Transcript

Welcome to this meeting of the Performance Scrutiny Committee being held on Thursday the 18th of April 2024. The meeting is being webcast with the exception of any business that the committee resolves to exclude the press and public because of the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined by the local government Act 1972. This meeting is being held as a hybrid meeting with performance Scrutiny members attending in person at Council Chamber here in County Hall nothing or remotely via video conference. For transparency purposes I will ask the Scrutiny Coordinator to identify which Scrutiny Committee members are in attendance and whether they are attending in person or remotely. Thank you very much Mr Mr. President. Thank you very much Mr. President. I thank you very much for having me. I thank you very much for having me. I thank you very much for having me. I thank you very much for having me. I thank you very much for having me. I thank you very much for having me. Thank you very much for having me. I thank you very much for having me. I thank you very much for having me. I thank you very much. Thank you. Those attending remotely are kindly asked to mute their microphones unless they're called upon to speak. Performance Scrutiny Committee members are also asked to have the video switched on throughout the meeting unless I specifically request you to turn your video off to improve the quality of the audio link when you are speaking. You will be expected to restart your video once you have finished speaking. Please also refrain from using the chat facility as messages said to all are visible on the webcast. Those present in the chamber are asked to make sure they speak directly into the microphone to improve the quality of sound for those attending remotely. To a transparency all the meetings business must be conducted through the chair. Are there any apologies for absence please? All committee members are here. The only apologies I've had is for business item number five. The head of service Liz Greaves got a class for meetings unfortunately so but the other officers are here. Thank you. Item two is does anybody wish to declare? All right. Yes. Fine. Okay. Yes, mr. Carried with a lot and then we bought all our govania to Dan Golden the keyed a conga either getting an in rucassistia personal nation hagvarni when person is again new business he was studying in a coir would hit you. The like us as the idea by us galley that galley now making consider could be the conchoreth Nerela de rifathir arment and then we bought all what gandens cassistia personal nation hagvarni and a materian head you. My no one only holds a lot this in that gankassistia Inaudin d'ir bethir cassistia d. Aki has pasy palin a un gassistia personal nen gassistia personal sin hagvarni valedifin with an accord and a gad. My no one only in rue lo'd sin dat gankassistia d sin hagvarni ad ala kavar vaud an esta de rifathir, aki niechet kamri tran mion in rue dravodion gassil aude a de dord de personal aninique gamri tran in rifathir, aki nue blade lice ospid cassistia personal sin hagvarni and cali dat gally hev you nadio wetti dat gally eigov nordi im blenorol bitha nevarnol yer conforid nerela dansilu len we asop nordi ferblen dat gankassistia d. Cidin aiar gal gan staff kev noget push gorsim bresenov hev you, nayar lain. John, item three, urgent matters. I don't know of anything. No, no urgent matters. Item four, a minute to the last meeting for which we should go to play five, but also just to take you through them, and then I'll go back. Once we've gone through them, once I'll get take you back, through them, if anybody would like to to raise any particular items carried over. So page five, page six, which was principally elective home education, page seven. Yep, else around it. Just on the elective home education matter, I did raise up the meeting. The question of the impact on the closure of libraries through the county on the parents of the home educated children, and received the response that yes, those parents did use those libraries very extensively, but that the officer considered that sharing that use across other libraries would help mitigate some of the hours that they were losing at their usual. Thank you. I'd like that minute to please. Thank you. Thank you. Page seven, page six, seven, page eight, page nine, ten. There was one item on page ten where we're recommending that the lead member for education on the education service officers right to the whilst government minister for education, seeking the government to introduce regulations for those who choose to educate their children at home. Do we know if that contact has been made? As I understand it, there's a meeting being held this week between officers with regards to drafting that letter. So it should be issued by the lead member immediately. Thank you. Page ten, page eleven, page twelve, page thirteen. I'll just go back to those minutes now and ask if anybody would like questions, and then we can take a vote to accept them. So any questions on page five, page six, page seven, page eight, page nine, page ten, page eleven, page twelve, and page thirteen. No questions on any of those items. Will somebody move? We accept those as a true record, Councillor Filley, and anybody? Councillor Andrew. Thank you. We can now move now to a gender item number five, on a bit of an office morning, Councillor Emma Swinn, accompanied by Katherine Taylor of Philip Burroughs with a report about internet connectivity status and properties in Denvershire. Oh, yes, he's obviously. We also got Mr Martin Williams, who's the area director for police, excuse me, Wales and west of England for open reach, and he's attending remotely. So good morning. Thank you for attending. I'm hoping we'll have certain questions for you. Thank you. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) But that failed. I don't know what the reasons were, but a number of people who, in the number of people who took up these vouchers, we can only try and encourage them to put more fiber in the county to enable people to have access to this gigabit voucher system run by the governments. And this has come to an end up to the last 12 months. It hasn't been available, because the gigabit project has been taken over. And the other day I was walking down from where I live in Rithin, and speaking to one of the open reach workers who was working in one of the boxes that they have on the side of the road, and he confirmed that they are at the moment installing fiber in our exchange in Rithin. And that's it, I think. I can't give you any more detail than that, because the detailed information I don't have, so I'm going to transfer to Catherine. Just to give a little bit more background around the impact on our communities that not having internet connection can have. So within Wales now, we recognize that there's three pillars of digital inclusion. One's around having access to equipment. One's around the abilities and skills to use that equipment once you've got it, and also connectivity. So the actual infrastructure of having the internet within your community. So the definition of a minimum digital living standards is that it includes, but is more than having just accessible internet. It needs adequate equipment, skills, and the knowledge and support that people need. It's about being able to communicate, connect, and engage with opportunities safely, and with confidence. So not having the equipment skills or internet connection can have a real impact on people's life opportunities, access to employment, education, health advice, there's loads of things that the list goes on. So in Denver, we've invested in a digital officer, Philip Burrows, who's here with me today, bringing in a range of technical expertise. So I'm going to hand on to Philip, but I just want to say thank you to Martin as well, who's from open reach on screen with us today. So over to you, Philip. Okay, thank you. I'd just like to remind people that most counties have a handful of telephony providers putting in fiber and internet connections, and Denver sure only has really open reach, because it's so expensive to put the infrastructure in place because of our topology. So even though a lot of residents might grumble at open reach, we must be grateful that they are actually investing here at the moment, when all the other counties have lots of different companies putting fiber in. We are also above the Welsh average at the moment, we are on the February stat, we were 73% and Wales was 61. I'm sure Martin will give us the latest figure soon. So technically, we're doing quite well, but we mustn't forget those that always get forgotten. Those in the rural areas, these are that my primary targets. So we got 2,690 residents as of the last figures I put on the report, who get less than 30 megabits. Now, these are the ones that always get left behind, because they're so expensive to go to, and these are the ones that we will have to use fiber schemes in the future to get to using gigabyte vouchers. We are lucky at the moment, because open reach, and I'm working with them, are running another four fiber partnerships in Denver, they've just started. So that that'll bring in a total of 762 premises that don't have fiber will then get fiber. And of course, as that fiber gets pushed further into the countryside, it's cheaper for the other further out residencies to obtain it, because the main cables are a lot closer. So even though we get a lot of doom and gloom, we are doing pretty well, but we mustn't forget those that are in the rural areas. I attended a BT event in Denver yesterday, and most of the residents that were coming in, they were very worried about the change over to fiber and digital voice where old telephony is going through the internet and over the copper cables, because if there's a power cut, the router goes down, and that means they don't have a telephone, because the phone connects to the router, so they won't have emergency phone. And a lot of these people were saying, we don't have 4G signals in where they live. They have to walk half a mile to get anywhere near a 4G signal. So these, again, are my primary concerns where there's no emergency cover in a power cut, because everything's going through the internet, which will die. That's all I've got to say for now, thank you. Thank you. I hope members have had the opportunity to read the report. Does Mr Martin Williams want to add anything before we get to questions? Sorry, I can't. We can't be breaking up a bit. Can you repeat what you said, please? Can you hear me now, Councillor? Yes. Just to work on what Phil and the other members have said, the censorship is going to be really going through some connectivity, and the investment that we're going to put in to build the report by your network. Yes, we're going to do some echo coming back down here. Might be better if you switch your camera off. Do you want to go to the questions, and I'll just change my seconds, and I'll do one line when I come back in. That was a headset, yes. Thank you. Basically, I was just asking you, do you want to add anything at this stage, or do you want to just answer coming on members' questions? Yes, can you hear me? Is that better? That's better, thank you. Much better. Yeah, there we are, we'll go on the headset. It must be the feedback going from the headset and the microphone. Yeah, I mean, I will add, Dempeche has got some of the best connectivity for full fibre in Wales and actually across the UK. So OpenReach have got a programme of upgrading full fibre to 25 million homes across the UK by the end of 2026. That's a £15 billion investment. So far, OpenReach has invested more than £11 million in upgrade to our network in Dempeche. We would expect him to invest a further £2 million over the next couple of years, and this is really around upgrading kind of that copper network to full fibre, which gives the benefits of a more reliable, faster service that will benefit the generations to come. So there's some great progress. We have announced that we're building in 11 exchanges commercially and actually Dempeche or Dempeche