Transcript

Welcome, everyone, to this meeting. As you've discovered, my name's Councillor McPherson, I'm the chair of this meeting. I'd just like to remind people that it is online, so just be aware of any details. It may be on your own laptops, it may well be overseen by the cameras around us, so if you could just bear that in mind, that would be great. Do we have any apologies for this evening? I don't think we do, do we? Thank you, Jenna. Any apologies is from Robert Bennett, the independent person. Okay, thank you so much for that. Declaration of Interest, does anybody have any declarations of interest? If not, I'm sure... Naomi, please. Surely we all have a declaration of interest, because our allowances are being discussed. That could be a valid point. So we'll all declare an interest then, how about that? On block, well, I'm happy with that, that's okay. Okay, you do know, anyway, that as we progress through the meeting, if it comes to anybody's attention, where you consider that you do have an interest that should be declared, you can do so at the time. No problem at all. We do not have any public present or online, let's ask questions. Okay, so before we go to item four, I will just ask if we can go around the table for people to introduce themselves. And if I could go to Jenny first, and round the table to the left. Jenny Gawthrop-Wood, Vice Chair. Thank you. Matt, especially as you're new, a lot of people won't know you. Yes, thank you, Chair. My name is Matthew Stickley. I've recently started as an interim governance or committee manager here, so I'll be here with the team for a few months. And I'm pleased to have met some of you already, and I look forward to working with all of you. And welcome, Matt. Jim, if you so please. Yeah, I'm leader of the Liberal Democrat Group. I'm not a member of the committee, but I requested, and you've agreed, that I can speak on a couple of the items later on the agenda. Karen Young. Councillor Nehemi Bennett, Abbey Ward, Leader of the Green Group. Claire Sula, Manager in EY. Mark Bodgson, Audit Partner, EY. Good evening. My name is Jonathan. I lead our internal audit team here at the Council. Good evening. I'm Jody. I'm Chief Finance Officer. Mike Davey, currently leader of the Council, but no longer leader of the Labour Group. I've been replaced by my colleague, Cameron Holloway, at the back. So I'd like to congratulate Cameron. But obviously, until the full Council, I remain the leader of the Council. Richard Robinson. Patrick Shield, one of the Labour councillors for Arbery Ward. Thanks. Dan Kelly, Democratic Services Member. And the newly appointed leader elect, you don't need to sit there, Cameron, really. If you want to come and sit here, then that's fine. And Jane as well, if you want to sit around the table, there's no reason for you to sit back there, but it's entirely your choice. If you so wish to move during the meeting, then that's absolutely fine. Whatever pleases you. So that takes us to item four on the agenda. And I believe Jonathan is headteacher on this one. Thank you very much. So hi, good evening, everyone. This report's introducing our annual governance statements for the year 2023-2024. And also the local code of governance for your consideration. So the purpose of the covering report is to really cover what's in the documents. So what we want to do is report on our review of effectiveness for that financial year, communicate any new governance issues, and also provide an update on our local code of corporate governance. So diving into the report, it starts on page three, but we're going to page four. This is where it starts getting a little bit of the meat. It starts there talking about how we compile the annual governance statements. So that explains what the scope of the annual governance statement is and how we follow best practice from SITFA, that's the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, and also SOLIS, the Society for Local Authority Chief Executives. Moving on to page five in section 4.3 of your PACs, we explain really just a little bit about the process of how the AGS works. So the draft document was prepared with the statement of accounts. That gets published onto our website. It also gets issued to our colleagues in external audits. So there's lots of opportunity for people to provide feedback if they so wish. And then it comes to this committee for approval. So we recognise that there's definitely, there's been a backlog with statement of accounts work. And also that consequently has an impact upon the AGS, the annual governance statement itself. The reason for this, and some of you who are well-seasoned might have heard me say this before, is because the document has to recognise things that have happened in that financial year, plus potentially something that's significant, materially significant, up to the day that the statement of accounts are finalised. So we keep it as a live document up to that date. Previous good example last year, it was for the AGS for the previous year, 22, 23. We recognised the sort of housing rents and the refund calculations for that, even though it started happening to the next financial year, which is the document we're looking at tonight, because that was considered a material event. So at the end of that, the final version will be included with the approved statement of accounts and sort of published on the website as well. On page six, one thing I would highlight with you, it doesn't happen that often, so it's a bit exciting, changes to guidance. We have guidance which we follow to compile these documents, and there is some guidance on the horizon. For tonight, the AGS is pretty much in the same format as the previous year, so that's the same sort of style and layout. There's the document that you reviewed only a few months ago in December. But SITFA have been consulting on revised guidance, especially sort of about the presentation of the documents and how it should be laid out. So we're expecting that to be published soon. It doesn't affect tonight, but it's worth you being aware of it as members of the committee. The guidance will apply from the year 25-26, so there's a way in the future, but we can start adopting some of that good practice for the next document, which will be 24-25. So we'll start incorporating that soon. Now, if we just quickly go into the AGS itself, a couple of things to highlight there. Pages 12 to 14, the first part of the document, for those that are not familiar with how an AGS works, this is always the bit that sort of describes our governance framework and arrangements during the year. Obviously recognising this is going to change for 25-26 with changes to the governance arrangements, and we'll talk about that in the 24-25 document. But just to be aware of that, it represents what was in place at that point in the year. Then we move on to the section on review and assurance mechanisms, and I suppose that section there is where we're looking at sources of assurance. So that features my opinion as the head of internal audits. It also features partnership assurance, comments from the external auditors, and also other third-party external reviews. That could be things like ISO accreditations and things like that. Moving on, we get to page 20. That's where we feature challenges to our local authority governance, big things which we need to recognise and reflect in the document and kind of provide confidence assurance to the readers that we're actually dealing with those. So in there, you will see in there that we highlight how it's still been sort of quite a lot of significant events going on in the world, but locally, we've also had to deal with the housing rents, which we referred to in the prior year as well. And then we get on to the review of effectiveness on page 21. That is more of a feature about what happened in the last 12 months. It's a valuation of our code of governance. It looks at things which happened which relate to it, and we try and document that, both things, good and bad, to just really tell the story about what's happened in the year. And you'll see that we group it by the seven principles of good governance, which is how we structure our code of governance. So it's easy to map and follow it through. We then have a high-level action plan, which is very, very sort of high-level, big strategic issues is what we see in this document. So recognising things like the statement of accounts, impacts of legislation change like public procurements, and locally looking at things like transformation programme and our values, which we sort of put in place during the year, so there's going to be continued work to embed those. And really, that's sort of the AGS. It gets to an end of this conclusion. The accompanying document in Appendix B is our local code of governance, and we bring a revised document to you each time with the AGS, and we use track changes to show how it's changed, because it is a long document. Not that many, because you only saw it a couple of months ago, mainly around where there's been some changes to terminology and names, and then secondly, just some updates from the planning service, now that it is accredited, there's a few extra sources of assurance which we can capture in that document, which is positive. So yes, so finally, a clean version will be updated to our websites following the sort of review process. So yeah, I suppose in conclusion, just to really wrap up, AGS and local government, on the whole, reflects items from 23-24 financial year, and we look for you to approve the AGS in advance of the statement accounts. The reason we do that is that's because it's set in legislation, but they do sort of travel as a pair, but it's a formal requirement to do it in that order. That's all I'm going to say, but I'm happy to take comments or questions. Richard, did you indicate the speech just then? Okay, Councillor Young, the floor is yours. Thank you. So on page 51, there's a comment that the Cambridge City Housing Company has been, the sort of the accounts have come to strategy and resources, and I don't remember that at all, and I'm just kind of wondering, did it perhaps go somewhere else? What's happened? Yeah, what happened? Thank you for the question. Yeah, so looking back, I can see that the, it was in January 2023, where last, the document related to the Cambridge City Homes Company went through strategy and resources. I don't think there has actually been anything since, so you're correct on that. At that meeting, they looked at the business plan, which covered the years 2022 to 2023, all the way up to 2031 to 2032. And I think there's also discussion at that meeting where they were looking about potentially expanding the portfolio, and it was decided to leave the portfolio as it is at that point. I think it was only 23 houses. So, yeah, it hasn't been anything going to scrutiny since then, but yes, it did go. That's the sort of forum it's been through. Has it not got annual accounts and that kind of thing, I would have thought, but yeah, perhaps it needs to come a bit more. Yeah, I think, you know, it's not my personal area of detail, so my colleague might be able to help. It might be something I go away to get specific answers on. But, I mean, as a trading company, they will have annual accounts, but not specifically. It will go through their own AGM, of course, as well. Did you want to come in on that? Yeah, I can come in on that. So, clearly, the annual accounts are filed with Companies House. They go through the company board and through an AGM process. I wouldn't necessarily expect annual accounts routinely to come to a council committee because it is an arm's-length body, but the involvement of the SNR more has been in receiving and considering the business plans and more setting the strategy and the direction of the company rather than approval of accounts, which is rightly done by the company board. OK, but, I mean, surely the financial sort of implications of that should come. I mean, I do think it's a good thing that it comes to strategy and resources. Yeah, what is the mechanism for the