Transcript

We'll get started. Good afternoon, everyone. Please be advised this meeting will be recorded and posted on the Council's YouTube channel. Can all those speaking ensure you switch on your microphone before addressing the meeting and remember to switch off when you have finished speaking. When voting, can members raise their hand? Item one, apologies for absence. Thank you. Item two, any urgent business? I see none. Item three, declarations of interest? None. Item four, is cabinet happy to agree the minutes of the last meeting? Please raise your hands. Thank you. Now, just before we start, I'd like to welcome new cabinet members to the table. I guess this is your first cabinet meeting since being appointed at the full Council AGM. So, welcome to cabinet where we will deliver for this Council and I'm sure that you'll be keenly working on how you are delivering in your respective roles to deliver our key missions in our Greenwich. We'll move now to item five, draft statement of accounts. This is to consider and comment upon the authorities draft statement of accounts for the year ending the 31st of March, 2024. Do members require a briefing? Do members have any questions or comments? Do members happy? Yep, Councillor Hyland. Oh, thank you, Chair. Just an erratum. I'm listed in related party transactions as being the President of the Royal Heritage Trust. I'm not. I am President of the World Heritage Site in Greenwich and they're entirely different things as members will know. So with that, Chair, I commend the report to you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm sure we can get that updated accordingly. Thank you. All right. Well, as the report comes back for approval later, instead of draft, we'll get that updated for you, Councillor Hyland. Yep. Are members happy to agree decisions as outlined in section 1.1? Thank you. Right, we'll move on to item six to note the Council's out term position. Do members require a briefing? Do members have any questions or comments? Are members happy to agree the decisions as outlined in section 1.1? Brilliant. I'm expecting you to raise your hands. Thank you. We'll now move on to item seven, Treasury Management and Capital out term. Do members require a briefing? Do members have any questions or comments? I mean, I'll just say I'm grateful to all the work that we're doing under our Treasury and Management Capital, of which it has set up our new Sustainable Transport Fund, is delivering all the work that we're doing around our efforts to build our capital projects, including other things around housing as well. And I'm sure that we'll continue to deliver through our Treasury and Capital Management out term. Are members happy to agree decisions as outlined in sections 1.1 to 1.4 of the report? Thank you. We'll now move on to item eight, the Midterm Financial Strategy 2025-2026 updates. Do members require a briefing? Do members have any questions or comments? Councillor Hyland. Thank you, Chair. Just to thank the Finance Department and partners for all the work that have gone into all of these reports, very grateful to them. However, we still, as a local authority, are structurally underfunded and we understand how the new government are disadvantaged by the state of the country's finances and are unlikely to be able to dig us out of the problem. So if that being the case, we have a forecast gap of over 27 million in 2025-26 and another 30 million the year after, and that is in line with similar boroughs. I won't name them because this is being, you know, screened out. But suffice it to say, it isn't just Labour councils that are in this problem. It is also Conservative and Lib Dem. It's right across the board. And until the government sought out a national care system, we will still face untapped demand, both for adults and for children. And we really need to protect our frontline services. But we're getting to a point where actually we need to look at everything we do and see what gives. And we want to give the best to our residents, including culture, not just at the emptying of the bins, whilst that is very important. I agree. So I'm hoping that we will see a relaxation when it comes to the settlement by the government. But I can't bet on it, you know. Well, actually betting by politicians is bad news anyway, isn't it? Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much, Councillor Highland. I'm going to bring in Councillor Smith. I just have a question. I know none of us know yet because it's not been agreed. But if the pay rise for local government workers, public sector workers is five point something percent, as is being banded around in the press, what would be the effect of that on our budget? Thank you. Damon? I mean, obviously, that settlement is in respect of a certain cohort of workers. There is there are obviously discussions that are ongoing between the representatives of the employers for local government workers and the trades unions. And there is an offer on the table. If the offer that is on the table was to be agreed, then we have that fully funded. And if it's above, I mean, if it's more in the region of what has been settled elsewhere, then that's going to put a pressure on us. But I need to go back and look at the precise details. Any other questions or comments? Well, thanks. Thanks for the report, officers and Councillor Highland for your report. I guess, you know, one message that we collectively as a cabinet have to send to government is the pressures that councils are going through. And this year, when we set our budget in February, we saw decisions and really tough decisions that we took to safeguard our finances. Now we're about to go straight into that process again. And as a council and cabinet, you must think strategically about how we hold discussions with central government about realizing where councils are. That's the new government. And I note that they