Transcript

Thank you. Morning everyone and welcome to another formal meeting of cabinet this morning Tuesday the third of September 2024, and I just wanted to welcome all members of the cabinet wider executive other members that may be here, officers and then members of the public that may well be in via the YouTube life span that's being taken by the council, and also welcome to colleagues in the public gallery. And so, a special welcome to reach McCoy, who is our new monitoring officer and director governance our first permanent is so welcome, and I hope you enjoy today's first meeting, and as mentioned the meeting is being live streamed on YouTube so please behave yourself and make sure you've got your nice face on counselors unable to join the meeting in person that are able to join remotely however they won't be able to present gender item or boat, but they will be able to participate in the debates, raise their hand. And, finally, can I just remind all members, if you are due to be speaking to any magnitude, they're going to be discussing today's cabinet meeting could you kindly just set out your full name, the words that you represent and any role that you particularly occupy either on the cabinet or on the exact. So we're going to be jumping into agenda items, as follows. First, with apologies for absence. Joy Can I firstly take any formal apologies for absence received directly. Yes. Thank you very much. And then, colleagues here, are there any other apologies to be noted. Nope. Okay, fine, and colleagues note on agenda item to declaration of interest, ages nine to 10. Members at this time remember to declare any disposable pecuniary or non secondary interests, they may have in any matter being considered at this meeting, having regards to the guidance attached to the agenda. So, may I ask you to consider the substantive agenda items and advise me now. If you've got any conflicts. Madeline sunny sunny, you said. My husband works for simple adventure school, which is referenced in which is referenced in the report. Okay, thank you very much for that we've noticed, and then I just wanted to. For everyone's attention to the decisions made on the six of 2024. He's covered off and pages seven to 18. Can I ask that we approve these decisions as an accurate record of the decisions made by cabinet meeting is that agreed cabinet members only agree. Thank you. Thanks. And we've now moving on to appointments to outside bodies. So there's one appointment to outside bodies that I want to be advising on actually to. Firstly, I wanted to update member colleagues at the list of outside appointments has been updated to reflect that in addition to the existing appointments to local London partnership. There are also appointments to its two subgroups is the growth and recovery board which I attend and chair, and then there's also the skills and employment board attended by Council Steve ratio, who's the Commissioner for skills and lifelong learning, and we've also got a vacancy for the new schools forum and I'm pleased to announce the appointment of awesome long to that body. I did for a moment. And I don't know who Lynn is. Right, so let's move on to the substantive agenda items. We've got the executive response to black boys, and the Boris scrutiny report, and you'll be inviting counselor Sarah roos and counselor for a hit desktop to talk to this. I just wanted to make a couple of quick comments. As you all are aware cabinet and the executive very much welcoming engagement as part of the role of scrutiny across all matters, the policy vendor that we're pursuing as an administration and this scrutiny commission looking into the relationship between black boys and the borrower across different partnerships, and across different systems is a really good one. And it has to be noted that this has taken some three years to conclude, and I will be having sessions with the chair both means as to reflect on the processes and scopes is being undertaken, but I'm pleased that they have not the significant amount of work we're doing as a administration here at this council to address issues, systemic racism and inequality, including those that affect particular ethnic groups, and as you know, the place in the experience and journeys of all of our young people. So I just want to make those comments. Thank you, Roxana, and I'll first set my speech now but you've just made this. relationship between black boys and the borrower, and I think it isn't just the council is the borrower, and although we are an important part of the borrower, we are not the whole of the borrower so I think very useful for the commission to actually to be looking at other parts of the borough, Roxana has already said, a lot of the recommendations, included in the report are underway and have been underway for a considerable amount of time. We accepted all their recommendations apart from I think probably setting up a separate helpline which we felt would actually only cause confusion and not able us to check cross check. And the other one is about every single person in the council receiving trauma training, and although that's a lovely idea, and I'm not sure actually that finances would allow, but please be assured that all children's social care and adult social care already received that level of training so other people can join those workshops if they wish, but we can't possibly expect all members of staff to participate in that. I'm very pleased that there is going to be a review of how the next stage of the Commission will go because it has been three, maybe four years since it started. And although it's been a lot of work, there is probably not