Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday 30 September 2025, 6:00pm

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Tuesday, 30th September 2025 at 6:00pm

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Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Mr Jake Hamilton
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Paul Thomas
Councillor Tony Hills
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Jeremy Speakman
Cllr John Wing
Cllr Jeremy Speakman
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Andrew Rush
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Anita Jones
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Anita Jones
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Paul Thomas
Andrew Rush
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Councillor Tony Hills
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Jeremy Speakman
Cllr Elaine Martin
Andrew Rush
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Alan Martin
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Alan Martin
Folkestone & Hythe Officer
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Paul Thomas
Councillor Tony Hills
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
FHDC Officer
Cllr Jim Martin
Dr Susan Priest
Cllr Jim Martin
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Councillor Tony Hills
Cllr Jim Martin
Councillor Tony Hills
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
Cllr Alan Martin
Cllr Jim Martin
Cllr Alan Martin
Cllr Jim Martin
Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly
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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:00:11

Hello everyone. We're just about to start. Thank you so much. Good evening and welcome

to the meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee. This meeting will be webcast live

to the internet. For those who do not wish to be recorded or filmed, you'll need to leave

the chamber. For members, officers and others speaking at the meeting, it is important that

the microphones are used so viewers on the webcast and others in the room may hear you.

Would anyone with a mobile phone please switch it to silent and possibly notifications on

your laptop as well, as they can be distracting. I'd like to remind members that although we

all have strong opinions on matters under consideration, it is important to treat members,

officers and public speakers with respect. Thank you.

OK, so our first item apologies for absence. Are there any

Mr Jake Hamilton - 0:01:04

apologies? Thank you chair. We have one apology from

Councillor Holgate. Thank you very much.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:01:09

Next item declarations of interest. Are there any

declarations of interest from

members? Thank you next item minutes. So I would like

somebody to propose and somebody to second. The minutes are a complete record of what

we discussed on the 29th of July, 2025. So I saw Councillor – or did you want to make

a comment?

I would like to propose them as a true and active proposal.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:01:41

Cllr Paul Thomas - 0:01:41

Councillor Tony Hills - 0:01:43

Thank you very much. And Councillor Hills would like to second. Thank you so much. I

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:01:44

will sign them now.

And could we vote by show of hands, please?

Thank you very much.

Okay, item 4, cabinet members update.

As per part 7 .2, paragraph 14 .1 of the constitution, cabinet members will attend at least one overview

and scrutiny committee per municipal year to provide a general update on decisions made

within their portfolio.

Today, Councillor Jeremy Speakman is a lucky person who is a Cabinet member for waste,

street cleansing and corporate health and safety and he will be presenting to us today.

Thank you, Councillor.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:02:33

I am conscious, obviously, the next item is waste and recycling reform so I would hate

to steal Andrew Rush's thunder.

I've got two portfolio areas, waste and street cleansing and health and safety.

You'll have had my report on waste and streets cleansing.

I'm not going to go into very much detail

because Andrew will cover a lot of interesting challenges

which we will be facing going forward.

So, some general observations.

I suppose I've been cabinet member for waste

since I was elected just over two years ago.

And I think it's as a joint partnership with Dover.

I think it works extremely well.

And I think we have a lot to be grateful for to the waste

management team and to officers for operating, I think,

generally, I think it's fair to say, a pretty smooth operation.

Because we've managed to avoid the bullet of strikes.

And I think we found Veolia, as our contracted partner,

has been very responsive and flexible.

And we've adapted as we've had to meet certain challenges.

In terms of some of the things I'd like to point out as an observation,

for example, we've had some interesting pieces of a new kit from Veolia.

They donated one and then another e -cycle van

which has helped collect waste from the promenade

which is very difficult to access normally.

We've got five new smart bins in the district

which actually compress and also notify when the bins are full.

So they're pretty cool.

We're replacing some of the metal bins along the seafront,

which if you gather, obviously become rusty,

they will be rolled up with new plastic bins and that's ongoing.

It's been a very busy year.

The summer was a long, hot summer, which was lovely,

but actually that's when we had loads and loads of visitors.

I think it would be fair to say that we were able to work flat out.

We had extra resources going in as we do.

But when you get three or four events happening over a bank holiday weekend,

it's incredibly difficult to keep on top of it.

I think they did a really good job.

And yes, sure, we had a few things where resources were stretched as far as they could be,

but those were very few and far between, and I think they did a good job.

So, yes, I feel very positive about the service we have,

and I think we're very fortunate that it works very well.

I'm happy to take any questions.

Excellent. Thank you so much.

I did want to ask a very quick question.

These smart bins sound very exciting,

the fact that they know when they're full,

But if they are alerted, then therefore when are they emptied?

Well, there's obviously the normal kind of collection around,

but I would imagine... I'm looking at Ian here, but...

Please, please, please, please give me a hand.

There's an initial trigger about 80%,

so that gives us a little bit of time to get there if we are otherwise engaged,

but thereafter it gets more frequent as it gets closer and closer to 100%.

So we have early warning and then we can programme that in to be collected as required.

Okay, so what's the time lag between you identifying that maybe it's 100 % full and it's actually

emptied?

Normally we shouldn't let it get to 100%, so once we get that 80 % alert, then it's a

case of getting there.

We don't need to be there instantaneously, but we would monitor it a little bit to make

sure we get in there just in time effectively.

Thank you.

Councillor Chapman.

I wanted, I've got a comment and then a bit of a question.

The comment is that I would like a shout out to Andrew,

who cleans the beach of the early operative,

who cleans, well not to,

I notice him on Sunny Sands Beach,

because I swim there, but he cleans right from,

I think, down in Sandgate up to the Warren,

and I am absolutely convinced

he does far more than his contracted hours

and is absolutely brilliant.

He's like a one man tied in machine,

so just a shout out to him

because I don't know if it gets a pat on the back

very exotamously properly observed, which is every day.

The second thing is that

The only thing you're saying is it's a great partnership.

I have to say if you live around Dover Road,

it doesn't feel like it's the greatest partnership

in the world.

It's marginally improved, but it was a very low bar.

It looks a mess most of the time.

And if it is such a great partnership,

does that mean that there's no chance

of taking that particular service back in house?

Right, OK.

I guess there's two questions.

One is Dover Road.

That has come to our attention a few times.

I guess we need to have another look at that.

I'm more than happy to do that.

With regard to taking in -house, I think that is a whole different ball game.

I think it depends.

My feeling is if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

There have been lots of issues with in -house services as well.

Canterbury for example, as a wholly owned company,

and they've had strikes, very large strikes,

and Thanet, which is an in -house company.

So I think whether it's in -house or not in -house,

Both of those can be looked at and obviously when we're going forward into local government

reorganisation longer term, I guess there's issues in the very longer term we might be

looking at.

But I think in terms of contract, nothing is perfect and we can do more with more resources.

It's how we deploy them and what we can afford.

And I'm more than happy to look at areas where we think we can improve.

and I feel confident with Veolia's app,

we can talk to them and see if we can improve things.

Thank you.

Councillor Hills.

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to say, Jeremy, you've done a fantastic job.

It's going really well, I think, from what I can see in the lid.

I get no complaints whatsoever, which is lovely.

And I think the service has got better than it was, say, four or five years ago.

Possibly Veolia are getting their act together really well.

But I have had one concern raised with me from residents...

Now this could have been one of those folklore type things going around...

is that they're saying they won't pick up from unadopted roads.

Now I can't believe that's true.

I could have a dangerous unadopted road and maybe it's a case of...

you might have to bring your bins to the top of the road.

For that particular reason, when a van or truck couldn't get down...

I live in an unadopted road, a very small bit.

And it came down to me quite happily and I've got no complaints whatsoever.

But it has been raised with me and I'd just like you to confirm that is not the case going forward.

Not something I've heard of and I obviously look into that.

I mean we did a whole campaign, you may recall, we ran into issues with what we call the ultra narrow routes.

We just couldn't get vehicles down there.

So you can't for Martin remember all this because we were initially raised there.

And from that we then revised our collection schedule and approach.

And I think we added another 600 or so properties to the route.

So I think that worked well.

But yeah, I will certainly look into that.

Thank you very much.

Councillor Jones, please.

Firstly, just to say again, we've got a fantastic young man

who cleans hives called James.

I'd like to do a shout out for him because it's a fantastic job.

But while we're picking people up, I think him and...

I don't know the other chap's name, but Clive is very clean

and very pleased with their work.

I think we have little groups go out, they struggle to find some litter.

So that's really good news for us.

