Transcript

cast to enable those who cannot attend in person to follow proceedings. Please could I ask that attendees turn on their microphone when they wish to speak or when they're invited to speak and then remember to turn off their microphone when they're finished. I'd also like to welcome back Councillor Safi and Gongo to this meeting. Please note that this is a meeting being held in public not a public meeting and therefore all remarks must be addressed through me as chair. Please note that we are not expecting a fire alarm test this evening so if the alarm is sounded please follow my instructions to evacuate the building. As usual each item will be introduced by the relevant executive member followed by questions from other members and then an opportunity for the public to ask questions. This must be related to the item being talked about at the time then we will move to a vote on that item which will mean that item is then complete and there will be no further discussion on that item and we'll move on to the next agenda item. Please be assured that all executive members have read all the reports and appendices supplied to them before this meeting. Please note that there are two agenda items this evening that are accompanied by exempt appendices. One is for information. I would ask members to ensure that they do not make reference to or ask any questions about any of the information in the exempt appendices until we have excluded press and public for this meeting and entered the confidential part of the meeting which we will be doing this evening and that will be at the end of the meeting. One of the exempt items is related to the scored organisation plan which has recommendations to consider. We will therefore exclude the press and public during the consideration of this item at the end and cease the webcast. Thank you. We'll now move on to the formal matters of the agenda. We have apologies for absence from Councillor Santier of Goebel Bradford but I believe that's the only apologies we have. Do we have any declarations of interest? No. Okay. Are the minutes of the previous meeting on the 18th of July agreed? Thank you. We move on to our first item, item B4, the budget monitoring report for quarter one. Councillor Ward will you please introduce this report? Thank you very much chair. It's only fair that I start by saying that the financial climate of this council continues to be incredibly difficult and incredibly challenging and all teams across the council are working incredibly hard to make sure that we can keep on delivering services for our residents. There's lots of ups and lots of downs in this forecast and we continue to have really significant challenges in temporary accommodation, in adult social care, in commercial rent and we've also we have a bit more money to spend on our corporate items due to additional interest payments. So there's ups and there's downs and the forecast as it stands ends with us finishing the year with a slight deficit and the fact that's only a slight deficit is a tribute to the hard work of officers across the council making sure that we do continue to deliver those services. Let's be in no doubt that we're going to have an incredibly challenging year forward though, an incredibly challenging budget process moving forward to the budget in March. Thank you chair. Thank you. Do we have any questions on this item? Councillor, Vanessa. Thank you chair. Would it be possible just to get a comment on the significant slippages that are taking place in the capital programs across the board? I mean the capital program is incredibly challenging in the current climate, Councillor, and it's something that we will continue to monitor at each quarter. I mean capital spend does tend to go up and down per quarter as you know and we've got a bit some big flagship projects and I think it's something we need to continue to monitor. Thank you. Any further questions on this item? In which case is that item agreed? Thank you very much. We now move on to item c5. Working together to drive educational excellence through financial viability and inclusive schools. School organisation plan phase three. Councillor Safi Ngongo will you please introduce? Thank you very much chair. Chair I'll have to take this opportunity really to thank you our officers because doing school org is not an easy task because we do have a duty to manage the surplus and the budget for our schools and we have to keep an eye about the quality of education for our children because all of us we believe our children across the board they are our future and we need really to prepare them for the future and for us to put everything in place which they need for them to fight. The strategy we are planning is for us to have a good quality of education but as all of us we are aware about the challenging we are having right now the number of children not just in Exlington across London and we start to see it even outside London is still continue to decline. That means doing nothing is not an option we need really to continue to do everything and by putting our children first. We did phase one we just finished phase two now this report is about phase three and also there's some piece of work we have to do from phase one and phase two because we do have some schools building which is empty we are working with our colleague in capital building for us to come with a strategy but what are we going to do with the empty buildings and the strategy I hope it is going to come to the next board meeting for us to be presented and also this report is asking the board to agree to give us opportunity to teach more what we can do with our schools for example bringing some of nursery schools to a nursery thing to be operated into our school premises because in that way is helping our nursery because the same number the decline number we can see into our primary school is that to affect even our nursery that means there is nothing we can make in isolation we need to start also to think about our nursery we need to start to think also about our secondary school that is the main reason for this report you can see is a bit mixed of few different things is it because we are thinking to have some nursery in our primary school building is helping parents especially those who are having more than one child to be in the same premises to take any question thank you counselor is there any questions for members on this item Councillor Nessa thank you chair and it's really good to see Councillor Nkonko here as well the number of changes and the rate of the changes that are suggested is kind of influenced by the financial implications which make the assumption that approximately 50% of students will continue within an Islington school what confidence do you have that the council can achieve that number yes thank you very much i think by it is very difficult for me to give