AGENDA (To view individual agenda items click on the links below)
1. Declarations of Interest 00:04:08
2. Minutes 00:04:22
3. Public Participation 00:05:04
4. York Central Update 00:08:30
5. Workforce Development Plan and Attendance Management 01:00:25
6. Ward Funding 01:42:49
7. 2023/24 Finance and Performance Monitor 3 02:20:36
8. Work Plan 02:29:30
For full agenda, attendance details and supporting documents visit:
https://democracy.york.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=1064&MId=14284
E e e e e good evening everybody hello good to see people are embracing the paperless approach to meetings of bringing their laptops and plugging them in it be well I know H welcome everybody to what feels like another weekly meeting of the corporate services climate change and scrutiny management committee um on
Today Monday the 18th of March uh I’ll start with some housekeeping uh announcements for our guests um if you need the the toilet at any point there behind me through the door on my left um do not try to get through the door at the rear of the room um because if you
Manage to get through there you’ll be lost in the uh the corridors of West offices um no fire alarm is is is planned in the event that the alarm does go off please follow a someone wearing a cyc lanyard and they’ll um they’ll look after you hopefully okay so I’ll begin with
Apologies I’ve received apologies from councelor Waller and he’s substituted by councelor vassi um I am expecting councelor air but I think he’s delayed but he should be with us um hopefully shortly uh can I ask members if there are any Declarations of Interest please no thank
You um agender item two minutes of the meeting held on the 29th of January 2024 do any members have any matters of accur accuracy from the minutes no in terms of matters arising under work plan um there were there were a couple of items uh suggested for um potential task
And finish group but I propose to pick those up under the work plan item uh later in the meeting so I M’s happy for uh for me to sign the minutes as a true record please thank you agenda item three public participation we have one registered speaker who is joining us remotely uh
And that’s councelor Andrew Holier can you hear us councelor Holier I can hear you can you hear me we can thank you um understand you’re speaking in relation to agenda item six on the agenda I am yes so I’ll you have three minutes and I’ll leave you to start in your own
Time okay thank you chair uh members will recall that immediately upon taking office labor announced Cuts award funding and then after some months of limbo applied a new funding formula intended to Target more funding to more deprived Wards but a mistak in that formula meant larger and therefore
Usually more deprived Wars uh did not receive their fair share this was a subject of a call in in October October and at that meeting I attempted to explain the error in the funding formula that the element related to the index of multiple deprivation took no account award population leading to anomalies
Like Bishop Thorp receiving 150 per resident compared to haxi wigington receiving 87 P despite near identical deprivation scores award like Westfield which is the most deprived recent received barely more than Bishop Thor at 176 and the scheme was riddled with these issues um you just need to look at
Table 14 and the funding per person and you’ll see them all for yourselves uh whilst that request to rethink the formula was refused I assume that the error would just be quietly fixed behind the scenes for next year so I was absolutely stunned to see in this
Report a recommendation for option A or option e just to go through those options and it’s slightly difficult to tell because some of the background to the calculations has only just been provided this afternoon uh so I haven’t had a chance to look through it um and
The error in the previous year’s formula was only obvious once those were but I thank officers for now providing that information option b can obviously be immediately discounted C and D whilst broadly how it used to be um done and with the benefits of Simplicity clearly don’t have the support of the current
Administration so non starters options a e bring forward the same error found previously at the Callin that no account is made for the population in the 145,000 element they chos that this needs to be fixed I’m utterly bewildered how these are still in the mix the synic
Me does wonder whether are in reality options a to we have been put in a straw men to promote option F which does appear to take into account W population I think via households and therefore to some extent mitigates the previous error as such I’m assuming that option f is
The LI for labor members to climb down to avoid the embarrassment of having to rowback on their opposition to the calling reasons it’s clear that none of the options are perfect they all have flaws to a large extent that’s why the previous administration just allocated by a number of Ward counselors it is
Very clear some are far more flaw and unfair than others and a scheme intended to direct uh funding to the most deprived wards that gives Westfield residents 14 P more than Bishop thought just completely mad thank you thank you Council holia and uh your comments will be taken into account when
We reach that agenda item so that’s all we have under public participation uh agenda item four is York Central update uh so can I invite officers and guests to come and join us at the table please thank you so as members will be aware major projects are within the um
The remit of this committee we received an update uh on progress with York Central in November of last year um and shortly after um the uh lead developers were confirmed uh so we agreed that uh we agreed to return to this item once the lead developers had been appointed
In order for um for us to continue our discussion to get an update on uh the stat of the project some of the the challenges some of the opportunities um to give uh Partners a chance to uh to to talk to us and for us to ask any questions or um make any
Suggestions that that members wish to make so you’re very welcome uh to to this committee um and I’ll hand over to David to introduce please thank you very much chair my name is David won head of regeneration with the council um just a couple of introductory marks but the main business
As you’ve highlighted is to receive the update from our partners uh Tom Gilman from McLaren regeneration who’s going to give you a short presentation um but we’ve also got in attendance tonight Stephen hind um head of Business Development with network rail on behalf of homes England and network rail the
Landowning partners and Tom dine representing the National Railway Museum um and they’re willing and obviously best place to answer any questions that you may have that you weren’t able to address last time we attended in November um I’m hoping I can take the report as read I would just highlight at
Paragraph two sort of two very recent meetings earlier this year 12th of February uh Partners attended the lead members um group uh and provided an update there and at the beginning of the month um Partners including developer partner presented to the hallgate ward committee um as well
Um there’s one further update um some of you may have seen in the budget there was an announcement of a significant funding allocation um from the leveling up for culture fund um1 15 million pound awarded to the nrm in support of their transforming uh vision and again if
There any questions on that Tom dine um we’ll have more details um I think the only other thing to to just flag was you um interrogated us um in November um and I think one of the items that that was raised specifically was financial support so just to note
The update at paragraph nine um for the committee there in terms of the council’s support funding support for the enabling infrastructure and if that was all I’m going to hand over to Tom Gilman from McLaren who’s going to talk through their ambition for phase one development on New York Central thank you chair
Thank you well Tom good good evening everyone um thanks for the opportunity to give a a short presentation on um on York Central uh as David said um we have been the selected party we selected party prior to Christmas we’re currently going through thanks David the the legal process at
The moment so that’s concluding and to be concluded I think in the next week or so so contractually we will then be the selected party um we have been undertaking uh various stakeholder engagement and working with the council and um the stakeholders nrm H and NR um
On various work streams and are Keen to get stuck in and start um bringing some of this forward the first phase of which will be Museum square and we’re working with Tom dine and nrm um on that it’s good to note that we’ve got planning as of February um and we’re currently
Undertaking a number of work streams with them and looking at bringing that forward uh and getting on site in summer of this year um for delivery as quickly as possible subject to ip2 Works um and uh demolition of the existing buildings uh there is also a a current
Application in tow for a large corporate occupier um as part of this and um we are working with their design team just to move that through to stage four design and again subject to getting planning in I think it’s targeted for the April committee um we will continue
That work stream and look to start again on site u in in Q4 of this year for delivery in 2027 um then aligned to that we have quite a large aspiration for The Wider phase one which I’m just going to talk you through now in terms of this
Presentation and and be mindful that this is just an early um iteration and uh this is not the completed design as a process to go through this planning to go through um but it it gives you some idea of what we’re going to try and do
For the phase one and sort of the aspirations around the scale of it and um bringing forward together a development which gives a sense of place and space at the get-go and try and and really be impactful in that next few years so I’ll just click through not
Used one of these before so hopefully this works this is um the master plan for York Central um which I hope everybody can sort of orientate themselves around you’ve got the sort of light blue shaded area which is the museum um and the the white bit in the
In the middle is the existing residential so all around that is the York Central which at the moment comprises around two and a half thousand homes and over a million square feet of of commercial space the blue in the right hand bottom corner is where the commercial space is located and the
Brown around the public park is the residential elements just to give you some orientation um so in terms of um phase one that sort of falls into three parts which is a the museum scouch we’ve talked about um B the um the corporate building and I I got a arrow
Here what how do I point is that pointing no anyone say pointy thing no um that’s not working okay well so the corporate building lies just off and apologies for trying to describe it here but it lies just off museum museum Square to the south of the blue shaded
Area which has it hasn’t got a red line around it that that forms the new corporate building which is around 200,000 square feet gross and then what uh McLaren Arling are looking to bring forward in conjunction with those two work streams is what’s outlined in red um which
Uh again quite difficult to describe from here without being able to point but you’ve got that public realm space immediately adjacent to the station a hotel Point okay that be yeah can you can you reach up there Stephen yeah yeah that’s right which comprises an additional commercial building of
Around 100,000 square feet um some additional public realm which um Works in with the museum Square so you have the really substantial public realm space and then that in yellow um is a hotel along with a new Western station entrance which links into the new bridge across from the station itself oh well
Done who did that um and we’ll come to there some images of that which may be able to give it some flavor as well and then uh the further red line which um is to the um west of uh the the corporate building you can see some residential units the
Public park and then some further residential so all of that red line going all the way around it that’s exactly it um that is around 900 residential units as well as the majority of the public park so we as McLaren Arlington as the as the new developer are looking to bring forward
That scale of development as part of our phase one which will work in conjunction with the museum square and the corporate building we just talked about so the aspiration for that is to get an application in it’s resered matters application in this year would start on
Site in 25 and delivering in 27 so by the end of 27 you’ll have the new Museum Square the new corporate building and The Wider phase one so that there is that sense of place and space from the get goate that’s just a a summary of those those three elements to phase
One so the museum Square the government property agency Western station entrance new public realm hotel and 900 residential units and that’s split across a aordable senior Bill to rent that’s um a CGI I mean clearly this is going to move forward as we move through the detail design phase but
That’s looking from the corner of um I suppose the museum back towards the station um to the right uh just being cut off is the new government property agency and the building in the middle is the new office building and the building to the left is the hotel with the public
Realm which is the cold known as the cold drops at the moment um in front of it that’s a slightly different angle um picking up the new Western station entrance and looking back towards the Min Minster and um uh the railway station and that’s the hotel in front of
You again an image around what the residential may look like and the public park that we’ll be bringing forward so the public park comprises around 17 acres and we’ll be bringing forward around 85% of that in Phase One um so a substantial piece of that public realm and that’s the sort of image
Looking back down towards um the station so those are the slides I have um that’s our aspiration we’re working with the the council uh to bring forward that application as I say in in um 2024 uh with a view to getting on site next year thank you very much um for that
Update so I’ll throw it open to to members for any questions or comments on on where we are with with the projects and some of those um visualizations and it also starts to look a bit more real when you see what it what it might look like councilor