council then as a shareholder to approve the business plans, et cetera? So, yeah, I mean, it's been... I'd need to go and look at it in more detail to provide a really good robust answer for you, if that's OK. But I know looking at things like the Articles of Association, that's where you would expect to set out relationships and how things get reported. It doesn't go into that level of detail. It could be that it's elsewhere. I would need to go and have a look at that, if that's OK with you. Jenny? There is a General Companies Act requirement... You've just jumped to go on there. Sorry. Jenny's next. I just wanted to point out, following up Karen's statement, there is a General Companies Act requirement to circulate accounts to shareholders. that does not appear to have been satisfied then. Unless... I think, again, you know, I would have to go and check the details. I've not had time to look at this. But I think, is the council invited to the AGM as well, perhaps? But we can verify that to provide that assurance. Jenny, try again. Thank you. I'll start again. Yeah. The housing rents issue. So, going forward, seems to be pretty much sorted. But the issue, of course, is the backdated adjustments relying on DW, where there have been benefits paid, and DWP needs to come back. Is this something that you could comment on, or is this for the housing advisory group or strategy and resources? It is probably one more for the sort of housing advisory group. But what I can do is I can give some assurance in that one of my team, actually, I deployed them into the housing project group who are looking at this to review a lot of their calculations and provide assurance that things were being done correctly. And, yeah, that came back with positive assurance. It is very, very complicated, no doubt, as you'd expect. A lot of calculations going on there. But what they've been able to look at so far has been quite robust. And I know we're far from being the only council. And then, yeah, on the local code of corporate governance, where you've got supporting examples, are they actually links? I've just got paper copy here to actual documents, or is it just, you know, this is the kind of document you'd expect to see? So it's a minor question, really. And then, yeah, do you anticipate, I mean, can you... You've already said that the changes in the governance principles is just going to look very different in the future. Yeah, so two questions there. The first ones, are they links? No, they're not links. They're just... They're literally just referrals to the documents. The links can go out of date quite quickly. They are quite troublesome to stay on top of. So we haven't done links in that document. With the second comment, yes, changes to governance arrangements, that's going to have quite significant impact. I think the way that we structure the code of governance itself, it will still do it by those seven themes. So hopefully that document will stay fairly static. It's probably more in the AGS, where we'll see quite a few changes. And certainly we're going to have to write a lot of narrative, I think, to kind of explain what's going on. But the challenge also would be to do it in a simple way that people can understand. But, yeah. And, you know, I'm expecting to really cover that up, redrafting the 24-25 document at the moment. And that's where we're going to feature a lot of that stuff, I would expect. And then possibly some more in the final year as well, yeah. OK, thank you, everyone. I have no particular questions on this item. So if there are... There is another question. Councilor Young, please proceed. Sorry, I had two questions, and we only dealt with one. So, yeah, the other one was... Is it much more of a comment, really? It's on page 41. We're talking about defining outcomes in terms of sustainable economic, social, and environmental benefits. And then it says, how does the Council achieve this? It talks a lot about climate change outcomes, but doesn't really mention things, I don't know, like housing, open spaces, communities, or whatever. And I thought that... I mean, it's fine. And we just wondered whether we could maybe spread the comments out, maybe to further aspects of the Council's activities. I'll make a note of that to see if we can just call that. They could also appear in other sections, so the principles, one thing I'm... Councilor Bennett. Thank you, Chair. And I apologised to butting in earlier. I have two very short questions. One is, I'm afraid it's on the rent issue again. My issue is that we didn't pick this up through our own procedures. We found out about it because we had a new member of staff who'd experienced that issue at the Council. I'm well aware that quite often we have very poor quality guidance on new national government initiatives, and we're all scratching our heads to try and work out what they are. And I'm aware of the reasons why mistakes like this happen. This is not about me casting blame, but I just wondered, are we taking advantage of all sort of grapevines, working groups, national associations, where sort of this sort of issue gets discussed? Are we getting out enough, is really the question, to make sure that we do as much to make sure that we're finding out about these things? Do you want the second question now, or should we answer that one and then go on? I guess... No, I appreciate that, but given that we've got an atmosphere of budget cuts and short staff, I just wanted to state the importance of actually getting out and talking to outside organisations and ensure that some of that time and space gets protected. Second thing I wanted to do is, there are organisations outside the Council where we don't really control what's going on, but sometimes we have to pick up the bills. And I hope it isn't rude if I refer particularly to Conservatives for River Cam here, but there have been a couple of occasions where we seem to have been hit by large capital bids at short notice, where we've had to stump up and change our budget, and we seem to have had very little warning of that and very little supplementary information. I appreciate that it's difficult. You know, we don't control them. They're not our territory. But bearing in mind that we are the financier of last resort, is there more that we can be doing to encourage them to actually improve their management information systems so that they can give us better warning? Are there conversations we need to have? There's a specific example you quoted is not one that I've got personal experience of, so it's difficult to come back on that. All I can say is that's something I'm willing to take away and have a conversation with colleagues about is perhaps a fair observation. Not one that I can answer, unfortunately. Thank you. Thank you very much. Richard will be next. If I could just... Just a small housekeeping issue. When you stop speaking, if you just turn the microphones off, that'd be great, because you get a lot of bounce back and the sound engineers getting blasted by it. Thank you so much, everybody. Richard, please. I wondered whether Councillor Bennett could give us some examples of what she was talking about then, because obviously nobody else knows about them. Well, they came to strategy and resources where we all sit and you're the chair. Do you not remember the issue where we had to put in a lot of money because the Jesus Green works and, you know, it came to strategy and resources. We had no warning. No information was supplied about it. Officers had no information to answer basic questions. It's not that long ago. Robert Regan is a bit there. Councillor. I think if I could come in, Chair. Conservatives is an interesting one because obviously there is two members of the Council who sit on the Conservatives' Board, David Levine and Katie Thornborough. So if there is the challenge there and the ability for us to find out more, and if my memory is certainly right, we've yet to put in considerable amounts of money to Conservatives because there's work going on to identify, A, the costs and who's responsible. The other point, sorry, the second point is, it's the old phrase that the American Secretary of State made. It's very difficult to know the unknown unknowns. And if you don't know something's going bankrupt, you don't know what to do about it. And if they come to us, it's up to the Council to say yes or no, not to just write blank checks. OK, if we're all done on that item, the recommendations are on page three. There are two. It's at 1.1. There are two main recommendations. Do we wish to take them separately or are we happy to take them together? So in that case, all those in favour of the Office of Recommendations, please show. And here's me forgetting for a second, two-thirds of the table are voting. OK. That takes us to item five. Sorry? Yeah. That takes us to item five, which you will already know, but I will just say keeps me happy. It's in a different sheet of paper which arrived after the main agenda. So this is in addition to the main few pages that we have. Are there any spare copies? No? Don't think so. Claire's got one for you. Sorry, five minutes. She said she's already read it. I'm asking about page 27. She said it was a good story, but the ending was a disappointment. OK. Everybody set with those papers? That's good then. So who wishes to take the lead on this mark? Are you going to take the lead on this one? I mean, why, yes? Or is Jonathan that might do lead first? So I can introduce our audit completion report which forms part of this agenda item. So our audit completion report for 23-24 follows a very similar format to the one I presented in December last year for the 22-23 audit, but with a very different reason for it being in the format that it is. And the difference for this audit, however, is the reason that's going to lead to the disclaimed audit opinion. So the statutory date for publishing the draft 23-24 financial statements was the 31st of May 2024. The backstop date for giving an opinion on those statements was the 28th of February this year. The draft accounts were only published on the 28th of February this year and therefore there was insufficient time to do an audit and therefore leading to the disclaimed audit opinion. So the council has therefore breached the backstop date because there are a minimum set of procedures that you have to do under audit standards to be able to issue an audit opinion and those clearly take significantly longer than a single day. Statute also requires that there is a 30-day inspection period for members of the public to inspect the accounts supporting documents and potentially question or object to those financial statements through to me as the external auditor and that window for public inspection closed on the 11th of April this year. And as you can see from looking at our report we've also reported we've also therefore reported the breach for breaching the backstop to MHCLG through our escalated reporting framework and the council has had to inform MHCLG of the reasons for that breach and publish those reasons on its website. We've also reported this breach as a weakness in value for money arrangements on page 103 of your pack which will be an exception as an other matter in our audit opinion which Jody has circulated as I issued it to him this afternoon. Taken those together there was clearly insufficient time to complete an audit by the 28th of February and issue an audit opinion by that backstop date. As a result and through to today we have not performed any audit procedures or testing on the financial statements themselves but we have confirmed the necessary procedures to be able to issue an audit opinion. This report and the procedures are set out in section 3 of our audit completion report and should be noted by the committee prior to you approving the financial statements. In relation to value for money we identified a significant weakness in respect of the council's arrangements for financial reporting being the breach of the backstop date. We've also reported a second significant weakness in relation to the breach in laws and regulations