Excellent, so just to let you all know that we're recording the meeting, so if you're not happy with that, then you'll need to leave. Okay, you should have a prompt on your screen that tells you that. So Tumi's put a really great reminder just to say welcome to everybody and to put your mics on mute until you're called to speak. So that's really good. Thank you. And it's really great to see you all here. We're very pleased that you can attend tonight. So this is kind of a bit of a relaunch of the parish, our engagement with parishes and we do welcome any feedback from you. So please do feedback either to myself or Bev after and or to Tumi, that would be great. Thank you. I'm going to start off just by introducing the officers that are here today. So I'm going to start off with councillor to me. So do you want to introduce yourself please to me. Good evening everyone. For those who don't know to me Hawkins I'm the lead cabinet member for planning policy and delivery at South Cambridge district council. And I'm the world member for code code word. Thank you. And counselor Katie. So I'm councillor Katie Thornborough. I'm the executive council for planning and infrastructure at Cambridge city council. And but I'm working closely with the shared planning service for the emerging local plan. Thank you. Hi, thank you. Adrian. Good evening all I'm Adrian I'm self cams. I say new tree officer I've been in post for five months now. Thank you Adrian. John. Good evening. I'm glad I'm not mute for a change. I'm John Shuttwood. I'm the principal planning enforcement officer. At the growth came this year planning service and I'll be talking to you later on about the changes that are coming up with planning enforcement or something else. Thank you. And Beverly. Hi, everyone. My name is Beth Charles. I'm a to Heather. And I'm the person you need to contact with any queries or questions or so I can help you with what you need. Thank you. So I'm Heather Jones and I'm the interim assistant director in Greater Cambridge shared planning. So you will remember, we've had parish forums before and then very recently we did a survey which Bev is going to share on the screen the results of it now. I thought it was worth just spending a few minutes going through that survey. Our intention will be to repeat it again in 12 months time so you will have the opportunity to feed back again, and whether you feel that that you're getting the best benefit out of these sessions. So, Bev, would you like to share the screen please. Thank you. So we send the survey out on the 8th of June, and we had a, sorry, a deadline of the 8th of June and we had, we sent out 102 and we had 19 parishes that returned a response to that. Next slide please. We asked if you would like us to combine these meetings because they were separate and obviously that meant that effectively there was three of these every quarter, which was quite resource hungry. So we asked if there was an opportunity to combine them and I think that the majority of people were happy with that. Next, next slide please. So we asked whether you would prefer them in the morning or afternoon and the majority preferred them in the afternoon, hence this timing. Next one please. So we did ask about whether we should hold them virtually or in person and I think that the majority again, like the fact that virtual because lots of people can attend. You can do it in your day. However, I think that we may well do a face to face at some point. So, but, but I think that the main main sessions will be held like this virtually and we will record them and the recordings will be available. So if you can't make them and obviously you can just revisit the recording at any point. So we asked if you wanted themes because we felt that we needed to have some structure to it. And I think there was a general consensus and a number of themes are agenda items we're identified, such as end of year update community engagement, etc. So what we did was we selected two things for this one and this was done by by councillor to me and councillor Katie, and we've, you were using trees and the application process for trees and also compliance. So, those are the two for this session. Thank you. I'm not taking questions because obviously it can be difficult to have questions up front during the meeting and after as well because of resource time, etc. So what we've decided is in in after looking at your responses is that we would have questions at the meeting and then we will prepare responses if we need to prepare a fuller response then we will come back to you after this one.  And I think, again, planning enforcement or compliance as they're now known as was one of your top topics and trees so hence the start so we will talk about highways as well so talking to county about maybe getting highways to come along, and it is your choice what the next session is around so if you've got any particular services or any particular topics that you want us to take forward then we'll do that for you. Next slide please. We did put a little question in there about the parish newsletter although we don't control that that is controlled by our central comms team. And this has been fed back to them so they are able to make changes if if they feel it was necessary but overall really positive response on that. And then we asked, was there anything else that we could do to improve these events moving forward. And there's a couple of points there that we will obviously take into account. Thanks. So we did some recommendations which was to this is just a trial so we can change this again we will redo the survey, probably around about next June, July time again to coincide with survey for this year and we'll take on board your feedback so we've agreed to combine parishes together to hold three times a year virtually in the afternoon and record for circulation, and then questions as we said on the day and we're going to ask themes so you can select themes for the next one, and then allow some time for discussion as well. So can we move on to think that's it. Thank you, Bev. So we have got questions at the end. We've got a 25 minute session so hopefully that will allow enough time for everybody to pose any questions, but hopefully that was clear. Bev will circulate that to you all so you have a copy of it and you can review it yourselves and please do identify the next two topics that you want us to discuss. And as I said we're very welcome to have feedback on it. Oh, Councillor Anna. Thank you. Just a quick one. I asked the question at the beginning of how many parishes were involved in this meeting. And as you were talking and on the slides it became apparent that possibly. In fact, it's all the parishes are invited to this meeting. Have I understood that correctly. You have. Yes. Okay, that's great. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, let's move on. I think to our main point or main session. So the first one is on trees. So hopefully you'll find this, this useful. I think we'll just swap that around slightly and we will put. Adrian to talk first, because he's he's the tree officer as he introduced himself earlier, and then we'll do the presentation that Charlene has recorded she's not able to make it which is about the application process just for information for you. So Adrian I'm going to hand over to you now. If that's okay. Thank you very much. Good evening. So, I've put together a presentation more so aimed at reintroducing of what the planning trees services does. And so if I may share my screen. Then someone just tell me if they can see the screen the presentation. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you. So, so as a start says it's an introduction to South County plan tree services. And like I said at the beginning I've been here for five months now so it's obviously still learning. It's a learning the actual district and this is what I thought it was necessary to reengage with the parishes, and to also introduce myself. Move on. So, who are we so we are planning tree trees team that sits within the wider built natural environment team, known as the BNE team. This is a side branch to the planning services, which consult on planning matters. The planning, the planning trees team consists of two members. It's myself obviously the tree officer, and then there's the two of her assistant. Obviously, my role is obviously is the lead within the services as such and that we're delivering a statutory planning tree services. And the tree officer assistant supports me and and manages inquiries and assists with delivering projects and looking at background information. So what do we do so roles within the planning tree team, the tree, you know with the tree officer myself and the tree office assistant managing statutory services of tree tree protection is main main focuses are assessing and determine tree work applications. That's obviously relates to pre preservation orders that works TPO trees and trees and conservation areas and assessment making TPO is when deemed necessary. So when you'll get an inquiry if it's possible to serve a TP on the tree, if there's an emergency, so to speak. And that's the scenario that we're still exploring and based on past how is past managed and how we want to move forward with it. We obviously investigate unauthorized tree works on protected tree on protected trees, we consult on planning applications. And then we manage max is related to hedgerow regular removal notices which is under the hedgerow regulations act. We've seen beyond our statutory services so this is, and a whole, holy passionate is obviously promoting good practice of, as stated within the slide is giving our rural cultural advice to the parish council, promoting our cultural industry best best practice, promoting the importance of trees and, and the benefits and the rule and urban landscape, strive to enhance and protect our chemistry tree canopy cover tree related, replacement planting conditions related to application so that's in the sense with. If we get an application relates to a TPO tree being removed, we would put a server condition on that to make sure that the tree planted and then we look in the next planting season to show it's been been carried out. We carry out research and development to statutory related projects within the service. We serve. Yeah service review improving customer service so in other words, behind the scenes, we look at how we are trying to deliver our customer service and amend it accordingly and try and deliver a high standard. And then importantly, to help us to deliver what we're trying to do is we network within the industry organizations and neighboring authorities to see what they're doing and what is out there. So it, I think it's important I thought it was a great opportunity. I thought it's a good opportunity to highlight some, some matters that we don't actually have managed or have control of because based on the inquiries we've had over the power since I've been here for five, five months or so is that there's almost a confusion or misunderstanding that we have that we carry out certain aspects of tree management, but therefore areas stated on on the slide. So we're managing tree maintenance where local authority tree stock so we don't have direct control of that. You know that's done elsewhere within south camps and then obviously you have highways as an authority and then the parish councils themselves so we don't have. We're not committed or in the sense of organizing tree work. So, advice on high hedges disputes related to anti social behavior. So what that means is in the sense of maybe disputes when there's a land the I hedges, and where, you know, where someone's unhappy. Sometimes we do get inquiries that to say that we should be investigating but it doesn't fall within our remit. So providing tree surgeon or tree consultancy company recommendations. It's, it's just worth mentioning that. Yeah, we're not obviously we can't give company details that could be seen of promoting businesses so what we do is we direct customers and residents and parish members to go to the