Committee
Environment & Economy Overview & Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday 17 March 2026
17 Mar 2026
Fran Lister
School Transport Task and Finish Group – Environment and Economy Overview and Scrutiny Committee, 17 March 2026
Meeting Overview
Councillor Fran Lister attended the Environment and Economy Overview and Scrutiny Committee as Vice Chair of the School Transport Task and Finish Group, which met monthly from September 2025 to review the discretionary elements of Flintshire's school transport policy.
During the meeting, Cllr Lister made a strong case for the sale of vacant spare seats on school buses, drawing on casework from rural wards and her own experience as a working parent. She highlighted how the lack of independent school transport for secondary-age children in rural areas with no public bus services creates a significant barrier to parents being able to work. She argued that when spare capacity exists on school buses, the council should do everything it can to make those seats available, noting that this aligns with the council's wider efforts to support people into employment. She also acknowledged the current difficulties around PSVAR compliance and proposed that, as an interim measure, vacant seats be offered free of charge until bus operators achieve full compliance, at which point charges would resume.
The committee unanimously supported the task and finish group's recommendations going forward to cabinet for public consultation.
Highlights
Clip 1 – Officer Introduction to the School Transport Task and Finish Group
An officer introduces the background and recommendations of the School Transport Task and Finish Group to the committee. She explains that the group originated from a council notice of motion in December 2024 and an all-member workshop in April 2025, and was established to review the discretionary elements of Flintshire's school transport policy. The group, which included Cllr Fran Lister as Vice Chair, met monthly from September 2025, with members researching individual policy areas and bringing back proposals. The officer outlines the key recommendations covering exceptional hardship provisions, post-16 transport, vacant spare seats, faith school transport, and transport to the nearest appropriate school — all underpinned by legal advice. The committee is asked to support these recommendations going forward to cabinet for public consultation.
Transcript generated by AI from meeting audio. It may contain errors, omissions, or misattributions. Please treat it as a convenience copy and refer to the original recording for the authoritative record.
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| 00:00:00 | Moving on to agenda item six, recommendations from the school task and finish group, and my hand over to Kerry. Thank you chair, good morning members. So the report in front of you is the recommendations that have been made from the school transport task and finish group. So going back originally school transport was raised as a notice of motion to council in December 2024 and following that an all-member workshop was held in April 2025. During this workshop it was suggested |
| 00:00:38 | to members that a task and finish group be established to consider just the discretionary elements of the school transport policy and whether any of these should be amended. A report was then taken to both the education overview scrutiny committee and environment committee to seek support in setting up the task and finish group and following support to both of those committees, the task and finish group was set up with members who sit on both of those committees. It was also suggested that the member who had originally submitted |
| 00:01:15 | the notice of motion to council be invited to sit on the task and finish group as well. So just to clarify the task and finish group, the members who sat on that committee were councillor Andrew Parkhurst who chaired the meetings, councillor Fran Lister who was the vice chair, councillors Bill Crease, Jason Shellcross, Roy Wakelund, Carolyn Priest and councillor Alastair Ibbotson who submitted the original notice of motion. The task and finish group was also attended by both the cabinet member for education, Welsh language, |
| 00:01:49 | culture and leisure and the cabinet member for waste and transportation and a number of officers as well namely the chief officer for education youth and the chief officer street scene and transportation, the integrated transport manager, school manager planning and provision and transport manager. The first meeting of the task and finish group was held in September and the task and finish group has met monthly since September and it's been really good task and finish group with them splitting up the discretionary elements of |
| 00:02:22 | the task and finish group and members going away researching the discretionary elements and coming back with proposals on what changes they'd like to see based on the research that they've made. So like I said it was only the discretionary elements that the task and finish group have been asked to look at but they've also looked at vacant spare seats and transport to the nearest appropriate school which you will see in the recommendations attached at appendix one. So moving on to appendix one this lists all of the proposed recommendations |
| 00:02:58 | to those discretionary elements. You will see that there's no proposed changes to the Welsh medium school transport. There is a recommendation to change to the benefit entitlement exceptional hardship clause along with post 16 transport. Vacant spare seats there isn't a proposed change to this but the task and finish group felt that views on vacant spare seats for non eligible learners be included as part of the consultation process and to gain views on that when the report goes back to cabinet. The denominational faith school |
| 00:03:37 | transport and transport to the nearest appropriate school. I would add that with these discretionary elements as part of the work of the task and finish group legal advice has been sought on these recommended proposals. So these are based on legal advice from officers in the council. Just to clarify the proposal today is that the both members of the environment and education committee support that these proposals go forward to cabinet. This would then commence a public consultation on those changes with a final report following the |
| 00:04:18 | consultation then going to cabinet later in the year. Thank you chair. |
Clip 2 – Cllr Fran Lister's Contribution on Vacant Spare Seats
Cllr Lister makes a passionate case for making vacant spare seats available on school buses, drawing on casework from rural wards and her own experience as a working parent. She highlights that in rural areas with no public bus services, the inability of children to travel independently to their chosen school creates a real barrier to parents getting to work — undermining the council's wider efforts to support families into employment. She argues the council should do everything it can to enable the sale of spare seats, and proposes that while PSVAR compliance issues remain, seats should be offered free of charge as an interim measure, reverting to a paid model once bus operators are fully compliant.
Transcript generated by AI from meeting audio. It may contain errors, omissions, or misattributions. Please treat it as a convenience copy and refer to the original recording for the authoritative record.
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| 00:00:00 | Okay, Councillor Lister, it's your turn. Thank you, Gilsha. Yeah, I wanted to raise the spare seats. I think one of the reasons we brought the school transport discretionary policy to the forward work programme for education was because of a large amount of casework that came from our rural wards affecting working families and speaking as one of those working families |
| 00:00:28 | and there aren't many of us on the council. Getting our child to school is a barrier to being able to then go to work and in my rural ward there are no public bus services through that village yet there is a bus that takes children to a school and our school admissions policy is very much that it's the school of choice but our school transport policy will only take our children to the nearest appropriate school |
| 00:01:02 | and whilst I don't really want to see the spare seats as free because it is a parental choice to send your child to that particular school when there is an option for that child to be able to travel independently to that school and it is an option that we can provide I think we should be doing everything we can to address that concern because everything about what we do in the council is trying to get people back to work |
| 00:01:30 | we do a lot of like with our childcare offer and everything else and then a child will get to secondary school and suddenly be unable to travel independently to school it will make a huge difference to people in my ward and I'm very keen that people would support the sale of spare seats I recognise at the moment that's quite difficult to do with the PSVAR compliancy bus companies are working to be fully compliant |
| 00:01:54 | so as an interim measure the seats are offered free of charge but knowing that as soon as bus companies are compliant that those seats will go back to being charged for and I would like your support on that, thank you |
Full Session
Transcript generated by AI from meeting audio. It may contain errors, omissions, or misattributions. Please treat it as a convenience copy and refer to the original recording for the authoritative record.
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| 00:00:01 | Okay. Good morning, members. Turn my own volume off on my laptop. Sorry. Good morning, everybody. Sorry about that little blip. Okay. Welcome to the Environment, Economy, Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Tuesday 17th March. We'll start with agenda item one. Any apologies? So we've got Councillor Sean Bibby for Councillor David Healey, Chair. Thank you. |
| 00:00:47 | Okay. Thank you. Agenda item two. Any declarations of interest, including Whippen declarations? Councillor Bibby? Yeah. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. Just in relation to the agenda item regarding the task and finish group with the school transport, just a declaration of interest as a school nice garment. Obviously there is a discussion of Welsh medium provision and also on the agenda item regarding one council, there is quite a specific example |
| 00:01:17 | listed in my ward as well. Councillor Parker? Thank you, Joe. Just a point of clarification. On the task and finish group item, the Education Committee has been invited as a force of voting participants in this meeting. Councillor Fran Lister is substituting for Councillor Gladys Healey in respect to the education side. I just want to make that clear. Thank you. And that has been advised to the democratic services manager. |
| 00:01:55 | That's fine. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Just on the guide with the school transport, I gave a declaration in the committee, but my son does use the school transport. Councillor Lister? I also have an interest because my children use school transport. I'm not aware that it's a prejudicial interest. I could do with some advice. Personal interest. Thank you. Councillor Parkhurst again? Yeah. Sorry, Chair. My children use |
| 00:02:32 | school transport, so I guess I should declare personal interest. Thank you. Okay. I think we've recorded all of it. Councillor Hutchison? As you can see, I've just received my paperwork this morning, having asked for it at least three or four days before. I did not receive it. I've just received it now. They've given it in a sealed envelope. That's not good enough, Mr. Chairman, when you want to come to a meeting and take part. I'm in a predicament here now this morning that whether or not I decide |
| 00:03:17 | to stay as a member of this committee or leave, I'll take advice from legal officers, yourself, and anyone else who is interested. I'll walk out now if you wish, but I think it's happened before, and frankly, it's not good enough. Councillor Hutchison, you're welcome to stay for the meeting. Obviously, you're a member of the committee, so you're a valued member of the committee, so you're welcome to stay for the meeting. That's the decision for you to make, whether you choose to stay or not. Obviously, |
| 00:03:54 | the paperwork is issued electronically normally, and that's how we tend to issue papers to members. We have undertook a commitment to issue your papers by post to yourself, so I will look in to ensure that does happen in the future. I'm not just being the fact that it hasn't been delivered today, Councillor Hutchison. That's not the point. What I'm saying is in the future, we will commit to ensure that it does reach in advance of the meeting. It's issued three clear working days before electronically and posted that day where possible, so |
| 00:04:36 | depending on the post, it will be shortly after that day or the next day or the subsequent day after that. So, we will onset a commitment moving forward to an offer. I offer my apologies on behalf of myself that that hasn't happened before now, Councillor Hutchison. In this building this morning, I apologise, but I don't really see why I should have to, having done what I have done on my own behalf. Thank you. We'll see how it goes. Okay, thank you very much. Right, moving on to agenda item three is the minutes of, to confirm as a correct record, the minutes of the meeting held |
| 00:05:13 | on the 10th of February, 2026. I shall go through them page at a time. Page five, six, seven, eight, nine. Can I have a mover that I've correct? Moved as seconded. Seconded. Can I have a show of hands? All those in favour? That's carried. Thank you very much. Moving on to agenda item four. Urgent matters agreed by the chair. No urgent matters have been advised to me beforehand, so that's fine. Agenda item five, forward work programme and action tracking. I'll hand it over to Margaret. Thank you, Chair. So, on the forward work programme, we've got, the next meeting will |
| 00:06:09 | be on the 9th of June, where we've got two items. And then on the 7th of July, we will be adding council owned railway station car parks to that agenda. And then moving forward to the action trackings. So, if we just go through them, the first one, the next meeting of that group is in June or July. So, hopefully we will know by the June or July meeting and we'll get an update from Councillor Richard Jones for that one. Yep, the second one is that's on today's agenda. The park adver haulage contract, that will be with you by the end of the month. |
| 00:06:47 | The biodiversity duty, that's been completed. All the review of garden waste charges, they've been completed or are within the report today. Forward work programme, the AHP collections, that's part of today's report as well on three weekly collections. And Councillor Marshall's request has been added to the forward work programme. The others are completed. The outcome of the consultation on public toilets and review of local toilet strategy, that is ongoing. We'll be going forward on that one. Thank you, Chair. Okay, any questions? Councillor Pincham. |
| 00:07:29 | Can I make a proposal, Chair, to add to the forward work programme, please? Is the appropriate time? Yeah, I'd like to look at potholes. I'd like potholes adding to the forward work programme. I think we need to have the statistics of how many outstanding, how many have been fixed, what's the rate that the potholes are being fixed and the fairness of the process. I've got a Facebook post here from a member of the council, which is here, claiming now I've had over 30 potholes filled. I've asked for one pothole in my ward. The reason I asked for that specific |
| 00:08:15 | one is because it's deep and it's dangerous and it's not yet being done. No doubt the chief officer will pick this up at this meeting and give instructions to get it fixed as soon as possible. But the normal process should allow for a dangerous and deep pothole, if it's been reported by a member, to be repaired. Sorry. Say something. So I think it's only right that we should have a look at the whole process of potholes, the reporting and the timely fixing of them. And it's totally inappropriate how one part of the county can have, you know, all that done and in |
| 00:09:09 | other areas completely abandoned. That's how it seems. But we'll deal with it when we come to the forward work programme, when it eventually arrives. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Peers. Councillor Coggins-Cogan? Items to add to the forward work programme? Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to thank Councillor Peers because obviously the Liberal Democrat amendment to the budget meant there's money for 1,500 potholes to be repaired this forthcoming year. So I just wanted to get that in. Thank you, Chair. We have a busy agenda today. Let's keep it |
| 00:09:43 | the agenda, please. Okay. Any further items for the forward work programme? Action tracking not done. Okay. So that will be added. We'll discuss that outside the meeting. Recommendation is on page 11. The three recommendations there. Can I have a mover? Moved. Seconder? Seconded. Show of hands, all those in favour? That's carried. Thank you. Moving on to agenda item six, recommendations from the school task and finish group. And am I handing over to Kerry? Thank you, Chair. Good morning, members. So the report in front of you is the recommendations |
| 00:10:33 | that have been made from the school transport task and finish group. So going back, originally, school transport was raised as a notice of motion to council in December 2024. And following that, an all-member workshop was held in April 2025. During this workshop, it was suggested to members that a task and finish group be established to consider just the discretionary elements of the school transport policy and whether any of these should be amended. A report was then taken to both the education over in scrutiny committee and environment over in scrutiny committee to seek |
| 00:11:13 | support in setting up the task and finish group. And following support to both of those committees, the task and finish group was set up with members who sit on both of those committees. It was also suggested that the member who had originally submitted the notice of motion to council be invited to sit on the task and finish group as well. So just to clarify, the task and finish group, the members who sat on that committee were councillor Andrew Parkhurst, who chaired the meetings, councillor Fran Lister, who was the vice chair, councillors Bill Crease, Jason |
| 00:11:51 | Shellcross, Roy Wakelund, Carolyn Priest and councillor Alastair Ibbotson, who submitted the original notice of motion. The task and finish group was also attended by both the cabinet member for education, Welsh language, culture and leisure, and the cabinet member for waste and transportation. And a number of officers as well, namely the chief officer for education youth and the chief officer street senior transportation, the integrated transport manager, school manager, planning and provision and transport manager. The first meeting of the |
| 00:12:22 | task and finish group was held in September and the task and finish group has met monthly since September. And it's been a really good task and finish group with them splitting up the discretionary elements of the task and finish group and members going away researching the discretionary elements and coming back with proposals on what changes they'd like to see based on the research that they've made. So like I said, it was only the discretionary elements that the task and finish group have been asked to look at, but they've also looked at vacant |
| 00:13:01 | seats and transport to the nearest appropriate school, which you will see in the recommendations attached at appendix one. So moving on to appendix one, this lists all of the proposed recommendations to those discretionary elements. You will see that there's no proposed changes to the Welsh medium school transport. There is a recommendation change to the benefit entitlement exceptional hardship clause along with post 16 transport. Vacant spare seats, there isn't a proposed change to this, but the task and finish group felt that views on vacant spare seats for |
| 00:13:42 | non-eligible learners be included as part of the consultation process and to gain views on that when the report goes back to cabinet. The denominational faith school transport and transport to the nearest appropriate school. I would add that with these discretionary elements as part of the work of the task and finish group, legal advice has been sought on these recommended proposals. So these are based on legal advice from officers in the council. Just to clarify, the proposal today is that both members of the environment and education committee |
| 00:14:23 | support that these proposals go forward to cabinet. This would then commence a public consultation on those changes with a final report following the consultation, then going to cabinet later in the year. Thank you, chair. Okay, thank you, Kerry. Okay, questions from members? Councillor Coggins-Cogan. Thank you, chair. Thank you to the officer for bringing the report and the members of the education committee joining us today. My chief observation is that some of the dates don't match up. I think they're typos, but they just obviously would need to be tidied up |
| 00:15:03 | if it goes to cabinet and goes out to consultation. So on page 24, under the accessible background documents, it's got the notice of motion in December 26. So we need to change that. And then on page 25, it suggests that at a meeting on the sort of bottom row, at a meeting on the 7th of January 25, it was on page 21, the first meeting it says was in September 25. So it just, they, you know, I'm not sure which date needs to be corrected, but yeah, so those are my chief observations at the moment. I may have further comments later on in the debate, chair, but that's |
| 00:15:48 | okay. Those things, those amendments. Any other questions from members? As the Bibi? Quick question in terms of the, just give me two seconds. Unfortunately, I've had a bit of a, thanks Roy. Just in terms of, and I want to get the term correct, the public service vehicle accessibility regulations. Now I've, I've had contact from residents in regard to issues of vacant spare seats where, you know, there may be certain seats available. My understanding of the policy of it is that we aren't able to charge for vacant spare seats |
| 00:16:49 | because of the requirements of the public service vehicle accessibility regulations, but if we were to gift those seats, there won't be an issue. So is there any chance we can just have some clarity about the compliance of the PSVAR and how that, you know, if we've got to comply with that policy and can't give spare seats away, I think it would be a little bit different. I think it would be, I'd have concerns there if it was going into the consultation process. It may be set some expectations of parents and learners, just if we can provide |
| 00:17:34 | some clarity on where that stands. Richard Lloyd was next. Yeah, thanks chair. Just some concerns I have really that I've noticed lately on the school transport, mainly because this double-decker bus goes past my house. I was, I'm very concerned about the numbers on the bus. They seem very, very full. I don't know whether an officer ever checks, you know, as may go on the bus, checks the numbers. There seem to be a lot of people standing up. I was behind a particular bus because I know it picks up in Broughton at the primary school in Broughton, |
| 00:18:14 | but obviously I'm presuming that it goes over the border. It may drop off at St David's High but it goes over the border. I was behind it coming in from a 50 mile an hour into a 20 mile an hour and it didn't slow down. It was doing over 40 mile an hour coming into a 20 mile an hour right at the junction. Of course, I slowed down immediately, you know, as you do to 20 mile an hour and turned left into my house. That's true. But, you know, all I'm asking really, are they left to their own devices, these drivers? It is a worry to me. I see lots of kids standing |
| 00:18:47 | up on the bus, the speed they're going and to me it's over for them. And I think, I don't know whether it does happen, but is it ever monitored by an officer or they're just left to their own devices? It just is a concern that I've got. Thank you. Okay, I'll just bring in Katie. Yeah, good morning members. We do have Helen Telford online as well from Integrated Transport Unit. So I'll bring her in for the second question from Councillor Lloyd, if that's okay. But first, just in terms of PSVAR, obviously the PSVAR, the legal regulations that we have to comply |
| 00:19:29 | with low floor buses operating on what we call scheduled local bus routes. It does allow for high floor vehicles, but with a lift system, but you'll know from, you know, a lot of our school transport services, they're operated with coaches with step entrances. So that means they're not compliant. As part of the task and finish group, we did a big piece of work on PSVAR. We looked at those members that are in the room as part of that group will know that. And unfortunately, we've got a number of operators who, you know, without significant financial investments and |
| 00:20:07 | not going to be able to comply with PSVAR. There are medium term exceptions in place for those operators at the moment until the end of July. We're waiting to find out from the Department for Transport, whether those exemptions will be extended. But in the meantime, what we normally do is we arrange alternative transports for any disabled learners or learners who can't access a entrance coach. If they're not able to do that, then we will arrange a PSVAR compliant vehicle for that learner so that we comply with our policy. So that's where the situation is at the moment. |
| 00:20:46 | Obviously, this is linked to the spare seats question and, you know, the conversations whether you wish to provide spare seats that are vacant for non eligible pupils and give them for free, whether you wish to charge for them. If you wish to charge for them, we have to be compliant with PSVAR. That's the simple rule. So that's something obviously that's going to be part of the consultation going forward. So we did discuss it at length. Hopefully that answers that. And maybe Helen could come in on the other question around the double deckers. |
| 00:21:19 | Yeah, we do monitoring. But obviously, we do rely on reports as well from anybody who sees this kind of thing. So if anything like that is spotted, then, you know, if it can be reported, then we can follow up as well. The officers do have a schedule of monitoring. If it is the Catholic High bus, then there shouldn't be standing as we only allocate pupils to the number of seats available. So we will follow that up. And thank you for bringing it to my attention. Okay, thank you. |
| 00:21:53 | Yeah, I think it's called Connections, isn't it? It's called Connection, the name of the bus company. She's not in Helen, so yeah. Yeah, I know the company. Yeah, thank you. They definitely are standing on the front. Okay, thank you. Right, I have Councillor Gina Madison. Thank you, Chair. First thing I want to say is congratulations to all of the task and finish group for this stunning piece of work. Thanks very much. The only comment I have to make is on vacant spare seats, which has already been raised. And this is because I do live in a very |
| 00:22:35 | rural ward, which has five schools and very minimal bus services. Now, generally, I would be in favour of vacant spare seats being offered out for those reasons. Would we be paying attention though to, would a risk assessment be done on this? And we would be paying attention to health and safety, safeguarding, insurance, and also payment issues if we are charging. That is, would payment be done in such a way that the driver doesn't have to handle cash? I'm aware that this may have been discussed actually at the task and finish group. So it's just asking for |
| 00:23:17 | information on those issues. Thank you very much. And congratulations again. Okay, thank you for that. I'll take a few more questions. Dennis Hutchinson. Okay, fine. Councillor Wakelam. Thank you. It was just on the vacant spare seats, something that was brought up with the task and finish group is that you do see a lot of buses with empty seats sometimes, but the drop off, and particularly with like the sixth form and things like that, as the year goes on, people use the buses that they have, but then it was explained Helen and Katie and Claire explained |
| 00:24:04 | that there's a drop off through the year of people using the buses. So sometimes the bus may seem empty, but the seat is allocated to a person. So I just wanted to make sure people understood that. Okay. Thank you for that. Councillor Bithell. Okay. Okay. Councillor Lister. It's your hand. Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to raise the spare seats. I think one of the reasons we brought the school transport discretionary policy to the forward work program for education was because of a large casework that came from our rural wards affecting working families and speaking as one of those |
| 00:24:53 | working families, and there aren't many of us on the council, getting our child to school is a barrier to being able to then go to work. And in my rural ward, there are no public bus services through that village, yet there is a bus that takes children to a school. And our school admissions policy is very much that it's the school of choice, but our school transport policy will only take our children to the nearest appropriate school. And whilst I don't really want to see the spare seats as free, because it is a parental choice |
| 00:25:35 | to send your child to that particular school. When there is an option for that child to be able to travel independently to that school, and it is an option that we can provide, I think we should be doing everything we can to address that concern, because everything about what we do in the council is trying to get people back to work. We do a lot of like with our childcare offer and everything else, and then a child will get to secondary school and suddenly be unable to travel independently to school. It will make a huge difference to people in my ward, and I'm very keen that |
| 00:26:08 | people would support the sale of spare seats. I recognise at the moment that's quite difficult to do with the PSVAR compliancy. Bus companies are working to be fully compliant. So as an interim measure, the seats are offered free of charge, but knowing that as soon as bus companies are compliant, that those seats will go back to being charged for. And I would like your support on that. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Bethel. Thank you, Chair. There's a lot of work gone into this, I can see that. And, you know, I obviously commend the members of the panels that dealt with these |
| 00:26:48 | issues on the work that they put in. There are a number of issues that I'm concerned about really in regard to what's been proposed. I mean, I'm starting to get my head around the issues regarding who qualifies for free transport in this. There's a section there on page 26, for example, as to who actually qualify, how hardship is identified really. Generally speaking, that's based, we normally base that on parents who have received benefits and so on. Now it would appear to me on this basis, we're going to go further. The proposal is that we go further on this. |
| 00:27:28 | I'm not sure how that works out, how easy that's going to be really to apply. It does, each case will depend on its merits, I think it says here. Well, you know, I think that opens itself up to all kinds of challenges in that respect, you know, and I'm just concerned about that, like some sort of identification of those particular issues really, and how they will be resolved. The other question is into regarding the purchase of seats on buses. Now we have done this in the past, and we've scrapped it, because basically, you know, a number of pupils on that |
| 00:28:03 | particular bus qualify in terms of the distance from their home to the school, they qualify, and then other parents who choose that school, it's a parental choice issue, you know, they want to be able to purchase the empty seats on that bus. Now if at some time in the future the numbers drop and there are nobody on that bus, there's nobody in that area now traveling to that particular school, the buses in the past have been discontinued, and that has landed those parents who have been paying for the additional seats on it, you know, what they pay does not cover the cost of the bus |
| 00:28:37 | in that particular respect, and because the later school is not being used by those people in that area, for whatever reason, you know, it's ridiculous to continue with the bus service there, you know, again, you know, this issue of parental choice comes up here, and again, I've called it in the past, not so much parental choice as parental refusal, you know, and for whatever reason, they refuse to send their school to the nearest school for whatever reason, right, and therefore this has consequences as well from an educational point of view, because you end up with empty |
| 00:29:12 | places, spare places, surplus places, and we've got 3,500 of those, just to remind people here, you know, and that comes at a cost, and that cost is borne by every child in the county, and every parent, because basically that money has to be found somewhere, and again, you know, I think what's been proposed here may sound ground on paper, but the consequences of this are fairly vast, and I don't think, with all due respect, they've been gone on to with sufficient detail. Mentioned here, you know, not just choosing catchments rather than nearest schools, |