for the rental charges issue and the council's housing stock as referred to in the annual governance statement. Whilst the council did self-refer itself to the regulator of social housing the RSH has issued a regulatory judgment about serious failings and how the council delivered rent standards and reform in a period up to the date of that notice. This therefore is a weakness in governance arrangements that the council has set out on page 104 of our report and again will lead to another matter within our audit opinion. As a result of the first weakness in financial reporting we did consider the merit of issuing a statutory recommendation to the council under section 24 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act. On balance and following discussions with Jodie I have not exercised that power on this occasion but a third year of late published accounts would lead to us using that statutory power. we have included updated value for money commentary in Appendix E to support our value for money judgements that are the section in the report. So I think that's the summary and happy to take questions on our audit completion report. Catherine Young. Thank you. Yes. So just talking about the two significant weaknesses I mean basically the late reporting is down to a lack of financial staff right? That's the issue. The capacity of taking account against the partnership? The capacity yeah exactly. I mean there isn't I mean it's not as though there's been a fundamental problem in I don't know the finance team in processing invoices or something. The issue I mean as I answer the question is the lack of staff which were fundamentally required to produce accounts which is slightly separate activity to the one of running the council. So I'm trying to understand why a late publishing of the account I mean it's not ideal but we all know why why that's an issue that requires to be you know is deemed a significant weakness that you have to mention in your audit your audit report. I've got some other questions after this one. So processing journals as part of the day job is clearly part of responsibility as is it is a statutory duty to prepare a set of financial statements by a due date as set out in the accounting audit regulations 2015 and therefore is a compliance regulated objective the council should meet or has to meet it is mandatory notice but or maybe it is part of the day job. Okay right yeah so then the other one is the rents and we all know about them I don't want to go into the detail of that but we kind of we know what the problem is we've done the calculation we presumably have processed the necessary Councillor Gawthorff was saying the problem going forward is being fixed what is the issue from an audit perspective I mean that it occurred and then you are seeking to understand what changes have been made to the governance arrangements is that the problem or well yeah what is the problem precise so the element of work around value for money is does the council have appropriate arrangements in place to perform its necessary duties and roles clearly if you are in breach of a standard that is regulated by the social housing then you are have not complied with that you are non-compliant with laws and regulations and therefore that is a reportable issue and hence we have reported it okay so but you're saying it's not been fixed and therefore it's an issue from an audit perspective but the fact that it just occurred is the issue the very fact that it occurred is the issue you have breached laws and regulations one further question there are apparently some changes to the published financial statements and just wondered if someone could just run through what those were since since the version that we've looked at yes so the changes are summarized in the report and I'm just trying to find the right page apologies so paragraph 6.3 of the covering report summarizes the changes that were made there were no material changes nothing that impacts materially on reserves it was you know the usual kind of quality control things you'd expect to find on review of accounts you know the odd sort of transposition error or casting errors things like that but yeah that's all been sorted out Councillor Davey and then Councillor Robertson thank you Mark for your report it is quite an irony that we're being picked up for lack of capacity when not very many years ago Ernst and Young were unable to deal with audits within the time constraints that we required and we didn't get penalized because of that so it is interesting that it's flipped on its head the second question is if we're unable to fill posts is that our fault it's back to Karen sorry Councillor Young's point and it's not some sort of undertaking because it's a fact I accept that but there's not any explanation as to why it's a fact and the second bit I'd be really interested about national context so are we the only ones that are in this boat because I suspect that we can't recruit people others can't and that will then have knock-offs elsewhere so again it'd be useful to know where we sit within a national picture I'm not saying I'm not excusing where we're at please don't get me wrong but it's useful to know where we're at in comparison to elsewhere I wonder if you could help some of those points of course three good questions so the first question the irony isn't lost on me either and clearly as a firm and as a local audit sector there was significant public reporting of the lateness over a period of years which led to select committee public accounts committee and then the minister taking the action he did with his legislation last September and clearly this using backstop dates is part of the reset process to get back round it so it is what it is you are not the only council going to your question three in this situation MHCLG published a list of councils who missed either backstop one in December or backstop two with a secondary list of those who hadn't published accounts by that date as well on that list is in the public domain so you are not alone though it is a much smaller number than the 600 that was previously reported as a September 24 date and your second point I'm can't remember about capacity issues if we seek to appoint people but cannot appoint people it's really re-emphasising Councillor Young's point if you can't recruit and priorities therefore need to be taken into account which could lead to other failings elsewhere in the council because Jodie and his team may not be able to do other work because they're prioritising working the accounting process so it's just about how that's reflected in your report so Jodie made those representations as part of the discussion that we had and that led to my unbalanced decision not to issue statutory recommendations because you do have core business which is running the council day to day and setting a budget and living council tax and the periods did overlap so I have an element of sympathy for that however one of Jodie's responsibilities or any other section 151 officer in any local government body is to have a sufficiently staffed finance department to both operate the council and discharge duties of which statute reporting as I said to Councillor Young earlier is one of them and clearly it is one of those impossible potentially sometimes actions where you have to do squeezing a balloon you squeeze the balloon in one place and it pops out another place etc etc thank you Mark Councillor Robertson thank you the point about the loss of rent or the rent we had to refund they're very well known to us we had to spend several million pounds on the issue it's not as if we didn't know about it we also know that several other councils hit the same problem it's not just us the other issue of weakness in producing the accounts well as we say the audits hasn't been completed either there's no audit the trouble is if you highlight these two weaknesses as weaknesses or maybe the system requires you to identify them as weaknesses it undermines the credibility of the audit report frankly if it comes up with stuff we all know about nothing we could have done it's not credible it's a full report thank you Catherine Young I did see you yeah so actually the question is now are we okay going forward I mean are we we've got the staff now do we think we're going to catch up what's going to happen this year next year yeah I'm happy to take that I mean I did just want to come back to the context question according to our advisors LG improve we were one of 187 councils who did not publish draft accounts by May 2024 so we are by no means alone that included 60% of district councils actually missed the deadline now whether they've all got a VFM qualification I don't know but you know the context you know it's almost 200 councils that we were amongst in terms of situation now I mean I gave a verbal update at the last committee meeting I won't go over what I said before around the acute pressures that we had around losing three key members of staff at the same time but we do now have our chief accountant back Francesca who's done a fantastic job getting us to this point with 23-24 I had a meeting with her today about the 24-25 accounts and she's still very confident that we will produce those by the end of June which is the statutory deadline for this year you know if anything were to change obviously I'll keep the committee up to date but you know I'm as confident as I can be sitting here today that that won't be an issue this year in addition we're also fortunate that we've now recruited permanently to the head of finance role the deputy 151 role and we have a new permanent recruit joining the council in that role on the 23rd of June so that's another one of the key gaps that we've had in terms of permanent recruitment there are still a couple of other gaps in the team around business partnering where I'm still out in the recruitment process but certainly on the technical accounting side of the team now responsible for producing the statutory accounts we will be fully staffed as of the 23rd of June and I do have confidence that we'll produce a draft account on time this year any other questions okay just picking up on councillor Davies point about where are we in the league table I've been interested in that for a while and I've asked that question a couple of times but not actually received a response that means much to me and we're talking now about 200 councils in the same position as we are well just for ease of reference I've got it on page 105 here the two weaknesses if you like the delay in publication of the council's draft financial statements and the failure to deliver outcomes of rent standards breach of the act so you've also said that we're not the only ones as far as the rent issue is concerned we're not alone in that so we're not alone in that and we're not alone in the late financial statements so I guess my question is just twofold really the first is where are we on that league table you know can we get an answer to that if not today can we get it some other time how do we stack up against these other 200 councils that are in the same position as us my second question is are they also these other 199 or whatever it is councils in the same position as being at risk these these these these two issues being known as the council a risk factor within the council's dealings I too am a little bit concerned it's to me when I read all this I thought well that seems a bit harsh to me but however perhaps that's a simplistic view but and I think council feels it's all about the same so I sort of like where we are on that scale and are the other councils in the same position being issued with these risk management factors and if not why not I can start so I think Jodie's right there are about 200 or so councils who missed the 30th of May publication date but that number is a lot smaller who missed publishing by the 28th of February backstop date that's literally 20 or so I can research the MHCLG website and provide Jodie with a figure to cascade to you any council who missed the publication date by a significant period