Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Monday, 29th January 2024 at 6:30pm

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Seat 3
Slide 1

1 Apologies for Absence

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1 Apologies for Absence

2 Declarations of Interest and Party Whip

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2 Declarations of Interest & Party Whip

3 Notification of Persons Registered to Speak

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3 Notification of Persons Registered to Speak

4 Minutes of the meeting dated 27 November 2023

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Minutes , 27/11/2023 Overview and Scrutiny Committee

5 Items Called- In

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5 Items Called-In

6 Presentation from the Leader of the Council

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7 Governance Review

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8 Work Programme

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Work Programme January 2024

9 Urgent Business

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10 Urgent Business

10 Date of the next meeting

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11 Date of the Next Meeting

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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Seat 3 - 0:00:00

the webcast, the webcasting started chap so will will far away.

good evening, welcome to this meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Monday, the 29th of January 2024.

from Councillor dwellings, and I am the Chairman of this committee, before we start, please give you a full attention to the following announcements from the Clock. Caroline, thank you good evening everybody. In the event of the fire alarm ringing continuously, he must immediately back the building at walking pace officers will escort you via the most direct available route, and no one is to use the lift. We will make our way to the fire assembly point by the interest to the Town Hall Yard car park, on once and way, once outside a check will be made to ensure everyone has safely left and no one is to re-enter the building until advised. It is safe to do so. This is a public meeting and proceedings are being webcast live online.

the recording will also be available for playback on the Council's website shortly afterwards, any other third party may also record or film meetings and unless exempt or confidential information is being considered but are requested as occur to see to others to give notice of this to the clock, the council is not liable for any third party recordings.

can I remind everyone to use microphones when speaking and turn them off when you're not the red light indicates that the microphone is on any comments that are not recorded for the webcast may not be included in the minutes of the meeting.

it is very important that the outcomes of the meeting of clear at the end of each substantive item, the Chairman will ask whether the matter is agreed in the absence of a clear majority of the Chairman decides a full, virtuous desirable, a vote will be taken by a show of hands Members requesting a recorded vote must do so before the vote is taken. Thank you Chair.

thank you, Caroline, for the record, we're going to take a roll call, the clock will call your name and if you're at present, please introduce yourself.

thank you Councillor blend present, thank you Councillor Carey present, thank you Councillor Fitzsimons present thank you, Councillor Hayward present, thank you Councillor Page present, thank you Councillor Lewis present, thank you Councillor Palmer present, thank you Councillor Pope.

Britain, thank you, Councillor Knight present, thank you, Councillor dwellings present, thank you officers here this evening, Claudette Balmond present, thank you, Ian Hurst present, thank you, and instead of it.

present. Thank you, Councillor Ben Shepherd present, thank you, thank you Chair, thank you for the benefit of anyone who may be unfamiliar with our meetings, I would like to explain that committee meetings COO Committee members have had their agendas for over a week and have had the opportunity to ask questions of officers ahead of the meeting.

we have two substantive items on the agenda this evening, both in the form of presentation and I like to welcome the Leader of the Council Ben Shapiro yard, to the meeting.

he is joined by Ian Hurst, who is the head of digital and communications.

they will be giving a presentation on the Tunbridge Wells Borough Council strategic plan.

the second presentation will be given by Andy Stewart event, head of governance and Democratic Services, our community, to this meeting, Andy after each presentation we will move into Member discussion and I will first ask for questions before opening the floor for debate at the end of the debate we will formulate a resolution.

members should ensure that any proposals or actions are correctly captured.

1 Apologies for Absence

so we move on to the agenda agenda item 1 is to note any apologies for absence from members of the Committee, Caroline, do we have any apologies for absence, we've received one apology this evening from Councillor Morton, thank you, Caroline.

2 Declarations of Interest and Party Whip

agenda item 2 is to receive any declarations of interest in items or party whip on the agenda does anyone have any such declarations to make?

I see none.

3 Notification of Persons Registered to Speak

agenda item 3 is to note any non-committee members who have registered to speak, I don't think we have any registered speakers doing thank you now.

agenda item 4 is to approve the minutes of the meeting held on the 27th of November 2023.

4 Minutes of the meeting dated 27 November 2023

this is for accuracy, checking only no issues have been brought to my attention in advance of this meeting, but are there any amendments to these minutes?

5 Items Called- In

the motion is to agree the minutes are we agreed agreed, thank you agenda item 5 is to consider any items called in under over any overview and scrutiny procedure when 13, but I can confirm there are no such items for this meeting.

6 Presentation from the Leader of the Council

so that moves us on to generate him, 6 wishes to receive a presentation from Councillor Brent Chappel yard.

I will first give a presentation that's Ben and Ian.

after which we will move to a member discussion and questions, thank you Ben Ian.

thank you Chair, currently Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has a building a better Borough Plan, which is the draft corporate plan for 2022 to 2024, it's very much an interim plan which is currently being delivered, and at the moment we are putting together our strategic plan for 2024 onwards.

the ambition of the plan is to make Tunbridge Wells Borough a place where all generations can live healthy and fulfilling lives in vibrant and connected communities.

I believe that Tunbridge Wells Borough Council as a force for good.

and we can have a very positive impact on residents, on businesses and visitors in our borough, and now I want us to to do more for for for the borough.

the process that we've gone through to to the strategic plan to what's in your documents is, if you remember, we had the Council of convention last summer with Parish Town Councillors Borough Councils and Kent County Councillors we then follow that up with a borough wide survey which had 1,500 responses and then we held a feedback session at the Amelia Scott, we also asked all 48 borough councillors for specific projects to their ward and we got 54 back for those and then Cabinet added or added an extra 50 projects what you've got in front of you is very much a a skeleton, if you like, of the of the PR what the plan will look like so

on on your agenda papers, you've got the five priorities.

climate action, our environment, sustainable growth, vibrant economy, community wellbeing, and if I take the climate action page with Duncan, doing a presentation at a local primary school and the priorities listed, we then got what we want to achieve within that priority which is in there the big font and then underneath it you'll find a very brief rationale as to why we think that priorities important and then on the other page to that on the far right you've then got the strands, which is how are we going to deliver that priority?