that much more left to do, and we have the report, and I look forward to the final report. I'm sure Rohit has got other things to add this, if he wants to. Thank you, I think both of you have really covered those things. I guess the only thing I would say is again, you know, sort of repeating you, but we've talked a lot about the support. I think issues of inclusion and equality are not just a cancel or a fault. And I think one of the things that sets out in our executive response is when we are thinking about how to make lives better for young people in life, young people, boys, making sure that you know we are taking a much more borrowed by the courts than just a council. And I think that's very specific. Again, as I've mentioned, I think all commissions are being accepted on top of the same one. And I guess the reason for that is because expertise already exists outside us, and there's no point in us kind of repeating that wheel when there is expertise which can go on. There is just one thing I wanted to add, and I think that it would be really helpful when the Commission meets again, is that there needs to be perhaps a distinguished definition because when they talk about black boys, is it black, African Caribbean, or black African? Because actually, black African boys often perform better than black, African Caribbean. And I think that it's not necessarily helpful to lump them up into black boys. And, yeah, and certainly, if you look at figures, there's far lower achievement, actually, in white boys. That black boys are proportionately represented in, certainly in the justice system, etc. Okay, fine. Are there any questions, colleagues? Councillor John Whitworth? Just perhaps I can ask for a clarification. There is an apparent discrepancy in the scrutiny report, which is on page 57 in the agenda pack, 217 and 218. We see that there has been a reduction in the proportion of black boys in the pupil referral units from 41% in 2018-19 to 17% later, presumably until now. And then in 2018, it does refer to the 2021, the highest number of, black boys are the highest number of suspensions in 2021, and the trend seems to be rising. If there's a rising trend in suspensions, but a lowering of the proportion of people referring units, there must be an explanation. I just wondered if we could have some clarification there. I'm going to pass over to Laura. Not all children who are suspended or excluded go to the pupil referral unit, so children who are suspended still have their school class. They're not permanently excluded, they're suspended either for three hours, you know, four days, depending on the reason for the suspension. And permanently excluded kids can go to another mainstream school, so they don't necessarily, one doesn't necessarily equate to the other. Thank you. Any other questions? Councillor Neil Walter? Yeah, it was to really emphasize how I think Councillor Ruiz and Councillor Siskoic have already said that in terms of the trauma training, the relevant paragraph shares, well the recommendation 10 from 32 at the bottom, and it, you know, it does say in 461 that the budget used for the initial training that we have logged to has done that training is no longer available but we are very keen both as a lead from public health point of view, under adults but also individuals and partners to use a voluntary and community sector because very often they can have assets, not necessarily in terms of money but in terms of lived experience and also the very relevant cohorts that we're talking about in terms of black population particularly growing in terms of the proportion of our population, and how that they pilot. It does indicate quite a lot there about colleagues in public health are collaborating with the VRU sorry, virtual, whatever it is, trauma informed project violence reduction unit sorry yes. And so, there is the work going on and I think we need to put on public record that you know we may not have specific funding for our staff but it's I think what both Sarah and yourself and Robert have said that we're the lead agency for a lot of this but we're not the only players in the field and sometimes, because we've got some very well established training class with violent reduction unit or public health in the area of London at pan level, which is from mental health but through to a whole load of trauma informed things. I just wanted to emphasize that chair so it's more of a point record for so that we are not being dismissive of this and we feel it's very important, all of us. Okay. Is that noted join. All right, thank you very much. Any, my sorry, and one thing I'm and I think it would be useful for next stage of the commission. What I want to look at is me. We have the lowest exclusion in the borough, and I just wondered whether the commission, like to talk to some bonds to see what they are doing, and perhaps learn from them because there is no doubt about it that that is where the highest proportion, go to school, they have the lowest level of exclusions. So there must be something that they do their. Yeah, and it might be useful for them to talk, perhaps to some bonds. Okay, fine. So that's noted, and colleagues just going to be recommendations of this report. So if you just know to put one on page 21, the reason I can't. Mayor cabinet recommended to know the executive response to the polls and recommendations on the relationship between black boys and finished speaking commission. It's been undertaken over the past three years. Is that noted, noted, brilliant, thank you very much. I'm moving on to the next agenda item, which is agenda items six custom house acquisitions of chocolate clothes. And