telephone exchange is actually one of the best exchanges in Wales, with 94% of homes and businesses now having access to that full fibre network. I think to answer one of the points that was raised around the Gigabit voucher scheme coming to an end in 2023. Yes, the UK Gigabit voucher scheme is obviously driven by UK Government. This allows homes and businesses to access vouchers or funding worth £4,500 per premise. That scheme temporarily came to an end while procurement was underway by UK Government for a supplier, for a Gigabit procurement process. So that procurement process is also still underway. But BGUK a number of months ago did release, did allow additional premises to be eligible. I've forwarded now to be launched for new schemes over the last couple of weeks in Dempeche, picking up on traditional Central 62 premises, Hunter and Aug being one of those telephone exchange areas. MIT will be out and about in the communities over the next couple of weeks asking those residents to pledge their vouchers so we can move into kind of a build process later this year and get those premises connected. So I think it's positive in the amount of work that has gone on in Dempeche. You are leading the local authorities across Wales in that full fibre connectivity. Yes, there is plenty more work to be done for all those premises that aren't benefiting from super fast broadband and full fibre. We will work with yourselves, Welsh Government and UK Government to now we can access some of our funding to build to expand our full fibre network to get to some of those premises. Thank you for that. Right, I'll now open the report to members and the questions. Yes, yes, yes, Mr Garris coming first I think. Yes, Borodar Paob, welcome everybody. Thanks for attending. It's obvious that from the questions we've got today that we are a very ambitious county and we would like to see the best in Wales, so per household obviously. I'm concerned with where we will be in the future because we need to look to the future and not the past now. So where do you anticipate you'll be in terms of the infrastructure build by the end of 2025 and which communities will be out fibre at that stage. So in 12 months time, where do you think we'll be? In 12 months time when you're already at 73% will be invested in a further 1.7 million, you probably end up I think by the end of 2026, probably around about 80%. I can provide a bit more of an accurate calculation. So we are on track to get to our 25 million home ambition by the end of 2026. We've already passed 13.8 million homes in the UK, so we're on track to hit that and yet you, oh damn sure will be in that 80% mark. But I guess beyond 2026 also will come into play is the UK gigabit procurement which is currently underway. So that looks to target those premises that sit outside of telephone operators commercial plans. So that is ongoing. I think we're expecting announcements on that contract around about June or July and that will start to formulate those premises that will be picked up through that process. The opportunities then exist through gigabit vouchers and those premises that are then even too costly for full fibre to look perhaps not fixed by this access solutions will 5G mobile coverage. Does that answer the question? Yeah, I mean I'd just like to come back to that and it's regarding the copper exchanges being switched off at the end of 2025 and you're saying we're going to be relying on a mobile technology. Have we available mobile phone coverage across Denver shirt? So 4G and 5G because we're going to be very dependent on that. What's the future and have we got a mapping set out already a plan? Yeah, so I work for open reach. I don't work for BT group or the mobile operator, so I can only comment on kind of our infrastructure build. I am not aware of the coverage you got for the mobile or what the plans are. I think it was a question. It was a very clear enclosure. Sorry, okay, but I mean just to add on the PSG enclosure, so you know we have worked with off-con. We've announced that we're looking to retire the old PSDN network and that has centered around the equipment in the telephone exchanges rather than the copper infrastructure. You know those cables out and about and underground and overhead. The electronics and the exchange were installed back in 1980s and it's the life of those electronics and I'll start into coming to an end. As we're upgrading full fiber, we are looking to transition people across to a better service on full fiber. Yes, there's some challenges around power cuts. The service providers will offer battery backups for those instances as well, so those routers continue to work through power cuts. Okay, thank you. Thanks for your answers. I think we are where we are from 12 months ago when everybody first came here, so it's just going forward and see if they're what's updated. But if Philip wants to come in on if any information he could provide any further updates on 5G, 3G, 4G, 4G, and 5G, the North Wales Economic Ambition Board are hoping to spend their £4 million that they were going to use on bringing internet into the rural areas on mast provision. So working with the four providers who now have a rural network sharement agreement where they can share a mast together, pool the cost of making that mast, and hopefully North Wales Economic Ambition Board will put masts in. They will be working across the whole of the top part of the Wales, the six counties, but we should get provisioned for a couple of masts in the black spots. There are mapping software out there, cell mappers are very popular one, all the providers do use, do provide mapping on their own websites, but those systems they look at how far a mast and broadcast, but don't really look at the topology of the land, so like Cloud K-Nogway it's in a bit of a bowl, it might say you can get provision, but really it can't because the signal just goes straight over the top. But we are getting more mast built in, I know one of the providers is putting one in near Nanklin I believe soon. Okay, that's great to know, and thank you for all your work trying to lobby and coordinate this as the digital officer. Just to point a technical reference for the room, we can't see some of the camera, I don't know when Phil speaks, it's only half of him that we can see, so it would be useful to get the cameras straightened out in the room, if possible, that's great. But thanks very much for your replies everyone. Just on that point, we will log that with our manager, because I think they have to get technicians in for that, we can't touch the cameras here, but yeah we'll know. It's not something we've previously had at a meeting, but today it seems a bit. I know, they're a bit off in places, thank you. Just to expand on that please Phil, it's just going to influence which company one, if you live in those areas, it's just going to influence which company you purchase your mobile phone from. Yes, I mean if you live in a rural area, you should always have a look and try and test to see which mobile service is better for your area. Anyone who contacts me will get a map showing where the masts are and the topology of the surrounding area, so they get an idea who has the strongest mast and what speed to provide internet connection at, so that's a start, and it's always a good idea to try and get friends with different phones on different providers that are deceiving, getting a signal in the house. Thank you. Right, thank you, thanks. We have no, oh sorry, we didn't have any audio then, thank you. You're on mute, Tilly. We unfortunately, we couldn't hear anything then, so I missed out anyway, good morning, how. I just want to say, it was a good to read that the number of premises with less than 2MB connectivity, but please so pleased to know our country Wales is 61% compared to the county figure of 73, so that's excellent and keep on the good work, Phillip. My question is, can you please explain exactly what Starlink is? Starlink, and how does it work? It's an effectiveness and the cost, okay, thank you very much. Starlink is from Elon Musk, it's the low earth satellite internet telephony company at the moment, it does have a competitor, there is a competitor to all one web which is UK government backed, which will be putting more satellites and becoming much more dominant in the market soon. The Starlink satellites are better than previous satellites because they are much lower, so the signal gets sent up from a dish in your garden, knowing your house to the satellite, there's a little delay when it goes to there, so if the satellites are in higher earth orbit, it takes a lot longer to get there, then it has to get bounced back down to a big dish on the way it's connected to the internet, your traffic goes to the internet, then you get the reply, so if you've got a high earth orbit dish satellite, you've got a big delay, sometimes it can be seconds and that's very frustrating with the Starlink ones because they're so low and you can visibly see them sometimes in the night sky, it's a much much faster response time. The only problem with Starlink is it costs £75 a month, which is quite prohibitive and a lot of people who would consider it go, I just can't afford that. The Access Broadband COMRI grant will cover the cost of the equipment and any installation, but it will not cover the cost of the monthly tariff, it is a very good system and on average you'll get 100 megabits per second. Thank you for that and also maybe if you had a business in the Vale and needed this connectivity, you probably, well it might be useful for the business but £75 for an ordinary residential home is pretty bad isn't it? Thank you for the reply. Business tariff is even more sorry. All right. Okay can I take you to 10.3 of the reports, it's on page 18. We've heard that the gigabyte vouchers have ended but then the whilst governments are coming in with this extending the high speed broadband reaching Wales program, is that for businesses or is it for private individuals, is it or is it for both and how do people apply for them? Okay the UK gigabyte vouchers were due to end next year but they have had an extension which is good news. The Welsh government scheme extending high speed broadband reach the Wales will try and bring internet to those very hard to reach premises but it's not guaranteed to be fibre-based internet. This could be wireless-based internet where they put a mass on the mountain and it can serve buildings out in the sticks. One of the problems with this is UK government have said any premise like gets funding for an internet connection that's not gigabit and it's like maybe a 30 megabit connection, they won't get further funding from government to take it to fibre-based and this is one of the reasons that the North Wales Economic Ambition Board closed its internet project because it was aiming to do a mishmash of gigabits and 30 megabits via wireless where you put the mass on the thing and they thought it's not fair for us to give someone a 30 megabit connection and then they can never get fibre because no government will get them money in the future. So, while this Welsh government one could be useful and it won't come to fruition for another couple of years because they haven't even gone out to tend to and stuff yet, I do fear that it might stop people getting fibre in the future. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Chair. Yeah, I'm Councillor Anderson-Sassif, we've noticed the new mass going up, the new poll, sorry, and the fibre. So, you know, thanks for that. It's certainly going to be a benefit to many people. Regarding the map in the report, this is kind of the map that's colour coded that shows where you've already done these upgrades, where you're working on, where you will be working on. I'm interested in how you prioritise these areas. We often, you know, we have to do impact assessments where we look at equalities and understand if anyone with protected characteristics have been disadvantaged. Do you do a similar thing? Do you do kind of impact assessments on these rollout plans and understand if you're going to widen any sort of inequalities, understand who's going to get left behind. I mean, I understand you have to look at this from a different perspective. There's got to be a financial implication taken on board, which we fully understand, but I just wonder whether you also have to consider impacts that might widen inequalities or leave some people behind. And what do you do with those reports if you do them? Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, that was an interesting question. I'm glad you're seeing the changes in Saint Arthur. Saint Arthur, I mean, we were already up to 48.5% build there and our engineers will continue building over the next couple of years. Our rollout plans were announced a number of years ago in terms of which exchanges we were looking to upgrade. I think we are more, it's more around how we build our network in the areas that we move into. So a lot of these exchanges require upgrades in terms of the kind of the main fiber cables that feed them. We then what we call kind of parent exchanges. And it's from these parent exchanges is how we extend our network out into those kind of child exchanges. So determine which area we work in is more driven by our, I suppose, infrastructure build rather than the economic or impact it has within the exchanges. However, we will certainly work with Phil and my team, help those discussions with Fulboros and Denvershire around actually, you know, you identify an area that you would like to accelerate our build. We will certainly have a look at that and take that into consideration. Thank you, Chair. I'm interested, obviously, there's great work being done and a huge passion for getting our connectivity improved. That's obvious through our offices and the report. I'm interested in one of the pillars that Catherine mentioned in Sepharas. It's not just about getting that fiber, it's getting people to use what's available to them when it is there. So I'm just interested in knowing of the 75% on rising connectivity we've already got, how much of that is actually made use of by residents, how many residents percentage wise in our county are internet users. And just roughly, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but you know, having this, having this facility is great, but you're doing great work to encourage them to use it. And I just wondered how many people you're having to target as percentage wise to achieve that. Thank you. I suppose the exact details of that. What we have got is that now, Phillips, since the restructure of the council last year, Phillip now sits within our team. We move over from business improvement modernization. So we now sits within a team that's also got a digital and financial inclusion officer. So we have trialled, we've been doing a pilot digital survey amongst, but we've done it with our council house tenants. So we've just done the second one of those, so we've got the results from that. As part of that, we want to know about people's skills, what they use the internet for, and also if they need any support technically from Phillips. So Phillips got a list of people now that he will be contacting that come through from that survey. So I suppose we're in the early stages of it. I think it's really difficult to know how to tell who uses the internet, but we're doing it in part. I think that's the answer for now. That's okay. Okay, thank you. I just thought the mid may have been some very clever way of knowing how many households actually use the internet, but obviously you've just got to do it through asking. Thank you. Anyway, thank you. How's the garage again wants to come back? Yeah, thank you. And it's following through from what Martin and Andrea said. It's regarding what open reach can do. I think we mentioned last time you were here about how have an educational plan to inform people about the benefits and once they're using it, how do they understand it and get the most from it? I'm particularly interested in what open reach do to go out to people to speak to people and what particularly older people, because we've heard obviously the traditional land lines being switched off. We need to stick. We need to get to the older and vulnerable people more now. It's going to be really crucial. What are open reach doing to get a program out there and what can they do to them? Is there anything else we can get your company to do basically? Thank you. Yeah, I mean, we're more than happy to support activities you got planned across them. I mean, our customers are the service providers and it's their customers who are those residents and businesses in those homes. So there's more than 680 service providers and I know where people like BT have got programs for kind of outreach, digital inclusion programs in terms of, I suppose, how many people use the internet? So we do track through, as we roll in out where full fiber, obviously, we're looking for a return on our investment and actually the amount of people that have transitioned over onto full fiber network is slightly ahead where we expected to be at this point in our plan and, you know, for the ambitious around about 35% of the network that we built is now live with full fiber, which is great. But yeah, we very much kind of ask our service providers to connect with those customers and get them transitioned over to full fiber and carry out those programs. I mean, we will certainly try to provide some material around trying to direct people to kind of where they can see what network they can access with open reach as well, but a lot of those programs will be low service providers. Okay, and just a follow-up question and it's not to Martin this time, it's to the manager of the team there. We've seen that, obviously, it's our corporate strategy, but the funding expires with the digital officer in May 2025, according to the records. We've seen the benefits. What are we doing to assess this and evaluate it and invest in it after May 2025? Thank you. Okay, so just to say, to Philip's contract currently comes to an end May 2025, we have just had some funding from North Wales Economic Ambition Board. I think it's okay for members to ask questions about generic stuff, but not about individual officers' contracts. Sorry, sorry, it's a regarding what provision of activity? Apologies. Apologies. So yeah, without going into the details of Philip's employment, we have no other plan to continue that. What we have done is we've been awarded eight months of Philip's time from UK Economic Ambition Board, so that'll take us up to December this year. So we're working with Katharine Cluids and Mentem on on that. It's UK Shared Prosperity Funding. It will, however, take Philip into a more restricted area of work, but what we will do is we'll be interested. Sorry, I'm sorry, it's just I'm uncomfortable that we're talking about an individual employee's employment. So I think if you want to talk about the generic funding of support for broadband and connectivity, et cetera, that's fine and broadly about the work that may be done, but not by reference to an individual, if that's okay. This year, to support the function of the work, and I think we've just had to look at it there, we're currently, I mean, one of the options is that we come back to the corporate part to ask for additional funding, or we go elsewhere for funding to extend the work. That's okay. Thank you very much for that. It's the provision of activities after May 2025, I was concerned with, and I think we raised that point quite consistently. Thank you. Could I also add, I'm sorry to jump in on this one as well, but we talked about the gigabit voucher schemes and the launch of a number of fiber community partnerships in Denver share over the next week or so. I mean, across Wales, myself and my team have launched more than 30 schemes across Wales covering more than 20,000 premises, utilizing the gigabit voucher schemes across every local authority, where we find these schemes successful in terms of getting premises and residents to pledge their vouchers as well as their strong relationship between the digital officer and the local authority and those residents. There are some areas which don't have a digital officer, and we really struggle to kind of hit the number of pledges required so we can build full fiber rollout. It is important for the success of those schemes. Thank you, Councillor Bobbie. Thank you, Chair. Just to clarify, you say currently Denver share have a 73% coverage. In terms of people, that leaves, you know, 28%, is it land or is it people, homes and businesses, premises? Well, given that this, I would say now, is on a par with basic utilities, it's so needed to every household. So 28%, and I know that you're trying to reach 80%, but that's still an awful lot of people and areas that are not accessing this service. You know, you couldn't do that if it was water or electricity. So it's still quite a big gap, even though you, as you say, Denver share has done very well in terms of the rest of Wales, it's still not, it's below par. Yeah, and the 73% is kind of the next generation technology that we're talking about. So this is the full fiber network. So if you look at your super fast coverage, so those premises that can access more than 30 meg, actually, Denver share is 96%, and 96.3%. So that is also a high percentage on par with Wales, but it's kind of this next generation of fiber rollouts that we talk about with 73%. Hello, if you want to come in. Thanks for clearing. Yes, thank you. We're at 73% now, and we know what open reaches plans are for the exchange areas. They are doing little bits of work outside exchange areas, as we know, but this is where we can use community-led fiber partnerships using gigabyte vouchers, and then go to open reach. So we have all these people, we can get this money. Will you install fiber here so that this is where the community using utilize myself can go to open reach and be proactive and get fiber into these communities. So we're not helpless. We can do things to try and raise this ourselves. Okay, thank you for that. Yeah, and also, to add to that as well, Phil, we can also do it reactively. So as a case of communities approaching open reach or approaching Phil, but we will also try to identify communities that could perhaps access these gigabit vouchers, and we will proactively go out to them, saying there is an opportunity, we think, to use the vouchers to upgrade to full fiber. Good. But Martin, do you want a supplementary? Yeah, thanks, Chet. Back to the map again. I noticed there's a patch on there that says this exchange isn't in our major build yet, and it's on the Cluadian range devalued natural landscape, the AOMB. Is this area more challenging to upgrade? Because it's an AOMB, or is it for other reasons? And if it is, is the National Parks project likely to have any impact on the internet connectivity in those areas? That's a question for me. It is a consideration, but it doesn't form but a whole reason on why we're not building this. And when we announced six changes, we looked to build around about a cost of about £300 per premise. And those more rural exchanges is just more expensive to build, working relationships with National Parks. If you've got a good relationship, it does help drive down our build costs. It's just more challenging. It's just generating that the whole area is more rural. Now, there's options available for them to utilize the gigabit voucher scheme. So that you will co-fund a project to go to those exchange areas. And I think also into consideration will be project gigabit. So that procurement is kind of underway at the minute for whales and across each of the four lots that the UK have designed. So those premises may well fall within that procurement process. Councillor Carroll, holiday. Thank you, Chair. Similar to the electricity water gas, etc., bus broadband is now regarded as one of the basic utilities for day-to-day living. And given the increasing need for businesses and individuals, especially in the rural areas, what level of cost would you deem as to be cost prohibitive for installing fibre in these infrastructures in these places? We wouldn't—it's probably not a