Agenda item

Emma Davies presented the report. Frances O’Brien, Mark Hand and Cath Fallon answered the members’ questions.

Challenge:

Where have the most and least progress been, and in the latter case, what will you do to get it back on track?

This is hard to answer, given the spectrum of priorities and actions. Taking the effect of Covid into consideration, the department has made significant progress where possible, across the objectives that are set. For example, the progress made with procurement, which has been rapid in a short period, despite the impact of Covid.

Are there specific areas in which there is difficulty making progress, from reasons other than Covid?

From an Enterprise and Community Animation perspective, there are two main areas to consider. One is broadband redeployment, which has slowed further than we had hoped. We were successful in obtaining funding through Welsh Government’s local broadband fund to undertake works in the Llanthony valley, for example. There are issues there generally, aside from the effect of Covid. Through our Strategic Broadband Infrastructure group, we are looking to address works to lay cables etc. We are also deploying a wider network that is 5G carrier grade – again, that has not moved as fast we had hoped. Therefore, the digital depravation rates are likely to be less than the 12.5% currently in the report; we are awaiting the accurate figure. We are also addressing the distinct lack of skills and increase in vacancy rates, relating to our hospitality industry: as hospitality has reopened, there is a desperate need for staff but they aren’t coming forward, or they’re finding it a challenging area in which to work, and moving on. We have a major campaign over the summer period, with the Deputy Leader, to encourage people to come forward. Our Employment Skills team will help people to write CVs and submit applications. Many of those issues were raised in our Business Resilience forum, which enables us to understand the issues that businesses are facing on a daily basis.

A few other items are worth mentioning. For example, the report cites the Chepstow study: this has now been received, and we have arranged a meeting with Chepstow members and stakeholders across the border to brief them on it. This has also been delayed somewhat but is progressing. There is a current suspension from Welsh Government in road building so we will think through how that might affect things. Improvements and re-surfacing in the Highways programme were delayed, but that was due to funding uncertainty: until we had confirmation that floods relief funding to reinstate roads damaged in the 19/20 floods would be carried forward into this financial year, we didn’t know our budget for normal road repairs. That confirmation came a few months ago, so we can no roll this out. The replacement local development plan was affected by Covid and the new population projections from Welsh Government, but it gave us the opportunity to refresh our view of the plan’s elements.

On a positive note, the re-opening towns measures have opened up many potential opportunities; these will be considered in a separate meeting of this committee later in the month. It has given us chances to look at how we generate our towns in different ways and trial different measures. We are now at the point of considering what measures could become long-term changes.

The ‘commitment to action’ states the purpose of promoting development of suitable sites and premises, yet we have none – why is that?

There are still over 40 hectares of employment land available in the county, identified in the current LDP. There is an issue with the spatial distribution of that: it is primarily in a couple of large sites in the south of the county. One of our challenges is having that land supply in Monmouth and Abergavenny, where we have interest from businesses that we struggle to accommodate. The planning policies currently in place will support employment uses within settlements or, potentially, adjacent to them. The replacement LDP will provide us with those new sites and the range of locations to support those areas. We have very good intelligence about what’s needed as we move forward. If sites come forward that are adjacent to the settlement boundary then that is something that we can consider. Abergavenny, for example, is constrained due to the national park and flood plains, so we need to think carefully about the next steps.

Regarding the Apprentice Scheme, what is the council’s position when it comes to offering apprenticeships in areas other than Health & Social Care?

The social care apprenticeships were funded by the foundational economy challenge fund, so there were 6 apprentices in H&SC funded specifically through that model. In addition, there are 20 apprentices throughout our organisation, which we wish to increase. Some of those have completed their study and moved into new posts, and the additional staff members are undertaking additional apprenticeships. We’re also working closely with businesses to help them with apprentice recruitment – it’s a wide-ranging scheme.

Have we looked at the link between people’s homes, where they live and their patterns of travel to work in relation to existing businesses, so that we can see where people travel to and from?

We don’t have this survey information at present. It is certainly something that would be good to do. The west of England is doing a survey of its businesses to understand how future working practices might change, regarding agile or home working. We’re looking to commission a similar survey in order to understand how those different patterns might emerge in the future. This will go out mid-September, jointly with our colleagues in Tourism, in terms of the business development management plan. It is important for us to understand where employees are working and what they might need regarding co-working spaces – part of the Levelling Up fund bid that we submitted for Monmouth was provision for co-working space. Welsh Government carried out a survey in this vein but we want to build on that locally. We will also work with our private sector colleagues as, for example, there is a private working space in Abergavenny – so we need to ensure we are covering the need for provision.

Is it correct that Capita is undertaking a survey of the relationship between employment and home locations?

Yes, this is part of the same conversation relating to both the Local Transport Plan and Replacement Local Development Plan.

There are over 4000+ FTE MCC employees but we don’t have many new apprentices (i.e. not already employed by us) – how many do we hope to have by the end of next year?

We don’t have that figure to hand but we are working with individual departments on a daily basis to look at their recruitment requirements, and working with the Cardiff Capital Region graduate scheme. We have a new marketing graduate who started 6 weeks ago in that team, so we are looking to recruit as we go forward, and the picture should be very different next year.

Chair’s Summary:

Thank you to officers. Bearing in mind the pandemic and surrounding circumstances, the progress valuation of ‘adequate’ is perhaps as good as we could get this year.