Rley thank you chair can I just compliment the team on on on where they are with this project and and thank you for the presentation it’s been really really useful really helpful um the addition of 900 new homes is vital for the city I think everybody would would
Agree with that um and whilst I appreciate that the devil’s in the detail I’m just curious whilst we we we we strive as a council to have kind of Net Zero and to reduce car use and increase the reality is projects that have tried to do that in the past have
Have come a Cropper really because people will not abandon cars and whilst that’s a long-term ambition in terms of the 900 properties um again whilst it’s probably too early to give a definitive answer what what what um Provisions are made for parking within those I appreciate obviously the the details a
Long way down the track but I’m just curious um I think to be honest we share your aspiration so we um when we put our submission in we really focused on five PS which is people place Planet prosperity and partnership so um this is about creating the right place it is
About making sure that we do that in a sustainable way and that’s not just sustainable is such a big word that’s not just you know construction methodology it’s not just about embedded carbon operational carbon but in terms of a sustainable place um that’s really
Key for us so I know we are in dialogue with the the council at the moment um it feels like an anatha to me that we going to have long-term car usage within a location that’s so close to the city center and I personally have an aspiration to see that there are going
To be less cars in in in this site but we’ve got to work through the process with the council to do that um so that’s the direction of travel that we’d like to follow clearly there’s as you say there’s more detail to be undertaken but
I would like to see reduced level of car usage not just from a commercial and residential but across that across that scheme as a whole thank you again I say that’s an aspiration we’ve got to work through with coun Y and again thank you thank
You for that I say I think everyone of us around this this this table you know have that that ultimate aspiration to see the reduction of car usage the reality is so cly in the last 20 30 years where we’ve because this isn’t a new aspiration I think we’ve had it for
A long time where we’ve tried to develop um residential units to to to you know with with that aspiration in mind of having little or few cars the reality is we have we have residential developments that don’t have streets big enough for on street parking parking problems get moved
Around it’s just why you have this aspiration it’s not going to be an night people will dump their cars even in the next 30 years if we’ half car usage by 50% even in a development like this in the city center there will be those
People who will have a car and it’s and it’s when you look at when so I guess for me it’s it’s it’s not allowing the aspiration to ignore the need because there is an aspiration but the the reality is that you won’t get rid of every single car so in terms of the
Development aesthetically it looks fantastic it looks brilliant but you don’t want it to be spoiled by 50 cars 50% of cars that have nowhere to go and therefore you know it it so so so by being ahead of the game and making some provision for car parking and car
Usage you’re not abandoning the aspiration you’re just being realistic in terms of how you plan forward yeah no agree I think the um the direction of the travel has to be that to be honest as in reducing the amount of car usage but we have to be cognizant where we are
Sit today and the and the I suppose the benefit of York Central is there a multiphase development so you have the ability to work through that over a period of years so the first phase might allow some car parking and then as you move forward it might reduce in terms of
Its um in terms of its usage but you know I recognize I recognize the issue um I think we’ve just got to make sure that it works in an aesthetic way and and make sure that the place works as well so if you are car parking and and there
Those on on the site we do want to make sure that they’re not parked on streets which aren’t um workable because that just impacts upon the place so fully recognized David wton sorry yeah go on David thank you chair I me just the members uh benefiting to confirm the outline
Planning application set some fairly rigorous standards in terms of car parking standards anyway um I think what developer partners are saying is that that’s an outline planning application from 2019 and it’s absolutely right to have a dialogue with the local planning Authority as they look at making resered matters applications in
2024 to make sure that they are looking at the world that that exists today and and and is and looking forward to building this out over over a period of time where there has been you know quite a shift perhaps since 2019 but there are some challenging Targets in there and the developer
Committed to those conversations yeah and I think it’s incumbent upon us to do that I mean we we can’t just ignore the the impact on climate change we have to you know grab that by the horns and so this is an opportunity to do it and what
We recognize those uh parameters but you know let’s not that let’s not make that you know stop us from looking at what we can do thank you Council vassi thank you chair I’ve been watching this I suppose on an off for about 20 years and I’d like to has put it into
Some kind of context by referring to the banat development in Heidelberg in Germany which is roughly the same size as our Railway Goods yards and indeed is a railway Goods yard that became vacant at the same time as the York Central site it’s now complete it provides 6 and
A half thousand homes and is one of the largest passive house districts in the world it was completed in 2020 22 created 6,000 jobs since work began in 2010 the homes in batad have annual carbon emissions for energy use of just 0.13 tons per inhabitant compared with
The UK average of 2.2 tons all the buildings public and private have been built to passive house standard and the district’s energy demand is met fully by a nearby wood chip combined heat and Power station which is part of the Local District heating Network bat’s cost has proved comparable to non-passive house
Developments of a similar scale and 20% of bat’s homes are social housing next to the Central Railway Station it’s been designed to minimize transport emissions a tram line has been extended to include three stops in the area while 3.5 kilometers of new cycle paths connect the district to the city center
And other net and other neighborhoods a network of charging stations for electric vehicles has been installed walking and cycling are encouraged in the new 1.5 kilometer public park in the district lastly to reduce flooding in Spring and Autumn the district has water retention basins that allow rainwater to
Infiltrate the ground rather than flood the sewer system sh not I think council is fantastic one of my allies across the floor but is there a question coming here going to come there that’s the context and I say that with absolute love trust me no I understand I
Understand I’m trying to put a context to all of this yes I I thought you were um B stat has got 66% of all its roofs is are green roofs and then we look at what we have here in the sunset of the fossil fuel age we’re having a discussion about
Cars and and and getting answers that try to move the dial but leave us more or less stuck in the same place um I just have to say after 20 years I know in in 2009 we had a vision statement the council produced that said we have
Purposefully not set out a vision it actually used those words and I fear that’s why we are where we are and my question is what can we as a city council do to help you raise the bar as we go forwards in this because I think it’s clear from what you’ve said that
You share the aspiration to make this a sustainable development but here we are in 2024 two years after the whole of banat’s been finished and we’ve yet to start and we’ve yet to really have a landmark sustainable development that I suspect everyone around this table really wants to see okay
You please feel free to share and if anybody else wants to to comment please do I’ll just make a couple of remarks J to set the set the scene again going back to the the standards that are set by the outline planning uh application so again it’s always going to be
Possible to improve on those and it’s always going to be impossible to do better um the design guide the sustainability standards that are mandated they are the minimum and beyond that I think yeah I meant to bring in Tom now to to say where he sees the developer being able
To respond to those and go further but I think you know when you’re describing the the German example there I think actually a lot of those things do apply to to what we already have secured at York Central there will be pedestrian and cycle linkages um there
Will be 20% um affordable housing um there will be the opportunity for Passive house it’s not mandated um we won’t have tram stops but we will have the diversion of Park and Ride Services running electric buses through the site so I think there are some things that are are very comfortable thank
You probably just to add to that so stepen hind from Network ra um this site’s been very difficult to to free up um so it was operational Railway land it’s taking um a lot of effort um so one of the first significant items we’ve got the housing infrastructure Grant which
Allowed us to start looking at infrastructure um and and we’ve used that also um to move off our operational um our maintenance teams our operations teams and also the sidings um so we’ve had to find alternate space for those those sidings and and build new new um infrastructure um
So the land wasn’t there to develop straight away it’s taken a lot of effort from both the council Network well homes England and the nor the the Railway Museum all working together to try and free that land up um we’ve now probably got 80% of it free um which allows a
Phase development phase um which we we’re now starting um I think the other landmark we’ve got now is actually having the development partner on board um which now allows us to move into that next phase thank you very much councilor Merit oh I was gonna respond further did oh yes sorry
Please uh listen I I really applaud your uh your passion because that’s exactly where we are um we are appreciate there’s been a lot of time period to get us to this point we can only deal with what we’ve got and how to bring this
Forward at pace which is what we want to do so hopefully in time you’ll be saying it’s great that the developers brought this forward forward in this time scale but all of those things that you talked about there are some standards that we have to meet in terms of the the
Planning those those are the minimum standards that is not what we necessarily want to deliver we want to deliver better than that so you talk about passive house passive house is is great and it provides some guidelines but you can do it better you talk about s um you know District heating Network
We we’re speaking to the University at the moment about um the geothermic opportunity within the site which York has really strong opportunity with you know drilling down into the aquaa to get some proper sustainable energy from the site so there are lots of work streams and ideas that we’ve got as developer
Where we I don’t want you to be talking about Germany I want you to be talking about yor can say this is an exemp that’s that what’s that we want to deliver you know I’m from York this is where I was born this is my city I want
To deliver something that is Exemplar not just in the UK but across Europe so we have really high aspirations and the great thing is we’ve got great support from homes Inland Network rail their their bid process was borne on qualitative um responses rather than commercial so this is not about the
Money this is about the outturn of quality and the council are working really well with us we want to improve on that affordability piece we recognize that York has a really um difficult challenge in terms of affordability and housing so how do we approve that not
20% but 30% 40% how are we going to do that so we are aligned with any everything you’ve just talked about and proof will be in the delivery I accept that but please recognize that we are really passionate about delivering the best we can with for this s thank you
Can I respond very very briefly just to applaud those remarks thank you for that I’m really pleased to hear it my dream from the word go has been that people would arrive at York station and on one side they’d see a beautiful historic City and they go oh I
Really must go there and on the other side they’d see New York and they’d say I really must go there too so I hope that in the months ahead we we manag to get heads together to make that happen thank you shair thank you councelor
Merit yes um I’d uh you know would like to Echo some of Christian’s point but applaud uh the attitude that you are bringing to this development I think it is a massive opportunity uh for us to actually do something significantly different that uh many of us around this
Table of Hope for decades uh in my case I think four now put a motion to council with my then Ward colleague uh about the opportunities of this site I think it was either 1983 or 84 it’s it will be good to see um but we
Can we can do it differently and as the uh results both of uh the previous administr A’s uh consultation on its climate change strategy uh and the current consultation on a local transport strategy which is going to uh the executive this week very clearly demonstrates that not
Withstanding the fact that a lot of our trouble has been car-based people recognize uh in overwhelming uh numbers in terms of majorities in that survey uh that we have to do things differently um and there there is the will out there uh so I actually think you have an open
Door from the York public uh but also I think from the majority uh of counselors uh cross party frankly uh uh on this Council now is the time to do things differently and this is the site that we need to do it on um so I would however like just to pick up
Um some other aspects of the uh uh proposals one of my colleagues who’s who’s not here this afternoon asked me particularly to raise this par 11 of this report uh uh talks about a minimum of 20% of the new homes must be affordable over the life of the
Development and she was perp perplexed by that latter statement over the life of the development um in terms of of what happens afterwards do we you know do we lose the affordable and that obviously depends on the mix of the types of affordable the other key issue of course is