question of, is there a cost limit? It's probably around what funding is required to support our commercial contribution to it. Some of them could be run into the thousands of pounds on an individual basis. But then there's an awful lot that we could do with kind of UK gigabit voucher schemes. And in some instances, we also offer—so what we find if you've got a very rural premise and they've got a long drive or a long lane to their property, sometimes customers can be offered as kind of a self-dig, which helps time produce down to those costs so they can dig in that last section of network. So there is no figure that we would say no to. It's more around how you get that funding to support the roll-ups of that network. And of course, there is also the universal service obligation, which is part of a BT. So, you know, if those premises that currently get speeds of less than 10 megabits per second, they can register with BT, the USO, and they will look then to provide a cost in whether it be a 4G, 5G solution or a fixed—fixed full fiber connection as well. Thank you. I don't see any more questions. I just want to make a general observation. As I understand, this is somebody that's not hugely competent in these matters. At the end of 2025, the copper network is being switched off. That means if you haven't switched to fiber, you've got no telephone system and you've got no broadband. Is that correct? No, that's not correct. No, the copper network is going to be in the ground for a long long time. It's the PSTN network that's being switched off. So this is the electronics in the telephone exchange. The copper infrastructure will be in use for a long long time. Yes, so it's just the electronics in the exchange are just going to be switched off. Those electronics, as I mentioned earlier, they've been in the exchanges since the 1980s and they're very much coming to the end of their life. As we transition to cover more of an all IP telephone service, we could utilize the existing copper network and fiber network to transition those customers across to the all IP service. I need to continue to be mentioned. Does that help explain the answer? Yes, I think it does. Thank you. It really assures me. Does that as it was? Yeah, the copper network will be continued to be maintained going forward, yes. I see Councillor MRS who's visited. Yeah, the amount of squallow hierarchy. Just to acknowledge what I've heard, I'm concerned now with that last bit about the rural areas. Could I just draw attention to a statement? You'll see from the map that the most populated areas are having this provision put in place. If you look at the gap between the green patch between Griffin and Embi, there's an empty space there, a very rural area. I as a lead member, I'm looking forward to see that these areas will also be able to have the same service. We're looking forward to having it in Griffin in the future. So what about a question from Councillor Bobby Feeley about the 22% or the 28% who won't be able to get this? Am I right therefore in believing that the non-wise system will be an answer for those areas to a great extent? Who could take that? No, is that a question for myself or for Phil? I'm happy to answer it. So we're at 73% now. We will carry on building the network and work in partnership with, I suppose, Welsh Government and UK Government for a full fiber solution. There may be a small percentage at the end, maybe two to three percent that perhaps need to look at more for fixed wireless access solution or a satellite solution due to costs for a full fiber network being kind of prohibitive but we're not stopping at 73%. We're continuing to build over the next couple of years and that 28% will slowly reduce down and we can work with yourselves around those remaining premises. Thank you. I'd like to add that the the white areas on the open reach map they still have fiber in there. They're just not in an exchange upgrade at the moment which is planned up till 2026. So I'll give you an example. In between Corwin and Clang Ocklin exchanges we have Carog. That's one of the fiber partnerships that we're working with open reach now where we're putting, they're putting, hoping to put fiber in with a fiber partnership. So some of the white areas even though they're not in exchange upgrade areas there is fiber going in there. They're just not doing blanket fiber as, you know, trying to get to 80% there. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Councillor MARSH to have a quick come back just hitting our time for this item. Yes, thanks, Chair. No, I just think we should on record state how important it is to have a digital officer role if we are to continue to to push this internet connectivity across the county. I think we can build that into the recommendation. Yes, okay, we do. Thank you. Right, no more questions. I'm going to then just take you back to the recommendation. I may. The committee reviews and understands the information regarding the current situation of internet and telephony connectivity in Denvershire, determines where the further scrutiny of specific connectivity issues is required. And I think Councillor Marching has had a suggestion on that, is that? Yeah, I'll second that. Yeah. So to recommend that, well, you've reviewed and even just stood the information provided regarding the current situation of internet and telephony connectivity in Denvershire. And you want to place on record the importance of maintaining the role of a digital officer to support the future work in this area. The second one as it stands on there at the moment is whether you want to further scrutiny of specific connectivity issues in future. Do you want this item to come back so that we can better update on how the connectivity is progressing? Yeah, Hugh, I think it's very important. We know as soon as possible what's happening after May 2025, both from a government perspective and also our internal perspective on what we can do. So in about what, 12 months? Yeah, that would be just before May, yeah. Will that be acceptable? So can we add that in as well? Yeah. Right, so that's the recommendations with the two add-ons. It's been moved by cast to Terry and it's been seconded by Councillor Garris. Is that okay? Are there any amendments to that? Or can you show all in favour? Or all in favour? Please show. Thank you. I think that's unanimous. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much, Martin, for giving up some of your day. Thank you, Catherine, for coming in and standing in for Liz, the ably, particularly thank you to Philip, who develops a brightly efficient grasp of the issues that I admire and for. Thank you everybody for giving up your time this morning and we look forward to reviewing this again in 12 months time. Thank you very much indeed everybody and thank you, lead members. Page 21, take you now please, members, to page 25, which is item six on your agenda, regarding the corporate risk register. This is for members to view and satisfy themselves that they're happy with the Council is making risks, dealing with managing risks appropriately. We're joined by the lead member, Councillor Julie Matthews, the head of service, Helen Vaughan Evans and no Heidi, is it no? And Julie Matthews, Heidi is our Heidi Barton price is on screen. Thank you very much everybody who would like to introduce the item please. I'll introduce it. Thank you chair. Thank you. So the aim of this report is to provide information regarding the latest review of the corporate risk register and the council's risk appetite statement. We're also informed and performance scrutiny committee, the amended approach to risk reporting and that is in response to requests from the governance and audit committee. As you aware, the corporate risk register contains the council's most serious risks and is developed and owned by the senior leadership team alongside cabinet. It is reviewed twice yearly by cabinet at cabinet briefing. Following each review, the revised registers then shared with performance scrutiny committee yourselves and the governance and audit committee. So on the previous review was undertaken in September 2023 and the papers that were submitted to performance scrutiny at that time on the 30th of November are available online. Currently have 13 corporate risks on our register. The full register is included under appendix two with a summary and details of the February 2024 review of the corporate risk register included in appendix one. Appendix three details the risk scoring matrix and the risk appetite statement. The amended approach to risk reporting is included in appendix four and that includes a clear rationale for the amended approach and the new risk timetable. It will also have an added benefit of distributing the workload for the team throughout the year and will free up time during what have previously been pinch points in terms of reporting in February and September. I will now hand over to officers Helen, Yolo and Heidi to give you further details and answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Julie. The author Julie, so nothing else in terms of intro just before handing over to YOLA to take you through the key points and myself and Heidi and Council Julian Yolo are here to support with any committee questions but just to take you to the recommendations. So recommendations today is for committee to consider and comment on the amendments to the corporate risk register as per the February 2024 update and also to consider and comment on the amendments to the council's risk appetite section statement as detailed in 4.7 and 4.8 of the report in appendix three but over to YOLA to take you through pertinent points dear. Thank you Helen. As usual my betters before me have taken everything that needs to be said mostly but I'll muster through. As far as risk reports go this is actually probably one of the easiest ones that I have to present if members recall toward the end of the last summer SLT carried out a comprehensive risk review reducing the register we now have these 13 risks and to be further quite static they're quite solidly bounded. So following this recent review in February there've been no changes there's been no additions there's been nothing de-escalated the scores are the same so it's quite easy for me to present as a report. There are minor tweaks of course they're presented in appendix two at the start of each risk there's a little box that just describes if anything has changed or not. Otherwise it's a good opportunity for performance scrutiny to consider the risk appetite statement so during this February review we have revised the risk appetite statement slightly to reflect the current financial context and specifically we have amended our risk appetite around financial projects or project finances moving from an open risk appetite to cautious. And then the only other thing to mention in appendix four as Councillor Matthew said we have now looked at how we report risk particularly the frequency of it and there was a feeling in governance and audit that we need a more iterative approach more regular data around risk particularly during the time of financial turmoil. So what we're proposing actually is rather than the six-month elite large reviews that we would do in February and September instead we're going to do sort of lighter touch updates with risk owners four times a year which hopefully will mean we don't need the heavy labor that we would normally do in February and September. That's the theory anyway I stress that this will be a pilot here for us to try that approach out but hopefully it will then allow for the scrutiny and governance and audit to have quarterly risk summary updates about where we are with our corporate risks. That's all for me so over to members for questions and Heidi's on call as well. Heidi we must give thanks to as being the key author of the report and the updates of the register so Heidi can answer any technical questions around risks as well. Good thank you. Now members you've had the report I trust you will have read it so do we have any questions please? Dr Andrea. Thank you thanks Yolo. I personally would