The Scrutiny and Overview Committee of South Cambridgeshire District Council met on 11 September 2025, and reviewed the 2025-26 Quarter One Performance Report, which included operational key performance indicators, strategic indicators, and progress against the Corporate Action Plan. The committee also discussed and noted the draft work programme for future meetings, and considered two member requests for future scrutiny topics.

2025-26 Quarter One Performance Report

The committee reviewed the 2025-26 Quarter One Performance Report, which included several appendices:

• Appendix A: Operational Key Performance Indicator Report - an indication of the efficiency and timeliness of the council's day-to-day service delivery.
• Appendix B: Strategic Indicator Report - numeric measures that directly link to the delivery of objectives set out in the 2025-26 Corporate Action Plan.
• Appendix C: Corporate Action Plan Report - updates in relation to the outputs listed in the 2025-26 Corporate Action Plan.
• Appendix D: Update on Amber Outputs from 2024-25 - progress updates in relation to outputs that were categorised as Amber in the 2024-25 Q4 Business Plan Progress Report, and that were not included within the 2025-26 Corporate Action Plan.
• Appendix E: Housing Tenant Satisfaction Measures - the latest Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) results.
• Appendix F: Prototype Member Dashboard Screenshots - prototype dashboard screenshots being developed to provide members with access to a greater range of service-level performance information.

The report recommended that the Scrutiny and Overview Committee review the results and comments in the appendices. It also recommended noting the proposed introduction of 'KPI04 - % of current tenant rent arrears' in Appendix A, in place of the previous KPI reporting on '% housing rent collected'.

The report noted that Strategic Indicators have been introduced for the 2025-26 financial year as numeric measures that directly link to the delivery of actions and objectives set out in the 2025-26 Corporate Action Plan.

The report also noted that Appendix E provides the latest TSM results, which have been included for the first time in recognition of the need for quarterly scrutiny of landlord performance at the highest level, alongside the council's other organisational performance monitoring arrangements. This approach reflects the Social Housing Regulator's increased focus on housing safety and its expectation that providers demonstrate strong governance, regulatory compliance, and clear accountability and transparency.

Following a request made at Cabinet in June 2025, work has commenced to develop a mechanism to enable Member access to service-level performance data in a timelier and more interactive format than the existing quarterly performance reports. A prototype dashboard is currently being developed using Microsoft Power BI (Power Business Intelligence), which will facilitate access to performance metrics via a secure web-based interface. Initial prototype visuals are provided in Appendix F.

Work Programme

The committee considered the draft work programme. ¹

Councillor Graham Cone, Chair of Scrutiny Committee, noted that the agenda item and description would be discussed at the meeting.

Member Request - Cambridge Growth Company

Councillor Richard Stobart submitted a request to review the activity of the Cambridge Growth Company (CGC) in relation to the business of SCDC, and to identify how the accountability of the CGC satisfies the kind of criteria normally seen in local government processes.

Councillor Stobart stated that he had discussed this topic with both Councillor Cone and Councillor Stephen Drew, Vice-Chair of Scrutiny & Overview Committee, and both agreed that he should present the topic for consideration.

Councillor Stobart suggested the following terms of reference and scope of the review:

• Through the collation of publicly available information:
  • To develop an understanding of the operation of the CGC and its corporate objectives
  • To understand the links between the CGC, Councils and the Mayor
• The work will be done through research, requests for information from CGC and UK Government and interviews with CGC staff .
• The scope is the activity of the CGC as it impinges on the local governance

Councillor Stobart noted that the review relates to all the council's priority areas:

• Healthy and supported communities - through setting a development agenda, the CGC will influence the development of communities in the Greater Cambridge area
• Sustainable homes .. - the CGC has the potential to influence the quality and performance of dwellings delivered in new developments
• Being green .. - the CGC through its influence on infrastructure can profoundly influence the sustainability profile of Greater Cambridge
• Helping businesses … - the CGC through major housebuilding programmes can profoundly influence the provision of affordable housing to attract and retain staff

Councillor Stobart suggested several goals:

• Identifying the kind of accountability that CGC needs to demonstrate to Greater Cambridge residents to get best results from the development initiatives
• Defining the information flows that will work to the mutual benefit of CGC and Councils

Councillor Stobart stated that the resources required would be limited, just a few person weeks to collate and report on the current status of interactions with the CGC, and to extend invitation to CGC staff to attend an S&O committee meeting.

Councillor Stobart noted that the main sources of evidence would be:

• Minutes of CGC meetings
• Interviews with, and reports from leadership team of the CGC including Peter Freeman and Beth Dugdale

Member Request - Arts and Culture

Councillor Richard Stobart submitted a request to review the council's Arts & Culture strategies and policies.

Councillor Stobart stated that he had discussed this topic with both Councillor Cone and Councillor Drew, and both agreed that he should present the topic for consideration.

Councillor Stobart suggested the following terms of reference and scope of the review:

• Consider all of the Council's activity in regard to Art and Culture elements.
• Identify a set of unifying principles and synergies that would help existing initiatives and make it easier to identify and new opportunities.
• Restrict scope to the Council's activities, while acknowledging where an Arts and Culture strategy has local impact, for example in mental health, transport and youth work.

Councillor Stobart noted that Arts and Culture strategies and policies could support all the Corporate priorities, and suggested that the review might choose instead to consider communities (Healthy and supported communities), placemaking (Sustainable homes and vibrant places ) and sustainability (Being green too our core) as the main areas of focus.

Councillor Stobart stated that he would like to suggest several goals:

• Restart a consultation that was underway in early 2024 and to get a result
• Do initial planning for a meeting with the Arts Council
• Define a benchmark exercise involving a range of Councils
• Initiate a process to draft a policy paper for discussion at Full Council

Councillor Stobart stated that this will require officer time, and it may be best to define the available time (half time for one month for example) and then plan a work programme to suit.

Councillor Stobart noted that the main sources of evidence would be:

• Our existing arts and culture activities requires taking a global view of the Council's activities and - perhaps best done in a member workshop
• The 2024 consultation input what did Members think?
• A brief review of the work of other Councils and our historical experience in Cambridgeshire