OK and you'll have noticed that there is two things which are missing, one is the specific projects within those strands, and the other thing we want to add in a later version in the final version is five things that residents can do on a day-to-day basis to help us achieve those ambitions that ambition and the 5 priorities, so the idea is that we are going to go out to public consultation.

next week, hopefully, and we will ask residents if they feel that we have got the five priorities for the borough right.

if we've got the bottom priorities right, that's good news, then what we will do is then we'll start looking at projects that have been submitted to see how we can achieve our ambition, if we haven't, then we've got problem and will have to go back to the drawing board but I think from the feedback and it's been an interactive process with residents fingers crossed we've got the right priorities.

the idea is that, once that has happened after the May elections, with a new intake of Councillors, we can go back over those projects and choose those projects we want to deliver.

to achieve our ambition.

so what you've got at the moment is very much a skeleton, and then the detail will come afterwards, Ian and I have actually read over 100 corporate plans from councils up and down the country of whichever political colour some are good, some are brilliant, some are really not very user friendly and we've spent a lot of time trying to distil it into a document that is resident friendly, focused on residents, so they understand it. Taking out the local government jargon

there will be a lot more infographics to go in to explain the statistics that underline now our priorities as well, so it's very much work in progress, first stages, consulting on the priorities and making sure we've got got those right before doing further work, so that's my introduction in do you want to add anything all saunter onto that? Thank you, Councillor yeah. So my role in the creation of the strategic plan is to provide officer support. I think the strategic plan is largely

a document put together by the Leader of the Council and is an expression of their views on on the priority and the direction that the Council should be taking.

my role has been to gather together that evidence base, so we ran the residents' survey last year, we organised a councillor convention and we gathered the responses from all of the councillors for priorities in their particular areas, page 19 of your pack shows us the stages of the process that we're going through at the moment.

we'd done that evidence gathering and all of that information was pulled together and presented to Cabinet or an away day and last year, and from that, with the the the main priorities, are five priorities they were synthesized out of that by looking at all of that different information brought together.

we're now at the stage of consulting on a first draft, so as Councillor Sheppard said, we have got the ambition, we have got the priorities and we've got the different strands or deliverables and the aim of this first phase of consultation which will begin on Friday of this week and run for six weeks, the aim of that is to make sure that the general direction of travel is correct is is is on the right lines and we will be asking residents what they think of the priorities we'll be asking them what they think of the deliverables within the plan and,

we will then take that feedback along with any other feedback we receive internally as well, we'll use it to amend the strategic plan after the all-out elections in May and we will come up with a new draft and what we will add to that draft are the actual activities projects, actions that will be resourced by the council to deliver the ambitions and the priorities within the strategic plan when we've got that we will go out to a further stage of public consultation for at least another six weeks and that'll be during the summer.

and once we have received the feedback from that stage of consultation, we will make any further amendments as necessary and then it will come before Full Council for approval in September of this year, and at that point we should then have a strategic plan for the next five years with the aim being to review it annually and update the projects that are being delivered as part of the plan.

so yeah, thank you.

thank you, thank you Ben questions for Ben and Ian Eleanor.

thank you very much, Joan, thank you for the presentation.

could you just say a bit more about the consultation about what form it will take and what we might be doing to reach?

more hard to reach residents, the don't know that they wanted to shape the Council's future, but but that should be doing so anyway, thank you.

thank you, Councillor.

so the consultation will be run through talking point, which is our online consultation portal, we will be advertising the consultation through social media. We will be advertising it in our weekly newsletter to residents and principally we will be receiving the consultation responses in an online format. It will be available for people to if they want it. We will provide them with a printed copy of the consultation and they can write in their responses to us if they can't go online in terms of reaching out to hard to reach groups. I think if I'm honest as a council we don't have a lot of

intelligence about those hard to reach groups and how to contact them, we have a research and insight officer in post, and she is doing work like putting together a young people's forum, and that is something that they're working with at the moment when consulting on the town centre area action plan and trying to reach out to young people through that, I think when it comes to the second round of consultation over the summer.

I think we will be putting in more effort at that stage to identify those hard to reach groups based upon the information that we get from this first round of consultation and, as part of that, will be collecting information about demographics, age, ethnicity, et cetera, and we can then compare that to our census data.

and where we've got gaps and we can put together a plan to address those.

and just to add, Alan Lee and particularly keen that we get into schools and talk to young people.

with whichever consultation we do, it's a certain demographic, the reply and get involved, and the 14 to 18 was 14 to 24 year olds are pretty low in their responses. I appreciate they might have other things to worry about than a strategic plan for a council, but I'm keen to get out in the summer and talk to schools talk to parents at those primary schools at those secondary schools and press and press them into taking part.

carry on all as well.

I think we should be making an effort towards elderly or elderly people shootings and people with disabilities as well, to make sure that we cover all or basis to be honest and roadshows would be good so that we can take it out to the to the borough and not just the town of Tunbridge Wells, I know we could do things in the Amelia scope but there's a network of libraries that we all want to need in Tunbridge Wells so that we could use for instance, and places like the South Pacific Centre thank you.

yes, and I think from the previous consultations we've done with a Borough wide consultation, I think working with parish councils is something that we can improve, so some events were well attended at certain parishes, some were less well attended than the borough wide survey in some parishes, some keen for us to learn that and make sure we we maximise the attendance to those.

roadshows in person whenever we do it in the summer.

thank you, David.

thank you Chair, thank you very much for that presentation, I'd just like to say that.

you know you, you said that you have looked at other corporate plans and lots of them, and I wholeheartedly agree with that approach, I think that's commendable that you've done that work and I thank you for that.

obviously this leads me, Ian has demonstrated that that he's a sort of facilitator in this, I'm sure I've got that right.

so I mean the two of you, I can see you going through all these plans and everything has there been a lot of officer input, or is this is driven solely by you, with facilitation from Ian.

thank you, I think.

this is probably the most important wallet, in my mind, it's the most important document that the Council produces no fence to the Finance Team or the medium term financial strategy, because for me this is about.

the public service being a force for good in people's lives, and I, I really believe in that.

and I spent a lot of time thinking who is my audience, who is my audience in this, it's not an internal documents, so if you've seen the people strategy.

the bits and the people strategy that have previously been in the Corporate Plan.

not relevant to to residents. We've put in the people Strategy deliberately, I have literally, I think, it's fair to say, and I've literally put red pen through drafts and said you know my introduction, which is literally there, is designed to be read in 30 seconds because I don't believe anybody would want to read the the introduction. I've seen corporate plans with introductions, which are three pages long or thick texts, and nobody is ever going to read it. It looks good gathering dust on a shelf, but I want this to be our marching orders

for the next X years, as a council.

so I think we've done it, and we also.

as Cabinet, we sat down and we looked at it, and we did Post-it notes and looking at what we picked out from the feedback and then we asked the officers to do it and actually what was really interesting is the the officers, the senior officers and Cabinet were very much a line that came up separately with the same kind of priorities from the same bits of information. So whilst I think of Libya, it's been great working with them and we've gone back and we've refined it, and we've I think we've tried really hard and trying to make this document relevant to residents

and I'm not saying it's perfect, I mean there are certain things I think will will change in the final version, but I really want it to be relevant to residents rather than a corporate plan that nobody is ever going to read.

yes, I thank you, Councillor, just just to add to that I think.

this document it does come from Councillor Chapman, it does come from the cabinet,

I think my role in it has been to offer a critical view on it, so maybe challenged some of the wording.

but in essence, all of the texts that you see in the document there, it is from Councillor Chappell on members of cabinet.