welcome that lighter touch more frequent approach because this is a heavy tone especially when there's no change hardly to it so I welcome that personally. The risk I'm interested in is zero one which is at its highest category of course and it's heavily geared towards the social services team but I would be interested in coming at it from an HR team perspective in so far as what comfort can we have in our checks and balances in so far as vetting of employees and particularly agency employees in so far as checking their suitability to work especially with vulnerable adults or children but generally across the county. It's an area that I wonder if it could be maybe brought out in this which is mostly concentrated on the social services elements of safeguarding. Thank you. Yeah perfect so really really great line of questionings and I think just a general response from me from a question that's quite service specific in myself Yolo and Heidi are here from a corporate risk point of view but I think it's really great questions which Heidi can bring back when she has her in-depth sessions with the CET and the lead member and can take some of this line of query from performance scrutiny of yourself and maybe others after you in the next review. I think we do have Nicola and we do have Gary here at Nicola Ron Corle and Gary in the room who could pick up on some specifics around that so I'll offer that but also just to say that this risk register adds per our self-assessment that will come to you in June with is your key evidence pieces of information which you could then devise your board plan so if this is something that as a committee you want to look further into then that's an option and also again just to give reassurances we take this to CET obviously and the operational side of the business our corporate risk register and at the last CET they agreed to do a series of deep dives into certain corporate risks and this risk risk 001 is subject to one of those deep dive in June but I open up chair to maybe Gary or or Nicola as you Dean Fittcher. Gary like to take it first and then we can bring the Nicola in. Yeah so I'll deal with the sort of HRE bits if you like so we've got a process for safeguarding checks which identifies for each post the level of checks that are required that's monitored by HR and there's a call to the report that goes to the safeguarding board who oversees the level of compliance across the organization and that's Nicola is the chair of that board. Agencies are required to provide the same level of checks for any agency worker working for us all of our staff have a mandatory e-learning package that they've got a complete in respect of safeguarding but clearly for some roles they need more training than that and obviously that's something that's always seen by the safeguarding board as to what those roles are and the level of training that's needed and when we contract with people to provide services for us then part of the contract specification does ask about their safeguarding requirements so it would be evaluated as part of the procurement and then clearly it would be down to services to monitor the management of that contract as it went through so that's just from the if you like the HR procurement side of it but Nicola may have more information for you more generally. Welcome Nicola do you want to add anything to that? Baradar Pao, yes please thank you. I think this is a really important point and I'd like to thank Andrea for raising this. However this particular risk in the risk register is particularly around the social services and the impact around staffing and practice issues on safeguarding. However as Gary has just said it is really really important that as a council we have robust processes in place for ensuring that our safer recruitment practices actually happen and that we check and monitor that and as Gary has said we do that through our corporate safeguarding panel which I chair but is also attended by the lead members and at that meeting we have lead safeguarding officers from each part of the council each service area and a standing agenda item is our safer recruitment details so at every meeting we monitor the compliance with our safer recruitment processes so the numbers of people that have DBS checks the number that have two references and you know if we see performance slipping in that then that is something that we follow up through the lead safeguarding officer and through heads of service. So that process is well established within the council it's been something that has been in place was in place before I joined 10 years ago and has continued to to happen so that is a really really important thing and as Gary said that assurance as well around external contractors is really important. What I would say is we only know what we know so DBS checks alone are the who who is eligible for a DBS check is a decision taken by the DBS service it's not one that we decide and when we changed from what previously used to be CRB checks at criminal records bureau to DBS which is disclosure and barring service actually the numbers of staff that previously had checks were reduced significantly now that was caused for concern for us so that is why we monitor very very closely not only the DBS checks but also the other aspects of our safer recruitment which is includes references includes the probationary period and so on and so forth so we have a whole basket of checks and balances in place working very closely with our HR colleagues and keeping a very close eye on that deal chair. Thank you very much you're happy with that Andrea? Thanks Chair yes I just hadn't appreciated what Nicholas said there that this risk only relates to social services I wasn't aware of that so I'm not sure if that's actually the case thank you. We can sense check that for you our current gut is that it is an organizational risk but the content and the detail might be focused on the particular error of the council where that is concentrated but we do recognize that safeguarding is everyone's business as per it's in all of our job descriptions. Councillor oh sorry if I could just come in on that point as well just reading the description here the risk is concerning children and adults at risk so it does have that focus you know it's focused on vulnerable and safeguarding risks. Councillor Allie Morning I think Nicholas would like to reply she put her hand up okay before I start my question all right do you all Kelly yes yes Chair just just to add it is in relation to our statutory safeguarding duties in relation to adults at risk and and children as defined within the social services and well-being Wales Act clearly safeguarding is everybody's business but the council has some statutory duties around safeguarding which is much broader than our corporate responsibilities to safeguarding and that is the focus of this particular risk that being said as a council clearly we take safeguarding corporately as a priority which is why we have the corporate safeguarding panel which ensures that all services are aware of their safeguarding responsibilities and and we have those checks and balances in place. Councillor Thank you Nicola sorry I didn't see your hand on the screen. Councillor Allie now we can't. There we are thank you Chair excuse me it's risk 21 the integration and social care services between the health board and the council does not develop further has there been any improvement in connectivity communication between the health board and council since the board that's the health board was placed under special measures and what steps are being taken to mitigate effective communication channels are maintained and developed further to aid better integration for residents. Thank you. It's good to take that. Nicola did you want to come in there for us? Yes Chair thank you and again I'm the risk owner for this particular risk as you would expect but again this as a one council approach our relationship with health is across the council. What I would say is with any relationship it's an ongoing thing you should never take any partner for granted so we have to continually work at our relationships and that's you know I often describe it as like a marriage you know as soon as you start to take your partner for granted you're in sticky waters. What I would say is that since the appointments of the new CEO and Chair they were interim they've now been made substantive I've personally seen an uptick in communication not only to partners but also to the public coming from the health board and I think for the first time ever because we have had new chairs and new chief executives of the health board and they start with these things and then you see them kind of peter out over time but for the first time ever we actually had a follow-up with the chair and the chief exec of the health board a couple of weeks ago and they were actually asking partners based on what you've seen so far are we kind of getting it right so that that was a really really important step and that was an opportunity for me to feedback that actually yes we have seen some real positives but just as a point of learning they had a public event in place which clashed with a council meeting a full council meeting and so members were unable to attend and I know a number of members had approached me and said this is really you know we would have liked to have gone to that but clearly we have to be at full council so I fed that back and to be fair the chief executive said that is a really good point we never thought to check against um what was happening at a more strategic level so that was a specific event at Ariamba in Denby which just happened to clash with the full council so moving forward the chief executive said she will take that on board she will ask her communications team to actually make contact with key partners in advance of setting such type of events in the future and try and avoid where there are clashes so I can only say you know they are trying really hard um but it you know it's as I said at the beginning it's an ongoing relationship and you will see that I've attended scrutiny recently with colleagues from the health board to talk about the developments at the Royal Alex hospital and that's the partnership you know we're working very closely together on that development and so there are lots of examples but it's work in progress I think it's fair to say Ellie Diock thank you Nicola because I do know and I know that that clash um a couple of months back we were all dismayed about that really really dismayed but thank you and hopefully look forward to seeing communications and joint work in improving thank you thank you Kelcelyn Martin thanks yeah yeah I think this is the right approach really having a like to touch with you it's sort of a it's like a well-being impact assessment isn't it it's a live document or a live framework and you want it to reflect the current situation whereas if you wait 12 months you know you might be updating it based on something that happened 11 months ago so I think this is the right approach I would ask if it's worth almost having a sort of standing item on a cabinet meetings you know something happens significantly in cabinet you know one question that should be asked is has this affected our risk appetite or our risk register you know but you know for for annual reviews is probably going to capture and keep it up to date anyway so I don't think it's that necessary in terms of the actual risks you know especially subject always always asking about the climate change and ecological emergency I think in the past it did feel like the the biggest risk there was a reputational damage which which I didn't think felt right but I think now it's it's clear that that's not not the case I would question have we have we got all the impacts down correctly there's there's would be impact such as if we don't hit our energy efficiency targets we are more susceptible to energy price increases which is another financial impact so I would question whether we should put something in there under impacts on our you know susceptibility to energy cost increases