Affordability uh you know the government the government standard of uh rents at 80% of uh Market rents are not affordable in the York context for a very large proportion of our population uh dto the actual discounted for sale property are also well outside uh the the a large
Portion of the population we have been displacing a lot of our population because York is so unaffordable particularly around the housing so uh I think there are key questions to be asked and answered uh in terms of the mix uh that you bring forward in terms of those that new Housing Development
And how you deal with the affordable housing issues uh which will be crucial to us tackling a lot of the problems I’m I’m involved in the local bus forum and you know we have a lot of discussions with the local bus companies you know they’ve had major difficulties
The last year or two in terms of driver Recruitment and Retention they their work you know the main bus operator in this company made the point to us that actually two3 of their employees come from outside the city now because basically we have lost so much of that
Population they don’t pay the type of wages that uh can you people can live here on so you know that’s the massive social challenge that we face you know we obviously want to see that this site goes as far as possible uh in addressing that challenge thank you uh David you want
Make start with that thanks chair so just clarify in terms of the the wording in the report um and there were questions on this um in November as well um the outline planning application secures 20% affordable housing so of the up to two and a half thousand units in
The outline application 20% of those must be affordable in accordance with the council’s affordable housing policy um in terms of how there may be a little bit of difference between particular phases that is for the the detailed planning to um to to work as Reserve matters applications come forward but
There is no escaping that 20% um I’ve also just like to highlight at paragraph 12 apologies that it’s under the the Housing section that in addition to that 20% there is also a 5% requirement for um Community or custom or self build we we’re talking briefly
Last time that that’s likely to be a form of custom build rather than perhaps self-build plots on York Central um but I think now really to hand over to the developer to perhaps talk a little bit about you know what what key worker housing may look like what the
Opportunities might be because again Tom’s already expressed the commitment to work with partners and with the council to try and increase that 20% the wording of the report there’s no intention that that’s implying anything other than the 20% that is mandated by the outline planning it was simply the
Way it was put over the term of the the development okay would you like to add add anything um just to say that I agree with everything that you’ve said I think we as developers recognize the challenges that York face from a housing perspective so how can we be part of the
Solution and that’s what we’re exploring um at the moment with the stakeholders and with the council um and and you yeah you’re right 20% um is it affordable with a big a or a small a I think we’ve got you know we get into the detail of
That and it’s got to be properly affordable um and um certainly we want to deliver more than 20% affordable and um we’re working with um a well-known registered provider within um York who uh has expressed an interest in a substantial amount of affordable housing uh we’re working with
Home England on the funding of that so on that first phase alone we’re looking to bring forward a substantial amount of affordable you know properly affordable housing with different types of tenure and mix Etc um those are ear discussions I appreciate um you’ll appreciate that those I can’t give you too much detail
At the moment but um the sort of direction of travel is exactly along the lines that you talked about because we recognize the issues that your faces thank you uh bringing Tracy Carter Tracy you’ll be uh you’ll be un to aware that we actually do own a tiny Slither
Of land on Y Central it’s about 5% of the overall developable area um and we as part of our housing delivery program have a commitment to delivering 100% affordable passive House housing on on on those lots of land the shape of that particular piece of land is it’s uh
Shaped a bit like a dog leg it’s not particularly vable on its own so we’re into discussions uh with Tom and his team later this week I think uh about how we might be able to bring forward a scheme within our own housing delivery program to uh to make sure that in the
Very early phases of um of York Central’s residential development we also have that up The Upfront boost of 100% affordable on one portion of it so we start to exemplify the kind of housing that we want to see on New York Central and and that goes for the um
Sustainability criteria as well of aspiring to that passive house standard of affordability you asked questions uh councilor mer about um housing being affordable in perpetuity as you’ll know government policy is that all social housing is subject to right to buy and over the last uh 30 40 years we’ve lost
Um a half of the council’s council uh housing stock to that particular scheme that is the biggest hole in sustain in affordable housing um and and the the decrease in in the extent of that there are a range of 10 years that are count as affordable um which some of which
Include discounted Market uh from Market sale uh products and um shared ownership products which obviously are affordable at that first point but lose their affordability with time the the kind of the the base point for affordable housing uh in York where you have the Great disparity between housing values
And wage levels uh is is a real challenge York Central can’t solve that for the city um we hope that through the uh forthcoming agreement to the local plan we’ll be increasing house building in the city um in totality 18,000 new homes coming into the city of which
Between 20 and 30% of those will be affordable that will be the biggest increase in in affordable housing the city um since after the after the war I believe thank you can I just pick up one thing David mentioned around custom build being uh preferred self-build could you for everyone’s benefit
Clarify I think most people understand self-build just clarify how custom build differs from self-build I’m actually gonna invite Tom to answer that I think he’s probably better place to um so self Builders uh effectively give a plot of land and you get one only deliver it yourself which as you can imagine has
Some challenges when you’re looking for a larger regeneration project like this um so custom build is when you’re getting input from um let’s say well 5% here so let’s say the the first phase is um a th units it’s going to be 50 units so you get 50 people coming together at
As one as a community again I want to deliver a space a community which is aligned with our interests so they have input on design and uh layout and uh input but we deliver it just from a health and safety perspective that’s so much easier to do rather than having 50
People going on and delivering their own houses we control the delivery process but they are involved in the whole proc process prior to that design input and Community engagement and everything else that’s a difference that’s fine it has different names it’s seen as you know community housing but custom build it’s
They can often be involved in some of the finishing or inter internal building and providing labor to support that as well to make it more affordable product as well great thank you um can ask a quick question question around um Community involvement it was good to see that you’ve attended award committee
Meeting um obviously we know from the site that it is boarded by established communities on uh on on all sides and and it’s he been really helpful to understand kind of your approach and at the moment it’s been the partnership has very much been the public facing um uh sort of
Presence for York Central I just wondered what um how that will change going forward in terms of your roles um as a um sort of community player and and leaing with and informing and Consulting with um I suppose all those residents particularly those who live closest to the site who
Obviously there’s there’s a degree of awareness about the impact that any development will have in terms of um a degree of inconvenience but how how are you what’s your approach in terms of engaging with the the community um I think you’re right so it’s been managed by H and NR to date
And and clearly that has to remain the case until we’re in a position legally and to take it Forward I mean we have been taking undertaking some um commun engagement in conjunction with um the stakeholders and um you know councilor uh Taylor invited us to Holgate recently
And we had the opportunity to present there um and I think once that baton passes which will be uh in the short term then we’re really going to ramp up that Community engagement because for us um that’s really important getting that support from the surrounded communities
But also the wider The Wider City uh this has to feel like it’s a development for them that it’s not done to them so um that engagement piece is really key for us and there’ll be a series of workshops and um Community presentations and engagement processes we’ve already
Started to put that in place as a structure and a program and as soon as we’re you know we’ve got the control of it we can then um move forward with those processes and I’m quite happy to share what that looks like and no doubt there will be many people around this
Table involved in that as well as as we engag with the with the key um with key communities around the site thank you for that um councilor Taylor thanks chair you’ve sort of asked one of my questions which which I’m grateful for and and I like the answer
We’ve received and it’s probably worth saying that you know early conversations with the master developer of so far felt positive in terms of wanting to involve the community and you know and this is my phrase rebuild a bit of trust most of the city is behind this develop Vel M
And recognize the opportunity that it brings but there are some local sensitivities there and some things over the last few years haven’t been handled as well as they could have done but you’ve sort of asked and answered that question so I had one other question relating to communities which is about
Sort of when it’s all built out how can how can you guys ensure that there’s a bit of hustle and bustle across the site so you’ve got the commercial area you’ve got the residential area is there much room for having and these are just I’m just spit balling a you know a corner
SHOP bakery cafe dotted within the residential bits so that you know it’s not like thousands of dwellings or everyone’s living like guinea pigs and they don’t come out unless they’re going to work and then you don’t see them again once they’ve come back from work
How can we sort of make sure we’ve got a community like that because that’s got to be a positive hasn’t it 100% um I mean you’ve got to create these communities that is the you know how do you create a place um you know there was some examples earlier about how you do
Some of that now we are looking at all of the Exemplar projects across Europe about how you do that and we’ve got some really amazing people on our team who have the experience of doing it but that is really key what You’ just talked about is really key in terms of making
That Community um and making it a Vibrant Community and making it feel cohesive as a whole so will there be bakeries will there be Corner shops yes absolutely I think there’s um requirement in planning anyway but we would be wanting to do that and but there’s also that sense of ownership by
The various um residents around and how do we do that we’ve got to do that through engagement we’ve got to do that through getting them involved you know that public park is a huge opportunity you know that sits there like a like a heart of the whole scheme how does
Everybody feel like that’s a space we need to get them involved in it in the management and maintenance of it because it feels like their space um and and there’s meanwhile uses and there’s Arts event and cultural activity so we’ve got all of the you know these sort of ideas
And aspirations cultural strategies Arts strategy community mean meanwhile uses Etc all of which we will deploy to make sure that that place feels like a home feels like a community and it’ll be and it’ll be a number of communities it won’t be one big one it’ll be a number
Of little communities all of which hopefully interact positively but I agree with you entirely uh Council Taylor that is that is what we need to do and I believe we’ve got the right strategy I’m very happy to share that with you and go through those some of those finer details but that is
Absolutely what we want to do thank you very much just on you mentioned the park the um a few weeks ago at the Design Awards launch event I think one of the architex whose name I cannot remember um give a very interesting and impressive presentation about the the the yorc Central Park and
And and his firm’s role in in in realizing that um David so it was Neil Porter of who um who was involved in the master planning working with Arab um I think I think Tom knows yeah we know Neil and we’ve retained him to work with us on
Delivering some of you obviously was involved in the master plan but um if you look at what else he’s done across Europe there some some fantastic stuff so um we we’ve got a meeting coming up on um I think it’s Wednesday but um or Thursday but we’re starting to move that
Now in terms of the design and how we’re gonna we’re taking from a bid stage now to delivery stage and you know this is the exciting bit so the public park is really uh key to the success of the wide development so his involvement I think
Is crucial to that because he’s got got some great vision around it yeah no it was it was really interesting do any of the members have any I just uh just like to add yes um I’m not sure if anybody’s whereare but 5% of our profits will go into a
Community impact fund which will help help manage and maintain that park for the long term so we are committing substantial amounts of money to that process to make sure that’s maintained properly for the for the future and for the future use of York or York residents great thank thank you very
Much any of the members have any other questions on what we’ve heard councilor Merit yes just uh one other question on the um the employment side um note the council’s ambition in in the report obviously um office offices nationally are um not as in demand as they used to
