Agenda and minutes

To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were submitted from Councillors Andrews, Boylan, Clements, Woollcombe and Wyllie.

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 10 June 2025.

Councillor Swainston proposed, and Councillor Cox seconded, a motion that the Minutes of the meeting held on 10 June 2025 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair, subject to the following amendments:

The T be inserted before Councillor Smith’s surname in the list of attendees and in minute 75 where he was welcomed to his first meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, as there were two Councillor Smiths on the council.

After being put to the meeting and a vote taken, the motion was declared CARRIED.

RESOLVED – that the Minutes of the meeting held on 10 June 2025, be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair, subject to the following amendments:

The T be inserted before Councillor Smith’s surname in the list of attendees and in minute 75 where he was welcomed to his first meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, as there were two Councillor Smiths on the council.

The chair reminded Members to use the microphones as the meeting was being webcasted.

To receive any Members’ Declarations of Interest.

There we no declarations of interest.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability submitted a report that sought the comments of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee on some targeted amendments to both the East Herts District Council’s resident permit parking scheme and the operational guidance which accompanies that policy.

Members were advised that the proposed changes aimed to enhance accessibility, reduce procedural barriers and better align the guidance and policy with the council’s strategic priorities. The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability referred in particular to sustainability, air quality, community wellbeing and economic growth.

Members were advised that the recommendations were based on public feedback from the 2024 parking strategy engagement and an independent review provided by Citisense, who were the architects of the parking strategy and had been instrumental in benchmarking against best practice from comparable local authorities.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability said that the changes were set out within the paper. He said that there was to be an amendment to the requirement that non-resident parking must be considered in awarding an RPZ scheme, specifically that non-resident parking must exceed 40% occupancy during times of peak period. The recommendation was that this be reduced to 10% to allow some more holistic assessments based on the local context, resident feedback and officer observation.

Members were advised that there was also a provision for Officer discretion which was also recommended to ensure that borderline or exceptional cases could be considered where there was compelling evidence to do so.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability said that the second recommendation was that the council amend the policy that 75% of households in a proposed zone have on street parking capacity for one vehicle. The proposal was that this requirement be reduced to 50% to reflect the practical constraints in historic mixed use or high-density areas such as constrained street layouts, pre-existing loading restrictions and compelling and competing demands on limited road space.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability summarised the report’s three recommendations and welcomed comments from the Committee. The Parking Services Manager responded to questions from Councillor Jacobs regarding the Citisense report and the recommendations.

Councillor Jacobs requested that officers come back to the committee at some point regarding the Citisense recommendations contained within an appendix to the report.

Councillor E Buckmaster acknowledged the flexibility that was being introduced. He said that many Members dealt with parking and highways on a daily basis and he expressed wariness about introducing resident parking zones. Councillor E Buckmaster referred in particular to urban areas close to transport hubs or sports clubs and the issue of how an RPZ would impact on a wider area and move a problem elsewhere.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability said that this was a valid concern. He emphasised that RPZs were an imperfect solution to a tricky problem and said that RPZ schemes in Hertford bled into each other, leaving a question mark about the areas in between.

Members were advised that the paper sought to make the situation regarding RPZs more practical  ...  view the full minutes text for item 151.

Councillor Sue Nicholls said that Overview and Scrutiny Committee had expressed a wish to review and scrutinise the effectiveness of communications between housing associations (sometimes also called registered housing providers), their tenants, elected Members and Council Officers.

Councillor Nicholls said that the committee recognised that there were different practices across different housing associations which sometimes made it difficult for Members and Council Officers to work with housing associations to resolve issues for residents.

Councillor Nicholls said that some housing associations already had excellent communication with residents, elected Members and the council, and it was an ambition that this was the case for all residents. She said that the report outlined a proposed programme of work for the Overview and Scrutiny to help identify and make recommendations in this area, to highlight potential improvements and to share best practice.

Councillor Nicholls explained that the scrutiny exercise sought to examine how registered housing providers operated within East Herts, communicated with their customer and with the council. The aims were to identify areas for improvement by housing associations and/or the council, examples of best practice that could be shared among housing associations, potential issues for lobbying national bodies such as regulators or government to improve housing association communications.

Councillor Nicholls said that a project plan had been developed to deliver these aims, and this document could be seen at Appendix A. She set out in detail the proposed timeline for this area of work and said that a draft of the proposed questionnaire was shared at Appendix B.

Members were advised that a task and finish group would be established of Overview and Scrutiny Members to consider feedback from questionnaires. The Task and Finish Group could request further information from housing associations and would meet between September and December 2025.

Councillor Nicholls said that she hoped that Members would be satisfied, as she was, with the proposed plan of work to make recommendations for improvements in this area. She therefore requested that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee support the review as outlined in the report and project plan and agree to the establishment of a Task and Finish Group to progress this work.

Councillor Swainston welcomed the ideas set out in the paper and said that most councillors had heard from residents who were not happy that they could not get hold of their housing association or had received responses that were not satisfactory. She said that if Members could improve that situation then that would very valuable.

Councillor Carter said that she agreed that communication was probably the key thing that upset tenants in terms of not getting issues fixed or not being able to speak to the right person.

