really amazing as well. But the problems I always see is there's a real disconnect to communication between the environment agency and Thames Water and who's responsible for what. And the riparian owners used to be farms, who had 20 members of staff to run the farm in 100 years ago, who used to clear out the drains away from the rivers, not into the rivers. The drains went into the fields. Nowadays, small owners have got their horses and they've straightened up the—there are all sorts of problems. But weirdly, the people who know more about this than anyone are the residents of Science Sister. There are some really clever people around here that know an awful lot, and to include them would be really, really constructive to actually locally do every little tiny thing we can. The 25% of the ingress of water during flood comes through my ward, but nobody ever talks about it. The only flooding you ever hear about is in Dabbingworth. But actually, the water is coming from Brinsfield, which is in Seven Trent. And that was the other thing I wanted to raise with you, Chair. Please could this council write to Seven Trent recommending an interactive sewage outlet map like the one that Thames—and that's one of the progress that I've seen since being involved in the flooding—is that interactive map is fantastic. We've got data at last before. We'd see that purple grey stuff in the water, and we'd know that there was sewage in there, but you couldn't prove it. Now you can prove it. But you can't in Seven Trent because they haven't got an interactive map. Anyway, as you can tell, I'm passionate about this, but thank you very much. I absolutely appreciate your passion. Thank you, Phil. Do you want to come back on the interactive Seven Trent map? Only to say that, yes, I mean, we recognise that. I mean, we work really hard with Thames Water to improve the transparency, and we want that map and that approach adopted by all. So, yes, certainly, when we meet with them, we will be pressing them to do that, likewise with Wessex as well. So, yes. The availability of data, I think, is key. It enables us all to play a full role in many ways. So, yes. Yes. Councillor Wearing, last comment on this section. Thank you. I just wanted to say that I would like to add to David's suggestion on the remit of the working group on water. So, I can liaise with you, David. Send my audience through. We have actually run at a time, Councillor Colman. So, the answer, I'm afraid, is no, you can't, because I've got the Deputy Chief Exec. We've got two other reports to go through, and we've got 45 minutes to do it. So, if you've, if you've given me, I'll pass it on, apart from, to hear from Clarelock. Who's coming up to the front, because the mic won't work. Thank you, Chair. Sorry. I just didn't know, based on the comments that have been made, whether the committee would like to actually make those things that have just been discussed, recommendations. So, I think there were two things, one that was that the Council writes to Seven Trans Seeking and Interactive Mat, and the other was that there is consideration of the composition and scope of the working group, obviously, to be worked through outside of this meeting. I think that captures the comments made in the committee. So, I'm more than happy to summarise that. So, the consideration was more than the creation of, because, according to the Federal, it doesn't exist at the moment. So, it's to create something and to give it some terms of reference. Consider it as a transition, it goes through terms of reference. Yeah. Chair. Councillor CASSIDY. I think one of the comments that's not been made is that we are meeting under Chatham House rules, and the committees that we set up do not meet under Chatham House rules normally. The point about this particular process, as Councillor Spivey introduced earlier on, is that on the basis of expertise gained by West Oxfordshire and the practice that's already been done, it's been found out that the most effective way of actually achieving change is by a very purposeful, very deliberate, highly expert, but under the radar initial conversations in which both parties can be completely candid about the situation. Under that situation, the parties that we meet tell us of the problems. They tell us of their discussions internally. They admit what the situation is more or less and the more you push, the more they do. And in the process of doing that, we are able to achieve things that we would not be able to achieve. Now, if there is a requirement for a working group in a more formal way to look at this, by all means, let a more formal group be set up to do that with whatever remit the individuals concerned want to propose. But I would urge us not to rush in to trying to achieve this right now because it could derail the whole process that is currently going on and is very successful as far as I can see. Thank you. Very happy to hear that debate and understand that two slightly different points you are both making. It is one that the cabinet member here can reflect on based on the points that you two gents are going to sort out. And I think that is entirely worthwhile point to make in that there is a difference. Let us not get too submerged into operational detail when we have got 45 minutes to do two financial items and I propose to move on exactly to that now if colleagues will forgive me. Show that those recommendations go forward to cabinet and those against. Super. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you very much indeed. We are on to agenda rights and thank you. Thank you. We are on to quilter three performance report pages 15 to 98. We have 20 minutes in schedule for this and for those colleagues that have not done much work on ONS before, thank you. For those that have not done much work on this before, I draw your attention rather than to the huge amount of detail in the report but to focus particularly on the management summary. So we have of course the council prior to report and the corporate plan and it is very helpful and that it highlights which things are above target, below target and gives you a very good helpful overview of what is happening. We have Rob Weaver the chief executive who is up here who I introduce and he will introduce anybody else he wishes. Over to you Rob. Thanks very much chair and again in the interest of brevity, I won't go through the report. I'm sure you've all had charts to read that. Suffice to say that we are joined at the back of the room by Alison Gemma and Stuart who are the brains behind putting this report together and you'll recall the reason we asked them to attend this session is because if this committee have any comments or views about how we can refine some of the KPIs or the way in particular that those KPIs are visualised as part of this report then they take notes at the back and we then look to update those in the quarterly reports before you. So I think it's probably fair to say that if you compared this Q3 report with one from say this time last year you'll notice where those comments have reflected over you and scrutiny's comments as we try to refine those constantly. So as I said you're more than happy to open it straight up to questions and then I'll hand over to the Deputy CEO who will take us through the finance report straight on to this one. Yeah and in fairness to previous chairs in this committee the reason the report looks as it does is because this has been the feedback from ONS in the past about getting a slightly more easy more friendly management summary of the all of the 90 odd pages from the report because clearly although I've read every single column I don't necessarily expect anybody else around the table to have done so with quite the interest that I pretended that I had for it colleagues are there any comments or observations well perhaps I can start off with just one because I've got one here myself which is just picking up on page 19 missed bins per I presume that means third blob from the top missed bins per hundred thousand rather than a hundred point oh oh yeah presume that's just a missing ticket that that struck me and again although I know that Councillor Hodgkinson is away my only comments on page 20 about the number of visits to leisure centres would be more of an observation it suggests the decline of 5% is around the pool closure and of course other aspects that were out of our control it doesn't mention what impact we may have had from competition because there are an ever increasing number of gyms and the report was rather sunk on the impact that that may have so that's properly so that I personally pick up with Councillor Hodgkinson unless you can ship you largely but I'll pick that with Councillor Hodgkinson and I've got Councillor Turner. Thank you so I have a concerns about the number of amber ratings for the performance relating to climate and biodiversity indicators and it also applies to the sustainable transport elements of the local plan LP 11 12 and 13 so my first I've got sort of two related questions the first is do we have sufficient officer time and expertise dedicated to this area of work to support the delivery of the Council's aspirations and sort of linked to this I also have looking at on page 26 CC4 and CC7 which have a green rating looking at the narrative that went in the Council priorities report it wasn't clear to me what activity is contributing or has contributed to that green rating so I wonder that might be something for a written response another time but could we find out what activity is contributing to that green rating to bring it to that point. Yeah thanks very much to the question so one of the things which we have tried to do in the narrative but clearly we still need to do more is reflect the fact that if there is a project or a program that lasts for longer than the duration of a single quarter what elements are we reporting on and if the indicator is currently green that may well be that there are no quarter three reports due but it needs to be clearer because I take the point that it's useful for members to understand which elements of the programs or projects we're reporting on it may well be that those are still green and still on target because the duration of that period is still got some time to run so we would we would expect it to be at this point in time but I'll definitely take away the other point and come back on that. Thank you very much I've got Councillor Jenkins. Thank you Chair I'd like to on the spirit of critical friend I'd like to challenge the term highest standard of service I think that this would never be used in a quality in a process improvement process in quality because it's basically a rhetorical term it's a fine aspiration in general principle but it's meaningless in terms of a specific measurable outcome that you're trying to achieve and indeed if you tried to make everything the highest standard of service you'd end up with competing priorities and all sorts of problems and you do sub optimize the overall system so I wonder if this particular one shouldn't be revisited not to get rid of the aspiration to do a good job but to actually turn it into something that's more productive of in terms of the our ability to actually manage how we do because it generally appears everywhere throughout. I'm happy to take that one away I think that's a fair comment and what we probably be better off doing is making it clearer to report against the target so the target is demonstrating what that standard of service is rather than being quite qualitative about the aspiration I'll take that point and we'll pick it up. There's a notion of an operational definition which does this. Thank you Councillor Waring. Because I picked this up last time and Julie went to the parish council to announce that EV charging was coming to a residence road and it didn't. The anticipation of connection by the end of April is that robust or should I just not mention it? I defer to my colleague who would probably go to provide an update on that on a partial update. Thank you yes we are having