Be changed working processes and so on how is that side of the development going what’s your feeling on how that’s going to pan out yeah I think everybody recognizes the challenge that the office space um has at the moment but I think the the opportunity here is quite unique for
York so that we don’t have a central business business district in New York at the moment and um here we’ve got a really we’ve got a blank canvas we you know we’re right next to the station in terms of sustainability it’s about As Good As It
Gets we’re in a beautiful city with lots of benefits around it and we’ve got some great universities so the the opportunity here is is quite unique for for us to bring forward commercial space which can really bring in um not just local businesses but National businesses is is huge you’ve
Got uh government property agency coming in in an exist in a new first building which is 200,000 Square fet so that’s going to bring forward jobs immediately but then how do you create a sense of place and space around that I’m thinking about some of the um I suppose some of
The the demographics in New York and some of the strengths around York I mean I think we all recognize that York is probably a bit of a post industrial city I apologize if that’s nobody takes offense of that but let’s let’s look at the jobs for the future for York and and
What we can bring into this and York Central represents that opportunity so do we do we play on the back of the strengths of like bio Yorkshire and and asken Brian with with the GPA and defra and look at that food science technology piece that’s a potential growth industry
And help solve some of the issues that face the planet around feeding the planet Etc so that’s a really nice piece to work with and and and grow you’ve got a very strong rail industry and engineering technology and that side of things that’s another strand which you
Can play into it and then looking at the University I think I think it’s um I think it’s disappointing the retention of um uh students these great universities and colleges that we’ve got there only about know the attention ratees better than I am but it’s fairly
Low so how do we improve that and it’s about creating those jobs it’s about creating affordable housing for those graduates and it’s about creating the place as well so uh I I I think whilst there is a a shortterm malays maybe in the commercial space what we can do here
If we create the right vision is really create a place that is of national significance and will will attract a number of occupiers to it thank you Tracy I think we’re we’re facing a paradigm shift on um commercial office space at the moment it’s uh the journey
Was hurried Along by covid but I think everything that we’ve seen since then has seen a massive move away from the kind of long-term lets per company it’s easy in Easy out it’s it’s about place it’s about the experience of being at work and how that relates to you’re
Going to work like balance with York Central we believe that that that product is the one that that there is a demand for and if you can see how we’re using the building we’re sitting in today um there may be available office space across the rest of of the city but
This is is a kind of successful model for how you can use those broad uh bigger spaces in a different way uh economically uh if if if you embrace the all of the benefits that we’ve got to support hybrid working um and York Central in that respect sits at the very
Heart of the regional econom for for office space uh and will be um undoubtedly a high priority for an incoming mayor for the combined Authority in May thank you David I think just another couple of points I think um the the number of employees the number of civil
Servants that the GPA is looking at is about two and a half th000 is is the number that’s given they’re not all going to be there every day that’s based on the kind of occupancy that you see seeing um in West offices now with Council staff and other partners and
Which seems to be the average in the market generally I think the other key point is again Tom will know this better than I um but but all of the indicators in the office Market are that that tenants are looking not just for easying the out but they’re looking for the
Highest quality and the highest environmental standards in their offices and if you’re building new Tom’s already outlined that is exactly what they’re going to do so that is why you know we should be optimistic about the opportunity at York Central because if anywhere is going to attract New Opportunities it is somewhere that
Offers those things thank you um Council of AI and then we’ll then we’ll move on just a very brief response to what’s been said there because I sat for four years on the regional pension fund committee and I can say that there’s a real appetite in institutional investment for
Industrial space that is developed to the highest environmental standards because it’s they see it as a a great long-term Prospect so I think the opportunities are all there going forwards no thank you thank you very much um Tom and and other guests it’s much uh it’s good to
Meet you and thank you for coming and sharing your ambition and your vision um and thank you David and Tracy and we’ll we we it’s probably maybe in about six months time or we’ll be guided by officers when the next I suppose appropriate juncture would be to have
Another discussion and see how things have moved on and um keep everyone in the loop and and feeding in ideas so thank you very much for your attendance and participation it’s much appreciated thank you chair appreciate that thank you okay so we’ll move on to agenda item five which is Workforce Development plan
And attendance management so if I can invite Helen Whiting the council’s head of HR to come and join us at the table hello Helen so Helen’s report provides a summary of uh key achievements challenges and next steps within the Workforce Development plan uh and just give us an update on um attendance
Management as well which is a topic that we’ve um discussed on this committee over all the years I’ve been on it uh it’s just useful to have a a Capt up on on where we are so Helen I’ll leave you to introduce the report thank you thank you chair so this paper is
Actually a carry forward from January so sorry I wasn’t able to to um present on the day at last minute um but I’m happy to bring a further report which I think would be quite use use ful for you in May um because there’s some things that
Will kind of move on certainly in terms of the Workforce Development plan we renew those in um May time so again it will be useful to do that and obviously you’ll be aware we’ve had a corporate peer challenge which obviously does impact on the workforce and a key part
Of that will be to embed that within the um Workforce plan equally we’ve just gone through an employee survey and the actions Associated that will fit into the workforce plan so I think it it might be opportune for the um Comm to actually see that as we’re going forward
So yes as you mentioned this is twofold so it’s looking at the workforce plan and the attendance rates and what I’ve done I’ll assume that it’s it’s taken as red um I’ve attached our current Workforce plan this was at quarter two so I think other things have actually
Happened um and I’ll I’ll be able to update on those in terms of attendance obviously you’ll be aware Workforce resilience and well-being is absolutely crucial especially as we’re working through at the moment you’ll be aware that obviously got um a number of change management issues going on at the moment
With the um uh budget Etc and we’re still in a cost of living crisis so we’ve still got that at our heart we need to be able to make sure that we’re supporting employees all the time we obviously seek to maximize attendance at all times but from time to time some
People aren’t able to perform their duties because they’re actually poorly from work and we’re there to actually support them to do that I would say that and I’ve put a paragraph 25 um I’ve given you some details of where we were at quarter three in terms
Of 2023 and that we were sat at 11.3 um days and that’s per FTE and that’s how um you people aware if you’ve sat in this um committee before that’s FTE days looking at that as at January we’re sitting actually at 11.34 so there’s not been a change from quarter 3
Which is the end of September um to um January that has remained the same I would say I was quite surprised at that because actually we have and you will know from The Wider world that there’s been some quite nasty covid viruses going backround again or had actually
Say that we are in a much better position we were than quarter 2 in 2022 which sat at 13 days um when we talk obviously about sickness absence there is no standard sickness absence if you’re being local government for a long time there was always what we called the
Best value performance indicator where every Council used exactly the same sickness absence calculation that’s no longer the case so we can’t compare apples with apples in terms of sickness absence for other authorities what I can say is that I sit on a um a regional group from other H directors and we are
Largely comparable in terms of our figures although we don’t actually calculate the same way example would be some authorities in exclude apprentices some people include apprentices some people exclude people who are on maternity leave some people exclude people who are in their notice period so there is always lots of different
Variances there I have provided for you at paragraph 26 um some national benchmarks that you can actually see the cipd which is the chartered Institute of personal development um have always done Benchmark figures as part of their well-being at work report they didn’t do it during the covid period however
They’ve just um produced that again and you can see there at paragraph 26 the box you can see that um The Benchmark across all sectors was 7.8 again all sectors don’t have the same calculation there and again that’s days um and for public sector it’s um
10.6 but if you compare the 2021 and 2023 Mark you can see that there’s been a marked increase so there is that shift of sickness absence to increase there in terms of what we’re doing that’s something you’d be interested in we obviously continue to ensure that our
Managers are equipped to deal with um absence management take a compassionate and empathetic approach but at the same time making sure that we are um dealing with sickness absence we have a range of different options uh available through our um employee assistance program and our Occupational Health which has been
Proactive um we um encourage managers to look at things that are the earliest opportunity um as soon as an employee is absent and the beauty duty of having our current um Occupational Health provider is it’s the same provider and it’s it’s one contract which we procured in July
Last year so our one day absence which you may well recall from previous um meetings our one day absence management is where an employee phones up to say sorry I’m unable to attend because of absence that can then be escalated straight to occupational health so we’ve
Been able to get that transition to be able to act immediately and also give advice and they also help triage and they have also because we’ve got qualified advisors at the end of the phone they can triage straight into um um NHS Services as well which is really
Useful um I’ve talked about the most common reasons for absence which are also mirror the ones from the cipd members uh sorry report so you can see that realistically we we we are on a kind of a national Trend exactly the same as other employers um I think that’s probably all I’ve got
To say chair and if there’s anything that any questions on how to take them thank you very much Helen so members have any questions councelor Kelly thank you um I’ve got four themes of question so I don’t know whether to kind of go with the first couple and let
You answer those first and then come back all right yeah um so the first one um was under health and well-being on page three and you mentioned about the employee assistant program um and how there’s good awareness of it and calls have been received from all directorates
But there wasn’t anything in there about like its use over time whether it’s gone up or down whether it’s been more used um or not so it’d be interested to know a bit more about that um and then also related to that point was the staff survey plan for January now I imagine
You you’ve touched on the fact that this report was supposed to be for January so I imagine that’s the survey that’s just gone that’s just happened um and I wanted to check how often they actually take place is that an annual thing is it do you have any sort of kind of monthly
Check-ins um so that’s the first couple of points and then the second thing was on page five in paragraph 21 and it was about L &d taking place in employees own time which I was really shocked by um kind of asking employees to do L&D for
Basic skills in their own time so it’ just be good to understand a bit more about that and why that happens okay thank you yeah hello okay so the first we talked about the um employee assistance usage um I mentioned we’ve got a new provider as of July and those statistics
Are just coming through so we again we can’t compare like with like with our previous provider so they are they are I think we’ve just landed one in January actually but I haven’t got those details um but yes it’s something we’re certainly going to be monitoring as part
Of the contract staff survey um we did one in January and we’re just collecting the information and that will presented to our corporate management team later this week and that will then be cascaded to all of our employees how often are they done they’re yearly they’re
Annually at the moment um so we will continue those and the questions that we’ve got are largely the same there’s some new ones and there is a theme within there that’s health and well-being as well so we have got the ability to Benchmark some of that um
Just very quickly I did have a percentage which was quite interesting for you um we did thought I scribbled it down it was asking about whether the health and well-being the council supports health and well-being in terms of the environment um and that was an employees opinion and it was good to see
That in terms of agree and strongly agree that had gone up from the previous year so there’s there’s some comparability there um and then & D in your own time yes this was just something that um it wouldn’t necessarily be required for own own development for their um jobs
Necessarily it was for staff who didn’t necessarily have Microsoft skills required for their jobs but they requested that they could have something through um through through the York learning so it wouldn’t be a case of I need Microsoft Office skills for my job therefore would I enhance it that’s