a percentage because we don't have control on numbers including parent choice we can't impose parents to have the choice where they want their children to go to school but what i can reassure you we are working with Islington parents for them to leave the children to take education in Islington and we are promoting about our schools i believe all of us we are proud about our schools really 96 percent of our schools have been graded good or outstanding that's something really we need to be proud in Islington and we need to promote more and we are doing that good promotion we are providing parents with much support compared to our neighbour boroughs all that is just because we need to serve our local residents and we believe carry on to serve them carry on to support them they will be willing really to make sure they are not going outside the borough we are trying to do everything we can to work alongside with them for them to stay in our lovely Islington thank you Councillor is there any other questions for members on this item no any questions for members of the public no in which case is that item agreed thank you very much um i'm sorry before i need to be more specific than that can we agree recommendations 3.1 3.26 on pages 82 of the agenda okay thank you um and we note that there are further recommendations in the appendix that we will consider at the end of the meeting okay we now move on to item d6 fair inclusive and accessible housing service commitment Councillor Una O'Halloran will you please introduce the report thank you chair our fair inclusive and accessible service commitment is part of our approach as a landlord to adapting our services to meet i can't say that oh it's gone sorry you know when you sometimes needs of our residents and their households where residents have individual needs or experience specific barriers this policy was developed with the support and input from a wide range of our stakeholders including our tenant management organisation forum islington housing partnership and octopus network community as well as being shared with the housing quality network and the housing ombudsman and i'd like to extend my thanks for those stakeholders who supported us in developing this policy to help us provide high quality landlord services that respond to those individual needs and circumstances so i welcome this thank you very much is there any questions on this item from members no any questions from members of the public no in which case is that item agreed agreed thank you item d7 um we now move to uh anti-social behaviour policy Councillor oh oh yeah sorry i've got uh O'Halloran um will you please introduce the report thank you chair um this report clearly outlines the council's approach to tackling anti-social behaviour offering a clear definition as to what constitutes anti-social behaviour the principles we adopt in seeking to tackle anti-social behaviour and the processes therein as well um it's very important for us that we take a early intervention it's the approach um that we consider the needs of residents who are suffering as a result of anti-social behaviour and that we keep a robust focus on data as well um so this is a public facing policy document outlining our approach thank you very much council is there any questions on that policy any questions from councillors no any questions from members of the public no in which case is the policy agreed thank you very much we move to item d8 good neighbourhood management policy Councillor O'Halloran will you please introduce thank you chair good neighbourhood policy the cause this approach lies within the inclination of the neighbourhood policy and in initiatives that seeks to set clear standards of neighbourly behaviour to promote positive behaviours and build resilient communities in the borough this policy closely complements the work that councillor john wolf is championing to invigorate the work doing to tackling anti-social behaviour by fostering a culture of tolerance understanding and harmonious coexistence amongst its residents and tenants i want to thank those residents who took part in our focus groups and shared their experience with us and the advice and guidance provided by the housing Ombudsman in informing our approach to this policy setting our expectations and the encouragement of neighbourly tolerance aims to cultivate an environment where diverse lifestyles comprised side by side contributing to the enriched well-being of all islington residents i welcome this good neighbourhood policy thank you uh is there any questions on that item no any questions from member of the public oh sorry sorry councillor uh thank you chair um just like to kind of bring up some of the case work that i've had over the last few years where uh people have uh open community corridors and they would like to have some of the personal belongings which adds uh to the attractive attractiveness of the area um and it seems from this that there's a lot of kind of um subject uh that could be brought up from the caretakers personalised opinions in terms of what can go ahead and what can't go ahead so what kind of quality assurances will be taking place that there's consistency uh council heaven and thank you councilor i can assure you there's been huge amounts of work done on fire safety and what is an allowed acceptable outside properties we have to sometimes move plant pots bikes and everything else and i will not put anybody's safety at risk if caretakers if they've got to be removed it has to be removed it's not us being some kind of nimby council we put residents lives first i'm happy to share a leaflet of what can go outside properties and discuss this with you but residence safety has to come first most front doors are people's fire exits and even if you're the corner flat so i'm happy to sit down and talk to you anytime but this is not us just saying oh we're going to take this away in that way no and i think after uh this the sobering report that we all read yesterday on grenville that you know that has to be safety has to be our number one priority uh are there any other questions for members of the public on this item no is the that item agreed agreed thank you very much um we now move on to item d9 the report of the policy and performance scrutiny committee on complex anti-social behavior review councilor wolf will you introduce the report sure thank you chair yeah i would just like to commend this report um it's fantastic the recommendations are spot on we're going carefully through them you will know in particular the call for a public health approach to tackling asb which permeates um the asb policy that we've just approved and so i want to put on record my thanks to the committee for their diligent work the evidence gathering that they did including you're going out with the street population team for example and seeing the important work