I'll invite council. The chair councils of the government finance and resources there in the cabinet lady we all are aware of the unprecedented challenges that we're facing in the homelessness in the barrel. This is a national crisis which has resulted from the failure of the government policies and has had the massive impact in terms of the the cost that we are in current. We have the highest number of households in every accommodation, and that pressure is driving. And the class, and as administration, we have always done our best support of that just because they deserve respect and dignity. And that is what this administration is trying to do. And we have been continuously exploring all other option to see how we can accommodate our people have to reduce the costs and acquisition program is one element helps to do that. And this program has been accelerated and we have achieved a number of successful acquisition which have contributed reduction discussed. We know this is a national crisis, but it is something that you come and see recognize and, and indeed expect that the budget statement the government will come up on 30th of October, will help to assist local authorities like us and share with those who have needed actually marks, the acquisition of the time to close is part of the same program in order to address the growing crisis. This comprises of 26 one bedroom units and freehold basis, there is a large parking area across the two blocks and gives us an opportunity with the potential of possibly having another hundred new homes at a later date. Should we decide to do that, and we do of course, the kind of scheme is owned by housing association for the look ahead, and the side that you know is just outside the custom house regeneration area. As you can see today, it is expected to come back stand in September, the completion, you know, five units are currently used for affordable housing, and there are no planning sticks on site. It has been found that all tenants living there will be offered alternative suitable temptation before completion. So as part of one of our commitment to ensure that we work across the council as one council, I'm pleased to say that offices from adult social care and children services have been working together with properties and indeed housing and ensure that we maximize the potential benefit from this acquisition and others to follow. And this is to assist with respect to draft sleepers and caregivers. We also need to ensure that the organization selected for this program has experience of managing such units, and they deliver this in a most cost effective way. Necessary due diligence has already been taken, and further work will continue with respect to legal convincing, oversight of the future maintenance, and transaction structure. As this is going to be a long-term position, the point is to establish what short-term, medium-term, and long-term maintenance needs are. In terms of the financial implications, the return evaluation has confirmed that this is value for money, and the capital costs will be funded through the potential borrowing. Offices have undertaken a financial analysis, as we expect in all such transactions, and the rate of return, IRR, is 9.1%, whilst the current borrowing rate is 5.5, so clearly this is an economically viable stream at this stage. With those words, I will ask the cabinet and the mayor to approve this, but I'll ask Conrad if you wish to add anything else. Sam, anything you wish to add? No, thank you. Okay, are there any questions? Any questions? Councillor Sarah Rose. Thank you, Chair. I represent Custom House Ward, and I think I heard you say that we were hoping for completion at the end of this month or September. The end will be this month, completion next year. Next year, okay. Can I have absolute assurance? Because I'm not necessarily sure we have the best relationship with look-ahead housing. That the residents who are currently living in Chantler Close will be rehoused properly, and that their best interests are taken into account, because I think it's really quite setting for them. They probably lived there for quite a long time, and I would really want assurance that rehousing is going to be looked at really sensitively. Thank you, Councillor Rose. That's clearly a very important point, because people have been living there for probably months and years, and something of this nature will be quite unsettling for them, because if we were to be relocated to a different accommodation, it doesn't meet the requirements. Sam, would you like to just give us an update with respect to assurance that you had from the housing association? Yeah, thank you both. We've had assurance, and the Council will be working with look-ahead to ensure that's the case as well throughout the transaction. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify something from your question. So the residents that you're referring to are currently subject to the custom house regeneration? They currently live in Chantler Close. It's currently occupied, and we're buying it, and those tenants will be rehoused somewhere else. I just wanted an assurance that each one of them is dealt with sensitively, because they will have lived there for quite a long time. It's not part of the custom house region. So I guess the other issue is, if that doesn't happen, then it adds to the pressures in terms of potential homelessness. Be it they will have rights. But if look-ahead are doing their job properly, look-ahead have other properties where I'm assuming these residents will be moved into. So the housing services point that you all passed on, so you've picked that