| 00:29:50 | well again, you know, that results in particular problems as well, because these catchments are going to be fairly large, and again, the aim is to enable those parents and those children with that catchment area to have perhaps a choice of schools, really, in that particular sense, and it won't be the nearest school for many of them, so there are huge consequences resulting from this if it goes through in its present form. There's a lot of here, I'm quite happy with the commend, but I think these issues need to be sort of looked at extremely carefully, and again, |
| 00:30:23 | in terms of the faith schools, I'm interested in that, you know, because we've had issues in the past in relation to that, you know, and many parents were choosing to send their children to a faith school, not because they were of that faith or the children were, but simply, again, as a part of the school avoidance procedures, basically, they didn't want their child to go to a particular school. If they sent them to that school, they'd have to pay the transport cost. If they sent them to that school, although they weren't of that particular faith, they got a free |
| 00:30:49 | bus. Now, of course, those schools liked that because, again, it enhanced their numbers, and they were all in favor of that, so they had a bit of fight over that, and we did actually change the rules and said only those children of that particular faith or those parents of that faith would be able to choose that particular school and get free transport. Now, they want to go further here, really, by the sound of things. Any faith, and I understand where that's coming from, and, you know, it's understandable, I'm just wondering where they are, you know, because, |
| 00:31:17 | again, that would include Muslim schools, I guess, Jewish schools, or Buddhist schools, I don't know, and it says they should be in Flintshire in Wales. Well, you know, I'm not sure how we get around that, how we're going to be providing buses to a Muslim school or a Buddhist school or whatever, which could be miles away, which, you know, we're talking basically in terms of this as Georgian-Wales schools and Roman Catholic schools, don't we? You know, that's all we've been, and this is all we've been dealing with in the past. And, again, when we dealt with this and the |
| 00:31:50 | faith school issue, I had letters as cabinet member of education at the time, particularly from humanists who said we shouldn't be paying for this at all, right? If somebody wants a faith school for their child, then they should be paying for it, it's a parental choice, you know, so there are sort of two sides to this argument, it's very strong arguments, again, from the humanist group, you know, against state support in faith schools at all. So, although this sounds quite grand in principle, I've got certain concerns about it, and we're going to be very, very careful |
| 00:32:20 | the way we implement this, but if somebody could answer the question regarding the issue on the people qualifying for this in terms of hardship, you know, again, as I say in the past, it's been based on fairness and receipt of particular benefits, I'm not sure how this will work out because it seems that they want to go further than that. Thank you, Chair. Okay, thank you for that. Can I bring in the Chief Officer? Yeah, I can't really answer in terms of who would qualify, and obviously this is a recommendation |
| 00:32:51 | from the task and finish group as members rather than officers, so it's not really for me to comment on who would qualify under this, and obviously this is, you know, the proposals within this report are subject to consultation, so, you know, I think what scrutiny are looking to do today is seek your feedback and support for these recommendations to go forward for us to commence consultation. Okay, Kerry? Sorry, if it's on this specific recommendation, you will see that initially the group considered |
| 00:33:26 | this in November, the decision wasn't made till January because there was advice sought from David Barnes on this proposal, that's not included in this, but I'm happy to share that with you what that advice from David Barnes in terms of implementing this, but I will just highlight that it won't be that the Council is considering applications directly, these will be referrals through, as it says there, agencies like Citizens Advice Shelter or NECAS who will make a referral to the Council in terms of, if they think that they qualify in terms of hardship, so |
| 00:34:03 | it won't be the Council making that decision, but I'm happy to share that advice with members following the meeting, Chair. Okay, Councillor Parkhurst? Yeah, Jochen, just to add to that, that the purpose of including this was because there are a small number of children who fall between the cracks, and the report on page 26 does give examples of that, and what the task and fitness group has tried to do is to come up with a workable solution which isn't too onerous, but does provide support for that small number of children who wouldn't |
| 00:34:45 | otherwise be provided for, so that is the recommendation for further consideration and consultation going forward. Thank you, Chair. Okay, thank you. Councillor Bibby? Yeah, just looking at that, I think, you know, there does seem to be circumstances, and I think they're listed within the recommendation where, as Councillor Parkhurst said, there are individuals that could be in significant amount of hardship but fall within those cracks within the welfare system. You know, it does give examples in terms of |
| 00:35:24 | Department of Work and Pensions error, benefit sanctions, you know, the new style benefits in comparison to the old style, so, you know, I think that's something that should be supported in, you know, we're going to be talking about a very small number of individuals here, but individuals that are in very significant financial hardship. There also is the failsafe here that, you know, rather than an individual, it has to be backed up by evidence or a partner agency and the application made by the council, so I think that's quite robust in what it's proposing. Again, it would |
| 00:36:00 | probably be a very small number of individuals, I would imagine, but again, I personally see the merits of that, and I think that the task and finish group have clearly done some very, you know, expansive work on it that, you know, we have been informed is backed up by Dave Barnes. Okay, thank you very much for that. I see no further individuals wishing to speak, so I'll move to the recommendation on page 21. The committees support the recommendations proposed by the School Transport Task and Finish Group to Cabinet, as shown in Appendix 1. Can I |
| 00:36:35 | move? Moved and seconded. I'll shove hands those in favour. I think that's unanimous. Thank you very much. Okay, at this point the education or the task and finish group members are able to leave, they so wish. Okay, if you can make your way out so we can continue with the agenda, please. We'll be changing the agenda around slightly now. Members, we'll be moving on to agenda item 10. This is due to the necessity of officer time, so we shall bring in the Chief Officer on agenda item 10, internal audit report. Okay, good morning members again. Just to |
| 00:37:52 | introduce Lee Evans, who's online, I can see Lee up there, who's our procurement business partner from the Denbighshire, well she's actually no longer the business partner for Street Scene, as we have a new one, but Lee's joining us from the joint procurement units for Denbighshire and Flintshire as well, so I'll present the report and lead on it and then obviously I'll bring Lee in for any questions after or anything that she wants to add further to my presentation. So just to give a bit of background to this report before I start, I asked for this report, I asked for the audit |
| 00:38:30 | and the reason I asked for the audit is I wasn't getting the assurances I was seeking from the teams, from the officers. There's, you know, some of the key management information from Proactis portal, which is, as you can see from the report, is the procurement portal that is used for procurement and contract management. I wasn't getting those reports, there are no dashboards within that system for me to be able to log in on a daily basis and see that management information. I can't produce those reports myself, we've had to request them. We had an inconsistency across |
| 00:39:07 | the portfolio in relation to how contracts were being managed, which I was aware of prior to the audit, so I wanted some work to look into that as to why. We've got some excellent examples of contract management across the portfolio and the park advert, the waste from energy plant is a good example. Same in transportation with school transport, we've got the dynamic purchasing system in place. Trunk road, you know, we use a range of procurement frameworks there and also with fleets, so we've got some really, really positive examples within those areas of the portfolio |
| 00:39:43 | and those are visible to me and which is why they've been excluded from the audit because I can see that they're compliant. So the reason I asked for the audit is that not all areas were visible, you know, some of those spend areas were invisible in terms of contracts. We asked for, the senior management team were involved as well and Chris is here obviously from the senior management team. I asked for aggregate spend to be included as well and the audit from the findings you'll see in the report found a number of repeat works or regular types |
| 00:40:20 | of work that at low values that are repeated and for me that's a risk to the organisation if we've got all our eggs in one basket with one supplier and that supplier then dissolves or goes into liquidation, you know, we're not protected in that respect. So, you know, I would like to see a situation where we have different frameworks in place for the whole of our operations, a bit similar to what we have in transport at the moment. So we have got that resilience and that capacity within the services as well, so we're reducing those risks. Obviously the report presents |
| 00:41:01 | some key findings that don't make for good reading, you know, I have acknowledged that and we're treating it really seriously. I think the key focus, you know, today is to give that assurance to members is we have put an action plan in place which is included in Appendix 2 and that's what I'm seeking feedback on today is the actual action plan. Many of those actions have already been completed, the action plan was put in place as soon as we had the outcome of the audit we'd started work ourselves in June of last year to try and get obtain a lot of this information |
| 00:41:37 | and it's without the support of audit and procurement that we've been able to actually drill down and actually get these reports. So I now get regular reports from Lee's team on a quarterly basis, so those come through to the senior management team meetings and we have it as a standard standing item on the agenda on our monthly meetings as well. In terms of the quick system obtaining the data from Proactis has been challenging, I can't run a report on quick quotes from that system, no other officer can either, so we've had to request that and by Lee's team |
| 00:42:17 | and procurement from Proactis and initially, you know, we did have a lot of toing and froing ourselves and audits and the audit took a lot longer because of the complexity of the reports that were coming out of Proactis once we did receive them because you can see from the audit the number of projects that were listed there weren't all for Street Scene, there were only 11 that were actually for Street Scene out of that full list and it took a lot of my time of physically going through line by line to work out who |
| 00:42:53 | was responsible, which officers were responsible for those actual procurement projects, so we need a better system for reporting, system has limitations, we have agreed within Street Scene and transportation to stop using the quick quote system, Lee and her team are working on a new template for us which we propose to start using hopefully from next month, you know, Lee started drafting that and we've got a mock-up of what it might look like, but I can't get any reports about quick quotes at all, I just physically cannot do it without |
| 00:43:30 | Lee's inputs and it shouldn't be that way, I should be able to have that management information at the, you know, press of a button as soon as I log into that, you know, that system, I should have that dashboard so I know what our performance is, I don't have that visibility, and we are now using expenditure reports, so to identify any suppliers without a contract through P2P and the Masterpiece system, so finance and there's an expenditure report, so we can see straight away and match it with P2P orders and Lee does a quarterly report for us, all those P2P |
| 00:44:08 | orders over 25k without a contract, the procurement then won't authorise, that comes back to us, so we can go through that list and identify straight away which ones are not compliant and stop them actually being authorised, so if that doesn't happen anymore, so that's already been in place since December, we do have a housekeeping training issue and it's mainly around, there's nothing untoward with this, but one of the issues we're having is officers are not uploading contracts, once they've been through a procurement exercise on Proactus, they're not then |
| 00:44:45 | uploading the contracts onto the system at the end of the process, that's sitting in a paper-based folder somewhere, instead of being on the system, all of our procurement, all of our contract management should be through that Proactus system and that's what's, that's the policy that's what we should be doing, so there is a training issue for some of the teams, so we've already started that programme of training, it started in January, it's going to take us till about November to get through everybody and that's training for both the contract procedure |
| 00:45:19 | rules which have changed since the new legislation came in in June last year, also for the Proactus system as well and you know we have been discussing as a senior management team is whether we reduce the number of people who are actually responsible for procurement as well which might help mitigate the risks further, but obviously that then creates a resilience issue, some of the supplier spend detailed in the audit report, I must remind members is not for street scene, it's for the whole council, my budget doesn't even get that far I'm afraid, if only it did, |
| 00:45:55 | so you know my budget is 43 million and 50% of that is workforce costs, so the figures that are within the report for the whole council, so I need to clarify that point because that's been misreported separately in press, so that needs to clear up that point straight away and also the total value of contracts that are detailed in there is across multiple years, one of the issues we have with Proactus as well is it doesn't break down the spend into financial year, so when you see the spend on Proactus it could be for seven years, it could be for nine years |
| 00:46:31 | depending on the length of the contract, so it doesn't link back to the financial management system, so that's another issue for us in terms of those three systems, so P2P, Masterpiece and Proactus not talking to each other, so we have an issue around that as well, so in terms of some of the work that's gone on in the background, we've been working as a management team since June last year to try and put measures in place, I wanted this report because I wanted to use it as a bit of a battering ram to get things done and make sure that there was a robust action |
| 00:47:10 | plan in place, I've now got that audit which backs up what I've been saying for quite some time and in response we've sought to obtain a lot of the management information reports required to monitor, we've worked with Audit on the action plan, they're satisfied that all those actions that are detailed within the column that details all the actions and Appendix 2 are sufficient to mitigate the risks going forward, so really today's about getting your feedback on the action plan going forward, this will be going to Governance and Audit Committee |
| 00:47:49 | also next week as well, so I'll be presenting the same reports to that committee, so that's it in a nutshell, hopefully I'll have your comments and questions, thank you. Okay and with regard to who's joined us online, is this to just answer any particular questions that members may have, is that correct? Yeah, you know if Katie needs my support with answering any questions with regards to the procurement processes or the systems then yeah I'm happy to answer those questions if I can. Okay thank you very much Lee, Councillor Coggins-Cogan. Thank you very much Chair, |
| 00:48:28 | well first I suppose I do want to congratulate the Chief Officer in the department because it'd be very easy to criticise and to harangue the portfolio for you know the way it's been reported, not why it was reported in the press, but the headline is particularly damning, however this is exactly what our Chief Officer should be doing, which is carrying out robust investigations within their own portfolios to make sure they are performing correctly, obviously there is a significant concern not necessarily with underperformance but with |
| 00:49:08 | underreporting, so underperformance can be hidden in that, but I just want to give my praise because it was a good thing to do and I know it couldn't have been easy bringing that to the committee, so that's all the good stuff out of the way, that's ends now, my only concern and I'm sure there was a completely legitimate reason for it, but the action plan, the dates are for the 31st of this month so next week, I don't know how much meaningful impact we can have on that action plan considering it's pretty |
| 00:49:50 | much done, I think because as the Chief Officer said she became aware of this in June, I perhaps would have expected we could have had more of a heads up sooner in the process, I mean maybe chairs of committees were, I don't know, but as someone who's scrutinising it now, we are sort of it's retrospective rather than looking about how it can be sort of prevented in the future, but I have every confidence the Chief Officer will put me in my place and there'll be a good reason why it was done that way, and just finally and this isn't particularly |
| 00:50:30 | to do with the Chief Officer's report, but I am looking with some envy to my cabinet colleagues who have full colour printing, I have black and white, now that means that the formatting of this document for me is of no use because it's various shades of grey, so the whole point of the rag is that it's instantly, visually, you can see what you're looking at, because I now get my papers printed by the county because our wonderful IT, I'm going to end there before I get carried away with that sentence, but we have to look at the formatting of these documents, either we all get |
| 00:51:15 | colour printing or no one gets colour printing, I don't think it's appropriate that it's selective or the formatting of the documents needs to change so we can do our jobs a bit more easily. Thank you Chair. Okay thank you for that, just my one with the various shades of grey does actually say on it though, red, green, amber, so they've gone some way to try and help cut down the colour printing costs, and online as Councillor Bithell has shown is in colour. Okay, Councillor Bithell and then I'll come back to the Chief Officer. |
| 00:51:56 | Yes thank you, I'd like to be associated with the remarks made by Councillor Coggan, and thank the Chief Officer for raising this issue, obviously this has gone on for some time and it's simply not good enough and so on, and it had to be rectified and again it took a lot of I think to raise this issue because it does raise some fundamental questions obviously about what's gone on and what has not gone on in the in the past. I'm just wondering you know have you been paying for work that hasn't been done or are we unsure of that at this moment in |
| 00:52:26 | time and you know has money been wasted, local council taxpayers money not wasted in this particular sense because we're not sure whether the work has been done or whether you've been paying for work which is ever done you know. I'm just wondering if there's anything that can be said about that because I think those are the kind of questions that will be raised with lots of members when this it's the headlines that it has. Okay thank you. Katie's. Yeah thank you and thank you both for your support, there's been a lot lot of work gone on behind the scenes, |
| 00:53:03 | we know we've been having regular meetings with procurement and also audit around this since about June last year. I take on board the points raised by Councillor Coggins-Cogan about having you know been able to inform the scrutiny process sooner but the final report wasn't issued till December from audit although we knew as officers that work was going on behind the scenes back in June. Unfortunately they didn't publish their final audit report until December so I wasn't able to bring it any sooner and obviously that then goes through a you know a |
| 00:53:37 | through chief officer team first before it comes to here so that does take time but that's something for us to take away maybe for future. No doubt there'll be a future review meeting you know to you know check in a year or two years time that we're you know we've delivered on these actions and they've continued you know into the future so that I'm sure there'll be a further report to come back at that time. I guess in terms of comments from yourselves on the action plan it's you know is there anything else that you think that should should be in there |
| 00:54:10 | that we haven't thought about? I mean we've gone you know we've spent a considerable amount of time with audit to consider the risks to the organisation and what we could put in place to mitigate those given that the procurement system is not going to change anytime soon and we're stuck with it although you know there are limits huge limitations with the system and the reporting because obviously puts a burden on Lee's team to have to produce those reports for us you know is there anything else that we can do you know you know we've put these manual processes |
| 00:54:44 | in place now but is there more that could be done and you know in terms of office systems and reporting systems we're looking at a longer term similar to you know what we have with transport the dynamic purchasing system for all of our operational services which again that's not going to be a quick action that's going to probably take 12 months at least and I know when we put the one in place for transport it took about 12 months so these things are going to some of those things are going to take a bit longer but I guess the feedback we're asking from yourselves |
| 00:55:18 | is is there anything further you think should be in here? I'm aware you know I've raised it as on the corporate risk register as well so they've you know it's it's been highlighted as a as a corporate issue as well it's not just street scene and transportation so there will be actions coming out for all the other portfolios as well as a result of this. In terms of Councillor Bithal's comments around work being done and not paid for nothing untoward has been found at all by audit they're satisfied you know things are procured it's just that not everything is going |
| 00:55:51 | through proactis people are still doing things offline or they're not correctly using the quick quotes tool within proactis because there's a limit quick quotes should only be used for seeking work goods and services that are below 24 999 is the value I think but people have not been doing that so people have been using it because it's an easy tool to use so you know examples within the audit of you know people have been potentially procuring work above that value which they should be going to a full tender exercise in those situations so so it has |
| 00:56:31 | highlighted that and that's not not just for street scene. We found 11 within street scene and confident you know we've gone through that in a lot of detail and measures have been taken to address that and obviously there's going to be further actions for white other portfolios as a result of this as well but nothing untoward has been found no. Okay thank you Katie right I've got councillor Alan Marshall online. Thank you chair I'm not a member of this committee but I've just got some questions. The announcement of this audit report caused quite a reaction on |
| 00:57:12 | media. It seems a lot of residents use the social media as their single source of disinformation and misinformation. One wanted to you know I think virtually for the chief exec and the chief officers be hung drawn and quartered and the question I've got is that this this looks at the risk of something happening so that my question is did something actually happen did the risk materialize and you know was there any fraud involved and or was it just it might happen but didn't? Thank you. Okay I'll allow the chief officer to answer |
| 00:58:03 | that one. Yeah to answer your question councillor Marshall no nothing has happened the no risk has happened it's a potential risk if we don't put these measures in place and a lot you know as I've said already it's to do with the reports if I'm not if I can't access management information around that system how am I supposed to mitigate the risk so you know that the key key issue is getting that management information and I now get it routinely from procurement which is a really positive thing but I can I can hand on heart |
| 00:58:39 | tell you no nothing has happened. Okay can I just come back on that? I used to be an assurance manager on railway projects and one of the things and we did audits and one of the things we were told is we we can't do an audit unless you've got a to audit against so my question is have you got a set of procedures for each each worker doing all these different contract things so that you can actually audit it against and also maybe a work instruction in there thank you. Yeah the |
| 00:59:23 | contract procedure rules are our procedures for such matters and that's referenced within the report so every officer within the council is supposed to follow the contract procedure rules and that applies for Flintshire and for Denbighshire. Okay thank you. Councillor Rose. Thanks Jay yeah thanks for the report there's a lot in it I think there's a few queries just clarifying whether you're saying you now get reports and things to see firstly obviously the proactis system advertises online how it's got a flexible system that can advance reporting for |
| 01:00:03 | queries so how long has this risk been there in the background when we know we've not had reports when actually their system is saying reports are perfectly flexible the other side of it is obviously there's elements where there's no contract being uploaded obviously the proactis also says significantly flexibility in defining required fields so is this something where the hasn't been set up to match the requirements of the policy in the first instance and that would have stopped this risk from happening in the first place or is this an issue where there's actual |
| 01:00:45 | it's more of a human issue not following the process or putting them in the right system at the time I think that's something I just couldn't get from the report and then how long has this risk been active in the background you know is it just since we've started using proactis how long has that been the case for and then the last query would be obviously these are financial things do the internal department finance team not have to vet anything before they sign things off how does that work on that side of it as well you know in terms of |
| 01:01:20 | bringing this up flagging this up earlier sort of thing that things didn't exist with it thanks quite a few questions there which I might need to bring Lee in in terms of the system because obviously I'm not involved in how that system was set up but it's a mixture in terms of what you said there the fact that you know people are not uploading contracts to the system is a human issue that's a training issue which I've mentioned already we're going through a huge training process it might be we've got new members of staff that are not familiar with the new |
| 01:01:52 | procurement regulations which came in in June last year so you know we're going through a huge process between now and November to get everybody trained up on the both the contract procedure rules and on proactis the system itself to make sure that they follow the process right through to the end what's happening is they're doing the procurement through proactis but when they've awarded the contract they're not then uploading the contract the physical paper document that people have signed and sealed has not been then uploaded onto the system so there's no then no |
| 01:02:24 | record it's sitting in a folder in someone's office so that it's a housekeeping issue if anything and so this there's issues like that happening in terms of the the system issue I think for me is it's the the problem with the system is the lack of dashboards reporting that I don't know whether that's because we haven't got the full system access or it's been set up differently and maybe that's something that Lee can answer but I certainly can't produce a report myself and I have to go and request that and I'm not going to lie it's been really |
| 01:02:59 | challenging even through the audit process to get accurate information from the system so it is a system issue from my perspective in that respect yeah I'll just come in there with regards to the the proactis system so both Emsha and flinch have used proactis now for the last 10 years with regards to the report and it does have a separate reporting module which we have full access to but to be able to set up various different reports you need to have quite considerable sort of knowledge and experience of the system and |
| 01:03:38 | it's like any system it'll only give you the information that you put into it so if the information's not there if somebody hasn't put the information in so if somebody doesn't complete the tasks push them through into contract management the information just simply isn't there so we are running regular reports for Katie and we do run them for each chief officer and each business partner presents those that information regularly at the DMTs that's been in place now for probably I would say going on about three years or so so I don't know why Katie |
| 01:04:07 | wasn't receiving the reports previously because the business partner who previously looked after street senior transportations retired last year but you know those reports are going through now there's no reason why we can't set other officers up to access the reporting module but it is quite cumbersome and clunky to use but I think the main reason is we don't have a centralized procurement service we are an advisory service there are five of us to cover the whole of Denbighshire and Flintshire and millions and millions of pounds worth of spend |
| 01:04:43 | just isn't simply just isn't enough of us to cover everything and so we don't so you know procurement and contract management is pretty much devolved to service areas we're here to provide an advisory service and to support officers with the tendering process and obviously we can run those reports and we provide them to chief officers but we are limited as to what we can do as well because of our capacity and resource unfortunately. Thank you. Just ask another question there sorry just in terms of that in terms of the software obviously a lot of this |
| 01:05:21 | seems to be human error and obviously we put software in place purposely to stop that human error does this mean that there are flexible things we can put in the system for example chief officer mentioned about not uploading the contracts after being awarded surely there's a procurement status to say awarded but it's not been closed and things like that that in there to state once it's closed and those systems could say you can't close it until you uploaded a contract which would mitigate the training need necessary and reduce some workload |
| 01:05:53 | and then also is this an issue in Denbighshire as well as Flintshire if they're using the same system and process? Yeah we regularly run what's called an outstanding task report and so that will give a a list of every tender on the system that hasn't been closed off and regularly chase officers up to close those tasks off so most of those the officers will have completed the tender in full they would have issued a contract they've had a contract signed so you know they've done the actual doing but they've not told the system that they've done it |
| 01:06:27 | so that's where it's sort of falling down in terms of them telling the system so you know all systems are the same a human well most systems you know unless we get AI in you know a human has got to tell the system what stage it at and if that human doesn't tell the system then the system doesn't know so we're regularly running these outstanding tasks and we've got some training coming up that we're going to be delivering specifically for streets scene to try and clear a lot of the backlog of the outstanding tasks get those things through into the contract register |
| 01:06:57 | because there's another issue there in terms of if things aren't on the contract register we can't scan that contract register see what's coming up for renewal and plan procurements and then things sort of landowners last minute so you know there's the you know there's a procurement cycle which is just not you know it's not working here but it will you know it's not just influential will be the same in denture as well and it'll be the same across all service areas okay thank you for that uh right move on to councillor piers all right thank you |