Nick

thank you Chair and I am just interested to know how how the final document is, you think that's going to be compared with this document, that's going out to consultation because it, as you are as you're saying it, it needs to be easy to to read and not too heavy but there again I presume it is you're expecting to have more detail in there but not an excessive amount.

thank you.

as I said in the introduction, I want this Council to be unashamedly ambitious for the borough, so my personal view is I would rather we had more projects in the document than we believe we can currently deliver, because I would rather we didn't limit our thinking and our ambition by practicalities of finance and capacity because both of those are in my mind are fluid, we don't know what's going to happen next.

we don't know what local government is going to look like after the next selection.

so I would rather we aims for the stars and got part the way there than say or here's a beautiful document, and we have 20 projects, and we've delivered all 20 and thinking actually we were much more ambitious as a starting point, so what I would like to do at the end is have very clear list of projects in that document that we can be judged.

upon, but we're also with a caveat that we might not be able to deliver those so one of the things that that's not in here at the moment is we've got three strands for projects. The first one is the ones that we can do ourselves so that we are a sovereign body that can do it without any requirement to work with anybody else. The second one is the ones where we have to work in partnership with other people so

highways Kent County Council, for example, and the other ones would be a set of projects that, as an organisation.

we would want other people to deliver

but we were there, we would be in the background, supporting them and using our influence and our political capital to help them delivering, so if I give you an example, some, I think for me asking councillors to do the ward, specific projects, as you know, has brought in sharp focus some things I'd never thought of that about because it's not in my my immediate ward.

so, for example, one of the councillors said, Why don't we close Commercial Road and Paddock Wood?

one afternoon a week okay and then we can allow all the cafes and the terraces to come out into the street, that's a brilliant idea, but I would have never had that, but we don't need to do that as a Borough Council Paddock Wood Town Council can apply for the road closure permit but I would hope that the council will be supportive as part of its

vibrant economy to encourage it, so there's those three strands as well will be in that document.

in Juno add anything to that.

nothing particularly to add just the extra detail, and it will be the information about the projects and activities that will be resourced by the council to deliver the ambitions within the plan, so it will it will expand, it will get more detail in,

David

thank you Chair, yes, thank you, Ben and Ian, that's an excellent documentation is very interesting to read it or, although I would say a couple of points.

first point being, it does worry me slightly when I hear the Leader of the Council are saying that our finances are the second most important document. I quite agree with you about having our eyes on the stars completely, but can I just say we must keep our feet on the ground. I think that's really really important, so let's mustn't get carried away because at the end of the day, we are going to be constrained, whether we like it or know what finance is available locally and nationally. Obviously, so that's just the first point. Second point on your dear neighbours. Section venue referenced corporate plan. I think you should lose. That is strategically, and I think we need to get our terminology just right. You just made reference near your picture, the corporate plan. I think that was switched people off some fairly quickly, so strategic band, I think people will get corporate plan, will probably send them to sleep by now. It's only a draft, but I just thought I'd mentioned that

at the last thing really is the talking point, when is that actually going live for our residents to come, enthusiasm that will be live on Friday morning? So the the recommendation to consult on it was approved by Cabinet last Thursday we're going through the call-in period now and then so the expiry of that means that on Friday the when will that be the 2nd of February.

that will be when the consultation is open

David just to come back on the finances, I think what I mean by that we know, we're not gonna, go on a massive spending spree, because one of our administration's priorities safeguarding the finances, but I think I don't want us to be Rue, restrict our thinking and our ambition because of the current financial climate. At some point, the government is going to have to step in and sort out local government's finance on the long term because my fear

is essentially at the moment we are losing a lot of things up and down the country which make communities what they are, so it dates from the 18 35 municipal Act which is pre Victorian, where we seem to be taking back things that we've acquired for the last nearly 200 years and I think at some point people will say,

I want a leisure centre, I want sports pitches and all of those, so I don't want us as a Council to be inhibited by that ambition.

but I'm not, we're not going to go and spend what we can't afford, but I think the thinking for me is more important than thinking about the finances in same way that capacity you can bring officers in to deliver those priorities, you can move officers around those priorities as well, so let's be ambitious and we'll worry about the detail. It might be that we can't deliver it all of it, so one of the things we haven't put in there yet is the length the span of that plan. It could be. A full year plan could be a five-year plan could be a six year plan

you know if we have a general election in May,

you know, will know what the then new administration or assuming new, because there'll be a different set of people around the table, probably will do about local government, so I want to I don't want our thinking to be constrained. One of the things I hate as in my day job is constricting our thinking and not thinking Blue Sky might never achieve that, but we've got to be ambitious and and think about it. Banksman

before coming to LLPs, once I said a couple of points I want to throw in here.

because I followed this process, I was at the councillor convention and I followed it all the way through.

and I listened to the communities CAB last week, t t, to your presentation there.

I'm

I was critical of your interim building a better Borough Plan because it kicked off and saying this is the borough partnership plan and I'm absolutely convinced that a strategic plan has to be a Council Plan and not a political plan.

and I know what you've done in terms of assembling the comments and putting them under.

headings, I think, some of which overlap between them, which you've then called priorities, but my criticism of this plan.

it is partly the the stated ambition.

a place where all generations can live healthy and fulfilling lives in vibrant, connected communities, now I don't see that as the introduction to or a strategic plan, I see that as a rather nebulous ideas as to what you're trying to do and a strategic plan should be much much more specific.

and I'm also concerned that the plan does not actually identify what I think are the Council's priorities.

to my mind, and this, I think, came up through the budget through the budget.

consultation what the residents are concerned about the Council's delivering on its core priorities.

waste collection, recycling, planning, housing licensing, etc

and the operations that it runs like the Amelia Scott, the the skate, rink and other things, and the needs to deliver those as cost-effectively as possible.

the Council is now a big property owner.

Royal Victoria places fallen into the Council's lab and I think a key priority for the Council is to make that investment and other council owned properties work to improve the Council's financial position.

and for the wider benefit of the town and borough.

I still think there is a need to deliver community hubs, we've got still ongoing issues with the Cranbrook carbon, I think, the the T and T hub.

the local economy, I think it's really important the co-working plans for the town hall they were actually approved unanimously by the Full Council in December 2021.

and it's only now coming to fruition, I think that's too slow Kingstanding way.

a multimillion pound development to 2 to improve business and employment opportunities.

that was passed by the Planning Committee probably three years ago.

and I'm still not quite sure when that might go ahead, tourism we had the visit, can presentation members' briefing last week showing how important tourism is to the local local economy.

traffic congestion, I believe, is going to form much part of a wider green agenda for the town and borough.

I acknowledge that you say that it is gonna be true, you know things are going to be addressed in partnership with others who are clearly that's going to be addressed in partnership with the KCC, but I also think local schools as well I think that's absolutely daft in we're hearing now in Cranbrook, we're gonna have the bus pupils' as far as Maidstone and Ashford and Tunbridge Wells because they've closed a secondary school, I mean that is the most ridiculous thing that

that you, you close the secondary school, he started investing in schools in Tunbridge Wells and pilot wood and bus everyone to it, it's just not saying that we ought to be doing, I think safety in the towns is really important.

that's the towns and in the rural areas it probably hits on the roads as well, so those are what I would regard as the priorities for this Council, and I don't see these coming up through your strategic plan.

and so I just like to believe that with you.