Arborical Arborical Association, because it has a list of accredited tree surgeons or three consultancy. Yeah, so we don't obviously complete tree work applications on behalf of customers we obviously help and advise and the best way to say fill out a tree works application to TPO or to 11 notification. Respect conservation trees and conservation areas but we certainly aren't in the position to complete number on behalf of people. So, the website where we're in the tree section as there's multiple questions, which have been kind of put together I think on historic building on relationship of trying to manage people's inquiries and there's the list that you can see are a few and within the website. There are dropdowns to give you an answer underneath these, these, these questions which I'll hopefully will show you when I give you a tour of the South Cams website where you can find the tree information. So, leading on to that this so I'm going to now this will work so bear with me I'm going to link to the website just loading happens. Can everyone still see the screen. Yes we guess. Fantastic. So, obviously the homes home screen. South Cams website. Now, where the tree information is is within the climate emergency and nature. So we will click into that. Lead you down to the next page. And then from here they will see there's more options to choose from and we sit in the nature and biodiversity so it's bottom right. And then there's two more headings and then slowly drilling down will go into trees and hedges. And then we'll start seeing these options, we'll have hedgerows and hedges high hedges. So trees and around my property trees and conservation areas tree preservation order tree warden building next to near existing trees protected trees. So, each one you can you can see is specific area. I think it's important. I don't think it's necessary to go into every single one of them but I think it's important to start with obviously, to my mind, the tree conservation and tree preservation order. So if I click on trees in the conservation area. The tree is, you'll see prefer information and then underneath relative questions, which then gives you further information and links helpful links of where of where to go to or in this case in this case to fill out an application form. And then, further down, there are many other questions but all very much related. This one's quite important in the sense I have an emergency what can, what can I do, it gives some direction on that, and obviously it gives a link to the our book also association where you can find an approved contractor. And if we went back and going to TPO. The tree preservation order. It gives you information what a tree preservation order is, and what type of trees can be TPO. I'm going to turn this up. And there it goes it goes it goes into more depth and explaining the species. The type of ornamental value to it, the fruit, you know, as it says itself fruit, parkland woodland and forest, and so on. Then crucially this is obviously you know the questions in there. How do I apply to undertake some some work, and then you'll, there's a link to the application which is in planning portal. And then, currently, in respect to requesting a new TPO, there is a drop down under the question, and there is a link directly to a form where you can request the TPO application. And this is a can a hedgerow be TPO it is, believe it or not, is a inquiry we usually quite frequently, and the bottom line is, it's not eligible because a hedgerow but it expands on there of why the reasons and then there's a link. Now, that's a whistle stop tour of our website I hope it is useful, and I appreciate it's quite long wind is how to get here and I, and I think there is some a long term project over to renew how it is actually looked into, but I think there's time. So just to go over the application process is once you submit an application it through the planning portal, it then goes to our TSO team, which assess and validate behind the scenes really, and then they come to us. And then we start assessing and then making the termination on them. And in respect to TPO is, there's, you know, it's a mandatory eight week period, and then for two 11s as conservation areas, it's six week as under a notification so there's a six week notice period gives us the opportunity to investigate and assess. And so that's that's that done I'm happy to. Yeah, I think. Yeah, stop sharing my screen. There's some, there's some questions in the chat actually. Yeah, you might find useful. Do you do you want me to to call them out to you. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay, so we've got Mandy pink from over says how do you determine which trees need protecting. And what do you do if works are carried out without approval, you cannot glue the tree branches back on. Yeah, yeah. Can you contact the tree assistant and who is this. So, yes. So there's the details on the website but I think I think it's probably important to say that after, after this forum for parish clerks or councillors to contact us or we can send out kind of contact links. Because it's still was still in a new kind of process of of contacting. I think when I started I sent out like a generic email to all parishes to say pretty introducing myself so there's there should be an email in majority of the parishes in box in the sense of my of my details how they can contact us. You know, so what's so go the first question was, how can we determine to trees value of being TPO. I think it's important to highlight that trees within a conservation area already under a level of protection. So we, we, we don't, we don't try to focus on them to whether we don't really prioritize on them too much unless there's a threat to them. But trees that I just don't have any level of protection. The current guidance is that and it's on our website is do you believe the tree is of importance. And is it at immediate risk of, you know, literally being cut down you've heard something or, but it is, it is worth letting us know, but there is a criteria it's set against which is again in the, in the website. So whoever is interested in the sense of possibly considering putting a TPO application in and for, you know, for new TPO is to contact us and we'll can just give more guidance on that. So next question. Dennis Payne has asked who manages South Cam's trees doc. So I'm not quite sure do we mean trees with TPO's or do we mean trees that are situated on South Cam's land. So maybe South Cam's council land. So maybe we answer both. Yeah, yeah. So TPO's in the sense that we've been planning within three planning trees team in this of of assessing terming any tree works application to them. So in the sense of as like I've tried to put across in the in the slideshow is that we don't have any responsibility for the management so therefore it would sit within and how bear with me on this is either housing or estates is an area which I, I'm still trying to which I believe I just need to just confirm on but yeah there is a housing and estates kind of management team that overlook it. Hey, cool. So Laura Lawrence has asked how can we find out which trees in our parishes have TPO's. That's a really good question because we do get that inquiry a lot, and even by members of public. Again, in our website on South Cam's website that is interactive TPO conservation map. Everyone can access it, and it shows you all you've got to do is put your dress it address into it and it also will scan to you know build down to your, that's location and you'll see the color coded areas which are in an outlining of a TPO or conservation area so that's the best way to do it. And then if there are still any other inquiries queries about it was to obviously get in touch with us and so we can hopefully give you some more guidance on that. Thank you. Mandy pink from over says how much emphasis do you place on residents comments when a PC puts in an application for tree works. In what respect. So maybe Mandy wants to add to that. Is she on the call. She's there. Sorry. If a parish council puts in an application. And there are lots of comments from residents going oh you can't work to that tree. How much emphasis do you put on a the work the parish council wants to do and the residents comments. That's a good question is so we assessment is based on what the application states, you know, we take consideration of the level of protection if it's just conservation or TPO and then what work is being proposed. And then we'll look at if there are any, you know, objections to that, and it boils down to if the work is reasonable is it justified. And then, because we've been in our service that's what we, we base it on and obviously we do, you know, take into consideration consideration of comments towards the works. But normally it is is governed by what is being asked that is that does that answer the question. Yes, thank you. That's great. No problem. Councillor Anna. I think I missed I swapped the. I'm so sorry. Councillor Anna said, if I see a lot of trees being cut down unexpectedly, who should I contact. It feels like an emergency just to know if these trees are protected or not. Yeah, good question. Yeah, it's good to best to contact us and to see if the trees are so we can look into see if the trees protected. But if they're not this is this is so this is frustrating in our respect is that obviously because we we've got limitations. Some trees aren't protected and the landowner can just go ahead and carry out the works without notifying anybody, and it is alarming. Especially when we're trying to retain and enhance our tree canopy cover in south camps and what obviously as already mentioned once the work is started or done is too late. So really the emphasis is on on knowing if it's an area of protection, or if it's ever like an advanced vantage of knowing that works going to be carried out then it's always best to try and contact us and see what we can do but we are limited in the sense with trees that aren't don't have any level of protection. Can I come back on that Heather. Yeah, certainly. Just briefly. So, are you in the position where you can issue an emergency tree preservation order just so that you can explore whether a tree does need to be protected protected or not. Just to sort of halt the work. Yeah, yeah. So, no, it's a good question. Yeah, because if no work has been carried out whatsoever and there's enough time for us to react to it.  