| 01:07:31 | chair uh i first saw this in a press report lead alive and it didn't make good reading but that's what the public see they were on the ball and they sort of saw it before i read the report and i sort of took a different view from what was there i welcome the transparency that's come out and you know water and all it's been put on the table uh so we need to look at this from a you know as a scrutiny on a scrutiny point of view and whether we see these issues as failings within the system it sounds as though there are a number of failings in as much training issues |
| 01:08:18 | so can i ask was staff operating a procurement process without adequate training where where was the issue there is that is that the case and how will that be fixed so a number of questions it more bullet points than paragraphs uh has the control of the procurement purchasing process been lost in certain areas and if so does the action plan resolve to fix that uh as an example on page 154 i looked at a supplier too where the amounts are recorded uh hundred thousand pounds uh per annum and then it talks about an actual spend it doesn't actually say whether that is |
| 01:09:06 | native spend or not where it says it's not possible to determine how these contracts were procured or being managed so obviously there's a there's a fault in the system somewhere uh i'm concerned that chief officers unable to access information that she is seeking and i i fully say that it's not a chief officer issue that but the chief officer if she needs the information that she requires it should be available uh lee mentioned just towards the end of the comments that five staff covering plenish and denbighshire looking after millions of pounds |
| 01:09:47 | spend and it sounded in a voice as though that was a potential and unidentified risk so i think that perhaps needs looking at because when you're dealing with millions of pounds to spend i'm sure you know just a slight error could cause a loss of quite some amount of money so can i ask then uh as a consequence of this audit has any potential overspend taking place in flincia or has any money been lost by lyncher county council or indeed denbighshire uh and i just like to finally look at the recommendations uh chief officer asked us whether we could |
| 01:10:37 | input into any thoughts that we had but the recommendation in the report just asked us to note not to sort of make comment but i'm sure we have made comment during the this part of the scrutiny process but i would like to propose that in recommendation one where it says supports the action being taken undertaken we change it to note the action being undertaken uh that is not undermined what the scrutiny committee are actually you know happy with what's been put forward but i think when you support an action you've been fully involved in looking at what the potential |
| 01:11:21 | action should be and also fully aware of how it is going to resolve the situation i don't feel comfortable that i've been involved at that level as part of the action plan so i feel comfortable with noting the actions being undertaken and i would put that forward as a proposal chair to amend recommendation one thank you thank you kate do you want to come back on that first yeah i can come back on a few of those so in terms of the training um we did go through a um but obviously the procurement act has come in um since then in june 2025 so that's that's |
| 01:12:08 | changed so we do need to refresh that training we've got you know new members of staff who maybe haven't been trained yeah sorry sorry somebody was discussing something else in the chamber yeah so apologies councillor pierce um training is is always going to be a recurring issue for us because you know staff come and go the regulations have changed so we need to refresh that training i think we have identified that perhaps we didn't have enough trained officers on the proactis system itself in terms of the expertise and it was we had had those single points of failure where |
| 01:12:45 | we only had one or two people across the portfolio who are doing everything on proactis for everybody um so we've changed that because the people who are delivering the services should be doing the procurement and contract management for those services they deliver so that that's changed um rather than it being you know somebody who's remote from that that particular service in terms of um you know i think you asked if any potentially overspend has occurred as a result the audit wasn't around um the spend it was more around compliance with the cprs so |
| 01:13:23 | we've obviously identified there has been non-compliance with the cprs because people are using quick quotes rather than going through a full tender exercise so it has identified non-compliance um with with the contract procedure rules um it hasn't um identified any issues around spend um but obviously there are potential risks which is what the audit has has highlighted in terms of you know giving that assurance which is you know i those are the same issues i've been asking myself um which is why i asked for the audit because i haven't got that |
| 01:13:57 | visibility currently um so we now you know we do get the expenditure reports now um from um we get a monthly report from finance colleagues and i think councillor rose asked that question earlier on um about vetting and you know do we vet the financial information but we get a supply a report that's only focused on supplier spend so we can drill down and see you know are we spending you know how much how much are we spending with single suppliers so we can monitor that we're compliant with the cprs um so we are doing that on a monthly basis now yeah um and obviously um |
| 01:14:35 | i'm fine with the the change in the recommendations that's no problem thank you chair i um just wanted to i meant to come in earlier on after the chief officer had sort of answered my questions and i just wanted to say that in response to her specific question about anything we think is missing from the action plan um for my part does look quite comprehensive this obviously on the chief officer's radar now um and it seems to have sort of various internal processes in place so i i think the action plan is from what i can see is sort of comprehensive |
| 01:15:17 | and fit for its role so thank you chair okay thank you got no further speakers so i'll move to the recommendation uh with the amendment to recommendation one that the environment we do need a seconder for that okay can we have a seconder second okay sorry thank you the environment overview and scrutiny committee notes the findings of the audit and notes the actions being undertaken by the portfolio to mitigate the identified risks and recommendation two that the outcome of the audit and action plan adopted by the portfolio |
| 01:15:52 | will be presented to the governance and audit committee on 25th of march 2026 can we show our hands those in favor and okay that's carried thank you very much okay thank you lee for joining us and taking time out today thank you okay we shall move back to the ruling order of the agenda now which is agenda item seven which is the adoption of houses in multiple occupation interim planning guidance notes and can i hand over to the chief officer yes thank you chair morning everyone and as members will be aware we've had a number of |
| 01:16:38 | spgs come before the scrutiny committee following the adoption of the local development plan we have a duty to refresh our spgs following the adoption of of the of the ldp we have two spgs for your consideration this morning the first is the hmo spg and the second is the space about dwellings spg both have been through statutory consultation process and both have been through the planning strategy group and before i hand over to my colleague adrian waltz who will walk you through both of the spgs and we'll obviously |
| 01:17:25 | deal with them separately as two separate agenda items i just wanted to express my thanks to adrian the team for the hard work in producing the documents and also my thanks to the planning strategy group for their contribution and consideration of the spgs and also to thank you as a scrutiny committee today for your consideration of the two documents so i will now hand over to adrian who will walk you through the hmo spg first and then the second item will be the space about dwellings spd thank you chair thank you chair and thank you david |
| 01:18:06 | as david has said this first report is in relation to the interim planning guidance note on houses in multiple occupation the guidance note is presented as an interim note for a number of reasons planning strategy group ideally would have wanted an spg that was based on a percentage threshold in terms of the number of hmos within a set geographical area but at the moment we don't have that necessary evidence in terms of the location of spgs so we can't put together an accurate picture of the clustering of hmos that such an approach |
| 01:18:49 | would need because of that planning strategy group agreed to develop an interim note which focused on the criteria within policy hn7 of the ldp so it just seeks to expand on the criteria in terms of more detail however the interim guidance note can be updated at a future date once further evidence is available and on that note members will be aware that cabinets approved last october the additional licensing scheme the smaller hmos and this is due to become operational next month whilst that's being put in place it's going to take some time before we can |
| 01:19:33 | see some results of that there's a huge list of potential hmos to be worked through before we start looking at where the location of those hmos are it's going to take us time to look at that evidence in terms of identifying clusters and whether we can develop an alternative policy approach what we will do though is once we've been able to do that work we will bring it back to planning strategy group to see which way we go forward with that i think as an interim measure it's my view that we're in a stronger position to have |
| 01:20:10 | an interim guidance note than no guidance note at all just relying on the policy it does give the benefit of having more detail than is contained within the policy itself so the guidance note went out to consultation for standard six-week period and we had a good range of responses on a one point eleven of the report accompanying the covering report is appendix one that shows the amended spg and it also shows the table of the representations we received officer's responses and the recommended changes where we thought there was benefit in making changes where it |
| 01:21:00 | improved the clarity and implementation of the guidance note we've made those changes although it's only been presented as an interim note it will still carry full weight as a material planning consideration in the same way that a supplementary planning guidance would in terms of the recommendation my apologies that should have been amended what we're asking today is that we're asking scrutiny to endorse the guidance now to go to cabinet for adoption okay thank you chair thank you for that adrienne i've seen council sheldon baby first okay thanks very |
| 01:21:50 | much yeah obviously many people know this is something that i've been involved in for a very long time my entirety on the county council it very much is a very very live issue not wishing to be in any way parochial but you know a very big issue in my own ward and i know for a lot of people particularly on the d site strip i mean if we look at the committee ourselves councillor evans and councillor richardson you know i would say that the issues relating to these properties are a very considerable amount of case work that we deal with as members i mean in many cases i can |
| 01:22:27 | sometimes spend an entire week nearly on a daily basis dealing with some of the implications of you know hmo properties i think you know obviously i'll be very supportive of the guidance note because it is progress i'd note that both myself councillor evans and councillor davis as a submission of county councillors and also supporting us shop and town council with our colleagues on the town council as well we made quite a detailed submission to it obviously i'm disappointed that some of the suggestions |
| 01:23:05 | that we've made have not been accepted but in fairness to the portfolio they have provided significant reasoning behind that i would say and i appreciate the you know the the responses that we've received and you know my only real concern is that you know with the the parking issue and the explanation has been given in the fact that that we have within the planning inspector this specification that has been used in appeals my only concern is that a lot of the language within our planning policies makes reference to sustainability which i believe |
| 01:23:49 | does have merit in the fact that in town centre locations you have the amenities you have the infrastructure but i think realistically there seems to be this idea that you know a hmo property in an ideal world the people that live in it you know with access to public transport networks essentially don't need a car well the reality is it might be the case in some cases but in a lot of cases if you have a hmo where there are five people living in it there are going to be five vehicles there might be none but in a lot of cases and even though you know in my own |
| 01:24:29 | community and a lot of in the communities that where there is high concentrations of hmos yes okay then the transport infrastructure is better than some parts of the county but that still doesn't mean that people you know are not going to be reliant on vehicles the reality is the vast majority of people in the areas we represent use a car to get around and even in you know some of our urban locations that are quite close to larger employers with those public transport links there's still going to be people who are going to require that so i think |
| 01:25:07 | some of the language in terms of sustainability says oh that these locations are sustainable but on the other hand these are also the locations that are receiving the most difficulties in congestion with parking and overcrowding and i just feel that sometimes when the word sustainable gets used the reaction from the residents is well because we're close to a bus route and because we're close close to a town centre it's sustainable for you know our community and you know conditions in it to be you know adversely impacted by this so that's that's just one you know challenge i |
| 01:25:43 | say is that i think note needs to be made okay then there's sustainability in terms of transport links and access to amenities but also you know those locations are adversely and disproportionately affected by parking and traffic issues we've adrian has said that this will be revisited once and the licensing scheme is up and running because i think the great frustration we've got the moments in challenging these applications is as councillors and you know we're informed by residents of where there are numerous hmos and there's large concentrations but until we've got |
| 01:26:26 | this licensing regime in place we don't have the physical and objective evidence to be able to you know as a material consideration and i think that's really been a frustrating thing over the years is that we've got all these hmos but we don't know where they are and you know going back to when the pre when the report was presented with the licensing that's obviously a massive step forward and improvement but we're still stuck in the limbo that's up and running because you know and as other members who've had these applications can |
| 01:27:03 | be very contentious you know people in the street will tell you well let's say number 40 six people living in there but you know so you know i am confident and reassured by the fact that adrian has said that this will be revisited once that's in place and once that's up and running because that's going to be critical in terms of providing evidence with the concentrations but you know again the fact that this you know it has been rolling on for a number of years now i think residents can be sort of forgiven for feeling and it will be exasperated and cynical |
| 01:27:39 | you know about some of the changes that have happened and some of them that have been very rapid in some parts of our communities and whilst you know and i appreciate that hmos do provide an element of the housing mix that is needed and when they are well managed they can be you know they can just totally blend in but my experience has been that you know in a lot of cases they cause significant issues and can cause a lot of residents to feel that their street or their community that grown up they associate them with decline in the downward spiral rather than something |
| 01:28:16 | that is you know positive but yeah the as as the report puts forward in written has my full support and hopefully once we've got the licensing situation sorted and that program is up and running i look forward to this coming back and then we can further update it thank you i think there's no particular response required there or do you have something to add i think the point's well made councilor piers thank you chair i'm familiar with hmo has been part of the planning committee and originally part of the task and finish group which looked at |
| 01:28:59 | this some years ago as well the main issue i see certainly from a planning committee point of view is the number of hmos in the locality and the parking issues that councillor bibby has mentioned i'll talk about that first then because i think what councillor bibby said is absolutely correct i do believe that sustainability is used against resolving the potential parking issues for a hmo as soon as the word sustainability oh you've got a train station you've got a bus stop you don't need your cars and then the conversation goes away from that on the other side of the coin of course |
| 01:29:49 | and i have been down to decide on many site visits looking at hmos and when you look at it and you say yeah okay perhaps they should be parking but in some areas you can't physically fit a car but they tend to be terrace streets that are lined all the way down from side to side so i don't know how it would fit but that is each application on its own merit that's what the chief planning officer would say and we have to look at it like that so looking at the supplementary planning guidance itself yes we'll wait now for the additional licensing scheme |
| 01:30:32 | looking at 3.6 we've actually replicated hn7 what is in the ldp i don't think there's any changes with regard to that but under just where i just scroll down excuse me yeah where we look at 3.6 and the definition under hn7 we look at criteria d that the proposal includes a drying area bin storage and cycle parking and provides for the immunity of future occupants i think it might be useful if we included the word adequate because we went on a site visit in buckley looking hmo and we said yeah there's the immunity space yeah that would have fitted in with criteria |
| 01:31:25 | you know the criteria under d that provides an immunity but it was totally inadequate you know it was an amenity area you had a job to put two black bins there so i think that d perhaps i know it's part of the ldp but this is a supplementary guidance it can be tweaked and i think that under d we should include the word adequate interestingly enough i can't from memories think whether we've had any new build hmos they all seem to be conversions and one of the issues that crop up is say well yeah we've we've got four bedrooms now we've got a four |
| 01:32:10 | bedroom hmo we've got more people in but you know that the overall footprint of the building hasn't changed so we look at it as it comes in i just want to move quickly on to 4.23 which is the the graphic there so yeah i agree with that because some people will talk about that they don't want a hmo on both sides but i just want to talk about the next one on 4.24 top of page 51 shows a property number 18 and it says that this would be acceptable in principle and i look at the word |
| 01:33:07 | in principle because whilst you look at that and say yeah looks okay there may be further down the road further up the road across the road there may be other hmos that due to the cumulative effect you might say well hang on yeah we can fit this one shown in red at number 18 which wouldn't be a problem for the two shown in this graphic but it may tip the balance because we've now got really more hmos than we need in the street which brings on another point how many is too many but that's what we need to do we can have |
| 01:34:00 | a view the planning officer can have a view and say well yeah you know we've got another two there but we don't think it's too many residents might think you've got too many so do we have a criteria to limit the number is a number can we put a number on it for any given street and the potential impact yeah i'll leave it at that thank you chair okay thank you adrian can i bring you back on this in terms of the the language about sustainability and we have to remember that within terms of welsh government planning guidance in ppw |
| 01:34:47 | that is the approach that's set out in terms of sustainability and transport where you have a transport hierarchy with walking cycling and public transport then the private car so these guidance notes are all prepared in the context of that guidance in terms of the point about power 3.6 and whether drying space and energy space etc is adequate later on in the guidance notes under criteria d there is a whole section there which talks about providing that drawing space and energy space and so on so i think we've covered that within the guidance note |
| 01:35:32 | there was a question about any new build i'm not aware of any new build hmos in flinch here but i have seen one not too far from me and rex and so they can occasionally occur in terms of the diagrams they're just meant to be some simple representations of what is set out in one of the policy that there's there's no sandwiching of a property between hmos and there's no if you like terracing where you get in a concentration of hmos so it's just trying to replicate those messages as clearly and simply as possible rather than perhaps trying to cater |
| 01:36:16 | for every possible situation and really you'll hear this many times we've already heard it this morning it is a case of each case on its merits in terms of a limit to hmos there's no particular limit that we can apply it's still got to be based on looking at the merits of an individual planning application and whether or not it would cause harm and that harm would need to be evidenced and that's the approach we're taking within the sbg okay thanks chair okay thank you for that right i've got uh councillor cogan's cover next |
| 01:36:56 | thank you chair um i'm i may be misreading the document um so i'm asking for help from either the chief officer or from uh the the mr waters um on page 15 4.22 um it says the council and management authorities will not permit the following etc etc and then on page 68 it has in the consultation response um that it would not be appropriate to add risk management authorities to paragraph 4.22 so it if this is the the final version then i'm assuming that shouldn't be in there and that's just an error um or i could be misreading it i don't know so i'd |
| 01:37:50 | appreciate the advice from the officers thank you chair we could look into that i'm not sure without looking at that in detail okay um so would you be able to inform the committee then on what the final status is then because that'd be useful going forward so whether we know we know what document is leaving this committee that'd be great thank you chair okay thank you okay just ask adrian with regard to um councillor's peers a comment about 3.6 inserting the word adequate into the document would that be acceptable and is that something that can be done the section of the |
| 01:38:38 | um sbg where that was referred to in 3.6 that's the actual policy wording from the ldp so we can't alter the policy wording that's a that's a given so we have to take that at face value thank you okay thank you okay next on the list is uh councillor richardson thank you chair thank you adrian for your report and some of the stuff i'm going to mention has already been spoken about um just because where i am in the queue so i refer to um 3.2 and 3.3 which is on page 44 and uh as rightly pointed out by adrian um it talks about the difficulty |
| 01:39:23 | arises from applying this to flincher is that only hmos with five and more occupiers in building three stories are subject to mandatory licensing so that is now not the case um i seem to remember that we brought in mandatory licensing for the smaller hmos we also as part of that licensing said that we would do a fit and proper person check like we would for a license for the caravan site or similar so i look at um 3.3 and it says um about a licensing scheme we're also saying that we we don't know where the hmos are |
| 01:40:13 | and i just i just i just can't help but think that this um policy is is not quite ready for adoption i was at a planning meeting quite recently where residents had um they had access to this document and the property sort of failed to meet quite a lot of the criteria but it was dismissed at the planning meeting by saying yeah but it's just guidance it's just guidance so if this is the only guidance that we've got surely we should be sticking to it um if i go down to page 54 just bear with me sorry um page 54 it says that applicants should therefore calculate |
| 01:41:07 | requirements for off street parking and i'm going to emphasize off street parking there using the figure of 0.4 car parking spaces per unit and then it goes on to say that this figure is based on residential car parking research carried out by the departments of communities and local government in 2007 so firstly i'd like to point out that you know that that figure is out days you can't even have 0.4 of a car but the particular property i refer to it didn't have any on street parking nothing whatsoever and um the reason explained around that was |
| 01:41:47 | well if it stayed as a three-bedroom house they'd have um provision for two car parking spaces anyway but you know that's that's not the truth there was a zero car parking space there whatsoever and it's just like i say it's already been raised by aging but if i just look at um the recommendation i'm just scrolling up there with me sorry about this recommendation that the hmo ipgn is adopted i don't think it's ready for adoption because if we're waiting for additional licensing if we're waiting for mapping going back to councillor pierce's points of |
| 01:42:38 | you know what is the figure what is the figure if you look at 3.2 it tells you what the figure is it's it's 10 but and then it says made available for inspection on the council's website the recommendation is that the hmo is adopted and made available for inspection on the council's website my answer to that is it's already been available on the website for some time residents who are having a hmo next room they know where to find it they know what it says so i just for one i don't think that the guidance notes are ready for adoption |
| 01:43:18 | i don't want to be turning up to a planning meeting and saying well they're only guidance notes anyway and we're waiting for the additional licensing and um just a correction that the guidance notes are already available on the internet and have been for some time thank you very much okay thank you councillor richison okay thanks for those comments um that particular planning committee i remember that um at that time um and still as we talk now this guidance note hasn't been adopted by the council it's still in its draft form it's been out to consultation |
| 01:43:58 | and it's been in the public domain as a draft guidance note until it's been um adopted by cabinets we can't attach significant weight to it in terms of planning committee determining a planning application okay thank you chair okay thank you sir can i just come back on that one if you don't mind fire away so if if if we're not using this document as guidance what what are we using what what what have we got to refer to and what will change when we do adopt this document to be told but it's only guidance |
| 01:44:39 | but it's only guidance okay thank you for that i'll just bring in the chief officer thank you chair i'll i'll just try and do my best to clarify a few points if i may so adrian has said that quite transparently that this is an interim guidance note for the reasons based around the small hmo licensing regime which is about to kick in and we haven't got at the moment the information to adequately can consider and assess the the issue of clustering which i greatly um but what adrian has said and and i agree with it it's better to have the interim |
| 01:45:27 | guidance note in place than no guidance note at all and the reason for that is because it supplements and supports the local plan policy and builds on on that so it's more uh it's more power to the elbow if that makes sense when when making planning decisions and will assist members of the planning committee when they are considering those planning applications so it isn't perfect for the reasons that i've said but equally it takes us further and i think it provides more guidance now what i will say and i'm mindful that these words will potentially |
| 01:46:04 | come back to haunt me that all supplementary planning guidance is guidance but it's there to assist and it is a material consideration and once it's gone through consultation and been formally adopted by cabinet then it can be given very significant weight in the decision making process so it is helpful and my advice is better to have the document in its current state than not to have it at all and as soon as we have that information around the clustering we'll bring that back through the scrutiny process through planning strategy group to put that further |
| 01:46:42 | information in into the into the supplementary planning guides i think it's probably worth as well just clarifying a little more on the car parking issue because i know that is an issue which troubles members greatly when dealing with applications for hmos so we we do talk about sustainable locations because the vast majority of hmo applications are within our more built up areas where there is better connectivity in terms of public transport and there are better local services and the likes and we do try and focus our our residential development as members know |
| 01:47:21 | within our more built up areas in order to reduce travel and reduce the reliance on on private cars so they are by definition usually in the more sustainable locations all of the government guidance is aimed at reducing reliance on on the private car as well but i think an important point to note here is generally speaking and we've had the discussion around very few new bills being for hmos and it tends to be conversions and there is there is a backstop situation there so there is either already some car parking provided or the house in question has no car parking |
| 01:48:05 | and relies on on street parking but there is a fallback position isn't there i think that's that's an important consideration for members really that that property already generates a demand for car parking and the issue that we face is that comparable is the demand for hmo car parking any greater than the demand that could be generated by the occupation of that property as a single dwelling and the argument that will often be put to members of planning committee is the worst case scenario of you know a three-bed property having a family with older children |
| 01:48:44 | who've got cars and the likes and that could generate three or four cars in itself and what we constantly see in planning appeal decisions is inspectors giving very significant weight to that consideration as well so we do have to consider this in the round and we do have to consider the fallback position and the worst case scenario of the car parking that would be generated by the lawful use of that property so all that comes into consideration so it's not as simple as saying you know this is going to be a hmo for four people therefore it's going to generate four |
| 01:49:19 | parking spaces it's on a street where there's no car parking spaces so we're going to refuse it on lack of car parking that is unfortunately an oversimplistic way of looking at it because we do have to look at the current situation with regards to that property and we do know because we report this back to the committee quite regular that that is the position that inspectors take when they are determining the planning appeal so hopefully that kind of helps in terms of that discussion around sustainability in car parking i do recognize it's a really difficult issue and |
| 01:49:54 | it's one that really really concerns residents but we have to give you the advice in terms of what the inspectors the the position that inspectors take and the interpretation of guidance and national policy when they're determining the planning appeal so i i hope that members thank you okay thank you very much for that um okay moving on got four more speakers councillor chris bettle okay the points i was going to raise have been covered by the by the chief officer thank you okay thank you councillor rose uh thank you yeah a few questions i'll try |
| 01:50:33 | and remove out ones which have already been discussed i have to agree with most of what's been said already um in terms of the data not be available do we have a time scale of when we're anticipating that to be available for us i mean that's probably the critical part of this really isn't it is this two years away that we have a full data set or is this is this three months you know i think that will uh guide us a bit better if there's there's an anticipation there um i think adrian mentioned also the evidence of harm is a necessity is that not down to us to |