are looking at different settlements, but we're yet to see where they arrive on how they deal with their spending review or whether they do one or not. So let's all just be aware of all of that and note that, you know, it's a very tough time for councils at the moment. And whilst we're still in this process, we need to make sure that we work together to deliver for this council, but also balance our budget to continue being a council that survives for its residents. Right. Our members happy to agree. I'll just do that again. Our members have to agree the decisions as outlined in section one point one to one point three of the report. Thank you very much. We'll now move on to item nine to adopt community engagement framework to members require briefing. No. Okay. Do members have any questions or comments? Okay. Right. I guess this is me because you're pointing at me. Yeah, it's definitely one that I plan to talk on. I mean, at the early onset of this council, we invested quite heavily through our financial and budget process to invest in community engagement. Today, you are seeing the results of that work through setting up a new community engagement team, brings together a new community engagement handbook and pledge to our residents on how we'll engage with them. And we've just spoken about the toughness that we see within council services and delivery. Through those processes, we are going to have to work hand in hand with our residents, speaking with them, innovating, thinking about how we deliver for the future at a time when we're seeing a huge population increase, more demand for services. And three, thinking about all the way we do council work from different services to new strategies, to thinking about the different innovation that we want to implement. So the reports before you today speak about how we rethink how we engage with our communities, making sure that we can be vulnerable about the challenges that we have, but still hold great conversations with residents. And it's an expectation not just for councilors, but for staff and partners. And actually, last week when we held our Greenwich partnership event, we saw how everyone engaged and gave feedback around it. We expect and anticipate that everyone will hold this document and use it to do the work that we seek it to do and seek it to achieve, which is engage with our communities in a way that is meaningful, taking conversations to them. So I'm glad to see this arrival here. I want to thank officers for all their efforts and work that they've done putting together the document. It's not been an easy one because actually it's gone and spoken around to many partners, but that's exactly what we should be doing. So I'm grateful to the team. I'm grateful for all councilors who have fed in, but also attending the sessions that the team put on, on how we engage with our residents and the training that was provided to councilors and other staff at the same time. There's still obviously more work to go in terms of thinking about how we change, how we do data analytics, how we implement a new way of collecting the consultation information, engage or inform. So hoping to continue the work and there's still an action plan to implement very parts of it on a board that I chair as leader of the council. So I'm happy to see it to come to cabinet today. Do other members have any questions or comments or to just speak about, you know, what they're seeing changing in their community engagement? I see no more. OK, we'll now move to the decision. Are members happy to agree to decisions as outlined in section 1.1 to 1.4 of the report? Brilliant. We'll now move on to item 10. Do members, this is the children and young people's plan 2024 to 2029. Do members require a briefing? No. Are members, do members have any questions or comments? Councillor Cairo. >> Thank you, chair. I wanted to first of all say a few words about this. The previous government in 2010 decided that local authorities no need to complete a children and young people plan anymore. But us as Royal Borough of Greenwich, we know how important it is for the vision of our borough and also for the way we look after our children and our work with our partners. So we continued with that trend to set a children and young people plan every five years. So this new policy that's coming forward talks about how we're going to work with young people. It was created by young people to shape up the way we work with them and also with all our partners. I would like to thank Florence and all their team to put this together and also my predecessor, Matt Morrow, for all the work he's done around this. It's important that we continue delivering on this because children and young people are our future. And they will be our future politicians, our future doctors, and we need to make sure we give them the best life as possible in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

Thank you very much. Any other comments? Councillor Jack Smith. I welcome the plan. I think it was a very wise decision to continue with the plan when we weren't required to do it anymore. And I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate children's services on achieving Ofsted's excellent status, which is an amazing achievement and well done to everybody involved. Brilliant. Thank you very much, Councillor Smith, for mentioning that. And yes, let's just place on the record that obviously this report just comes out on the back of a fantastic Ofsted report, demonstrating the comments that the inspector made about how corporate leaders and political leaders work tirelessly to live for kids. Without our partnership working and working collectively, that wouldn't have been able to achieve it. But more importantly, it sets the precedence of how we move forward in delivering for children and young people, making sure that we can be unapologetic corporate parents and seek to make