With regards to the beach, because that's always a problem in the summer,

pleased to see the big containers.

I think I was a bit dismayed to see people still piling rubbish up next to the other bins

and not realising there was a big container maybe five, ten metres away

that they could put their rubbish in.

So I don't know what we can do to improve that,

but I think that's worth looking at.

I would also like to see an increased amount

of seagull -proof bins, because certainly along

the canal path, there's a very cheeky seagull

who just, he looks at me and I'll put it back in the bin,

and then as soon as I walk away, he'll be there again.

I don't know whether it's he or she, it could be either.

Yeah, regularly, the one near Waitrose

just taking things out of the bin,

It's not the fault of the people that have put the things in the bin,

but obviously we've got some very keen seagulls,

so I don't know if we could invest in that

because that would certainly help a lot of the general waste.

I'm more than happy to discuss that with officers, certainly.

With regard to your point about using the bath bins,

this has been an ongoing issue.

We did set out to do some additional signage,

and improve the signage,

and unfortunately I think it just took a little while to come through,

so we will come in towards the end of the season.

We may have lost a bit of effect,

but certainly we will be, I think,

Cllr John Wing - 0:25:56

The other question I've got is gravel parade in Sandow.

We've got some lovely new bins turned up there, plastic bins,

with lots of little bits of plastic and cans and recycled rubbish.

Do they actually get separated when they're emptied the bins?

Before I incriminate myself, can I ask Ian to answer that one?

Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:26:20

So you're quite right, they're multi -section bins,

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:26:23

so they should be one for metals and one for general plastics and the next.

So providing they're clean, which isn't always the case,

you'll often end up with a banana skin and coffee cups,

goodness what else in there.

Providing it's clean, we do take them out

and we'll separate them out.

OK, right.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:26:43

So we move on to talk a lot more rubbish to I25,

waste and recycling reforms.

Andrew Rush, Chief Officer for Regulatory and Community

services will introduce this item.

Andrew Rush - 0:27:00

Thank you Chair and good evening Members.

Presentation which I've been teasing you with for the last half an hour looks at the impact

of the waste service or changes coming from the Environment Act 2021 and notably the Government's

simpler recycling proposals including the packaging extent to produce responsibility,

which you will see shortened to PEPRS as what that stands for.

With me tonight is Ian Dudding, head of our waste team and between us we will obviously

answer questions at the end of the presentation.

There is quite a bit to cover.

I do need to give a bit of context to the service

so you can understand how the regulations, legislation's impact on it.

So do bear with me, we will get to where we want.

We've also got a few scrutiny questions,

which you kindly advised in advance.

You wanted to know about the Environment Act,

which we're going to cover in some detail.

And also you wanted to talk about how we can push the recycling rates

to 50 % or beyond.

You asked me about quite a big question about packaging extended producer responsibility

in the circular economy.

That's going to take about an hour or so, so we're fed in for that.

You want to know about the impact of EPR on local businesses and then you have some general

questions around compliance, performance and environmental outcomes, how these outcomes

are monitored.

So let's just talk about the service just for a second to set the scene.

We are at Fokston Hive, the Waste Collection Authority, WCA,

and we work with our colleagues at Kent,

which are the Waste Disposal Authority.

So as it says, we collect it, they dispose of it,

and as you can already work out,

we're under local company organisation,

those two functions are going to come together.

So it's not just going to be broader collection authorities coming together,

it's going to be the Waste Disposal Authority

waste collection already coming into a single thing, which

is going to bring some risks.

And it's going to bring some opportunities, I think,

particularly around household waste recycling sites

and integrating them.

Doing something like bulky waste,

I think there might be some opportunities there as well.

So we have 53 ,000 properties weekly, which we service.

I think we're one of the few council services which

are consumed by all households.

Probably any one is council tax.

so probably the most popular service.

And we are, of course, and we've already talked about this a bit already tonight,

we are the local litter for a team of 900 kilometres of road,

over a thousand litter bins,

and the budget is the single biggest contract, as you'd expect,

about 6 .3, 6 .4 million.

So there is one statistic which I'm going to come back to again.

You see that we have an alternate, we click Collections,

of 95 % of properties get a recycling collection.

So that's 5%.

Keep in your minds that 5%, because that is very important later on.

So, talking about performance,

you can really narrow the service down to two statistics

of the way service is.

The first is missed bins, because that matters,

and the second is recycling rate.

So in terms of missed bins per 100 ,000 collections,

we were at about an average of about 35 misses,

which is exceptionally good.

And you often get asked,

how do we know this is the statistics that comes from Creolia?

The answer is, and you'll know this yourselves, members,

particularly those who were around in 2021,

if your waste service is going well,

you get individual complaints about miss bins,

it's going badly, you get individual streets or sometimes towns.

So we know, we have a feel,

we monitor complaints, we monitor the volume of notifications.

So that is an exceptionally good service.

And then the other thing is the recycling rate is 46%.

It doesn't sound... I mean, the target is getting at least 50%,

but it's actually very good. It's above the UK average

and above the Kent average, although that figure is a year old.

And most importantly of all, most importantly of all,

is above Dover's average.

So, let's talk about the risks, because we need to put this contextualised as well.

Clearly the frontline service, 53 ,000, lots of moving parts.

If something goes wrong, we have snow, we have industrial action, we have a bad accident,

we are missing properties in the hundreds, possibly even thousands, and so a big risk,

It's a big sort of frontline service.

Lots of inflationary pressures and we talked about season demands, but just to put this

in context, on an average normal summer's weekend we worked out we take between 45 to

55 metric tonnes of street litter from our coastal areas.

So that's the weight equivalent of two double -decker busses on that surface.

That's not a bunk holiday, that's just a normal weekend.

It's exceptional.

Now, bear another question to bear in mind.

How does that packaging, and this is coming back to the packaging

that comes out of the Fish and Chip shop,

how is that packaging featured in producer responsibility?

I'll come on to that point later.

So it's a service that has lots of legislative change from both directions.

From top down, we've had landfill tax, which really

kick -started the circular economy.

We've got simpler cycling.

In the future, in 2028, we've got emissions training schemes

which have a big, big impact on the waste disposal

authorities.

And then from the bottom up, we have changes to POPs,

which is on the bulky waste.

We have, obviously, every safety changes.

And so you get this crunch, basically,

of constant legislative and regulatory change.

We have a shared waste transfer station at Ashford.

And some really good news on this.

Wasn't good to be sharing it, but there's

a pentagreen litter project now to build a transfer

station at Junction 11.

And that's really, really good because that gives us

a hell of a lot more resilience.

I was going to talk about safety,

but actually I've highlighted violence.

The behaviour of the attitude towards people in the waste collection

is sometimes abysmal.

The vehicles have a lot of CCTV.

We've seen the footage, people driving at the crews

because they're being delayed by the vehicles,

people going up on pavements and almost skittling over people

because they want to get past people actually getting out and having a set -to.

So it is unacceptable and it is unfortunately part of the nature of the service, unfortunately.

And we're also now getting a situation down our seafronts.

You've been out with your mates, been drinking all day.

So why don't you know, is it right that you should go out and abuse the regular staff

member working at 35 degrees heat to, he's just emptying the bins.

We've had situations like that.

It's a growing problem, it's not acceptable, but it is a measure of the risks and unfortunately

the future.

And then finally, I mean there's going to be a lot of talk about local government reorganisation,

but we have a particular special problem on the wayside.

Our contract ends on 15 January 2029, which is about six or seven months after the authority

bests. So we have essentially we'll be starting the procurement under this

authority and ending the procurement under the authority. So just a few words on the

next contract and I've put in brackets other service arrangements because that

is what we'll be looking at. We've been knocking this around it's just worth

doing a few minutes on this. We'll be knocking this around because we think

how best to approach this because what we don't want to do is we can't wait to use the

authority that comes into being within the shadow authority because that will be too

late because the procurement projects take a long time.

On the other hand are we starting to bind the new authority into arrangements and so

we knocked it around but should we extend the vehicle fleets coming to the end of its

life and so basically what we're going to do is we're going to start the procurement

project.

We're going to, because we know that it takes a while to bring us away service together,

so there's not going to be a day one where they're going to want all the services in

the same place as the same.

So we're going to start an options appraisal which will look at the best way to deliver

the service, so options will include obviously contracted, but that goes in house direct

and single and multiple authorities.

That will report towards the end of next year.

Then there will be a stage two, which is a specification,

which looks in detail about how the service is going to be delivered.

Then there's going to be a service transition stage

when you actually get the service in place leading up

probably in the last six months.

That's just to give you an understanding of that.