| 01:51:05 | evidence the harm in terms of the changes of those towns um you know from the possible demographic changes of being lower wealth individuals moving into those areas and decreasing the spending in the towns and going against circular economies is that not something that we need you know to take into consideration within as we go forward within these um the car parking yeah i i didn't think of it the way the chief officer just mentioned it um but it does bring up another point there in terms of the two hmos that have been approved of you know doors away from where |
| 01:51:38 | i live at the moment um both were not residential properties they were both business properties so how does that impact you know that the 0.4 cars is is a figure that we've used for a while but that data relates to 2007 you know insurance companies have said that between 94 and 2024 there was a 60 increase in the amount of registered vehicles um and so i think for me the demographics of who is living in the hmos needs to be taken into consideration and you know there's areas you know one of my neighbors could get to work on the bus quite |
| 01:52:17 | happily from buckley but couldn't get to visit his son so there's areas like that which don't necessarily add to the the the the idea that the the the transport is is correct and typically those people in hmos will be someone like going through a divorce and things like that that i've seen in the ones local to me now in terms of um the uh the the the the changes going forward this is obviously going to impact as has been said the the the more built up areas and the ones with better connectivity is there a longer term goal to spread that out a bit um i think |
| 01:52:57 | something that's probably uh key to know really in terms of do we expect hmos to just carry on being included and every property slowly over 40 50 years to be converted at some point or is there an idea to move them about more rural areas um and then on top of that the last thing is although i understand you know that this is guidance and you know we don't have the full data set but is there a reason why we can't introduce a guidance of a mandatory cap you know some sort of maximum ratio in that guidance just to add to you know what we wouldn't want to see you know |
| 01:53:38 | obviously as has been said several times this is guidance not a requirement so if it's guidance surely we should be able to say you know a ratio of one in 20 should be expected to be a maximum in the street of the known hmos i think something like that is probably quite simple to include thanks okay adri okay thanks chair um in terms of time scales supporting the data together there's two stages to that there's first the the public protection officers in terms of gathering the initial data and then there's the planning policy officers looking at the the location of |
| 01:54:20 | hmos and determining whether we can have an amended policy approach so that's not going to be a quick process you're looking at 12 months plus easily um in in terms of um the point about harm well i think everybody involved in the development management process in terms of a planning application ultimately is looking to determine whether there is planning harm arising from a planning application there is a presumption in favor of sustainable development operating in wales unless material planning considerations indicate otherwise and that's |
| 01:55:00 | why it's so important to look at every case on its individual merits in terms of whether that harm is occurring um the the parking situation the 0.4 spaces per room that is the latest evidence we have available i'm not aware of anything else that we can use and it would be a huge task to actually seek to update that evidence it's still being given weight by planning inspectors and i would see no reason why we can't continue to do that making our own decisions um in terms of you know the number of hmos ultimately continuing |
| 01:55:45 | there's no limit in terms of numbers ultimately on hmos what there will be through this guidance note and possibly the future guidance note is looking more closely at the potential impacts within small geographical areas whether that harm would arise um the question was also raised about whether hmos can occur in rural areas um there's no reason in principle why they couldn't but they tend to occur in urban areas because they're seeking to make available cheap quite basic accommodation um mostly for workers um shift work et cetera and |
| 01:56:29 | they tend to be in locations that are close to those points of work such as d side industrial park and that's why you find that there are certain areas of the council of the county where you tend to get these applications arising okay thanks chair okay thank you for that uh councillor karen ellis thank you most of my questions have been answered now but what i find difficult to understand is um why this policy can't go forward when all the work completing how many on the licensing of the hmo hmos isn't complete because uh as being on the |
| 01:57:21 | planning committee and listening to residents on one on one issue where they thought in their opinion uh next door or very close by was a hmo but we couldn't actually establish with 100 certainty whether that was a hmo or not um i think personally as someone who sits on the planning committee that we should actually have that information because of the parking issues the overdevelopment of hms hmos in one particular area and that relates as well to um the rubbish we we were told you know about the collections oh |
| 01:58:15 | though they can't store rubbish on the front of the properties it's got to be around the back but then in the photographs that were taken it was plainly show that there's obviously a very large property with several bins um and rubbish was actually stored on the front but why can't we have all the information otherwise we're judging aren't we on what could be or could not be and along with the planning guidance as well it can be used or it can be ignored that's another thing it's either oh we get told don't me it's it's planning guidance it's not |
| 01:59:04 | law it's just guidance it's there for guidance so i i think we find ourselves in the situation and i understand what what you're saying about the parking you can only use the 0.4 per room but you could have two people in that room two cars so you could have more cars than if it was an average household where you might just have you know one person living in that room because it happens we make reference was made the hms hmos are actually targeted at people who are working and our shift workers and we've all heard the stories of people who are shift workers will |
| 01:59:49 | actually share that room one's on nights one's on days both could have cars i don't know that for me there's there's a lot of the changes here and the planning guidance doesn't go far enough to actually protect the residents or actually give to the people who are sitting on the planning committee sufficient information that's just my view chair but thank you for letting me ask the question chief officer yeah i i guess it's a case of whether you know some guidance and support for members is better than none at all really and that that issue around the clustering and |
| 02:00:36 | evidence in how many hmos are in any particular street or any particular area which again is a another area of concern if that makes sense evidence in that and refusing planning permission on that basis when we end up in an appeal situation that's got to be evidenced and that's why we're saying at the moment we're giving what we can in terms of guidance and there's lots in there about standards for example and about not having hmos next to each other and the likes that that issue around clustering we don't have the evidence yes and |
| 02:01:14 | that's where the hmo licensing regime will come in and give us that more evidence so when we're in a committee situation you'll hear either myself or some of the other officers explaining that these are legitimate reasons for refusing planning permission because we have the evidence around harm but if you want to go down the route of refuse and on the basis of clustering when we get to an appeal situation situation we haven't got the evidence to put before an inspector because we just don't know now i'm not i'm not sat here saying that's an |
| 02:01:47 | acceptable situation but it's a situation that we find ourselves at the minute and we're working as hard as we can to rectify that and the licensing scheme will go some way in assisting us with with so my advice today is that the interim guidance before you gives as much support to members when considering hmos and officers in in in making the recommendations yes i'll accept it doesn't go far enough in so far as it doesn't give us that extra element around clustering but i'll explain the reasons why why we we can't we can't do that at the moment |
| 02:02:24 | we will work towards that but at this moment in time we cannot accurately evidence where all of the hmos are so in a in a decision making situation it would be we we could get ourselves into difficulties if we start using reasons that we can't evidence and and that's that's the that's the point in in this so there's there's plenty in my view within the guidance to help that decision making process and and as i and as i said earlier in my view some support is better than no support in terms of the guidance and that we're that we're putting in front of you |
| 02:03:06 | but as i said i'm holding my hands up and and the report is very clear on this it doesn't it it's an interim guidance note for that for that very reason thank you chair okay thank you for that councilor bibby yeah thank you very much mr chair my understanding here of the situation is that we've got the draft in front of us that what we're being asked to do today is to formally adopt it endorse it and then cabinet or formally adopt it so currently it's in draft so i imagine the formal adoption means that its material weight is significantly more and my only concern is and |
| 02:03:50 | i appreciate you know the concerns that have been raised by council richard and council ellis that you know it feels like it's incomplete because licensing regime is going to take some time to basically fire up and you know adrian said you know we could take maybe 12 months before that's fully operational you've acquired all that information my concern is that if we park the bus on this and await that work to be done are we in a position where we've got a draft note which leaves us exposed because that's my understanding of the situation because we've |
| 02:04:31 | got something in front of us that hasn't been formally adopted we make our recommendation it's formal adoption at cabinet we've got that then in black and white it's no longer draft it's formally adopted and then once the licensing regime is set up that data is all then available we can then come back and supplement it i'm just a little bit concerned that if we were to just say today well it's not complete so you know leave it where it is until we've got that information there's just going to be a period of 12 months where we're exposed and where we haven't got that |
| 02:05:05 | in defense and you know and as council richardson mentioned in there in what he said in the application that was presented to committee recently you know we need to be able to have this formally adopted so we're actually able to use that as a material planning and give it the weight and for it to be able to use when we come to situations with the inspector because that's my concern is that we could just park it up and say right okay well we'll wait till all that information but we're going to have a 12-month period where we're just going to be |
| 02:05:37 | we could just get bamboozled with applications and we haven't got the planning defense behind it yeah and i i would agree with that and also it's not unusual for circumstances to change whether that be national policy or or some other factor which means that an adopted ldp adopted spg rather needs to come back for review so you know they are moments in time if that if if that makes sense so and i don't think certainly you would be criticized by for example a planning inspector for having an adopted spg that was an adopted interim spg because the reasons for that interim |
| 02:06:20 | status are very clear it's very transparent so i don't think you would face undue criticism for that and if i'm speaking honestly you might face more criticism and and and i don't mean this is a threat but you you might find more criticism for parking the bus actually if that makes sense okay thank you uh council loyd yeah thanks chair thank you yeah this is it's long overdue this isn't it really and my opinion is it's better to have something in place that can be tweaked in it gives us someone to go on at the planning committee it would have been good to have had |
| 02:07:02 | the information regarding the number of hmos but that's going to be a difficult task in my opinion you can you're going to get somewhere we're operating and you're going to you're not going to find them are you there's going to be still some out there which are going to be operating as an hmo and they're not going to be on any register it's good it can be a material planning consideration which i think is very important well we're all councillors out there we know that our residents don't like hmos in our area and it's always a difficult thing for |
| 02:07:30 | for us councillors to support the residents really but you know we've got to take into account the planning reasons for that um you know things that i mean the parking 0.4 2007 that's been raised i mean it is a long time ago that research isn't it and obviously 0.4 should probably be more like 1.4 now or something like that but we've got the figure there at this moment in time we can't change it and one thing that i've noticed and this is one thing that cropped up recently at a final application is the amenity space well at least this guidance here in 4.14 about |
| 02:08:04 | amenity space it does suggest quite a large amenity space three bedsits a minimum of 20 square meters and each additional one above that plus 10 so if you've got a nine bedroom hmo we're talking about 80 square meters of amenity space that's that's quite a big area that i think a lot of hmos will probably fall down on that one um i would like i'd like to move the recommendation um and obviously change the word adopted to the word endorsed like agent has suggested um and again i'll just you know emphasize the fact that it's better to have this as the chief |
| 02:08:42 | officer said there's nothing in place at all it gives us something to go on and it can be added to in the next 12 months thank you chair thank you for that councillor councillor richardson thank you chair i appreciate you giving me a second chance to speak i'll be as brief as i can um the interim guidance we already have if we adopt it will still only be interim guidance i think we're doing it back to front um i was elected in 2022 and thrown into the uh i'm being told today that it'll take 12 months to get um the mapping ready so why wasn't the |
| 02:09:26 | mapping ready in 2023 or why wasn't the mapping done 23 to 24 um like like i say i think we're doing it the wrong way around i i i cannot support um adopting the policy today and could i request a recorded vote please i think you'd need to show a hand i'd take advice on how that needs to be done chair thank you okay councillor richardson just bear with us a second while i take advice just while we're doing that adrian do you have any comments to come back to councillor richardson at all only briefly the simply that we don't have the the mapped evidence available |
| 02:10:19 | at present and we certainly wouldn't have done two years ago the additional licensing scheme is only coming into operation next month so until those officers have had chance to work through a backlog of suspected hmos and clarified the the present position it's only once that has been done we all start to get an accurate picture of how many hmos are and where they're located thank you chair okay thank you for that um does anybody know the exact figure for a recorded vote how many are required because i think in one meeting it was three or five i can't recall |
| 02:11:06 | okay i'm getting the indication that it might be can i just ask councillor richardson to give a reason for the recorded vote i know he doesn't have to but i'm just quite curious why you'd like a recorded vote uh thanks you answered your own question i don't have to thank you okay thank you so if we work on the basis of five members of the committee can five people indicate that they'd like a recorded vote okay that vote is one so that falls which i'm quite glad about in the way because if it was three then we might come back here next |
| 02:11:47 | to do the whole thing again so at least it's a clear indication of one way or the other so sorry councillor richardson there'll be no recorded vote on that no problem okay that moves us to the recommendation we've had a move that it's the hmo ipgn is endorsed and made available for inspection on the council's website they have a seconder for that seconded and give a show of hands those in favor okay that's carried okay and that brings that brings that gender item to an end thank you very |
| 02:12:20 | much i've just been seeing the time it's now quarter past 12 i propose we take a lunch break and we should be back at once one second could i um could i just suggest we do the next item the reason i say that is then we could release adrian for his working day it's another spg so i i wouldn't intend to introduce in any in any great detail at all and just let adrian run through the space about dwellings spg i wouldn't want to to to predict the the discussion on it i'm assuming it will be perhaps less controversial than the hmo |
| 02:13:06 | spg so i know it's quarter past but i suggest we might get this done in 20 minutes or so uh i think uh thank you for your suggestion but i'm going to turn it down okay and we will take we'll take a break now and we'll reconvene at 20 to one thank you okay welcome back to the environmental economy overview and scrutiny committee we'll move on to agenda item number eight which is the adoption of space around dwellings supplementary planning guidance note i'll hand over to the chief officer yes thank you chair i |
| 02:13:50 | won't repeat my earlier introduction with regards to spg reviews following the adoption of the ldp the spg before you now is space around dwellings we have had a space around spg for for many years and this is a a refresh of that so i will hand you over to uh to my colleague edgy walters who will uh walk you through uh through the document thank you chair hey thanks chair thanks david um the space around dwellings spg seeks to ensure that the layout and design of new housing development respects living standards both of existing residents |
| 02:14:39 | and also occupiers of the new development the draft sbg has been the subject of consultation and received a good range of responses on a variety of topics and they're summarized in paragraphs 1.11 and 1.12 of the covering report um some representations sought the relaxation of standards and the guidance and other representations sought a tightening of the standards and for them to be represented as absolutes or minimums the draft spg presented to you seeks to retain and adopt a middle ground in terms of the standards themselves it's perhaps not surprising on one |
| 02:15:28 | hand you'd want to see developers would want to see the the standards being relaxed residents etc might want to see them being um made tougher but we think the spg is about right sitting in the middle of those also the standards are presented as guidelines in the spg it is a guidance document and there's a number of reasons for this um each application can then be considered on its individual merits it allows some scope for innovative design and layouts it enables professional assessment by our case officers and for inspectors if it goes to appeal but |
| 02:16:13 | having said that what the spg states clearly is that if a development scheme is proposing lesser standards that that has to be justified by the developer and that will be looked at closely by the case officer we've made minor amendments to the spg where it improves the clarity and the implementation of documents so attached to the company the covering report there's an appendix one and this shows the amended spg itself and also the table of representations officer responses and the uh the recommended changes as with the previous item um my apology |
| 02:16:58 | that the recommendation um is written as though it was the cabinet report so what we're seeking today is that um scrutiny endorsed the spg to go to cabinet for adoption thank you chair okay thank you adrian uh council piers all right thank you chair i'll try and keep for the 20 minutes chief officer think i don't have any questions let's hear we get on uh i'd like to refer everyone if i may to page 101 of the document itself and in particular figure five garden and driveway distances uh apologies but i haven't the clue what it's telling me |
| 02:17:46 | i think we need to take it out and redo it it says in the above diagram the infill dwelling is unacceptable which one is the infill dwelling moving from left to right we've got an existing house i take that to be on its own plot is it or is that one bed an annex which is part of that plot where it says existing house there's no dimension as is for the other grayed out areas and i don't know which is the roadside is it at the top or at the bottom what does the gray represent it talks about an undesirable subdivision of an existing plot |
| 02:18:45 | um i take that then to be perhaps the infill dwelling or a subdivided plot to include a new property um it talks about garden and driveway which is the driveway which is a garden and also uh while we're looking at that i want to talk about space about dwellings in general because i've seen a lot of cases where extensions are built right up to the shared boundary and then the eaves and the gutters overhang the neighboring property now could we have a some explanation on that whether it is acceptable to build a brickwork up to the boundary line |
| 02:19:34 | and if the eaves and gutters are overhanging and there's any issues does that become a civil matter or should the entire property including the eaves and the gutters stay within the plot that the building is on and similarly we do have extensions where i've seen where the building itself has just got a drain pipe width between the building and the boundary where there's a tall fence and now anyone can do any maintenance on their own property because of that it's sort of beyond sometimes if people accept that that's fine but i'd just like |
| 02:20:16 | to know your thoughts on what i've mentioned about extensions right up to the boundary overhanging gutters and eaves and whether this figure five can be redrafted and perhaps include an illustration about what i'm talking about up to the boundary and the gutters and eaves overhanging whether that's acceptable or not thank you okay thank you adrian sorry okay thanks chair that figure five is is trying to pull together a number of messages from the the guidance note about the arrangements of properties in terms of lengths of driveways |
| 02:21:04 | the width of driveways the size of the rear gardens and it's trying to illustrate an infill dwelling where i think it's unacceptable because of the shape of the garden a long thin garden not being usable compared to some of those other garden areas within the the diagram um the grade areas are the garden areas in terms of extensions being built up to shared boundaries this is fairly typical for rear extensions where you have a shared boundary such as semi-detached dwellings |
| 02:21:50 | i must admit i'm not too sure about the situation with overhanging gutters etc i don't know whether david may be able to come in with a an input on that one okay thanks chair yes so in in terms of overhang then that then effectively becomes a civil matter and you'll be familiar members won't you i think with um permitted development rights and you'll often find uh and adrian's alluded to um so rear extensions built being built directly on the boundary and and certainly from a permitted development perspective there's nothing to stop that but but you're absolutely right |
| 02:22:28 | sometimes you get the soffits overhanging and and the and the guttering and and that becomes a civil matter so we wouldn't as planners we wouldn't recommend it we'd always recommend that you're able to maintain um on on your land but there's nothing in planning terms to stop that happening and and effectively permitted development does in certain instances allow that anyway did someone come back yeah thanks for that david but are you saying then if it came forward as a application to the committee if it showed the soffits and gutters overhanging adjoining |
| 02:23:10 | boundary are you saying that that would be not permissible but if it happens under a permitted development there's not much you can do about it but the person next door would have a civil case that they could could raise and and secondly just going back to that figure five i do think it needs revamping because you explained the gray area was grass doesn't say that and it didn't give the reason why that plot wasn't acceptable but you said that it was long and it was narrow so i think we do need to go back and i don't i don't know which side the road is we |
| 02:23:49 | talked about driveway but you've got solid lines there there's no there's no opening onto the road the road is on that side i think you just need to redo it i'm afraid thank you yeah thanks council and i i do take the point that that diagram could be clearer i i'll accept that and we'll look at that um the um the sentence after the diagram does try and i think give some clarity it says in the above diagram the infield dwelling is unacceptable hence the cross um as the awkward plot shape results in inadequate driveway length and a narrow private garden so i think that does |
| 02:24:26 | clear things up to a to a degree but notwithstanding that i do take your point in the diagram itself we could we could improve so we will we will um we will have a look at that and in terms of um planning applications for development on boundaries um this is a tricky one really because and i'm not looking to swerve giving you an answer and but as you know each planning application is dealt with on its merits excuse me and i and i don't think it will be the that just the overhang itself was fatal um if that makes sense it's whether the design and the |
| 02:25:02 | scale and the massing of that development um that's the key consideration for us as a planning authority in my view now you might have a situation of an extension or a new building on the boundary is deemed to be acceptable in planning terms but the overhang is unacceptable to the neighbor and you're then into the realms of a civil dispute and if you take that to to two extremes and i always use this example if if i wanted to build a house in your back garden for example and i could get planning permission for that unless you let me do it then i wouldn't |
| 02:25:42 | be able to do it and the same with the overhang really if you're overhanging and encroaching onto somebody else's land and that's a civil matter so you might have your planning permission in place but if you can't get through the civil issue you might not be able to build it hence as always recommending stepping in really to avoid that kind of overhang situation hopefully that helps okay thank you councillor rose thanks um similar query really in terms of section seven uh the distance between dwelling the last bullet uh where adjacent dwellings both have |
| 02:26:22 | walls without windows i couldn't get it says figure five i couldn't get what that's trying to say in figure five but my query really is in terms of uh two meter distance between two properties would only really allow a meter each side sort of thing for access between do we have to take in disability regulations there in terms of giving accessibility requirements is it 1.5 meters needed for uh access in wheelchairs and things uh to be able to turn around in terms of access around their building is that something we need to pay attention to or or consider within |
| 02:27:01 | these planning guidance because although the person building it may not have any disabilities it doesn't necessarily mean they won't have any future or that no one with disabilities will like to move there good i think we we're into development management here aren't we agent hence adrian's slight slight discomfort i guess and dm is my background so i'm happy to to take that so and in terms of access for people with disabilities and then that is primarily dealt with by part 10 of the building regulations so it would be covered um it would be covered elsewhere |
| 02:27:38 | so it is not uncommon to see um dwellings set just one meter off each boundary and two meters between them and as i say the accessibility issues are dealt with through the legislation thank you okay councillor rose do you want to come back on that are you happy with that response yeah i don't think i i understood it fully sort of thing in terms of if it's if it's in other parts of the legislation then is that we can put what we want in this one ignoring that part or is it that will override this but if that if that overrides this then is this one wrong then |
| 02:28:20 | thanks so there may be in terms of accessibility and in terms of potentially for example accessing the rear of the property for people with disabilities there may be an alternative way through that but what you'll often find and i think we can all give examples of this is i mean if you a terrace is an it is an obvious example where there is no access through the rear but that still complies uh with with with the regulations so and we we don't have a policy if you like that insists on um we certainly don't have a policy for example that out that outlaws |
| 02:28:57 | terrace dwellings um for example but equally we don't have a policy that insists on for detached and semi-detached dwellings there's 1.5 uh space around that property so a wheelchair can access right the way around it that's that's just not how the policy is and uh to my mind um i i don't think any other planning authority has that policy um either and as i say matters of accessibility they're dealt with through building regulations not not the planning regulations okay thank you any other speakers because the wake up thank you chair and this was about |
| 02:29:37 | section seven distances between dwellings um there's no so you've got um obviously the first figure one figure two and then the one on sloping ground there's nothing between sizes of buildings so in my own ward personally um we had a whole 190 houses built um all onto a adjacent to an housing estate and the the boundary was all bungalows and then up the entire side there were very large four-bedroom houses built with the sort of the blank side of the house to the bungalows um i've got it on the map here one of them is eight meters |
| 02:30:20 | from the from the bungalows back door um but it's just a brick wall is there nothing in there to protect this kind obviously with the height difference you get extra meters and such but um with existing buildings like i say i could show you the details there's one's eight meters but 8.4 there's another one that's under eight meters um we challenged it at the time and nothing came from it so there's something in there that can help people like this in the future so within the spg there is a section that talks about differences in ridge height and it also |
| 02:30:56 | talks about um comparisons between three-story developments against an adjacent to two-story properties and it does talk about doesn't it for every meter difference in ridge height above the standard distances um those distances should be increased by two meters so there is there is something in there and i you know forgive me i don't know the example that you're referring to but um this standard would clearly be applied um to that now i don't know what the circumstances behind that development were whether perhaps it was a replacement dwelling for example |
| 02:31:30 | i i just i just don't know but but that's that standard is clearly there in terms of um if there is a differential in height then it it increases the standard of separation so in theory those houses built there should have been 15 to 16 meters away from that not eight and how how was that where who would have who would have monitored that and you know where did it go wrong for the obviously the residents that lived there and had lived there for 40 years now have a brick wall at the back of their house basically and there's just several of them now and i i think you'll |
| 02:32:16 | understand i i couldn't possibly comment on a scheme that i know nothing about um so i don't know the background to it and i don't know whether something did actually go wrong or whether there um uh other material reasons as to why uh that arrangement was deemed acceptable i mean happy to look at it off offline and happy to talk through that decision but um this is looking forward not backward of course yeah okay thank you any other members i wish it does the bit for game without um having reference to the exact example that has been raised you know i think |
| 02:32:54 | we make exceptions in relation to flank walls don't we where there's no direct overlooking of windows and so on and again if we look at 2a figure 2a it says the distance guideline is 12 meters and that's the guideline i guess that the variations of those again in relation to properties adjacent to each other again whether they are um at an angle you know are directly opposite and so on there are particular aspects which do go into consideration and making decisions in relation to those cases okay any other members wishing to speak |
| 02:33:32 | okay if not then we'll go to the recommendation um with the amendment of that the space around supplementary plan guidance note is endorsed and made available for especially on the council's website moved secondly show hands all those in favor that's fully carried thank you very much um okay we're moving on to agenda item nine review of the three weekly bin collection and i hand over to the chief officer yeah thank you um we should have some other officers actually outside i don't know if they've sat outside potentially um both online now should be chris |