There anyway it’s people to be able to access it who don’t have it okay so there wouldn’t necessarily be like an expectation that they would give up their own time to do that like that it would be part of their job basically yeah there’s no expectations
It’s if you want to enhance your skills and don’t necessarily have it as part of your job at the moment thank you that’s reassuring and then the the final couple of things um on page six I just wanted to clarify the figures um you said that
Average um days of sickness was 11 three days um in the table it says 1.3 days and now I know when you spoke you said 11.3 so I imagine that’s just an error in the table um and also I I just kind of wanted to check on that because it seemed the 11.3
Days seemed very high um and I know you kind of did say that long-term sickness does skew the average is there is there anything else at play there um and then the final thing that I wanted to ask about is what is office attendance like
I I’m often here in an evening so don’t really kind of see people out and about but would just be interested to know kind of what the atmosphere is like um how how often people are coming in uh what the feeling is or any evidence around that okay so put your microphone
On down sorry um I I’ll go backwards on that so officer feeling um obviously some of the results have come out in terms of the employee survey and there was an ability to talk about um um we didn’t ask for feelings but we said you know what’s it
Like to be an employ employee here um and flexibility and um hybrid working is always very welcomed um officers we do have um over 50 officers who come into the office every day and that’s we for um personal choice because they haven’t necessarily got and this is part of cost
Of living this is part of um being flexible um who haven’t necessarily got the it might be have got space at home um or conducive or they need to work with others or there’s reasonable adjustments here or whatever um we don’t dictate you must come in three days a
Week or whatever it’s obviously based on service requirements and that’s based with um managers and employees and with teams because it’s really important we always emphasize that it’s important to actually um engage with teams Etc um you mentioned about one point something it was 11.3 sorry I’ve missed
That I think it was it was just a presid ational issue with the table I think one of the ones had fallen off the edge of the right okay the table I think because mine’s showing is correct so it might be I think it was just a presentational
Issue right okay um 11.3 days is that particularly high no it’s it’s it’s not and because I was saying about our calculation um it is the health of the whole of the organization so I don’t perceive that to be particularly High we’ve got to support individuals who aren’t off unfortunately we do have
Quite a number of people who are terminally ill um and we don’t automatically say oh you must leave the you must leave employment um it’s down to individual choice so we may be supporting people to actually die in service and it’s what’s relevant for them um and that’s obviously also based
On Occupational Health um within that so to say am I overly concerned about 11.3 yes but no because what the the important thing is is we’re suppor employees and making sure that we’re the attendance management is there accordingly so thank you um I’ll yeah just a double check so that is
Over the year isn’t it that’s not that’s an average from the quarter but over the year it’s that’s the and yes that’s the rolling 12 months thank you councilor thank you chair and congratulations Helen on answering the bulk of my questions before we even got going the introduction because I had the
May update the peer review and the January survey as key issues so knowing that that’s going to come forward think be really helpful because this would have made sense in January when it would have come but now it did seem a bit at odds without any having any of that
Information the question I suppose I had around this and it’s concerned more than anything is paragraph 31 on I’ve got it as page 21 and if we could pleas to be some differences between online and the oldfashioned paper but you make that reference to staff working excessive hours in terms of vacant
Roles corporate savings 07 is specifically targeted at vacancy management this year which is £600,000 and the description along that lines was not replacing posts other than where statutary strategic or Grant funded so that outlines a policy of not recruiting to the vast majority of posts we had that’s Gravely concerning that’s
A shift from where we were which is probably an in- year use of vacancy management and through a vacancy management board and system of controls this does flag concerns to me and it’s how can we a scrutiny check on how that’s being applied what that’s impacting and what that is happening
Across the authority because especially certain roles I mean if I was a member of Staff in some departments I would be hugely concerned reading that particular saving once you once you take out staty Str called Grant funded that means you can be looking at anybody sat in your
Office and going well if they if they leave it’s just me now and it doesn’t have a strategic look to it because thep literally is if you leave we will not rep place so it’s how that is managed how that’s going to be managed and how
We as scrutiny can can oversee that and have a look at Insight how that’s working in practice yeah absolutely I can answer that because I’m actually part of the cost control planel so we are looking at all staty however there is business cases so I can say um for instance um
Garden waste this morning we looked at officers being able to actually deliver the Gard Garden waste sorry do you want carry on Helen um if we needed officers to be able to deliver Garden waste because some people had moved up to different areas um yes we need to
Deliver that so that was there it’s not necessarily a statutory service but we look there we are still continuing to monitor agency workers we’ll review that we are putting three months process on um any ageny worker so we will not say it’s a blanket we will have them for a
Year um going on in terms of the excessive hours we are questioning all over time to make sure that’s right from a well-being point of view hence why it’s in this report we are making sure from that perspective and how things can be done differently because it’s not
Just a case of always repeating things the way that they have been done is making sure there’s work and that’s been done with um managers heads of service to look at how things can be done potentially differently you might say no to one job but say well could we do it
Slightly differently in a different way and that’s been a big part of the vacancy management aspect of it as well so every case is looked at on an individual basis with the um appropriate um director and um having an element of challenge really from um the cost control
Panel thank you so from a and I’m guessing through the staff survey you’ll look to pick up any um kind of unintended impacts or um issues that might arise in ter from a staff well-being perspective that is that way you would look to to kind of check and
Monitor for any um sort of adverse impacts absolutely um we’re doing that and also we’re having six weekly um frequently um staff forums for people to ask questions and that is a popular question to be honest and we do do that reassurance to make sure that’s there
That’s headed by um the CEO inan Floyd myself and Debbie Mitchell generally but we also have other senior managers that represent there as well and it’s not a blanket no it’s similar with training that’s not a blanket K know we need everybody to think very carefully about
Any training is it essential as part of the job if it’s part of the job that we need to consider we’ll look at that but also looking at other Alternatives as well thank you councelor Healey thank you chair um there was £50,000 in the budget for I believe it was equalities
Training can you just equalities training could you just outline what that’s being used for would you like to answer that Council lus I I can answer it very quickly it’s not equalities training um it’s to fund uh post um to ensure that we can fulfill our obligations um under the equality
Act um and that is in progress and there’ll be reports coming forward um quite soon around the um equality diversity and inclusion action plan but that will fund but it’s not for training I just heard it okay um so okay thank you Council and you had
A a point you wanted to make as well yeah just on the vacancy management um vacancy management is a is a an art as well as a science I think it’s fair to say and it’s really important that we monitor carefully where those vacancies are sitting and if for example you had a
Team of you know five people and three of them have just left and one’s retiring next month then clearly you’re going to have to do something to make sure that that um service area can continue to function um that might not necessarily be to you know go and
Advertise and fill all of the vacancies and we have to take a really strategic approach to this and make sure that we are building a Workforce structure that suits the smaller Council um that we are becoming and not create problems for ourselves by just filling vacancies um because it seems like the
Right thing to do and the vacancy challenge panel is doing exactly that and is looking at what is needed how can we make sure this service area continue to function without simply continuing to do what we’ve always done thank you councelor Steels walshaw yeah my comments on uh p P 16 I
Think it’s paragraph uh eight and it’s about the introduction of the national living wage from the 1 of April um and I just wondered if this included contracts that were procured by the council and if it kind of can’t be in that way how much weight is giving to the social value
Policy when making these decisions around the contracts procured by the council so the living wage Foundation rate um from the 1 of April is applied to um employees it comes in in October November um we apply it and that’s part of a local agreement for our employees
To apply from the 1 of April each year um and that’s been the same every year and we confirm it every year as well in terms of social value contracts I’m not involved with that it’s um it’s a it’s a procurement aspect I’m afraid um somebody else might be able to answer
That but I am not involved with that in terms of social um social contracts we’ve got we’ve got procurement on the work plan for the next meeting so that that we make sure we pick that up then um is that okay yeah I do have another question but
Go but it’s not related to that if that’s all right um another one was on the pay structure um and about how when so when people are uplifted because they’ve previously been below the nation um living wage I’m just wondering how that works in the pay structure as a
Whole because it can work where people who were previously in different roles and now some people are who were in a more senior role are on the same wage as the people who were in a lower role on are on the same wage as people in a different role that they were previously
In so I just wondered is there a pay structure I know there’s a pay structure review planned but I just wondered how soon that was possibly going to happen I would say we are very close to that in sense of a supervisor being on the same grade as um their employees
They are not at the minute we do that assessment every year so we have got nobody that is for instance being a supervisor on grade four and their employees are on a grade four we have it’s very marginal I must admit but we are not in that situation as yet we’re
Pending a pay award come the 1 of April um from the local government employers obviously that has tended to be much later in the year when it’s actually applied but obviously it’s backdated and they’re very alive and aware to this issue and it’s something that we can be
Sensitive to but can’t react as yet until we’ve got the pay award through so thank you thank you councilor Myers thank you chair and thank you for the report um just wanted to ask about Workforce Development plan page 26 um where it discusses the HR
Policies so I just wanted to ask maybe a general question but also leading into a specific one about relations with trade unions And how the policies and guidance documents are signed off so it says that ccnc signs them off so that’s the corporate consultative negotiation committee I’m assuming that that’s going to have the three main trade unions that are have a recognition agreement with the council sat around the table does it
Have attendance from all three and are there any policies and guidance reports that are signed off or have been signed off without the agreement of that committee no in short The Joint consultative Committee yes um that attends all three unions um there is a quar for the actual attendance at the
Meeting but in terms of a policy if one of the one of the three unions doesn’t actually attend that information is sent out to them for them to be able to attend um but at the um actual committee will have done all the work beforehand we actually work with the trade unions
To deal with any changes to actually any policies um before I can give um an example in terms of the um new changes in terms of flexible working obviously we’ve worked with them it’s legislation we need to make those changes the council is actually already prepared and
We’re we’re we’re covered by that anyway but there is a few changes um there we’ll get that ratified effectively and agreed at um joint consultative commit at corporate consultative committee but we have already worked with the trade unions there um and there’s no contention but yes absolutely they’re they’re they’re revolved around the
Table yeah canise thank thank you for for that answer I guess there’s I’ve got some specific concerns which I think are probably best outside of the meeting actually I don’t want to um disagree with what you’ve said because um but I’m just aware of some concerns and I’d probably want to pick
Them up with you have to do them offline in a better Forum I think because I don’t want to um have the wrong information but I’d want to stress that Um I think at this point in time is really important that we do have really good relations with with our recognized trade unions and um I I think historically if you look at the level of involvement of those recognized trade unions it’s very low now as as as what
It used to be and and I think as an overall point I’d like to make uh to members and to officers is that we’ll get better Workforce Development with a a greater degree of um cooperation with the recognized trade unions can I um we’ve we’ve got no plans
