Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies for absence or notification of substitute members.

In accordance with the local Code of Conduct, a councillor is required to disclose at the meeting any Disclosable Pecuniary Interest (DPI) that they may have in respect of any matter for consideration on this agenda.  Any councillor with a DPI must not participate in any discussion or vote regarding that matter and they must withdraw from the meeting immediately before consideration of the matter.

If that DPI has not been registered, the councillor must notify the Monitoring Officer of the details of the DPI within 28 days of the date of the meeting.

Councillors are further invited to disclose any non-pecuniary interest which may be relevant to any matter on this agenda, in the interests of transparency, and to confirm that it will not affect their objectivity in relation to that matter.

There were no declarations of disclosable pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests.

To confirm the minutes of the Executive Advisory Board (EAB) meeting held on 1 June 2020.

Following a lengthy discussion regarding the nature and purpose of minutes, the minutes of the meeting of the Board held on 1 June 2020 were confirmed and would be signed by the Chairman at the earliest opportunity, subject to the following changes:

·             the words ‘essence of’ be deleted from the penultimate line of the second paragraph of minute number PMI3; and

·             the last bullet point of minute number PMI5 concerning Plastic Free Guildford be expanded to read: ‘The aims of the plastic free Borough initiative should be pursued and the Borough Council as an institution should seek ‘Plastic Free Community’ status and certification from Surfers Against Sewage, the issuing organisation, and to collaborate with the community and the Plastic Free Guildford campaign to support obtaining this certification for the Borough community as a whole.’

The EAB considered a report providing an update in respect of the accomplishments and findings of the former Climate Change and Innovation Board (CCIB) since its creation in August 2019 and the next steps following the Executive’s agreement at its meeting on 25 August 2020 to disband the CCIB and in its place form two new working groups, namely, the Climate Change Board and the Innovation Board, to balance the focus on these two equally important areas.

The report advised that on 19 March 2019, the Executive had approved a new Innovation Strategy for 2019-20 which reflected the dynamic and at times rapidly changing nature of innovation.  The Strategy, which addressed the Council’s Innovation theme in its Corporate Plan 2018-2023, was developed, co-ordinated and managed by an existing Innovation Strategy Board, assisted by its Climate Change Sub-Group, to provide economic leadership and to deliver sustainable and proportionate growth.

On 23 July 2019, the Council adopted a motion to declare a Climate Emergency.  In line with the commitments set out in this motion, the Council merged the Innovation Strategy Board and its Climate Change Sub-Group to create the CCIB in August 2019 which would report to the Executive and have overall responsibility for:

·             developing the Council’s Climate Change Strategy; and

·             overseeing the delivery and carrying out of an ongoing review of the Council’s Innovation Strategy 2019-20.

It was reported that the CCIB had met on six occasions between August 2019 and August 2020 and the minutes of these meetings, which had been circulated separately to the EAB, were summarised in Appendix 1 of the report.  Although the CCIB initially identified five themes on which to focus, namely, aspects of planning, transportation, trees and green spaces, procurement, and waste, it did not have an opportunity to consider the two latter themes before being disbanded.  The CCIB also received updates from key officers which covered areas including the rural economy, business innovation, energy consumption, waste, electric vehicles and transport.  In addition, community engagement was discussed by the CCIB on a number of occasions and it considered methods to pursue this.  The CCIB had also commenced identification of key areas of focus for inclusion in the Climate Change Strategy which were summarised in Appendix 2 of the report.  The Executive had decided to disband the CCIB and replace it with two new boards as it was felt that the CCIB had served its purpose by covering a number of areas and that the new configuration of two boards would better equip the Council to meet the two rapidly developing areas of climate change and innovation.

The report recommended that theEAB considered the actions taken to date by the CCIB and made recommendations as appropriate to the Executive.

The following points arose from related questions, comments and discussion:

·             Although the Lead Councillor was aware of the ‘Scatter’ tool which was built to assist local authorities to measure the cost and effectiveness of steps being taken to reduce carbon emissions, it was not currently being  ...  view the full minutes text for item PMI12

It was highlighted that the Climate Change, Sustainable Design, Construction and Energy Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) would be considered by the Executive on 22 September 2020 and it was preferred that any related views that non-Executive councillors wished to express were submitted by 8 September 2020, if possible, to allow ample time for comments to be incorporated into the documentation.

To consider and approve the EAB’s draft work programme with reference to the Executive Forward Plan.

Councillors were invited to submit suggestions for possible future EAB work programme items to the Chairman for discussion at the Executive Advisory Board / Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme meeting on 11 September 2020.  It was emphasised that draft SPDs should come before the EAB in a timely manner to enable it to contribute to their development and comment in respect of the related consultation responses.  As SPDs were currently unscheduled in the work programme, it was requested that timescales around their preparation and consultation be mapped to enable them to be scheduled for consideration at future meetings of the EAB.  Councillors were advised that a longer term prioritisation list in respect of SPDs was being developed and would be shared with the EAB when finalised.