In addition to all the simple recycling changes,

we've also got this going on at the same time.

So, simple recycling.

I'm not going to go into these.

I've put these slides in the pack,

more for your own, to read in your own time.

But basically, simple recycling is a programme of proposals,

reforms, what you want to call it,

and it has many different aspects.

It all comes out of the Environment Act 2021.

So last year, there was the workplace collections.

so there's more workplace recycling taking place.

We've got packaging extended producer responsibility in November.

We've got the household collections,

which we'll concentrate on in just a moment.

We've got the plastic film regulations coming in in March 2027.

And quite a big one, deposit return schemes in October 27,

which is going to concentrate on drinks, containers,

but could have actually quite a detrimental...

I think Jeremy mentioned this,

quite a detrimental effect on our recycling and our recycling weight.

So it's not necessarily all good news.

But the one I want to concentrate tonight on,

in particular in terms of simply recycling,

is the changes to household collections,

which have to come in in March 2026.

So this is it. Local parties to provide all households

with general residual waste collection,

a recycling collection for core materials

and a weekly food recycling service.

So a weekly food recycling service

and a recycling service for every single property in the district.

So this is where the 5 % comes back in.

Because we are, in terms of collection scheme compliance,

our scheme's compliant with what the government is in terms of being

alternative weekly and how we split the materials up.

That's positive.

In terms of material compliance,

Are we collecting the whole range of materials? Yes, we can.

Kent have got some issues with the fibres,

but we can collect it if they give us the green light.

But scheme coverage, yes, was very, very good, at 95%,

but there's a 5 % properties that we don't currently reach.

And that is going to be the challenge for us by March.

Now, just to go back, why is it called Simpler Recycling?

There's a bit of spin, I don't think we call it moderately less complicated recycling,

but there is... it's the idea, and they've done behavioural studies,

why do people not recycle? They give one or two reasons,

but one of the reasons they give is it's so very complicated.

I lived here, I moved here, suddenly you're a different scheme,

and because it's so complicated I'm not going to recycle.

So the idea is to have standardised collections across the UK.

That's why it's called Simpler.

So the target is obviously 100%, but it's going to be difficult.

So the 5%, mainly communal properties, including flats and HMOs.

And to be honest about these, we know we're not collecting recycling from them.

We don't necessarily know the reasons why.

In some cases it's because they don't have the space,

in some cases because we've tried to recycle

and it's not been possible.

So the first thing is we have to study and work out exactly why,

and if recycling is possible at all in some cases.

Some HMOs, they already store their bins on the highway.

So, giving another selection of bins

is potentially not going to be particularly good.

So, we've got a lot of work to do on that, but...

there is certainly a wider role for planning and making sure that...

and we're also going to work with our housing teams and social housing as a start.

There won't be a single roll -out day because it's going to be a block -by -block analysis.

So we're not going to have to say the first Tuesday in April we're going to be rolling out the service to the 5%.

But also this is the critical thing is we need to protect the quality of the recycling that we currently collect.

So if you have five properties, the first four have high quality recycling,

you reach the fifth and it's just going to contaminate the load.

you've got to protect that recycling, regardless of what the legislation says.

And in my opinion this is the central weakness of this legislation.

It's very good but it gives an obligation to councils to collect and provide the recycling service

but it doesn't in my opinion give much of an obligation on the land floors to support it,

to provide the room, to provide the bins, to collect it.

and because the current remedy is if the bin is contaminated,

is you leave the bin.

We quite like legitimately to do that

because we can leave the bin, it's not as per the scheme.

But at what stage does that become a problem for you members?

A day later, a week later, an hour later,

when people come to you and say,

''Fierlo have missed the bins.''

So we're going to have to get some legal view

about what happens if you don't get to the 5%, what's

the role of the landlord, how do we do greater enforcement

if we have to, and it is going to be a block by block project.

And there is going to need to be use of some of that packaging

extended responsibility money to sort of kick start

provision of bins in certain areas.

So it's quite a difficult project,

but we had some success with the ultra narrow route.

We have whittled it down, so we think we are in a position to achieve it.

Moving on to the second bit of simple recycling,

packaging EPR and how it works.

Well, packaging EPR, packaging...

I don't know, the small p is quite annoying.

The way to look at it is a life cycle of your material.

If someone extracts it, someone manufactures it,

distributes it, goes to your doorstep,

and at that point the cost journey ends.

The cost of taking it away, collecting it,

processing it, is not covered by the original producer.

So what they've done is they've introduced a levy

to replicate that cost,

and then that levy goes to the authorities.

and our assessment for this year is 1 .3 million,

which is very good,

but unfortunately only 942 ,000 is guaranteed.

But this is to be used for paying for the recycling service

and expanding the recycling service as well.

They've introduced a scheme administrator called PAC -UK

And just to kind of deal directly with one of the scrutiny questions,

you had a question about how the impact on local businesses.

The answer is there will not be much impact on local businesses in this first tranche

because most of them will not meet the criteria.

The second scrutiny question was how this impacts on the circular economy.

Well, it's going to do many things.

It's going to add some money into the circular economy, which is good.

It's going to incentivise light -weighting, which is good,

although it may have an impact on our recycling rates,

but it's good and also may incentivise reuse schemes.

So that's Packaging EPR in its essence

and what it's going to deliver.

But it's worth looking at the future,

because we've got an emerging role, the new player on the pitch,

which is PAC -UK, who are going to be taking a regulatory and auditor role

and be looking at the performance of local authorities.

We've also got the Reducers have formed their own organisation

and they are being very challenging about how the money's going to be used

and particularly critical in some ways of local government.

So there's going to be increased scrutiny of how we use the money

and how our recycling performs.

So, question, I was asked about the packaging that's in our street litter.

The 45 to 55 tonnes every weekend doesn't feature in EPR.

There is meant to be a separate new scheme for street litter,

but yet we've not had any detail of that.

So that's like a big major piece of a gap, I think, in that.

Likewise, plastic bottles, they come under the deposit return

schemes in the future.

So the question is where the money is going to go.

942K, very good.

But actually, it could go down in years

because you're going to get the light weighting

and you're going to get that.

So it's not a guaranteed income by any stretch

of the imagination.

So this is my final slide.

You had a question, a good question about how you could

raise the 50 % target.

So, the current, sorry, how we could raise it to a 50%.

Current UK target is 50%, is 65 % by 2035.

And the current UK rate is 44.

It has at times flatlined and decreased.

And I think when recycling started,

I think everyone thought it was just going to glide ever upwards

without any particular effort.

And that's just not the case.

So we've done projects like the ultra -narrow route at about 400, 500 properties,

Garden Waste Re -route in February went very successfully to our capacity,

and we're going to be working on the final 5%, which would hopefully add into our recycling.

We've got promotions going on, we did a big, big, big project last year about the stickers on the bins,

We backed that up by reducing, discounting food.

I think we got about 18 % more food being collected on that.

So that's another way of doing it.

But we had a big year in terms of projects last year.

We did the old Tanao route, the sticker campaign and lots of other stuff.

At the end of the year we looked and said,

how much have we increased our rate? 0 .3%.

it was a little disappointing.

That's because you're getting this pressure from the lightweight.

It's already happening, the lightweighting of things.

So the question is, have we reached carbon -making point?

Have we reached peak recycling? Have we peaked at 46 %?

And the answer is possibly so.

But we did a composition, this is only last few weeks,

we've got the results for a composition where they sample bins

and they found out in the bins they've broken,

and there's about 20 -28 % food waste.

Sometimes food in its packaging.

I think Ian's done some sums,

but basically if we can get the food out of the general waste,

we could be up to about 60%.

So it's worth doing.

So I've added in these slides,

just a summary of scrutiny, I hope you've covered the questions,

but there are some brief notes for you members.

So I hope you found that informative and some questions.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:48:58

Before we go on to questions, I'd like to say thank you so much.

I never thought I would be saying this,

but that was a really interesting presentation about waste and recycling.

So thank you for that. Really detailed.

It was obvious that you spent a lot of time on that

and you answered all of our questions, so that was great.

I just wanted to make a point about the violence and the aggression.

I think the vast majority of us know that, you know, these waste disposal operatives are a critical service.

You know, when it came to the pandemic, they were, you know, a critical service.

And I know none of us would want our streets stinking of waste.

So I'm really, we're all very, very grateful for the night and it's really just

dismaying to hear that people are being treated badly.

And you can hear from what everyone has discussed today that we do actually really appreciate them.

So I don't know if everyone was preempting you saying that, but it was wonderful to hear that people were saying how much they appreciate the work that's been done.