would be subject to a value for money weakness like you are I am not cited on how many councils have breached the social housing regulator because don't have sight of all of them but it would be non-compliant with laws and regulations that is a fact so I would imagine that they would be subject to the same value for money reporting as a consequence in the year in which it was identified okay thank you for that anybody else council bennett hi I just have a small point about valuation and revaluation methods you've explained to me in previous years that we use effectively what statistical sampling to assess value of the council properties beacon method where we just say we have 250 homes of this type and that's what they're probably worth and since we've started doing audit visits to the council houses one of the things that we've discovered is that there's been actually the state of the homes the actual state of homes and what we thought was state of the homes have been quite different in some cases such as tenants have done works which we didn't know about there are repairs unnotified does the do the findings from the audit sorry not your audit mark but our sort of we should probably call them something other than audit visits inspection visits does that give us any concerns that we're not valuing our council stock properly and if so what are we doing about it thank you yes I mean the obviously you're talking about council housing specifically that's where we use the beacon method and non-housing assets are valued individually because obviously they're all different we do use the beacon method for housing the beacons are agreed in consultation with the professional valuers and they are based on a number of property so it's not purely the size of the property it includes things like number of bedrooms whether it's a bungalow a flat house construction method which part of the city it's in there are about half a dozen or so different characteristics that go into forming the property archetypes I'm not going to say we don't have any as large as 250 because there are a couple of big ones but the vast majority of them are significantly smaller than that and some of them actually are as small as one or two properties because they are so unique that they can't be lumped in with anything else so we do already go down to quite a high degree of granularity I think we need to bear in mind the basis of valuation for council homes which is existing use value for social housing so it's very much valued on the basis of the rental income stream that's generating so given the amount of stock that we have given the volume of stock given the variability there the relatively small beacon sizes that we have you would expect things to average out over the whole beacon so from a materiality point of view I'm not overly concerned if there are individual properties that may be in a better or worse condition than what the values have taken to be average but ultimately the beacon methodology is a method that pretty much all stockholding councils use it wouldn't be practical or cost effective to go out and individually value 7000 odd homes so essentially it is an estimate any valuation is an estimate but it's the best estimate that we can reasonably make thank you and could you also explain the reasons of the revaluation adjustment was that just market conditions or you know did we make a mistake sorry can you just clarify which revaluation where are you referencing I should have printed this off rather than relying on a very small tablet will you bear with me for a moment I should have while you're looking for that councillor we'll go to Jenny's question any others while councillor is searching the tablet if you can't identify it right now we can come back to it I don't mind that because big agenda we can proceed with the business we've got in front of us and if we have to bounce back to it I'm okay with that then you won't feel quite so on the spot everybody watching and waiting yeah I'm quite happy to pick it up with Jodie later it's just a small geeky query okay that's all received that's fine then any other questions from anybody going once going twice in that case we'll go to recommendations on page three of this report there are four recommendations are you happy to take them as one or would you like to split them up all at once sounds good to me all those in favour of recommendations please show that's 5-4 any against did I miss anything nope no abstentions oh one abstention yes thought I'd missed somebody that's 5-4 and one abstention thank you okay that takes us to item 6 back to the original report paperwork I know it's item 6 my little tags yes sir so Jody your head teacher on this one thank you chair this is the external audit plan for 24-25 so this is an EY plan so probably best if I hand straight over to Mark to introduce if that's okay thank you Jody so very nice to be looking forward to audit the actual financial year we've just exited as opposed to a very historic one so key messages from this audit plan so page 73 of your pack we'll be reporting to a materiality level of 3.9 million pounds for the audit of the 24-25 financial statements and reporting to this committee any audit differences above 195,000 when we report out through our audit results report later in the year the audit risks that we've identified on pages 69 through to 72 of your pack are very similar to the previous years which I think would give you comfort as the committee with the exception of one new risk in relation to IFRS 16 which is a new lease standard which came into effect for this financial year it is only though an area of focus because management's initial assessment is it won't have a material impact on the financial statements but clearly we need to assess management's assessment and then make sure that any associated disclosures are put through the draft accounts correctly so it is only an area of focus picking up on value for money risks on page 89 of our report we just rolled forward at this point in time the risks that we have just reported on for 23 24 risks of weakness to identify whether they would be any risks in 24 25 the proof is in the pudding once we do the audit and producing the accounts by the deadline and the associated work that addresses the rent overpayment issue in terms of the team on page 100 of your pack Claire who's with me this evening replaces Jacob as the manager but Claire has been on the audit for a number of years now and this 24 25 audit would be my fifth and therefore final year under ethical standards before I have to rotate off and in terms of the timeline on page 103 we've set that out to do the work in September October through to November with a reporting to you sometime in December and sign off well before the 27th of February 26 backstop date so I think those are the key messages we're happy to take questions any questions I guess many of them were thrashed out on the last item page 103 with the timeline on it not wishing to bang an old drum but how confident are you that those timelines can be met and that they're not likely to be sidelined by other duties because it's obviously after the long discussions we just had and I'm not going to go through those again it's obviously highlighted just how important this timeline is it's a really important timeline for us and I just want to highlight that we wouldn't like to see that timeline slip for any reason so I just want to get your view on that mark if I may thank you and I share that sentiment getting public reporting back on track is the primary aim for all of us and part of the government's reset and now the recovery phase is to audit the financial statements to which the audit year has just finished as opposed to historic ones many years old so the timeline I am comfortable with we're not starting on the 1st of July because I think there is a risk given what we reported on previous accounts and though Jody is equally confident that he'll have draft accounts ready for the 30th of June but I think a time period between that date and us starting gives the finance team a window to prepare supporting working papers for it and then clearly we have a couple of months through to a backstop date should we need it as kind of contingency though I am expecting to be finished and reported out or completed the field work by the end of November and reported out by the end of December that is the aim and then that clears the path for finance colleagues and the council for as we said earlier core budget setting finance report core business thank you very much Mark gladdens my heart to hear that and your confidence in that timeline that's excellent to hear thank you for that are there any other questions Naomi please I was just going to say I thought it seemed like a good plan that's why I thought it would be good to stick to it okay in that case we'll go to recommendations on page 57 it's just to note the contents of the EY audit plan but I would like to see a show of hands that everybody has noted it and understood thank you chair that's unanimous thank you so much everyone for that so that takes us to item 7 and who's leading you leading Dan I can certainly give a short introduction thank you so much Tom not being here Tom is online I'm sorry Tom I forgot you online my apologies and Aisha is also online who is the project manager for the constitution update and so I'll do a quick introduction so members will remember the constitution was presented to the March civic affairs committee and during the debate came through that there were some updates and some tweaks required to the constitution to make it fit in with the new governance arrangements and the structure of the committees that were agreed at the full council meeting on the 17th of March so following that full council meeting and the last civic affairs committee officers have reviewed and comments that were submitted by members of this committee and members of the governance design group and they met just at the end of April to review some of those comments and made some of those suggestions and which have now been incorporated into the draft constitution going forward in the paper you'll see under section 4.4 there's areas of update there's a number of points in there including some of the debate around the opposition chairs of scrutiny which is to be agreed to be from the opposition groups and some small changes around the naming of the scrutiny committees some further wording and changes around referral of motions by the mayor that was in the draft requirement around motions to be seconded before any debate or the motion mover gets transferred to address full council some changes around the substitutes on committees to allow for two in part of the constitution I know it was done by convention here previously but it's now written into the constitution some wording around the ability for the leader to appoint cabinet assistants should they wish to do so and that's been a bit of wording in the constitution to reflect that and just some debate rules and amendments it wasn't clear in the last draft that the current practice around when a motion was moved and an amendment was then moved straight afterward and the debate would be taken as a whole before a vote on the amendment and then a vote on what would be the substantive motion so some of those bits have been updated and changed in the constitution along with just trying to be a bit clearer around non-key decisions and these should ordinarily be included in the floor plan wherever they can for transparency but obviously there'll be cases of flexibility for urgent decisions that might be coming through there's a few other little points there you'll see under 4.4 where there's still some discussion around for example the timing of the AGM and there were some options proposed and I know groups went away to think about some of those but that is not required to be codified into the constitution and that can be done as an agreement with members and again there's some further debate and discussion and still some agreement around the meaning of a three hour