To receive a report from the leader on the activities of the executive (cabinet) since the meeting of Council on 4 March.

Council received and noted the Leader’s Report which provided an update on the work of the cabinet since the previous ordinary meeting of Council in January 2022. The Leader presented his report to Council.

Council questioned the Leader and the following actions were raised:

·         to provide an update on Balfour Beatty’s assessment of the safety requirements of the bridge at Buckton;

·         to provide a timeline for the allocation of full staffing resource to the public rights of way (PROW) and traffic regulation order (TRO) teams;

·         to invite the local MPs to meet with councillors after a forthcoming meeting of the full Council to discuss phosphate concerns;

·         to provide a written response providing detail of the number of wetlands sites that were proposed and the cost involved in the purchase of land;

·         to provide a written response on staff stability within children’s social worker teams and the number of social workers a child may expect to have over a 12 month period. The response to include benchmarking data for a comparison with other local authorities of the current recruitment and retention of social workers nationally;

·         to provide a written response on the incidence of fabricated or induced illness (FII) in Herefordshire;

·         to provide a written response concerning the structure of the children’s services legal team and the use of legal executives in place of solicitors;

·         to provide a written response concerning plans to reduce the number of interim appointments and recruit to permanent positions; and

·         to provide a written response on planning for the location of Ukrainian refugees which takes account of the provision of local services.