Issue - meetings

The Scrutiny and Overview Committee received a developing draft of the Re-set and Recovery Plan outlining the key areas the Council would prioritise during the period 2021-23 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Plan focused on practical recovery and sought to identify a small number of critical activities or changes to ways of working, that might help South Cambridgeshire communities and businesses recover.

The Plan was intended to complement the activities and priorities contained in the Business Plan 2021-22 and the Medium-Term Financial Strategy. Therefore, it set out deliberately not to duplicate activities already being undertaken by virtue of those documents or to aspire simply to business as usual. 

Councillor Dr. Claire Daunton asked Councillor Bridget Smith (Leader of the Council) about the allocation of resources and the anticipated methods of delivering the Plan. In response the Leader said that, while South Cambridgeshire District Council was well placed to deal itself with elements of the Plan, there existed opportunities to develop joint-working initiatives with partner organisations and to preserve and enhance the invaluable support from volunteer groups demonstrated during the pandemic.

Highlighting the fact that the Plan was still at a very early stage, the Leader assured Councillor Steve Hunt that future work on it would include the prioritisation of actions and consideration of its relationship with the South Cambridgeshire Local Plan.

Councillor Nigel Cathcart observed how the pandemic had forced people to change their working practices and means of seeking leisure. He said that, in many cases, this had had a profound impact on people’s confidence and wellbeing. The Leader acknowledged this point but added that the Plan must draw on the positives arising during the previous 15 months as well as guiding a return to pre-pandemic commercial, cultural, and educational ways of life. The Council would do all in its power, for example, to influence the delivery of an appropriate mix of housing tenures.

Picking up on cultural strategy, Councillor Dr. Martin Cahn observed that South Cambridgeshire District Council had backed away from the direct provision of arts, sport, and leisure provision. While she recognised the challenge, the Leader assured Councillor Cahn that it was not impossible to embed new services. She emphasised that the Plan was still at a very early stage of development.

Councillor Anna Bradnam welcomed the Plan’s focus on young people. Councillor Dr, Martin Cahn highlighted a specific case where input was needed: the pandemic had necessitated an increased emphasis on remote and distance learning and, if such teaching methods became commonplace in  the future, a way would be needed of replicating some of the non-study aspects of, say, a university.

In response to a comment from Councillor Judith Rippeth, the Leader assured the Committee that the final Re-set and Recovery Plan would address, as one of its main themes, the question of mental health that had been a significant feature during the pandemic.

Summing up, the Chair identified the following subject areas as key, namely

·       identification of short term and longer-term objectives  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6