I think when you put out a strategic banded consultation, you've got to actually show that you do recognise what the key priorities are, thank you.

thank you, if I can come back on that, you're absolutely right, Tom RVP, for example, will be featured in the Strategic Plan, probably under the the strand we will enhance the vitality of Royal Tunbridge Wells Town Centre.

there will be a specific line and target for Raw Victoria Place that will feature in that strand on on that document there in in the same way Kingstanding, I think there'll be a, we're gonna add another strand, which is to encourage new businesses to come and locate in the borough.

just so that members of the Committee clear the the Kingstanding application runs out in March 2024, we are talking to them behind the scenes to try and get things moving before it expires, but yes, it's been a long time in waiting, so all of those comments that you've mentions congestion.

I was setting up a meeting with Arriva bus services to try and talk to them about it will all feature within below this part of the plan so that you'll be able to reference it, our first step in the first consultation in the draft is to make sure that we've got the bits right and as part of the consultation is those both strands here we are asking residents to rank them in order of where they think.

they will deliver the biggest impact.

that's what we're trying to do, and then we will start populating those we're where we can have the greatest impact and in terms of council services, this plan is not the business as usual, I think we should take it as as granted that we want our bins collections at 99.5% or better, which is what it's currently at.

and all of those things, planning permissions granted in a timely manner, and all of that this is this plans about Tunbridge Wells Borough Council being the force for good, I believe it can be and delivering added value to meet the ambition that set out on on that page there.

thank you, then my point was you've got to identify your priorities and I think your priorities are a little nebulous.

Alan

yeah, thank you very much, I noticed that in here at this stage, there aren't any indicators as to how we've succeeded. I need to talk about Blue Sky, which is fantastic, but in the words of Derek and Clive, in terms of the promised land, how do we know when we've got there?

sorry, Derek and Clive.

sorry, I don't know who they are, but sorry yeah, absolutely a nice Peter Cook and Dudley Moore second.

sorry, before my time, Councillor Lewis.

but.

you are absolutely right that will be the next phase after we've asked residents whether the skeleton is correct.

if the skeleton is wrong, then we'll have to go back to the drawing board, if it's right, then we will look at that and there are in those hundred corporate plans that Ian and I have looked at, there are ways of tracking outcomes, what the success criteria looks like so that will all come later, but I think,

we're going into all-out election for the first time in 20 odd years, we don't know what the political make-up of the Council is going to look like, so I think probably doing it in two phases of the right thing to do. I may not be here after May, if my voters do not want to re-elect me and you may decide that you want a different leader, so I think getting the skeleton is right. There will be a new intake of Councillors because lots of a number of our councillors are standing down. I think it's important that they have an input into it as well, which is why I know at the moment it feels a little bit tombs word nebulous, but there will be much more detail below beyond that afterwards once we finish it off and it goes to consultation over the summer, and I don't know if you want to answer any

I had.

no nothing to add on that, thank you, Councillor.

Brendan

thank you, I've got a few questions about the survey responses and how they fit in and what one coming to make about the document.

so the satisfaction approval, I won, I know you've read lots of documents that he said, did you benchmark that satisfaction approval?

figures against other borrowers that are statistically similar, and I wondered if he'd had time to incorporate.

information from the peer challenge exercise that you did.

thank you, Councillor, if I if I answered the question about the residents survey responses, the 1,500 responses we got, they weren't completely representative of the borrower's population and the demographics, so that's the first caveat we had around the resident survey responses but where we had questions in our survey that was comparable with the LGA's quarterly survey of residents, we make comparisons with those and when I did a Members briefing on the residents survey results, I drew out those comparisons between ourselves, temperatures Borough Council and then other local authorities and their performance on those under those different questions and the results we got for them.

thank you that the next little bit about the survey responses is why did roads parking via council tax parish precepts? Those things feature in the some of those things are not within our gift, for example, the precept or any of that is not within our gift, so will it with all of those strong responses from the public about those things because Rose came up top, I think roads and parking will that influenced public misunderstanding, saying that they actually came out in that survey that we live within our gift to do anything about any of those things.

so how did it end up coming out of the survey?

thank you.

I must admit, I'm not quite clear on the question, we did receive responses from residents about services that we don't provide as a local authority in the residents survey, we did our best to inform people about those things that were within our gift and the things that we can control.

but even so residents decided things like potholes in roads were a key part of dissatisfaction with services in their local area.

I think the information we take from that is can be fed back through the joint transportation board and other forums that we've got with stakeholders and partners.

and and we we can pass on information, for example.

her concerns about community safety, they can be passed back to the police as well, so I it is helpful for us to understand what residents feel about all public sector services in their local area, and then we can feed that back through the appropriate forums.

yeah

thank you, I don't want to take up too much time, but I've got a comment about the

that brochure you've got the floor and bow diameter answer the corporate pay challenge question, so just go expanding on what Ian has said in staffing, because we've got these three strands of work, what we can do on our own, what we can do in partnership and what we can support in the background, the the boroughs survey has shown what people are happy with and unhappy with whether we can do it or whether the

or whether we can't so, there is a very clear criticism of one of the emergency services in the borough survey compared to another emergency service which is glowing and that we have passed that on to the relevant people, so that they are aware that our residents are not happy and that's our job to advocate on behalf of residents in terms of the the corporate peer challenge which took place.

two weeks ago, one of the reasons why we we brought it forward to January, rather than after the May elections, was so that it can tie into the corporate plan, so we haven't had the the full report yet, but one of the things it does say in here that,

I think it was summed up in in in quote, which is we need to focus more on understanding the value of things, not just the cost, and this is what I talk about the force for good and delivering social value.

so these are part of the things that will lead into the CA, the strategic plan, but it's it's triangulating residents, councillors, what our independent corporate peer challenge has shown us as well, so that we have the best strategic plan which will not be called a strategic plan when it when it gets to the end product there'll be something else.

yeah thanks Ben the the little comment I wanted to make about the brochure itself, especially considering what you said about.

dreaming big in way, and that is on climate action.

I mean, I found it, I don't know how to say this without being a bit.

without being a little bit blunt, but my feeling is that the these sentences like

we will look to reduce, we will look at ways, we will explore options, I think those are mealy mouthed and I think they need to be stronger targets.

so thank you, I think that's fair comment and it I suppose there's a reality that David's spoke about, about finances and and capacity that we've got at the Council, that there's stuff in there that will not be able to do within the next five years but in year 6 and 10 said that we might be able to so there will be different phases of it, but there will be some specific things that we can do within within the timeframe, but I accept your point.

and this to add to Brendan's point, I think that's what makes it not look strategic.

which was the point I was making.