if we don't hit our reduction targets but other than that I think I'm happy would anybody like to take those points yes yeah so I'm just really welcome Council Martin's feedback it's a it's a general way of working principle that we're taking on a few bits of the team around this more iterative way of working as I say it is a pilot we'll review at the at year ends because it's also about releasing capacity in the team to do to do some other things as well but I think there's a plus plus really a win-win around it more iteratively looking at risk with regard to corporate risk I'm going to get my code right 45 it is focused on reputation so that is how it is worded and so the impacts and the mitigation is in that context I think you're absolutely right not hitting carbon targets will mean that we're still spending more on energy because it's save energy save cost save carbon that would be picked up financial risk mitigation would be picked up in other corporate risks in the register so risk 51 risk 52 and and then it would go into service risk registers like mine which is specifically around which has got the capacity and the energy management team to work on this but just a case in principle I'm sure you know Council Martin but essentially if you save you save carbon you save cost and you save energy you save carbon you save cost and as an order of magnitude the Council spend circa three million a year on utility so that's gas electricity oil LPG and water so any work around targeting reduction of energy reduction of carbon will help to at least contain and reduce that three million because as you know it depends on a lot of things volatility of the market war and supply and demand in terms of unit price per energy but anything we can do to save energy will will be good thank you thank you Councillor Bovee please thank you chair a couple of points around risks 52 and 51 with the economic climates we unfortunately find ourselves in and you know that necessitates a scaling back of services but we have had to turn our focus greatly towards the growing demand for social care and other services like education and things to do with that I'm just worried is it a risk and should it be in our risk register that we are in danger of neglecting other services because they are going to be insufficiently funded such as I'll just give the obvious example of highways are we leaving ourselves open wide open for possible litigation if other services such as highways can't fulfill what they need to do with our infrastructure so I just I just think there is a risk there the more we hear about the financial cuts cutbacks and the need to focus on the more statutory services and essential services like social care which gets talked about an awful lot I'm aware I'm worried about other smaller services that are not getting their full not being able to sort of fulfill their obligations and the other point I would like to make is more is a slightly wider point on the regional aspect not just BCU but we're low we are focusing more and more on partnership working and I'm just worried that possibly our scrutiny structure as it is at the moment is not quite adequate for what we're needing to focus on for example I'm also on partnership scrutiny and we have had a lack of items to to to scrutinize on that scrutiny and that can't be right because we are moving towards more and more regional working and more and more to do with the way we make things work now is through partnerships this is not just Denvershire obviously this is other other councils and other organizations across North Wales and is do we need to possibly re-look at how we deal with scrutinizing of partnerships across North Wales? So I think there's there's some really really great questions in there and I go back to the the kind of the first answer I gave to Councillor ANDREA around you know the role of myself hiding and YOLA today on more of the corporate risk and not able to talk specifically on behalf of Liz Thomas however Chair I think that Gary potentially was planning to come in here but for you Chair, thank you. Sorry, technical incompetence to apologize. The broad point I think in this is that that's exactly what that risk is there for in terms of the risk of services having to be scaled back as a result of the financial climate and I suppose the the issue that we have to face is that we don't have enough money to provide all the things that we would like to provide in the way necessarily that we would like to provide them and so choices have to be made and we operate in a very structured legislative and regulatory framework which says thou shalt do this you will provide that and in other areas you can you may and so those decisions will have to be taken as to at what level do we provide statutory services and if they're not statutory do we continue to provide them either at all or in the same way or or or or we provide them but at a lesser level that's just the stack reality of the the financial position in terms of litigation clearly where we have statutory duties we would have to be able to defend any decision we took in relating to the level of delivery of a statutory function but with an awful lot of statutory functions the law tells you you got to do it we don't tell you at what level or exactly how to provide it so clearly lots of local authorities are going to have to be looking at how they stay compliant within the financial envelope that they've got in terms of scrutiny do you want to deal with that first do you want to come back on that first and I'll deal with scrutiny afterwards yeah i i just i'm i'm aware i'm as you rightly point out i'm not mentioning any names of any sort but i know some for example some highways uh people that we employ are on their knees trying to deal with the fact that the cuts are just making it that it's not sufficient money to do the the job that they want and need to do for the relevance of denbyshire and don't forget this is right cross denbyshire this is 96 000 people whereas you know if we talk about social care services it's certainly not 96 000 um not that i'm pitting one against the other they both have to be done but i am very very worried about some of our services particularly highways not having sufficient resources and i do see it as a risk um but we're not doing enough to about um well i think um clearly we will be approach we've just put one budget through the system we'll be going through a process of how we identify what our spending is going to be in different areas for the financially 2526 that works already started the council will be looking at a transformation theme in terms of how it can either stop doing things or do things differently do things with other people partnerships or come on to in respect to scrutiny um all that has to be done but the bottom line is we have a we have a finite amount of money and we have things that we have to do and we will have to prioritize how we spend the money and yes part of my role is to make sure that the local authority is legally compliant with its statutory duties um does that mean that we will always do everything we want to do no will we do everything we absolutely have to do yes we'll have to do it because that's a legal obligation but where we have to do it because it's a legal obligation that may mean that other things that we would like to do but are not obliged to do we can no longer do and that's just that's just the mass and so we've we've got to make sure that we comply with all of our legal duties and we will comply with all of our legal duties and within that framework members have to prioritize what it is that they want to spend the money on in the in the knowledge of what the statutory obligations that they've got and that's where our role comes in is to tell you or to advise you where your statutory obligation begins and ends and then you can make choices within that framework but but you know starkly we've made an awful lot of savings this year we'll have to make an awful lot of savings again next year and the year after that that's just how it is at the minute in terms of the finance sorry that's not very inspiring is it but but but but that's that's that's the position that we're in and and the reason that you know the work that Yolo and Helen and Heidi do is so valuable is that this risk register gives you a reference point as well as to where we're getting into you know this is the whole point of that risk 52 is that we've got all of these measures in place to make sure that we're meeting all of our statutory obligations even though the financial climate is there and it's the role of people like myself there's others to make sure that the authority is legally compliant and that when you are making those choices you're making those choices more fully and within the appropriate envelope and then the choice is yours as members. Yolo did you want to come in and then mark him? Yes just to underline really Gary's right this is one tool in our sort of arsenal against this problem of our finances we're undergoing shortly a wailed audit financial sustainability review that that's one one thing that's going to be happening we have the medium-term financial strategy and the medium-term financial plan you know that so there are several other processes in place looking at this but in terms of the risk I'm satisfied that it does capture your concern because it says specifically under the impact of inconsequences that stretched resources affecting our ability to deliver on statutory functions is one potential impact and also it it says that one impact is that we might be subject to regulatory action so you know and we had a good debate and we're Gary back at SLT around risk appetite and I actually advocated or suggested not advocated but suggested a change potentially to the risk appetite around regulation and compliance with the law and I thought well you know given that we're now in sort of financial dire straits should we be pushing back a little bit against the law but Gary rightly pointed out no we absolutely cannot do that so we stuck with our present risk appetite which is cautious so that that maintains you know that's our approach across the authority are you going to comment yeah I mean there's a kind of there's a contradiction in the in the risk 45 isn't there because it says in order for local authorities to meet climate change targets they need to be bold and take risks and then you know when then you look under the financial the risk appetite and we're saying well we're going to be cautious and only take minor mud threats so straight away we're kind of saying and I think that this has come through in the climate change strategy review panel that is it's a huge ask to be net zero and this is this is one of the things that is going to hold us back because we can't take financial risks how how do we quantify these risks because if it's if it's just subjective it's too risky that project we're not going to do it you know we can we can say that about anything are we clear that when we talk about risk in terms of financial obviously not everything is quantifiable but in terms of things like financial how do you measure it where's the where's the scale is it is it just down to Liz Liz's judgment or is it you know is there a way of measuring this because if if it is critical I think it needs to be more scientific than just subjective you know I mean the need we need to be able to say that is the point which we will pursue a financial project and this is the point where it is too risky otherwise otherwise we're you know we're just going to be it's going to come down to talk in the game isn't it and so we have the capital scrutiny capital strategy group so they have business cases and it takes you the risks it takes you through the costs and the ongoing revenue costs or savings that gives you the payback period essentially of of any project it requires section 151 statement so that that is it isn't just sort of Liz's Liz's judgment although Liz's judgment is sound and is based on on on evidence and discussions and and such like is as 151 officer but it is also backed up with with kind