So the tree what's going to be carried out on trees that are not protected whatsoever. And you think there are, you know, they are value, and they are the benefits and so forth and they meet a criteria that what we use and what which is is generally used. Then we will, we'll, we'll do our best and make the assessment and and make it work. See if they were the overall TPO but yeah, we can in some cases I think in the past it has been done to put a regional on, but then the outcome to allow that obviously extra time to see if they were the other TPO. Thank you. So Kate, if there is a TPO tree that looks as if it's struggling. So I'm assuming that means it doesn't look well. What can we tree warden parish council do and it's contacting the, you know, an approved arborist who can give you advice on that. And at the same time, I'd like to think that we, we can do the same thing but again, our workload is, you know, you know, ties us down to being able to fully submit to things like this. But again, like I said, I'm very new to post and my ambition is to engage to parish councils to help in those situations where protected tree think a tree is a TPO tree is is under stress is in decline. I don't know what the advice be, but the bottom line is at the moment is to go to a tree consultant, a respected tree surgeon, and they should be able to give you that advice. And then it meant to move forward, say if any works need to be carried out, especially in this climate we're in right now with the extreme weathers we're going to see a lot of trees that are going to be looking stress and quite sad really. Thank you. And thanks to me has said that just a reminder you can send in reports or questions. Obviously look at the website on planning.trees at southcams.gov.uk. We've got councillor Elaine who says in the situation when a tree with a TPO becomes a danger to the public needs failing. And this happens either after the hours of nine to five or at the weekend. What should we do? If it's believed to be an emergency, then there's such a thing as a five day notice. So, so that's, that's, that's good to say hypothetically there was a TPO tree sustained some storm damage. There's lost a significant limb over a road or footpath. You know, the work that the first and foremost again is getting the contractor in and now make the assessment, get the works tidied up, but notifying us, it will be under a five day notice and that's through an email just to say, this tree, the location, what's happened, the reason, and then we'll start the process of issuing a five day notice. But if, but again, we're here to give that advice. If it's necessary, some, because some cases on under a five day notice. You know, they're not, they're a bit gray in the sense because some people take advantage of a five day notice just to get tree work done, whereas the five five day notice is there for emergency reasons for just for that just by that question. And I think this is kind of related so counselor Anna has asked tree weeks often happen at the weekends and evenings or otherwise out of hours. How do we contact SCDC for advice. If we see trees being cut down. No, that's a good question. We, you know, we, we don't have an out of hours service and we know, you know, so it's try is emailing us to, to let us know. And so we can pick it up the next, you know, next working day, so to speak, and then we'll investigate from there. Thank you. So I think that's all the questions, Adrienne. I found that really interesting. So thank you. And it's good to know that the website's been reviewed so we don't have to do quite so much drilling. Yeah. And I'm assuming you could put trees in the search and it would come up anyway so. Yes. So, so that's good to know. And, and, and I believe as well that you're also doing some comms with our new comms and engagement. Officer so so there will be communications coming out to the parishes so look out for that and hopefully you'll find that helpful. And now you know who Adrian is you can contact him directly. Thanks very much Adrian. So we've got Adrian touched upon the tree process there. So that was great. So the application process so we have got a little video from Charlene, and that's to show you just how an application can be processed on the system I think so, which is helpful. It's also helpful for us so I just wanted you to kind of understand that we're trying to help people to use the planning portal for applications. It's free for a tree application. And the point is that if we do that it will go directly into our back office system which will save us time. So it's really important that you know time is of a premium we want to give a really good service so if we can do these little changes that help us to save time, then it's it's really fantastic. So just by encouraging people to use planning portal to put their tree applications on, then it will actually go directly into our back office system. So that saves, as I said, a lot of work for an officer or a technical support officer. So we would appreciate your support in promoting this as well. So Ben's got the video I think she's going to share it and hopefully it will work. I can't hear it, Bev. Can anyone else? No, I can't hear it either. Is it something about sharing the video where you have to say that you want the sound to be available to? Bear with me everyone. I'm sharing with you Bev, don't worry. Thank you. If it doesn't work we can certainly circulate it and hopefully people can just access it that way. But we'll give it another go. Okay, let me just try it then. Where do I have to? Beverly, I think it's on your three dots. Oh right, thank you Anna. Share sound. We try it now, shall we people? Right, here we go. We have been extremely busy. Early in the year we were very busy where we received in one week alone 245 applications. So far has been our highest this year. Thankfully things have slowed down a little bit but we are still on average receiving about 160 applications per week. So we're still very, very busy. With that in mind, I wanted to do a small presentation on what we're looking at doing to change and manage the number of applications that we have submitted to us. You bear with me. I'll just share my screen so I can do the presentation. Okay, so what we're looking at doing is moving so that all planning applications are submitted via planning portal. So in 2021 we received 8,289 applications. 86% of those applications were received via planning portal, 12 via email, one via post. We already receive as you can see quite a few applications via the planning portal. So I want to move it forward where we receive all our applications via the planning portal. With the planning portal that offers many benefits for their users. So with this you can attach documents and revisit an application before completing your submission. This is really useful and can really benefit agents so that they can put all the information on as they're building up the application. You can be straight in there and then they can see it fully in their system. Meaning that they don't need to store it on their own work laptop PC. An important also offers the ability to buy a planning map. So for people that haven't got architects or don't have that facility, they're able to buy a map to support the application. They also offer step by step help and advice as long as long as well as interactive guidance to explain planning. So this really allows people who don't understand planning, whether they need planning permission or not it gives them the ability to find out the information that they need. The planning portal also offer a dedicated customer support team to help them through this process in actually submitting an application through to their local authority. All the information I've given a link on how applications are done, but obviously the website offers lots of different advice within there. Why, why the change? I've done a flow diagram here to show what it takes for myself and my team to do in processing an application to the point of just getting it through to my validators. So if somebody submits an application via the planning portal, all the documents of their payment is taken that is then submitted to us by our one app connector. This automatically creates a uniform application. So that's straight into our system. It lets us know what the fee is. And it also puts all the documents that is related to that application in our document download folder ready for us to index the documents into our document system, which we call the DNS. So the first time that one of my colleagues will actually touch that is when they come to index them documents. All the other information has already been put in the system for us. Now, if we receive that same application but via email, first of all, that comes into our planning application email accounts are in box. We then have to take that application confirmed that it is an application and it is then moved into our applications to log folder where we will then create a folder in our download folder to put all the documents in there. And then we will create a basic application record within uniform. And then we will look at downloading them documents into our day MS ready to start the validation process. Again, if we receive that same application via post, it's either received by city council or south camps, depending on which postal address the customer has used. We then have to take them documents, we have to scan them onto our system, we then email them to our plan inbox so that it can go through the same process as if it had been sent in via email. The last piece of the email and the post option as you can see are quite manual processes. It requires a lot of work from an individual to get it to the stage where if it had been submitted by planning portal. The first time we touch it is when we're indexing the documents. This will be a great time saver for technical support meaning that we can actually spend more time in getting that validation correct and applications through our system faster. The benefits for this change is that when applicants have completed all the necessary documents and payments have taken. They up until that point their application sits in the planning portal system so they will only get sent to us when they are ready to submit and they have made final payment. So we get all the information in one hit. It's load directly into our uniform system which removes the need for us to manually enter a new application into our system. It also removes the need for us to check the payments. If we have an application and we're waiting on payment, it's we're constantly going back to check whether that customer has made that payment so we can delay the process. Whereas if they've done it by a planning portal, we know we've got that payment straight there. It also allows us to have a consistent approach so we can support our customers giving them the correct advice and knowing where within the process they are. Application forms are also given to us via planning portal with a redacted copy so it removes the need for us to have to remove personal data before it's published on public access. Customers and agents will no longer need to call our customer service team to take payments over the phone. As they take in payment, they can submit a planning application any time day or night. Whereas at the moment if they do it via email, though we'll receive the email, they have to call our customer service team and are restricted by our opening hours. And actually the whole process we can just remove the manual processes out of this saving time in the technical support team. Meaning that we can actually support our customers in a better way and allowing that consistent approach and ability to validate applications quicker. Moving on from that something that we've recently changed that some of you may have noticed when going on to public access is our neighbour notification. So what we used to do is just do a list of notified neighbours. So we would have a copy of the neighbour consultation letter and then below that a list of all the neighbours that we've notified. As you can see on the left hand side, that's exactly what it looks like. Now for all new applications we're using a notified neighbours map. So what this is doing is highlighting which neighbours we've actually notified. So on the right hand side you will see that we've got the red outline of the address of the application and then the greyed out areas of the land or properties that are adjacent to the application. So this map is again the same list of notified neighbours so that you've got two versions on that. We think this is a much more visual representation and easier to understand which neighbours have actually been notified regarding an application. Hopefully you'll find this useful. I know certainly our case officers have found it much more useful than just the list that was currently there. I just want to say again thank you and obviously if you've got any questions I know we'll be taking them at the end of the evening. Please don't hesitate me if you've got any questions or queries. Okay, thank you very much for your time. Bye bye. Thank you, Bev. That's great. So I think we have a couple of questions or comments. So, okay, we have some parishes of age populations who tend to also have old trees in their gardens. I hope you will still accept postal applications. Can you state that this will not be totally automated or this will alienate a lot of residents? Will you accept applications made on behalf of residents who are not able to access computers? Absolutely. So what we're saying is if someone has access to a computer then we're encouraging them to use the planning portal way of submitting the applications. However, as you will see there is still around 1% that we get through postal and that is absolutely acceptable if people do not have the ability to use a computer. So that will still be open for people. It's just the manner of the applications coming in. So rather than them using email or any other you know by sending it direct to an officer it is much better if we can get them to use the planning portal system. How do we find the planning portal and is it to be used as if Parrish wants to make an application for a TPO? Absolutely. We will send you the link after. So that's from Councillor Anna and we will send that out with the presentation notes so that you will get that and everybody will get access to that link.  