Councillor Marlow said that communication with housing associations was a very mixed affair. He wondered how this way forward was going to be delivered to the housing associations and what kind of weight it would be given when there was a housing ombudsman service and the regulator for social housing. He commented  ...  view the full minutes text for item 152.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability submitted an interim progress report and a detailed verbal progress presentation answering questions that had been pre submitted by Members. He said that a formal report would be submitted to the meeting on 4 November 2025.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability set out the context and scale of the project and the initial position in respect of the roll out of the new containers as at the 4 August, and the current position as of this morning.

Members were also advised of the underlying contractual performance, i.e. how well Veolia were performing at collecting both recycling and residual waste. The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability set out in detail the structure of his update and he referred in particular to learning points in respect of communications and data integrity and how this was handled between organisations.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability set out some early post implementation initial results. He summarised the scale of the project in terms of the numbers of households, and set out the new containers, caddy starter packs and bin stickers which were required by each household.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability said that the performance at the start of the roll out was 97% which sounded quite high. He said that although 97% was a large number of households, this left a significant number of households without the means to fully participate in the scheme by the 4 August.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability acknowledged that there had been huge inefficiencies in the communications channels that residents and Members were interacting with. He said that joint daily review meetings were set up and this very quickly short circuited many of the communications hurdles that were being experienced, enabling a common set of data which showed how the roll out was being managed.

Members were informed that a system had been set up that allowed residents to bypass customer services and lodge a requirement straight into the contractors control sheet. This relieved the extraordinary business load on customer services and left them free to deal with day-to-day customer contact.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability set out in detail the current position for Members and answered their questions with input from the Executive Member for Corporate Services, the Director for Regeneration, Customer and Commercial Services and the Director for Legal, Policy and Governance.

The Chair thanked the Executive Members and the Directors for providing a verbal update report at short notice. Members received the verbal update.

RESOLVED – that the verbal update be received.

The Chair explained that this agenda item was a standing item that had been introduced, which gave an opportunity for the Executive to feedback to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee on issues that had been raised at previous meetings. He said that he would ensure that this feedback was more detailed going forward.

Councillor Crystall provided an update in respect of local government reform. He said that part of the updated corporate plan presented to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee in June included engaging with the community in respect of local government reform (LGR).

Councillor Crystall said that this engagement had begun with an event in Hertford market, and there were events planned for the district’s 5 towns, with another scheduled in the Council Chamber at Wallfields. He said that the actual details of LGR would be covered by an all-member briefing on the 13 November 2025, with a decision due to be made at a special meeting of the Executive on 18 November 2025. He said he was unsure at this stage whether there would be a special full council meeting.

Members received the feedback from the Leader.

RESOLVED – that the feedback be received.

The Committee Support Officer submitted the work programme report and Members were invited to consider and determine the work programme going forward. The Committee Support Officer set out the matters coming forward for the November meeting and the meetings in January and March 2026.

Councillor E Buckmaster said that he wanted to clarify what it was that the committee would be considering in respect of Local Government Reform (LGR). He referred to how the council would deal with assets.

Councillor E Buckmaster emphasised the importance of understanding what was important to members and residents. Councillor Jacobs said that LGR scrutiny proposal forms were submitted from Councillor E Buckmaster, and Councillor McAndrew, and that these forms had been circulated to the committee for comments.

Councillor Jacobs said that the next step was to share these forms and comments with the administration, and for Members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to agree a reporting timescale. He said that he did not envisage that this subject would be included at the 4 November meeting and instead be more likely for the 20 January 2026 agenda.

Councillor Carter said that with regards the Sustainable Transport proposal, she believed that this was part of a task and finish group held in 2017, which researched matters linked to the District Plan.

Councillor Carter said that she wondered whether this matter would therefore be more usefully linked in with the planning department - in terms of evidence for the sustainable transport element of the District Plan. She said that there might be other things that the planning department wanted the committee to consider in that regard.

Councillor Carter said that another big topic was artificial intelligence and asked whether Members could have a summary bulletin on this topic, to enable Members to see where it was being used, what kind of packages were being utilised, and in what areas.

The Executive Member for Corporate Services said that he would speak to the Head of IT to ascertain to what extent this was being used at the council. He believed that the use of AI was quite limited at the moment, if at all, and that any update could include future plans for the use of AI.

Councillor Carter said that people in local government and other organisations were increasingly being encouraged to use AI to summarise matters or to write notes.

Councillor E Buckmaster said that, in respect of sustainable transport, a cross-party working group had just started in respect of the local transport plan which would include elements of sustainable transport.

Councillor Swainston mentioned Glyphosate as perhaps being lost in the wording about the re tendering of the ground’s maintenance contract (as per the work programme). The Committee Support Officer suggested emailing the officer submitting this matter to reiterate that the use of Glyphosate should form part of the considerations.

Councillor Nicholls proposed, and Councillor Swainston seconded a motion that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee work programme be agreed. After being put to the meeting  ...  view the full minutes text for item 155.

To consider such other business as, in the opinion of the Chairman of the meeting, is of sufficient urgency to warrant consideration and is not likely to involve the disclosure of exempt information.

There was no urgent business.