point. Okay, fine. Are there any other questions? So those are recommendations 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4. Blue will be a 3, that's capital difference only. Agreed? Agreed. Thank you very much. Then moving on to the Agenda Item 7, Adaptive Street Lighting Policy. I'll hand over to Councillor Sivela-Ruas. Thank you very much, Chair. In the last five years, the Council have invested in the replacement of its existing standard street lights, sodium lanterns, with new lighting, new light-emitting diodes, LEDs, for those of us who know the language. This has helped the Council to reduce its energy consumption and carbon footprint. As part of the investment, each new LED street lighting unit has been connected to a centrally managed internet-based remotely controlled system. Sounds very impressive, doesn't it? Known as the central management system. The introduction of the CMS provides the authority with the ability to monitor and control energy use more effectively than it could ever do before. This includes the opportunity to vary light levels on the highway network based on the level of nighttime use, resulting in reduced energy consumption, carbon emissions and energy costs. After a small-scale adaptive lighting trial carried out between February 24 and an extended discussion with key stakeholders where the trial was carried out, the Council has decided to apply this adaptive lighting policy to all CMS-controlled lighting within the borough. This will allow the Council to further decrease its energy consumption, energy cost and carbon footprint, but also to respond to the varying needs of different parts of the borough. This form of modern technology means that lighting provision is no longer a one-size-fits-all offer. Instead, we can now increase lighting levels where necessary, especially for safety reasons, but also lower lighting levels where necessary, reducing costs and energy consumption, as well as ensuring residents' privacy and sleep are not disrupted by too bright a lighting. This is another stage in our work to ensure residents get the best service we can offer and that the Council's money is used in the most efficient way possible. Okay, thank you very much. Murat, any additional comments? Thank you, Mayor. If this policy is approved, Mayor, the adaptive lighting, it rolled out as planned. It will provide CO2 savings of up to 366 tons per annum, which will bring our total consumption down from 1,220 tons per annum to 854 tons per annum, which is quite significant. And given that on the 5th of December, 2023, in this cabinet, we approved the first transition plan in the UK, it's really key and important that we consider the impact of our energy consumption to the environment and the impact that has on the future as well. But I just wanted to add that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Really good point and very important as well. Right, I'm going to open to questions. Colleagues. Right, Council Shabam, Councillor Milne, Councillor Dilks and Councillor Farley. I was going to say, while we're talking about lighting also, I think my biggest concern is about trees along the highway, that we make sure that we have a programme of felling trees to make sure that, you know, maximize that light as well. Because it's no good us talking about light and when we've got trees along the highway actually blocking that light. So I think that's one thing that we need to start looking at, is we make sure that we start tree felling programme along that. I think the word is tree pruning. Tree pruning. Knock them down because that's the CO2. Cutting down tree management. Yeah, tree management, arboriculture. OK. Compliments. So, noted. And that will be picked up operationally. Right, we've got Councillor Neil Wilson. Yeah, can I compliment the authors of the EQIA? I mean, it is sometimes something that, you know, I mean, obviously there's a lot of hard work behind decisions like this. It provides reassurance, as does, indeed, I think, Councillor Ruiz and Councillor Purcell highlighted the trial area that people had obviously feedback and there were questionnaires in resident surveys, etc. But the scope and assessment is there in terms of not just the protected characteristics, but the very important concerns around sometimes the protected characteristic, for instance, of socio-economic disadvantage are often ignored or the fact that women and girls and LGBTQ groups are often highlighted because of experiences they've had around safety issues, around levels of lighting. So, I just wanted to put that on record, chair. I think the EQIA is quite detailed and that's right that we get that level of reassurance whenever we have a policy trial. OK, and then Councillor Allen. Thank you, chair. I think we indeed welcome this, because clearly technology is moving very fast and we need to move along with it and it's good to see a reduction in the carbon footprint. And of course, the financial reduction, that's also reported in the report. My only comments are to make sure that we have some degree of reassurance with respect to the level of accumulation. I know a few people once said that currently some of the densities are at P4 level. This could be at P2 level and looking at the number of lux, etc. I don't want to go into detail, but there's a good direction there. Can we ensure that we don't go for the minimum level unless it's absolutely at the table, there's a range. So, it's important that we've been in mind about the safety implications, the transport link and routes, and it would be good to have some sort of before and after pictorial analysis to see what the existing lights are, the new lights will be. Because there will be questions, I think perception is perhaps far from presenting at this stage. So, a before and after analysis of which we perhaps come back in six months time or so, and then on what basis we're going to be deciding which street will be part of this process. So, safety and other issues, and we've highlighted the three aspects. So, it would be good to see a plan in due course, thank you. Paul Gannon is here, I don't know whether he wants to reassure Councillor Ali. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] Can I just clarify, it's not all of the lighting across the whole borough, I think the report makes that very clear, where there are safety concerns or where there are, you know, sort of high impact areas or areas of concern, the lighting will not be, you know, sort of turned down x percent at all. So, it's not a private hit, we're going to turn down the lighting by x percent. So, this is well thought forward and actually well considered. I may come back to you, in that case, I think just with the benefit of cabinet and the wider benefit, but this is something that probably we brought up, it would be helpful to have a little criteria again, against which we are actually making assessment in order to make sure we have a consistent application of the policy across the borough. I'm sure that's available Councillor Ali. [inaudible] Yeah, I just wanted to pick up on something that Councillor Merriam said around the acquisition of the system. The data that underpins the assessment across different areas, I noticed in the report there's a review and monitoring process every six months. What data sets are used, and how does that also align to considerations by the community safety team with regards to and the like, and then how do we triangulate data through by, for instance, either council complaints from members in the boroughs, or through customer servicing boroughs where residents are saying actually the lights out and we go, you know we're quite concerned so I get quite a lot of women near where I live, where there are like blind spots, particularly in the winter. So, are those the kind of things that I've looked at. [inaudible] Okay. And on that community reference group. Do we have young people involved. And do we have gender based approaches, a lot of emphasis around gender based thinking, as it relates to the public crown specifically in the context of our sections of our communities where they are vulnerable to attacks. Our LGBT plus community, trans community, women, young people, and girls. So I appreciate the broad resident reference group, but I think if we're serious around our politics and responsibilities, then I think there's a corporate integrated approach to this that needs to be thought through, and it helps the feedback loop. I would welcome for just comfort and assurance purposes. But in six months time, we have an initial report, not necessarily here. But we have a report that is presented to cabinet and to the executive that we can then use to assure members across the different wards as replied and then a report coming back to cabinet in a year's time, just by way of an update and it's not a decision report but obviously in the interest of transparency, certainly I think the group, we can have a look at the makeup of that group. Yeah. And thank you for that. Thank you. I was just gonna ask a similar question with we've got some safety officers, not just the community policing teams will be included. Right. And I just wanted to, I mean, one of the pilot areas in West Ham wall. And I don't recall being engaged on that but, you know, so that my main question was in your instruction. And you mentioned about it was better to be able to request if there's a particular light outside that happens really really bright, will they be able to request for it to be in. Yeah, they will. And as well as actually in Brighton so they don't have to use electricity in their own house. They can request a fair. Okay, so okay. Yeah, right, I'm going to suggest that we move to recommendations. On page number 103 recommendations, 2.1 point one approved the proposed adaptive classes. I set out an appendix, a two point one dedicated to the corporate director environment sustainable transport in consultation with the statutory deputy main government sustainable transport children's services and educated to make operations policy as required to maintain the highways to accept the standard in line with power 4.6, and that agreed agreed. We're moving on to set foot bed expansion renewal process ballot. Right, so police in Newham on the law standard provisions. By previous governments, there is the ability of businesses to establish known as business in district. And there is one that exists. It was initially instituted in and it was renewed in 2019, and it's now coming to its five year term, and they have advised formally the council that they're going to be initiating a renewal ballot to maintain the Stratford bid known as this original for another five years, you will notice this report sets out primarily information about the legal process issue. This is a report that doesn't make any merits or otherwise, as to the value of efficacy and utility of the business which is right because it's not for us to determine but you will know in the recommendations. There is one, the set out the, the option for the council to either approve reject or abstain in the bid will be considered under delegated authorities director of the city while building director, and myself. I will also be included in relevant deputy cabinet members want to make that distinction. It's about