| 02:34:22 | cunningham andy rhodes and obviously me and he's outside okay fine okay both online that's fine so i'll do some quick introductions then before i start so chris goddard is here who's our service delivery manager for street scene and waste services in particular we've also got andy rhodes online who's our waste operations manager and we've got chris cunningham who's the waste interim waste strategy manager as well online unfortunately rickson chancel couldn't be here today so so you've got the four of us instead um so it's going to be a bit of a double act with me |
| 02:34:58 | chris so i'll lead the first part of the report and then i'll hand over to chris to go through the operational part so i'll cover the the performance side to date um obviously this is a report that's been requested by this committee um we've brought further reports in october um just i think following the service change that came in in april we were asked to bring that report forward in october there is a link within the report if you do want to check that report again um so this is the update reports we we are still waiting for the quarter three |
| 02:35:31 | verified figures but i will give you a verbal update where we're up to at the moment um so i'll cover that in more detail in a minute and then chris will cover the miss collections we were also asked to cover garden waste brand bin collections ahp and we've tried to do that in the operational section of the report as well and medical clinical collections too um so just to start um we are still covered by the threat of infraction fines so i do have to point that out um for the three financial years 22 23 23 24 and 24 25 that hasn't gone away |
| 02:36:09 | unfortunately um we we do still keep um in contact with the welsh government officials we have quarterly meetings with them to review our performance and also to review our progress on in terms of the action plan behind the resource and waste strategy um you know we we make sure that we you know we do provide regular updates to them um and you know that those two-way communication is really positive between us and welsh government um but we still haven't had a risk we have lowered it because we are we're tracking really well in terms of our progress |
| 02:36:53 | to date for quarters one and two so we have lowered it on the risk register it was previously a red risk but we're now down to i think a yellow um risk um because we feel that we're making really really positive progress um so i'm not going to go into the detail to the background of the the report because you're already aware of that so i take you straight to section 1.03 on page 129 there was an error in the appendices i don't know whether it's a formatting error see for those online you you will have had an email copy of the appendices and also to members in the |
| 02:37:28 | in the room you'll have updated versions of the appendices for some reason when it's been uploaded into the the.gov system it's chopped off some of the weeks in the first chart so um you'll see for appendix one um in the report the actual online report it went to week 35 but actually our chart actually goes to week 40 which is the end of december and so you've got the corrected versions there so just cover that so we've done some analysis of the service change since we started on the 28th of april right up to the end of december to see how well we've been |
| 02:38:08 | performing and you can see from the the charts that's there in the appendices the correct chart um we've seen a sustained reduction in the level of non-recyclable residual waste that we send to park adver um week 36 there's a slight discrepancy because um we actually saw an incline in the tonnages compared to the same week the previous year and that was because in that previous year there was a week of snow um so we had really bad weather so we actually cancelled the collections that week so there was no residual waste so there is that that's a minor anomaly within the chart so |
| 02:38:43 | we've highlighted that within the reports um overall the the variance shows that we've had a 17.5 decrease in residual waste overall in that in those three quarters which is really really positive when we brought the report in october it was 18 so it hasn't gone down very much at all it's mainly stayed around the same level um we've been tracking it year to date as well and it's still maintaining at those levels so we we've come you know we are confident that we will hit the 70 target um so that's a significant you know as you can see the tonnages there |
| 02:39:20 | um it's a cumulative yearly tonnage of 2778 tons altogether and that's what it means in an actual volume of waste so really positive story um in terms of that that performance there um we move over the page onto 1.04 in terms of the the residual waste tonnages that go through the household recycling centers the HRC sites compared to the previous year again in appendix two that chart shows you a similar story um but it's an even bigger decrease um so 32 percent decrease overall and that that stayed the same i think when we brought the report to you in october |
| 02:40:03 | that was 32 percent at that stage as well so that's been maintained um so it just shows that people are when they're going to the HRC sites people are segregating their waste in advance they're you know thinking about what can be recycled what can be reused and minimizing what's going into the residual waste um there's a really positive new story there um in terms of recycling performance um we did have a slow start um in when we brought in the service change in terms of the dry recyclers but that's picked up which is really positive to see and that's you know |
| 02:40:40 | hopefully that's as a result of some of the education campaigning we've been doing and the biggest increase has been in food waste um and that's still at 16 percent which is really positive um and again we've seen an improvement in co-mingled plastics um which is is good between september and december so that's that's seen a a bit of a spike there which is again really positive and all of that will help towards achieving the the overall recycling performance um i move on um so we've then done a bit of a comparison in terms of the overall recycling |
| 02:41:17 | performance compared to previous year um and you can see in in the chart there in 1.06 figure figure four um the different quarters how it's improved um we've done a comparison um a bit of a forecast from now until you're the end of the year and we're still tracking above 70 percent and obviously that's not verified um because it has to go through natural resources wales for um so it could change slightly um and that could go up it could go down we don't know but at the moment we're looking at 70 percent um so i'm i'm really pleased um that you know we can see those |
| 02:41:56 | significant improvements there um quarter two in particular so up at 75 percent um it's it's a significant figure um it has come down slightly in quarter three but it still means our overall yearly performance will still stay above 70 percent so it just shows that the changes that we've made have have had a positive impact um at this stage i will hand over to chris to take you on the next section of the report thank you chris thank you kate and good afternoon members good afternoon everyone um not much for me really uh just to address the the section of the report |
| 02:42:36 | that talks about miscollections um when we came to the committee in october 2025 miscollections were as always a hot topic and we were asked to come back with some more specific information around our performance um by workstream which which is what we've provided as as part of this report we've um presented data up to the point at which the report was written around the 30th of december um and as you can see from the data within the report um our success rates are high in terms of percentages um but those tiny percentages that we miss do represent a large |
| 02:43:16 | number of customers and households so we are very aware that um these are essentially avoidable contacts for the council and as such we treat them very seriously and we look to reduce them often and as by much as we possibly can the most encouraging thing for me about this whole process is that we've seen a consistent um drop month on month from april the 28th when service change started there is only one month where figures have gone up rather than down and that was in november um most recently uh figures for january have come through and are considerably lower than |
| 02:43:59 | the previous january so we're still seeing that um trend of missed reports reducing month on month um we have had um additional data now because of the new systems that we're using um and one of the most significant things that we are concentrating on as a team is um is highlighted in the report that um we have over a thousand properties that are reporting miscollections multiple times um that's not acceptable from our perspective and that's something that we're working to address the um the data shows us that these persistent |
| 02:44:39 | miscollections are in specific areas and as such we've we've taken measures to address that applying for grant funding for some smaller more agile vehicles that can help us to deliver a more efficient and more reliable service in those more rural areas of the county um the other thing that was highlighted when we came to the committee in october was the back office systems that we were using at the time and the fact that one of those systems was particularly outdated um i can confirm now that that system is going to be switched off on the |
| 02:45:19 | 31st of this month and replaced with something much more fit for purpose so um we are again moving towards a a position where that back office support for the cruises is being bolstered and all the time um that's pretty much my part of the report and happy to hand back to Katie thanks Chris thank you okay so just covered garden waste collections on the composting so you asked us for some facts and figures around some of that um some of this has already been presented in a previous report around garden waste and collections separately um to this |
| 02:46:06 | committee um but overall um you can see in 1.08 um over the last financial year um obviously we take all the green waste that we collect that the curbside goes to our composting facilities in greenfield and over the last financial year we've processed over 17 000 tons of green waste um and that that comes from a range of places it comes from our curbside collections it comes from waste that's taken to our hrc sites um our own maintenance operations for grass cutting and other council departments so we you know we do support countryside services they bring in some |
| 02:46:43 | green waste as well and some of that can count towards our recycling performance as well not all of it um we also take in denbushers as well which brings us in a small income and we we also provide a payable service um for the you know certain local horticultural businesses as well so they use our facilities as well and all of that that green waste um is has to comply with what we call the british standard um past 100 so it has to be um audited on an annual basis and then certified as as meeting that that compliance standard and so we're pleased to say |
| 02:47:23 | we've met that um so no issues there um we do sell some of the the green waste once it's turned into a product we do actually sell that to some commercial outlets and that brings in an income of 126 000 currently um we also distribute um last year we distributed 22 tons to local schools to use in you know in their projects which is positive and that was given away free of charge and we also give hundreds of tons back through our hrc sites to local residents free of charge and we you know we're trying to encourage people to use it on the gardens and then it encourages |
| 02:48:03 | that that circular economy um as well and it's a really popular service because you know we regularly run out at hrc sites and we can't keep up with demand so it is a popular service so hopefully that's covered everything um in terms of um our performance um so yeah positive new story we're well on track to achieve the 70 percent um i'm pleased to say you know quarters one and two um we've definitely exceeded that and and it's looking like quarter three and four we're going to remain on track um to achieve that 70 target by the end of the year so open to questions |
| 02:48:40 | thank you very much katie right i've got chris first thank you chair it's a good report and thank you very much uh katie for it um obviously you know things are working very well in terms of our aims which is to meet our targets uh we weren't sure we were going to get that even with the change we made but it would appear that these are very encouraging at this stage and we're going to make the 70 percent target or even even supersede that particular target so that's very welcome similarly of course uh that will hopefully prevent us from having infection |
| 02:49:16 | charges or fines imposed on us in the future which again is good news and you know the the point is also made of course in the report that we're saving over 600 000 pounds per annum in doing this and again that was forecast as well we weren't sure we're going to do that but again the indications are we're on course for that and who doesn't want savings you know obviously in a tight-knit situation it really is a council in terms of meeting our charges and increasing expenditure and uh we're very restricted again in terms of funds we can raise either through |
| 02:49:50 | rsg or indeed from our own local taxpayers so that again is something which is very very welcome however there are things in the report which i do wish to raise um this uh calls now again to us as members it seems far larger than it actually is we told here that uh 99.76 percent of the are made successfully which is very encouraging um i think the other um 24 must be all in my water oh your water your water because these do happen to them from time to time don't they and and again again it's very sad when they do and it's very sad from another point of view again because again |
| 02:50:35 | on the top bottom of page 132 it mentions about further challenges to overcome include the need to improve our customer interaction and reporting functions whilst they sit outside the direct influence of street scene and transportation i accept that and we continue to work closer with it and customer services and corporate communications now this is a very very bad joke really our communication system here i had to contact a particular cabinet member recently about a complaint and another particular department not in street scene or bin collections |
| 02:51:11 | but i was on the phone for 20 minutes and couldn't get through on one day i gave up at the end and again the people who have been on to me had tried themselves and couldn't that's why they came on to me and again i spent the same time on the following day again with the same nil results and again the following day and this goes on and on so the communication system is not working and certainly not working as it should and people are frustrated out there terribly frustrated and so am i and so are all the members here when we are faced with this on a continual basis it's |
| 02:51:42 | not good enough and it's a very bad joke our communication system and again it's not your fault but i hope that this is raised with colleagues in it and in the corporate communications because it ain't working um well with some of this um missed um collections it was pointed out again by um the the officer that uh so some of these are repeats and again i find that incredible really we can all make mistakes hands up i made many in my own time but when it happens the following week in the following week you know i'm phoning up people saying did they collect your hygiene bin |
| 02:52:22 | no they didn't again they said they come on what tuesday they said they come on wednesday haven't been you know now when that happens on a recurring basis it it seems in the minds of some people that they're being got at or being sort of uh they go they were being picked on in a sense really because once that's been filed and regularized again as we understand it as members you know it's the team to those collections who will be sold and the team leader you missed this week you know make sure it's picked up next week i would hope that that could be overcome in that |
| 02:52:56 | sense of learning from mistakes and learning the lessons so i'm very anxious to see that we tighten up on that because again for whatever reason that's not working in that sense um um i think a thousand people were mentioned there in terms of multiple times of miscollections and you know that's that's that needs to be tightened up obviously in that sense um i just want to ask a few questions again in relation to the report it mentions their continued engagement and education with residents um how is that going |
| 02:53:32 | really because again i think we was being told in the past work where people went adhering to the requirements of recycling and so on that they would be dealt with you know in terms discussion and suggestions etc just wondering how well that's going and secondly you know with the brown bins you know i i've ordered brown bins myself and all the people have and people have phoned me we were supposed to get some new stickers now i haven't had the new stickers and again other people haven't but thankfully my bins were collected anyway for whatever reason but we were |
| 02:54:04 | promised stickers to go on the brown bins and i am receiving them as anybody else and again it mentions here the composting and again i've welcomed this in the past and i've asked the question do we sell the compost to businesses and we've been told we have and there's a figure there now 120 000 which again is very very encouraging could we sell more uh there's a question i ask again you know i welcome the fact that we as residents of plenty can pick up our own and take it home and put it in our gardens which is excellent but i'm just wondering whether |
| 02:54:36 | in fact we should actually make some more money out of this by selling it and again in terms of fraction fines you know the report highlights that uh we're still in abeyance with some we haven't been so let off those we may be i think perhaps i'll be on probation at this moment in time and if we can demonstrate to welsh government look we're doing well now we've done what we said and uh will we be let off those particular fines thank you jay okay thank you i'll just hand over to katie and just ask the infraction fines we've got welsh assembly elections look could they be |
| 02:55:09 | cleaned before the next government come in i can't answer that unfortunately i would hope so but you know we have been seeking clarification on the infraction fines but at the moment those three financial years are still outstanding and we still haven't had confirmation whether they've been waived the only year we had confirmation was that that 21 22 year where they told us the 663 thousand had been waived we actually had a formal letter telling us that that we still our understanding is that those are still being considered by the minister at this stage what |
| 02:55:44 | happens i don't know leading up to the elections i can't comment and what happens afterwards i've no idea at this stage but that's that's something obviously we keep asking about when we go to any sort of ministerial program boards for waste we keep asking about it so it's still still in abeyance unfortunately and if i may chair can i bring in other officers for some of the other questions by means yeah yeah so there's a few questions there so if i the miscollections i mean the contact center first of all obviously we can't answer those questions but we'll pass |
| 02:56:21 | the feedback back to the relevant service but on a positive note um i understand that there is a new system coming in terms of my account and our ability you know it should help our our ability to send those push notifications out to residents to tell them of any disruption to services will so i understand that that's coming this year um i can't unless chris has got any further details about when i don't know and so there are there are things going on in the background to try and improve those communication systems if i may bring in um chris and andy on repeated |
| 02:56:57 | miscollections and then chris cunningham on the education program and how that's going and then i'll i'll maybe with chris at the end to answer the question around the brown bins and the new stickers and where we're up to with those as well yeah thanks katie um yeah repeated um i you know i went on record in in october repeated miscollections is is unacceptable um and we work very hard all day every day to to mitigate um that as an issue and he works really closely with his supervisors they work really closely with the charge hands it's a very complex operation as |
| 02:57:35 | you can imagine um those tiny percentages as i said do represent a large number of people and we have worked with our um systems provider omnia and they've developed a functionality within the the mapping system now that is able to identify repeated miscollections by pulling the data out um so we we are putting things in place um and it's something that we continue to focus on it's it's not something that i'm ever going to sit here and defend um if you miss it once okay if you miss it twice and if you miss it three times we've got a problem and andy has exactly the same |
| 02:58:16 | approach and we work really hard every day to to mitigate that as as much as we possibly can andy i don't want if you just have a couple of words to say yeah i've got to everyone yeah so chris has alluded that it's really frustrating for myself i take great pride in the service we deliver um so if i'm frustrated i can only imagine to guess how it feels for the resident it's not acceptable um we've tried to put things in place not just with technology um i now have people out actively checking the monitor list so if they have been missed repeatedly |
| 02:58:49 | they're put onto a monitor list for 12 weeks so we can try and resolve the issue um and rectify it so it may not just be a driver issue where they've missed it it might be a round issue it might be a vehicle issue so we try to um see what the issue is and trying to resolve it so we now have people actively going out to these miss bins on a daily basis to try and ensure that these aren't repeatedly missed and we try and resolve the issue so whereas i understand it is frustrating we are working really really hard to try and resolve it |
| 02:59:21 | yeah apologies it's not acceptable we don't accept it and we take it really seriously that's it for me chris thanks andy um chris cunningham do you want to just um update on the garden waste please afternoon everyone so in terms of education the recycling officers are still going out on a weekly basis their student events door knocking uh they're working with the schools and how we can improve that the crews now have the recycling recycling contamination tags so anything that comes back just like officers are then going |
| 03:00:02 | to visit each property that comes back so education door knocking it is still fully underway yeah if i can come come in then on i think a couple of other questions one was around the new stickers so we have we have had some delays um we are using an external provider to issue the stickers for us this year um and i think there has been a delay in some of those stickers going out so we are at the moment we've allowed a bit of a grace period and we're collecting everything for the time being um obviously they've all gone out now i think we've issued over 19 000 stickers |
| 03:00:39 | um in the last few days in fact so um so they'll be landing on people's door mats this week hopefully um so that resolves that issue um we have changed the stickers obviously we've moved away from the rfid tags that all stickers that we had previously so these are more visual for our crews makes it easier um for everybody hopefully going forward um so so at the moment we're still collecting everything at this stage but obviously we're going to have to start to phase that out as stickers start to arrive and people put them on the bins so um i think there'll |
| 03:01:12 | be a few more weeks before we stop doing that um in terms of composting you asked if we could sell more um we could always sell more if we can produce more um obviously there's a limited capacity at greenfield in terms of the space and capacity at the site and our ability to um process it quickly enough and we've got an open open windrow um facility there so it goes it takes remind me chris i think it's eight weeks to get through the cycle um so when they start you know it comes in as the raw matter whether it's trees branches grass cuttings whatever and it |
| 03:01:47 | takes eight weeks for you actually to be broken down and shredded and keep going through that cycle so um it is a you know it's a really tough process that it goes through in terms of bringing making that product at the end um and you know at times you know we do struggle to actually keep up with demand as well um if you know some we're trying to improve some of the equipment and machinery we have so we can increase the capacity um we already take in denbigh's waste but there could be an opportunity to take in another local authorities green waste and bring |
| 03:02:22 | in an additional income and so we're already having some conversations around that in north wales as well um you know there have there have been conversations about you know do we need a more regional approach to certain things like this so we are looking ahead you know in terms of the future because it is an open windrow facility you know would we be better looking in vessel composting facility in future years which you capture some of the emissions and you know generate electricity from it potentially you know so there's there's massive opportunities |
| 03:02:53 | for that facility in the future and this is all part of our you know our ongoing future strategy um so yeah any any ideas and thoughts around those that would be really beneficial let me just come back on that if i may uh that's very welcome news uh okay thank you very much and you know we all like getting freebies and i've certainly used the free compost myself as i've saw others have and indeed the people we represent but should our emphasis beyond selling the compost to commercial operations bring in income rather than giving it away to |
| 03:03:28 | locals free of charge i'm not saying we shouldn't be doing that they get left left over shouldn't be but i'm just wondering whether we can perhaps shift the balance somewhat to selling more getting some income on that because we need all the money we can get as an authority don't we to operate our services okay thank you for that chris glenn did you want to come in on this point that katies just said or joined we added to my list to come in later i'll be honest chair i thought everyone had finished speaking that's why i was coming in |
| 03:03:58 | i'll come in later thank you for a long list here okay okay uh thank you for that councillor thank you chair um sorry just look at my notes um so yeah thank you for the report and thank you for the um color printing you know as i've been listening to i've made it i've made a small difference to flinter county council um no overall the the report is positive um um the the questions i have are um the i mean the i think the problem is with the repeated missed collections which is i mean i have to say to start with the praise missed collections |
| 03:04:48 | in my ward that i'm aware of have gone down dramatically um it was very rocky when we changed it well obviously and there was an issue with repeated missed collections somebody would them for six to eight weeks it it was really dire that has stopped i mean the last time there was a repeated miss collection there was another issue it wasn't the service responsibility um i would say that i i still think the reporting mechanism for members isn't great and i appreciate why it's done i'm going to say for the convenience of and i don't mean that in a loaded way but i |
| 03:05:28 | understand why it's done for the convenience of the officers however i think it the downside of is that it does undermine members because it makes it that there's no difference between a resident ringing up saying we've missed a collection and a member ringing up and saying there's a missed collection so the resident would think well in that case why am i paying you 20 grand a year when you make no difference to me in these terms so it does undermine what members can do um i can see the service manager smiling at the thought of uh of members not doing very much |
| 03:06:02 | their money so i'm not going for it um but so that that does need to be looked at um the other bit was the specialist vehicles um when are we likely to have a decision you know on the funding for you know when's that likely to happen and what's plan b so if we don't get the funding for these specialist vehicles you know what is it and what do you mean by specialist vehicles is it just like a smaller transit van is that what we're talking about again a shake the head from the chief officer so obviously it's not that um the on the resource implications on page 134 um the last but |
| 03:06:50 | paragraph um it starts option 180 litre black wheeled bin collector freaks um it says that the 650 000 pounds this reduction in cost has now been removed from the disposal budget and is the gap that needs to be filled i'm not sure what that means does that mean that it was a saving that never realized or was it a saving that's been lost to something else so if you could just explain that i'd be very grateful um and then in closing um just to say that the i suppose i need to declare declare a personal interest because i now |
| 03:07:28 | go to greenfield at least once a week and fill up with the the compost um i think it's for a certain demographic of flincher residents who don't make use of the schools don't make use of social services um they see the compost as one of the few things that they get for their council tax that and the roads um so i'd be very very hesitant for us to reduce the amount that people get as i said personal interest because i i use it myself um i think where there might be scope is some sort of fair use policy i mean the reason i go to greenfield |
| 03:08:10 | because my local one um nurquist there's a chap that turns up with a trailer and just empties the entire skip of compost in one go and it's not very neighbourly um and i'm absolutely sure it's completely not for commercial use and it's absolutely for residential use um so some sort of fair use policy would be useful however i appreciate that it's easy for me to say that sat here it'll be the guys on the front line that have to enforce it and it may not be very pleasant it's just something for you to consider and then finally with the most recent issue i had with |
| 03:08:46 | repeated miscollections it was due to user error is there a way with the new technology you've got so the the crew can feed back to the office what's happening that members can be told this is the third time we haven't picked up from number 18 because they put the wrong stuff in or like that because we get the telephone call from the residence saying right it's been three weeks now nothing's been collected what are you doing what's happening i mean immediately oh okay right i'll get on this i'm really sorry this is awful and then we find out later from the officers |
| 03:09:19 | actually they've been putting the wrong stuff in the wrong bins and it's sort of their own fault so it would be useful if there was a mechanism which we can be forewarned and it would just help us calibrate when you're never going to get that call or even be proactive on your behalf and go and say by the way your bins haven't been collected and it's because of x y and z i would find out you saw thank you very much chair oh and chair apologies for coming back into the meeting late thank you yeah again i'll have to bring in officers um you know |
| 03:09:51 | for some of those questions there's quite quite a lot there um so i'll bring it's okay i'll bring chris and andy in around the repeated um miscollections but in terms of the you know reporting mechanisms for members that's something we can take away and you know maybe address with governance and the corporate comms team to see whether there's any alternative i know we we've asked you to all go through the crm system and log things but and that's for our benefit because when you're sending emails directly to me to chris they can be missed and i i'm going |
| 03:10:24 | to hold my hands up you know when i'm getting you know well over 200 emails a day i will miss them i know i've got a pa but even she misses some things so it's it's you know we the reason we ask you to log it is because we know it's captured it's documented it's showing up in these reports so you can see the figures but if you're sending emails directly to us as officers a there's the room for us to miss it but it doesn't get captured either or logged so you know we're not then reporting accurate figures so that's why we ask you to go through those channels um in terms of |
| 03:10:58 | specialist vehicles we've put the bid in to welsh government with support through local partnerships and rapcumry i don't know um unless andy's able to confirm um you know any further sort of confirmation of dates but at the moment um i i'm guessing with the pre-election period it might be suspended um until after the election period um we did make sure we got those applications in early um you know they were supported um and we've certainly had some positive feedback from welsh government on the quality of the applications they've been you know an old credit to andy |