time limit for full council meetings whether that should or should not include breaks and that's still some work and that can be done and between members but for members this is now the opportunity to review the draft constitution before it is recommended on to full the annual meeting on the 22nd of May which will underpin the agreement of the 17th of March meeting with which is in terms of the committee structures and the remits. Tom and Aisha are online if you want to ask any questions of any of us and I will leave it there. Councillor Bick. Thanks Chair. My concern at this stage has been mainly about the resolution of loose ends. I've been a member of the working group that has developed this. You know it would surprise anyone there's bits that you agree with and bits that you don't agree with but I think for the business of civic affairs my concern was to see these issues in section 4.4 of the report getting resolved and included. Now are those where it says against certain items that things have been added or changed in the constitution is that in the version we've got here or is that in the version we're going to see when we get to council? So that should be in the version that's there but I'll just confirm with Aisha she's nodding and then the one that doesn't appear to be and I wanted to ask about was the one I think it comes in at number 10 the last one in on the list on page 125 council meeting duration and breaks and the working group the last meeting didn't have a consensus and was told to await a recommendation from the labour group and I'm interested to hear if there is such a recommendation and how that is proposed to be resolved. I have councillor Bennett and councillor Robertson on the list if no one's going to respond to that one. I was just going to say I think that's still a discussion that and a proposal that will need to come forward as far as I understand I haven't received any further recommendation on that one. Councillor Bennett. Councillor Bennett. Councillor Bennett. Councillor Bennett. Councillor Bennett. Councillor Bennett. Councillor Bennett. Hi I have a couple of general points. I think that it's been a bit of a rush at the end. Still I agree with Tim there's a lot of loose ends hanging. The two I particularly want to talk about is committing to an early review date because I'm very conscious that a lot of us have been very busy campaigning and while those of us who have been more involved in the government's group have taken an interest in what's in the constitution I'm not really sure that the rest of the councillors have been able to devote that time. So I'd like to see a commitment to an early review between six months to a year in. The second thing is that I think there is a need for training because leader cabinet is quite a different thing from a hybrid hybrid model and I have mentioned this before but I do think something should be laid on as soon as we reasonably can for all councillors on the differences. I have had training myself for the Association of Green councillors and Karen here of course has actually experienced the different models but I think sort of we need something for everybody and it would be useful if everybody had the same training. I might come back with some points later but those are my two really big points. One of your questions is actually already answered that and the recommendations on item three of the recommendations that the report will be reviewed after nine months. Yes, so I'm just going to hand over to Aisha who is running the training and putting those packages together so she might be able to give a little bit more context and update about that. Thank you Dan. Yes, so there is training coming. We've pulled most of the hard copies together. We're just trying to now work out what dates and what that looks like but we will have training for all members which will focus not only on the new model but what effective scrutiny looks like. We're also going to be having training for overview and scrutiny committees so that will be more action learning sets. So both overview and scrutiny committees will be getting three action learning sets after each committee as a sort of opportunity to work out what worked, what didn't, how do we need to adapt and approve. So all of that is going to be in hand to support that transition. Not only that but we also have some training happening for cabinet members and for the execs that way they sort understand their role in the new model as well. So there is training coming. Apologies it's not in the diaries just yet but it should be very soon. Thanks Aisha. I think I just wanted to add a little bit more on the training element. I think it's going to be crucial for our scrutiny chairs to get some training and especially around the chairing of those scrutiny committees because there are some differences to the way the chairing works around that. I think that will be absolutely vital and important. So I think that's something we will be definitely looking at for those chairs. I just wanted to mention that a ruling group doesn't stay a ruling group forever and I'd like to ensure that there is an opportunity for opposition and minority councillors to sit in on some of the cabinet and leader training. I think we can probably pick up when it comes to the general training around the structure and the new governance model which might help some members around how the difference between the old system, the cabinet and the scrutiny system works. Obviously there is a lot of training that goes around for cabinet members who are in the role and will be in the role in the next year. Okay, I have on my list, unless you need to expand on that, I have on my list Councillor Robertson, Councillor Davie and Councillor Gorefoot-Wood. So Councillor Robertson, the floor is yours. I too was one of the members of the working group for the last at least 18 months I think we've been on it. It's a very long hard work, much made easier by some of the officers we have with us and ones we brought in. I think it's been very good to have expertise from elsewhere brought to us, answers to questions, examples and sort of thing. Very welcome. Now, what we've got now is not final, no. The last meeting was on the 22nd of April and there has been no group meetings of our group since then to deal with it. So there are various minor issues, some of which are listed in this paper which are yet to be dealt with. So that won't get done by the time of the AGM but we will be open to the changes during the year as and when as far as I understand it. There's not fundamental changes. The fundamental changes cabinet and scrutiny is definitely in the papers. But there are other bits and pieces. We'll be focusing on those and getting them sorted out before long I'm sure. Anyway, it just remains me to thank the officers and thank my colleagues, councillors who were on the working group and who hopefully will get the final bits and pieces sorted out very soon. Thank you. Thank you for that. Councillor Davie. The floor is yours. Two things, both in response to the question. When you say there's lots of recents, I'm not convinced there are lots of recents. There's some. Naomi said there's lots of recents. I think that's perhaps an overstatement and I think it would be helpful therefore to know which ones you think are, which Tim's been good enough to share with us about the things. The second way I do agree with you, Naomi, is about training. We need the dates immediately. I'm puzzled as to why we haven't got them yet. Because I think that's so important in terms of preparing. Basically, there's not much time before the first scrutiny meeting and people, councillors are busy. So, the sooner we get those dates, the better. That's my question blown out the water then. So, councillor Gawrfoot, then councillor Bick. Well, I was just going to say that the training program is set out or what training there will be under 4.5, under the section on training and agree on the dates. Thank you. Councillor Bick and then Chief Executive. Yeah, I just want to pile in behind on this training point because I think this is really important. If this is going to work as well as I think you've hoped it would do, and I guess if that's the system that I hope it would as well, it's going to involve people not sitting on committees behaving like they're used to on committees that don't exist anymore. It's got to involve people starting from the very beginning, understanding what is expected in the new system. So, I've not been, you know, the great advocate for this, but I do think that in the council's interest, it would be a pity after, what, a nearly two years' work that we end up with committees called something new but behaving like the previous ones did, and that didn't seem to be what people wanted. On the question of the duration of council meetings and breaks, that was the only open issue that I had on my radar screen because I think this satisfactorily closes the others. This was important for members of the opposition, and I am disappointed that it hasn't been resolved before the council meeting, and I'm not sure it's true that there have been no group meetings. I mean, I think over the weekend there have been group meetings, but it would be really good if that could be resolved before the full council meeting. Did you want to come back on that, Mike or Cameron? Thanks. It would have to be Mike Davey for a moment. I will, but it's a present to be. I'd like. Yeah, I've actually just been in touch with Sam Carling, who I know was very involved in this process as well, and he did confirm that that was an outstanding issue still, that it had been three hours, but then weren't sure whether that was with breaks or not with breaks. Happy to try and resolve that. I don't think it's the biggest issue in the constitution, but happy for us to try and resolve that. We do have a group meeting upcoming where we might have a chance to look at that. This is a poll, it's always yours. Just to respond to... And Councillor Bick, I wonder, Aisha, would you be able to come in and just give a quick update on how we plan or when we intend to get dates in diaries? That would be really helpful, because I think Councillor Bick's made a really good point about behaviours and setting expectations. Yes, of course, and so more than happy to. So we have a session to put some dates in diaries on Monday of next week. What we already have in the diary will include sessions, as I mentioned before, specifically for those committees. So as the committees go in the diaries, we'll be having sessions immediately afterwards. And the other session that we have booked in, pending, making sure that we have rooms, et cetera, will be immediately after the AGM. That is when we're going to be engaging in one-to-ones, particularly with the Cabinet, just to make sure that there is that support from Mark Rogers, who's worked with all of our members previously, to help them throughout the transition. So we will have all of those ready to go. I think one of the reasons why we haven't gone too early on training, particularly for all councillors, was because we were very wary that this is a proposal, and until it's voted through, we didn't want to get too ahead of ourselves. However, we have got all the materials ready. It's just about making sure that we have the right time for everyone to engage. Thank you, Chair. That's a helpful update from Aisha. And just to confirm, Mark Rogers is the Chief Executive of the Leadership Academy. That's the LGA slash MHCLG body that does a lot of work on scrutiny and with members. So he's a former Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council. So he's worked in a number of authorities, and I think we're trying to get you real quality here, in terms of the behaviour change that I think you'd like to see. So I have on my list a Councillor Robertson, Councillor Gawthlop-Wood, and Councillor Leung. Councillor Robertson, the floor is yours. I was only going to point out that some of the changes relate to the annual meeting and won't affect this year because they have to be brought