In regards to LGR, we really appreciate the fact that you are considering the repercussions

of that, and again, it is a critical service, so we don't have the luxury of it not working

on day one.

So really appreciative that you're taking those steps to make sure that everything is

in line for when we do move over.

So thank you so much for that, and we open up for questions now.

OK, so Councillor Neita Jones and then Thomas.

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:50:33

So this is just a question about cardboard recycling.

It came from a resident I was discussing recently.

Obviously a lot more packaging, a lot more things come in cardboard.

I was sorting out mine before I came out this evening

for our waste recycling tomorrow.

And it far outweighs anything that goes in the main bin.

So the question from the resident was

Should cardboard be collected more frequently

and perhaps the main waste collected less frequently?

Because my main waste is still empty after a week.

Is there anything we can do about that?

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:51:18

You're quite right. Reflecting on the studies that Andrew mentioned there,

generally we know if you looked at an average household's waste,

65 % of it is recyclable.

So if you were to take all of that out, you should have a very small amount of general refuse.

With regards to the paper and cards, you're quite right.

Post -COVID, paper and cards shot through the roof because everyone was making home posters, weren't they?

And we've maintained that post -that.

It is a good question as to whether we swap the bin round in terms of saying, right, put the paper and card in the wheeled bin and maybe the cans and plastics in the container.

Again, maybe it wasn't worth every household.

Whether we go to the stage of introducing yet another wheel bin probably wouldn't be

a great idea.

However, at this very moment in time there is the opportunity to buy extra paper and

card boxes at a reduced rate.

So if you do need extra capacity you can have as many boxes as you like.

There's no limits on recyclables containment, only the household waste, the general refuse

is limited.

Recycles, you can have as many bins and boxes as you want.

And I'll say it in a moment, they're on a special price.

I wasn't aware of that so that's good.

There you go.

And where would residents apply to get those?

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:52:28

It's all online.

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:52:33

So you can purchase new boxes online, so the discounted price is already on the website.

Yes, that's right.

Thank you.

Councillor Thomas.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:52:41

Thank you, Chair.

Cllr Paul Thomas - 0:52:47

Just it sort of links back to Pacific and what Sean and Nosh actually.

When they do their collections,

as I said they have an excellent relationship with Viola.

And so those bags are picked up

as and when they should be.

One of the other things that they do

is they do separation of some of the,

and they'll pick out the aluminium cans for example.

So every month they have a couple of tonnes of cans

which they take to a recycling place

and they get the money back.

but we're not counting that as part of our recycling.

I just wonder whether, in terms of liaising with Litterpicky and Watcher on the Och

and with the other organisations that are doing this,

where we can actually just bump that weight up a little bit

with some of the information that they have

on the recycling of aluminium cancelling.

Because it is a couple of tonnes.

Ask Paul Robin, he has to fit them in the back of his car

to take them to the recycling place in Ashford.

So they do that at the moment, but we're not counting that.

That's like the black market of it, if you like, but that's it.

I mean, something we're concerned to look into.

Andrew Rush - 0:53:58

I mean, that's one of the opportunities, obviously,

when you join the waste, you get all the household waste sites as well,

can be included in your tonnage.

And we talked about the hive groups

that do the small electrical wee recycling as well,

they don't get it.

But I think it has to go through the Cape Kent process

and I think that's maybe the barrier to do that.

But we certainly will have something to look into.

We'll take a percent anywhere we can get it.

Thank you. Councillor Hills.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:54:35

Thank you, Chair.

I like it. I'm one of these things tonight.

Councillor Tony Hills - 0:54:41

Well done to you Andrew. It's working really well.

In my former life, when I was in my portfolio in Kent,

if I go around a transfer station and see what happens,

it really is quite heartening to see how good we are.

We're about the best in Kent.

Now, don't get too excited by that because some people in Kent are still using black bags

and they don't separate anything.

I mean it's almost primitive what goes on elsewhere, but here we are really good.

And I think a new transfer station would be a big help to get things going forward.

With more housing going in we need to expand the service.

But all I can say is people don't realise how little Kent puts into landfill.

It's only about 2%.

Yep, it's a very low percentage. The reason being anything which is proofed, flame retardant, can't be recycled.

So it's great on one hand, but it's not so good if you've got a mattress you can't actually recycle.

So that goes into landfill. And the only thing that's a bane of my life, what goes into landfill, is dead seals.

Yes, anything washed up on the beach, like mammals, whales, Kent has to stick into landfill.

We can't recycle those either.

Into food waste.

But hey, we are where we are.

So I used to count the number of seals I was getting on my beaches every year.

Because it was very expensive.

But I would say the progress you made here is great.

I do worry about food collections.

Obviously it's great we do such a good job.

But there is a problem with small households.

Because getting that focus, how important it is.

The other thing is a change of people's habits, how they buy food.

Not so much on the mask, it can be sensible.

But you get in urban areas, you get a fast food activity.

And it's not recycled, they leave it in the packaging, stick it in the bin.

So you're not actually producing food in a normal way, you know, cookie things.

So there's a few things there, a change of social habits, which should be measured.

But yeah, I think well done, Andrew and Co.

Great job. Thank you.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:56:59

Thank you. It looks like Councillor Spiekner wants to say something.

Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:57:06

Just coming back on your point about campaigns.

I was thinking the stickers we put on the bins don't put food in there.

That was pretty successful.

I think we increased food recycling by about 14 per cent, about 200 tonnes.

That's a good choice.

Yeah, I thought that it does show that just putting stickers on made a big difference.

That's what this exit search is. It's a good idea.

But I know in my environment I wouldn't say too much if you can't get the beach.

And I would think, but don't put food in these towns.

And if you're being really clever, I suppose, you can actually, 35 hours a day,

don't put food in that. Rewind them if they should.

Thank you for that.

Councillor E. Martin.

Thanks very much.

I've got two questions.

Cllr Elaine Martin - 0:58:04

One is the food recycling is great but does it cover every single street including the

old Crinaro routes?

This is my thing.

And also with the PPR, there was a thing on the loose today, someone saying the levee

is going to be done on the weight of the packaging and obviously plastic is lighter than glass

and that's kind of probably going to encourage more plastic use so I don't, it seems a bit

contradictory in one way. So I don't know if you've got any views on that.

Andrew Rush - 0:58:50

I'll start. Yes, there's the 5 % which were mentioned before and I think that we've got almost all of our streets

on a food service. I think there was some which, because of theirs, they were so narrow that we couldn't get out.

I think it was a small number, but we are pretty much nearly there

across the district in terms of food collections.

And we'll have to review those again

because we've got to be providing weekly food.

The extended producer responsibility

has gone through so many variations about how they're calculated

and we had different assessments.

That's why we assessed at 1 .3.

We only did it at 942 because that was the original assessment.

I think a lot of lobbying is coming in from the packaging industry as well.

So I think it's to very much watch your space

and extend the producer's responsibility.

Because what you're quite right, what you don't want to get

is diversion between one material to another material.

You want sensible induction in packaging overall.

And so, yeah, I agree with your point.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:00:09

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 1:00:11

Councillor Ayl -Martin. You want to speak, sorry, just wait.

Cllr Alan Martin - 1:00:15

Apologies, I was going to elaborate a little bit on that. So first question about the food

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 1:00:19

waste. Yes, there are a small number on the alternate rounds that have a single bloody

vehicle so we cannot separate food waste on it at this moment in time. Not to say we won't

in the future but under the current model we can't. Flats, so communal properties that

don't have food waste, we have a dedicated project doing exactly that. We received some

funding from DEFRA to implement that and we've got a team working on that, again with a view

to having that in place for the first of April next year. So we're trying to extend it so

far as practically, practicable is the next word. So yeah. The second point about the

the PPR levies, so it's all predicated on its ease of recyclability. So the cost of

the material is relative to how easy it is to recycle. So one of the higher costs is

Tetra Pack because it's very difficult to recycle, so they pay a premium rate. So it's

all predicated on weight because we're very crude, so all we generally do is move stuff

across way bridges so we always work in tonnes so it's very not very scientific

let's say. So producers and retailers will pay per weight of each type of

material they put on the marketplace and like I said the factor is according to

how difficult that material is so you're quite right it should influence those

manufacturers and retailers to use the more easy to recycle things which are

cheaper. So if that happens to be plastic for their products then fine because

actually that's easy enough in its own way to recycle. The hope is that

actually will limit the different types of plastic on the marketplace. At the

moment is about 15 -20 different types of plastic. If we consolidate this to maybe

five and everyone starts using that and they use recycled contents in those same

products then we start creating this circular economy. So there's demand for

the material that's built into the new versions of the same material and that's

circular economy essentially is. So that's where it's pushing, there's nothing like money

to change habits, isn't there? So that's essentially what it's doing. You pay more for a product

we can't recycle now, how about paying less for something that we can actually do it with?