Laura, I understood the Parrish Councils are charged 50% of the standard fee for applications they make. If that is correct I couldn't see on the portal how to request this when submitting an application for our recreation ground. I will have to look into that. I don't know that there is a discount for Parrish Councils so I will need to investigate that Laura and we'll come back to you on that one. And then Hazel, you say GCSP indexes the files. Does this mean that a local person puts in the address or is that done by the applicant? I'm concerned that someone needs to check the words that we might want to search on later. I've seen miss belt road names etc which wouldn't be possible later. So when people submit the application there is the facility to find the address. All of our addresses should be on what's called a national gazetteer or a local gazetteer. So we use the same address or we should use the same address and then that should be standardized across. So that's how it should work. And again we'll put some more details in. I can see times marching on and I know you're probably very interested to hear about compliance. So I hope that was great. We had really good from Charlene. That was Charlene Harper who is our manager of the technical support team and again any queries you can contact her. So over to John now so if we can ask John to do his presentation. So it was enforcement. We've now rebranded this as compliance. There will be information coming out on this but John I'm sure it will talk very ably about his role and what he does within the council for us. Over to you, John. Thank you. Thank you very much. I don't know if you've got the link to the page and whether you can bring up the page at all. Just for the greater shared planning. Yeah, yeah, just bear with me a minute. Fantastic. So why does he's doing that I'd like to thank you all first of all for voting enforcement as your number one topic that you want to talk about. It's reassuring to know that we are as popular as ever back in February when we had this meeting last time. Thank you for your presentation to you all on what we did. And you know what we could do and what we couldn't do. And we've got initial feedback that some people thought that it was a bit lecturing is a bit preachy, a bit a bit lecturing or I take that in and recognize all that feedback and ultimately apologize for this. This is the nature of enforcement or compliance unfortunately, delivering bad news to one of the people that you might be in middle of an argument with. We can never ever satisfy everybody's wants and needs apologize for that. So I'm going to focus on a number of operational changes since we last spoke to you that have already occurred and some that will be occurring in the near future. And I'll follow in a service review and taking part in the South County District Council transformation program. So we have a number of changes that have occurred. Number one the name. So we are no longer enforcement. We are now team planning compliance so we are the compliance team which you can't see but you could do that would have been fun. So what we've done with part of the service review we have undertaken a benchmarking exercise with lots of other local authority enforcement teams around England. And a number of them have their own teams have already rebranded and call themselves compliance. Some others don't have teams at all actually and have to rely on normal planning officers going out and doing the enforcement work as and when it comes in.  Now why compliance why not enforcement anymore. Some people might say well you didn't do an enforcement in the first place john C might as well change your name to something else. Well the nature of enforcement in the planning system is actually it's not you know it's not prescriptive. It's all about compliance a lot of questions we get asked about saying, Why do you let people put in retrospective planning applications john because unfortunately, the national planning legislation allows that to happen. So I appreciate that lots and lots of people will go and do stuff without permission. It might start off as being under permitted development that allows you to do so much. But then it might all morph into something else or they might change their land to something else. Unfortunately, they are well you know they are one of two instances of a unlawful planning acts which are criminal act straight away, however, a lot of it can actually be either put back to how it was before without any action taken, or people can apply for retrospective permission, and they can actually unfortunately also apply for retrospective permission, even when we serve an enforcement notice. That is one of the grounds of appeal that way if we serve an enforcement notice, they can actually appeal underground a, which is the ground that whatever they have done should be got funding permission. The reason why we are calling it compliance and we'll go forward to that. Another change is that we'll have a dedicated area officers beforehand. A team of six was basically there are some officers dealing with all the south cans driving them all over the place, and there are some officers dealing purely in the city. Well what we've gone and done we've gone and basically designated parishes and that a list of parishes and a list of city ward officers and so each area of the district and each parish has its own dedicated area officer. So that person, your identity will be known to you. So if you know it's a problem, not only can you come to the team as a whole, but you should have a good idea of the name and identity and the contact details of who the area officer is. Sorry, can I just point out we're still seeing your first slide. Okay. It hasn't changed. Is that right? That's fine. Yes. No, no, that's not. Unfortunately, I'm talking to you. I can't really give any more. You mentioned the different areas and I thought you were showing a map. That's sorry. No, no, that's fine. No, no, that's safe. I don't know if we will come on to that what we will do we will put up a list in due course of what area areas each officer covers and their contact details. But you're looking at the new web page at the moment. There is a video on there now we are pressed for time so I'm not going to ask Beth to play for it simply because I think that it might be a bit of a struggle to actually get the sound like it's all about talking really but do have a look at the web page. There's a video there. It's very good. It's three minutes long is basically says what is planning control and deals what is planning control. It's really, really good. And actually, the information on that video is mostly laid down on the next paragraph on the web page entitled what is a breach of planning control. Thank you very much, Beth. So that basically lists what is a breach of planning control so there's lots of information on there. I'll tell you what if we just carry on scrolling down through the web page, why we got the opportunity. It also lists what isn't a breach as well. So that's really handy. We actually signpost places for parishes to go to as to basically just, you know, if it's decided that it's not a breach. We've actually got some links where to go for environmental health at South Kansan at the city, and also to the counter council, where it is a highways matter. And again, there's more links down to there like how to go to the environmental health team at South Kansan as well. And also most importantly, sometimes a building patrol would have to go to. And then there's just like how to raise a complaint. This is quite important. What we're now asking to everyone to do is to basically we have no dedicated admin up to this point. The surface review shows that a lot of our investigation officers are spending a lot of time actually doing admin child stuff and actually instead of going out and investigating. So what we're trying to do is to get make that as automated as possible. So we are basically we're closing down our email box very shortly so how the online form which you can access there. And that will be an opportunity for you to put in all the information that you want to make regarding your, your complaint, and you can upload photos on there. You can upload other documents, anything that you like, and that will automatically come through to an officer to verify that information and it will go to that dedicated area officer. You can get a feedback bounce back email with a reference number saying thank you very much for your information. You'll have the officers details on it email and contact details on it as well so they'll all be automated. Once you've got that information you are then able and free and you have the power to know who your officer is, but the details that you submitted has actually been looked at and verified. So the officer is actually sitting with the officer who has a number of days to go out and investigate that complaint and that allegation. If you feel that you know we need more information, we can come back to you. Okay, if we are there if we can just go down quickly and have a bit more. So these are the priority cases so at the moment. The first thing is to carry out initial site visit with five days within five days again with the complaint higher priority cases. Obviously are done in the question I think it's just come up is to you know will you be dealing with all the existing cases. Yes we will we're obviously something's coming that's old and was not been looked at, but will obviously be dealt with first. So we will look at stuff that comes in as well so for example, if you complete if you are sending some information on Monday, and an offer a service going out to look at site on Wednesday, then they may will go out on site to look at your allegation on the Wednesday, along with any other information for any other complaints in the area that they received on Tuesday as well so the idea is that. It's all done for all the work is done as quickly as efficiently as possible. So very all sets out where it's medium places or it's medium priority will do those within 10 days of a low priority is 14 days event afterwards, we will come back and give you an update of what we found, and what we are doing. So that is the form for the second and the fact that in the future we're going to use the inbox for much longer. There's also at the bottom we're going to have a link to the new digital public register, but it's going to be coming into effect next month. So what does that mean so basically if you want to know whether if you're looking to buy the house, or if you want to see where your neighbors and enforcement notice that property. You can type in the address and you can find out the enforcement details to see where we entered enforcement notice or any other formal notice on there. And we also will be releasing a new planning enforcement policy that is coming out in two months. This is basically going to be set out saying what our service standards are and basically creating all the parameters as to when we can't take enforcement action and basically how the process all works. Just let me know that for the last few months you might have had on occasion, not receive any kind of just come back to feedback come back straight away unfortunately we have been two officers down for a number of months. The good news is that we have got a new team and lead enforcement officer who will be starting. We will be starting at the start of January 2023. So we're looking forward to that to having an extra officer here. And there has been a sort of also a vacancy for a senior officer one of these area officers. For the last few months that right now can say he's being filled by by an officer and someone will be starting in the next month or so, regarding that so we will have fingers crossed. From the next start next year we'll have a full complement of staff that they have to work on the team. We understand that we do appreciate that enforcement is seen as a priority as regard to the part of the big Council's planning service. And we're trying our best basically to see ways of how we can deal with cases more efficiently, how to prioritize stuff better, how to keep you more in the loop and give you better feedback. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to stop there for the moment. I'm sure there's going to be lots of questions coming. So I'll take those now. Thank you very much for listening. So there is questions in the chat, John. So I, as you would expect, so I'll go through. Thank you for that. That was really helpful to give us an update. John hasn't said is how much effort the team have put into this. So I want to thank them. They've been fantastic in helping to transform and move, you know, channel shift people. The more that we can get people to use that online form, then then the more that time that will allow John and the rest of the team to work on the nitty gritty of the compliance and enforcement cases. Please help us to support that. That's our ask for you. Okay, so I think we have. So let me just check that I've not missed any. So we've got Monday pink from over. Why are there still some enforcement cases that have been around for many years? When will you actually make a decision? That's interesting because I see why that's a very good question, man. He simply because enforcement is very, very complex. So you may well have some cases where we serve the notice and basically it's gone to appeal. And then we're basically then that might take a year, year and a half, simply because in enforcement process appeal process, some clients can take a matter of 12 months just even to be a fat cycle to be done. You then when you serve the enforcement notice, and then you have the appeal, you only start the compliance period once the decision has come out with the appeal so you could serve a notice on day one. Day 500 you finally get a decision back from the planning inspector about appeal. You then go back to day one with yourself once got 12 months to deal with whatever needs to be done. That's why it sits down there for ages. I will hold my hands up and say there are a number of cases where people simply haven't complied with enforcement notices and the various reasons we are taking our time in prosecuting them. Particularly of matter resources also a matter of the fact that criminal justice system is currently in a massive backlog, and it can take six months even to just to get a spare court date to hear a planning enforcement case. So that's just something to be be aware of and that is why compliance is actually something that we try to go down, because if you can get a deal with a matter straight away or a relatively short amount of time. It's only seen as a lot better in cases where there's less time of getting it done as soon as getting it dealt with as soon as possible, rather than going down a formal compliance route, which may take a lot longer. And so that's the, that's the case. The only other reason why something might be sitting around is because we've invited a retrospective application, and the application is actually taking ages to be determined. And those are the reasons then, but thank you. Okay, so Libby White has said if we don't know the area officer, how do we find out. Okay, Libby. Well, first of all, we, we would say, and if we are directing everyone to the inquiry for online creating inquiry for everywhere. Once you fill that in, that feeds into the computer, you computer turns out the details of your case officer. If you have the case officer. Okay, but I'm sure that that's the reason we want to try and do that is to basically try and regulate everyone going down that route. So people receive less emails and yet for initial complaints. I know, I know people, you know, people might want a shortcut, I do appreciate that. But I've even told Liz Watts, but I want her to go down this room to fill him in the phone, rather than emailing me. So if it's good enough for Liz, then hopefully it's good enough for everyone else, but we'll see how long that lasts for. We just want to point out that helps to save you on administration time and wasted sort of chasing really so because that system will give you feedback as John has pointed out. It automatically goes into our system and creates the case, and you will automatically be told who your case officer is so that does save us a lot of time. Okay, Monday again Monday from pink Monday pink from over sorry. Are you are you prioritizing historic cases, and is there a timeline that you should be working to I think you kind of answered this already john but you might just want to add to that. No, so the band, yes, where we've got existing cases. It is very, you know, we, we need, we need more time we need to be better efficient we're trying to create processes, whereby, and we have now done where we have set up systems, systems like enterprise which are back office systems and what they do, Mandy, they basically continuously nag officers and remind them to say hey, you've got an outstanding case about this you need to deal with this, or you need to send out a letter by this contact someone about this by a certain time. And so the really really helpful about officers have a continuing varies and your extensive case load and sometimes it can you can get lost as an officer into what to do what to do next. And so actually these improvements these different ways of working are actually trying to make us more efficient so we don't forget about any old existing cases. And again I think there's a lot of information on the website so please do have a look at it it's some really great stuff that the team have worked on there as well. This is Kate who said, I think this is one that needs to be taken offline so she's just watched a plot of amenity land on Dolphin clothes in Linton cell for 43,000. And the deeds of the property seem to imply the land should remain as amenity land in prep prep, I can't say the word perpetuity. So the original development started in 1972, do you still hold records of developments including discharge of all conditions of this age. And if so, how can we access them in the hurry. I have lots more info and we'll be happy to take this offline if appropriate. Certainly one needs to be offline but there is information on on our public access is a lot of planning information on there that you will find. So we do keep it we do retain it. John, do you want to just add to that. I agree with everything I say well I would say I heard the word deeds, and if that is relating to the deeds on the land registry title then that is a civil matter. And it won't be a planning enforcement issue we cannot enforce or can deal with compliance relating to anything that is on land registry saying. So unfortunately that is something would you'd have to get an independent solicitor involved with unfortunately, but you can look at stuff involving conditions. Okay, lovely. Councillor Anna has made a really good point here, we've got how to raise a complaint on the actual website when we are asking the people to fill in the form and it does sound as if we're complaining about an officer which we don't want. So wouldn't it be better to signpost to say how to raise a concern so we'll take that back and on board Anna because I do agree I think I think you were right I noticed that as I was going down I was like oh. Mandy Pink has come back again, but this is I think you've already dealt with this about cases that may be 20 years older and when will they be dealt with. I do know you're going through historic cases now John aren't you so we are progressing as best as we can. And we do have a new manager starting with us in January so that'll be fantastic and also additional resource starting I think next week so that's great. Yeah, so Hazel Smith has said in the past there has been a risk based approach and some issues that we think are important were put into the two difficult pile. Will you be able to look again at these. I love the two difficult pile. That's the stuff that basically gets the juices flowing if I'm honest, there is no such thing as a two difficult power to be honest. What we will be doing moving forward he's having monthly case reviews on all cases. I'll leave it back for the moment. Okay, I think and I think there is something about expediency isn't there which again is is highlighted it is on the it's on the website if you have a look, because it's something about public interest tests so. Okay, Sally and hard to said will the term compliance be used moving forward as a compliance order or will it remain as enforcement. That is a fantastic question. So compliance is a branding, rather than a kind of legal term. So if you are unfortunately serving an enforcement notice, it will read South County District Council enforcement notice at the top. That is what we are required to do under the national planning legislation, it has to be deemed breach of condition notice enforcement notice enforcement order. I think cancer to me just explained that as well so compliance is our term. So, but also she's made the point that planning enforcement is not statutory function is discretionary. And then action is taken when it's expedient to do so and is proportionate to the case. Sally and make the point website uses both terms and I think you've just answered that john. Kate has come back and said many thanks who can I speak to please so use the online form. And then we will get it dealt with and you will be assigned your own personal officer. Thank me Kate you can email me directly. So, I think I think that's the end of all of the questions in the chat. So we have, I think got 10 minutes left. So, if anybody else has got any questions and please do ask them now. I just want to show you quickly our website. So I'm going to try and share my, my, my screen, because I wanted to show you where you can find a little bit more information about the team and the service so I don't know where do I share my screen is it under more. Big green button, big green button, big green button. That's the good one. Yeah. Okay, cool. Thank you. So hopefully that should show you. Okay. So, just to show you this is our greater Cambridge shared planning and john obviously was showing or that was showing you the compliance area. So really good points here so nice big buttons that you can press and we've got planning compliance there and that will take you to the page. So if you want to find out more information that's that's where you can go. Some people have said they don't know about the team so if you search in the top meet the team, just meet the team in there. So we'll bring up a couple of things so one will be about the team and I'll show you what's on there now and one is about the development management area teams as well. So if I click on meet the team that shows you our management team that we have in place at the moment so we've obviously got Steven who isn't here tonight but normally attends myself. And Steven who's just leaving us. And Phillip her who's a strategic sites. Nigel's off at the moment but we have got another two members that are helping and they will be going on here shortly. Caroline who's strategy and economy. And Jane who's planning policy and Jane, who's our built natural environment manager so they're all there and there's some information if you click on them you will find some information on them. And then I think the other one that I wanted to pick up so hopefully I can do the same again, which is the