in next year. So that's just some of them. That's all. Okay, thank you for that. Jenny, it's yours. Just quickly, on the Council meeting duration and breaks, what do other Councils usually do, or who try to stick to the three, three and a half hours? I can give some previous experience again from other authorities. So three out of the four I used to work, four used to, and they used to adjourn for a break, used to stop the clock, so to speak. So if you're one hour, 20 minutes into the meeting, you'd break for 15 minutes, then you'd start back at one hour, 21, so to speak. So you'd have the 15 minute break, it wouldn't affect three hours. It just carries on 15 minutes longer. There was an authority that I worked for that did include the breaks and the time limit. So if you started at six, you would finish at nine, if it was a three hour meeting, for example. So it's Council's choice in how they wish to arrange that. Okay, Karen, I know you've got some experience with other Councils, and it's your turn anyway. Yeah, so just very quickly, St Albans started at 7.30, and the guillotine happened at 11pm, and very often we went on after that. Anyway, my question really is, I'd really like some dates for the scrutiny meetings, because I'm going to be on one of them, and I still don't know what the dates are, and I really appreciate an unofficial indication of when they're going to be. Please, thank you. They were part of the meeting card that was agreed at the last civic affairs meeting, but I'll send them around again, so everyone's got them. I was going to say that, and I thought, did I just dream that card? But no, okay. Yeah, please, Tim. This is minutiae, but it's quite important minutiae. Are they yet in, was it modern gov, you know, the automatic system where it comes onto calendars? So they're on there in terms of draft, but obviously they get agreed when the whole part of the Constitution gets agreed at the annual council meeting, so they'll be like a go live button that gets pressed and they'll all pop up. Okay, so just to check my understanding on that, so they're there, but we can't get to see them until it goes live, yeah? So all the background work is there being done on it. Yeah, but they're not actually visible physically. Ah, okay. That answers my other question then. So it's there, but not yet. Okay. Are there any other... Please, Councillor Ben. Hi. This is just a point on the meeting breaks. We have some councillors who are working in London and who are... We also have some who are working shifts at Addenbrooke's. So you've got to be on ward change for 7.30. So people have quite a long day before they even get to the councillor meetings and are going there, arriving without time. Sorry, is there a problem? To, you know, get food. I have group members who are diabetic, including myself. It's quite important for people who are diabetic to know roughly when the breaks are going to be and whether we're actually having... How long we actually have. I don't really want to overshare on the medical issues, but it is quite important and it's quite problematic for me if I don't know when the meal breaks are going to be. Anybody wish to come back on that? Okay, I mean, I guess Councillor Robertson I've got next now anyway, but those sort of issues we can perhaps talk about. You know, obviously I've come across those before. So why don't we talk about that and see how best to manage the diabetic issue because it is manageable and it wouldn't be a difficulty to actually manage that in practicality. So we'll perhaps talk about offline about that and then whatever we come back with then we can share it to everybody else via EMO for their information. Councillor Robertson. I was just going to add that it's not really a matter for writing into the Constitution. No. It's a matter which must be dealt with quite. We all dealt with offline as you say. And that was my point really. But it's a fair point that Councillor Bennet's brought up and that's fine. There's no reason why I can't look at that. And I guess around this table at this minute I'm probably the best person to do that. But we'll do that together and then share it with those who may be affected. OK. Any other questions on this one? OK. Recommendation is on page 121 at 1.1.1. And there are three recommendations. Are you content to take them as one all at once or would you like to take them separately? OK. Everybody's happy with that? All those in favour of those recommendations please show. OK. That's four. Four. OK. And against? One against. OK. That means no abstentions. Two abstentions. Oh, two abstentions. Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. One. One abstentions. I'm sorry. Yeah. No, Tim can't pose. Oh. So it's four. Four, four. One against. Yeah. One abstention. OK. Thank you. OK. Thank you, everyone. That's a lot of business done there and a large and important report. So that takes us to item eight, way down the page. And that is on page 445. And recommendations are on that page. So are you leading, Dan? I will do a very quick introduction. So this slightly follows on from the previous item. Back in January this year, the Independent Reuneration Panel was appointed to review member allowances, taking into account the proposed governance structure changes. They produced their report end of January and it was cleared on the agenda for the civic affairs meeting in March. And noting that members and group leaders may not have had ample opportunity to review those recommendations. It was agreed to that meeting to defer the item to this meeting. And members will see that the panel have a number of recommendations within their report attached at Appendix 1. There will also be some tables outlining the different figures in terms of member allowances with the current scheme against what the Independent Reuneration Panel recommended. There have been an update sent round to members today which has some options, which is figures in terms of keeping the current scheme. The recommendations that the Independent Reuneration Panel came up with. And there's also a proposal from the Labour Group included. So in terms of recommendations onwards to Council, if there was a proposal for one of those options today that was seconded and voted on, those would be going through to the full Council meeting next week on the 22nd of May. But that's the destination where members decide their allowances and expenses. So with that in mind, obviously I'll be happy to take any questions and discussion for members to have in terms of some of those options that were presented. Council Robertson. Well, I'd like to welcome the report of the Independent Panel. I thank them for their work. Our group agrees with much of the findings and proposals made by the Panel. And it's been really helpful to have it set down for us to read through. The principle of fair remuneration is important to us. We want to enable people to stand from a wide range of backgrounds, a wide range of skills and experience. And we recognize that within that there is a voluntary element to be taken into account and getting the figures right. So we welcome the scheme which has this element of it. The 11 hours a week was what they assessed with what we were spending on average in basic work. That was assessed from the questionnaires we were given and the meetings we had with the Panel. But they thought 40% of that should be taken as voluntary work, which is the way of working it out. It seems fair to me. Roughly what I'd come up with anyway. So that gave us, so then it was going to take the average rate per hour for a full-time person working in the Cambridge area. We've never done that before. That again is very useful. It gives us a target. And they end up with a figure of 12,715 less the 40%, which brings us to 7629, which is what is proposed as the basic. So far, so good. We also agreed that the token stationary allowance of £75 a year could be scrapped. We just didn't think that was valid anymore. Going on to the Special Responsibility Allowances, here we felt that the key allowance here is the leader's allowance. We believe firmly that the complexity of the city's operations, the increasingly heavy demands for interaction with other councils and with the government, means that the leader really needs to be able to take on that role without being also required to fulfil another job for somebody else. So we've decided that it should be recognised by the payment of the leader of a basic allowance plus four times that allowance as their SRA, Special Responsibility Allowance. All the other Special Responsibility Allowances, we've kept at three times the basic. And I apologise for the error which went out the other day with it four times. But it's three times the basic times a percentage which we reviewed the figures that the panel had come up with. We did not agree with all of them though. We felt that it would also be clearer if all the allowances were set as a percentage of the SRA itself and not a percentage of somebody else's role. If they're all set to the same figure, it's much easier to see what's going on. So finally, the maximum number of Special Responsibility Allowances. We found no logic to restricting that to one. The work has to be done and we want it to be done by allocating it to whoever we judge to be best to do it. And that may mean that they're very busy. But we also would set a maximum of three. Because if anybody's trying to do more than three, it's not going to be doing the job properly anyway. So, that's our proposal. A maximum of three SRAs per person. That's the presentation to you. Do we want to proceed? Go for a big. Following Ross's, sorry, Councillor McPherson's earlier comment. Do we, in terms of clarity, I was just asking if we have to propose the Labour Amendment and get it seconded, which I thought is what was said. So, at some point, maybe during, after the debate, there might be a proposal for, and then it will need to be seconded, and then vote. So, I think, yeah, best to have the debate. Thank you for the clarity, Dan. Thank you, Chair. I think it's important to ask ourselves what's actually happening here. I think we have the independent review panel for a purpose, that we give our evidence to them, and they consider that evidence, along with evidence from elsewhere. And they decide on what they want to recommend to us, and it is up to us to adopt it, or in the past, as we have done, fine-tuned it for the actual features that may not have been fully understood by the panel. And all that seems to be a very sensible way of proceeding, because it avoids us, as the elected councillors, from being seen to decide how to pay ourselves in abstract. So, what is actually coming out of this, from the proposal that Councillor Robertson has made, is not fine-tuning. I mean, every single allowance on the table that's proposed by the independent review panel has been changed. Every single one of them. So, this is not any more mainly respecting the independent review panel. What it is, is substantial increases to mainly labour councillor allowances, funded from reductions in allowances mainly received by opposition councillors, and by an extra unbudgeted funding from the council, which is obviously general public money. And the sort of features that are in there are a big increase for the leader of the council, significant allowances for people to help other people earn their allowances, which seems to be a rather bizarre feature of where we've arrived at. And it's not as if the independent review panel wasn't already proposing significant increases for allowances across the council. It was. And those already, I think, were things that were up for us to defend and explain to the public, which I think we could do, because we have the independent panel as the basis for arriving at them. I think this is wrong. I think that it's tone deaf. I think if we just have to cast our minds back, we've, earlier this year, members opposite have insisted on cuts in some of our services, cutting council staff that clean streets and maintain public open spaces, closing toilets. There are also