To change our recognition of trade unions um we obviously don’t get to find out how many members each of them actually have um I do believe they’ve reduced over the years purely because when we’ve had striking information through we know information um membership has reduced employees also tell us they’ve reduced their membership
From trade unions we’ve got no plans to change our Trade union recognition agreement at this point in time and all three unions are still working with us um but if you’ve got any specific concerns obviously quite happy to hear those thank you councilor vassie thank you chair um in health
Scrutiny we often talk about the vacancies in adult social care and staff retention and the difficulties of recruiting and it’s quite often in the context of the cost of Outsourcing and a desire to employ in-house staff to cut costs and there’s a there’s discussions going back and forth on that issue so
I’m interested in the comment on page 34 uh under resourcing where it says ensure our approach to Recruitment and Retention encourage es and nurtures talent and then the critical bit for me is either through direct employment or other delivery models so I just want to understand what that actually means are
We talking about retaining people by no longer employing them by Outsourcing just if you could clarify that it’s what’s actually best for the service sorry I haven’t got the same page numbers as you I’ve only got my report rather than the full ha but sorry I think I know what you’re talking about
Okay um so but in terms of um retaining staff yes what we’re trying to do is actually retain as many staff as we can and that’s P when we’re talking about the um budget implications Etc we want to retain that Talent wherever we can whether it be across the um within their
Own directorate or across the council without a doubt um delivery models there is a number of delivery models but we have got pinch points where we can’t necessarily recruit which is why we use agency workers we have used agency workers but also our agency spend has significantly gone down um and we have
Um we we we have reduced agency workers similarly we’ve had agency workers who’ve actually become employees which is an immediate reduction in terms of our budget so in terms of the attraction in as as an employer we’ve been able to attract those for people to come um we
Don’t have a specific um strategy in terms of how many services that we will Outsource it’s just simply a case of you know what is the best service but we we are struggling like every other employer on and some really key technical roles um social care is still an Area
Children’s Services have done great in terms of social workers um we’re near up to employability and in so in children’s um social care we’ve actually only got two agency workers now there’s been a really big push there we’ve done a lot of work within HR and working with
Directorates to go out there and sell um our benefits and be attendance at recruitment Affairs and have a little bit of creative recruitment to be quite honest so we doing that but it is all about making sure that we retain talent and we also um in in this in this
Current climate when it’s quite difficult with pay to be honest um but also show that we’re a good employer in that sense does that answer your question sorry more or less so so so if I’m right if I’ve understood you correctly this is about people who are maybe outsourced or working through an
Agency about bringing them into the council rather than people are working on the council encouraging to become an independent uh with all that might imply in terms of costs uh trades Union affiliations all of that stuff it it it’s that relationship between the staff and the council we’re certainly not
Encouraging people to walk to to walk out and be Consultants to the council okay thank you good thank you um Council thank you CH yeah Christian remind me that sort of thing that Pon say comments I made at the SMU when we’re looking at sort of information we have about
Employees as the the financial situation hits we’re going to become more and more a commissioner rather than a direct provider of services and the vast bulk of what we do will actually not be delivered by by Council staff how do we then start to shift what
We’re doing here which does tend to be very focused on how we’re looking after our own staff if as we say 60% of our budget is adults social care and children’s social care and we end up being a commissioner of those then actually that means 60% of the workforce
Are not being as we notic at SMU we don’t know the demographic data we don’t know the equalities data about any of that we don’t know the attendance management figures we don’t know how those staff are being treated is there a plan going forward is that shift becomes
More acute to start looking at how do we use our commissioning role in terms of looking after our staff wellbeing as well as just as a direct employer yes and this plan was written in May we’re in a very different position of last Year we’re in a very
Different position this year hence why I said we will be providing a new plan going forward which will have to take into terms the um New budget and the corporate peer Challenge and everything else so we need to take that forward we do know um we we tend not to work in
Terms of attendance management would work in terms of sickness absence but that’s certainly a metric that we can look at it’s something I’ve been used to using in terms of metric um it’s much more positive as well in terms of rather than sickness absence I would rather
Talk about that we’ve had 95% attendance or 96% attendance um and that’s quite empowering in terms of the of the workforce as well so yes but as we CH as we are changing in terms of a Workforce we will need to change the workforce plan hence why it’s it will be
Rewritten if I can FL just one example Home Care Home Care support and that’s one particular area where people do struggle in terms of terms and conditions pressure and the issues around that so I think that’s definitely one particular area amongst others that we need to be aware of
Okay is that a a further point on that issue thank you I just refer you back to the the answer to the question that councilor Steels walshaw asked earlier that that there’s an opportunity to look at procurement processes which is where you can build in the um added social
Value to the um to the procurement process so that where we do um contract work out um that we can build in those really really key important things like real living wage um into our procurement processes um so that’s possibly a question for um that meeting thank you I’m gonna draw this
Item to a close because I’m conscious that Helen is kind of off to come back in May um um to continue the discussion with obviously new information and new um new context so thank you very much Helen um and we will see you soon thank you so I proposed to take a
Quick Break um It’s Just 4 minutes past 7 if we can reconvene at 10 past please e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e hello members uh welcome back to the last last segment of our meeting today um our next agenda item agenda item six
Is wards funding so by way of uh background there was a call in last October relating to a very specific element of um the allocation methodology for w funding for the 2324 Financial year um and officers and executive member s kindly agreed to bring this back for
Further round of um uh scrutiny ahead of uh deter in the approach for the allocation of this particular element of award funding for 2425 um so that’s that’s what I thought we were here to discuss tonight and that’s what I intend to discuss tonight the the report’s very helpful and and perhaps
Goes a bit further than um I would have expected it to so I as I see it we’re looking essentially you’re asking for a view on um models AE and f as I as I as I understand it um in terms of looking at potential ways to allocate that that
Um uh specific element of uh ofo funding so I think that’s that was what was subject to the discussion of calling and that’s what I think we’re here tonight to ask members if they have any views on on the the the potential models that have being put forward um so I just
Wanted to make that clear at the beginning of the discussion to try and keep keep our discussion focused um and for it to be of some use to officers and to executive members so I’ve said my piece I’ll now invite officers to say anything they wish to say to introduce the report thank
You on the basis of that chair I’ll keep it relatively brief thank you for introducing the report um and uh clearly there are several models for members consideration in the report um and models themselves are outlined in paragraph 11 and as a result of your introduction I’ll not go through each one
Um uh the table in in paragraph 12 um goes through the pros and cons the table in paragraph 13 talks about what that what does that look like in reality with um each of the models applied to um the total fund amount uh paragraph 14 looks
At the outcome of the models on funding per head um just just for context then um since the 20 23 23 24 W funding allocations were made the key data behind the uh the allocations through the uh multiple uh the index of multiple deprivation that’s not being updated at National level um
As we’d hoped and and that update is not expected for another 12 months so in reality see if the existing model was pre preferred you’d be looking at the same allocation being made in the next financial year um provide providing Ward budgets based on a split of an element
Based um on funding per counselor and an element on war deprivation um yes models AE and f as councelor holia quite rightly outlined at the beginning um of the meeting um that they all fall within the category of meeting the um objective set out for Council in in July
2023 members are therefore asked to consider the content of the report and and feedback any comments to the executive members here tonight um any any consideration of the proposals um from the scrutiny that would change the existing approach would be considered at executive on April the 18th and the
Allocations will be changed after that date thank you thank you very much I don’t know if executive members want to add anything to um to what Pauline said Council p b pleas thank you chair and thank you um both Ian and um and Pauline um and particularly in for um the
Calculations as you as you pointed out chair um we said at the call in that um we would bring this back um and we said that we would give um a number of um methodologies a number of formula um that um we genuinely and I genuinely want to hear your opinion on
Um it will be going to Executive um the the options of AE and F seem to most closely fit the council pan criteria um but you you may have a you you may have a different view doesn’t mean I’m GNA it doesn’t mean we’re going to accept it
But it’s uh but it’s genuinely interested in um in the opinions that um colleagues have thank you um so I think we’re clear about the terms of Engagement in terms of this discussion um so I would invite comments from any members who um I’ve got the head around the numbers Council
Merit it’s a question at this stage for exactly the reason you just St find the answer um the the report um says in paragraph 19 the model set out in paragraph 12 models A and E most closely align with the council plan I I just wondered why
Um only A and E and not f um sorry counselor we I hope I recognize that um actually Model F does meet the criteria in the council plan yeah thank you thank you other questions counselor a I don’t think it’s good on this meeting but I prob to ask you to explain
Andf to me at some particular time and there’s there’s more time available but that’s come together the B I did want to ask about and I raised to think of the calling as well is what consideration is given to community assets part of this
So it was one of the issues we said in terms of cost of delivery of some of the services so for example if you have an existing youth service running in an area the cost of adding an extra few hours Etc is a small amount if there is
Nothing in that particular area and you’re having to hire a venue you’re having to hire staff etc etc it’s it’s considering more difficult so what have we done in terms of Community Asset based analysis for each of all the different areas to feed into this calculation reflect the answer I gave
Last time I think which was where we reflect Community assets as in the neighborhood action plans which should help um members think about what’s in their Wards what the needs of the wards are um and therefore direct the funding to those areas of need um and the assets
In that Ward will determine what’s already available on not aail available but that I suppose the simple answer to your question is they’re not built into any of these models yeah I suppose it’s yeah the the inputs are the same and you mentioned that the the National Data still hasn’t
Been updated so we that’s that’s that’s what we’ve got councelor Myers yeah thank you chair um I I can’t quite understand the model f and and and and the way that it throws up uh the outcomes you know I’m happy to be explained at a at a future date or
Potentially executive when when the the next stage of this is um because in in my view the index of multiple deprivation figures uh more accurate in um under understanding the depth of poverty within a community and model f doesn’t seem to um take that into account um and and
I’m quite happy chair to give a steer in my view that models A and D do align with the council plan and I really welcome uh spending where there is most need so the following question which I don’t know he and might what to pick up it so I looked at F and
It it seemed to produce um some kind of s counterintuitive outcomes particularly in relation to I’m not picking on Clifton W but in particular in terms of it it it seemed to have a a disproportionate impact on some wordss and it may be because of the inputs that
That model f used that you would expect it to lead to that that outcome I I don’t know whether if if you noticed anything in terms of when you looked at the outputs from Model F whether you thought well that that wasn’t what was anticipated or or
Expected I think in all of the models there’ll always be a few misnomers or outliers um within Model F it tries to use deprivation in two or more Dimensions So within the census as four dimensions education employe health and housing but it doesn’t quite use the same
Um kind of metrics are inside the index of multiple depth fation which is much more complicated is released much more frequently than the census okay which is why F wasn’t on the proposal originally because we’d hope we’d use index multiple de privation that’s used pretty much as a National Standard across the
