Agenda and minutes

To approve the Minutes of the meeting of the Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee held on  21 June 2022 and published on the Council’s website. 

The Minutes of the meeting held on 21 June 2022 were agreed as a correct record.

To receive apologies for absence and note substitutions.

Members who are unable to attend this meeting must submit apologies by the end of Tuesday 13 September 2022 to enable a substitute to be arranged, if applicable.

Apologies for Absence were received from Cllr Peter Marriott.

To receive from Members declarations of interests in relation to any items included on the agenda for this meeting, in accordance with Waverley’s Code of Local Government.

There were no declarations submitted for this meeting.

The Chairman to respond to any questions submitted by members of the public in accordance with Procedure Rule 10.

The deadline for submission of written questions for this meeting is Tuesday 13 September 2022.

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There were none

The Chairman to respond to any questions received from Members in accordance with Procedure Rule 11.

The deadline for submission of written questions for this meeting is Tuesday 13 September 2022.

There were none.

The Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee is responsible for managing the Committee’s work programme.

The current work programme (attached) includes items agreed and takes account of items identified on the latest Executive Forward Programme (Annexe 2) as due to come forward for decision.

Recommendation

Members are invited to consider their work programme and make any comments and/or amendments they consider necessary, including suggestions for any additional topics that the Committee may wish to add to its work programme.

Mark Mills updated the committee on the following:

·         The comments and recommendations on the Green Spaces are being integrated into the report by officers.

·         The Local Enforcement Planning Action Plan was scheduled to be considered by the committee in November.

·         The ASB update would now come to the committee in Summer 2023 as the Public Protection Space had only just come into force.

Cllr Seaborne advised that the comments of the Committee on the Biodiversity Action Plan had not been represented correctly to the Executive.  The Chairman and Vice Chairman had been unavailable to attend Executive and he asked if a substitute member of the committee could attend in future.

Action: Executive to be asked if they would be happy for a substitute member of the committee could attend in future if the Chairman and Vice Chairman were unavailable.

The Corporate Performance Report provides an analysis of the Council’s

performance for the first quarter of 2022-2023. The report, set out at Annexe 1,

is being presented to each of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees for

comment and any recommendations they may wish to make to the Executive.

Please note pages 52-78 of the agenda pack (pages 34-60 of the report) are the reports that come under the Services O&S Remit.

Jenny Sturgess, Policy and Performance Officer, was welcomed to the Committee.

Jenny Sturgess advised that the financial figures were not representative of the first quarter and are the figures at the end of Q4.

Cllr Seaborne advised that collections of street bins appeared to be reactive rather than proactive as they only seemed to be emptied when they were overflowing. Richard Homewood advised this should no longer be happening and asked for any instances to be reported to him.  Members also advised that residential collections had also been atrocious recently and residents were having difficulty reporting this online. Richard Homewood raised concern at this and asked for incidents to be reported to him.

Cllr Dickson asked for an update on the bike shelters for Farnham. Kelvin Mills advised discussions were still taking place on a suitable location and style.

Cllr Dickson noted there was no mention of Farnham Museum in the report. Kelvin Mills advised that there was little to report other than the second round of funding applications were going through.

It was noted that there was some improvement in planning performance this quarter. Sally busby advised that the figures for 151a, 153a and 123a included the backlog for the last 2 years so were unlikely to show a positive improvement for some time.

It was highlighted that members were finding it difficult to find information on the website and relied upon contacting officers directly. It was difficult to find housing numbers and running totals.  It was also highlighted that changes and extensions to applications were not obvious. Officers were asked to look at this.

It had been noted that pavement licensing had now moved permanently to Boroughs and Districts and members wished to know what cost implications this would incur. Officers advised the allowances would be adjusted to cover this.

This reports provides the second annual update of the Carbon Neutrality Action Plan (CNAP) since its adoption in 2020. The date has been brought forward in order for it to be aligned with the budget setting period. The outcomes of the work to date are set out in the revised CNAP and the spreadsheet with updates on individual actions. 

It is recommended that the O&S notes:

·         The progress made on the CNAP during 2022 attached in Annexe 1

·         The GHG report attached in Annexe 2 and agree that it is published on the Waverley Borough Council website

·         The updated content of version 3 of the CNAP as presented in Annexe 3

And provides feedback to the Executive

Fotini Vickers attended for this item and advised this was the second update on the Carbon Neutrality Plan.

Cllr Sally Dickson raised concern around whether some of the short term actions needed further consideration. She felt moving to a green tariff may not be viable considering the current energy crisis. She also raised concern regarding the changing energy options for housing as it had already been evidenced that heat exchangers are costly.

The Committee discussed the action to go paperless and agreed that large agenda papers were difficult to read electronically and the tablets provided to members were too small to read agendas effectively.

Cllr Cockburn highlighted there was no effective plan to join it all together and that we already have things in our current policies that are not acted upon already e.g. inefficient planning permissions and builds so we cannot add more. CC1-CC4 should be complied with.

Action: Planning should be encouraged to complete a checklist – this had already been produced by Cllr D’Arcy two years ago as an example.

Cllr Foryszewski asked how T04 (Cycle Lanes) this would be implemented. What if we don’t own the land?

Fotini Vickers advised:

·         that a sustainability SPD had been produced to join up the planning policy. This will encourage developers. LPP1 will be reviewed and will give an opportunity to introduce new policies.

·         Leisure Centres were working closely with Waverley on improvements.

·         Contractors – they do like to stipulate expectations during procurement and are having discussions on variations to their contracts.

·         With regards to To4 the project is already underway with the projects officer and SCC to design in routes.

Cllr Seaborne highlighted a few errors/issues with the report. The forward should be dated September 2022 not 2023, the hyperlinks in footnotes on the Greenhouse gases were not appropriate if report is in paper form so full references should be included.

Cllr Seaborne also commented that the highest priority should be the improvements to the housing stock

Action: Asset Manager to address both O&S committees once in post.

The Committee discussed how to change the cultures.  It was acknowledged that it was not appropriate to tell people what to do but the council should lead by example.

Recommendation:

Services O&S notes:

·         The progress made on the CNAP during 2022 attached in Annexe 1

·         The GHG report attached in Annexe 2 and agree that it is published on the Waverley Borough Council website

·         The updated content of version 3 of the CNAP as presented in Annexe 3

Furthermore, the Committee recommends:

1)    That energy efficiency of council owned housing should be given higher priority as emissions from these properties represent the main emissions for which the Council has direct responsibility, and also noting the heightened risk of fuel poverty for financially challenged residents due to the inflation of energy prices.

2)     The addition of an action to make more extensive use of existing planning policies to promote climate change objectives. This should include a checklist for all applications  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22.

For the Committee to endorse the Group’s interim recommendations.

Cllr Foryszewski as Chairperson of the Task & Finish Group outlined the report. She advised the group had considered a document that was over 700 pages long before coming to their recommendations. She wished to thank the members and officers of the Task and Finish Group for their contributions to the meetings.

Cllr Baker had registered to speak on this item and enquired what form the proposed outreach work in rural communities would take.  Kelvin Mills advised this would be part of the tender pack and the applications would outline their proposals.

Recommendation

The Committee endorsed the Group’s interim recommendations

To consider, if necessary, the following recommendation on the motion of the Chairman:

Recommendation

That pursuant to Procedure Rule 20 and in accordance with Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items on the grounds that it is likely in view of the nature of the proceedings, that if members of the public were present during the items there would be disclosure to them of exempt information (as defined by Section 100I of the Act) to be identified at the meeting.

There were no items to discuss in exempt session so the Chairman closed the meeting.