David,

sorry, yes, I thank you, Chair yeah, just very briefly, I'm discussing Islamic probably slightly controversial unusual for me, I'm just reading in the House of Commons Library at the moment, and obviously the Government's plans as it 0 now, 2050 in eight weeks appear to be stating in this document 2030, so I've had a couple of e-mails from residents concerned that green issues might result in job losses and the wrong focus. So I just think actually we should be aligned with what the government is saying is 2050, not 2030. In my humble opinion,

while our focus, our motion from the Council was that it should be 2030 that was passed a few years ago, but Ben in would you say to David?

so the borough partnerships in administration as re committed to 2030 for the Council, we think the borough target of 2030 to be carbon neutral is probably too challenging, because that requires government, and we know that.

there's a bit of a culture war going up in government at the moment about climate change, so I think that's going to be more challenging, we're clear that, as a Council, we produce at 1%, less than 1% of the borrower's total emissions as a Council, but if we want residents to change then we have to lead by example, which is why Cabinet of re committed to that 2030 target and, interestingly, in the

budget survey that was done over Christmas for the budget that goes to full Council in in February, residents have said we should be spending more money on climate change, but currently there is no budget allocated specifically to climate change, but if you look at the survey results they want something like 3 pounds 50 going into climate change, I think residents do want that.

and we've got a role to role to play with it in terms of job losses at the Council, I'm not sure that there would be job losses if we went to 2030.

commitment and I, I think you know, green jobs, are around the corner as people change.

thank you Ben so I just equipment shows, but in that case with Councillor Les Page, I think we should have more details on the specific targets, then I would agree then, because if we are saying that I think paper because say how we can do it and I think we should have some clearer bullet points and clearer actual ways of achieving it, thank you, thank you. That will definitely be in or after the consultation it will be very clearly laid out.

thank you just think, going back to that that cream in the carbon and the net-zero by in 2030 we had a presentation last year by cabinet member, it was.

Luke who is involved in this sort of overall control, and the graph he showed us that, on which way to point at it was a slow decline in in emissions up until about now, 2025 might be, and then everything else had to be done through carbon offsetting by buying carbon credits and I think that's quite disingenuous actually of us to say Well we'll reach that 0 but it's bad plotting planting trees or buying credits from somewhere else.

do you want to apply, but not, I think, I think, the phrase greenwashing where we're trying desperately not to greenwash, so we have to look at how sports centres we've got some decarbonisation going there at the Weald and North Farm?

the crematorium that's 8%, if I remember correctly from our deep think last week and we're also doing from April, we're doing a an HBO fuel trial so HBO reduces CO2 emissions by 90% on our bin collection collections so we're going to trawl that for about 30,000 pounds worth of HBO and see whether that will reduce our emissions and that's real that's not greenwashing that's that's but that costs so you know that's.

so to do to run our bin services on 100% HBO.

is probably 130,000 pounds a year extra because it's more expensive than diesel, but then we're cutting emissions by our total emissions by about 27%, and just to let members know that in July you may remember that we did the re rounding of the bins.

so we think approximately at the moment that has reduced our carbon emissions by about 6% of the total mileage Albin lorries.

running across the Borough, but we haven't got that figure, so we we are trying if if we had 100 million pounds in the bank we we'd be we'd be laughing but yeah, I take your point.

Alan

thank you very much on that point, then is it not our duty as well to encourage and?

especially when you talk about schools as well, innovation in this as well, because there will be ideas that will come up, that we should be exploring and we know it does say about exploring options, but we should be exploring innovation as well with it within the borough as well.

absolutely, and the cabinet member for sustainability and carbon reduction is looking at solar panels on on our car parks as part of trying to switch to to green energy.

are there any other points that Members would like to make, or are we happy that Ian and Ben, from what we've had to say and?

we will consider our responses along with everything else that comes up through through the consultation process, which is already picked off as far as I can see.

OK.

thank you, thank you both for him, thank you, thank you.

7 Governance Review

so agenda item 7 is to receive a presentation from Andy Stewart event on the

the governance review.

Andy I see your your name places being put in there.

and when you're ready his.

thank you Chair, I think Brexit is gonna give a very quick introduction before I've introduced the report.

thank you Chair.

as as you know from the

we're going to all out elections in May based on new ward boundaries.

dictated by the Boundary Commission for England, so we've taken the opportunity we reduce, from 48 councillors to 39, to look at our internal governance arrangements and try and and sleep and streamline them look at the various responsibilities, the memberships and the way we operate.

but I'm going to pass on to Andy just to explain that into more detail and we're happy to take questions afterwards.

thank you again so. Following the review and final recommendations of the Local government Boundary Commission for England and the subsequent Tunbridge Wells, electoral changes order in May this year, the number of wards in the Borough of Tunbridge Wells will reduce from 20 to 14 and the number of councillors from 48 to 39, which is a 19% reduction in the number of councillors. In response to the final recommendations of the Local government Boundary Commission, the governance review committee, a cross-party group was formed in June 2023 and tasked with identifying options for a new committee structure and bringing forward a set of recommendations. The report before you sets out the recommendations of the governance review committee in creating the recommendations made within the report. The governance review committee carried out several research activities between July and December last year, which helped to inform that process. The research carried out included identifying the Aziz committee structure, which can be found at Appendix B of the report carrying out a councillor survey in August last year. A summary of the responses to which can be found at Appendix D of the report.

carry out workshop or meeting sessions with officers to gather their feedback.

and looking at the governance arrangements of other local local authorities, with similar set-ups to the Council, the results of which can be found at Appendix E of the report.

the information gathered as part of the research activities was used to develop the recommendations and rationale for each the report before you recommends that the Council's Constitution be updated to change the maximum size of the cabinet from 10 to eight.

the general purposes committee should be disbanded.

but the number of cabinet advisory boards should be reduced from three to two and that these meetings should be chaired by non Cabinet Member.

that substitute members should be appointed to the Licensing, overview and scrutiny and planning committees.

the requirements have an equal number of Councillors from the east and west of the borough and the Planning Committee be removed.

and that the number of seats and quorum number for some committees be amended as set out at paragraph 4.3 4 of the report, the report also s also sets out information about online meetings and a recommendation at paragraph 4.4 3, that Cabinet Advisory meet at Cabinet Advisory Board meetings should not be held online.

however, following further discussions, this recommendation will be changed to propose that Cabinet Advisory Board meetings can be held online and the decision to hold a Cabinet Advisory Board meeting online would be made on a meeting by meeting basis and by the Chairman, following advice taken from officers, paragraph 4.4 3 of the report will be amended to reflect this change before inclusion in the report pack for full Council on Wednesday, the 28th of February. It's important to note that, because of the recommendations within the report, there will be changes required to the Council's Constitution. A separate piece of work will be undertaken by the monitoring officer to identify those changes which will then follow the normal decision-making process for changes to the Constitution. That being the constitution, review, working party audit and governance committee and then to Full Council on Wednesday, the 3rd of April

thank you and happy to take any questions that you might have.

question David Hayward, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, obviously I've had the report a long time, I've been right through it and you will have noticed, I haven't contacted you and ask you any questions so well done my points I'm making are, are our views from the report, not questions of the report, if that's OK, Mr. Chairman,

thank you, one of the things that really concerns me in particular is the mix in planning.

now the bulk of the council seats are in.

and in urban areas and

and I don't wish to be contentious, but it's those Members who are in the rural areas who understand best some of the issues that occur, and I've gotta be careful what I say here, I think we all know where I'm going with this.

the impact of certain planning considerations is is more felt in the urban areas in the rural areas than in the urban area, so I'm concerned or at the my point is this is that yeah yeah, I've gotta be so careful what I say.

is that I'm really against this notion that we see that the public seem the perception from the public is that the planning committee is effectively a rubber stamp for compliance.

and and that's not what it should be and I believe that if we don't have rural members on the planning committee, it will go more, that way, the rural members understand rural issues better, thank you.

thank you, Godfrey's Chairman of the Planning Committee, do you want to come in on that one?