sure we provide the future that they can live that has the best life for them. So we continue working on the back of that Ofsted to deliver even more for our young people. So well done to everyone that was involved in that. Are members happy to agree to decisions as outlined in section 1.1 of the report? Thank you very much. We'll now move on to item 11. This is the Borough of Royal Greenwich Air Quality Action Plan to adopt and publish the Borough's Air Quality Action Plan 2023 to 2028. Do members require a briefing? Do members have any questions or comments? Councillor Locale? Thank you, Chair. This is just a statutory document which is a formality, really. As part of London-wide air quality monitoring, it ensures that everything that we measure is standardized and can be measured across the board. I really would like to thank Leanne and her team for the work she did on this, they did on this. And in all fairness, pass it for comment to my colleague, who was the cabinet lead before I took over, I'm always able to jump in and take credit for the work you've done. So perhaps you might want to comment, but I think it's a good piece. Councillor Cousins, would you like to comment as well? Thank you, Councillor Powell. Lovely, thank you very much for that and definitely where you ended up with thanking officers. I'll just start with a little bit on that because the report is a little bit late, but that's because the lead officer on that has moved on. And we do obviously wish her the best with all her endeavors in moving on with her career and family needs, etc. The plan is a London-wide document. It is based on the legal requirements, so it's not something we have a choice to do. But it is something that we want to do anyway in terms of the health and well-being of our residents. The community will know that there's lots of information in the media about air pollution. There's long-term impact and consequences, potentially fatally, especially on our younger residents. And so it is important that we all engage with this strategy. The report contains what was achieved under the previous five years. It's unusual in that this one is a five-year term. So the next five years this covers is 2023 to 2028, and there are lots of things there. It's not just about the transport and the fuel and our low-impact zones and trees we plant. I'm also reaching out to individual residents and saying that there are decisions that we can all make on an individual basis that will magnify and have an impact. So for example, losing your vehicle one less day a week or not at all during the week if you can. We're trying to use the transport services more and just demanding that there's more transport if there is less in your particular area. So yes, I definitely commend this report and look forward to us building on what we've achieved thus far and to 2028, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Cousins, and thank you to both of you for the work that you've put in on this report collectively with your officers. It's just reflecting really, and it's great to see the level of actions in the report. But more importantly, thinking about how we're using our treasury management strategy to deliver upon some of the key things in this report. So the allocation to bring forward school healthy streets is a really important contribution to this. And the over 7 million sustainable transport fund to help deliver all of these things. So it's really putting our money where our mouth's on and making sure that we can get the right quality of life and health for our residents, which is set out in our corporate vision, our Greenwich. Our members happy to agree to decisions as outlined in section 1.1? Agreed. Thank you very much. We'll now move on to item 12. This is to approve the objective set out in our send and inclusion strategy. From 2024 to 2029, and to approve the proposed publication and communication arrangements. Do members have any questions or comments? Councillor Kaira? Thank you, Chair. What can I say about SEND? SEND has got a very close place in my heart as a father with a young child with SEND. Across the country, we've seen the pressure that's happening. In Greenwich, we're like another London borough, feeling the pressure regarding the SEND, children and young people that are going through this. But this policy, this strategy that's coming forward, is a shape that is going to take the borough forward. That we used it to include young people's voice this time, and have always used young people to shape up what we want to deliver for them locally. I would like to thank Matt Morrow again for his hard work around this. And picking up a lot of his work, and Florence and her team, but we will be doing a lot more to engage on this. And do a lot more with government as well, because we do need a lot more money to deliver what we need for young people across the borough. And we will lobby government for what we can. Thank you, Chip. Thank you very much. And I know you have your own personal journey with SEND yourself, and I'm glad that you used that to do your role. So thank you for that yourself, and being an example. And obviously both myself and yourself, and a former cabinet member have been going around to schools, speaking to them about the experiences of children with SEND. And I'm grateful that this is really a national topic, about how we support children who need more SEND provision and support to make sure they can have the right learning environments that support them to learn. And that's really key. And I think as a council, collectively, every single one of us needs to be on the front foot of that, speaking about how we create learning environments to support people with SEND. And that's going to be fundamentally key as the government sets out their new strategy for how they support schools and parents and advocacy groups. This is a space that we see parents come