of data and and and and and actuals and so that's what I that's what I'd say that's art that's our approach we've got the birthday project management system which is based on Prince to methodology and again within that blow project brief business case stage gateway reviews there's financial elements in it and so I don't think it's just subjective just to give assurance around their chair and Council Martin thank you Just to add to that you know I think a business case will always be weighed on its merits you know some riskier projects might bring great again and that was certainly our approach with our previous open risk appetite towards project finances however we've got to acknowledge the situation we're in now you know General doom and gloom the cloud is you know on us so it's appropriate that we have amended that to cautious because it sends a message to the whole organization just be a little bit more careful around your projects please you know and I think that's appropriate but I would say as well I would disagree with you a little bit around having a rigorous sort of framework around measuring risk appetite particularly we've always said in our policy it's a guide it's there to provide some consistency but there will be examples that fall without it you know Nearly afternoon you So I was about to say good afternoon but I just looked at the clock risk 50 now it's risk 52 the insufficient fundings which I know we've been discussing to the withdrawal or scaling back of services even when a balanced budget is delivered have all measures been identified to try and maintain staff well being as they attempt to deliver services to with with diminishing financial and human resources how are we managing the aspect and in particular people's workloads this is employers workloads and what plans do we have for going forward okay that's my question Thank you Ellie and clearly I think Councillor feelie alluded to it as well earlier on I think the first thing to say is that the Chief Executive Cabinet CT have been very clear that it is not reasonable to expect people to do an unreasonable workload and so the example that was always given was well if you had a team of 10 people that reduced to a team of 8 people you won't have 8 people doing 10 people's work you'll have 8 people doing 8 people's work and choices will have to be made about whether we stop doing some things whether we do them in a different way or we accept with some transactional stuff that it will just take longer because there are less people to be able to deal with them so that's the the first thing to say about that the second thing is that it's for each service managers heads of service to manage and agree workload priorities and then it's important that they understand the importance of the well-being of the people who work with us so the Council does have an employee assistance program assistance program that provides support to staff should they wish it and they can access it independently they don't need to go through their manager they can just go to it we also have mental health champions in each service that staff can approach and clearly the trade unions have an important role to play that if people don't feel able to raise concerns or issues themselves they can go to their trade union they can get advice and assistance to do that but I think the underlying message is that the organization does not expect people to do more than an appropriate workload and the issue for us is to make sure that we prioritize whether we do something how we do it and how long we take to do it in light of the financial envelope that we've got but it's certainly not an expectation that people will do more and more and more as the numbers of people reduce thank you thank you Gary thank you thank you can I just ask the use of impact assessment reports are we good to see more of that will we take measures concerning say reduction of services or other issues yeah so members will remember that when the budget came in January we presented then a sort of what we've been calling a cumulative impact assessment which is looking at the savings proposals as a whole that work is continuing as as savings proposals are being developed we are also looking to work with HR colleague of mine in my team is looking to work is working with HR at the moment to assess impact on staff and but we'll be fairly limited as to what we can obviously publish around that because you'll start talking about individual posts and things but we are trying to capture it on a cumulative level at least I was just going to remind the chair that the second part of my question wasn't answered no I just but I did fess up to say I did not answer that and I was coming back to answer it yeah so the question was around the the suitability of the current scrutiny structure in terms of the evolving pressures around budget working in partnership with other people and and the future looking towards more regional working CJC's etc you know are we believe it and ready should we look at it again probably not the right person to talk about being a bit being fully set given the shape I currently am but we're limbering up Bobby I think it's probably the way to put it so just looking at internally we've got our three committee structure work is being done currently on how we govern transformation and how we allocated into themes and we'll be wanting to talk to scrutiny chairs and vice chairs about how that fits in with a scrutiny structure and talking to them about how the budget process of transformation will fit in the scrutiny structure and how we can prioritize those things clearly scrutiny agendas are choices for members to make but we'll be coming to scrutiny chairs and vice chairs with the paper to describe how we intend to approach those things and asking scrutiny for advice about how they want to get involved so that's the that's the internal bit in terms of the external bit you're right the the obvious unavoidable conclusion is that for some things to carry on happening they're going to have to carry on on a larger footprint and there are already some regional bodies that have been created by whilst governments such as the corporate joint committee there is actually work going on going into the lead authority for the corporate joint committee and this work going on about how the scrutiny of that argument that that entity should take place at an email yesterday asking me to feedback I've not read it yet but I've just seen that it's there the power exists already in local legislation for one or more local authorities to have joint scrutiny arrangements and we've got a joint scrutiny committee with Conway already in terms of the public services board now clearly one of your options around CJC is or number of options do you create a regional scrutiny committee for it do you use existing scrutiny arrangements as we have with the North Wales economic ambition board where they visit each authority on a number of occasions each year or do you ask one of the authorities to take it on on behalf of everybody else so that works ongoing and clearly I think when the CJC was created the legislation envisaged really a regional scrutiny approach so I'm sure that those proposals will contain an option for a regional scrutiny committee and then it's the mechanics of how that works how many members from each authority et cetera et cetera but yes there will be a tape we're going to screw the chairs and vice chairs about how we do scrutiny going forward in light of the budget transformation and regional scrutiny good I'd hear that I know it's 15 years since we reviewed our scrutiny because I was part of it then and we did it as a more cross cutting across the authority so as they weren't pigeonholed into individual areas so as we all worked together that was the object of it 15 years ago but now I'm just wondering if we need to evolve a little bit further but by the sounds of it it's in motion and I think what I would say is that we probably don't have the time the capacity et cetera to do some sort of massive review this is looking at what have we got how does it work can it work better how do we allocate the things we need to do within the structures that we already have because we we probably don't have a time and b capacity to spend an awful lot of time on some big wide-rink because I know it predates me that review and I know a lot of work went into it but we clearly want to make sure a little bit like we did when we came out of covid where we went to scrutiny chairs and vice chairs I said you've got these big long forward work programs and things but you've got covid recovery do you want to find other homes for some of these things and actually concentrate on covid recovery and we did do that and we reallocated work to different places so it's that sort of exercise to think that we need to go through but as for members to decide we'll just be bringing something to you to say well these options this is how we intend to do budget this is how we intend to do transformation how do you want scrutiny to fit into that and we'll give some suggestions thank you I think that takes us well a through the time with allotted but we're we're not terribly pressed this morning but I think we've taken most of the questions or all the questions thank you very much officers of those can I take members to the recommendations item three that the performance scrutiny committee considers and comments on the amendments to the corporate risk register and that the committee considers and comments on the amendment to the council's risk appetite statement as detailed in 4.7 and 4.8 below and also in appendix three so unless there's anything that any committee members wanted to add to those recommendations no no so are you happy to approve those recommendations council bobby moved and council Andrea seconded so can you show all those in favor of adopting those recommendations please or show if you can or anybody against thank you thank you very much officers for your time on those thank you we didn't actually ask Heidi to say and I think I'm a bit conscious of that I don't know whether she's pleased or not about that thank you very much thank you very much for being here anyway thank you thank you thank you so we now follow on to item seven which is our scrutiny work program yeah thank you very much 115 onwards yeah thank you chair thank you present this in Welsh this is your usual report on the committee's work program and the work program itself is in appendix one on page 121 and as you're aware your work program is quite full anyway the next meeting on the 6th of June you've got four items they're quite substantial items to be discussed and the same applies in July if you're happy with the items that stand I'll make a request to get those reports in time for those for that meeting in June in appendix two you'll see the application form for any subjects that you'd like to be brought forward for scrutiny you don't have to just bring subjects to this committee you could maybe think of things that concern you that you need to have questions about that you'd like to put before one of the other scrutiny committees that's the plan here anything that concerns you'll fill in the form send it to me and it will go to the chairs and vice chairs group for consideration to put before one of the scrutiny committees that group will be meeting on the 20th of May that's the next meeting so please complete the form send it to me and I'll put it before them then at their last meeting on the 18th of March they didn't send any items to this committee but they have sent items to the other scrutiny committees in appendix three the cabinet forward work program you can see if there are any items there that you'd like to be put forward for scrutiny and appendix four is the latest on your recommendations from the last meeting I've got nothing else to report just but just to remind people that few weeks ago we sent an email out regarding the scrutiny questionnaire where we want a complete assessment of the scrutiny structure and of scrutiny work in the county it's gone to every county counselor and to many