I entirely agree with what Councillor Haywards just said, I think it would be a very bad step to remove that.

east-west quieter.

the reality is that the

the east of the borough has got all the national landscape and all the acreage of which may be building and

I greatly fear that.

but countryside, you'll feel itself bullied by the targets if you will pardon the expression.

and that the

qualitative that decisions will be questioned.

and resentment will build.

I think it is a very bad move.

I get the gone alive in thinking that either.

Beverley wants to come in, yes, I completely agree with Councillor Bond and Councillor Hayward.

it is completely the wrong move just to leave it up to Group leaders to be mindful, I'm sorry, it's not good enough, no way is it good enough, we've got Kate is more of a balance to ensure that the eastern area is represented, that was the whole idea when the when we had three planning committees because you don't have eastern areas in our western line which was the urban area that was scrapped.

wrongly, in my view, but it was scrapped.

and now we have the situation where you are, where you are trying to then downgrade that even more, and that's not right, I'm sorry, you should keep the split and the even split where possible, I appreciate that it can be difficult but MA my fellow Councillors here are correct.

we really are going to bear the brunt out in the rural areas of this and we've got to ensure that we represent them properly and fairly.

thank you.

Brendan you wanted to come in.

thank you, you are building on from these comments about planning committee, it seems to me that in 4.3 3 were Cora are listed and I've personally always felt that the core of very low for a council, with the Planning Committee in particularly in particular, has gone down.

one member and the others of all stayed the same or gone up, so I just feel that the value of the Planning Committee a little bit, that's all.

Wendy

thank you Chair the Planning Committee.

bothers me in a couple of ways I I do understand what you're saying about the rural.

rural applications.

but I would say I do think I don't think we've made a bad rural decision thus far.

well, I think we've made it within the powers that we have and the PR and the rules that we are expected to abide by.

but what does bother me as well is the use of alternates for the Planning Committee.

I think it's I mean I've been on it three years now and I think I'm just getting to grips with it and I think people who just come in in the first year, I think they find it a lot, a lot harder committee to sit on and be effective on.

the news who've got experience, and now there are those on the committee who've got vast experience which is incredibly useful and I just think the youthful turn-ups on the planning committee, I know, obviously the officers think that's fine, but I'd I'd I would question it myself.

we are, of course, considering governance arrangements, not reviewing planning decisions, but

yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just saying that I ducked anything, I know I don't really I say, but you also say that they will be made any mistakes on planning decisions in the rural areas, and that is not what we're reviewing we're looking at appropriate governance arrangements.

I'll pass back to Andy.

I would note that I've been trying to fill positions on planning committees or as a group leader for for three years to make sure that I had enough from the rural areas and I failed because I couldn't find anyone to serve on the on the planning committee so there are some real practical issues but,

Andy tell us what the you know the the conclusions that you were coming to.

just to just to put it in context, when I first became a Councillor in 2010, there were two Planning Committees and East and West, and what has happened under these current and the current arrangements they've been merged together as one committee, with the stipulation that it should be.

balanced between east and west, I think, given the current make-up of the Council.

currently, I think the largest party have gotten most of their councillors, are in urban wards and we've got to fill so many seats on the Planning Committee, it's very hard to have that east-west balance and be politically balanced, based on the seats are allocated to that committee, so I think the governance

group kind of felt that actually that is almost impossible to guarantee, because my group does not have the seats in the East currently to be able to balance east-west, whereas probably terms group at the moment probably doesn't west east either, so we felt that trying to keep it mindful of both rural and urban as group leaders would probably goes to some way to try and keep the east-west balance in in being,

in trying to balance that, but it is difficult.

Andy I don't know if you want to come on Mort

I don't think anything further to say on that Ben the core and figure on the planning committee.

is based on the new number of seats on that committee, not the existing number of seats, so the number of seats on the Planning Committee reduces down, so in effect the core and figure comes down as well, to be a third of that, which is where that figures come from.

David, he will say yes, thank you, Chair. Yes, I would like to fully support what Councillor Hayward a blend of power, which just said as the catwalk sensitive egotist and Lamar has we've had some strange decisions, we have failed to be strange locally, so I'm very welcome and very concerned about that and Ben. I think it is an issue whereby it's it's trouble, because the party political split and the appropriate number that should be across committees, perhaps planning, should have nothing to do with party, then it's quite simple, just change. The governance planning should not be anything to do with party politics. I'm independent and local with the Alliance, as you know, completely focused on independent local decisions. That is what planning should be. It should have nothing to do with the national party political system, thank you, Chairman.

I couldn't agree more, my understanding is there is there are no labels in on the planning committee in the same way there's no plant labels on on licensing, but the constitution at the moment requires it to be balanced by political party based on seats at full Council and that's where my group all councillors bar to work full time so trying to get them to sit on planning is already a challenge because of the site visits.

where, whereas 10 15 years ago, most Councillors were retired, so it was easy to fill the vacancies on on those planning committees, so something I think we can take away, I'm not sure we have the answer yet if, if the Overview and Scrutiny Phil,

I'm happy with that chair, sorry, yeah, thank you been for that, I was not referring to decisions being made at Planning Committee on a party political basis, I was talking about the point you made about having trouble filling the seats because of the split of the parties. That's what I'm referring to, so whoever wants whoever is most experienced in planning or wants to do the job, no matter what party they and I don't think the planning committee should be restricted by a party, that's simply my point. If a constant situation needs to be changed, will he change it?