that they do so it's a fantastic report thank them for the recommendations thank you uh council williamson who uh was very much a part of the scrutiny committee that moved this report would you like that yeah i'll just put a record as a person who is chairing uh the committee um i just want to put on record also um how i and other members of committee felt like the council staff were very open to this and though it kind of um it was very clear that council staff are really passionate to try and tackle complex asb even if they felt that there was still room to go and i just think it it's sort of admirable that the staff are really open and open to kind of scrutinizing themselves and looking at what could be done better so um positive all around thank you council williamson is there any other questions on this item from other councillors no members of the public oh yes please please thank you chair um my name is linda i live in lakewood um i really enjoyed reading this document but i would have appreciated the opportunity to actually participate so my question is can i have a follow-up meeting with councillor wolf to discuss it i'm doing some really interesting work with some criminologists social scientists and data scientists at city university just down the road take this work forward i mean i mentioned unity and we've got a good relationship with city university as well we've been doing um some additional projects together so yes absolutely we'll exchange details after this meeting that'd be great um just to say as well that all scrutiny committees are open to the public so um for future reference that's all advertised on our website in the and the subject and the agenda are all put on there uh in good notice of the meeting so you know do feel in future you know free to come and attend and contribute and ask questions through that as well thank you thank you chair um okay is that item therefore agreed thank you we move on to item e 10 letting of land and premises at um um at 16 to 34 ground street isington london n1 hjx uh also known as the isington boat club um council award will you please introduce the paper thanks chair um it's really brilliant for an inner london borough to have a book club you know not every inner london borough has got this kind of opportunity for that kind of activities for young people and we should do absolutely everything we can to support this kind of activity and i suppose it feeds into the part we've just been talking about the more activities we can um we can we can offer young people positive activities if we could offer young people that the better um it's fair to say though that the book club has been through a very challenging time and indeed um a very challenging financial time and we need a book club which has financial security and has good governance in place so i think it's important that we do work with the book club and that we do uh issue this lease that said the book club um have done a lot of work lately and i know there's a new set of trustees with great expertise and there is a new business plan as well and we do need to closely monitor that as well and closely uh hold the book club to account on their business plan and there is relevant break clauses in the lease as well should things go wrong but it's absolutely right that we do uh support the book club in their journey towards financial security sustainability and and and good governance so i commend this report i know that Councillor Martin Clute was very keen to come tonight to speak in favour of this report and that Councillor Toby North is in the chamber uh thank you very much are there any questions from executive members Councillor Halloran yeah i'd just like to welcome this that the boat club is being saved because so many children with special needs get the opportunity where we don't you know to experience going on a boat or lessons and things and it's just it's really great and i'm i'm looking forward to keeping a closer eye on this but it's just something we're we're in an inner city and to have that you know it's only a good thing thank you uh any other questions from councillors on this item Councillor Knoll thank you um i'm here on behalf of all three st peter council board councillors just to make uh really really really clear our strong support for this decision to extend the boat club's lease um the boat club as members have already noted is an incredible asset for our community um making opportunities available to young people to get out on the water um which they wouldn't otherwise have had um from the point early last year um when the club sadly had to close um there's been enormous progress made um in terms of getting the premises back into a decent working order um getting young people back out on the water reaching out to the community and also um putting in place a good plan for long-term growth and stability as council awards already alluded to there's a new group of trustees driving the club forward who are highly experienced and we have a really strong degree of confidence in um hence why as ward councillors we have allocated some of our developer contributions to help uh get the boat club back on its feet and get the doors back open um so young people can get on the water but the reality is without a longer term lease it is very difficult for them to secure income both through charitable grants um to do the vital community work they do but also to attract um some of the more commercial income which they hope in the future will cross subsidize that community activity as well um through getting um for example for higher groups out on the water as well so um i hope you'll support this decision we certainly do as some peers and canal side ward councillors um thanks for listening and with that very strong endorsement is that item agreed thank you very much and we also must note um the exempt appendices we noted thank you very much um item f11 report of the health and care scrutiny committee access to health and care services in Islington we've sadly had apologies from Councillor Chowdhury um who has other commitments tonight but uh Councillor Williamson will you please say a few words to me uh yes so firstly i just want to put on record my thanks um to uh last year's um health and social care committee scrutiny committee for doing this important work looking at how um Islington residents can't access um both health care and then um also adult social care um and uh look forward to working through the recommendations around what we can what we can implement over the year thank you Councillor Williamson is there any questions on that item no uh in which case is it agreed thank you very much we're going to note um item 12 in the agenda noted thank you very much um now we are going to exclude members of the press and public so we can talk about the exempt item can you cease the web call let me know when