officers who usually attend these meetings what we're looking for here is to see how people feel where's how scrutiny works how it where it's weak where it does good things where we can strengthen the process for the future so it's important that we get everybody if possible to respond to that questionnaire it's quite simple it's similar to survey monkey on microsoft it doesn't take a lot of time to complete but also you do complete it unanimous we don't know who it completes it the only question that shows who was completed is it asks whether you're a scrutiny member or whether you're a backbench member or whether you remember the cabinet or officer we have got no way of identifying who exactly has completed the survey that's why we want it back so that we get a complete picture of what we do and where we're failing so that we can try and strengthen for the future thank you the message there i think ladies and gentlemen is if you got something it would like scrutinize please get the form into rehan i i i know she'll she will help you if you've got a difficulty with it Andrea did you wish to say something thank you i just uh on the um who and can who can bring matters to scrutiny how good are we at do you think at publicizing the fact that the public can bring something because um i really don't think that's an area that they're aware of and lately i think um maybe that may be a route that could be used better thank you yeah we do publicize that it's an in the annual report uh and when we brought the annual report to county council last year we're in the process of developing this year's annual report it'll be in this year as well but when we brought it to council last year they did specifically asked us to put some forms in the post in the libraries we've had a couple of requests off them but they're a bit um some of them are anonymous so we can contact them for more information so they're and they're very broad and some of them actually think we deliver everything including health which is a bit but we've also got the form on our website it's there um we've contacted in the past town sitting community councils to highlight it but our best assets to communicate to the public is yourselves as councilor so if you are aware there's something you'd like them you know to push forward please you know tell them to give us a call we or tell them to go on the website and you know if if they want you perhaps we don't know items coming directly from the public themselves but they may bring them by yourselves as well so even though that is counted as a member request it may have stemmed from a request that's come from a member of the public and Terry yeah we nearly managed to get one from the vice and asset city council one of the uh one of the city councilors had raised the question about um car park and fees going up and it was suggested that possibly that could be scrutiny so if she filled the form in didn't she but uh unfortunately well it it didn't quite meet the requirements to go to scrutiny and it had been it had already been discussed that communities i think that one yeah but it was nearly there i think it is you're right it's hard i think um for members of public to understand exactly what can go to scrutiny it's hard for us sometimes i think isn't it you know that that's where the and well it's it's not hard to get the stuff to be considered for scrutiny then if there's a strict criteria on the back of that form which says does it meet these criteria and that's what the scrutiny chairs will gauge it against councilor garris at the councilor Terry thank you a few points um first point is that we i recently went on a local government course well as local government course and public participation was mentioned in high regards the direction of travel because of all the economic cutbacks and how we've changed the way that councils do things is that we empower our residents rather than spoon feed them as counselors sorry i say spoon feed i mean do it all for them we now give them the opportunity to do present their questions you know public participation is the net is one of these things so it is it is really important and i've mentioned it as scrutiny chairs and vice chairs andrea so i have mentioned that a few times there and i've also mentioned it within our political groups that we need to do we really do need to encourage this um from a point of view now going on to the forward work program a number of authors of these reports are no longer with the authority so i think it's important that we do check the um the authors are still relevant um i i i think our scrutiny has a jam-packed agenda and i would encourage people to look at putting things to communities and partnerships scrutiny more because they seem to be canceling meetings and we need to get and we seem to go on forever in our meetings so there's a complete contrast there and that's where i think the review that bobby said is very prevalent of how we set up scrutiny committees in the future so i'd just like to leave it there with those two points thank you i think ria would like to respond there just for clarity that it's actually only one partnership scrutiny committee meeting that's been cancelled this year oh right okay cancel them with it their agendas may have not had four items on them but there's only one meeting that's been cancelled i was thinking more communities as well i notice they've been cancelled twice the meeting is having cancelled any meetings they're actually because of a calling they they yes yes they just don't appear to have many things compared with us on our agendas agendas may not be as full on that report authors yes i will go through that just to double check them yeah i think there's been a few changes with the the management restructuring and everything thank you terry yeah just like to on 4.4 of the report um it says about engaging with residents and service users just a quick question all members of the public allow to sit in the gallery there it's a scrutiny meeting yeah so it's an up part two items and it's the same for the webcast and with the webcast as well we actually don't know how many people may be watching now before we webcast they would be sitting here but now they could be watching us for all we know and and the other thing i think is you know people sometimes think oh the public ants interested etc um you know something controversial on and um there'll be plenty of people here as it's proved in the past but yes um it's a public meeting anybody can come walk in and sit at sit in the gallery just propose to close the school and they'll be here hey it was only going back to the original point really that maybe now might be a pertinent time to advertise on our websites or social whatever the social media methods we use i only use facebook um but um that that is available to residents because i really it's one of those if you don't know you don't know do you and they don't know generally so i push it and i'm sure plenty do but maybe if it was out there more often trip trip that okay yeah because actually in recommendation three of this report says that you can determine whether any key messages or themes from the current meeting should be publicized by a press or public or the social media so that's an option there we can ask comms to do you know just to sort of remind people that they ask we meet in second place or if they want to put anything out to for us us for scrutiny to consider and also cause another tool i think as it being approved now is the public participation strategy it's on its way so there's a reference in there as well to you know public getting engaged with scrutiny and in the past as they've said if it's controversial they will engage perhaps if all the corporate risk register they wouldn't engage thank you um item eight then is there any feedback from committee representatives has anybody represented scrutiny at any various council board of groups is that martin thank you yeah i went on the corporate support service challenge for people i've got a quick one-hour presentation here for you i think they follow a similar theme don't they they do a swap analysis and then some actions come out of it so very briefly the the strengths they noticed for the people support service was having a skilled workforce good relationships innovative services and robust processes weaknesses they identified were communication challenges reliance on key specialists recruitment issues and system integration difficulties i think that was around the um c360 system not necessarily integrating with with each department threats were budget pressures increased workload and potential staff losses and opportunities lay in collaborating more system streamlining and service redesign so there was a few actions that have come out of all of this i think the the key one is this crm system you know that that we've all come into contact with we know it's limitations we know they're doing the best we thought they can and i think there is something in the pipeline to try and replace this i don't know whether it's being put on hold and at the moment you might know more gary and work on going on it and apparently looking at what's out there effectively okay um so yeah i think it's interesting to go along to these things um we have mentioned our pre meeting haven't we that we were the approach is changing isn't it as to how councils can be involved in these so i think everyone can turn up if they want they'd look like so don't we finalize that yet um but um we've done the third if you like we've been to each service now so uh Helen and yolo's teams will be looking at lessons learned from that and how we can do it differently in the future and we the makeup of the service challenge groups might be slightly different the question or the format might be slightly different and yeah looking at who who comes who how broad do you make it so um but that hasn't been finalized yet and Gareth did you want to say something yeah it was actually related it was the reorganization of service challenges um myself and you had a lovely email to say that we will be invited to every single service challenge meeting as performance vice chair and chair now i don't know if that's to replace um standard sitting counselors but i would like to see it more open um than just the performance chair and vice chair so there is a discussion there and um i don't certainly welcome another six or seven meetings um in one month period um but are we making it too convoluted at times do we need to simplify it and not extend it to so many people just my thoughts on that thank you thank you for the point Gareth and your your sympathy i did say jokingly that i thought a holiday covering on that month might be a good idea too much to your horror is uh this week i attended or no uh i had a meeting with the a gentleman from the estan schooler inspectorate who wanted to scrutinize us on or me on how performance the performance scrutiny committee deals with education matters and any concerns they have so i had a 45 minutes session with him when i tried to explain our process how we dealt with it how matters come up and how we call them back which i thought was quite important to make the point we just don't have one session we bring them back for updates so uh it remains to be seen whether he approved my answers or not so if there's no other business it remains for me to thank both officers and yourselves for giving up the morning uh two or ten i hope we've had a good scrutiny this and we're looking forward to the next one um it does worry me when we've got four items on the agenda because we've pretty well filled the morning without trying too hard with two so we might have to be a bit stricter on the timescales but and that's not the object of scrutiny either as they were 15 minutes here you know the items are too important there's too much work goes into preparing the reports and officers and these members attending here uh and then just to gloss over it glosses over in a very short period of time anyway that's something to face up to so thank you very much for your time everybody and i will close the meeting