government cuts in the background affecting many people on low pay. And we see that the leader of the council is proposed now as a result of what Councillor Robertson says to get an increase of over 40%, 30% more than the independent review panel proposed. And 10 days ago, we had elections in the city and the party running this council lost two seats to the Liberal Democrats. And the county council results, which happened at the same time around the city, showed that if the elections had been city council elections, then you'd be out. Now, this seems to me quite an odd circumstance to award yourselves a pay increase like this without the evidence of the independent review panel behind it. And I think many people will find it quite outrageous. I would hope that the committee today goes back to the independent review panel recommendations, where they're on firm foundations and based on evidence, and avoids, I think, the reputational damage as it's mentioned in the report, but actually just the embarrassment of what is going to happen if you take this proposal to full council. I think this council can do without it. I would have thought the Labour Party could do without it. But, I mean, this kind of is the last chance to stop it going that way. Councillor Robinson. Well, I refute your assertion that all the figures have changed. That's not correct. The deputy leader's figure's the same. Scrutiny chair is the same. That's not even our role. There are a lot of changes. Some of them have gone down. The vice chair of scrutiny's gone down. That's one of ours. It's not all one way. We assessed it on what we know about the jobs. It's very difficult to get that over to the independent panel in every case. So we've taken the opportunity to review it as we think it would best be done. So I appreciate that it is an increase, but the workload of the City Council is absolutely beyond all scale, previous scale. We've got vast numbers of proposals being forced upon us by various people, including our international government, of course. These needs to be dealt with properly. And we can't just be, we can't have people who have not got the time to do it, having to try and do it. So that is behind us finding the resources to provide Cambridge with a future in the way that it should be, not the way it could be we're forced to take issues too quickly, to deal with issues too quickly. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Davey. Thank you very much. I did receive quite a bit of Lib Dem literature during the course of the elections. I don't recall anywhere saying we're going to mandate to sticky councillor allowances at the same time. So I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that you've won an election and that's part of your process. I also don't think, if I'm absolutely honest, that that should get into the discussions about what we should pay our officers. As Naomi pointed out earlier on, groups change, leaders change, and who runs the council changes. This is about what's right. As Richard's already said, there are, the changes aren't all about us paying each other more. Although that, again, might well go into the newspaper reports of your speech, Tim, but that's not what it's about. It's about trying to make sure there's an equitable payment for the future. The leader, which I can probably comment on most knowledgeably, it comes to a point whereby we can't keep the leader's salary out of the discussions, whereby it's only available for someone who's an old retired white man who can actually apply to be the leader. And one of the reasons we have to address is how you enable and make sure people of real calibre, young people, are able to come through. And if you have the leader's salary continually pegged at a level that does not actually meet what's required to run the council, we have a problem, because then you're immediately maintaining a very low level of pay and restricting the number of people that can apply for it. And I'm sure, in a progressive world, we would all agree that that's not the best way of taking things forward. Some of the other qualifications we've put on, I don't think we believe that the amount that related to the combined authority board member reflected what will be the new responsibilities in relation to the combined authority, which is another reason why we wanted to increase that significantly. And if you go through the actual figures, which I'm sure you have, Tim, and again, I owe you an apology, because it was hitting the wrong button which gave you the wrong figures last week. So my apologies, I got the formula back. But I hope the new one reflects more clearly that we're trying to be accurate in terms of what's required, but also in terms of fairness and equity, recognising the level of the job's concerned. I think it's important, therefore, that we make a statement for the future. The last thing I'd say is that in contextual terms, the leader of this council, if that's the allowance, will still get a lot less than most other councils of similar status and nature. And I think that's important, again, to stress. And bearing in mind what's happening to this city, you have to enable the right level of salary to come through whoever is running the council. So I would ask you to, again, reconsider what you've said, to look at these in the light of trying to work out what's the right level of pay and allowance for councils that serve in this city. Thank you very much. Councillor Schill. Councillor Schill. Councillor Schill. Councillor Schill. Councillor Schill. Thank you, Chair. It seems very strange to claim that these changes are to benefit labour and to impute that motivation to us, when at the same time and in the same contribution, Councillor Bick underlines just how changeable is the composition of this authority and of local authorities in this region. And so I'd like to say, no, it isn't about grabbing more money for this or that party. It's about assessing the remuneration that is appropriate to the roles. Thank you. If I could just come back on a couple of those points. I have, I am not someone who has traditionally argued for hair shirt conditions for local councillors to do their work. And I'm not going to start now. But a lot of the things that Councillor Davy referred to, in principle, I don't disagree with. But that constitutes evidence to the independent review panel. It should not be coming along afterwards as a way of building on what they have already proposed. It should be part of the way they make their decisions, and they apparently have. And that, I think, is where we should respectfully bow out, having made our points and accepting their judgment. And I would just say, in response to Councillor Scheel, about the benefits to whom these changes are being made. You're proposing 12 increased allowances over and above what the independent review panel recommended. Ten of those are for positions only eligible to Labour councillors. All the allowances that are exclusively eligible to opposition councillors are reduced in your proposal or completely eliminated. That, I think, is the measure that brings home to you, you may not have been aware of it, I suppose, but that is the impact of what this proposal is, and it is extremely lopsided. But in my opinion, it shouldn't be occurring at all, because all of your arguments should have gone to the IRP, and we should be basing our decisions on what they told us. Point of clarity, the scrutiny chairs are both yours, Tim, and they're both increased under our proposals. I must come back on that. They have reduced from what the independent remuneration panel proposed. If we look at the figures for the scrutiny chair, they're the same as the panel recommended. They're not different, not down, not up. They're the same. Okay, I've got a couple of people. I've got Councillor Bennett, Councillor Robertson, who wanted to say something else, I think, and Councillor Young in that order, and then perhaps that will give us a couple of moments to match up those figures, if you think they're different, then we need to have a look at that. Councillor Bennett, the floor is yours. It would be helpful to know which ones the opposition is looking at. I do appreciate part of the reason for the lack of clarity was due to what we sent out. The ones I sent last night should have been cleared. I'm happy to clear that point out first before carrying on, should you so wish. We're holding Naomi up here, but I think the proposal that is reflected on the Democratic Services sheet of options shows that the IRP was recommending an allowance of 7,038 for scrutiny committee chairs, and the recommendation from the Labour Group is that they should be 6,866. So they join the others in being recommended reductions from what the independent remuneration panel was saying. I think we have a problem because the paper I've got implies that that's not the case. So is there some sort of issue about the figures that we... That opens up an entirely other issue, the chaotic and shambolic way in which this has been brought to us. An issue of a lot of public interest, and actually public money, and we don't even have clear numbers from you. It's not the way you make decisions. Whatever allowances you're paid. Councillor Robertson, we'll see where we're going to go. So I've got three lights on. Could you turn the lights on? Sorry. Would it be appropriate for us to have a break for five minutes to sort this out, with what paperwork we're actually looking at? I'm quite happy to do that. No issue there. Because it does seem... I myself, as you will know, confused this afternoon. So I do get there is a confusion there. Because I thought perhaps it was just me totally confused. I'm quite happy. Let's have that break then. Let's see where we go with those figures. And how long are you going to need, do you think? Only five minutes? Five, seven minutes? Let's do that then. That makes more sense. Okay, we're good to go. Thank you very much. I've got to take responsibility for this, please. This is to do with me and not Richard or Cameron. I think there's an acceptance that the way this has been done, and there are very good reasons for that, because it's done in short notice and trying to make sure we've involved our group. But we do accept that bringing the papers to you late, which requires, which has not enabled you to have full discussion, is wrong. And for that, I apologise. Our proposal would therefore be that we implement or suggest implementing the IIU proposals as is, but subject to a review that comes back to civic affairs at the next civic affairs meeting, by which time we'll be enabled to have done a proper debate within group, but also they use the opposition parties will have had time to look at our new proposals. So it's implement the IIU. And then if there's any changes that we wish to propose, we'll bring them back to next civic affairs. So it places the entire onus on ourselves. I realise that there's a slight problem with two issues. One is the scrutiny, opposition spokes scrutiny. We need to debate that this evening, because under our proposals, we would go with other councils, there are no scrutiny spokes. If you suddenly apply them and then withdraw them again, you've got a problem. And the other matter is the, what was the other one? Well, the other new posts, they can stay unset for the moment. So it's just that one issue, I think. Oh, no, sorry. Number of responsibility allowances. We do need to debate that this evening as well. The proposal we're making is there is not a restriction of one. There are three possible. So there's two things. Three SRAs is a possibility for whatever councillor that is who's awarded it. And not having a discussion about the scrutiny of these spokespeople. Thank you. Councillor Bennett, then Councillor Young, please. Thank you. Thank you, Chair, at last. I want to make a couple of general points first, which is, I've actually sat on a lot of remuneration committees in my day job. And I don't understand what the point is of getting an external advisor in and ignoring everything they say. When I've been that