Areas and Within These Dimensions as I said they’re not as sophistic ated so Employments only look through two lenses of of unemployed or economically inactive housings looked a bit through overcrowding and shared ownership and that’s maybe quite not what we’re quite getting to with deprivation so does it bring out a few
Oddities M nomers yes probably but in the same way that when we described mod delay at the cooling and and the funding formula there are the odd Ward there that seems to have more depth under the index of multiple deprivation that we would expect and I think if I just refer
Back to council H’s comment before one of those WS is Bishop Thor mod delay that slightly outli I think if we look through the table here for model left we’d find maybe one or two Wards whole row world whole Road as an example slightly less than we would expect for
Funding thank you councilor Healey thank very much sh um I would take the exact opposite VI to councelor Taylor actually Myers yeah he’s gone sorry councel Meers Myers sorry to apologize um looking at the table on page 43 Annex a and if you look at the fourth col column along
Which is the 2019 IMD Model F where you have Bishop Thorp and haxman wiggington roughly the same 5 point something if you then look back at the table on page 40 table 14 and you look at F Bishop Thorp and haxby one gets 1 19 one gets 1 p23 so
Model F irons out that issue that was identified at the initial calling if you go for A and E you look at again this is table 14 if you look at Bishop Thor and haxby again that’s when it seems to benefit rich but small to the death to
To the detriment of basically big so if there was to be a recommendation from this committee premised on the fact that we are trying to push this by deprivation um I would say Model F meets that um but as a ward counselor I’d vote for Model A as stril does slightly better well
That’s more strategic View looking strategically yeah I think Model F wouldn’t have got wouldn’t get called it put it that way so is your and and the basis of that is that you think it IT addresses the big Wards little Wards it more C more it consistently correlates with the IMD
Data okay Council lus um I just want to uh caution against making assumptions about um areas and I think it’s important to remind ourselves that there are sections of our communities who find themselves um potentially property rich and cash poor so they may have a large valuable
Property that they can’t afford to heat and they can’t afford to have a hot meal during the day um so I think we we need to be quite cautious about making assumptions um about what we might expect to see in different areas I’d also just remind ourselves that each of
The models that we we’re sort of focusing on um has an element of funding that’s a base level of funding that’s allocated per number of counselors that’s not um that that doesn’t take into account the um levels of deprivation and so that’s going to give you a skew
In terms of um uh what the what the the final amount per head comes out at um but I would you know urge people not to make assumptions um about areas um because you know that we need to be driven um a little bit more by the the data that we
Get and we shouldn’t just assume that every single person in um Bishop Thorp is Rich which I think is what you were implying yes yeah no um I would agree with that but what model would you suggest then that meets the concerns that you’ve just raised um I think the reason that it’s
Here is is for it to be scrutinized pred decision so that we can take into account the views of the committee okay counc vassy thank you chair I’m listening to this with interest I think there there is a a truth I think in the point that Council LS has just made that larger
Populations May tend to have more Assets in the community and also better public transport so the whole thing is very very complicated uh I acknowledge that it’s it’s very complicated in my particular Ward it can be argued and it is in this report that there is less deprivation
And I think that’s probably true but there are pockets of deprivation in my ward uh where the lack of access to many Community assets and the lack of access to decent public transport seriously limits uh the ability of certain uh people in the community to be able to participate in any Community activity
And therefore uh those things like sharing life for example in my ward uh assume a greater importance for for those people so um I’m not Plumping for anything at this stage but I recognize that it it is a very complicated task thank you Council widdowson I’d just like to say that if
You can get the deprivation figures you know as close as you can and as as well as you can and I know I that you’ve worked extraordinarily hard to get them on there and I would agree with councelor Healey that the model f seems to be taking those deprivation indicators into
Account and that is applied across the city regardless of whether it’s a densely populated area or an area like Bishop Thorp all of which will have within their populations areas that need more help or people that need more help and people that need less help regardless of what
Their age is and regardless of what their asset or cash situation is so if you rely on the maass which is the indication the figures that you can get your hands on and it’s starting to come through in that one then it seems to be fairly sensible counc Merit
No clearly no easy answers on this I mean if if you take the IMD which is perhaps the more genuinely recognized indicator of deprivation as opposed to the two particular characteristics that are used in e enf um then there’s two Wards in this city that really do stand out as having
A a real problem West Westfield and Clifton but if you actually use the particular indicators that have been chosen from the Census you’ll see that one of those two Wards certainly doesn’t get the same degree of of recognition uh as in those other two formula as it does in as it does in
A I think he’s actually I think whoever you know I think the executiv actually have quite a difficult Choice uh to make uh in coming to a decision on this I I am not particularly comfortable with f because because I I think it is not fully recognizing the
Deprivation uh you know that that we ought to be but um anyway hear the rest of the debate okay thank you coun Myers yeah thanks for coming back to me chair um I just try to outline maybe a little bit of my point around these measures and and our
Need is um assessed if you look at page 48 and and model f does it it’s crudely grouping um uh indices of multiple deprivation together and and where the where there is more than one household n nudging over a Thresh old uh to say that it’s deprived and
It’s not calculating the level of that deprivation and that is what’s totally missing from uh this model and that’s why it flattens everything out and that means that it’s not the best value for money spend if you’re actually trying to spend money where it’s most needed because you can contrast that directly
To the table on page 43 that shows the indices of multiple deprivation which will show very Stark contrasts between Wards because the levels of deprivation are very starkly contrasting Clifton and Westfield and Tang all some of those neighborhoods have got they’re they’re in the top 10% in the whole country for
Multiple levels of deprivation affecting elderly people are affecting children and to to lump that in with with model against a model that doesn’t take that into account what it’s it’s it’s just it doesn’t make any sense to me this is a small level of funding in the overall
Scheme of council spend and direction of travel is Good from the executive you’ve got to keep it up and you’ve got to try and apply some of this thinking to more areas of spend because for many years my community and communities like it have been underfunded by this Council and
It’s an absolute disgrace and this is a small way forwards to give opportunities equally to those people in this city that absolutely deserve it thank you councilor Ry thank you chair um I mean it kind of seems apart from you know B and C which are a non-starter whichever of these formula
You look at you’re going to find some floor in it and and and maybe if I might just be able to throw a bit of a curveball in um and that’s if I look at my ward that there is to my knowledge very little deprivation compared to some
Of the other Wards in the city and if I look how we’ve allocated Ward funding over the last five years I I would I would be hard pressed to find a need that had deprivation within it so so you know for me that the idea of of of of
Having an element of of of funding based on deprivation within my w in some sense for me it’s hard to calculate in terms of how you look at this as an executive um you know it clearly all the models state that you’ve split out the £250,000 £105,000 based on
Counselors and £45,000 based on deprivation might I suggest and this is could be quite radical that actually you keep the £45,000 centrally for members to be able to bid for any deprivation needs within their particular ws and you simply allocate 105,000 per counselor so that’s kind of
Rew writing it and I maybe have thr a c ball in there but hey hope no I mean I think the the 145,000 Delon is it’s still for at Ward level for it for it to be for decisions to be made it’s just I mean there is a separate central port um
Which organizations can bid into so I think it’s still I think what you’re saying is still there in terms of local identify local need and then working with Partners to decide how that money can best be allocated to meet the the W the W priorities that are informed by the
Council plan so I think that’s I think that’s there yeah I think that’s that’s what I’m saying is so rather than giving me my as as the C what can do and giving me a slice of that £145,000 I’m saying that maybe a better way to do
It would be to just divide the 105 per counselor and then have us have that 145 kept centrally where Ward counselors could apply for needs within their Ward that have a very strong deprivation case that was what I was suggesting leave that with the executive members to to consider us it’s not not
Technically what we were here to consider but it’s you know all ideas are welcome um councelor Healey then councelor uh yes thank you this is officers um page 43 Model A which is the one that’s 45,000 to be split by each Ward based on deprivation if you go back to
14 so Bish again I’m I’ll take Bishop Thor and haxby but you take any two that have a quite similar 2019 IMD deprivation score why is Model A still giving 150 to Bishop Thorp and 87 P to haxing wigington when their deprivation score is the
Same well not the same but you know very close I feel as we’ve had this discussion before answer I mean look there there’s two other bits in in the funding formula so one is there is a counselor funding allocation which obviously you may have wards that have two counselors or three counselors
And thirdly there may be different populations so one’s an overall total and ones a per head by population so those Wards will not have this they may have the same index and multiple deprivation score but they will have different populations but table 14 is what table 14 does it take both the council
Uh pot of 100 gram plus the deprivation pot of 150 or is it just the deprivation pot on table 14 that’s both together so it be up 250 and that’s what makes it difficult to disentangle the because it’s presented okay well as a committee I don’t see how we can make a
Recommendation when none of us can understand well okay for my sins I would work off table 14 but you can’t because it combines the two parts you need to desate the two parts councelor hopefully a simple question and in response to councelor rley as one of the councilors that worked with
Councel pavlovic and councelor stward on looking at the Citywide pot and the complexities of dealing with how that is decided allocated and everything replicating that in year for another fund would be entirely unworkable and I don’t think the funding would ever get spent in that particular year and who
Would how that decision- making process would go it would just be hugely onerous that worth that so my plea would be to not move towards that particular model which I suppose it gets me to that my actual question which should be relatively easy we’re in year now so obviously this
Is not going to Executive in April is it going in May or June and at what point will those allocations come through and at what point we’re talking about getting this money to the people who need it the most when will those individuals start to see that money it’s
On the forward plan for April’s executive if there’s a change that results from this meeting okay thank you does anybody else have any other further comments questions I think the one thing my observation is I kind of feel as that we’re in a similar place to we were at the call in
In the the kind of the exam question then was well why is um the deprivation allocation for a big Ward and a small Ward similar I think we’ve unpacked a bit more of the detail in terms of don’t judge a ward by its cover necessarily and I think that’s something
That I think we need to reflect on I think modle does produce some some out outputs which I think are not in not necessarily in line with what the policy direction is I’d be nervous about Model F Model E seems to go some way towards addressing some of
The questions and concerns that were raised about model a um one could argue that it makes such a small difference is it is it is there a significant um basis on which to switch to it I think it it seems to me to per a bit
Better and be a bit more um take into account those issues of of wsid a little bit better but if there was a better solution I’m sure somebody would have come up with it um and certainly not going to be me with My GCSE maths not really in that
Category um does anyone else have any other observations councelor pavic I’m happy to defer to councelor R if he’s got another question thanks chair I mean the you know the request obviously was for have a look at this and then kind of come back you know with
With with a recommendation and I think we’ve we’ve agreed that it’s going to be difficult to do that this this evening and and and and how implicit that is to the decision-making session I don’t know and I absolutely you know respect the work that PO Anil
Have done um so so rather than having to make a decision this evening I mean would it would it be prudent for those of us that are able to give it a little bit more thought just to feedb our thoughts directly to the uh executive
