Transcript

Thank you, everyone. Can I have a attention, please? Good evening and welcome to the first meeting of the committee. My name is Councillor Jai Choudri and I will be chairing this committee. This is an important meeting this evening as we will hold the spotlighted mayor, discussion to enhance the committee. This meeting is being framed for the council website for public being, those participating in the meeting will be included in the footage. So before we continue, can I place on record my thanks to the residents we attended our committee this morning. We had 21 residents attended, attended to feed in their ideas about what items could be considered as part of our work program. Their idea will be shared with the committee at our work program workshop in June. I look forward to hearing from all of our residents to move through the year. Thank you. Good evening chair, we have no apologies this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Can members declare whether there are any disposable prequinary interest and indicate which I expect the interest to stay to it, whether their interest is of a personal or prejudiced nature. The minutes from our meeting on 22nd April have been circulated. Can the members who have present come from this as a true and accurate record? Thank you. Action log, the scrutiny action log has been circulated. We will review this at each meeting. Please note we have one update from the last meeting. Do members have any comments? [INAUDIBLE] Before we move on, can I note a change to the published agenda. We will establish the committee members of committee and the members 24, 25, and then move on to Mayor Spotlight. We will now nominate the Vice Chair. Do we have any nomination for the Vice Chair? Yes, come. Yes, I have a council of other children. I nominate him for the Vice Chair. Thank you. Any seconder? Thank you chair. I'd like to seconder. I want to turn to the Vice Chair. Are there any other nominations? So can the [INAUDIBLE] please note the council of both children is appointed as Vice Chair. We will now move on to review the terms of reference and confirm scrutiny with the appointments. I'd like to ask Matthew to introduce the report. Please, Matthew. Thank you chair. It's interesting sitting in this format rather than next to each other up there. Anyway, right. This is always the first report of any committee in any municipal year, which is to kind of note terms reference things and agree establishment to any subcommittees and the like. Often it's just sort of noted through by the Democratic Services Clerk, but I'm aware from comments of full council. There might be a couple of changes, so we'll take it sort of slightly slower just to make sure we get it right. I think so with your permission chair, I'll go through each sort of bit one at a time. So first of all is appendix one to the report, which is the terms reference for the committee, which the committee asked to note. It's good to keep an eye on what your responsibilities are as it were as a committee. Is everyone happy with that? Anyone got any comments? I don't. Thanks chair. So we had a discussion before about the portfolios. Are we going to take up that discussion? We'll come to that afterwards. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. My phone, not my mic. I'm sorry. Okay. Yes. We'll come to that in a second. Okay. So, yes. So, moving on. Appendix two is the nominations for screening lead roles, and obviously the structure that we kind of started with was with five screening leads, but from comments at council, I got the impression that the members may want to move. An amendment to the number of roles that there are, um, screening lead roles. So I don't know if anyone wants to comment on that one. Anybody wants to comment? Yeah. So if you want to make a change, I add another screening lead. Somebody will need to propose that. Yes. Yeah. I want to propose to add a one to the top of public amendment and an environment and climate change. So you can add this as a page. Is there a second for that? Yes, I will second that. Thank you. Okay. Che, you might want to check whether the committee in favor of that basic proposal. I love this. Yes. Thank you. Can you note it? Okay. We'll move on to the content of that in a second, but that just checking that members are happy with the basic principle of adding an additional screening lead. Yeah. Okay. All right. Brilliant. So what does the new portfolio contain? The impression I have from that is that it's kind of environment, which it kind of is the public realm area, give or take, and the climate emergency is a general principle. I think that's what members have said and what I heard from the members of the committee. I know there was a discussion in the pre-meets about exactly what that meant, and I think the intention is that we will run with that as the overall title for now, but in the interim, before the next meeting, I will circulate to the members of the committee a proposed final kind of portfolio or absolutely one of us will. And members can comment on exactly what they think should and shouldn't be in that. And then when we come back to the next meeting, we'll confirm exactly what we think is in that portfolio. Would members be happy with that? Okay, brilliant. In that case, we'll move on to the next one, which is to appoint members to those lead positions. So there are nominations for all the posts, including the new one in the table papers, I think, from what I saw. So unless members have any other comments, we can just ask if the committee are prepared to agree that proposed and seconded it and all the rest. Okay. Welcome to all three denominations and R60 committee agrees. Okay. The scrutiny lead for adults and health service, including chairing the health and scrutiny subcommittees, consular balladudin. Scrutiny did for children and education, including chairing the children and education scrutiny subcommittees, consular abdulman. Scrutiny did for housing and the generation, including chairing the housing scrutiny subcommittees, consular balladudin. Scrutiny lead for resource consular abdulman. Scrutiny lead for community safety consular pseudo-government. Environment and the climate emergency consular nathadi beyond free. I ask the committee member to come to you agree. Thank you. Can you notice? Okay. If the committee are happy with that, then we'll move on. I don't think there are any changes for the rest, so I will double check. So, terms of reference for the scrutiny subcommittees, which are as they were last year. And then the committee will need to agree to establish their subcommittees. So, you may want to propose a seconder for that, and then you can confirm whether the committee are happy to establish their subcommittees as per last year. In terms of reference and the ship. Okay, so does the committee agree about the subcommittees, reference and DP? Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. And then the final one to agree in that sense, I suppose, or second final one, is the nominations of the actual membership of those subcommittees. Now you've established them, which are as tabled as well, I think. So, that should be fine unless anyone's got any comments. Thank you. So, the new lead, does that come with the committee? It doesn't. Okay, thank you. In the current proposals, there's no additional subcommittee. And I think there'd obviously be resourcing implications we'd have to consider if it was going to be. But that is something that the committee could consider and request ourselves to look into if that's what you wanted to do. Does the committee agree that members when I append this file? Page. Page 5, we have your agenda append this file. Do you agree? Okay, so do I have to? So, thank you very much for that. So, we've got the nominations since the subcommittee is the last couple of bits. I have our appendix 6 is the ONS procedure. So, we'll need to just quickly update them with the additional scrutiny lead. But, apart from that, they are unchanged. Anyone's got any comments that we can note them. And then the dates of the meetings are just a note as well. Yeah? Okay. Thank you. Our main item this evening is a spotlight with Mayor Lozour. Mayor, thank you for coming to speak to us for this committee this evening. Thank you also to the official support team, Chief Henry, Chief Executive Julie, Laura, Corporate Director for Resource and Robin Beatty, Interim Director of Strategy, Improvement and Transformation. The committee wants to understand that Mayor or Chief Ben in the last year, learn about key priorities for 24/25, understand key challenge and ongoing pressure, impact in local delivery and find out how the Council intend to tackle residents key concern. If you would like to invite Mayor Lozour to present this item, you will have up to 10 minutes for your presentation. And then I will hand it over to the committee member for question. I'll let you know when you are nearing your last couple of minutes. Before the Mayor begins, I just want to say something. Every member I'm requesting you to ask one question. If you have a follow-up question on related item, I might give a mention. But if you have any different question, then you have to ask one second question. So each item, you have one question. If any follow-up question on related items, then you can do it. But different question, I only allow one question. You are only asked to ask questions, but not make any comments or any political. You have to remember Oberand's Cube scrutiny committee is independent by nature. So any political or any other question will not be allowed. Plus, if you ask, make any comments or ask Mayor to ignore the comment and answer only the question. If you answer two different questions, he may decide to answer only one question. So please remember that. Thank you, please. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for inviting me, give me a chance to present our progress to date. Very much value the work that you do and hold in as the exit of the account. So thank you for your hard work. Two years passed by colleagues and we have taken great shapes. We have taken great steps to ensure that our residents are receiving the best quality services on offer. The reason we all are here as elected members. It's not been an easy task. When we returned, we inherited an administration of some challenges. I will run through some of these now. Upon returning to office, we inherited a council cut to the bone. It was financially, I believe, incompetent with six years of unsigned accounts. There were 20 million pounds of missed saving targets. Millions of pounds lent to neighbouring authorities during the COVID-19 and the cost of a living crisis. Unpaid VAT received over 1 million pounds over six years. Double payments or over payments in contracts to the tune of 11 million pounds with 1.9 million pounds still unaccounted for. Spiling cost to complete the new town hall from some 75 million pounds in our feasibility study to some 140 million pounds. And grants awarded through single applicant processes are direct awards. They can come in if you need examples of that. The council was also lacking in good governance and stability in our view. With five years of unpublished annual governance statements, one year budget setting processes, statutory services reflected in failed offset and youth justice inspections both compounded by skating reports, rising crime and community issues, and a string of interim corporate directors in statutory positions, including the Section 151, i.e. the corporate director for resources. Likewise, our public services had been starved of investment. With minimal resources spent on delivery, instead, reserves were allowed to balloon while services declined, and some cases disappeared completely. Our residents should always come first for all of us. This list is far from exhaustive and demonstrates the challenges we faced when we took office. We recognized that at our first July full council meeting in 2022 in which we called for a council-wide audit an independent health check of this council. What we have delivered. Our track record speaks for itself, ladies and gentlemen. We have reinvested heavily in key frontline services. And during the decade of cuts inflicted upon the previous by the previous administration, we have delivered and have in the pipeline over 70% of ambitious manifesto targets. I would like to take some time to list some of these successes and the positive impact that have already made in our borough. The reintroduction of the education maintenance, salons and university rescue schemes to give our children a better life chance to go on to the best universities in the world. By the start of the next school year, we will have awarded 1600 education maintenance salons awards and 1200 university nurseries. Free school meals for all students to the age of 16, the only borough in the country to do so. 10 million pound investment to support residents through the cost of living crisis. A universal council tax fees for all residents in the first year and as per our manifesto pledge, a continued freeze for the poorest to protect low and middle earners below £49,500. 120,000 people, including 65,000 families, will benefit from that scheme. Nearly 14 million pound investment in the youth service additionally per year. We have strengthened our community safety initiatives through the recruitment of 42 additional tramless enforcement officers, envelope funds for extra police officers and new CCTV infrastructure. Reconnecting and listening to residents through the reopening of five resident hubs across the borough with 16 total, including the one in the town hall. We have proven residents helped and well-being through the reopening of the five resident subs as I said, improving the residents health and well-being through the resourcing of the council's leisure services and showing that no resident is left behind. Introducing three swimming sessions for all women and elderly residents to tackle health inequalities in our borough. Protecting the environment through the planting of thousands of new trees, the retrofitting of council buildings and green technology and through the installation of over a thousand electric vehicle charging points and more to come. And a revitalised and well-resourced waste services. 14 million pound ladies and gentlemen, additional investment in the waste service, including the five million pound in the last budget, including the green of our fleet, bringing towns, homes successfully in house, investing in reintroducing country language services very shortly. Additional funding to support families and children and adults with scent issues. And next year we will provide free home care for all our elderly and vulnerable residents. This investment has slowly seen the council and our borough returned from years of cuts and neglect to a position of delivery and resident satisfaction. We have all such strengthened and transformed our government's arrangements. I will let Steve Puke on it later on, if necessary. Just to give you some examples, a transformative and sustainable free-year MTFS program, a clean and audited set of accounts, up-to-date annual governance statements, rapid repaid outstanding VAT receipts, well-run and improved performance in key statutory services, and an ongoing council-wide restructuring to further strengthen and improve good governance and performance across the organization. The appointment of all but one of our five permanent corporate directors are wearing the process of recruiting through the corporate sector for housing and regeneration. Of course, we have challenges. We are working hard to meet our ambitious house building target of 4,000 affordable homes for rent by 2026. I am grateful to the lead member and the corporate director for helping