external advisor, of course I'm used to people querying what I recommend. But I expect them to query it and come back and talk to me, or whoever that independent person is, and not just go away and do their own thing. If we're going to do that, you might as well not bother paying for the independent report. So whatever we do, I'd actually like you to go back to the independent remuneration panel and try to agree it with them. So that's point one. That's just general good practice. My second general point is courtesy. This is the first time we've had any rationale at all about why all the minority group posts have been reduced or eliminated. I've asked for that three times. You know, that's just rude and disrespectful. When we went through the governance group committee, we were told that we were undertaking substantive scrutiny roles, that we would be doing real scrutiny at last. But apparently that role is so insignificant that no SRA is appropriate for it. I get that councillor allowances are not generous. I get that a lot of us have had to take very substantial cuts in income to be councillors. And I agree it's not fair, it's not right. But if the total amount of councillor allowances is continuing to be well below the rate for the job, then let's at least share the pain fairly and the inequality fairly. I also have another couple of comments, which is, I feel that the executive assistants have been introduced at the last minute. I'd be open to executive assistants where a councillor is out of action for some reason, perhaps bereavement, a pregnancy, caring arrangements or sort of a health condition. But I don't think there should be routine executive assistants. And I also don't think that that cost can be justified. So I welcome the proposal to go back to the independent remuneration panel figures. I do want to ask a question about having the three special responsibility allowances. Because we've said that other councillors, Richard has said that other councils don't pay scrutiny spokes. But very few other councils have three special responsibility allowances. When we have the discussions of governance, I don't think our advisers could actually bring to mind any other councils that has three SRAs. So if it's wrong to pay scrutiny and minority spokes, because other councils don't, it's wrong to have three special responsibility allowances. That's all I really have to say at the moment. I've got... I should do a response tonight. Okay, yeah. I'll take it later. No, no, that's okay. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you've responded, Mike. I think that I'm not sure... The IRU point, I take your point, but like you, like many people, if you employ consultants, you don't necessarily need to do what they say. And I think as a general point, that would be where I would sit. And I think when we looked at this and reviewed this, we didn't think there were certain elements of this that were right. And that's why we came forward with proposals. The courtesy, I think that's perhaps unfair, Naomi. When you emailed me, I think three responses in the last week, I did respond by just saying, thank you. I don't know what more you want to say beyond that. With regards to executive assistance, I think that input is helpful, because if we do bring something back in the next civic affairs, we'll obviously take into account your thinking. Turn for the other. Yeah, I was just going to ask maybe for the logic behind limiting it to three rather than one. It would be just... You may have said it earlier, but I'm afraid I've missed it, and I'd quite like to understand that. The logic is that the work has to be done, whether it's done by one person or three people. So what's the difference? We wouldn't want more than three people, three SRAs on one person. But if they do the work, they get paid for it. If you give it to somebody else, the money goes to somebody else. Budget's the same. Yeah, I mean, I'd argue that some of the roles kind of overlap slightly. So, you know, that's kind of an issue. I mean, I welcome the idea of recommending the IRP numbers now. I think that would be a good way forward. Yeah. Same for me. I think that we should not start messing with different bits of what your group want to do at this point. The simple solution for the moment is to adopt the IRP recommendations and come back when everyone's had a chance to think through everything. We believe the IRP recommendations were right. My own suggestion is that, especially as this is the first year of the new governance system, that it would be better to leave the IRP recommendations in place for the year, but have a proper process at the end of this year to actually make sure that everyone's input is properly balanced and considered. And that is done through the IRP having another go at it and taking an overview across everything. Yeah, Patrick, please. Yes, just very quickly to come back to Councillor Bick's earlier point. I need to push back on Councillor Bick's pushback. And his response to my point is that these are positions for which only Labour councillors can apply. But as I said in my first intervention, this can change over time. We're not always going to be in charge, as Councillor Bick himself points out. So unless I've missed something, Councillor Bick's pushback is not pushback. He says, I may not have been aware, but surely he doesn't think I'm ignorant of who is currently in charge at the council. And for Billy. This is just to answer Patrick's point. I think the issue is the next elections we have are the shadow elections in 27, which are a whole new ball game. So this is the last election we actually have had as a district council, unless apart from by-elections. I'm not sure if Councillor Bennett knows something that we don't, but as far as I'm aware, we don't know yet whether we'll have elections next year. Thank you. Okay. I've still got Councillor Robertson. I've got Councillor Schoen as well. That is in fact all I've got on my list so far, unless I've missed anybody. I was just going to take us back to the proposal is to accept the IRP recommendations, except for the scrutiny chairs. Scrutiny spoke, sorry. Those, I emailed Dan earlier today to ask him whether any other councils pay these. And the answer as far as he knows is no. So why are we going to stand out and have this position which nobody else does? So I think if we want to have time to look at that, now we'll give ourselves time. But in the meantime, we shouldn't try and pay anything. And the other is to allow the SRAs to go up to three times per person. And that's the only changes to the IRP planning. Thank you. Thank you. Very quickly, Chair. So can I just clarify, we haven't had a communique about whether or not elections are happening next year, have we? No. Thank you. That's great to get that clarification. So we might actually have elections next year, Councillor Bennett. I've just been told I'm not supposed to be a betting woman these days. But if I were, I would bet against it. But could I just come back? Mike's proposal was that we go with the IRP recommendations. If we're going to go with them, let's, you know, I think we should go with them. And not with a couple of late amendments from Richard. If you're saying we shouldn't have opposition and minority scrutiny spokes pay because other councils don't do it, you have exactly the same logic about the three times SRAs. There's no other council I know of in the country that does that. Can I ask what the rationale was or is for removing the council opposition spokes SRA? I didn't quite understand that myself. The cabinet and scrutiny system does not have spokespaces. People acting as spokespersons for their groups on it. That system does not exist. If we try and move together our existing system, which is a dodgy system introduced by the Liberal Democrats 12 years ago, and try and impose it on the cabinet and scrutiny system we're moving to, we're creating a post that shouldn't exist. Just very quickly to come back on that. What it does have is a shadow cabinet. And in St. Albans, the shadow cabinet had allowances. I don't want to go into it. If that's an example, that's great. We'll have a look at it. I guess in the meantime we don't pay it enough. Thank you, Richard. Thank you, Richard. Thank you, Richard. Thank you, Richard. Councilor Bennett, go ahead. I apologize for boring on about this, but irrespective of what you call the minority spokesman opposition spokesperson, the people who represent their groups on the scrutiny committee will have a significant workload. They will be expected to channel the views of their colleagues and to research all the issues. We were told throughout the governance review group that scrutiny would be a big job, that it would be taken seriously. So, aren't we going to be spending time on this? And if so, shouldn't we at least have some small allowance for it? Can I just come back to the proposal that we implement the IRP proposals as is, and that we review them, and whether proposals, if there are any, from civic affairs later in the year, which may include or not, depending on knowledge, whether those posts remain. The SR, well... I say the same, plus. There's no budget difference, so... No, but it's just for ease at this particular moment of time, Richard. So, okay, let's see. I just need to be clear about this, guys. So, what we're now talking about is the... On page 451 of this report, are we now saying that, in fact, we'll take these figures that are on this page, including the scrutiny opposition spokesperson as part of the proposition of recommendations, but also to withdraw the single SRA and add in three SRAs. Is that right? As is. As is, yes. At the moment, the position is that any one person can have three at the moment. So, that does not change. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. But that's not the recommendation here. Sorry to be clear. I'm unclear. So, Cameron, as my successor and I, suggesting we implement the proposals as is, not keep the three SRAs. If we want to bring them back, we do at the meeting in September, later in the year. If that's agreed, I'm happy to change my proposal, yeah. Thank you very much. Do you want me to...? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yes. I think what someone will need to propose is that they go with the IRP recommendations that are outlined in the report, with the review of these recommendations later in the year. If anyone wanted to propose that, it would need to be seconded and then voted on. That's what I propose, yeah. Yes, as I say, I propose that, yes. Okay. That's what I was asking. Did you want to speak? No, I'm just happy to... Oh, I see. Okay, okay, okay. So, you're proposing there, Richard? Yeah. And Naomi's seconding that. Are we there? All done? For now? No. Okay. Okay. All those in favour of those proposals, please show. That is unanimous, Chair. Okay, thank you for that, everyone. Okay. So, that takes us to the last item. Okay, thank you for that, everyone. Okay, so that takes us to the last item. Thank you for that, everyone. Okay, thank you for that, everyone. Okay, so that takes us to the last item of committee appointments. Dan? Thank you, Chair. This is just an update outlining the nominations for appointments to committees for the next municipal year. Just to outline, there's been a few changes to the numbers on some of the committees following discussion of group leaders, namely that the services, communities and climates scrutiny, overview and scrutiny committee will have nine members on it. The civic affairs and audit and employment will have seven, and on planning that will go down to eight members. And that is just for the committee to recommend those numbers and proportionality on to the annual meeting on the 22nd of May. Okay, thank you for that, Dan. Any comments? Questions? Okay. All those in favour of those recommendations? That's unanimous, Chair. Thank you so much. I believe, unless somebody knows something I don't, that that concludes the business for now. Thank you, everyone. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, everyone. You