So that's the premise behind it. What works in practise we'll soon see.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:02:38

Thank you. Councillor A. Martin.

Cllr Alan Martin - 1:02:44

I had a similar line of thinking to Paul in terms of...

it does feel like we're getting to a peak percentage recycled.

It struck me when I was reading the report that we just need to get comfortable with that.

The thing is you don't want to give up too early when there are some things you can do.

It would be quite difficult to actually work out at what point have we reached good enough.

So are there any ways that we can track the deposit schemes,

try and estimate reduction in volume and so on,

so that we can try and get an accurate like -for -like picture?

I still have a bit of a dilemma around, I mean personally,

around some of the packaging.

And Conor might be pleased to hear an update

on my chicken kiev dilemma.

My chicken kiev always used to come in a plastic container

and I'd have to take the film off and put that in the waste

and put the plastic container in the recycling.

It now comes in an odd cardboard container

which doesn't look like the kind of cardboard

that you should put into the cardboard bin

and it's had raw chicken in it.

So I'm basically not sure what bin I should be putting it in,

and as a consequence I'm putting it in my waste.

And I wonder whether this is a...

To your point actually, this is a knock -on from the EPR,

where it's forcing people to rethink their packaging,

they're going for lighter packaging,

they're trying to go for something which is technically theoretically recyclable,

but in practise actually is making the problem worse.

So that raises a number of questions for me.

One, what do I do with my chicken care packet?

But is there a way that we feed back into the EPR system

and or challenge how we're actually collecting the waste

to try and find alternative routes

for those bits of, rogue bits of packaging?

With regards to your chicken care packet,

I would suggest you just rinse it down,

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 1:04:52

put it in your paper for the time being

and cheque on the back.

If it does say recyclable, then put it in your paper box.

With regards to what we can do to influence the packaging people, it's something the

waste industry has been talking about for many years and I'm never quite sure what

skill or professional capability we have to do that, but because we're always at the

end of the pipeline, we're forever just loaded with whatever we're dumped on and

have no say in the matter, so we are trying to push our influence up the chain a little

bit.

But bear in mind, packages and retailers have got nothing they're worried about is waste,

isn't it?

they're looking for preservation, they're looking for protection, looking for marketing,

all that goes around the packaging. The last thing they're worried about is what happens

to it once it's been finished with. So we're trying to change that narrative and that's

what PVPR is all about, saying that for all those years you just ignored that and landed

the cost on local authorities. Come on guys, now it's your turn to shoulder some of that

cost. And actually moving the dial and putting the cost on what is more difficult to deal

with is now focusing their minds on that element of the journey that they never had to do.

So it should work in principle, but like I say, we as waste managers can't tell them

how they need to be making their packaging.

We can only sort of try and help inform the discussions at some level.

But we do, we try.

Thank you.

Councillor Thomas.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:06:08

Thank you, Chair.

Cllr Paul Thomas - 1:06:14

Just on the deposit return scheme, when I was growing up in the 60s, I used to make

some pocket money by taking Corona pop bottles back.

You'll remember this Tony, won't you?

And it's one of those things that our era,

we were used to recycling and taking those things back.

But picking up on Alan's point about education as well,

I think we've got a limited amount of time now, haven't we,

to educate people that this is coming.

So again, my question really is about what can we do as a council,

what can we do as local councillors

to actually promote this ahead of these coming out.

I was in Vienna recently and all the big supermarkets there

had the machines that would actually take...

Well, they took aluminium and plastic, certainly.

And so everybody engaged in it, that's what they did.

But when I asked the question, it took them a few years

for everybody to get their head round that again,

where they got used to separating that out and then taking that back.

So it's something else we're asking people to do at home,

that would then require them to go and do something else.

So again, my question is, how can we help as councillors

to promote that message, and when can we start, basically? Thank you.

Well, in a way, yeah.

Councillor Tony Hills - 1:07:41

But what I'll say is, I mean, quite right,

And Paul's got quite right about how he used to wash milk bottles out before he took them back and that sort of thing.

Remember water is getting more valuable.

And washing things out isn't really the way forward.

Because in years to come we'll have more water shortages than other problems.

So this is... and it's expensive, water's expensive.

And so we're asking people at their cost to wash out products before you put into recycling stuff.

We've got to look at that I think. It's a problem going forward.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:08:47

I didn't have this on, but I'm sure you can still hear me.

That's going to be introduced by Susan Priest, Chief Executive and Michelle Farrow, Head

of Corporate Policy.

Thank you.

FHDC Officer - 1:08:59

Well, thank you and evening, members.

Nice to see you all.

Thank you very much for the invitation to join you this evening.

I am actually going to hand over to the Leader to lead you into this item, and then Michelle

and I'll be here if there are any questions or points of detail.

And of course the portfolio holder, Councillor McConville is here as well.

Double act, triple act, however you do it, thank you.

Thanks very much Members.

Cllr Jim Martin - 1:09:27

This is going to be necessarily a lightning fly through local government reorganisation.

Anything you don't understand, just shout and we'll come back to it.

There's a tonne of stuff going on, so we'll just give you an update

and then maybe we can have a chat around it.

The first slide is what is devolution and what is local government reorganisation.

The first thing to realise is there is no devolution in Kep.

So, devolution is something that isn't happening.

It's on the distant horizon.

At the moment, all we are concerned about is local government reorganisation.

And that's what we're in the middle of.

So, in Kent we have a two -tier system.

We have Kent County Council,

Medway, which is also a unitary,

and 12 district councils.

And the idea is,

which I think everyone in the country would agree with,

is that local government needs some attention.

My own personal view is this is rather taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut,

but nevertheless there it is.

So we are going for a big reorganisation

That is essentially the rest of our discussion.

In the box on the side, combined strategic authority,

I'll go into that once we get there.

I don't want to bog you down with it at the moment.

Forget devolution until we start talking about devolution.

At the moment we're just talking about local government reorganisation.

So, 14 authorities in total, 12 districts and 2 unitaries.

And the idea is that we are going to reorganise these.

The government set this out in a manifesto leading on devolution.

but then the White Paper which came out on the 6th December

talked a lot more about local government reorganisation.

So if we could move on.

So there's just some guidance in terms of how we have to structure what we are proposing.

So the idea is that we will propose to the government,

The government will consider our proposal

and then they will tell us what they're thinking.

We don't have a choice.

There is no vote as such.

We are giving a proposal

and then the Secretary of State will tell us what we're going to do.

So these are the guidance that we've been given from central government.

So it has to be a single tier of local government.

We have to achieve efficiencies, improve capacity etc.

High quality and sustainable public services meet local needs,

informed by local views, must support devolution arrangements.

These are local government reorganisation criteria.

They must support devolution arrangements,

enable stronger community engagement and neighbourhood empowerment.

That's a moot point with me.

I'm not sure whether this whole process is going to do that,

but we'll have to wait and see.

So we've been given a... Sorry, we've been given...

Well done, Michelle. We've been given a timeline.

Now, you will recall last year we were all very disappointed in Kent

that we weren't on the devolution priority programme,

and you can see that in the middle.

That's the fast track, if you like.

Well, the even faster track is for old Surrey.

I'm not quite sure why the world picked on Surrey to go first,

but they're the ones that are being forced through the eye of a needle.

Those of you that may have contacts in others of the home counties,

it's a rough old ride.

They are really finding it tough going.

The devolution priority programme, that is Sussex, for example,

Sussex are going through the priority programme, as is Essex,

which is why we all thought it was unusual that we didn't get selected,

because all of our neighbours are doing it.

So our timeline is on the extreme right -hand side,

which is all other two -tier areas. That includes Ken.

So we have to submit our final proposal and our chief executive,

whose brow is furrowed most days at the moment,

is very focused on this date in trying to get things sorted out

because we have to submit a document which essentially is the future of Kent

for the next 50 years. So it is a major piece of work.

So the proposals will be submitted, then the Secretary of State will consider them

and then the Secretary of State will decide what they want to do

and they will then send their proposals out for consultation.

So there won't be our proposals, there'll be the Secretary of State's proposals.

And we think...

Susan may go into the minutiae of this a little more,

but we think it will be on a the Minister is minded basis.

So effectively, the decision is made, what do you think?