area teams and I can't because I've got something stuck on my screen so I'm going to do it this way. So again, I just clicked on great to came and shared planning and I brought up this and then if you put area team in the search there. And it will bring you up the development management area teams, we quite often get questions about this people ask us, you know, how do we find this information. It's really easy or you put it in the search that brings up your area teams. So these are the development management we've got now got an Eastern or West team and that's replicated in compliance so they are also Eastern West. And you've got area team East shows you the areas and the parishes and the city wards that are covered. So you've got all of your team members there. So you've got your development manager, Toby and all of the team members. So they're all listed for you. And the same with the area team West. So it tells you what city wards are covered, what parishes are covered, and it gives you the development manager and area manager and then all of your planning officers. So your contacts are there. They are on the website. It's really easy to use. I would encourage you to pass that information on again, the residents that when they want to know things. There is a lot of information on this website. And it's really easy. You just click in their search and you will find information. So I'm going to stop sharing now. Was that okay to me because I think you were keen that we shared that with you. Yes, that's fine. Thank you. I think it's, it's, you know, this came out because we had a parish council that was involved in a county councillor, you know, trying to get hold of some information. And actually, they had made the right contact was somehow I think they felt that something could still be done. So please, you know, do make that relationship with the area team leaders. They should really be your first part of call if you have any concerns. And then, you know, if if that still isn't working then the development managers you've seen in the list, and if all fails, box stops here. You know, and, you know, we'll see which is but definitely please follow, follow the, you know, follow that process so that, you know, we officers time is not taken up unnecessarily. Thank you. Great. I think that leaves us with the last four minutes I did notice that I think Dennis sorry I'd asked a question I do apologize Dennis. So you've got development required a number of trees to be protected and they've died and the district council has subsequently bought the land. So, John has asked if you fill the form in, please do fill a form with your address and we will progress it and you will get and some photographs you can upload photos with it as well. And please I just want to emphasize it's really great. If you can do that and use it and encourage people to use it because it just goes into our system which saves us so much time so please please try and support it. And then Mandy Pink has asked, can we share this information with our residents or yes. Yes, please. Please. Thank you. The video will be available on YouTube and Bev will send you out that link and that information and, you know, please do pass it on. And the next thing our final thing is what two items you want us to talk about next time please do send us some ideas or send Bev some ideas or just put it in the chat the chat that would be really helpful. So, just say thank you everyone for spending this part of your evening with us hope you find it very useful. And just want to emphasize we're here to work with you. And we'd also like you to work with us. And if there's anything else that we can do to let us know. Thank you. Thank you all. I think you can stop the stop the recording now Bev there's some great stuff coming through we've got drainage ditches and how to manage them ditches and talk.


You may have heard the Honourable Minister with Responsibility for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Emma Hippolit informed the nation that the government has approved the suspension of the 6% service charge on imported price control goods as a short-term measure to cushion or ease the squeeze on consumers as a result of the rising prices of goods and services. I take this opportunity to explain further how the measure will work. The Ministry, through the Consumer Affairs Department, is responsible for monitoring the importation, prices and sale of a group of goods that the government considers necessary for the daily sustenance of the average consumer and to assist in the development of key sectors. These goods are called price control goods, which includes oil, milk, tuna fish, salted biscuits, sardines, baby foods, cement. They are controlled either by a specific wholesale and retail markup or by a fixed price. The measure applies to all goods controlled by a specific markup, for example milk, powdered and evaporated, attract markups of 7.5% and 10% on wholesale and retail respectively. The prices of all price control goods are approved by the Consumer Affairs Department. Therefore, the prices of those goods at the supermarkets, small shops or any retail wholesale outlet should not exceed the prices approved by the Department. The short-term measure announced by Honorable Minister Hippolyte will apply to goods imported from June 1st to August 31st, 2022. Those already imported and either in warehouses or on the shelves of retailers have been priced using the 6% service charge. These prices will remain until goods are exhausted. The price changes are expected for goods being imported from June 1st. There will be no application of the service charge by the Customs and Excise Department. If the landed costs of the imported goods remain the same, given that the service charge will not be applied and the markup is fixed, then the price to the consumer will be lower. There are 13 items that are currently under price control for a specific size. For example corned beef, only the 7 ounce was controlled and not the larger size. June 1st, 2022, the importation of all sizes of goods under the price control order will now be subject to price control. However, a further review of the sizes of these goods is being done and an update will be provided in due course. I urge all importers and consumers to contact the Consumer Affairs Department at 468-4224 or 468-4226 if there are any queries or concerns. Thank you.


Hi, this is your host of the party and welcome to another episode of tfl Let's talk in today. We have with us was again David Williams SVP of marketing strategy at Kali David is great to have you on the show again It's great to be here again spot. Talk a bit about, you know, what kind of trends? What kind of development you are seeing in the market, especially in this kind of uncertain Economic situation a lot of companies are looking at cost cutting, you know layoffs are happening There's a war going on in Europe Everything can happen security something that cannot be compromising the change, but you know, there are different ground realities So I want to hear your opinion to To talk about where things are in the present context absolutely I think when everybody came into the end of last year with the 2023 horizon was pretty uncertain for everybody that was looking at investments and that goes from the companies that deliver Software to the obviously the massive amount of consumers that use it What we've seen is is a is a drive for change I think that when crisis is coming from multiple directions and the uncertainty of the market conditions doesn't enable you to plan With any great deal of certainty then a lot of decisions get made Which wouldn't normally get made that quickly. So for example Organizational changes changes in technology at how it's applied Those sort of things accelerated a little bit quicker than they would do when everything's fine and happy So I think that from us when it comes to infrastructure I think the main thing is that people are really lacking visibility So the first thing is they want to deal with these changes But they don't understand how infrastructure is being utilized and I think that that's really Due to the fact that cloud resources have always been fairly low cost at least a point of entry continuous software delivery Pipelines has really been a major initiative, but it's also created a level of Self-supporting infrastructure requirements so you can as a developer you can build what you need without too many restrictions in regards to What infrastructure you're using and what type of tools you're using to provision it So all these things are mounted up to what is going on who is using what how can I optimize if I can't understand What I'm using and how do I plan with any degree of certainty in regards to? How do I manage my security and how do I plan my costs? Those are the things that are really driving a lot of the conversations that we're having Thanks for going Dylan explain that now when we look at risk They can come in so many different forms. We had this discussion. I mean just look at an example of FAA, you know Bucks can be there misconfiguration can be there wrong line of code can be there And now we are also kind of you touched upon the cultural shift Where of course the fact is that as much as we like to break down silo There are some field which are expertise security is you know They're always the security folks they specialize in that area This is not an area that anybody can deal with so we do talk about DevSecOps in their space and their other security you know Personals as well but as Developers are becoming responsible for the whole you know lifecycle of their application talk a bit about How it is changing the landscape of security because you do have to think about a lot of things culturally as well And are there things that you are either worried about hey This is not the right trend or you're like you know what I think we are moving the right direction with these cultural changes Yeah, I think the security is something that has been done By the teams so organizations have built their security practices around infrastructure specific to either a cloud user cab provider or a an application easy to deliver so To be honest is fairly fragmented what we're seeing is that infrastructure access The different types of policies that people are using so when you provision infrastructure the way you tag things track resources understand what is What is being used by who so not all the policies are being adhered to so even though you might have an Open policy agent strategy where everybody uses a consistent type of Security the way that it's used is not consistent. So for example security and and resource Tracking a very similar in the way that you do it you tag them You track them you make sure that the policies are in there in a consistent way You make sure you're tagging but all these things are fairly fragmented So if you and I were basically Building some infrastructure the way with which I would meet my policies that I believe are important and the way that I would tag resources Maybe different the way you do it. It might be a different order It may be a different execution list But it may be different and what I'm saying is is that when you want to look at a holistic view of how Vulnerable am I at this very moment in time in regards to the infrastructure? I'm using to be able to pull that together in a way that makes sense as Infrastructure is used prolifically through multiple pipelines by multiple people. It's just a very difficult task So I think it's really consistency is key An ability to be able to help developers and and creators of infrastructure Build the infrastructure, but with the resources behind it the technology behind it that enables you to implement policy Easily so it has your back So you don't need to worry about you know doing everything yourself that the policies that you're using within the tool The tooling actually makes sure that those things are being adhered to so it gives you the freedom to build the infrastructure and know that Policies are consistent and the way that you tag is