and officers for helping us with those endeavors. There are examples to deliver that need to be improved on. We brought this to our last cabinet. Steve can pass on it later on, if necessary, and there are mitigation plans in place to deal with those seven areas. However, we are confident that through the new and improved governance and service delivery monitoring mechanisms in place, we will redress these issues in the short-term to medium term. We will continue to self-analyze, scrutinize our structures and governance arrangements, working with partners such as the LGA and national government to ensure that the council continues to improve and go on from strength to strength. Finally, I want to thank members and officers for delivering for our residents, and I want to thank you again members of the Oren Scrutiny Committee for the invaluable work that you do in helping us in the improvement journey. I will take questions, ladies and gentlemen, and I will ask Steve to come in where necessary. Thank you. Thank you. Do you want to hear some things, Steve? Thank you, Chair. The only thing I was going to add was to reflect upon the infrastructure that we put in place to deliver the councils and the administration's agenda. So I can run through that now, or I can answer questions. I know you've got limited time to talk to the mayor, so I'm happy to run through some of the initiatives we put in place. But I suppose one of the things I would like to do is introduce formally Julie Lorraine as the Deputy Chief Executive, and one of the key functions that Julie has been asked to undertake in recent months is to deliver the three-year MTFS that the mayor spoke about. And I think it's fair to say that there was a degree of financial instability that I asked Julie to prioritize. So it might be helpful for Julie to reflect upon that for a moment, and I'm happy to answer any questions in support of the committee. And later on this evening, it might be helpful to touch upon the senior leadership team, myself and corporate directors engagement with the committee moving forward. Look, as I have some proposals in that respect. Would that be okay for Julie to just very briefly touch upon the MTFS? I'll allow her very briefly, very briefly, because I want to go into the question. Hello, yes. So, as the Chief Executive said, it is my responsibility to ensure oversight of the delivery of the medium term financial strategy. And as I've said, at Cabinet and lots of meetings, I think here, for me, the setting of the budget and the agreement of the medium term financial plan was not crossing the finish line, it was the starting gun. And the plan is just a piece of paper, and we need to deliver it. So I'm keen to engage with scrutiny over the coming year in terms of progress, not just historical by the time you see them quarterly management accounts, but real insight into the latest position of delivering that ambitious savings target, and it would be a privilege to do that. Thank you. Thank you, Julie. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Stephen. We're going to move to the question. Now, remember, have any question, but I said before I'll take one question at a time. And if you have any follow-up on related items, right, and okay, I'll go to the question now. What's your concern? Consider what we're considering, one month. Not early. You as well. I mean that. You're a giant. You're a giant. Okay, so I'm going to list your name first and I'm going to go. What's your name, giant? Oh, you got my name. Amy. Amy. Sabina. And. Anasma. I'll start with, because Amina always says I don't give her a chance, so I'll start with the first Amina. Yeah, you are the first. Very privileged. Thank you. Thank you. I wanted to talk about the governance of time. Now it's coming house and I wanted to find out about the governance and the restructuring that's happening with our homes and what that cause any instability going forward. Thank you, Amina. I'll ask Steve to come into on the governance issue. But I'm quite confident that instability hasn't been caused to date. I believe not going to be instability going forward and it has been brought in house successfully. So I'm quite confident in that respect. But certainly you want to be a show on some of the governance. Please, Steve, will you mind or Julie? Okay. Thank you. So I recently attended an HR committee, this week actually, where I presented a paper on the restructure of the council. And I've asked officers to, if you're agreeable, to include it in your Ford plan, so I come back to your next meeting and explain it in detail. In relation specifically to THH, THH falls within the housing and regeneration department and following THH is transition into the council. My proposal is that we restructure that department and restructuring that department introduces five direct to level posts. And just for your information, they're director of housing management, director of housing options and homelessness, which I'll ask Julie to comment on in a moment. Director of regeneration and assets, director of housing strategy and housing supply. And housing supply. You're absolutely right, Mayor. Thank you very much. And director of planning and building control. So there will be a specific director responsible for everything related to housing management, which includes THH. However, as you will be aware, THH allowed their executive officers to leave THH prior to transfer. So we have over the last six months gone through a process of introducing some interim arrangements to support the transfer. And we've had a dedicated transition team in place that has been led by Karen Swift in her substantive role. One of the key challenges that we face actually is not necessarily the transition of the service, because we've always said from the very beginning that consistency of service and continuity of service delivery was the most important thing. There are aspects of the housing management function, like repairs, pre inspections, post inspections, those type of issues, damp and mold, all of the issues that I know you'll be aware of that we have prioritized. But actually, one of the biggest issues we've had to address is access to council housing, temporary accommodation, homelessness, housing options. So my answer to your question is I do not believe that the service has reduced, but I think we're at the beginning of that journey. I think the transition from a project management perspective was handled adequately, but I do think there is much more to do. So just to complete the answer, I'm just going to ask Judy to say a few words about homelessness and housing options. Can you be very brief, please? I can. So as the chief executive said, there has been considerable pressure on the statutory side of housing. Housing options sit there and homelessness in particular has been the focus of considerable increase in demand and considerable increase in the cost of supply. And as a result of that, we prepared a separate paper just around additional investment in homelessness and housing options that was considered at Cabinet last week, given for approval, and that puts an additional 1.97 million a year into investment in homelessness in particular and housing options. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and the CEO. Thank you for coming tonight. Last year as the chair of the scrutiny chair on the education committee, myself and committee members visited number of schools. And I'm grateful to the co-op team members. They also came on the visits that you rolled out the free school meals for the Barra for the secondary school. Yes. So how will you ensure that there is continuous improvement in year 2 of universal free school meals for secondary schools? And how will you sort of monitor and report back to us? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Free school meals, you know, it's extremely important for our children to have a hot meal during the day. In short, the take up so far is really great schools. We're working in part with the schools. Our officers are and the lead member is very much in tune and the corporate director. We will encourage, we will do whatever we can. There's a good comm strategy, schools are doing fantastic job to make sure the take up is as extensive as possible. Thank you. Thank you there, Natalie. Thank you, Chair. So thank you, thank you, Mayor, for attending the meeting. It's great to have this chance to ask you some questions. I'd like to ask you a question about customer services. It's really at the heart of how this council interacts with our residents. I know some work has been done over the past year to think about the customer journey. And I'd just like to have your thoughts on how you feel that that journey has been improved over the last year and whether you have any reflections on how they could have been further improved. Thank you, Councillor. Our residents, as I said to you, come first. And my professional background is a client orientated background. I'm going to be honestly open with you. You've probably heard my comments in Cabinet last time and previously in Cabinet, the comments I made. I don't believe the customer journey is there. There's a room for a massive improvement when it comes to our interaction as a council with our residents. It's not only about perception, it's the actual experience of our residents. Now, I do surgeries twice a week. I meet people at various events. And believe me, during those surgeries and those events, I get a number of concerns and complaints about how we as a council, how we interact and how we deal with our residents. I believe when the right trajectory, the investment that's going on in council services and public services, especially in the homelessness service and the housing services. I believe in frontline services. There is a lack of money, I believe, in frontline services and the housing services. Hopefully, with the investment that's going to go in and the investment that will go into the leisure services and the other services, we will get the journey will improve. But now, I don't believe we're there. Thank you. Okay. I'll come back to you. Did I hear this one? Sorry. You won't forget the first name at least. So, I would just like to take you back, Mayor, to like the follow up kind of a follow up on children services, particularly the the send education care plan coming from back coming from personal experience, the service user of that service. I didn't particularly have a great time. It took almost around a year for a plan to take place. You mentioned in your proposal to improve this plan, improve the service by introducing early intervention. Could you give us a little more detail around what that specifically means and how you would monitor that? And what it would mean for those who are already using the service over a yearly review or four year how many years it did, two years or a year, that really needs to take place? What happens there? If you could just elaborate on that, please. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. I like you. I was very concerned when I got this report from the corporate director that we weren't meeting the 20 week assessment. And I don't believe we missed it by a huge number, but the point is a miss is a miss. Those children who have special needs, those adults, you know, who have disabilities, who have needs, they're the most vulnerable people in our community. We got to be extra vigilant in terms of safeguarding, in terms of protection when it comes to the vulnerable members of our community. And I, too, was, was concerned. I, too, was concerned. We have made a number of investments over the last two years budget. I was reassured by the corporate director and the appropriate officers and I asked Steve to come in and give you the details, details, the mitigation going forward. And for me, it's not just about meeting the 20 year, 20 week target. It's about, we're talking about human life here. We're talking about a young person here who has certain characteristics, who has certain vulnerabilities. I know a number of parents who come up to me, come to my surgeries, come up to me at events who have young children. And they're waiting for assessments. Without those assessments, they can't seek the support that they need for the children. And I made it very clear, and we have put in additional investments, additional resources into those children services in order to make sure those assessments are done within the 20 week timeline. That in the RAG system, in the annual delivery system, that we're not a red, we're not an amber, we're not a green, we are humane. That's what matters, you know, what color-coding is not relevant to me. I know we do, we have to do that. But us being humane and being a good local approach and looking after the most vulnerable is important to us. I believe, and at the restaurants I received from officers, that those investments that's gone in will begin to make a difference. We're coming in with an additional million pound investment for sent adolescents and children. The transition period from child who is 16 to someone who's an adult. I believe there's a vacuum, more needs to be done. I've seen families in the transition that the services that a child receives when they're youngster under 16, which is very good, excellent. But when they become an adult or going into an adolescent, those services don't continue and they tail off. There is a vacuum, there's a gap, and the families are exhausted, they're apprehensive, there's anxiety in the child and in the family. With the new papers from coming to cabinet, hopefully very soon Steve, that cabinet paper will put in additional money, never million pound, which we said at the last budget for council. In order to improve the lives of those adolescents, money for more psychologists. Psychologists, so those assessments could be done much quicker within the timeline, but generally improving the experience for those kids. If I could ask Steve to come in, if you'd bear with me, just to compliment what I've said, please. Thank you, Mayor. Well, I'll be very brief because you're already looking at me like you don't want me to say anything, so I would just say all my three kids receive these services, they've all been on this journey. I understand completely, and actually, if you say leadership is relational and you have to have empathy and sympathy with people that are going on that journey, I certainly do have that. Just so you know, Steve, ready the new corporate director is working with the acting corporate director of adult services, Sherman and Steve Ready are working on the action plan that the mayor is already referred to. And when I was going to talk to you later on about the future work program of overview and scrutiny, I was going to recommend that this was something you may want to take an interest in, but I will just ask you to talk about the funding. I'll get more of these. Getting a lot in in 30 seconds. So, in terms of the funding, we have allocated additional funds into this area. It was a recognised pressure in our medium term financial strategy on our budget. The mayor's made a further request, and that's what Stephen Sherman are going to be working on in designing the service around the action plan. What I would add in the last 10 seconds is, I totally get that KPIs have time taken to produce a plan or something that everybody wants on time. And it was all over the national press this week about these delays across the board, but for us, I think we're looking at metrics on the effectiveness of the plans. So it's fine having a plan, but your point, what happens when you get the plan, what happens to attainment, what happens to attendance, what happens to mental health and wellbeing, and those KPIs are the ones that Steve and Sherman are working on. So, if I may, so very quickly, can I just say in my portfolio meetings with the corporate director, you know, a standard item is to send issues, is the issues the elderly care, but also with the lead members portfolio meetings, that's a standard item. We don't wait for something to have happened. We want a indication on the quality of the service as we go forward. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Madam. Thank you, Chair. Finally, I got the chance. Good evening, everybody. Question of the May. I was Chair for the House in the last two years. And over the last two years, especially last years, we'll take costs to live in high and so on. So we had a lot of homelessness because of the people are giving a lot of notice. And you know that also in your surgeries, 85% problems will go to housing problems, so and so on. My specific question to the homelessness. I know you touched this like in the previous question. What plan and action are being taken to prioritize the most vulnerable homelessness people and what is the road map? I know you mentioned that the budget there through the lecture here was the road map for the homeless to tackle the homelessness. Thank you. It's a very extremely important paper. And when we came in in 2022, the one area that in addition to pressure on adult services was the homelessness. And it's a London-wide pressure. Unfortunately, we have a lot of people come through our council. A lot of people come to my surgery who are on the verge of becoming homeless. There is a prevention strategy in place to work with those residents. There are two grants which you can touch on. Two grants which is available which are in the process of distributing now. It's a rigorous process to help and support families with their rent increase with the additional pressures on them to prevent them from becoming homeless. However, in addition to that, as Julia said and Steve has said, we have put in additional amount of money, 1.93 million pound restructure process is in its process now. Went to the HR committee this week where we are investing in additional front-line officers to support those families, to support those families. And also, we're trying to source more properties working with the landlords rather than going through agencies. They can come to us and certain incentives will be provided to them in order to make the close properties available to us rather than the agents taking a cut. It'd be much more cheaper for them, but they will end up with the same money, but rather than paying additional money to the agents. So a number of schemes are in operation to help to reduce the pressure on us as a local authority, but also to help with the customer journey. As Julia said, for those people who are unfortunately homeless and they come to us as the last result. I don't know if Julie wants to come in at all, please. Thank you. Yes, so by the power of technology, I have all grants registered in front of me. And there are three dedicated grant funding pools for the household support and homelessness. And in total, they equal 6.7 million and the three categories are household support to support residents with increased cost of living. And when that funded ended, the cabinet took a decision to top some of that up. And then the government extended it. Second one is 2 million to ensure households who are not able to get energy bill support, get it. And a further 1.35 million non-statutory that's for individuals facing emergencies and often those emergencies. We can intervene and prevent homelessness. Mr Chair, if I may, just to the independent member, part of that new investment would mean more or less 6 days a week. So 5 days a week from 9 to 8 p.m., the resident hubs will be open for the homelessness residents. It's at 5.30, the resident hubs closes, but our intention is to keep it open until 8 p.m., from 9 to 8 p.m., 5 days a week. So people have more access. Also on Saturdays, morning only, they'll get another further session. So we don't want to deprive people who are unfortunately getting into that difficult position. So they're obviously available to help them during the hours and after hours. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councillor Aimee-Lee. Excuse me, Chair, sorry, just for the minutes. I don't like quoting wrong numbers. The total is 6.35 million, not 6.7 million. Thank you. Can you confirm whether you will be opening a serious case review in regards to a case heard at Family Court, the judgment of which is now fully public, in which the judge said that this local authorities approach to that case amounted to a serious failure in its child protection responsibilities, and that, again, that this council is responsible for reinforcing patterns of significant domestic abuse. Thank you, Councillor. I don't think it would be very wrong of me to make a comment either way. But I hear you loud and clear, and I reassure you, with the Chief Executive and with the Corporate Director, we will look at it and do what is fair and what is necessary. Thank you. So, OK, Stephen, you can make note of that. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you, Chairman. I would like to ask, Mr. Mayor, in terms of the crime in the borough, I understand we had a lot of commitments, a lot of promises, but up to now, what is the achievement so far on completion of two years, and comparing to your last term, are you in your target, preventing crime? Thank you, Councillor. I don't want to politicise this. I made some comments at the beginning, but it's quite evident crime is an issue. What we inherited in the borough is an issue. We have the public investment that's gone into the services since we've been here, into more times enforcement officers. Hopefully, one day, we'll get more police officers. The money is there, it's set aside. We haven't spent that money. The investment that's gone into the CCTV cameras, the strong partnership with the police and the other agencies, the investment that's gone into the youth services, into young people generally, and to education, the bursaries, et cetera, that's some 22 million pound. Additional money per year has gone into young people alone. Not that young people are responsible for crime, not at all. However, I believe there is a problem. The investment that will come in a culturally sensitive drugs project in due course, the investment that's gone in across the board, I believe it will gradually begin to make a difference. We're not there yet. We've got a long way to go, long way to go, but investment in young people, investment in education, investment in community safety measures, in prevention, in enforcement, the strong partnership we have in the borough, I believe it will begin to slowly make a difference and commit safety. And in provisions for women and young girls, investment that's gone in there, I think will begin to make a difference. And our people who live there, visit there, do business there, will begin to feel much more safe than they did previously. Thank you. Thank you very much. Can I ask Councilor Sabinekta? Thank you, Chair. Thank you to the Mayor for coming in today. But it is unfortunately a shame that we can only ask a question, especially after seeing the Mayor in the scrutiny of the song. So one of my questions was your decision for the in-house letter centres. I did ask this question of a new scrutiny in children's as well. And since obviously still early days, how have the costing in terms of how we're going to maintain the Council in terms of... I mean, there's been some reports, independent reports out there, suggesting that in bringing the letter centre in-house, it's going to be much, much more expensive, several millions more than how we had run by GLL, for example. And for example, you've given, which is great, free-swimming for elderly and women, how are we going to maintain kind of these kind of costs of providing these services, and same time actually providing good services. So people actually have that chance. So just how that money thing is going to take place. So how does that demand and supply meet at the same time maintaining costs? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. It's a very fair question. And we had a very good session in Cabinet. We had other forums. I strongly believe it was the right thing to do to bring our letter services in-house, a lot of respect to GLL, given the state of our letter services over the years, in order to also to meet the requirements and the demand for our residents and the flexibility and control that it will give us as a council, the appropriate thing to do was to bring it in-house. And some of the culturally sensitive provisions that we want to deliver, absolutely, you mentioned it, the free-swimming sessions for women and GLLs, and for the elderly and other service we design, having it in-house will enable us to do that. Costs is something and the value for money is something we fought through. Farolly officers got a good set of officers who worked on it in order to bring it in-house. Steve, the chief executive, that's his background and his expertise was very useful, very, very supportive in doing that exercise, and I strongly believe that the additional cost that needs to go in up front will tiver off in the long run, and we will become a cost-neutral organisation if not a profit-making one. I'm not, you know, I don't believe it should be a profit-making organisation, but certainly it must cover its costs at the same time deliver excellent services for our residents, deliver services that we all can be proud of. I'll ask Steve to come in to give his professional view on the issue of costs. Please, please be very brief here. I'll be really brief. There are two issues that we need to take account of when the service was bought in. First of all, we have the capacity to do it, and then we have the capacity to add value as a result of doing it. The MTFS allows for a revenue position that's sustainable in order that we are breaking even by year four, but there are additional costs up front, and there are revenue costs in line with the aspiration of the administration to deliver an enhanced service, but there are capital costs as well, so it's included in the MTFS. There are substantial capital costs that are going to be incurred as a result of dilapidation and stock condition surveys that have been undertaken that have confirmed there's been a lack of investment over a period of time by the contractor. So we know, for example, that there's substantial investment required at your call. We know that at White Chapel there's some infrastructure work that needs to be done. They've all been costed, and they've all been included in the MTFS. Thank you, Sharon. How do you make this up? Thank you, Chair. So my question is, well, I'm going to keep it short. What are your key challenges, maybe one or two of the key challenges, top key challenges, and how are you going to be mitigating those, so your plans? Thank you. Thank you, Alima. Islam, thank you very much. Can I just say, I mean, there are a number of challenges. You know, there are statu ones. We've got to be always be on top of it. So children's social care, adult social care, you know, so important, making sure the financial sustainability of the council, you know, it continues. We've got to be on top of the saving targets. We've got to be top of the income optimization targets that we have set ourselves. The number challenge, the level of overcrowding in the borough, you know, breaks my heart, you know, of the people I see in my surgeries. 95% of those residents is but overcrowding. They're in band 2B or 2A. They've been waiting for a number of years for a decent roof over the head. So producing, building, delivering, buying more fuel for local homes, larger homes rent is a challenge. And something that we need to deliver over the next year. Yes, thank you. So you've touched on the housing part of it. In terms of a buyback, so buying back those rights by properties, is that something that the council is considering? Absolutely good. This is something we did when we were here before. But we have just, if you look at the 24 February budget papers, Julie said, we have set aside money to acquire 600 homes over the next three years. 200 per year, and it'll be a combination of factors. So former right to buy homes, if they have the right size, right money, we will buy back those where possible and also acquire new properties. Absolutely, every option is on the table. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. It's really difficult to just pick one. But there's been an inquiry in Parliament by a conservative MP, and there's been other cross-party working on this safety of maternity in the NHS. Now, you are pretty aware of some of the things that we hear about. The maternity ward here at Roland Hospital. It was something that was continuous in the last term. In 2014, Councillor Minnally, who was in overview of scutiny, then actually ran a spotlight in this area, and they came out with recommendations. We did see a little bit of an improvement, but then things, even after moving into the new building, what we do here is the traumatizing experiences and some of the poor services that they are receiving when they are going to maternity. So, yes, we've got the government inquiry, but it will be really good as mayor. As we know, you don't have the power to do everything in this department, but what you certainly do have is you've got PEGS, so the partnership executive board, this is something where you can bring it up with the chief exec. You can start a local inquiry, and I'm going to be raising this with the committee here that we do another spotlight into this, I think it's about time. And lastly, there's a tech and poverty element to this. From decades now, in the maternity unit, things that you use to get under the NHS has been coming out, so you have to now pay for it. And so, like Calpol, Napi's close, all of that. So, is there a piece of work that you can commission around how we can support women that go into maternity ward? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Islam. A lot of respect, let me say this to you, and I have no sense in saying this. My wife was a victim of poor maternity since my first child was born since 24 now. So, I know I experienced it, my wife experienced it, I know how traumatic experience it was for her and the family and the child. I was on the Bath and Roll London NHS Trust for some eight years, and one of the areas, from 2000 to 2008 after I became the leader, I resigned. One area that was an issue then was the maternity services in the old hospital. And I had flagged it up, then the chair of the Trust, Stephen O'Brien, Fantastic Man, and leaders in that trust, worked together to bring about the improvements. And I'm so sad to hear that currently that these problems are still there. Of course, as a woman, you know, only you would know what experiences that you go through when you give birth. Yeah, so I will do, I'm thankful to the suggestions you put forward. I and this Council, the Chief Executive and the Director of Public Health, we will do, and the Director of Care Generally, we will do whatever we can in order to make sure this is top of the agenda. You know, I've already spoken to the Chief Executive of the hospital and the Trust, and we have made our views quite clear. If there's anything else we can do to make life easy for our mothers, our sisters, of course we'll do so. If we need to put more pressure and we need to do a bit more work, and you need a bit more work, supported by us, we are, and I'm at your disposal. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I'll take one question. Then throughout that we have a little bit of time. So our last members, if you have any more questions, we'll go for a second. So the last... Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you, Mr Mayor, for your report. And also, I thank Mr Mayor for your five million pound investment on the West management, and slowly can show some impact on this. Or how will you make sure that the investment is continuing on the West management? Thank you. Thank you. Sadly, I'm not going to get into that. You've heard me speak. At other forums, sadly, you know, the borough is unclean, sadly, waste before weren't being collected on time, and flight tipping is an issue in the borough. We need to live and experience a clean borough. You know, what other residents in other parts of the country experience, our residents, our visitors, our business community, need to experience the same thing. Hence, we put the money well marked this. You know, the money, the investment that went in, in their current budget. Improvement plan is being worked on. Steve will talk on it. Hopefully that should come to us in due course. And the work has already started. And the investment should already, should be turned around quite soon to bring about the change that this borough needs. We all need to live in and visit a clean borough. Steve, please. Thank you, Mayor. We do have £5 million worth of investment. There is a work program that is currently being worked to. It does revolve around being much more reactive, having more profile, education, working with volunteers. It needs to address issues ranging from flight tipping, missed bins right the way through to levels of detritus. So, we will bring the work program forward to the Mayor on a regular basis at Cabinet and it is Mayor's Advisory Board. And more than happy to come here on a regular basis and update over the Unscrutiny Committee. But £5 million has been included in the MTFS as a one-off sum in the current financial year. Thank you, guys. I have only 10 minutes, 15 minutes for Mayor. I can keep in for 10, 15 minutes. So, all due now, because it's my best, so I'll get prepared to relate this first. I'm not comfortable. I'm not. Thank you for raising your hand. So, I'll ask Natalie. Thank you, Chair. I have a question relating to the motion that we passed at Council two weeks ago, indicating our wish to become a borough of Sanctuary. And I'd like to ask what the current plans are from the Administration to action that across the Council and to embed, yeah, being a welcoming and compassionate borough across the Council services. Thank you. I just want to get on with it as quickly as possible. Since last full Council, you know, you can imagine how we've been extremely busy with the various meetings, then the Cabinet, etc. And today it's over in scrutiny. But Steve knows, you know, it's a priority for us. And the motion is something that we were very much committed to. And just bear with us, you will see it, a paper coming to Cabinet as soon as possible. Is that okay, Steve? Yeah. Thank you. Council, last time. Please. Question, please. I'm really happy I get to ask one more question. Can we get a quick update from you on THCH? And can you respond back to the failing of the merger between Pablo Hark and THCH? Sure. I mean, you've probably heard of my disappointment in Cabinet in other forums about China's community housing and the quality of service. But without, you know, dwelling on criticism further, obviously I was a bit surprised when I heard that the merger didn't go ahead. But we are where we are, unfortunately, because of the financial pressures that it will place us in for us to put in a bid to take over, if obviously subject to THCH. It's going to house in the green or the regulatory green, but to incur a debt of £90 million. And service failures have been put a lot of strain on us, but I am due to meet them in due course, to hear them out, to understand where they are. Because the service is an issue, whether they, someone else takes them over or not, or they merge. But they've got to maintain a good level of repair service, other services, and that's my concern, because that's not happening. And I'm getting quite a few people coming from my surgeries about these repairs, the state of the properties, et cetera. So meeting the due course. Can you at least make representation to the regulators as well with your experiences and what residents are telling you on their behalf? That would hold a lot of weight. I note what you're saying, and Julie, Steve is there, and Paul Patterson, I'm sure he'll hear this out, and I'll take advice what more options are. Thank you, Steve. Thank you. Can't feel that at the moment. Yeah, really appreciate it. To the mayor, I've been a member for the health security for the last two years. And over the last two years, we have arts and justice trust to come over on a some one way basis to see the doctors appointment for elderly people, things like that. It's basically our elderly parents, and including my mom, I'll give primary them the appointment of the doctors. Accessibility is very, basically almost zero. So we did not get any information from them. They constantly said they're going to come back over the last two years. So my question to you, Mayor, is there any power do you have for you to write to the find out what our residents are suffering, and is there a solution for it? Please, thank you. Thank you. That's a very good question. I and others, we are all in the same boat and same boat. I don't believe we have any powers as a local authority as such, but we have partnerships. We have relationships. So I'll ask Steve that we do write and put forward, and I think we put forward our concerns to the appropriate authorities about accessibility, about appointments, about timely response from our GP surgeries. They are also to refer to them under tremendous pressure as clinicians, but obviously we represent our electorates and our residents. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. How will you ensure the sustainability and equity of the free home care program that has been supplied by the borough, given the potential for budget constraint, cost of living, obviously, and the increased demand while maintaining the high standards of care and addressing the often complex and diverse needs of a growing elderly population that we have in the borough? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Choudhury. As a local authority, we have already provisioned in for free home care in our last budget, previous budget, and I'm confident it will be delivered. It's well overdue next year. We need to protect and look after the most vulnerable in our community. It's absolutely necessary. With our MTFS, the financial strategy that we have, that's been delivered. It's very strong, and I'm very confident going forward, we will be financially stable and we will sustain what we have committed. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to quickly just ask a couple of months ago, members of the Somali community, complained and had a demonstration outside the town hall about housing options. There was, I think, an investigation. I haven't seen any outcome and response to the investigation. Would the Mayor and Steve be able to give me an update on what the outcome was? And in terms of the restructuring of housing options, would they be happy to meet with the community to talk about some of those issues? I think we should, and we could. Steve, you were not coming. Yeah, thank you. So I did meet with a representative group. I've met with them on three separate occasions. They all raised individual concerns, and they told me about their individual stories. Some of them were extremely serious, and we arranged for them to meet with the police. And to have the opportunity to refer their individual circumstances to the police. I meet with the Borough Commander on a regular basis, and he has asked to speak to me about that again. And I'll be able to give you an update in that respect. I have offered to meet them on a regular basis, and I haven't come back to me yet, but I