Nick do you want to come in on this an ironic point?

the plan planning was, I think, this east-west balance, it's made more complex because of trying to balance it within parties and I think maybe into constitution, perhaps somehow it needs to be the leaders of the groups, maybe you get a pool of people from each party and try and then select to balance it that way because I think I think that balance is required.

but it's not, it's not an easy one to resolve, because it's a real problem right now.

so I think it's it's putting pressure on the leaders of the groups.

to assign people and then to actually make a selection that makes sure there is a balance, because I do think if, if you've got one side of the borough that has nobody sitting on planning, that's the problem,

David, I will, but can I just feed in at some stage we want to talk about substitutes and you need to pick out the Wendy Fitzsimons point. David, thank you. I was actually going to move the job on there and and actually just endorse exactly what the others have said here, that because it is a rules-based situation that there is no political issue at all and I would go further and say that people with experience should be for the first people to be looked at, so whether it's a rural or urban person, if they're experienced on planning that's much better than somebody without any experience who's coming new to it, no matter where they're from, and that's another matter yet moving on, I take Wendy's points entirely agree absolutely that substitutes and planning is is is, frankly, untenable, because the whole point of planning is the experience that people gonna whilst on planning so to have somebody come in at the last minute to make up the numbers, I mean you're probably better off with one person missing, that's my view, and this brings me to my next point,

and I think Tom you'll remember years ago when we were both on the general purposes committee, God rested, so that we discussed exactly this, this issue of when the numbers came down, and I think Nick was there as well, where we realised that there was just too many positions to fill for the number of people and I think that this one on the point I am going to make here is about the in the report and you talk about attendance records.

now you, you've done a statistical analysis and I'm not sure whether those averages are weighted or not, but we've got, for example, two councillors, I won't name them but we all know who they are who have attendance records which are shocking and that makes it worse for all of us, so the numbers make it look a lot worse than it could possibly be so I would be cautious about.

those numbers, because a lot of us have got 100% records and it only takes two people with 33% to ruin the whole, bring down the whole house of cards, so I think the statistical analysis on that basis needs to be addressed, thank you.

yeah, I just want to endorse what Will David's just said it, because my point was gonna be that with nine fewer councillors as well, there are fewer committee places, but there is more work to go around anyway and we should be impressing on candidates and it was difficult to get candidates that we can have bigger wards.

and you're gonna be on a committee and you will be going to Committee, we don't want situations where I don't want to name names Tom, but you seem to be on every single committee in them in the borough.

and much that we love you to be on all the committees, it must be really straining on me and I don't think it's fair, I really don't think it's fair for that to happen and I think that everybody should give a proper crack of the whip and and,

and do their job properly, I don't want to name names, as this is David didn't either.

but we need to bear this in mind with 90 councillors, there's going to be more to do, thank you.

Nick thank you, I was just going to say something about substitutes.

I think the idea of substitutes is actually a good idea, I think one thing to be aware of is that substitute on licensing and planning have to be trained and just because they are a substitute doesn't mean they're inexperienced they might be experienced but as they are actually busy people and they said there'll be a substitute if required, so I think I think that's something that's important to taking into account the other thing is I think,

planning that the idea of using substitutes actually worked quite well, because at that point, if that planning application is a stand-alone, it's not ongoing business that goes from meeting to meeting you, you're making that one the one-off decision on each each application so that the there's not the continuity required that perhaps some other,

committees require.

included. Sorry, thank you say, Councillor openside just taken away from me what I was about to say, so there would be training for any substitutes. The intention is also that there will be some form of guidance and protocol put together and that will be worked up as well. So whilst I do appreciate that it may very well be that

if you had a situation where a planning application, something had to be adjourned, that could end up being a bit difficult, because obviously you want that continuity where those members who have attended at the first meeting are actually the same members, but I do believe that there is benefit to have substitute members on planning because there are struggles to get those to attend and the intention is that there will be a guidance put together.

that could be followed and there will be trained in well ahead, so once those who have been selected to be the substitutes, they will be trained justice, those who will be actually sitting on the Planning Committee as a general rule, so there is that in relation to the

the split

rural and urban, I obviously take the point that's been made that there are concerns, so the question I have for you as members is what is it that you are proposing, are you proposing an amendment to that, or are you proposing that we go back to the drawing board?

to see what could walk, thank you.

thanks committed Beverley want to say something yes a few years ago, I don't know if it would remain, but probably not many Ben might we did have substitutes for meetings and it didn't work very well because the solitary couldn't make it either.

so.

not sure how far we're gonna get the substitutes, we've been there done, that got the teacher who didn't work out well, so.

I think you need to be aware of the whole idea of substitutes to be quite frank, because it may or may not work with regards to the east west and split yes, I think we should have some kind of amendment, does a strengthen up,

what we're trying to say there about the planning committee OK, I appreciate that it is not always possible to get the absolute split there between east and west, but I think we just don't think we should be leaving it just to the group leaders to be modelled, for I think we just need to have some kind of words or something that strengthens it up a bit whether it is a requirement or an ambition to have equal members.

I will turn to Wendy, whilst Wimdu speaks, and perhaps you'd like to Johnson motored down as to the form of a motion that we could pass Wendy thank you Chair, what I would say is this, there's going to be 12 members is proposed at 112

members of the Planning Committee and for it to be quorate needs before I mean, since I've been on the planning committee, we've never ever been down near that number.

have we?

so I think actually we're just a belt and braces sort of thinking, I don't think.

it will actually ever come in into into reality because the eight members have got to to be unable to make a meeting and short of a pandemic.

well, I think the the information that the review group was given was that Democratic Services were having to work really hard to make sure there was a committee's work courage in the run-up to two meetings, because, of course, clearly in the presence of the public you don't want to have to abandon the meeting because you're not quarrying.

and I think the point about substitutes is.

that

the the current number of places on the Planning Committee is 14, its plan to go down to 12, but if we substitutes you had a core of 16 people say who were trained to be on planning and someone couldn't make it, it would make it much easier to ensure that the

the Committee meeting was called at and I think that is the that is the overriding objection not to dilute the expertise on the on on planning at all.

Beverley abuse jotted coming down that.

gathering up, I be on primary graded, either nine years.

the lowest I can or lowest turnout I can remember, and in fact the only single figure turnout I can remember.

was immediately after an election.

where there was quite a chart of members, but elegant praise, I think you'll agree.

and there was a problem in that there were lots of people going through training but not yet trained.

we only have rarely had seven.

at 10.00 days, it was core it, but.

uncomfortable, but the decision we made on allocation was not one which, with hindsight, I am totally happy.

the

the Planning Inspector corrected that error.

I think the idea of

of substitutes of old tablets.

is it is really not a good one?

the thing that builds up the expertise and the experience is continuous attendance and gaining the experience and listening to how other people.

come to make the decisions and given an alternate might attend only two meetings a year.

what's that alternative going to gain an experience from that not much, I think it's.

I think that the risk of GI of being non core, it is impact insignificant.

and I think the the alternate route, which is what that's designed to mitigate.

is?

it is a bad one, it's going to be bad for the quality of decision-making.

and the east-west, split gun-free, so an east-west split east east-west, as best we can

and.

but I booked the it if, if we have to rely on a

or all the decisions of the the Group leaders on who to place on the planning committee.

it needs to be really tough and taken really seriously that we get as near to a good east-west balance as we possibly can.

it it would be irresponsible to do otherwise, I'm trying to formulate a motion, so the the the the motion that your, I think, that we want to come up with and support until just to be fed back 0. I think it is that opposed with the alternatives, I think the sense I'm getting from

who, like this side of the table, both sides, in fact, is that the the east-west balance is more important than the political balance.

of all the Committees we have planning.

is that the least political?

although I cannot remember a single decision in which I thought afterwards, I

lab.

that was a bit of, so my I would recommend that we don't go for alternate.

that we go for a an east-west balance.

that we in present, if the choices between a good east-west balance and politics and political party affiliation, we go for the balance.

included, I was going to ask whether, given the importance of the two issues on the table at the minute, and there has been obviously the Committee set up, the governance review committee set up a panel set up to work through with Andy on this, it's obviously gone. There have been briefings, I just wondered whether

the best thing might be for it to be referred back, for there to be the relevant advice thought to ensure that the right decisions are being made, as opposed to trusts trying to deal with it on the hoof.

are we?

