Agenda and minutes

The Committee is asked to note any apologies for absence and substitutions received from Members.

An apology was received from Councillor Skeels (no substitution).

Councillors are invited to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests or Personal Interest, and the nature of it, in relation to any item on the agenda.

Councillors Allen and Barry both declared a personal interest in the Beach Hut item as both were Town Councillors for Town Councils that owned Beach Huts with in the District of Tendring.

Subject to providing two working days' notice, a Member of the Committee may ask the Chairman of the Committee a question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties which affect the Tendring District and which falls within the terms of reference of the Committee.

There were none on this occasion.

To consider the outcome of the enquiry undertaken by the Members who formed the Task and Finish Group into this matter.

Report to follow.

The Committee heard that throughout the enquiry, the Task and Finish Group (T&FG) looked into the issues which the emerging Beach Hut Strategy proposed to address.  In order to understand how the various issues would impact on the Council, residents, Beach Hut Licence Holders and other stakeholders, the T&FG spent time listening and asking questions of various stakeholders. 

In preparation for Cabinet considering the emerging Beach Hut Strategy, the T&FG understood that the Council had consulted on the key issues included in the draft document.  The T&FG Group reviewed each of those items to establish a view and make recommendations where appropriate. 

For clarity, the eight points which formed the consultation were listed, together with what the Council was minded to implement once the strategy was adopted. The T&FG findings and comments were listed below each item:

1.    Renting of Beach Huts

What was the Council considering?

“The Council is proposing to issue commercial agreements for those wishing to rent out Beach Huts for more than 10 days per year, which will regulate the market for rentals. It is proposed that commercial agreements are issued to those requesting them, but based on a criteria.  This will cover key points such as accessibility and safety of huts, to ensure those with commercial agreements are able to provide a high quality service and support the appropriate points set out in the Council’s Tourism Strategy.  New agreements would be through a lease and not a licence and as such, the cost would be identified by establishing a market value, which would increase the amount paid.  A specific clause will be included on all other agreements to prohibit renting for more than 10 days per year.  The annual charge for the lease will vary from location to location and will be based on an independent valuation”.

Comments from the Task and Finish Group

-          The T&FG expressed concern about the potential cost of the lease and the proposed terms and conditions, which were unknown.  The T&FG requested that Cabinet ensure future charges were set at a fair and reasonable level. 

-          The T&FG  were originally concerned with the requirement to tender (in the original proposal which was consulted), but agreed with the new proposal for an application process;

-          The T&FG expressed concern about the significant administration processes that may be involved in implementing the strategy and the subsequent cost to the Council of processing leases. 

2.       OWNING BEACH HUTS

What was the Council’s considering?

“The Council is considering whether to limit new beach huts licences to one per household. The Council is considering honouring multiple existing licences to one household. However, if a household already has a beach hut, then they would not be able to apply for a second licence.  This would ensure that Beach Hut are more accessible to local people”. 

Comments from the Task and Finish Group

-          The Task and Finish Working Group agreed to the principal of this point  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

To consider the outcome of the enquiry undertaken by the Members who formed the Task and Finish Group into this matter.

Report to follow.

The Committee heard that the Cyber Security T&FG (Task and Finish Group) were tasked to:

1)    To challenge/ better understand the cybersecurity risks, defences, and mitigations the Council has in place.

Following Full Council 22^nd November 2022, the T&FG mandate was extended too additionally:

2)    Review different proposals of Members’ access to emails and the current practice of auto-forwarding to personal email accounts, in line with the Council’s Risk Management Framework, and make recommendations to Cabinet and Council along with relevant costings.

During its first meeting the Cyber Security T&FG agreed to use the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities (DLUHC) Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) document template as a self-assessment, auditing, and reporting framework template to review council cyber-security as referenced above.

It was reported to Members that the DLUHC CAF proved relevant to the review of Members’ access to emails, auto-forwarding of council official business emails to personal devices and council data stored on personal devices as it included a number of National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) compliance statements covering: data security and understanding, data protection in transit across the UK network, data storage security, mobile device data security, media equipment sanitisation and disposal, secure device configuration.

CAF Explanatory Notes

The DLUHC Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) provided the pragmatic basis to ‘self-assess’ the Council’s own cyber security performance across the following activities:

1)    Managing Cyber Security (organisational structures, policies, processes, understanding).

2)    Protecting Against Cyber Attack - security measures to protect networks and systems.?

3)    Detecting Cyber Security Events ensuring effective security defences/ event detection.

4)    Minimising The Impact of cyber security Incidents and their adverse impact.

The Committee was informed that the self-assessment CAF was a National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) assessment document that was a mandatory cyber-security ‘readiness state audit’ document for critical UK national infrastructure providers since 2021. During 2022 the CAF had become mandatory for every central government department and whilst CAF completion was currently voluntary for local government DLUHC have repeatedly advised that it would become mandatory during 2023/24.

In this sense the CAF would replace the now defunct Public Services Network (PSN) IT Health Check annual audit/ certification process reporting local government cyber-security capabilities and fitness to remain securely connected and sharing data with central government Department of Works & Pensions (DWP). The reader should note that several council statutory service functions were completely reliant upon this connectivity, for example: Council Tax, Housing Benefit administration. Loss/ exclusion from central government connectivity would quickly stop those services from functioning.

With regards to the outcome, outlined recommendations were made by T&FG Members with due regard and consideration to:

§  The Full Council background information report.

§  AllMember’s subject-matter comments received considered 23^rd Jan’23.

§  A newly published Information Commissioner’s Office Freedom of Information (FOI) guidance note considered 23^rd Jan’23.

§  The four costed options provided and their respective financial, cyber-security and Member-user working practicality satisfaction and non-satisfaction implications considered 23rd Jan’23.

§  A full copy of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.