together and really put on work to help support advocacy for other parents. I'm grateful to everyone that's working in our community to support, just like the Javon Coker Foundation, which the mayor recently supported via his charity, and I'm grateful to that. Are members happy to agree to decisions as outlined in section 1.1 to 1.2? Agree. Thank you very much. We'll now move on to item 13, to agree to propose community resource strategy and associated needs analysis. Do members require a briefing? Do members have any questions or comments? Councillor Cousens? Thank you, Chair. I think we'll be hearing quite a little bit from Councillor Kiera with these reports, because it's this transition of us moving from one cabinet portfolio to another. So, I've just taken up the mantle as cabinet member for, I was going to say the wrong one. For equalities, culture, and communities, which was my colleague sitting to my left here's prior role. So he's overseeing the development of this, but I just wanted to take an opportunity before I ask him to say something, Connie. Just to say, Chair, that I think this actually links in with the community engagement framework and demonstrates that we're taking these, they're not just paper documents, they are live documents. Because below that, we are also developing other strategies. And this particular one is like an umbrella strategy, looking specifically at how we are funding the voluntary and community sector and charitable sectors that supports us in the delivery. As you said just before, the SEND delivery and you mentioned the Javan Coker and there are other organizations that's working in that field to ensure delivery. The point of this strategy is to increase proportionality of resources, so that we are not just year on year out funding the same organizations and expecting change. And that's going to be done through needs analysis. But let me hand over to my colleague, and then perhaps you can hand back to me and I'll come to you. You can hand it to me and I'll. Thank you. The Chair will, I'll call, I'll call Delwin. Thank you. Thank you Councillor. Thank you Chair, thank you Councillor Cousins for that. The community resource strategy is one of our most important things and we discuss this on many occasions. It's the golden thread that goes through all departments. I know we've been working closely with Drez as well on this and the team to make sure that we look at where the needs are across the borough. There's a tool kit that's been created from the back of this that can see what's missing and where and how we can improve on it. A fair proportion as Councillor Cousins has mentioned and also equity across the playing field. There's some parts of the borough that you wouldn't expect us to suffer from the provision that a lot of people wouldn't know about. But this report highlights them parts of the borough. And now it's for us all across the different departments to make sure that we bring them all to a playing level. And not only tapping into the following sector, also tapping into our business partners. Tapping into all of our faith organizations because they've got resources as well they can offer forward. So it's a life document as Councillor Cousins has mentioned and we'll continue building up on this chair. Thank you. Thank you very much and I appreciate the effort that you placed into it as well. Councillor Cousins did you want to come back in? Just to summarize by saying obviously we do highly commend this report to be adopted today, thank you. Thank you. Thanks to officers. So yeah, thanks for the efforts you guys have put in alongside your officers and the work that you've done to make this come to life. And you're right, it does feed into our community engagement. And it also feeds into all the work we're trying to do on mental health. All the work we're trying to do on achieving our aims to ensure the quality of life and health of our residents. So all very important and contributing to that. Right, are members happy to agree the decisions as outlined in section 1.1 to 1.6 of the report? Agreed. Thank you very much. We'll now move on to item 15, sorry, 14, cultural strategy. This is still a job, the cultural strategy 2024 to 2030. Do members require briefing? Do members have any questions or comments? Councillor Cousins? Yes, once again I am going to pass on to my fellow Councillor, Councillor Kehrer about this. It's another strategy that he has been working on with officers for a very long time. Before I pass back to you, Chair, I will say that although this is the first cultural strategy that Royal Greenwich has produced, it is not the first cultural stuff that we're doing. And I think it's very, very important to recognize that Royal Greenwich is a borough of culture, full stop. We have heritage Greenwich. We've got the waterfronts. We've got wonderful green spaces. We have Woolwich, I mean who wouldn't want to come to Woolwich? We've got lots of things. We've got all our community, very diverse and creative and colourful community groups, et cetera, that are always putting on events on a practically monthly basis. Our libraries and all the things they do. So Greenwich has been doing culture. The purpose of this strategy is to set a focus, is to set a direction. And so on that basis, Chair, I'll hand back to you. Thank you very much. You know, it's important that we recognize the authority of the Chair in these meetings and understand that I call people to speak in that regard. So I appreciate that. Councillor Kyra and then I'll go to Councillor Smith. Thank you, Chair. What can I say about the culture strategy? It's one of the -- I spent a lot of days onto this, you know. The culture -- what I can say about it actually, this is bold and creative. It brought organisations and residents together to shape up what this should look like. It touches on 13 missions out of our 20 missions that we got in our