consistent these days We are talking a lot about platform engineering where companies are Organizational building platform internally, which can be used internally. So so talk a bit about When we talk about platform engineering What are the security implications around then are Organizations really looking at it that from that perspective or at this stage They are more focused on that from engineering and was thinking security is enough to thought Well, it's really weird with platform engineering That's in when you look at the platform engineering, especially when you look at what the analysts are saying the gardeners of the world They're really looking at a way with which you can interact with the infrastructure in a consistent way So what they're really trying to do here is make sure that all the policies the security The ability to interoperate with different resources cloud different clouds And also obviously the different technologies that support it. They're really saying if you can Manage it in a consistent way that everybody can interact with the infrastructure in a normalized way That also has all these mandates in it that says these are the policy engines And if this is how you should do things that's a really nice approach But we've seen this before, you know The idea of the market is that in times of when you've got the luxury to choose your technology It's best of breed. I will use whatever the technology in the platforms. I want At that moment in time, but it creates fragmentation. So So summarized what Gartner and companies like that are really saying is one that they want to be out of see a more Consolidated points of control for specific practices So infrastructure as is seen to be a united or a uniform way of delivering it And the second thing is obviously it comes with the policies and everything you need to apply to that in a consistent way But by saying that it requires a different type of technology It's not something that you can adapt from multiple islands of automation that exists today So it really requires a technology that no longer just gets the orchestration because that's what some people think about They think oh, I'll put a layer above it and it will integrate with everything But you're not removing anything. You're not dealing with the underlying issue. You're purely making it Islands of automation that happens to be now hierarchy So really what you want to do is have a technology that can consume what you're using already with the processes but provide the the development organization the creators of infrastructure with and A way that they can interoperate with it in a seamless frictionless way So platform engineering is a nice way of looking at it But you really want to make sure that infrastructure becomes part of your overall engineering platform So if you're using an idp or you're using something that you you go to every day Infrastructure should be pulled down options within your idp. It shouldn't be Another platform that you have to go to a modify It should be like breathing in and out if I'm developing I want to be able to test I want to be able to create I want to be able to build I want to be able to pull the infrastructure in and that's what I think about when I see platform engineering Thank you for taking that question. Now, let's also talk about the the the The reality is that, you know, we can talk about technology, but most of us are almost all of us We are running a business So let's also talk about the business value or the business gain From, you know, when you look at managing your infrastructure or when you look at platform engineering Or you're looking at, you know, the mitigating risks that might be associated with a lot of things So that is not just, you know, doing certain things because we have to them All right, it's really cool when we talk to customers that are using infrastructure Typically, they don't see infrastructure as a business value item So what I'm saying by that is that if you're really going to Have a platform that delivers all these wonderful capabilities subsuming the underlying Existing tooling so all the files that you have integrated with your git So you look at the git find out what the files are pull them out make that normalized So you're now managing it from a consistent view. That's all wonderful But the problem is is that that doesn't address the problem that the business is trying to solve Which is what is the cost of infrastructure when you do all this wonderful stuff? How do I capture the purpose? So I'll give you an example of if I have a pipeline of activity Most people that do cost management or risk analysis will look at it from a very much production View they look at it as a as a more static environment The problem is to the left of that equation the continuous delivery process You might be provisioning infrastructure 20 times before it actually gets to a point where you commit and release it into production So what I'm saying is is that those 20 instances are treated separately If you look at it in that way when people look at their bill that they get from cloud They see 20 instances of cloud usage They don't see 20 instances of cloud usage that adhere to a business outcome purpose That enables people to be able to go. I now understand why all these things are happening I understand how the infrastructure is being leveraged and now I can optimize what I use I can adjust what I use I can be more nimble because when I I know what's being used I can then prioritize it So if you and I are developing, you know technology and we're using infrastructure What you do may be more important than what I do But unless you'll look at it from the lens of the business, then you're not going to understand that So really what these these platforms should be doing is also capturing that information And putting purpose to each time the infrastructure is being used and the ability to group it Is really important and that goes for both the costing and the risk I want to understand my overall risk And the 20 instances what were those how compliant were they did change get tracked every single time So really that's really what you want to be able to do is if you assign Purpose to the infrastructure activity and you're looking at it from an end-to-end perspective by grouping all the instances Then you get a much better view on how to one make things more secure and see where your weaknesses are And two it gives the business the ability to understand why they're spending the money And not wait for that long tedious process of getting the bill and working out why it's so high How much awareness do you see is already there about this topic? You know And once again as I asked earlier that the trends that are seeing but those trends were more in the cultural Because as we talked about the teams are getting smaller Sometimes companies they get overwhelmed with new terms. Hey, we have to use kubernetes Everybody's using kubernetes. We have to move to cloud everybody's Oh, we should explore platform engineering But it should not start with the solution. It should start with the question. Hey, do we need a platform? Do we need kubernetes? So so what are you seeing in the in the space today? It when you get kubernetes or you got containers of any description I think the challenge that a lot of companies have is the infrastructure's got a long tail What I mean that is that it has a lot of technical debt So what you develop today on containers is typically come from virtualization We just come from a different iteration of of infrastructure So from all the way from physical all the way through serverless There's different types of infrastructure being delivered with containers kubernetes And the way that they're delivered. So what I'm saying is is that if you've got the ability to be able to subsume Lots of different file formats that do virtualization containerization Cloud enablement all these pieces iac infrastructure as code everything as code What you want to be able to do is make sure that all these things are subsumed in a consistent way So it automatically normalizes if you like the layers So it says this is what i'm using for containers across all my development teams I understand it because i've now got a uniform view that I now understand how they're actually using it And I think the biggest and this is the sort of thing that they look for in the platform But it can't be There is a level of skepticism because it can't a platform cannot dictate a change in massive change in process It cannot be an added layer of abstraction It's got to remove something simplify that normalize it make it easier to use And it really can't demand you have more skills and training It's got to leverage the skills you have because people are very rare that have full infrastructure stack and as I say the the technical debt means you have to have um a visibility on infrastructure as it was yesterday as you're still using it What it is today as you're currently using it and strategically where you're going with it It's got to be strategically implemented in that way and a platform can't be Just an iteration of time or focused on one specific thing So containerization absolutely, but there's lots of things that go in it the application the middleware the tools that you're using So you've got to really look at it like an environment less like a container It's a container that contributes to the environment that you're building and that might Move to a serverless environment, but you've got to make sure that these things attract in the platform consistently So as I say the biggest danger I think most people have is when they look at the new technologies And they implement an automation technology that does infrastructure It creates yet another island and that's why as I say the platform engineering approach is something that Not only should make it easier to use but also should make it um A bit more focused on the different types of infrastructure that your corporation may be using otherwise as I say you're creating an island David, thank you so much for taking time out today and talk about this topic And as usual, I would love to have you back on the show, but let's make sure that there's not so much gap between our discussions I always love talking to you. It's uh, it's fun. It's a great way to end the week Thank you so much. And you know, I really appreciate your kind words and as I said, you know, I would love to have you back on the show Soon. Thank you. Have a great day


It's July and it's getting hot, just like the deals at Appalachian Wireless. All month, get the Samsung Galaxy S8 for just a penny with a two-year agreement. But don't wait because the deal ends soon. Better service, bigger savings. That's today's Appalachian Wireless. To celebrate the arts and culture of Floyd County, Star City Day was hosted in downtown Prestonsburg on the 4th of July holiday.  Activities included face painting, chalk art, live music, and more. This is the second year for the event. Prestonsburg Mayor Les Stapleton says it will continue to get bigger and better. Partnerships are great, that's what we have here. Partnerships, they create pride for people. Once we get the pride of the citizens in there, Prestonsburg is going to grow. Co-organizer Nick Jamerson says he is proud of the community for stepping up and becoming a part of Star City Day. I feel like for so long this area has asked for new things and to bring something new to the table and then get so much support from our mayor and business owners and artists. It's everything. People are kind of putting their money where their mouth is, you know. A lot of times people just want to talk about change, but they don't want to be proactive in that change. So it's encouraging to see. Jamerson adds there are other ways to get involved in the community. Star City Day and Star City Arts is something that goes beyond today. So if people want to get involved, they can follow, like, get on Facebook. Star City Day, follow that page. Star City Arts. The night ended with fireworks over the city. In Prestonsburg, Shelby Porter, EKB News.