| 03:11:35 | he's put a lot of work into the bids so you know they've been really really of a high standard and that was actually pointed out by the welsh government officials so i am hopeful that we will get the funding in terms of plan b we would have to just look at other sources of capital are available you through welsh government or through our own you know you know funding streams that we have available in flincher and that's the alternative so hand over to you chris and andy yeah just to just to echo a couple of points there really we want the reporting mechanism |
| 03:12:10 | to be as simple as it is for everybody whether it's members or customers or or even colleagues within the council so it's it's something that we're working really closely with um with the team and with it on um we're um looking forward to the release of the new my account app which we think is going to have additional functionality a much more modern um iteration of of that app the the old app has been revigorated and will have additional functionality that should make things more streamlined i'm conscious that we did introduce a fast track system through for want of |
| 03:12:48 | a better phrase on the on the customer services phone line but one of the things that that we do find a lot is that people think they're speaking to street scene when they're not we will regularly get complaints from customers saying i've phoned street scene five six times and i've not had a satisfactory response but no one within street scene has actually spoken to that that customer it's it's dealt with corporately so some some of the branding um might might need to be looked at in order to manage people's expectations a little bit more but that customer interaction is a real |
| 03:13:21 | focus for us i'm comfortable and confident that we've got the operational delivery of this service to a really high standard and i think the icing on the cake is that customer interface and i think that's something that we really need to focus on now i don't think we've necessarily got the right systems currently but i know that they're coming and it's something that um we have a lot of focus on as a team and as um as a as a service in terms of plan b plan b exists today because we know that even if they approve the funding application tomorrow the vehicles are still got to be built |
| 03:13:55 | and they um they're not on the shelf ready to pull off they do have to be built to to order as well so andy will no doubt have more information on that for us um in terms of the amount of compost that's taken for free i take both points we we do look to um offer that service for free because we know it's important to residents my garden has benefited from the same material over over the years um but what we are doing and what we actively um do all year round really is to look for commercial offtakers to take large quantities of it um obviously the larger the quantity the lower |
| 03:14:33 | price per ton but either way um there is a circular economy benefit and um there is new legislation coming over the horizon that will obligate um new builds to have a certain percentage of recycled material included in in part the build so that that's a potential opportunity for us to explore over the next couple of years as well so and that that applies to all the material that we collect and and move on not not just garden waste really so i'll just bring andy in to update regarding the vehicles if that's okay yeah thanks chris um so just a bit of a detail |
| 03:15:09 | really the vehicles that we're referring to the um small agile vehicles or something which i did a bit of research on um and we did i went over to speak to denver who have i think more challenging areas to get to than ourselves um so we looked at the vehicles they were using we did vehicle uh temporarily um i think it's it's the best on the market really um i would have preferred to have an automatic vehicle but there isn't one on the market so we've put the bid in i'm hopeful we can have that um over the line in the interim i've realized that the vehicles that we |
| 03:15:45 | were currently using for these areas of concern um which does make up a large proportion of the uh weren't um adequate so in the interim myself worked closely with fleets and we had some cages designed which we could cross platform at present we're using a vehicle which if the vehicle was damaged if there was a puncture or a steering issue we couldn't have a suitable vehicle so at the moment we'd like chris was alluded to there we are using plan b um we had some cages designed platforms if the vehicle was damaged or off the road we could hire in a similar vehicle |
| 03:16:21 | and cross platform change the cage um in order to get to these um difficult areas and also on top of that in the interim we have a four before which is going into the really secluded areas and difficult properties to do a isolated collection to bring down to the vehicles and that can't come and get down there so that's our plan at the moment that's what the vehicles are for and hopefully it will eradicate some of these uh difficult areas and these miscollections that we've um encountered recently um hopefully that answers the question |
| 03:16:55 | thank you okay there was one more question around section um two of the report around the wording and and i agree it is a bit confusing in terms of how it's been written there but basically um i think originally um the modeling showed that we would have a 650k reduction in um cost um compared to the previous baseline um that was modified to 600 000 because it wasn't a full year effect because the change came in from the end of april so 600 000 basically came out of our disposal budget um because we obviously don't see that um that reduction in residual tonnages and not |
| 03:17:38 | going to parkadver anymore so that's where that's come from and as you can see in the following sentence um we've been monitoring that quite closely because obviously 600k has come out of the budget so we need to make sure we we don't exceed that and we've actually achieved a 589 000 saving um by not sending those materials to parkadver anymore um obviously we still have to pay for disposal regardless of where it goes but it costs less to recycle it than it does to send it to parkadver if it goes to parkadver that's the most expensive way of disposing it so that's |
| 03:18:13 | what we're seeking to avoid and with that i explains it simply hopefully that answers the question um thank thank you um to all the officers for the um information um so i i do just want to to thank the portfolio for all the work you've done on the miscollections because at the beginning i probably was one of the harshest critics just because i was getting so many complaints um you you have done incredibly well um obviously there's still room for improvement obviously but you have done well so um i'm sort of very pleased about that both as a member of this |
| 03:18:50 | committee and as a ward councillor you've made my life easier um the bid you put in for the the vehicles how much is that bid andy do you want to come in so it works out between 300 and 80 000 pounds okay thank you okay if you've uh exhausted those questions yes thank you very much thank you um move on to councillor piers uh right thank you i think uh it was i who with the committee instigated this because we didn't get off to a out of sheer frustration we say look it's got to get better but you know we allow plenty of time |
| 03:19:51 | for this report to come to the committee uh i'm pleased to say that it's going in the right direction and i think officers chief officers demonstrating to welsh government you're doing very best to get to those targets and we can we see it there so uh just before i delve into my questions uh the debate prompted another question about the brown bin stickers now i've subscribed to my brown bin my brown bin collection was last tuesday i have no sticker i put it out i thought is it going to get collected is it not it was now whether it was the goodwill of the |
| 03:20:45 | operators i don't know or whether they had a list of people who had paid but it did prompt me and i did send an email about i got a receipt from the council to say i paid my bin unfortunately it doesn't include the address now i could have perhaps if it was agreed with the council i've received the payment for the bin with my address on i could just tuck it on the bin and say there's the proof but it was pointless because there's no address on it so maybe the receipts could include the address for what you've just paid for well that's just an aside but uh i suppose |
| 03:21:24 | the next one will be next week and i'll have to see if it if it turns up right so uh sorry i've always got one i was very good yes not much good to me yeah okay thanks very much it seems to me it seems you like the bottles i've discussed in your area as well so am i right yeah okay uh before i go on to miss collections which we'll jump um the brown bin the there is a reduction it seems in the subscriptions on the brown bins so do we have the figures for 2025 and what we might be expecting in 2026 any reduction in the |
| 03:22:15 | subscription income uh right so i will move straight on to the miss collections so firstly i'll congratulate you on on the performance yeah you're recycling and the fact is on on the miss collections i think chris goddard shared this with me a few weeks ago we were complaining about the number of missed bins and i've been the biggest critter to that coming back to october the biggest critic of the miss bins we've got here 12,900 we put that into context and you've had a collection rate of 99,000 that's 99 that is fantastic so |
| 03:23:09 | you'll understand that all residents in flint you will expect their bins to be collected without any issues so every miss collection yeah every miss collection is a concern it causes brief residents it causes brief elected members who are at the core place facing these complaints but i'm pleased to say my emails are getting less going in to chris goddard to katie um the crm system i know you're saying to use it you'll know the occasion i don't need a bang on when we had four 38 crown bins and i have to load everyone onto the system because you didn't do it by road |
| 03:24:01 | it had to be done individually but i did it just to prove to you that i will do it i will get them but it does need it does need improvement i did have a recent communication from an officer which doesn't happen very often it's usually one way i do get a response eventually but on this occasion i had i had unsolicited email from an officer who gave me a reason why a road could not be collected along with a photograph there was a parked vehicle blocking the lorry now to me that's acceptable i can go back then |
| 03:24:44 | which i did back to the residence i said look do you realize where you've been something collected even though you're ringing me up because of this what's not out of you as a resident you've got to sort it out between yourselves so although we do get miss collections i always have a look at well what's caused it a lot of occasions it's just been missed yeah things things do happen so and i accept that but every miss collection does cause a problem it causes work for officers because at some point although someone has been employed to pick them up it hasn't been done so |
| 03:25:31 | got to be repeated so that's repeated cost in a sense isn't it now i think well i don't think i know i agree what councillor bittle said he talked about communication and i i agree i was under the impression that when you rang up about a miss bin and street scene it went to street scene but i gather it goes to the council's central desk wherever that is and councillor bittle also reported about the repeated miss bins which which again people themselves try to do it themselves and i've shown emails to officers where they are promised that they will |
| 03:26:19 | be responded to and it doesn't happen so again i think the thing coming out of this is we need to improve the communication we need to have easier reporting and why for example didn't street scene have their own reporting desk why can't we have a manned miss collection front desk with an email and a phone and not a voicemail where you say you're going to return calls and doesn't happen i think we need we need to look at that if the miss bins are the fault of the council not picking them up you've got to provide the easy means for them to be recorded and dealt |
| 03:27:07 | with and on a lot of occasions well leave them out with people next week well to be honest i think if your collection is due it should be picked up i want to talk about the challenges that's been outlined on pages 132 133 again i thank the officers for being open and transparent on accepting there are issues several challenges the back office it systems the work for changes and the complaints handling which we've talked about the outdated may rise system and further challenges to overcome include the need to improve our customer interaction |
| 03:27:50 | and reporting functions now yeah these are the challenges these have been identified and you know with this i suppose when you're starting from scratch 28th of april you know these things come to light it's all in hindsight now but they've been identified they can be fixed but when i move on to the conclusion in the report it talks about the three weekly residual wage collection service has delivered clear and measurable improvements and they're is in the conclusion it hasn't acknowledged the impact of the miscollections on residents |
| 03:28:47 | and elected members it hasn't acknowledged the time and effort spent by members contracting the council on residents behalf and it hasn't acknowledged the many cases of repeat contact with the council over missed households have been previously reported now i've changed the next line in my comments here because i was going to say the conclusion should also accept the failings within street scene i'm not going to use that i've took it out i'm going to use the conclusions to accept the challenges within street scene |
| 03:29:21 | because i do believe they're trying their very best but when systems are letting them down when we don't have a robust communication system yeah that is not helping the situation at all so i think bottom line for me is an improved communication system and a reporting mechanism and because the conclusion didn't include what i just mentioned i think we should have two further recommendations in the report and i'll just run them now an additional recommendation number four that scrutiny accepts street scenes reason for the |
| 03:30:17 | reported miss bin collections and the proposals to deal with the challenges listed on page 132 133 of this report and recommendation five that scrutiny will further review street scenes responses to those challenges in recommendation four in six months time and to include the improvements to date i propose those recommendations and thank you for the report so while we're doing that do you want to respond yeah no that's fine i'm fine and can you please share those with me because i'll need to update the report afterwards as well so if you can share |
| 03:31:13 | those recommendations with me that'd be great and i think you know everything that councillor appears is accepted by you know it's all in the report already and i think we you know we're in agreement that those you know in terms of those challenges we've acknowledged that they're i think there has been you know in the past some issues around us not getting to the root causes of some of those repeated miss collections but you know that's improved significantly because you know we're now like andy said earlier on we're now sending officers out to actually go |
| 03:31:46 | physically out on the ground and understand why has that road been missed or why is that property missed and you know there must be an underlying reason for it either it's the vehicle can't get down there or is it is there an issue with the round you know is it is that property not accurately being updated on the on the ground and so there can be an old manner of of reasons as to why they're repeatedly missed but i think we we're getting better at understanding those root causes behind those and i think we all acknowledge the you know the the comments that |
| 03:32:18 | made today around either the you know the levels of communication and how we communicate outwardly to residents and be more proactive and also how we receive those reports as well and those are the aspects that we're focusing on now that they're our priority for the you know the next 12 months and going forward and i think some of the back office system improvements will help with that certainly in the next few months so hopefully you'll start to see some some changes there i don't think there's anything further unless chris wants to add anything |
| 03:32:52 | no nothing nothing further for me thank you and i'm glad that we've we've answered the questions from the october meeting and look forward to coming forward with more solutions okay thank you communications seems to be the one thing so far for the um i've got five more speakers councillor carol ellis thank you chair for allowing me to speak a lot of the questions i was going to ask have actually been asked so i'll save that part however regarding this collections some weeks ago i attended i'm sure with lots of other members so the sessions down |
| 03:33:45 | at altami very good very nice offices gave all the details in of where my repeat missed collections were and i was expecting to get some feedback from that but i never did there were certain areas i won't name them here the areas but continue continually missed um and i was expecting to get feedback and i do appreciate there must have been an awful lot of um councillors who actually went down and actually reported but that goes back to the communication issue again doesn't it that that wasn't um that wasn't the case i was expecting if i was going down there and made the |
| 03:34:35 | time and effort to write a list of where missed collections were that i would actually get some feedback however it's improved because on those missed collections i haven't had the people who phoned me up every fortnight and get really angry with me because they've been missed again and i'm sure this is a repeat that quite a few councillors get they get angry because they think they've phoned up at the call center okay 20 minutes to get through that's the first then when i get through they think that they are speaking to streetsie and that they are |
| 03:35:21 | recording that where their miss collection is and this is again it comes down to communication because of course they're not they're speaking to the help desk which could be helping all different all different issues so whoever suggested that and i and i saw katie's face yeah i'm sure they wouldn't want that she wouldn't want to have a dedicated officer answering the phone but i think it would solve an awful lot of issues for everyone to be quite honest for councillors and katie knows that because i copy katie into all of my emails because i think she's really good |
| 03:36:05 | i'll do now that is the way i record my missed collections by by katie because i refuse as an listing all that but i refuse to do it i'm an elected member i should be able to make contact with an officer on behalf of the people who i represent and get an issue sorted as it was made reference people say they're paying my wages so they don't expect me to be the same treated the same as them they think that we have got a superior power that we should be using it that's what the public think that we should get instant replies |
| 03:36:58 | but i will say i'll hold my hands up and i'll say things have improved but i've still yet to have any wrong phone me up when an area has been missed and i have an area of in buckley mold road where continual traffic lights and issues on there and that's been ongoing since august of last year but i am very fortunate and very lucky that i have fabulous street scene officers who i can call and contact and they say well we'll speak with our colleagues and recycling and we'll get that sorted out for you and they do but no no one has ever |
| 03:37:43 | phoned me up and said we've missed all the mold road carol because of the traffic lights and then i know i'm prepared i just get a deluge of phone calls and the other issue is around the hp thing there's no consistency so they might get collected it's it's been day to day in my ward or most of my ward so they might get collected today but they're going to might not there's no consistency it's not a regular occurrence it's as and when so i think that needs that needs addressing and there's just one other issue that a resident brought to my attention to say that |
| 03:38:30 | they'd had the litter bin removed in the area where they live and it must have been removed by someone in authority because you needed a key to undo it you couldn't just take the bin away it needed to be undone with a key so that little bin was removed because allegedly it could have been used by people putting their black bin rubbish in it we don't we don't know anyway it's i made a complaint about it and it's come back but it's been missing for some weeks it wasn't damaged or anything like that it had just been |
| 03:39:12 | removed so i said i would ask for reassurance that frincher county council aren't actually removing litter bins because people are putting their black bin in because it would be counter productive but i said i've mentioned it and i have but yeah that that's the issues for me communication and the a a hp because a lot of vulnerable people to know that the world we live in at the moment a lot of vulnerable people have the clinical waste outside of their properties and it's very much remember the signs that we used to have years ago where for assistance |
| 03:39:53 | on the on the bins you know it is a bit of a sign that there could be a vulnerable person living there and if they're leaving that collection out for days or even a week i'm sorry to be negative but i'm trying to be positive as well thank you very much thank you thank you carol katie yeah i haven't really got anything to say other because obviously a lot of it's the same similar to what other members have already raised but i know andy has made some improvements around ahp and you know we're trying to move that to a doorstep collection rather than a curbside |
| 03:40:34 | collection to try and improve some of those issues around vulnerability so you know there's work going on in the background to move to that so that should help in those situations in terms of the contact center and you know we discussed at length and you know about how that operates currently and i think it was some five six years ago we moved to a centralized contact center for the whole authority you know there's no no aspirations to move that back out into portfolios there'd be significant cost for for doing that obviously but in the absence of that we are trying to |
| 03:41:10 | improve the way we communicate that so people to understand they're not phoning street scene so i think like chris mentioned earlier on around the branding they need to understand they're phoning a central contract contact center for the council they're not phoning street scene so we need to do something around that because i think people think that when they're phoning that one two three four number it's street scenes so there's some stuff around the website that needs to be improved around that so they understand that as well so yeah i mean we've taken |
| 03:41:39 | blood all the feedback if you've not you know had calls around those dropping sessions please please to hear that things have improved but you know that's something we can follow up on as well okay thank you just um because councillor ellis mentioned it the did i read somewhere some weeks there was some enforcement maybe issue with the normal bins and residual waste being put into household waste being put into you know public bins on the high street yeah if we've got known problems i mean we have got some hotspots that we are dealing with through things like community |
| 03:42:16 | protection warnings and community protection notices that's going on in certain area at the um we have i am aware of a recent you know i'd say a handful of complaints where bins have actually gone missing um certainly not too far from this building actually is one of them um so we have had some bins go missing recently um i don't know whether that situation is is as a result of that i don't know but i'm pleased to hear that it's been replaced quickly um obviously i know certainly the case that i saw very near this building the bin had been removed but people had carried on |
| 03:42:56 | putting their rubbish into the the base that was still left behind so you know which the mind boggles why people would continue to do that but there we go um so but again that was replaced very quickly within a matter of days so um but i'm not aware of any you know other enforcement action but if we're aware of hotspots where we have got known issues then yes okay thank you for that okay online councillor marshall oh thank you very much chair um right we'll start off with the contact center um seems to be some confusion about you know the people think they're talking |
| 03:43:36 | to street scene if you dial 701234 and think you dial one or two um there's a recording that says welcome to the street scene contact center that's what it says so whoever calls that number thinks they've come in a street scene contact center even though they may not be the staff in the contact center take the same person takes calls for housing or street scene i've been there as well so um there's a display up on the wall which shows the number of calls waiting that is inaccurate because there's a lot more waiting than is actually shown there so that really needs updating as well |
| 03:44:27 | um regarding the um missed collections the the reported missed collections um the reported missed collections is a proportion of what actually is missed and what the residents see and what we as councillors see outside um i've had examples of uh one lane where there was three houses only one reported it i've had examples of a little cul de sac in which 15 houses were missed one reported it so i um reported it on their behalf so that means that these reported miscollections has a multiplication factor associated with it and in my case it could |
| 03:45:17 | be between three and 15 times so if we take as an example that only one tenth of the people reported miscollections the number that actual miscollections could be 129,200 now that's probably not minor so you might need to think well is that significant or still acceptable um i find that residents they tell me on facebook oh we don't bother reporting um the missed collections because they don't come back and collect them and i've experienced a lot of if if um food black bins or brown bins are missed they never collected they |
| 03:46:09 | have to wait there for a couple of weeks there's one place i had um got two bins in the maggots in it um i know all right sorry i'm trying to catch up um i've found that some properties are on a on a round to be collected monday but they end up being collected tuesday and i've reported this as it being wrong but they're still um still being collected on the wrong day um last year regarding repeated missed collections last year early on this was quite bad but we had 10 properties that had been missed for six weeks so you've got you know 60 um |
| 03:47:11 | 60 lots of of uh of recycling to be collected then um when the residents call the call center and they log a missed collection say recycling they it's logged the next week if they if they miss collection they won't be given a new number that they'll continue using the same old number and if that happens for say 10 weeks it's only recording on the system as one miss collection instead of 10 now that affects your reported miss collection statistics so the figures now you know you could have multiplier of 10 you could have multiplier of 20 |
| 03:48:06 | so these these you've got to get some idea what what is actually going on here because we see actual you see reported and there's a difference and there's a multiplier that has to be worked out what it is it could be 10 could be 20 um council pierce the 33 potholes were all down narrow lane and there's no way that the um that the wagons could turn around and that lane used to resemble the sorm um right that's all i've got uh oh the label for me thank you councillor marshall you need to put it on your bin i know there's uh this is there's some spelling |
| 03:48:56 | mistakes in the wealth section kate you'll sort that out i'm sure okay thank you any response to i haven't got any comments in response because i think a lot of it's been covered already um but unless chris has got anything he wants to come back on no nothing nothing specific council marshall and i have had many conversations over the over the last few months and i'm fully aware of of the issues that he's raised here we take him really seriously um i don't know if the council marshall misspoke there when he said potholes but |
| 03:49:32 | um when we were focusing on on those missed collections we acknowledged that we don't have a tag on every bin unless we are going to microchip every receptacle we will never have 100 accurate data we can only work with the data that we've got and i accept that there will be um a degree of um wriggle room when it comes to that but it's it's the data that we've got and it's it's all we've got available to us at this time thank you okay thank you very much for that uh councillor wake one thank you chair um just wanted to say well done on this i mean |
| 03:50:10 | 12 months ago we were in a very dire situation he came to us with a a plan it wasn't very popular with everybody um but it has delivered and we are now hitting our target but it's not our target is it it's the county's target we only pick up what is left at the roadside um and i think that needs to be put out more that it's not the council's job to do this it's just the council's job to collect it we need we need more education like we were saying before it's still going on if you look at so this this meeting and this topic has already been |
| 03:50:39 | on social media this morning with one of the news providers uh they were saying what will be the outcome and what would be the result and all the comments were i can't wait till the summer that my bin will stink there'll be maggots everywhere people still aren't getting the idea that every week in a special little green bin you can have your food waste taken away if you've got any left people just need to start reading around the subject and listening more because i mean we wanted 70 we needed the county needed 70 you've given us 75 but i think education just needs to |
| 03:51:12 | keep poking i know in my ward and debbie comes around she's always there and this is not me she calls herself this i can never remember her name i'm awful her name's but the bin which comes around and she she bullies people she looks at things but that's why she calls herself but you know you've got to understand that if you open your bin and it's got recycling and you're not going to get a bigger bin you're not going to get this you need to do the work it needs it's a two way stream so well done on this so far it's really good okay thank you very much for that |
| 03:51:42 | councillor loyd thank you it was never going to come to me that many speakers uh yeah obviously this this wasn't very popular when it was introduced was it with residency but it has been a great success uh and that's improved the recycling targets um just on the miscollections i just question uh that i've got is does the driver of the south on the day report back that he's miscollection possibly due to park cars being in the streets um because you know if they did it would be nice for the ward member to be informed as well um because you know the the residents do |
| 03:52:20 | come straight to us has been said before i think councillor pierce asked a question before which i was going to ask as well but i don't think it was answered uh what is the uh what's been the take up on the green on the green waste of the brown bin uh this year compared with last year um just give a shout out the recycling education team chris conningham um and the team i think they've done a marvelous job i mean before it was stopped myself and councillor shortcross walked around most of sonny and the targets have improved you can see it when you go around the streets now the |
| 03:52:50 | recycling bags are out there which they weren't before at all so that was a success um and the the officers still come come around with us now again when we have a housing walkabout with the housing officer uh not all the time but so we don't pick up a lot of issues on them walks as well um so uh michelle there was there was one uh michelle sure there was one incident where i've got a house there was a hmo but it's now for the homeless there was one there was one black bin there uh there was loads of rubbish outside there was i think one recycling bag um michelle came |
| 03:53:26 | uh with the homeless team and myself uh now they've got nine black bins loads of recycling bags and it and it is it is being done so that was a success as well so you know full marks to to your team chris they've done a really good job and we really appreciate that thank you thank you very much for the feedback and it's really positive to hear about the team and it you know it certainly goes a long way when they get praise and thanks like that you know that you know they feel proud to work for us and want to make a difference um so it really does make |