a somewhat frustrated process trying to get a connection date from the distribution network SSEN. My colleagues are meeting with our supplier connected curve on a weekly basis chasing for a connection date and we have actually now asked to speak directly with SSEN to try and push for a connection date so we are hopeful of a connection by April but I'm afraid I cannot guarantee it because we are in the hands of the connection network at the moment sorry. It's not syncing to sinners and colleagues. I'm careful though it's justified. Councillor Colman. Chair one of my questions is on the delays with the DNO and have we got any idea whether the main problem is trained staff like a material or management in inadequacy but my suspicion is that exactly the same problem is being faced in all the counties and cities of this land possibly excluding Scotland because they've got so much wind I don't know I doubt it. More important, well not more importantly that is very important but I am concerned with the report on a further delay to the down-ampany social affordable housing scheme where we now find quite late in the day that the drainage design I read it was not adoptable we have enough problems sorry I won't start criticizing Bromford now you can guess what I was going to say really have we any confidence in a revised timetable and what can we tell the public because down-aiming has waited a very long time for that and just one little final point was not a question bottom of page 19 the processing times for council tax support new claims is then referred to in the third line as council tax new claims which is something entirely different not least you can't claim council tax but you can claim council tax support it's very important that those figures are within target I'm pleased to see it generally I'm pleased to see rather more targets or whatever more green and and and blues and then I've seen in some previous years anyway so overall I'm quite encouraged yeah thanks very much again I defer to my colleague because again I think as a delay in terms of the publication and writing of these reports and the latest information so Claire maybe I'll be able to provide a hot off the press update on down-army thank you and just to answer Councillor Colman's first question no we don't know what is causing the hold up with the DNO um but you are right there are frustrations elsewhere it is not just us that are having these difficulties in terms of the down-army site things have moved on the drainage scheme has been redesigned and whilst there have been some issues within the overall process we are expecting the planning application to be submitted in the next couple of weeks so those bigger issues that we experienced previously previously have now been dealt with thank you very much indeed and lastly on this item but certainly not least Councillor Neill thank you very much there's a couple of abbreviations that I didn't understand could I ask about that the first one is on page 33 when it's talking about the grey your own initiative it says meet your cb's I wondered what that was whether it was something exciting like cbbs or maybe not meet your cb's at Chesterton Church I was thinking it would be a community something or whatever it's not it's not that crucial if we meet the cb's yes we have to go so it's important don't spend a lot of time on that yeah okay and then the other the other one was on page 84 percentage of major planning applications to children and agreed timescales including A-E-O-T I looked that up and it said aeromedical evacuations operational team and I I don't for a minute suppose that's what was meant here you can do that one agreed extension of time apologies thank you very much and then thank you for that that's great and then just one comment on page 74 you've got a snapshot of the long-term empty properties whether there is no target I just think it it's very disappointing to see the climb in the number of long-term empty properties in cocsoles and also to see that we have got twice as many as in the forest of dean and I think that's something that needs to be addressed thanks very much I couldn't agree more and it's a piece of work which I'm picking up I couldn't agree more it's a piece of work which we're picking up with the housing team around what initiatives we can do to bring some of those empty properties back into use and Angela Clarish monitoring office would like to add just very quickly on that I believe that the empty home strategy will be coming back to cabinet around june july time it's a piece of work that's currently underway so it might be something that this committee wants to have a look at and you of course a note from history I can remember counsel and nick parsons as deputy leader and probably housing report on the cabinet it was given quite a substantial budget to try and bring empty properties into use over a six-month period and we achieved zero on that one so whatever we do we'll be better thank you the chief executive mentioned they will they will ensure they look at not using abbreviations and reports in going forward lastly a council attorney thank you I was pleased to see the planning breach reporting tool that's mentioned on page 16 is now up and running that's great I can see the benefits it will bring and I still have concerns about the current backlog and enforcement so I wonder if I could ask if you could comment on what's being done to address the staff shortage in that area yeah again it is encouraging to see that there's progress being made in relation to planning enforcement but we've as you would expect got some further ideas that we'd like to roll out into force that make it even easier for residents and councils in particular to self-serve around planning enforcement cases so watch this space on that one and we are currently out to advert for a principal enforcement officer and I'm aware because I need to speak to him tomorrow that feels sure he's got at least two individuals he's going to have conversations with tomorrow so we're actively