us needing to develop process for men's and providing over any material position as to the value of being, you know, of the bid, if that makes sense, the report sets out quite a lot of detail, please note that there's also emphasis on the odds in the evaluation of the Stratford original bid on the part of the council in terms of this being a key partnership with in order to pursue our Stratford vision ambitions for that locality and that you all know for Stratford neighborhood. We have their intentions around the place vision for the neighborhood, including it becoming our first net zero. So I will be asking officers to be very interactive as to the view of our partnership with for disclosure I am meeting with the community of consortium in a couple of weeks time to reiterate our strategic intent for the neighborhood because I do think that the Stratford bid goes beyond the point of cosmetic enhancements that it's been put in place for the past 10 years through some material that helps advance the growth and thriving commercial neighborhood that is Stratford. So I'm just going to pause there. Paul, is there anything else that you wanted to add? Are there any questions colleagues? I've got Councillor Sarah Ruiz, Councillor Sharni McLean and Councillor Neil Wilson. This came up from our colleagues in scrutiny about whether there was any thoughts about actually increasing the number of bids that we have in the borough. And I think that one of the areas that was particular concern was East Cam. And I know that officer Darren Mackin talked quite extensively about how it was up to the businesses in the area, and it wasn't something a council could lead. I just wondered whether there was any thoughts about whether Stratford bid could do some sort of liaison sort of product selling to the businesses in East Cam, because I think that there is a worth to the bid. And I think East Cam certainly needs some sort of injection, because actually, it's great. Can I just respond to that? I will certainly take those points outside of this meeting and pick up with Paul, because it links significantly to our high street strategy. And I think we've got to be clear, particularly in these financially constrained times, what as a minimum we need to be doing, as an organisation around reviving high streets, and the investments that we make, and what businesses should be encouraged to be further investing in if they're serious about sustaining their businesses. Anything else, Paul, that you wanted to add to that? We can take that away as an action, I'm happy to do that. Thank you, Chair. Just on the fact of what Sarah said, so I was on Stratford bid last year, I don't know if you've heard of it anymore, but I do know that they have been doing some work on the cover of business areas within the bar, and they do do great work in Stratford, in the office of cosmetic, and I'm sure that they will welcome your visit now to discuss with them how we can work closer to the community and be beneficial to both parties. Thank you, Chair. Okay. It wasn't a question, it was a comment. Okay. Councillor Neil Wilson. Yeah, sorry, Councillor Neil Wilson, I'll introduce myself for the first time, sorry. Cabinet member for Health and Adult Social Care. Mine is not a point of particular massive importance, but it is about the accessibility of language, so on paragraph 36, it's a really good initiative in terms of the bid annual report, it's referenced the current year annual report 2024. The fourth bullet point says they've carried out 20 joint results with the BCRP, the MET, BTP and Newham Enforcement. I was rather lost in abbreviations, I think that we do need to be very clear in our reports, not just here, Chair, but in all our reports, because they are open and we're trying to be accessible, use of language. But while I'm talking, is that all right? That was the rather pedantic point, but it then goes on in 37, it has consulted with its members to inform them of its new business plan through drop-in workshop surveys sent via email and by telephoning. Obviously, I haven't had the experience of, Councillor McLean, of the sort of knowledge being part of it, but you know, this is, I think the Mayor has said this is about a ballot process, but just because it's related to what is being said there about, you know, the LBN 11 properties, but the consultation. Is this a point where I can say that they will be as wide in there when it's being done by a third party, the ballot, et cetera, about the communication of whatever outcome within the internal part of the Council as a process? What I'm saying is that, look at the comms piece behind this. I said, well, you know, what is the sort of like, how do we envisage that moving forward? Because the annual report is there, how does this get translated into the next stage from comms? I'm going to suggest that we pick this up outside. Is that something that we can discuss outside? No, no, no, no. We can discuss it here, but sorry, Paul, please. No, I was just going to say we can feed that back to the bid, both pre-ballot and then post-ballot as well. We have Megan on the call, of course. Sorry. No, no, she just might want to come in. Just the only thing that I was going to add is that was precisely the point that I raised when I was reviewing the cabinet report. I don't think there's sufficient outcome data in the annual report that suggests anything material and significant, and it's one of the issues that I'm going to raise in your meetings. And it's something I'm tasking officers to think about in terms of more robust evaluation that they are required to put in place in order to validate whether or not we as