| 03:54:04 | you know it does help when you get positive feedback about the work that they're doing so thank you to all members actually um in terms of um take up on garden waste um so chris prior to this meeting has just provided some updated figures so um so up until friday last week um we um obviously it's still quite early in the season the weather's not the greatest so we expect that to um improve certainly over april um significantly as we go into easter the bank holiday as well we send we tend to see a spike around that time so at the moment it's on track um to be similar |
| 03:54:45 | to last year um so it it is positive at this stage sorry katie what was that figure it's nineteen seven four eight obviously it's increasing every day so it's that will have gone up since last week okay councillor richardson thank you chair um it's it's just just a question really first of all congratulations on hitting the target um has there been an increase in the blue and grey bags uh i would imagine there would be is there is there a figure of our yearly spend on them bags um then that that leads that leads me on to another point |
| 03:55:34 | i think we could further improve there on the cost of the blue and grey bags because i know in my streets it's something i've mentioned to the service manager before when people don't get the same bags back that they leave outside the house they leave them in the street they go and another one or they put everything in the black bin people get quite attached to the bag so you've got a nice clean bag that you've been to the connect center for or you've got it however you've got it you put it out you go to work you come back and you've got the one from three doors |
| 03:56:07 | down that they've been putting tins of soup in and beer cans and not washing it and all the handles frayed what people tend to do they'll leave that out in the streets and they'll and they'll get a new one um thirdly and it is just an observation uh i think um the department you you could you could cut down on the amount of walking that your street scene operators the lads that and ladies that collect the recycling i work for a local um motor manufacturer in the engine plant and they're massive on it's a word called |
| 03:56:48 | muda and it means waste but it's not the waste that you're thinking of it's it's time where you're doing something you shouldn't need to be doing so so what i see is when the lads collect and the ladies collect the bins they walk 15 yards away from the wagon 15 yards back up the street to put the stuff in there they're doing twice the distance they need to do and it's just it's it's not a complaint it's just i think if i sat with andy and chris maybe one afternoon um i could demonstrate it to you not you know not not by filming people but |
| 03:57:20 | just with a little diagram and and saying you know you could improve it even more and the improvements that i'm talking about would ensure that where the operatives took the bags from they would end up going back in the same place and so it's it's good news really thank you thank you councillor richardson i mean we're always you know we'll always welcome any input like that so we'd happy to take that away that's that's absolutely no problem at all um we will have to come back to you with the figures on receptacles um i am there has been |
| 03:57:57 | an increase but in terms of what that is i will need to confirm by each type of um receptacle again if you you know suggestions around improvements to those again we'll take that offline if that's okay and you know we'll work with with all members um around that um there are no obviously we when we brought the proposals forward last year there were no changes to receptacles proposed because of the costs involved with that but if there are improvements we can do to encourage people to take ownership and look after their receptacles |
| 03:58:29 | and we'll do that um that's not a problem and obviously that efficiency work that you just mentioned we'll we'll catch up with you separately offline if that's okay yeah uh i just i recall three or four years ago katey you said to me it's a pity um the recycling isn't a production line but actually that's exactly what it is because you've got a process you've got a product so yeah we'll take it up offline thank you okay thank you very much um almost at the end coming back to where we started councilor biffle just a quick one really you know we're very self-critical |
| 03:59:08 | very often uh and this is an excellent report and i think we've all said that yes we still got progress to make in certain areas but it's a very very encouraging report and uh very welcome and i think just to put things in picture i mean last week on bbc news it was talking about introducing food waste we're making it mandatory in england and that came as a shock because we've been doing it for so many years here in wales and doing it successfully they haven't started there and local authorities in england like structure saying we can't afford to do this you know and hoping |
| 03:59:44 | that's going to be a let out for them you know we've come a long way we've still got a way to go but i don't think we should underestimate the achievements that we have made as an authority and our local residents as well in supporting us in this and again the welsh government taking a lead on this as well thank you thanks for that chris councilor banks thank you chair yeah i'm not going to stay on for long you'll be pleased to know uh i've got to say it's it's nice that michelle got mentioned again because uh michelle is absolutely fantastic she's a star isn't she |
| 04:00:17 | and uh it's amazing how many times her name just uh just give her a little plug she came out to clanessa wi last week did a fantastic talk to the ladies there i was the only gentleman presence on i did feel a bit intimidated to be honest so and but it was brilliant some feds but she does that a lot uh right i've got to say the uh on my my account app that should have been in place before we started this really shouldn't it you know that's what we were after didn't happen that would have saved some been such a help at the time wouldn't it would be massive |
| 04:00:49 | and a lot of the things with misreporting and things could have been so much difference to start with but getting ironed out now better late than never i suppose but that would have been a fantastic help now all i wanted to say was basic really was i just wanted to thank the committee for allowing the service the time to actually bring this back to you without it feeling rushed because you've got a true reflection of where where things are heading because of that because at first it was going to come straight after christmas when it which |
| 04:01:18 | would have been too early now you've had six month figures you know roughly where it is for the nine months which is brilliant i mean you know it's uh at the moment it's it's in a remarkable place to be fair from where where it is just over 12 months ago it's absolutely amazing i've got to say massive big up for all the officers and everyone involved in street scene for doing this you know everyone on the rounds and everything everyone's involved in it general public if they haven't done this we're nothing without them absolutely nothing so you |
| 04:01:48 | know they've took it all on board they're the ones that's produced the 18 extra food waste for us to pick up which is you know so big up for them as well it's been all around everybody's played their part in this thank you chair okay thank you councillor banks right we got no more speakers we'll move to the recommendation which you can see on page 128 there's three recommendations at the moment and it's being proposed to put forward two further recommendations you want to please so the two extra recommendations as suggested by councillor pears are number four |
| 04:02:30 | scrutiny accepts street scenes reasons for the reported missed bin collections and the proposals to deal with the challenges listed on pages 132 and 133 of the report and number five scrutiny will further review street scenes responses to these challenges in recommendation four in six months time and improvements made thank you sorry do we have a seconder for that seconded okay do we have a show of hands in favour of those recommendations that's fully carried thank you very much okay we shall now move on to agenda item 11 which is |
| 04:03:20 | land ownership and one council approach and if i can hand over to the chief officer yeah thank you very much and hopefully this shouldn't take too long so this this report's come about really from conversations with members and i know councillor shawn bibby and we've had conversations on yourself councillor evans as well around certain piece of parcels of land where the ownership isn't isn't known or is you know it's questionable as to which department's responsible for it so at the moment all council publicly accessible land owned by the council comes under |
| 04:04:05 | um different types of land whether it's adopted highway you've got public open spaces we've got housing land public rights away there's a whole list which is detailed within the report and section 1.03 so you can see the various types of land that we're responsible for so over the last 18 months street scene and transportation have been working very closely with housing communities to try and improve how we respond to waste issues or environmental concerns and it could be things like overgrown hedges and foliage low hanging branches and so on |
| 04:04:41 | so we're trying to improve how we respond to that collectively as a unified team rather than it being confusion and people are saying well it's not street scenes it's not housings you know and we have this situation where with with duplicating effort it causes confusion and frustration with so purpose of this report really is to outline a new approach to how we we tackle waste management environmental issues on publicly accessible council owned land and that's regardless of which portfolio is responsible for the land or the assets so we've tried to do that within the |
| 04:05:19 | report i'm not going to go into you know the detail obviously you can see in in the report how we propose to deal with each piece of land we try to list them all out and then what the rationale is in terms of who would respond i think the proposal in the main is that street scene would clear the land and then we'd have a recharge mechanism in place with with pre-agreed rates schedule of rates between departments so that we clear the land initially and then we recharge whether it's valuation and estates whether it's public rights away whether it's housing land so |
| 04:05:56 | we deal with the issue and then it sorts that complaint out straight away and then we can essentially argue about who pays for it afterwards because that's that seems to be the bone of contention all the time it's you know instead of us trying to you know it's tennessemo going back and forth trying to find out well whose land is it let's let's just cut to the chase and let's deal with the problem and get get it resolved and the other issue you need to be aware of is keep tidy monitor local authorities in terms of the local environment quality and so this is what |
| 04:06:31 | we call we call it leams which is local environmental audit and management system so we have a survey that's taken place annually since about 2007-8 and it measures and reports on street cleanliness there are moves afoot to actually extend that to include all publicly accessible land so that link that will include housing assets and amenity areas and not just the adopted highway in the past it's just been centered on the adopted highway so some of what we're doing we'll try and address some of those issues because if we don't then our performance |
| 04:07:09 | is going to be unfavorable basically so we we do need to do something about it so some of what we're doing as well will help tackle some of that going forward in terms of our you know in terms enforcement we've got a further report coming to you i think in june on the forward work program around the enforcement policy and fly tipping and so that will come separately but what we're trying to do is put processes in place to try and resolve how we respond more quickly and more effectively to reports of waste issues on council-owned land where it's private land |
| 04:07:45 | we obviously can't we don't clear any fly-tipped waste on on private-owned land but we will look to support natural resources wales or the landowner if we have their permission to take enforcement action if it's feasible it does does depend on the type of waste that's deposited and whether there's any evidence within that waste so hopefully that will help with some of those issues that you keep bringing to our attention you know but with with fly tipping on council-owned land we will always investigate that before we clear it regardless of the type of land |
| 04:08:25 | it is so if you know if it's a mattress it's more difficult because you won't know who's dumped it there unless we've got cameras or someone's witnessed it happening where it's you know where it's black sack waste and it'll involve our enforcement teams potentially going there and investigating whether there's any evidence within the waste to identify where it's come from so they will always do that and when we come to june we'll go into more detail around that going forward where the land is not known so we you know where we think it's it's still council-owned land but |
| 04:08:59 | it's not clear whose ownership it was it belongs to what we're proposing is that there's a corporate fund set up to be able to enable us at least to clear the land and tidy it up but that you know it doesn't you know that cost doesn't fall to one portfolio or another that it's dealt with centrally so what we're asking in this report is that there's a small fund and typically about five thousand pounds is what we're talking about it's not going to be a massive amount of money so that we can at least have the opportunity to be able to respond to those situations and |
| 04:09:35 | i know i've included a specific example within the report to just give you flavor of the kinds of issues we're having but hopefully those examples will will show you you know why we're doing what we're doing just to make it easier for us all to to manage following this with you know subject to the support from this committee we'll take this to cabinet and then we'll adopt it as a protocol for all portfolios going forward and as i say we've tried to highlight within the report some of the collaborative work that's been going on with housing already you know we've worked very |
| 04:10:09 | very closely to tackle some of the issues we've been having with waste and you know some of that's around some of the flats as well and communal collection points and we you know we've put a lot of individual bin stores in place now at some of the flats and we've we've we've tried to take it as it's not just a case of clearing the the land it's we're trying to prevent it from in the first place some of it's been around target hardening working with you know residents to try and engage and educate people as well and then obviously enforcement clearance and then the |
| 04:10:41 | compliance side at the end so we have been doing a lot of work and that's still continuing as well we still meet on a quarterly basis to review our action plan so we've got a joint action plan between the two portfolios and hopefully that's something that can expand with other portfolios going forward as well so questions okay thank you very much councillor bibby yeah thank you very much mr german won't sort of go into great detail because the example that's been given in my ward is one that has been you know in discussions for a very very long time |
| 04:11:17 | welcome the report on the recommendation that essentially corporate fund is made available so we can get in the process of actually clearing some of these sites rather than the the whole pasta parcel which i think has been going on what one thing that does concern me is and this is again going back to the similar issues that we've heard with the the missed collections is let's say for example using the example in my ward with those particular alleyways a resident phones the contact center to report a fly-tipping |
| 04:11:55 | incident what's where does it go that's that's the question because what what's what's happened is that and what you're saying katie is that streets in then get involved and then there's a decision afterwards or in my experience things are just left there for weeks and months and and everyone just basically says no we're not touching it we're not doing it we even had cases where enforcements have actually been able to find the evidence find somebody and then two months later it's still there and nobody's picked it up so i think |
| 04:12:40 | hopefully the processes are going to be then put in place for us to deal with it but what concerns me is when when a resident phones up reports a fly tip at a particular location what happens then at the contact center you know is it then being passed on to you know because resident another issue is in land that communal sites around the housing estates you know which are clearly the responsibility of the estate care takers and housing departments people phone up the contact center again doesn't get fed back so i think there's that we need to |
| 04:13:17 | get the communication channel so once a crm is locked it is known exactly where it needs to be sent to and also i think and the example in my ward i think the confusion has become because it's a legacy issue of local government reorganization and you know it was done many many years ago with with an external grant and i think the other issue i've got is that there's disputes now emerging over the actual boundaries of where the council's ownership is but i'll leave that for outside this meeting |
| 04:13:59 | but yeah i welcome it but yeah i i've just got some concerns about resident phones up at the contact center we've got this approach how are we ensuring that the query ends up going to the right person because i've i've heard anecdotally as well that estate caretakers are having a lot of problems with fridges and freezers and then they've they've basically been told not to take them to the hrc sites but to report them to street scene to pick them up and it just i think i i just i'll have the confidence when i see it in action you know |
| 04:14:36 | everyone actually sort of integrating everything okay thanks can i just add to that yeah that was sort of my point with the whilst this is a very welcome report and it's the admin and the implementation as it feeds down to make sure it works and i think that's where we've got our concerns but hopefully they'll be addressed yeah thank you no no i appreciate the feedback and obviously behind this is just agreeing the principles really that you're comfortable with this is our approach behind this there'll need to be a more detailed action plan with us you |
| 04:15:12 | know we'll have to write scripts for the contact center about in this scenario it's this in this scenario it's that so there's going to be a bit of a training program we're going to have to go through with the contact center so they understand the difference between street scene and housing we won't you know that there will still be situations where the estate caretakers will be responsible for clearance of waste if it's on you know certain properties if it's we won't be clearing stuff out of people's gardens but if it's on say garage land it might be that we do |
| 04:15:43 | so you know that there is a difference but we've agreed those protocols with housing already as i say we're meeting regularly now to iron out any issues and not so long ago there was an issue with mattresses from estate caretakers now we've got an issue with fridges but they can't be taken to our household recycling centers they need to be dealt with differently which is why we're collecting them so that's been agreed locally with housing so that that's the arrangement that we need to stick to for now they can't they're not suitable to go to to the because |
| 04:16:14 | clusters household waste in the same way as a resident taking their own fridge freezer so they have to be treated differently so hopefully you know some of the processes that we're going to have to put in place once we've had support from this committee cabinet you know hopefully those those processes will be in place and it'll improve exactly what you've this past past parcel issue it's one of my frustrations so currently what tends to happen is the customer phones contact center reports a flight if contact center immediately assume it's street scenes so |
| 04:16:51 | then we end in this situation where we then look at where it is and go it's not street scenes responsibility for that particular land so then we end up in this tennis email situation with discussing it between different portfolios going whose land is it so why don't we just let street scene clear it then there's no arguments and then we'll recharge afterwards if if everybody assumes it's street scenes it's it's just simpler both for the customer for the contact center and for you as members |
| 04:17:22 | sean microphone please i think just going back and maybe going back some time and probably saying good 15 years 20 years ago when obviously resources and funding were a lot more well compared to what they are now and i think what used to happen was street scene just used to do everything and the reality is once those budgets were getting constrained the coordinators and the staff were actually going well hang on a minute are we actually supposed to be doing this or i think that's what used to happen from street scene just used to do everything |
| 04:18:03 | and people obviously got used to it and i think that's where the you know i think that's where a lot of the confusion come from okay so i've just been notified there is some workshop at three o'clock so um uh that might be why some people are leaving but um we shall carry on councillor biffle yeah thank you chair and thank you for the report at least we're acknowledging we've got a an alleyway somewhere like this more prominent in certain areas and elsewhere but nonetheless we've all got these problems and it has been a parcel exercise in the past and in the end |
| 04:18:50 | nobody picked up the parcel and again that wasn't very helpful to us as local members or indeed to the people who are suffering from these particular conditions in those areas i got a particular back alleyway in my road and somebody kept on sticking old mattresses against the cable end wall of a particular house making it up it was this lady who was actually putting the mattresses out it wasn't you know so that that kind of thing happens regularly and um you know again we've got other alleyways with council houses or former council houses backing onto this area and private |
| 04:19:24 | houses i suppose legally speaking the owners of those particular properties have a responsibility for that particular alleyway they back onto they put a game with the sailor council houses most of our council houses anymore they're private houses so it's been a resolve a problem in the past for us really and one which has been sort of sort of too difficult as it were to embark upon so i welcome this is a step in the right direction and i'm just concerned again you know about private land too i know we we can't take responsibility for that but you know very |
| 04:20:01 | you know a private land which has become dumping areas it's always clear who owns that land for example the absentee landlords and what have you so you know it it gets left there so you know that's a problem again for another day maybe but there's something we have to resolve and my other concern is in the flight of an issue and again this has been highlighted nationally hasn't it it's not just a local problem we had a local problem with a large amount of rubbish being dumped in the queens ferry area and that was going to cost over a million pound i think the |
| 04:20:33 | rotations that we were getting to remove that i don't know where we are with regard to that but again there's been evidence of this happening in south wales in england and so on and so forth i was just wondering whether in fact there are any moves nationally to the wlga or the lga to try to combat that because again it's an impossible task we didn't even organize crime groups here who this on land and if the local authorities have got to pick up the bill for this i'm just wondering whether in fact there are any moves or can there be any moves on a national level to deal with this |
| 04:21:06 | they talk about taking you know the driving licenses away from people who do this catching them as a thing isn't it and again in this day and age where you've got ccdv we've got drones we've got satellites up there is any way you know nationally this can be tackled because it's becoming an ongoing problem and these organized crime gangs are very very slick and polished and they're doing this and they're doing this on a regular basis and we can't possibly pick up the bill so i'm just wondering whether this has been raised through various organizations representing |
| 04:21:37 | chief officers and so on or the lga or wlga where we can actually get some more help and tackle these problems because they're frightening when they do occur have they in terms of the financial imposition on those authorities okay that's katie yeah no i completely agree and you know as you mentioned the queens ferry was linked to organized crime and the investigations are ongoing which have been led by natural resources wales but it is it is a national issue definitely and you know my my understanding is on the radar with welsh government that you |
| 04:22:16 | they are looking at it and nationally i think uk government are as well so you know it's been highlighted recently in the news isn't it with some of the significant uh landfill illegal landfills and they're different to fly fly tips that we have to deal with we're dealing with small-scale flight tipping but you know the types of flight tipping you just reference the you know huge landfills that are illegal um and they have significant links with organized crime so i think that's what you're referring to um you know we will have a role to play if that's done on |
| 04:22:50 | council land clearly um but natural resources wales would always lead on any investigation in terms of large-scale flight tips like that um but that's something we can certainly flag through any wlga meetings that we go to or you know any national forums for waste and the regional ministerial program board is certainly we can certainly bring it up at those forums okay thank you castor and rose well thanks um yeah i i in generally in favor of this has been a few issues in our ward a couple of times and the support we had first of all for finding the ownership of the |
| 04:23:30 | land had to go through several departments and it ended up it was forgotten land really that ended up it wasn't by the council previous uh to housing that was built in the 40s sort of thing uh and you know thanks to the people like adriana sort of thing who helped sort that out so that was it worked out quite well um and i'm definitely in favor of you know having one place to go in terms of sorting issues like this out just to clarify that this is an overall change to that is what would happen as in we wouldn't go to housing to sort out we'd come to street scene |
| 04:24:04 | street scene would be the single point for this or is this just for the unknown land um i think it would be good if we had one point for everything that would be quite clear as to who to go to and then subcharge whichever department the only clarity from that would be for those areas where we don't know who owns it is part of this going to be to then allocate that to a department to make certain that that doesn't happen again my fear is obviously that we clean up the land and still some no one takes ownership of it uh and we're in the same boat six months |
| 04:24:39 | down the line because nothing more has been done to stop the issues uh is that also going to be thanks thank you yeah so yeah thank you councillor rose so in section 1.06 we've tried to outline every type of public land that the council owns and manages currently and how that how we tend how we intend to approach it there will be places you know i think give you an example is the cluidian range street scene are not going to have operatives going up onto the cluidian range to apply tips that clearly needs to stay with countryside services there's going to be |
| 04:25:16 | examples like that but if it's a footpath in the you know a town centre somewhere then maybe that's something that street scene should pick up so there are going to be some practicalities around it um on the ground um we've we've tried to you know explain what how we currently manage it and what the proposed future management would be and what the rationale is behind each type of land so there are there are going to be some anomalies because you know one i just gave it as an example and obviously we still need to agree some things particularly around the gwella leisure recreational |
| 04:25:54 | assets so at the moment we we are still in conversations with gwella and colleagues over in valuation estates about how we approach that so we at the moment we're going to maintain that as it is currently but it may may be changed in the future potentially and similarly there are things like the allotments that we wouldn't you know we wouldn't be responsible for in street scene they they would fall to the the town and community councils that manage them so there are some if you'll see through the report there are some anomalies as well that don't meet you know this |
| 04:26:30 | the street scene approach but i think in the main you'll see through the report we are proposing street scene in the interim do the clearance the enforcement and that ensures as well then it's captured on on the fly capture recording system as well so we can report it accurately so that's one thing we discovered when we were working closely with housing you know they were they were claiming that there were flytips happening on housing publicly accessible housing land is what i'm talking about but it wasn't being captured anywhere because it |
| 04:27:05 | some of what we're doing is trying to avoid you know trying to resolve some of those issues as well to make sure it is captured everywhere so what we propose with with those parcels of land is that housing a lot log those waste issues report them to street scene we'll clear it we will carry out any enforcement action that we can carry out and then we'll recharge the clearance costs to housing and that's what we've agreed so providing that that's that's approved by more supported by yourselves and approved by cabinet that's the approach we intend to take |
| 04:27:35 | going forward did that answer your question councilor just the last one in terms of you know the example used in shotton sort of thing where the the land is unknown has that now been allocated to do a part a department or is that still an unknown scenario sort of thing in terms of going forward with that currently it's still land that's in unknown ownership but obviously once this is approved this you know we need an approved approach because there is no budget allocated to be able to deal with that you know the waste issues on that land but obviously if |
| 04:28:11 | it was attributed to a particular portfolio or there was a corporate fund that would help to resolve those issues then we'd be able to take it forward much more quickly so that's what we're to resolve okay thank you councillor piers right thank you apologies but as the debate's gone on i've got slightly confused and i'd like some clarification if i may we talked initially about having some corporate corporate fund yeah corporate fund and he suggested five thousand pounds so we've got a part of five thousand |
| 04:28:52 | pounds then you've talked about any fly tipping on the housing land you will deal with and then recharge the housing so so you've got the fund it would that not come from the fund it would come direct from housing yeah so what is the actual fund for if it's been if you're charging direct to the portfolio and the other issue is that we talked about different portfolios but at the end of the day it's all council land isn't it irrespective of which portfolio it is would it not be better to have a central pot allocated to street scene on behalf of the |
| 04:29:40 | and you deal with the fly tipping issues as and when they arise irrespective of which portfolio it is at the end of the day it's council land you know that's just you may blow me out the water that's fine but i just need to know you know what what approach we're using and why can't we do that thank you i think there are different approaches happening in different portfolios that's that to answer your question and obviously there are different pots of funding as well you know hra is used for housing you know we can't have that in street scene so you know that there are different |
| 04:30:19 | pots of funding in terms of the ownership of own so land that's not where the it's council public so start again it's publicly accessible council owned land but the ownership is not known what we're proposing is that there's a corporate fund for those parcels of land because we can't not not not we don't know it's not street scenes it's not it's not it's not public rights away it's not housings it's not valuation of states and we've got no record of who maintained it and you know that example that councillor rose mentioned earlier on it could be historical from years and |
| 04:30:56 | years ago and it's that piece of the land has just been left and we can't prove which portfolio should be using it so we need a corporate what we're saying is a small part of funding just to be able to clear the land tidy it up dispose of the waste and so on rather you know rather than we say right it's it's got to be street scenes well it hasn't because it's not adopted highway so it's not street scenes so this is what i'm it keeps landing at street scene store but there's no mechanism to pay for it and all i'm doing is you know i'm just taking on the burden of dealing |