looking to try and fill that as quickly as possible because clearly it's a key role um planning enforcement is always one of the key issues I know that's needed here to members hearts and also tannin parishes so I will happily update the group following those interviews. Thank you. Do you get a report from this? An number of cases outstanding and it's important because members used to get a full list every month which was a bit too long because some of the enforcement was a bit trivial but it was really helpful for one's own ward and so I'm not asking for the old very long list to come back but I think we do need to have a simple tracker on enforcement cases. Point taken we really have got to stop so council judge you're the last up. Just to yes reinforce on what councillor Coleman was saying I've actually since they cut back this down it was huge for all of us because we got everybody else's but actually for mine it wasn't big enough and um I have my own enforcement list and my poor he said we've got a brilliant chap at the moment who's an interim I think you've managed to persuade him to stay on a bit longer hopefully he's getting an assistance soon it is desperate we need enforcement offices please please [inaudible] Thank you colleagues on to item agenda item 11 thank you very much um thank you item number 11 Q3 financial performance report pages 99 to 120 in your packs we have 20 minutes on this and Councillor Mike Ebermy is coming along and our deputy executive Stanley is also with us so which would you like to introduce this um yeah very briefly because you're very short of time the key table I think is yes one and essentially what it's showing is that we have a 354 about 343 000 positive variance since the Q2 update and that's large driven by largely driven by um additional interest income um and that has therefore put our out-term variance at 80 000 under budget um so you know that's obviously very positive but have we to take i don't know David's got anything else to add before we go to questions if i may i've been um updating the Q3 report for uh publication tomorrow as that we're going to cabinet so i was obviously supremely confident the early view that i gave this committee of an 80k uh net variation on the spend against the um budget was robust the current position is that's moved slightly to from 80 under to 56 under but largely the key headlines that Mike's outlined remain as they were has been some minor movements on service budgets but nothing material to concern members at this stage and the updated report will be considered by cabinet next Thursday fantastic brief summaries thank you very much indeed comments observation queries Patrick Coleman counselor sorry no no it's all right um top of page 102 section 2.3 it says at this early stage but this is a report on 75 percent of the year so it feels like a late stage to me but i'm sure it's the time period i'm thinking of is wrong i'm working this out as i speak at this early stage of the reporting cycle is probably more accurate So the comments for observations colleagues are even very happy with the very helpful management summary which genuinely was the most helpful thing i've read with some relief for some time um well i'm not going to draw this out so in which case thank you both very much and thank you for having the late slot which counselor fme seems to get the late slot quite regular i don't know whether somebody's got an in for you all you just like the late nights so thank you very much and lastly then counselor Neil before we get this agenda finished over the original budget cs contract sum sorry thank you very much let's move on to um actually counselor fme might want to say yes counselor fme is going to have to start games we've got it we're going to touch on other aspects of counselor fme is huge portfolio i think as we hit so item 13 report back on recommendations this is on pages 157 to 160 i won't necessarily draw this as any further comments because counselor fme is very helpful in not only hearing the report from the task and finish group uh in advance that being published to get any further views from the chair and myself and also uh the the task and finish owner um you can see what cabinet to you were and why a couple of items were delayed pending further information so is there i appreciate that this is now fairly old news but are there any comments arising from what you got in front of you that you want to address to counselor fme on this one super thank you i thought it was a very good very good piece of work that that group undertook and and was was was very helpful in in giving some some non biased feedback to how individual counselors saw the situation so i think that was a uh i believe it was probably counselor fme that suggested that that setting up and it was a very worthwhile project did indeed change quite quite take take take take the berry instant alert us that there isn't anything to feed back that's the case is it not thank you it it might be useful for the scrutiny committee to know that the city something bored uh has not been convened and consequently the city meant the strategy for the county is also being pushed back and the scrutiny committees are not taking place because this transition that they've been doing has not been done to a sufficient level and that we can't meet until this this um board is properly immersed that's the situation i know your views without saying what your views are from that tone thank you very much indeed as much appreciated we've got um counselor niel feedback from hosk health over you and scrutiny committee have they met is there stuff that you can give us no there hasn't been one since our last meeting the next one is March 12th i'm only pleased to hear that to be honest although the quality of what you say would have been great i'm still very pleased to hear we can move on to item 15 and we don't need to dwell on item 15 because although there is a work plan i will come back to you but we are having a meeting um in march this committee is having a