a corporate entity should be supporting the bid activities. Because, again, we are constrained with resources, including officers' time, and if this is not going to be meeting our strategic objectives, it rightly begs the question, why is officers' time being a portion to this? Megan, is there anything you wanted to add? No, I don't think so. I think that is a good point, that it is quite an investment of officers' time to process these applications, but it is our statutory duty to do so. And then just in terms of the communications, yeah, I think, you know, point noted on the abbreviations. Just for clarity, that was the BCRP, Business Crime Reduction Partnership. I appreciate that wouldn't be widely known, so yeah, fully noted. And then just one final thing about the timings. It is quite tricky for us to supply enough information in this report because the bids report, sort of the timings of those documents is quite hard to get the information. Yeah, to put it into the cabinet report. So just the timings of the required approvals versus the production of the business plan. Those things are quite tricky to manage. So that's probably a reason as well. All right, thank you very much. Thank you. I'm going to suggest we just move on to recommendations. So could you kindly note the recommendations on big page number 207. So recommendations in section 2.1, 2.1.1, 2.1.3 and then 2.2. Is that agreed? Agreed. Okay, fine. And now we've got the agenda item nine, which is our suspended item. Note that there are exempt papers for, no there aren't. Those are exempt papers for something else. This is from Microsoft Agreement EA. Thank you, chair. As we know, we made a collective decision as a cabinet in April 2023 in order to suspend the partnership with hearing council and split services. Number of services already been moved back and IT and associated shared infrastructure was part of that decision. I won't emphasize, Jay, but I know that IT is a critical and integral part of our drive to transform the organization and to make sure that we equip ourselves with the most cost effective, efficient and customer friendly services that we want to be delivering. Not only currently but also an ongoing basis and unforeseeable future needs. Currently the Microsoft licenses are part of the hearing package. And in order to progress further with the split, we need to separate those. And what this report is proposing is that we go to a pre-programming exercise that is only pre-programmed. We come to the exercise, we will know what the costs are and how could we report that estimated cost and those costs are within the budget at this stage. We will come back with the cost when we go to the exercise. The number of licenses are going to be a critical factor in terms of what the cost is going to be, the way the organization is transformed. It is expected that we will remain within budget, but clearly the number of licenses is a reflection of the staff we have. We are proposing that we go through the ground commercial services, which is a public procurement organization. It is widely used by the public sector and we hope that this will be advantageous for us and will give us the benefit through the scale. And that's what is being proposed here. We will go through the exercise and then back with the actual report in due course before finalizing anything. But that contract is expiring at the moment on the 21st of March 2025. We need to commence the process, we need to kick it out, and the report will be able to do that for the next three years. The only question that I have is how this links to the new operating model and the information plans and how soon will this be implemented and what are some of the risks in terms of potential delays with the procurement process. How will those be mitigated because that will have quite a serious impact on our transformation plans. It will cost us money. I think the renewal or re-procure our licensing should be a routine process, it should not put any delays. With respect to the transmission of our application, what we're going to do here is simply find the license we require in order to run the services currently. And as I said earlier, in terms of the way the license will be transformed, if that's going to lead to a reduction in licenses, that is possibly going to be beneficial. But I am sure that the new program is an integral part of the way we move IT forward and that is part of the IT strategy. Anything else, James? Yeah, happy to just quickly update. This is James Parse, Chief Transformation Officer. Happy to confirm that we are very actively engaged with colleagues in digital and ICT on not only this particular purchase and extension of licenses, which again will contain some really important software that the Council will need to use to deliver the operating model, for example, elements of the Microsoft agreement relating to automation, co-pilot, use of AI. They're all actively explored and considered as part of this agreement, but also we're engaging actively with digital ICT about all future licensing and commissioning decisions that are coming up and making sure that we're building in those requirements as we go forward. In terms of delay, we are running an accelerated technology sort of transformation projects at the moment as part of mobilizing the program. And as part of that, we are more quickly than some of these contracts onboarding any additional technology that we need through that sort of accelerated project. So we're mitigating that risk as we mobilize the program by developing those projects. So, may I ask, of the £1.98 million that's going to be allocated for this procurement, that's