Member or to the uh to the officers yeah I mean to be clear we’re not a decision- making uh body and um you know I think a number of views have been expressed around the table about preferred models so I’m not going to say let’s have a vote
Because point you know good good points have been made in support of all models I think um the executive members I would expect to kind of consider what’s been said and then and then take a view when it comes to the decision which will be executive and that that but that will be
A public meeting and then if members can attend and speak if they wish but I’m sure um officers and executive members would would welcome any further thoughts and comments by correspondence if after tonight’s meeting you have a Eureka moment about a model G that could perhaps do something different while
Still being in line with um with policy intent anybody did anybody else let say anything else councel pavic yeah thank you thank you chair and and and I just genuinely want to thank everybody around the table you’ve clearly G it you’ve clearly given it thought and you’ve clearly considered the options which we
Will take into account um before we meet to exec um just on a non methodology um Point um uh questions have been raised with me um separately about how um the um sign often the um spend of w funding um is is done um and there are going to be some slight
Amendments both to the um to the form that um uh applicants will have um and the guidance that’s given to members when they’re considering uh applications so um and then there’s also just the point that I do want to reemphasize it has been emphasized and all members are
Aware of it is that there are no carryovers at year end so any um unspent money um at the end of the financial year um uh will be um will not be carried over um for that Ward into the um into the next year um and um having had conversations with the
Exec member for finance um and with um with Pauline um we would look to use any unspent money uh to support the wiass scheme um and um to make sure that any unspent money is used to support those people who are most vulnerable and um
And most most in need of it and I’m very grateful to the exec member for agreeing that today um the other point I would just like to emphasize is and a question’s been raised with me by councelor a about um allocations of um money for projects that won’t be completed within that Financial
Year um ideally of course um money will be allocated and it will be spent um and will be delivered in that Financial year there are some applications that will come through late in the financial year for example things that come through January February March time um well hopefully not March and January February
Time um that um by the time it’s signed off it would be very unlikely to be spent so I have clarified that with um the section1 officer um and those will be allowed so um you know where where where schemes for example I’ll just give you an example um
You’ve got a wildf flowering scheme or or or a planting scheme that you couldn’t plant it in December or January or February um it would have to be the new growing season um that money could be allocated this finan Financial year and spent the next financial year so I
Hope that clarifies the point that you raised yeah I think it I know through discussion with my community officer that um we had to spend the money otherwise it it wouldn’t be carried forward it I don’t know whether that’s been sent sent out as a in an email to
All all members so that there’s awareness of that it may have been I’ve missed it but if it hasn’t it’d be helpful if that could be done just so there’s CL for everybody absolutely but I just did want to just raise it here at this committee no no I appreciate that
Um first um before making an arbitrary decision though not withstanding that I’ve just made an arbitrary decision um you had your hand up C I think it it was just to make that point because I thought I was clear until you clarified and now I’m not clear I think
It might just be the use of terms as to what because you did specifically say at the beginning anything unspent would not be carried forward and then you went on to say some things would be I think it’s just maybe an email that clarifies precisely what the what the issue is
Would be easier yeah yeah just just just to be a uh use some different language um to say the same thing this is about schemes which were applied for in The Current financial year which had the decision made and signed off crucially signed off um at director level um
During The Current financial year and were you know where for for a very specific reason could not be completely delivered during The Current financial year um so because you if you sew Wild Flower Seeds then they will die um so it’s waste of money um then then they
Will be honored but they have to have been decided on and signed off by the director um before the cut off date um which I believe is the 21st 21st of March um is the cut off date by which they all would need to be signed off um is that Thursday thank you
Um uh in order to be honored um so there’s there’s you know there is quite a clear quite clear guidance has been given to the community officers who should be um supporting all members with those applications and that’s why councelor low mass deals with finance and I
Don’t thank you for that additional no of information that’s that’s very helpful um thank you so that concludes that agenda item which leaves us with agenda item seven which is the uh finance and performance monitor for quarter three which Patrick has been waiting very patiently will join to the at the
Table um members will be familiar with uh the format of this report um it is information that’s been to Executive we are receiving a um a cut of that that relates to the responsibilities of this committee um and it paragraph 13 is the is the key um
The key Focus as far as the responsibilities of of of this committee is concerned um is there anything you would like Say by way of introduction Patrick uh thanks shair yeah that’s uh pretty much what I was about to say uh one area I would just like to highlight
And I know it’s been the topic of conversation at previous scrutinies is the uh pressure across that we’re reporting across benefits uh the majority of that pressure is actually through housing benefit it’s through uh increases in numbers that we are putting through temporary accommodation uh we cannot reclaim the full amount of uh
What we’re paying out in bed and breakfast accommodation and hosle accommodation from the Department for work and pensions it is sitting as an additional cost to the council primarily due to the local housing allowance rate that hasn’t increased for a large number of years uh the good news on that one uh
Is that the there has been an announcement of an increase in the local housing allowance rate for next year of about 25% which should reduce that pressure going forward but it’s still going to be on going what we will try and do uh is represent this more as a
Cost of housing and homelessness and the requirement of temporary accommodation rather than it being lost in a line across Corporate Services which is seen as a an impact on the benefits When actually the driver of that cost is the numbers of people who require temporary accommodation thank you for that uh update councilor
Merit yeah could I ask uh about um 06 B which is the number of days taken to process housing benefit where there appears to have been a bit of a blip uh in the current first two quarters I just wondered what was happening there and I mean it does seem
Second quarter is better than the first but um what what’s being going on I’m not I’m not sure I can tell you exactly what’s been going on with it councilor Mer but um yeah I mean we’ve still been sitting we’ve historically this measure is plated by the DWP not by
Ourselves so it’s not an internal process that we can look at and look at the efficiency of so the DWP provide the figures through a normally myself and somebody like David Walker will just keep an eye on it to see if it sits outside of the Benchmark level
Now you can see there that historically we’ve been very much lower The naal Benchmark around about 3 days and you’re right there has been a rise up by a day or three days in terms of quarter one it’s not something that’s really outstripped The Benchmark so we haven’t
Discussed with the DWP about their internal processes there’s something I can pick up between myself and David Walker and I can I can give you a note about it yeah thank you for that um um I had a quick question on paragraph 19 um coroner related pressures within the governance Department
115,000 I just wonder if could explain a bit more about that please uh we’re very much reliant on paying the coroner for the cost that he she is incurring in part of their investigations uh how long they hold on to uh storage of uh bodies effectively
Uh so there has been a pressure that whether that’s to do with the number of Investigations or whether the amount of time that he’s been or she’s been required to hold on to the evidence uh it’s something that’s outside of our control and I know the director of
Governance and uh head of Legal Services have conversations with the coroner in terms of trying to identify what pressures are coming forward but it really is something that’s sits outside of our control and we just have to deal with the cost as and when they come through thank
You any other question Council vassie just a point that comes to mind I think I’ve probably said this before at some other point but in paragraph 16 we hear about the historical income shortfalls at the mansion house um there is a castle in Switzerland that I’ve been to five or
Six times in my life not because I want to be in the castle every time I go to Switzerland but because they have surrealist start exhibitions they find ways of using a venue to create an exhibition space that people will come to again and again and whenever I see
These problems in the mansion house what comes to me is our seeming continued inability to create Revenue by exploiting and exploring the use of spaces um I don’t know what can be done about it I hope that the council will eventually do something about it the mansion house is beautiful but I
Wouldn’t go in there once a year just to see it I might go there more than once a year if there was something new in there councilor lus um councelor um you’ll be delighted to know um that we are exploring um all options that we can
Um to make sure that the mansion house does um retain its important position in the in the historical life of the city um and you’ll recall perhaps from the discussions of only last month about the budget that we’ve committed capital investment um to making sure that we do
Um necessary upgrades and repairs both structural and safety related at the mansion house so that we can indeed make the most of it as a as a marvelous asset for the city you councelor Healey yeah super quickly um stf 08 which page are we on um page 59 okay um it’s about halfway
Down uh staff FTE it might be quite useful if in the body of the report it said something along the lines of the FTE are going up because we’re replacing agency sta which is good because I would expect given the funding pressures that were under the number of FTE to be
Declining over roughly over time yeah um I think that was fair comment um page 59 of this report i’ tried to put a few other extra indicators that aren’t just in the council plan that might be pertinent to the committee together um Council H’s right that the increase
There in the FTE and this indicator includes schools as well has been because of the numbers of working with York have probably halfed over the last year or so 18 months and um as as Helen said before when she spoke on her item most people moved on to the
Establishment um there is quite a lot more detail about um Staffing numbers FTE and head count that goes to the Staffing matters of urgency committee on a six-month basis we try and cover the patterns of why the ft and headcount are moving um the latest report went there
About two months ago so and I think it has those paragraphs in I don’t mind duplicating effort and putting it in both reports thank you any other questions or comments from Members no thank you very much uh Patrick thank you Ian so last but not least uh work
Plan so page 61 uh you see our next meeting in April uh we’ve got a substantive item on procurement which uh debie vitell will be bringing a report for uh and also we return to the topic of climate change which as we’re all aware is now part of this committee’s um
Remits um and Sean Gibbons will be giving us uh an update on that and with the um the vice chair and I have been in touch with Sean to make sure that we get maximum benefit from that that discussion in terms of um sort of future policy
Development uh so hopefully that will be a uh an interesting meeting just going back to the minutes of the last meeting on page seven there were a couple of uh task and finish topics suggested um uh on section one of six agreements and one on Council Communications um we now have a
Template for members to use in order to um put forward ideas for task and finish groups and it’s structured in a way to hopefully make the process easier in terms of identifying what are the aims and objectives who do you want to talk to and what the time scale
Is what it’s probably an idea but if Democratic service Services can help is to circulate that template um to members of this committee um asking if any members do want to give some thought to putting down on paper what task and finish groups might look like in relation to
Section 106 agreements and Council Communications um it would give us something to to discuss a bit with in a bit more detail at the next meeting D yeah just to add to that chair um the template seeks for if you like a lead member from the committee in relation to each of
Those um topics to complete the temp plate out of the version that you did on dialer I chair for epad so um when I circulate it you can ask for somebody can ask for somebody was the point I was going to make to volunteer to complete yes because it won’t complete
Itself much much so we may wish it would um now that’s that’s helpful um yeah on section 106 I think there were a number of strands to that discussion one at least one of which um members might like to pick up but we will see for a brave person puts themselves
Forward to to lead on that okay councilor Merit yeah can I thank you as chair and Council colleagues uh in terms of sorting that template I very helpful yeah and apologies for being slightly remiss on one I do like a good template um so they’re no Ur in business
Um other than to say own s we have to wish a member of the committee happy birthday so I’d like to wish Council and Merit have and you can enjoy what’s left of of your birthday um happy birthday and good night