It won't be a choice, you can vote for this or you can vote for that.

The consultation will be on a, the Minister is minded too.

And he'll be able to comment and say,

this is a good idea, that's a bad idea, I like this, I don't like that etc.

So then in July, roughly somewhere in the summer,

we hope that that date moves a bit further,

there will be a decision announcement.

So that's when we will know.

Now, what will we know when we get to that date?

So I'll just skip over this one. I'll go to the maps.

That's all right. So this is what we will know.

These are euphemistically what we call the long list of proposals.

Now, there was a timer, you know,

Well, this list was a lot shorter and it seems to have grown and grown.

It's like keeping rabbits, you know, every time you turn around.

There's another option for you.

Rather than bore you with all of these, I'll just cut to the chase if that's OK.

So if we could go to the next map.

So that is... OK.

So KPMG have been appointed to do the number crunch for us

and they considered these seven original proposals on the last time.

And they said, look, we can't do business cases on all of these, we'll do two.

That's the way they tendered. You've got to tell us which two you want the detailed business case on

and that's what you will work up.

So that's what we did.

We all had a meeting, three hours it took,

and we discussed all of the options.

These were the two that were selected for KPMG

to work up a detailed business case on.

Now, it's 3A, first of all, that's the three unitary model.

Now, the three unitary model is based on what we call

the old Kent clusters.

So we operate in the East Kent cluster.

We have meetings regularly with the other East Kent leaders.

And there it is, Ashford, Canterbury, Dover, Thanet and ourselves.

We traditionally have been called East Kent.

West Kent has traditionally been called

you know, the Tunbridge Wells, the Tunbridge and Malin mates and Sevenoaks,

leaving Medway Swale, Dartford and Grapesham.

They're out, they're North Kent.

So that was kind of the first option.

And there's a lot of other things that are arranged around that three unitary model.

A lot of the health geography, fire and rescue.

There's all sorts of things that are based around these old clusters.

However, there was also support for what was 4B,

which is colloquially known as the banana.

And 4B, as you can see, puts us in with Ashford and Swale.

I can't say I'm a big fan of 4B.

Culturally, historically, geographically, nothing against the people of Swale.

Absolutely no, Faveseham, I love it, it's a terrific place.

But all of our economics works east to west.

Our biggest commercial partner is Ashford,

our second biggest commercial partner is Dover.

In terms of travel to work, it's exactly the same.

Ashford, Dover and then London. They're our travel to work partners.

When it comes to travel for education,

it's Ashford, Canterbury and Dover.

So we are...

There's next to nothing that ever comes up about Swale.

It would be extraordinary if it was.

All of our main transportation routes are east to west.

So that's what I kind of can't...

That's just me personally.

So if we can move on then.

So that's a more detailed map of our 3A and 4B.

Then we went on.

and KCC presented this as their preferred option.

Now this is a single unitary

and a single unitary with three neighbourhood authorities

or three area authorities

and it doesn't match any of the government's criteria.

So it's very, very, very, very difficult to see how the Secretary of State

could remotely agree this, because it would be completely at odds

with every other agreement he's going to have to make in the country,

and it fails on the criteria.

I'm personally quite cynical about this proposal and why it's been put forward.

But there you have it, a single unitary.

There are, just to talk about this,

the difficulty at the start of local government reorganisation is,

and this is a personal view, it is an erosion of local democracy.

We will end up with an awful lot less of councillors.

there will be many, many fewer councillors.

Just on a smaller point, but an important point, I think,

I think it is the end of the independent councillor,

because we will have such large divisions

that it will be almost impossible for an independent and their partner

to canvas such a large area, leaflet, etc.

etc.

So, coming from that point of view,

you can see that option 1A

is a total erosion of local democracy.

I can't even talk any further about it. I'm finished with that.

Then, so KCC

aren't using KPMG to work up this model.

they're gonna do it themselves,

and they're gonna present it to the Secretary of State.

But it still will be an option, it's still an option.

Then we go to 4D, which is the Medway option.

This was proposed by Vince Maple at Medway promoting it.

Now, this is an arrangement

which is a four unitary solution,

and it seeks to address a real problem

in terms of trying to balance the population numbers

into four equal measures.

So you can see the box on the side there.

It's still very, very difficult because there's a lot of people

that live in the Medway towns, Dartford, Grosham, very, very dense.

and of course down at our end we've got a very low population in East Kent generally,

but on the Marsh for example we've got a very low population.

So there's a huge balance in terms of geographical area and numbers.

Now, those of you who know Vince know he's a lovely guy,

and this is a valiant effort.

And if you were starting again, you'd end up with a map not dissimilar to this.

The problem is, it creates new boundaries in existing areas, including ours.

So on this map, we are, you know, Foulkston and Hire District Council,

Foulkston would be in East Kent and Hire would be in Mid Kent.

So the dividing line between the two unitaries would be at the Fountain pub.

Councillor Jones knows very well.

So...

LAUGHTER

Don't deny it.

So...

LAUGHTER

So that is something that we will have to consider.

We're not the only ones.

You can see from the map, Tunbridge Wells is divided in two.

Dartford is divided in two, Gravesham is divided in two,

and part of Medway, Swale is divided in two.

So, bear in mind the timetable that we've got left to make these decisions.

This is just starting a whole other set of pairs running in my mind.

It may be just my intellectual capacity,

but I really struggle to get round the detail that's contained within this.

I'm full of praise for Vince for having a shot at this,

but there's just so many, many discussions to have around people.

We've just been listening to the waste people.

The complications around dividing up your waste collection services

between...

It would just be so, so difficult,

but nevertheless, there it is, that's D4.

And then we go on to the last one,

which is option 5A.

This has been, oh sorry, just to say on 4D,

that is being paid for by Medway.

They're paying KPMG to work up the business case on that.

So we're not paying for that, we're just paying our share of the first two, 3A and 4B.

4D is being paid, KCC are doing their own, 4D is being paid for by Medway

and then we come on to 5A which is at Dartford and Grapham.

Dartford and Grapham were unhappy with 4D and principally I suspect because they're divided in half

So they've come up with an alternative.

5A, I don't want to be unkind, but 5A is more about the politics of North Kent.

And they've kind of left us alone.

I quite like 5A. I don't think 5A is going to fly.

I don't think it's going to work.

I think it's extra, but we're with our two preferred partners,

Ashford and Dover.

So from that point of view,

bizarre, bizarre.

In this long meeting, I start to chirp up about 5a

and what a good idea it was, and then I got a very rude text

from our chief executive saying,

what on earth are you talking about?

But, you know, I had to read it as I said.

So that's where we are.

Now, listen, I've been a little bit flippant about it.

This is really serious stuff.

Sadly, the four members of the overview and scrutiny panel

are going to get this again.

We're going to talk about it tomorrow night.

We are going to talk about it.

We're going to have a briefing.

So we are going to talk it to death.

All I would say is try and get under the skin of this

because it's really, really important.

So we just go on to the next slide.

So the 28th of November, the final proposals go in,

consultation launched and then the decision

before the summer recess, we think they'll probably

run it up to the wire.

So it's likely to be July 26th before we know

who were partnered with, as it were.

Then there will be, within a year, on May 6th,

which you undoubtedly will recall was our election day,

it will now be the election day for the shadow unitaries.

Sorry, they will be the uni -trees,

but their first year they will be in the shadows,

they will be the shadow authority.

Now, there isn't a huge amount of detail around that,

but the way that I've been trying to think about it

is that they will then be responsible for policy,

and we will be responsible for doing the business.

We will be collecting the bins, we will be cleaning the streets,

we will be doing everything, housing people.

We will continue to do what we do for that,

well, until the 1st of April, when the vesting day occurs,

and then the shadow authority takes over

and it will then be their responsibility to do all of the implementation.

So during that year, we can't make policy,

we can't bind the future authority, as it were,

but our responsibility will be still around all of our casework

and all of the things that we do.

There are a tonne of issues that you can instantly think around that year

in terms of what the heck are all of our staff going to be doing

in terms of... because they're going to be pushed and pulled

in at least two directions, if not three.

So, we'll kind of get to that when we get there.

At the moment, the big, big issue is everything on the lead -up

to the 28th of November.

That's really where I'm looking for a big steer

from all of the councillors, because I'm not going to do anything on this

until I know what everybody thinks.

I've got my own views.

For me it's been easier to knock things out, as it were, to limit things down.

But there is a set of issues here to consider.

As I said earlier on, the last time we had local government reorganisation

was 50 years ago. So what we're doing now is probably going to have a similar time span.

So, Susan, would you like to carry on?