| 04:31:31 | with waste that's no budget for which just adds to our overspend so it's no it's not sustainable unfortunately to try and make it easier for customers for members we feel that it would be easier for street scene in the majority of cases to clear the land and then have a schedule of rates up front for other portfolios so that they know if it's two operatives to clear x amount of waste this is what the cost is going to be we can we can give them an indicative transport cost what we won't know is the disposal costs because it depends on the type of waste and whether it's |
| 04:32:09 | hazardous or non-hazardous and it depends on the volume of waste that's dumped so those you know and it's similar with things like overgrown hedges or trees again depending on it's it's we can give you know an hourly rate the schedule of rates for vehicles and transport and staff but what we know is the volume of work involved so if it takes two days three days so on to clear the land but at least if you've got a schedule of rates you can try and estimate it at the moment we don't have any mechanism and the problem the problems with you know some of these environmental issues |
| 04:32:44 | that are happening is they're just getting left because we're we can't agree on who should be responsible and which portfolio should take the lead so this just clarifies that so what we're treating will take the lead and then we'll recover the costs afterwards Chair if I can perhaps just give a view from a different portfolios perspective if that makes sense so I've obviously only been with the council for six months but I've been in a couple of meetings with Katie and others where we've gone round and round and round in terms of whose |
| 04:33:24 | responsibility is to clear any given site and I think we're all agreed the amount of money around that table that it's costing to actually often not come to any agreement is a waste of time and money and I think it's fair to say from a member's perspective you're really not bothered who clears this mess up you just want it cleared up pronto because we understand you know you'll be getting it in the net from from your residents you know so this whole long council approach really is to speed up that process the important thing of getting the mess cleared up which is |
| 04:34:03 | you know what residents want and what I think you as members really want and then it kind of streamlines that in-house debate for want of a better phrase in terms of where the responsibility lies so it quickens up the clearance and then we can have that debate between the officers after the event if that makes sense and if we can't come to an agreement then whose portfolio responsibility is then it comes from the corporate part because the reality is we're spending a lot of time at the moment just arguing I say arguing debating in terms of which portfolio pays for it |
| 04:34:44 | it's just about streamlining and efficiency really and getting the job done quicker and that's the intention of the report in essence right thank you for the clarity to prompt a question so we've got a corporate fund does mention really paul where that is going from do you have to go cap in hand now back to the cabinet member for finance and say we need this money but rather than go on your own you'll have to support your fellow chief officers to say we agree and how long do you think that the 5000 would last based based on my experience of you |
| 04:35:35 | know the number of cases we've had over the last two or three years of parcels of an unknown ownership parcels of the land sorry they've been very very few you know the two roads I just gave example in the report from councillor bibby's ward is one of the most recent but I'd say we probably have two or three of those a year and so I that's what I've based that that cost on when we write the cabinet report we'll need to include that in the resources section and obviously yes we will have to request it through cabinet okay thank you very much no further |
| 04:36:16 | speakers I'll move to the recommendations on page 168 and cover mover seconded seconded show of hands those in favor and that's carried thank you very much just to let anybody know that was due to that 3 p.m workshop it has been cancelled so glen you don't worry anymore um um right we're coming to the last agenda item but we should officially take uh a five ten minute comfort break um unless everybody's happy to carry on so five minute comfort break okay well we'll break now and rejoin at quarter past three |
| 04:37:14 | or it last year and this was of course in relation to the change in welsh government legislation for restricted roads or the introduction of 20 mile an hour as a lot of people know it has and also the subsequent change in guidance that has since happened in relation to the 30 mile an hour speed limits so the purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the change of the welsh government legislation which was introduced in september 2023 and as you'll remember this saw the default speed limit on restricted roads change from 30 |
| 04:37:49 | miles per hour to 20 miles per hour across across wales and it also details the difficulties that flincher and other local authorities in fact had with the limited scope of that initial exceptions criteria at the time of that legislation change and the report goes on to reference the more recent changes to the welsh government 30 miles per hour criteria which came about in july 2024 and as you'll remember this replaced the old exceptions criteria and came about following welsh government's listening program and the report also references the process that followed |
| 04:38:28 | with the engagement of the flincher public and that was in relation to the roads they wanted to return to 30 miles per hour so as everybody will know going back to the initial exceptions criteria it was very limited councils were very limited in in what they could actually introduce as you know exempt from the overall legislation change and it very much saw a blanket 20 mile an hour speed limit come about it was then that welsh government listening program and that started as i mentioned there you know it kickstarted all the |
| 04:39:04 | liaisons with the public and receiving requests from members of the public on those roads they wanted to see return to 30 miles per hour the only issue is though at the time we hadn't actually received the revised guidance for 30 when we were going out and asking people so that didn't help but that's that small thing aside we did we did receive a lot of requests as you'll be aware we then undertook a number of engagement exercises with members as well many of you were there via a number of workshops and that was keeping members updated the report also goes on to |
| 04:39:43 | provide an update of the existing 20 mile an hour restricted roads in flincher which have since qualified for an increased 30 mile speed limit when assessed in accordance with that revised criteria and we've also provided clarification of the traffic regular regulation order process and the implementation program so reference 1.11 of the report provides an update of all the a and b classification roads which are all now complete and then the following section reference 1.12 of the report details the current status of the c and unclassified roads as well i would like to |
| 04:40:26 | highlight the following completion of the report we there has been further progress made in relation to the c and an unclassified road net program and i'll go through these briefly now if i may but before i do what i did want to say is that obviously the main purpose of this report is obviously to provide that background as to why we have the workshops the changing legislation and what have you but the main purpose of the report is to provide an update on the current program and i say this because there's probably a real danger with this report that we could get |
| 04:40:59 | sucked into the finer details of the criteria and individual roads and individual requests and i think we may run a risk of being here all day we might need to actually hold a separate session on that so if it's okay with everyone i would ask if there are any sorts of specific queries relating to individual roads or assessments or parts of the criteria that the members contact either myself or lee and the team after the after the meeting and we can arrange a separate meeting to discuss so if i may i will just go on to just providing an update on the c and unclassified |
| 04:41:39 | roads so obviously the a and b classified roads i mentioned that they're all implemented now as is shown in 1.11 1.12 since writing the report d side industrial park we are having to re-advertise that due to a valid objection received in relation to the statements of reasons and in relation to d side green lane east in particular the delegation report has since been signed and and we'll be ready to be implementing on site very soon in terms of sandy croft third on the list again delegation report has since been signed and we'll be ready to implement on site |
| 04:42:22 | shortly and the same goes for mold we'll also be ready to implement on site very soon in buckley jubilee road we've completed the delegation report again however there's a recommendation not to progress based on some of the objections received and there will be if they haven't taken place already some discussions with members from the team taking place and connors key wepper lane the delegation report is in progress so we've made quite quite a lot progress as i say since writing the report given we are at such an advanced stage now |
| 04:43:06 | with the c and unclassified roads in the second part of the program there will be i don't want to use the word downtime because there's never downtime with regards to this project but if you like the process that the team's been dealing with with going through the process of advertisements you know assessing the the objections in partially and getting those reports those reports prepared the next stage of a lot of those now going out on site waiting to be implemented it does kind of give a bit of a breather to the team so what they will be doing |
| 04:43:40 | now is looking at the third part which will be the progression of the buffer speed limits on the a and b classification road network so that is something that will be starting imminently and let's say there there is quite a bit of detail in the report with regards to traffic order processes and what have you and i hadn't intended to go through all of that but as i say it was mainly to provide the update so i'm happy to take any questions or to explain anything in greater detail thank you okay thank you thank you anthony first question |
| 04:44:19 | from me on the c roads and then classified yeah you didn't mention the evans way one which is down as queens ferry but it's actually shotton but not picking on that one just there was two objections received just wondering what the status is on that one please okay bear with me sorry i'll just go back to that table now bear with me yeah because i only mentioned as i say by it by in terms of the on the updates on that so evans way the delegate yeah so the report has been drafted on that and it's just currently being reviewed |
| 04:44:59 | so sorry i should have said made a bit more clear on those c and unclassified roads that i commented on it i was just providing any updates from the initial table that's already enclosed within the report thank you okay any further questions from members Councillor pears all right thank you uh chair uh we've waited for this for quite a while but quite a comprehensive uh report i'll firstly look at the requested roads there is a duplication there drew a new road on there is twice uh i'd really like to just touch on the assessment |
| 04:45:40 | process itself going back to june july 2025 the call for roads to be considered was put out and according to the report over a thousand requests but when they were filtered they come down to 82 roads whether it's 81 with a duplicate that's neither here nor there uh my concern is that those roads that did not qualify to revert to 30 mile an hour should have had a written explanation as to why the request was not accepted with a possible appeal process um this is how it works in in planning planning will give a reason |
| 04:46:28 | why an application is refused and you know why why cannot be done in this situation i think it's right and proper that we have a valid reason why those why those should have had an explanation at the end of the day it's not a thousand roads it's 82 roads and i want to talk about the perhaps the consistency of the assessment uh it talks in a report about the introduction across wales from september 2023 you have to remember that in buckley one of the eight pilot areas we had it imposed from |
| 04:47:14 | april sorry march 2022 just before the election and that apparently according to some members of public it was our fault and uh you know it did cause problems in the run-up to the election but here we are we got through that so when we talk about the 20 mile an hour i've experienced it now for four years in the community that i represent and i want to use this as an example i don't be broke i want to use this as example where we have the a549 which was requested to be and i would seek a reassessment of that for the following reasons i'm going to give you but |
| 04:47:58 | i think we need this as an example because the pilot in buckley was a blanket 20 miles an hour but the a road was left at a 30 there was no criteria to leave that at 30 miles an hour there was no problems it ran for 18 months when the default speed limit across wales came in october 23 that instantly reverted to 20 miles an hour and it's probably based on the criteria of 20 houses per kilometer but there are certain areas of that road that don't qualify and having looked at the the new documentation which has been kindly provided with the report |
| 04:48:46 | about place criteria road characteristics etc i feel that that has not been considered for example we've got a 20 mile an hour road three and a half miles long surely that's not the intention of the legislation along that road we have at least eight pelican crossings and crossing islands why would we need eight or more crossings on a 20 mile an hour road it screams out to be put back to 30 miles an hour in the place criteria document the current one it talks about road characteristics |
| 04:49:36 | and it talks about the road characteristics where it talks about segregated facilities safe crossings for pedestrians we have them so i'm not going to dwell anymore on that but i think there's a reason there for a reassessment of that a road through buckley because in the report it talks about the potential benefits of setting the highest speed limit it's a major bus route it carries freight i've recently contacted the council about the amount of vehicles that's speeding along that road and i'm not talking 25 i'm talking 50 miles now that's |
| 04:50:20 | been reported i know lee has responded to one of my residents about that so i think we need to have a look at how the assessment was done i want to use another road another road it was 30 it went to 20 dead straight no bends street lights white lines it went to 20 the complaints i got were horrendous when it was reassessed oh yeah we're going to make it 50 we've assessed it oh hang on no we're going to make it 40 because we can't go from 50 to 20 it's too much of a transition and then later on i found across the county we didn't indeed have situations |
| 04:51:08 | where it transitions from 50 down to 20 but i accepted that and then we had a written response that yeah we've reassessed it it's going to be 40 i put that on my christmas newsletter because i had it in writing oh yeah we've changed our mind it's now going to be 30 again so we've gone right around in a circle uh you know to be honest we don't know where we are sometimes with this so i'm talking about a consistent approach i'm talking about common sense and i'm talking about feedback all those people who took the trouble to contact the council and say look could you |
| 04:51:51 | look at this yes there's been a number of roads i don't know what the percentage is perhaps you can explain the number of roads that have qualified against the number of roads being assessed but surely people would expect a response i'm not saying you respond to all thousand people who actually submitted but as you say in the report it's filtered out into 82 roads surely you you can put a table together with those roads and give the reasons why they haven't been accepted i'm not going to hang anymore about that chair but i sincerely hope that i will take up the |
| 04:52:44 | view to reassessing the a549 based on the new criteria so thank you for listening antony young lee thank you okay thank you uh antony let's respond yes uh thanks to council appears for those questions i'll just cover that i'll just cover those uh in in terms of his first first point there with regards to the assessment process um then um you know exactly right when we do those speed limit assessments we have the criteria we have a standard table now if a speed limit does not meet the criteria it's not a case of somebody just licking a finger |
| 04:53:23 | sticking it in the snr sitting it's not recorded there is a full detailed assessment and that and that schedule is in existence i think we'd also offered during the members feedback when we were giving the when we were providing details in those workshops of those roads that did or didn't meet uh the criteria that we would be happy to meet with members um to go through the reasons why uh at the time and that office still stands as we mentioned before you know so if there is any if there are any roads that people would like to reassess or um you know you feel that |
| 04:53:58 | the um the outcome is incorrect inconsistent then as i said at the start we can we can certainly have those meetings but certainly that information is there it is open and transparent um and i guess the same sort of links to point number two um with regards to the reassessments of the a549 again you know we won't go into the specifics in this meeting because it we will be here forever and we'd need to have the team here with their assessments to actually comment on those findings as as to why a certain decision was given but we can take up those points with |
| 04:54:31 | members and with councillor pears uh in that meeting thank you okay thank you for that antonika just come back then um yeah where you talk about you offered to members and to meet with members i'm also talking about members of the public that took the trouble to put these in and when you talk about those assessments being open and transparent if you provide the location for those i i will take a look but thank you for the offer of reassessing roads that we would like reassessed and i appreciate that thank you very much |
| 04:55:12 | okay thank you councillor rose uh thank you yeah i i think uh councillor pierce has said a lot of what i wanted to say i will declare i do live on the a549 and can confirm that many residents still want that to be 30 mile an hour and also the problem is not at the daytime with the speeding it's at the night time living on this road i can tell you just how many i hear going very clearly over 30 never mind 20 um i think the the i understand where we're up to and things but my my my frustrations are obviously the restrictions |
| 04:55:51 | that are in place at the moment on those consultations you know we've been told several times that you know you've got the flexibility to do what you want essentially is what's been implied to people but also i've seen several things where other counties have have varied their rules differently is there any sort of network of routes where you know the uh the offices are are describing other techniques or other things that are being done in other counties that that that we can compare with i think that would be interesting to note if there are other counties |
| 04:56:25 | that have um gone uh differently to the except the expectations of the rules currently to know how they've done that why they've done that and on what rules they've used to allow them to do it and then secondly um obviously we've already had a couple of changes on this legislation on the rules that go with it are we expecting further changes at all with the feedback that back to legislation makers is that something that is forthcoming again or is that or is this where we are at the moment and there's nothing more expected in the guidance thanks okay anthony |
| 04:57:08 | okay thank you uh in terms of careful how i answer this in terms of other authorities then in terms of interpretations approaches strategies however we want to call whatever we want to call it really ultimately you know the legislation has been passed and there's been a criteria and as officers we adhere to that criteria through the assessment there has been what i would describe as quite a bit of misleading um information along the basis of criteria i think it always comes down to this point you know criteria as advisory you basically do what you want that's not how it works at all |
| 04:57:43 | you know the criteria is there it's set whether it be advisory or not i think there's a play on ultimately if you as a local authority deviate from that you've got to evidence it so if you're not going to follow the criteria you've got to clearly demonstrate why you're not and that it's safe to do so and that's been very much flinch's um you know approach throughout you know we've had that backed up by um expert legal advice you know the uk's leading specialist in traffic law you know we've we quote that many times and you know to be sure in our position because ultimately |
| 04:58:18 | if you've got criteria and guidance you just ignore it and what's the point of having it you know it's there for a reason certainly with speed limits um to make sure that our roads are safe um and you know you've got to provide a consistent approach i am personally aware as i'm sure there'll be a lot of people aware other authorities have done their own thing but ultimately those people that have done their own thing if something were to go wrong and an appropriate speed limit had been set and we'd had casualties as a result then that's up to them |
| 04:58:51 | to defend that and to defend the reasons why they have chosen to take a different approach and depart from guidance that goes with any sort of engineering scheme scheme with guidance if you if you choose to depart from it or request a departure then you've got to have good reason for it if you're ever queried or questioned um so i can't really comment on other people's approaches other than flincher have followed the correct legal process um throughout and if we're any if we're ever in a situation where we do need to um defend our case as to why we've set a certain |
| 04:59:27 | speed limit we can do it with ease because we followed a consistent process you know in in you know a legally endorsed process in terms of the the second question there with regards to changes um i've not personally heard that there's going to be any further changes to 20s or 30s if there were rumors that 40s 50s national speed limits were next on the radar um to be uh looked into i haven't heard any more on that or i guess there's the rumblings in the news as to people saying oh the 20s should be reversed and the whole thing should be scrapped but again that's just |
| 05:00:04 | isn't it with certain political parties but i i've certainly not heard anything um that there are going to be any additional changes i think the existing 30 the latest 30 mile per hour criteria still needs to be updated uh to include roads that are not street lit and that's something that we raised with welsh government at the time um but again i've not heard anything further on that so i hope that answers the question thank you okay thank you okay um councillor marshall thank you jay sorry i had to pop out so i've just come in at the end of this um can i just |
| 05:00:49 | ask a question about the the latest guidance from whilst government uh setting 30 mile per hour speed limits on restricted roads that sounds like um there's going to be 30 mile an hour restricted roads but it can't be because the restricted restricted road is 20 mile an hour in wales so shouldn't it be really de-restricting a restricted road instead of setting a restricted road to 30 not a trick question it's no it's uh no it's not a trick question it is an obvious question i think they've they've they've not got a handle on the restricted and unrestricted road |
| 05:01:35 | it was previously restricted road uh it's no longer as you say because restricted road is 20 so even in its title is not accurate but within the 30 criteria they've they only relate it to street-lit areas that will that were once 30 but they don't but also you know historically 30 mile an hour can include roads that are not street-lit which they haven't updated in the guidance as yet so there's there's a lot that still needs tweaking albeit the title too i've challenged the department for transport i've challenged kensgate directly about his explanatory note um on the the |
| 05:02:17 | mile an hour order and both told me to go and get legal advice so the people setting the law are telling me to go and ask somebody else for clarification about their own law which is which is odd okay um okay well thanks thank you no further questions from anybody no oh councillor is again would the committee accept two further recommendations to the report if i just go through them recommendation five is that scrutiny notes that street scene and transportation will accept further representation from members to reassess specific |
| 05:03:10 | non-qualifying roads and recommendation six scrutiny notes that street scene and transportation will make available the reasons why requested roads did not qualify i'm happy to second that the the recommendation that last one because scrutiny notes that street scene and transportation will make available the reasons why requested roads did not qualify okay chief officer so can i just ask a quick clarification question around that second one around making available reasons why to who to members to or to public generally because that's going to be a significant |
| 05:03:59 | piece of work for officers which will obviously slow down the process that we're currently undertaking so we would need some additional resources to be able to do that so if you could answer that for me that'd be great yeah during the comments from antony he said that those reasons were open and transparent and i meant that to be they were available i was thinking you've got 82 roads some of those are already qualified so that that you put a table on the website it was it was part of a public consultation |
| 05:04:45 | and i think to finish that off we have yeah thank you for all your thousand representations out of that 82 roads were considered this number of roads have been accepted and then against the didn't qualify you just make a statement yeah and that is available to everyone and that is the conclusion of the public consultation so you're asking people to contribute and spend their time but there's nothing back in return if you can tell you that yeah just my understanding there was that you were asking for |
| 05:05:24 | reasons for why the 900 nod didn't get yeah it's it's not it's not a re it's not a response to every person following the filtration there were 82 roads so if you have a table this is the road it didn't qualify and this was the reason it didn't qualify if it's permissible chair can i a slight amendment then in that it's that we publish um because i think i understood it that you wanted us to reply to everybody individually so we haven't got the resources to be able to do that if it means no no if it's it no no it's okay that's just that's why i wanted to clarify |
| 05:06:09 | but certainly in terms of publishing um we can put some sort of table on line and that that's makes it much easier for us so that's fine yeah you got you take down qualifying roads you've got a table this is why i totally want i didn't want you no no i wouldn't have imposed that on you i didn't want you no i didn't suggest that you reply to every person because i don't know you know the information isn't there and i'm not looking for it but when you've got requested roads 82 roads with a thousand like one of those roads may have had |
| 05:07:00 | 50 requests another one may have just had one it would give you the level of detail but that's a different issue so uh so i put those two uh i put those two recommendations forward and it's not about responding to individuals okay okay that's great can i just clarify margaret are you happy with the wording yeah i've not i've only got will accept further number five can you just repeat number the first one please that scrutiny notes that's yeah yeah yeah recommendation five scrutiny notes that street scene and transportation |
| 05:07:46 | will accept further representations from members to reassess specific non-qualifying roads and what i mean by that is i don't want to go to street scene and transportation and say look i want you to reassess all these roads that's why i put the words specific thank you are we still going with make available or are we changing it to publish that will publish the reasons why requested routes will not qualify did not did not requested roads yeah did you say roots okay anthony you want to come in |
| 05:08:46 | yeah thank you yeah just to make a point in relation to councillor's piece first additional recommendation there because i think it's worthwhile in saying because we'd corrected or i'd corrected welsh government on a number of occasions because as part of their listening program they they sort of implied that well it's closed now you can't make any more recommendations and one thing that we always said repeatedly and it links into councillor pierce comment there that you know for the last seven eight years we've been doing a speed limit review |
| 05:09:17 | of all roads in flincher and we wanted to make the point that at any time that no time does it ever close and we made that point clear to welsh government you know it's not a case of now be you know forever hold your breath you know it you know not just for the 20 mile an hour or 30 mile an hour requests any speed limit at any time it's a local member or member of the public they have got the ability to request a speed limit assessment and that's not linked to this program of work or anything so i don't know whether we want to even amend it further still but |
| 05:09:52 | whether it's just to remind the committee that speed limit requests can be requested by member or by public at any time for an assessment it's never considered closed just by very neat nature of changing environments it's it's always there and it can always be requested thank you okay thank you for that anthony and councillor piers and then they've got councillor bibby yes i don't wish to change the recommendation because the recommendation was based on the offer made by me in his comments during this meeting and it was specific to this agenda item and the |
| 05:10:29 | recommendation follows from that so i will leave it as it is thank you councillor bibby yeah thanks very much mr chair i'll keep it brief as obviously we've had a very very long day um i mean it would be very this is not a specific request because i'm not sure but i think it would be very interesting if we were to total up the amount of officer hours that have spent on this entire process and how much and how much of that time could have been spent on other things because to be quite honest with you i think the door that you know the whole mess of |
| 05:11:05 | this lies at welsh government as far as i'm concerned they made a very premature and decision to go for default i think this policy could have been the way that this could rolled out is you could have basically said right what roads do you want to be 20 miles an hour provide the local authority with the money to do it and then work through it that way i think what we did is we did it backwards to default and then oh right okay well we're going to go ahead and then we're going to we're going to look at reversion i mean it does and i think just going to the point |
| 05:11:40 | i know the authority has come under quite a lot of criticism because of the you know the perceived time it's taken a number of roads etc into comparison with another authority but i think antony what antony said has been very clear we've taken a belt and braces approach one that's backed up by legal advice another point that antony made was very pertinent if welsh governments are going to provide us with great criteria it seems to me rather disingenuous for ministers and civil servants to say well we've given you criteria but why don't you deviate from it to get the process through |
| 05:12:14 | you know it just seems to me that a policy that could have been very popular that could have actually empowered communities was a top-down imposition that caused a great deal of public backlash and we've spent an enormous amount of expense which i think money which we've struggled to find an enormous amount of officer time i mean the amount of stress that i can imagine this has put officers through amount of stress has put members through i mean buckley was thrown into fire straight away it just seems to me that this could have been handled much better |
| 05:12:48 | and you know this could have been a very positive policy as i said it could have empowered communities to make decisions for themselves i just feel it's a real real shame the way it sort of ended to be quite honest thank you for that contribution okay we have recommendations on the bottom of page 179 there's four that's written there with the additional two that you've heard from councillor piers do i have a seconder for that i'll second okay seconded there a show of hands in favor of those recommendations okay that's carried |
| 05:13:26 | and that concludes the meeting for today thank you all very much for your time |
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