meeting on zoom to actually discuss how we work out next year's agenda because as you know it is pretty tricky to squeeze in the important stuff that we have to do given the number of meeting we have and the time available for the meeting we can't have any more meetings so we've got a pretty reasonable compromise and if i shut up we might actually end before the three hours is up bringing in thank you there is a forward plan circulated with this but as always it's a fairly live document and we're constantly reviewing what's coming up to cabinet and what this committee may wish to scrutinize and also we've previously agreed that some items may be more appropriate to be dealt with through member briefing so that all members have an opportunity to have a say rather than it focused purely at overview and scrutiny so in terms of the um the next agenda for our meeting in april um we don't plan to bring the climate and ecology item at that time unfortunately our climate lead has actually moved on from this authority um so it's it wouldn't be great timing to consider that then so we we would suggest that when we do that work planning meeting that Councillor Sallen has mentioned that we plan that item in for um slightly later in this year um there is the community safety partnership item that can come forward to this committee there is also in terms of pre scrutiny the asset management strategy that the council has produced so it would be good to bring that forward for this committee to consider before it goes on to cabinet and also we will need to agree the work plan for the forthcoming year that we will be discussing when we meet at the end of March so we could actually formally agree that work plan at that April meeting the other item that was penciled in for the April meeting was housing and that was discussion around housing associations our interaction with them and so forth the previous committee actually spent quite a lot of time looking at that but I believe that is something that's being considered for a member briefing anyway so we again can pick it up when we have that discussion around the work plan but it may be that that is dealt with through the member briefings rather than coming as a specific item to this committee but we can discuss that that next time so that was a long-winded way of saying um the the planned agenda for the next meeting would be community safety partnership asset management strategy and agreeing the work plan thank you chair thank you very much Councillor Wilkins that's a fascinating question can you comment I don't know the answer to that question I don't know the detail behind that I'd have to speak to colleagues but I think if there is an issue and something that needs discussing then that's very much what we can discuss at the work planning meeting to say yes it is something that we need to consider and therefore we'll we'll plan it in for one of the this committee's future meetings as we mentioned before if we could look at the empty housing strategy either included in there when we're looking at housing in general or maybe when we're coming up to the cabinet I don't know we're actually on proposals but but but but the point is the point is well made chair if I could comment that's the sort of item that we would deal with this pre scrutiny so if it's coming forward to cabinet then we would try and ensure that this committee gets sight of it and is able to discuss it in advance of it going forward to cabinet so actually as we talk tonight I've already put it on my list of things the committee may wish to just um plan in for the year but we would do that routinely because we always look at any new items that are going forward to cabinet and make sure that anything we think that this committee would want to consider we we bring forward colleagues thank you very much um can I thank um we've got to the end of the agenda so it's been a pleasure hearing you're considered and thoughtful views thank you very much my thanks to Councillor Turner for not only keeping an eye on what was happening but also forgetting one of her questions on the first item so we could make some progress so thank you very much and thank you all and I'll see you at the next one
Summary
The council meeting focused on several key issues including river quality and sewage management, financial performance, and the performance of various council services. Discussions were robust, with a particular emphasis on environmental concerns and community safety.
River Quality and Sewage Management: The council discussed partnerships with water companies and strategies to improve river quality. The debate highlighted the need for better data transparency from water companies and more robust planning conditions to manage sewage effectively. The implications include potential improvements in local water quality and biodiversity, aligning with environmental sustainability goals.
Financial Performance Review: The council reviewed the Q3 financial performance, noting a positive variance and an under-budget status. Discussions centered on the accuracy of financial forecasting and the efficiency of council spending. The decision to accept the report implies continued scrutiny of financial management practices to ensure fiscal responsibility.
Council Service Performance: The council examined various service performance metrics, particularly focusing on missed bins and leisure center visits. The discussion underscored the need for improved service delivery and addressing competitive pressures on leisure services. The decision to monitor these areas closely suggests an ongoing commitment to enhancing operational efficiency and community satisfaction.
Interestingly, the meeting also touched on the need for a formal working group to address water issues more systematically, reflecting a proactive approach to environmental management. This initiative indicates a strategic shift towards more structured and possibly more effective governance in environmental matters.
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