David, do you want to come in on that very point or wonder whether we can get agreement, if I may Chair I, I threw five words together that the planning committee should be populated with the primary aim of maintaining a rural urban balance before political balance.

and what we're asking is that the review group should reconsider in that in that light.

clearly, I would be happy with that, yeah.

members,

are we all agreed okay?

we've rather focused on planning, sorry Murray says that his series of recommendations that anyone would like to comment on Alan.

thank you to this is just one small point I mean.

I am

perfectly happy with the rest of it, but it did change the old thinking of changing the kora quorum for cabinet, and I just wonder if he says that the the the it says the quorum is three which must be that the Leader or Deputy Leader plus two,

is there a contingency if both the Leader and Deputy Leader are incapacitated?

because I think that does need to be considered, and so the Council business can continue, thank you.

Claudette, I think this would be no different to any other meeting of the Council where you come in and there is no Chair or Vice, for example, and then the first item on the agenda would be to appoint from those who are present.

but I say that the Constitution were written in such a way that it is not mandatory to have with the the Leader or the Deputy Leader there.

one would want that to be the case, I've not known a situation where both are not present at a particular meeting, but my view is if, at the end of the day there wasn't, it would be appointing somebody to chair that particular meeting, Amanda Allen?

thank you, and in that case does it need to be written in such a case, because if you have to think about it before the meeting as to what the monitoring officer said in overview and scrutiny on the 29th January 2024, thank you people on a chain of amendments yet of the Constitution his and we must obviously make sure that is taken on.

I was also actually going to say that the Constitution already has that burden to say that if there is no chair for a meeting, that is, that is the first item that will be dealt with at that particular meeting, thank you.

content, but I will ensure that it is sufficiently covered.

Brennan

and it is against it is about governance, but it may be because I don't understand.

is accounted for now going back unscrambled like a tree-hugging, vulgarity, hippydom, I'm a scientist, I do care.

there is a climate of Vogue advice, climate emergency advisory panel with four members, so there is there is some reflection of the importance of that, but there used to be one cabinet member who had climate change as the portfolio I believe, and it's now been disseminated across several portfolios and my concern is that there is,

and I know we've discussed that there is not one single driver across the Council working with those different portfolios, who will push the whole thing forward and is that is the focus of that attention at all.

think that's one for you Ben.

yes, it is, so if we go back to 2022.

cabinet Member responsible for carbon reduction was Luke.

and then what we did was Wendy then took over our parks and the leisure.

and then this year, in May 2023, we decided that Luke's portfolio was too big, so we decided to split.

carbon reduction, which was part of Luke's brief to to Jane and then the recycling waste services to Ellen so Jane is our lead on car carbon reduction and sustainability, so she has to work across all portfolios to make that happen.

was Allen's portfolio is really the the environmental services part of it running the day-to-day services, but they they worked together to to reduce carbon reduction, so Jane's Jane on the HBO trial, it was a joint decision by Ellen and Jane that they were gonna try do the HBO fuel trial on the bin lorries in April this coming April,

is that something that that's not enshrined in the governance structure anyway, is it's up to the Cabinet to do so?

so it's it's the leader's prerogative to split the portfolios, how he or she wishes it to happen, so under the current sorry under the proposals that and he's put in his paper, the cabinet advisory boards would be called temporarily current advisory 1 and 2 based on the leaders.

allocation of portfolios that Cabinet advisory boards would presumably track about half of the cabinet members.

and then be renamed every year based on what those what those areas they're looking at, so going back to substitute I personally was keen to have substitute members on the Cabinet advisory boards, I'm pleased to say that Tom

Nick and Hugo and Andy persuaded me that actually, given the cycle of work that the cabinet advisory boards do, it was probably best not to allow substitutes, so there can be a tracking across quarterly reports, whereas when you've got applications on single issues like planning and,

licensing you could then have substitute, so my thinking has changed as well on on that

I'm sorry, I just wanted to draw this to a conclusion we've identified some significant reservations on planning on the east-west split and indeed on.

substitutes not having the appropriate level of expertise, which I think is where where, where the reservations really focus.

and we would as a as a committee we would ask, this should be considered again by the review group before this matter is is, is is taken any further.

are we agreed on that?

OK, thank you very much, thank you, we will take that away and ask relevant officers to give us a steer on that, and we'll come back, we'll come back and make the necessary comments in the inf agenda papers to get Full Council on the 28th February.

thank you, and thank you Andy, I'm sorry, that's not the end of the line, thank you.

8 Work Programme

we move on to item 8 is the to consider the work programme and that set out in the in the main agenda pack.

now what's happened since the last meeting is that.

Mark Ellis has been appointed to the Cabinet and he was writing a report on the contracts task and finish group.

and he's got in touch with me that says it needs some more work done on it.

could he could he hand it on to me?

so I of course said, will, I suppose, suppose it's got to come to me to sort of deal with it, he sent me some papers.

and I'm not really quite sure what I want to do with it.

so I thought I would ask this committee whether anyone would like to come and help me look at the

the papers on the contracts task and finish group, and see what we should, what we should be recommending, and I'm not actually quite sure at this stage who was actually on it and Brent our on it, I'm very happy to ramp up the Kemp, can we can we work together and me to meet you and work up? Can we work together on things that have actually changed in the meantime, so we can just updated and then publish yeah, OK, thank you, Brendan

and the rest of the

Work programme, we got one response from Councillor Carey to to get involved with, just remind me what this was Caroline.

the survey questions yeah.

does anyone else want to get involved with that at this stage I, I will put myself forward for it, of course, thank you Alan, for pointing out that I do that.

so I am looking round, so Paul we'll we'll we'll talk about that, then OK.

so our next meeting.

we have the Community Safety Partnership annual report, now I was here last year for that, I wasn't I was on this committee when I was here for it.

and lots of people were asking the police officer questions and and I think it's a pretty meaty item, and I expect this year will be the same.

so I don't really want to shoehorn another cabinet member in to that meeting as well, unless anyone feels strongly about that, so Nick I, I think it's probably going to be a very meaty piece of discussion yeah sorry, I'm not sure we should try and squeeze something else thing that might have a lot of questions and discussions were echo echoing my thoughts entirely so we'll try and keep the next meeting to.

the Community Safety Partnership and are annual report on what we've been doing for the last year, which we love to see it have drafted sent round, and that'll need to go to Full Council at some stage so concentrate on those two items for our next meeting happy with that agreed. Thank you.

9 Urgent Business

10 Date of the next meeting

urgent business, I confirm there's none and our next meeting is Monday, the 25th of March, thank you everyone, thank you, Caroline, thank you.

Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Monday 29 January 2024, 6:30pm - Feedback Tab - Tunbridge Wells Borough Council Webcasting