Imran Khan is said to become yet another Pakistani Prime Minister who will not be able to complete his full term. And that is because he's not been able to manage the balance between the three A's that rule Pakistan. It's said that the three A's that rule Pakistan and it's the job of every Prime Minister, every government to balance their interests of the army. Then Allah which is the Islamic State and the Islamic jihadist groups that operate inside Pakistan. And finally America which has been Pakistan's ally and in a lot of ways has been directing Pakistani politics for many, many decades. Now definitely from the time when the Soviet Union went into Afghanistan, definitely for the last 40 years at least. Now Imran Khan was seen as the Pakistani army's proxy candidate and there was enough evidence to suggest that when he became Prime Minister, when he was elected Prime Minister in 2018, he had a lot of support from the army establishment from the ISI. And there were intimidatory tactics run by the ISI and the Pakistani army against those who were opposed to Imran Khan and Imran Khan. The elections were rigged to favour Imran Khan to become the Prime Minister. And Imran Khan actually advertised his closeness to the army. He inducted former generals into his cabinet. He created a committee in which he put the army chief, General Bajwa and he made him one of the important members. And the most important thing was that when Imran Khan was elected and before that all the protests against the previous government, they were organised by the ISI and there's evidence to suggest that they were done by a gentleman called Faiz Hamid who used to run one section of the ISI which was meant for counterintelligence. And this man, Faiz Hamid was essentially very close to the army chief, General Bajwa. Now Faiz Hamid was kind of lifted out of a relatively mediocre army career and brought to the top by Bajwa and then he was made ISI chief in 2019 by Bajwa overlooking others. The previous ISI chief was there for only 8 months and then he was removed and Faiz Hamid was brought in. And Faiz Hamid was seen as a man very loyal to the army chief Bajwa and he was entrusted that role to essentially keep the government in check and also to work out deals with opposition, keep them in check as well, work out deals with the various Islamic jihadi forces and groups which operate inside Pakistan and attack India, move into Afghanistan, so that was his basic role. Now Faiz Hamid is essentially someone who rose from the bottom and he was one thing that he was supposed to know well was how to handle politics and also another thing that he was supposed to have is a lot of ambition. So very soon General Bajwa realized that Faiz Hamid was actually planning to become the army chief to create a clique which would be against Bajwa, force him to resign, remove him and or at least take an early retirement and become the army chief in his place. And that is why what Bajwa did was Bajwa decided to replace Faiz Hamid. He wanted to remove Faiz Hamid from the ISI. This is something that Imran Khan did not want and there is some rumor that Imran Khan's occultist wife, that's what Praveen Swamy has written, that Imran Khan's occultist wife actually told him that if Faiz Hamid goes then Imran Khan will find it very difficult to continue in power and therefore Imran Khan was very keen to have Faiz Hamid. This was the man who kind of organized his election, brought him to power and what he did was he sat on the transfer file, the file which was sent to transfer, normally as Pakistan experts say this should have taken at best 24-48 hours but he sat on it for weeks and that created the first fissure between the army and Imran Khan and the army rules Pakistan. It's not anyone else and you should read this great book by Aishwarya Siddhika. This is an excellent book called Military Incorporated. It's about inside Pakistan's military economy. This is a book worth reading because it tells you how much of Pakistan's economy and business and financial systems are directly owned and controlled by the army, not indirectly by generals alone but directly by the army. So the Pakistani army has not only a kind of vice like grip on Pakistan's politics and external affairs but also on its economy itself. So it's almost impossible for any prime minister, any political entity to go against the army. Yet each time, each time what happens is that when a prime minister gets elected in Pakistan, they think that they need to cut the army down to size and one of the things they do is to try a divide and rule and this has happened repeatedly, Binazir Bhutto tried it, Nawaz Sharif tried it because of which he was actually forced to resign and it appears that Imran Khan has tried it too. He tried to create a power center within the army which would be alternate to General Bajwa but as Aishwarya Siddhika has said and written that there is one thing to play one general against the other. The other is to take on the army as an establishment. The army as an establishment unites. The army as an institution is larger than the army chief. It has been decided since the end of Zia ul Haq's regime that the army chief will become the representative of the army's ethos and what the army wants. So when you attack the army chief, the army institution takes it as an attack on itself and therefore the entire army actually went against Imran Khan. Imran Khan has also made a few mistakes because of his ego or maybe that was his political calculations. He realized that Pakistan's army, despite its loveate relationship with the US is kind of heavily dependent on American support and on the other hand there is China, ruling Pakistan, China putting in a lot of money, Pakistan being an important part of China's Belt and Road Initiative and Imran Khan decided to look eastward. He said that okay, I don't really care about US. The US is not supporting me, not backing me so he started looking eastward and he started playing to the galleries of the Islamic jihadist movement which again is closely allied and controlled by the ISI by the way. So he was trying to see how to deal with this by keeping some members of the ISI of the army on his side and one of the things he did was he took the side of the Taliban in the UN which angered the US, they didn't want that to happen. Then there was a kind of, Imran Khan's attempts to form a bond with let's say the US with President Biden didn't work out. Biden apparently refused to have a phone conversation with him which again affected Imran Khan's ego and what seems to have been the last straw for the US administration for the army which wants a good relationship with the US is Imran Khan's decision to visit Russia. He went to visit Russia, he started talking about deeper ties with Russia and he visited Russia on the same day that Putin invaded Ukraine and that turned out to be a miscalculation of sorts and which seems to have united the American administration which is now openly against Imran Khan and Imran Khan now is openly against the US administration. He has said he realizes that he has to go but he wants to prepare the ground for an emotional campaign when elections are called, if elections are called and the US army, Pakistan army doesn't want to alienate the US right now however much it might have tied up with China. So Imran Khan's calculations have been such that now the Pakistan army has turned neutral. When it turns neutral, till now it was openly backing Imran Khan since last year after the fallout with Bajwa the Pakistan army has withdrawn supposedly. When it withdraws, it opens the door for the opposition and the opposition is no longer, the Pakistan army and ISI will no longer play the government's role of stamping down the opposition of all the arrests that have taken place and because of that Imran Khan now finds a united opposition and a part of his coalition and his own party have switched sides and moved away from him. So he is clearly not going to survive a confidence motion. A last minute deal is apparently being worked out between him and the opposition that they will withdraw the no confidence vote and he will call immediate elections. Now that is what Imran Khan is preparing the ground for but this is a very interesting moment in Pakistan's history because Imran Khan appears to have not only challenged the army but also the third A in the entire lot. He has not only challenged the army, the army has turned he has challenged the third A which no one till now has recently done so he has challenged the third A which is America he is saying America has a direct role in pulling him down and working against the interests of Pakistan. This is an interesting time for Pakistan, for Pakistani democracy whatever there is of it and also a tightrope walk for the Pakistani army which will actually want to tamper down all the rhetoric that Imran Khan has built up the anti-India rhetoric it will want that to be dampened because it wants a slightly stable space within which it can continue to control Pakistan. For this show today keep watching NewsClick subscribe to us, like this video, share it as well.