I'll alarm that, I'll be right back.

Done him, done him. Okay, so the last bit really is just to say that

clearly we've been trying to communicate and engage through the process,

really since the White Paper came out in December.

And so I've been trying to send emails to counsellors and to staff

and to...

and you very kindly have been out to groups to talk about LGR,

whether that's been the business grouping.

And so that is all going to carry on.

Probably different phases and different stages in terms of,

you know, we're in now the business case preparatory stage.

But then of course there'll be communication about the Minister's announcement

and what we're going to consult on, and there'll be a different bit of communication and engagement.

And then of course once the decision comes, there'll be a different form of communication and engagement.

So the role really that members play is really in that engagement and communication.

Dr Susan Priest - 1:32:41

That's a really, really helpful connexion, isn't it, with our town and parish councils.

We have agreed to go to all of their meetings.

Yes, most of them.

You mentioned all of them to, well sorry,

the joint town and parish council meetings.

We have agreed a forward schedule

and we will have a slot on LGR and DEVO

at each of the joint parish and council meetings.

And then as invitations and as the willingness

of Jim, Connor to go to town and parish meetings,

then there will be a slot there as well.

So again, if you have opportunity to facilitate that,

Please do send that through. Michelle is trying to help me coordinate things from that side of house.

There will be a statutory consultation on the preferred proposals.

If we have four or five business cases before you by November,

I can't imagine that that's going to go down to one in one fell swoop.

But equally, I think it's really unlikely that the government will ask to consult the

public on multiple models.

So I think they'll probably come down to two if they can.

But of course, I know on the slide we put a window of January through to May.

I don't think we will have anything from government probably until end of February about the different

models.

I think just the volume of work across the country means that they will take the time they need,

but they will give us at least eight weeks, I think, for the statutory consultation,

which by law they need to make sure they do.

And that will take us, as we saw in the earlier slide, to the post the local May elections 26

for that consultation period to close.

And then we expect a decision made by government before the summer recess,

which we are thinking is July next year,

so we think that should all be a decision made formally by that stage,

and then we will accelerate our more detailed planning

so we know who we're partnering with.

At the moment, we're doing quite a lot of preparatory work internally

in terms of making sure our data sets are okay

and our service taxonomy is known and understood and current,

making sure our staff all have their up -to -date JDs, performance reviews, etc.

So very much getting our house in order in terms of our own information ready for them,

what will come next year, which will be the more detailed transition plan, implementation planning.

So a whole host of communication engagement, whether it's upwards and outwards

or whether it's internally to staff and then in due course with our merging partners

to create the new organisations.

And the survey, there's been a post -survey already,

and then there's another survey that's ongoing.

Is there anything else, Michelle, you want to say about COMS,

or engagement?

No, I don't think so.

We've got to look forward to going to next.

We've got another slide.

Do you want to speak?

Yeah.

So as we've been saying, here we are,

30 % of overviews, green presentation.

Then we will work through the protests in terms of what we'll be talking about at the

council meeting tomorrow night.

Cllr Jim Martin - 1:36:11

Then there will be an all member briefing and we just really need to get a feel for

what every single member feels about it.

All of this will then contribute to our part of the overall submission.

Again, Susan is doing a great deal of work with government agencies

in terms of the shape and format of that submission.

Just to clarify something that people had to explain to me three or four times

was that we have employed KPMG to do the business case on two.

That is what they tendered for, that's what they're going to do.

But we will be asked to decide on one,

so that there will be one proposal from Kent, as it were.

However, there will be other proposals that will come from Kent.

So effectively, we will be spoilt for choice,

in so much as we will have all of those options that I talked about.

And the Minister will ultimately have to decide.

And to be fair, he doesn't have to take any notes of any of them.

He can set his own boundaries.

So it is going to be something of a confusing time around choosing which one we do,

the number of submissions that will be made and then the selection by the Secretary of State.

The bit that I'm focused on at the moment, really,

is that whichever one we plumb for,

then it's a decision of this council.

That's really the key for me.

There's so many hurdles in front.

Who knows where it's going to go,

but I need to know before I sign that document

that I know what this council, what all of the individual members think and feel

and so sadly I am going to be asking that question a lot.

So, if that's OK.

Is that all right? Have I missed anything, Michelle?

You're all right?

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:39:01

I just wanted to cheque if Councillor McConville wanted to add anything as it's your unit.

No.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:39:58

Well, Turkey's voting for Christmas, isn't it? That's what's happening, isn't it? So

Thank you very much.

I can see from this that there have been a considerable number of meetings that you've

attended to be able to collate all of this information and there'll be many more meetings

to come for us as well.

One thing that I note, we talk a lot about us as councillors, we talk about the parishes

and we talk about, but we don't seem to be talking much about the residents.

I know that even as councillors we're not going to have the final say, but I think we

really need to be pushing this out to residents more.

So, so far we've had the survey to ask people even if they've heard of it.

And I know that we have another survey, and I just want to cheque, is that on our website?

Is that on the homepage?

It is.

Right, that's great.

To ask people what sorts of things they would want from a unitary authority, because obviously

at the moment we don't have the detail to give them but I think we do need to

talk about residents more in this because we are their representatives but

they need to have as much of a say as possible. Okay so we'll move to questions

now. Councillor Hills.

Councillor Tony Hills - 1:41:21

Thank you, Cher. Yeah, it's not very good for saying this but I think he's done a marvellous job so far.

our administration, I hear other parts of Kent are not even discussing it.

That is really scary.

I think you've always been open about this, Jim, and that's the way to be.

It's the only way to be.

And it's costing a fortune, I would think, to get this along the road,

which we haven't budgeted for.

And we're not in the fast track, so we're not getting help.

And that's a big enough problem in itself.

To me personally, 3A is the only alternative.

I won't say that to you, I think, Jim,

Because basically, regional guidelines from Matt Marne, the Secretary of State,

was it's like a half a million population level, to get it viable.

And on the three unitaries you've got six, nearly 7 ,000, nearly 6 ,000, nearly 7 ,000 again,

northwest, east. To me that's a lot more sensible.

What I'd like to know, you know, you won't be able to answer this, but what I'd like to know is

Have you spoken to our others in the cluster?

Are they of the same mind?

Because I think if we can go forward with a cluster approach,

it will add a lot of weight to things.

And all I want to say is in my parishes, I've got four,

we discuss this regularly, I report on it regularly,

and I send out all the information that comes from the administration

to my parishes. I think they're very well versed on this.

So well done you.

Thanks very much, Councillor Hills and thank you, Chair.

I think your comments were very, very well made.

Sadly, this kind of hasn't landed with the public particularly well yet.

And I've only been able to talk this over with other politicos.

So I apologise for that, Chair. You are right, I am wrong.

this should really all be about the residents

and not about the members.

But in all, so it's better that I answer this

because there's a political answer to this,

Councillor Hills.

So the West Kent group that you can see up there on the map,

Tunbridge Wells, Sevenoaks, Tunbridge and Malley,

they are very very solid group, they will not be shifted.

They are a solid group.

Now the majority of their land is in an area

of outstanding natural beauty, but they still have

the housing delivery requirements,

not dissimilar to ourselves.

So whereas we are caught on one side by flooding

and on the other side by the area of outstanding

in that review which leaves us a corridor effectively to develop it.

They have got not dissimilar problems.

So they really need Maidstone.

And that is why Maidstone is in that group.

And Maidstone are sticking in that group.

So every arrangement that could be dreamed up

that didn't have those four districts together was blocked.

It was argued vociferously.

So this is why it's largely been rearranging North Kent and East Kent.

Now, it's very, very true.

You could say that map represents North Kent, Rich Kent and Poor Kent.

And we are very much Poor Kent.

The government have introduced their fair funding formula,

which will seek to address that imbalance.

Cllr Jim Martin - 1:45:13

But because we will be losing four of our richest districts

that contribute to the KCC budget,

we have somehow got to find a balancing act for that.

Now the government are looking to the fair funding formula to do that

and we'll have to see how that works out.

I would love to say that there has been no gerrymandering in these maps at all,

but I think I'd be naive if I said that.

Gratium and Dartford are very, very strong partners.

Although one is conservative and one is Labour, they have coexisted together for so many years.

They are a very, very strong partnership and they would like to remain as a very strong partnership.

So there's lots of historic stuff that's feeding into this whole process,

which is kind of strange, unless you start to understand things.

It is costing a fortune, it is going to cost a lot more money.

We had an ignition day at KPMG's offices, which all the Kent leaders attended,

and we had a presentation from the chief executive of Bournemouth Christ Church and Paul,

who said that it cost them £40 million. That was the cost.