drawn from what amount of budget, and the other things that can be described in terms of the function. What this particular microservice product would allow, what are the correspondence in terms of training and getting people ready to use, because there's no point having all singing, all dances, software, and if it's not going to be used. The way the £1.97 million has been estimated is the basis of split between us and Cambridge, a £65.35 basis, expected to lead to an increase of £0.366 million, but as I said earlier, this will be reflected in terms of licensing. One alternative approach which we could have looked at is Google Suite, but that still does not eliminate the risk or the need for Microsoft, because a number of other systems and infrastructure that are already using Microsoft, but there isn't really a viable cost effective alternative to do that. But then if you did choose to go along that route, then that wouldn't be the risk as well. That's where we are in terms of the project, but it's going to be stated back there. Nothing really to add to that, Chair. Obviously, this is a license for the existing suite of Microsoft products, which will, of course, continually be developed and trained as they come out. So just to clarify, I appreciate that this paper is a procurement paper, but it's procuring a product that is going to be fundamental and instrumental to our transformation plans and our new model state as an organisation, given the financial challenges that we are facing, and I've asked a specific set of questions around a 1.98 yes noted, understand why this is being undertaken around the procurement process. We all know from previous experience across a whole range of different areas of Council's work, procurement can take time, time costs money, and we don't have money to waste, and it's going to have an impact on our transformation plan. So I'm going to look to James, but there needs to be a corporate assurance that this will be managed effectively, efficiently. So we're not wasting money and wasting time. And if we are going to be making this investment, which is not insignificant, is it going to be useful? As part of this, we are simply budgeting the new licenses, which are going to be expiring a particular amount. As part of the aggregated procurement process for the public sector, the deadline for us to submit a requirement is 31st of December. That's why we are reporting now to make sure that the procurement process kicks in. We don't use that opportunity in time, so we do have a continuation of the new contracts after 1st of April 2025. Sorry, I'm cheering, and I will allow people to come in to speak if that's okay. All right. So, James. Just on the point about tech adoption and how that's going to be supported. That's an explicit and desired project and set of activities that we're delivering in the transformation program. So this came to Cabinet last month. A number of the projects within that, particularly Racing, if you remember, to program to enabling services, which will make a significant use of the technology that's being purchased through this procurement around co-pilot and automation, et cetera. Significant amounts of that funding for that project is going to be allocated to change management, training, tech adoption. So those of you who recall this Master Newham program and Jahan, the person who managed a lot of our tech adoption for that project, we're looking for that sort of capability to be built into our program because it's not only about the sort of buying of the technology, it's about the sort of onboarding, the induction, the training, the sort of actively engaged process of getting staff to understand how to use it and to use it in practice. So that's exactly, Roxana, as you've set out, a very important part of our project and we are working very closely with colleagues to make sure that that's fully integrated in the development of that, the overall approach. And then in terms of the kind of overall risk management around delay, we're quite comfortable within the transformation team that the accelerated transformation project that we're developing will ensure that we're not waiting for commissions like this to conclude before we're adopting technology at an early stage and we're using already established partnerships with Microsoft and other providers to do that, where we do think there may be a risk of having to wait for some of these technologies to be onboarded, if that makes sense. I really wanted to say something by way of clarifying, so what is it? Just to say that this is part of an aggregate procurement framework with the CCS of actually fast travel procurement and not require us to do a separate procurement. And just linked to that, appreciate it's part of an aggregate procurement framework. We often read in the papers the excessive overspends on national government contracts and local government IT contracts. Does this procurement framework help mitigate that or is that more to do with a localised approach and management? That's the point I was making in my introduction, that the reason we're going through the procurement process is because this is a collective after the public sector organisation, therefore there is good opportunity for us to get it on the scale because others are actually through the same framework. I think I made a different point. The national government is notorious for overspending... Oh my dear matey. ...the trillions. Sorry I'm being OTT, but get the point. It was virtually a death scandal. I'm not understanding how this procurement commits against potential costs. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]