Greenwich, which is very important. And it also highlights that culture is within all of us, regardless what your background is. Everybody celebrates culture one way or the other. When we set out on the journey as well, it was recognized by the Mayor of London. That's why we have achieved an Impact Award for Borough of Culture, because we had a clear vision that Greenwich delivers a lot, but there was nothing on concrete on paper that shows a way forward. And this is something that will not only take us to the next level, but also connect up a lot of the work that we're doing around place planning, neighbourhoods, mental health, and a lot of other stuff that we're doing across the borough. I would like to thank the team on the hard work. They've been through a lot to deliver this, and, you know, back and forward. A few restructures there to make sure that we get it right. But we did get it right, and I'm proud of this document. And I'm sure Councillor Cousins will deliver on it. Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you very much. And thanks for your collective hard work on that. Councillor Smith? Just a picky point and a question, really. So on page 777, there's a bit about community consultation, and talks about target groups for community consultation. And the first bit says deprivation, and it lists a number of areas. And I'm not really clear what those areas are, because they're a bit vague. You know, Middle Park, Elton West, Woolwich, Riverside. Are we talking about old wards? Are we talking about geographical areas? To me, that's not specific enough. I think we should do it in wards, because we understand what a ward is. That area is a bit amorphous and huge, really. If we say Charlton, what do we mean? Charlton's a huge area. Peninsula's a huge area. You know, Woolwich, Riverside is a ginormous area. I think we probably need to be specific about the wards in which the deprivation is, rather than just named general areas. Thank you very much, Councillor Smith. On that point, I'm guessing, I mean, we potentially have two options. That would need to be updated in the report before we can agree it. Now, I'm going to suggest that we recommend that we just do an addendum to the item that sets that out and kind of go from there. But our and Councillor Conlon, did you have a point to come in on? Thanks, Chair. I was going to say that it does say around those, rather than the specifics. It's usually the specifics that trap us, whereas we have the flexibility. These are based on the super output areas and things like that. So we are sort of guided and it could change from year to year, perhaps. But it says around, rather than the specifics of an area, thanks. Hold on, hold on, sorry, sorry, guys. The chair hasn't, yeah, thank you very much. Noted. The action that we'll take on that point is that we will update it and that will come, there will be an amendment addendum to it at some point. Pardon? I'm now going to, I will bring you back in, Jackie. I'm just saying, those listed are old ward names. Those wards don't exist anymore. So we need to update that with the new ward names. Thank you very much. Now, we'll take that point. Thank you very much. In line with that addendum item, are members happy to agree the vast majority of the cultural strategy with the edits to that that will come back at a later date to cabinet? Are members happy to agree to 1.1 to 1.6 of the report? Thank you very much. Now I know earlier I skipped to item 15, but we now have arrived at the item. So this is to agree, the GS+ and GSS review of direction of travel. Are members, do members require a briefing? Do members have any questions or comments? Denise, Councillor Hyland? Thank you, chair. Well, it is as many of the items on this agenda tonight or this afternoon are really important. And this is very important for the council but also for the workforce who have been anxious in recent weeks, months about what their future will be. And we've got at least 299 staff in GS+ and 21 permanent staff in GSS. And this report has the support of the two outgoing chairs of GSS and GS+. Also the chair of the transformation group and also the support of the incoming chair. Now, what's important about this is that a decision was taken by the council in 2019 to insource the companies. Since then, however, we've now reviewed the operations of the companies and things have changed since that original decision whereby the companies are more stable, more profitable. And the proposal is to keep the companies carrying on under their present delivery model and renew the strategic partnership agreement with the council for a period of 10 years. You'll note that any surplus can be, as we're the shareholder, the main shareholder, any surplus can be repatriated back to the council where we will help meet our savings targets that we have for the forthcoming year. And I would just like to, on that note, say 1.2 is where the council retains responsibility for the net assets but also the liabilities from GS+'s membership of the Royal Borough of Greenwich's pension fund. Lastly, to thank everyone who works in GS+ and everyone who works in GSS and the people who put this report together. Stuart, thank you very much for all the work that's been done by Merced, Damon, and everyone else that has contributed. It's a very, to me, it's an absolute no-brainer and I commend it to you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Hyland. And thank you for all the officers that have contributed to this report. Our members happen to agree to decisions as outlined in section 1.1 to 1.2 of the report. Thank you very much. And this is the last cabinet that we will have before the summer recess. So thank you for all the work you've been doing this past, these few months that we are into the year. I'm grateful. And I will see you at full council tonight, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. .