Now, you know, Alan's not here, but he's been building up a bit of a reserve,

But we've only got a tiny fraction.

If it's going to cost that sort of money,

we are going to need central government help.

So we're looking into something of a black hole

in terms of the finance for this.

But we'll just have to see where we go.

At the moment, everyone in Kent, you're absolutely right,

everyone in Kent is doing...

We've all responded very positively

and we're all doing the government's bidding, we're playing ball.

There are other counties, I'm sure you know, where the storey is very different.

We were very disappointed that we weren't on the fast track

because that would have had it all resolved in once.

The chit -chat amongst the leaders is that we may see devolution in 2028, maybe.

Or that would be the earliest point that we could see devolution.

I will shut up now, I know you didn't ask any of this, but I will shut up.

But without devolution this doesn't work, it really doesn't work.

We will be three or four unitaries and there will be a combined strategic authority.

but we need a mayor with a strategic mayoral authority to tie all of this together.

And really the quicker that we get out in place, the better for Council.

So sorry for the length of the answer.

That's fine. Yes, Councillor.

Thank you.

Councillor Tony Hills - 1:48:52

Jim, I've got a lot of sympathy with you, I really have.

This is the biggest nightmare.

I'm old enough to remember 50 years ago

And the boroughs didn't like it then either.

But this is going to be terrible because we've got 10 ,000 staff in Kent

who are very worried people.

How are they going to be allocated? What are they going to do? Who's responsible for what?

But to me, our way forward is to make sure our five local districts are a team together.

If we can swing that, then I can have a very strong argument in our case.

Yes, they could all go to custard, but I assume our elections in 27 will be postponed for a year

until the vesting day comes in on 28, and so it'll be elected in shadow,

but it'll be in fact, it'll be past La Vista, folks and I, and that's the way it's going to turn out.

But it's the sheer amount of work that's going to have to be done with no money.

It's... well, what can I say? It is a sub -motion car crash.

It's a rush between this and war with Russia.

So, you know, not a very happy situation.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:50:03

Okay, I think I'm planning in my head to finish by eight.

So... yes.

So we're going to take some questions and I'm sure that they're going to be quick questions

and we're going to have some quick answers as well so that we can finish by eight because

we know that this is not the first nor the last time that we're going to talk about this

so we can ask as many questions as we want but there'll be another time and another time

and another time when we'll have many many opportunities to ask thousands of questions.

So I'll let that statement sit there.

Councillor A Martin.

I'm a bit scared to ask any questions now.

Cllr Alan Martin - 1:50:55

So I agree with everything that's been said up until now so I won't go into that.

I guess the two main questions I'm left with, just to clarify, in everything that has been

spoken about, it seems to be completely silent on the role of parish and town councils and

I just wanted to cheque that and it worries the life out of me because I see us creating

a vacuum which I don't know many town or parish councils who have the capability of filling

that vacuum and you know there's a few good town councils but there's some bad ones.

Parish councils, and there's some really good parish councils that I sit on one and I attend many other meetings,

but parish councils tend to kind of appropriately know their place,

and they look after their local residents and they stand up for stuff

and they do their highways improvement plans, but they don't get too carried away.

Town councils scare me and I think there isn't the right governance and scrutiny on town councils.

There's a load of petty arguments and unprofessional behaviour that happens in town councils.

And it scares me that this district's going to disappear and move upwards.

And I'm very unhappy with what it's going to leave behind.

I don't see anyone who has any kind of authority or jurisdiction to manage that.

I don't know if you can comment.

Okay, Jim.

Can I comment on that afterwards?

Go ahead.

Cllr Jim Martin - 1:52:35

So, in the white paper there was this really quite bizarre sentence.

It said, the government wants to rewire its relationship with town and parish councils.

We all took that as a positive.

Many other districts did.

Maidstone started perishing.

Loads of parishes had been created just on the strength of that sentence.

Then Jim McMahon clarified.

He saw no role for town and parish councils in this.

So as far as town and parish councils are concerned, there is no change.

they are not involved in this at all, it shouldn't touch them.

Now what will happen, or what he went on to say,

was that he is expecting that the councillors elected to the unitary authorities

will form area committees or neighbourhood committees.

And town and parish councillors will be able to serve on these area committees.

Now, this is a new thing.

We've never had this before, so nobody knows quite how that's going to run.

But that's it.

Town and parish councils, there is no impact as far as we know.

they're not going to be involved in the process.

But once the unitaries are in place,

there will be area or neighbourhood committees

and Town and Parish Council councillors

will be co -opted onto those committees

in order to carry the thoughts of the Town or Parish Council.

So that's as good as I can tell you.

Can I supplement your question to that?

Cllr Alan Martin - 1:54:36

So those committees, will they in any way override decision making

of the Town and Parish Councils? They're just hoovering up people's thoughts.

The Town and Parish Councils have very limited authority,

Cllr Jim Martin - 1:54:51

very limited ability to make... unless they own the asset themselves,

etc.

So all authority, all decision -making will be at the unitary,

that's where the decision will be made,

and it will be communicated or implemented, if you like,

through the area or neighbourhood committee.

And this will then be, through that committee,

communicated with the Town and Parish Council.

So, you know, no one quite knows how this is going to work,

because it's a new idea.

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:55:34

Okay, and that's a really good point to end on,

that all of what we're saying is hearsay for now,

because nobody knows how it's going to work.

So, in fact, we know that nothing is static in life, things do change.

and although, as I said before, it is Turkey's voting Christmas,

we don't know if this would be a really good positive change

once it actually goes through.

And from my understanding, and obviously you've corrected us now,

but the initial paperwork, it did sound like town councils,

and that's why CALC has been doing all sorts of work

with town and parish councils,

were going to take on some assets and take on some responsibilities.

but again, we don't know what's going to happen in the long run.

Unless there are any other questions?

Wonderful. We'll move on.

So, last item,

and we're just going to propose and second and

show of hands vote on this. I'm just going to... Oh, somebody switched off the lights.

Oh, right, okay. Time to go home.

Right, okay, so this is urgent business,

changing membership to the task and finish group

delivery of Otter Paul Park.

Following the changes to the executives and membership

in May 2025, Councillor Butcher is no longer a member

of the overview and scrutiny committee,

therefore the overview and scrutiny are tasked to note

that Councillor Holgate will be appointed to the task

and finish group as a green group's replacement.

Can I have a proposer please?

Councillor Thomas, seconder.

Councillor E. Martin and a vote of show of hands, please.

Okay, thank you so much and that's the end of our meeting.

Thank you.

We welcome your comments

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Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday 30 September 2025, 6:00pm - Folkestone & Hythe webcasting

Overview and Scrutiny CommitteeTuesday, 30th September 2025 at 6:00pm

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Twitter

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Speakers

Feedback

Votes

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:00:11

Mr Jake Hamilton - 0:01:04

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:01:09

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:01:41

Cllr Paul Thomas - 0:01:41

Councillor Tony Hills - 0:01:43

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:01:44

Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:02:33

Cllr John Wing - 0:25:56

Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:26:20

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:26:23

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:26:43

Andrew Rush - 0:27:00

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:48:58

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:50:33

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:51:18

Cllr Anita Jones - 0:52:28

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 0:52:33

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:52:41

Cllr Paul Thomas - 0:52:47

Andrew Rush - 0:53:58

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:54:35

Councillor Tony Hills - 0:54:41

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 0:56:59

Cllr Jeremy Speakman - 0:57:06

Cllr Elaine Martin - 0:58:04

Andrew Rush - 0:58:50

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:00:09

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 1:00:11

Cllr Alan Martin - 1:00:15

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 1:00:19

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:02:38

Cllr Alan Martin - 1:02:44

Folkestone & Hythe Officer - 1:04:52

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:06:08

Cllr Paul Thomas - 1:06:14

Councillor Tony Hills - 1:07:41

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:08:47

FHDC Officer - 1:08:59

Cllr Jim Martin - 1:09:27

Dr Susan Priest - 1:32:41

Cllr Jim Martin - 1:36:11

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:39:01

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:39:58

Councillor Tony Hills - 1:41:21

Cllr Jim Martin - 1:45:13

Councillor Tony Hills - 1:48:52

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:50:03

Cllr Alan Martin - 1:50:55

Cllr Jim Martin - 1:52:35

Cllr Alan Martin - 1:54:36

Cllr Jim Martin - 1:54:51

Cllr Abena Akuffo-Kelly - 1:55:34

Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Tuesday, 30th September 2025 at 6:00pm