will pursue that. Julie might want to pass a comment about the housing option service and engaging with that community. So before you come in, Julie, can I just say, representatives from the Mayor's office also met them, and people from the housing options team, and wanted to members from the community also who assisted them, and a number of them are always also being worked with in order to find a solution, in addition to the complaints, but general housing needs. I want to assure you, then, they are residents, and they live in mild invested housing, and they live in overcrowding when you look into the individual circumstances. So individual case work has been raised, and it's been pursued on top of that. Please, Julie. Sorry, Julie comes in. Obviously, we're not discussing individual cases here at all, and I'm not suggesting that, but I think it is worth noting that some of the concerns that were raised in accusations that were made are extremely serious, and anybody who comes into touch with this group, or if they're contacted individually, if I can encourage everybody to refer them or to encourage them under very difficult circumstances, which I understand, they're concerns to the police. What was described to a certain extent was criminal activity, and it would be really helpful if we could all encourage them to do so. And can I just also add, I and the lead member also supported and also suggested that any complaints of a potential criminal nature should be referred to the police to be investigated independently. Thank you. I just wanted to add that I've been tasked with shaping the service to meet the needs of the customers. I've spent a lot of time with staff and trade unions. From next week, I begin to spend some time with the customers, and I really welcome the opportunity to meet with the group that you talk to. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Julie. So I'll just say one more final question. I know I'm able to visit and spend at that moment. So Councillors, I've been asked that this is the final question. Thank you, Chair. So my question is on child's obesity, the raising concerns in the borough. How, as mayor and the team, will you be working to ensure that we have measures in place? For example, not just in school moves that we provide, but actually looking outside the box in terms of the planning and the development infrastructure in the Council to ensure, for example, not as many fast food places are available right outside schools or ensuring planning measures are in place to ensure, like, you know, because it's cheap to just buy, you know, one pound chips and wings, so how can we ensure more health opportunities for our young people in the borough? Thank you. Thank you for that question. I have to say the relevant question. When we were here previously, and I think you continued with this previous administration, we made sure, by schools at a policy in place, Steve Crepman, if I'm wrong, please, yeah, our policies in place, the fast food shops would not be opening near to schools. So our kids are not tempted with those cheap chicken chips, et cetera. Hopefully with the free school meals option, hopefully with the investment in the youth provisions, hopefully with the insourcing of the leisure facilities as one of the reasons why we brought it in-house to reduce the health inequalities in the borough, and with partners who are working with our parents, with our schools, et cetera, that there will be a less temptation and more inflammation towards healthy eating, healthy lifestyles by us as parents, grandparents, and our children and grandchildren, too. I don't know if Steve, you want to add anything further? The only thing I would add is the partnership executive group was referred to earlier on. The peg was referred to yesterday, and, sorry, we met with them yesterday, and they have five key lines of inquiry that they want to pursue, and we were talking, this whole issue is a significant issue, and it requires partnership work. We cannot do it on our own, and one of the proposals that came through it paid yesterday was that we should be looking at health, and this was mentioned as one of those key lines of inquiry that might want to pursue. The relationship between the partnership executive group and scrutiny is something I'd like to talk about later on if we get the chance. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you very much. Thank you for your presentation. I look forward to working with you and your cabinet in the air ahead. It is important that we work in partnership to improve power from a secular circumstance, and we will ensure that our work will add value and provide the critical friend challenge to support the mayor or cabinet and officers to deliver the best service for residents. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the members very much. I look forward to my and my executive and officers look forward to working with you, receiving constructive suggestions, constructive criticisms, and helpful advice from you how we move forward and improve as a borough. Thank you and grateful to you. Thank you. If you are free to go, if you want to, or if you want to stay, you are all come to stay. Our next item on the agenda will focus on action to improve this security scrutiny function in the council. This committee held a performance review with the center for governors and scrutiny in April to consider what areas need to be strengthened. In addition to this, Stephen has also achieved executive presented a paper to cabinet which proposed several actions to further enhance the performance of scrutiny in the council. Stephen has joined us this evening alongside Robin Veggie and Julie Lorraine to discuss this proposal in the committee. I would like to invite Stephen to present the item. He will have up to 10 minutes, Stephen, for your presentation and then our heart ended over to the committee and the members of the profession. I will let you know when you are nearing your end. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Quite correctly, I did present a report to cabinet this week on May the 16th and I am going to make a few summary comments, if that is OK, then Robin Beatty, the acting director of SIT is going to take you through some of the key issues. But for me, I would just like to make three points. First of all, as the head of paid service and the chief executive, I have a responsibility to the council through the council's constitution to make sure that resources and infrastructure are in place to support a whole range of services that the council provides. One of those is to ensure that we have got the right officer structure in place to support scrutiny. It is my view that we don't. So, in my estimation, we need to spend some time thinking about where the scrutiny function is placed within the officer structure in the council, how we ensure that officers that support over you, scrutiny have got the tools to do the job, how making sure that we have got capacity to address the issues that the scrutiny committee want to address and I had correspondence with the previous scrutiny committee about having additional meetings to look at housing issues. Well, my response at the time was that we didn't have the resource. I think that we do now. So, there are a number of things that we need to - I need to put in place to make sure that you have got an adequate infrastructure. I was also mindful of the fact that I attended - I have had discussions over the last six months or so about the effectiveness of the scrutiny function. And I had the opportunity to observe a session where some scrutiny members were able to attend that was facilitated by the centre for - I'm so sorry, I always forget the name. Yeah, those guys. And it was interesting to witness some of the feedback that came from members about how effective scrutiny is, about how there is a perception that it is politicised to the extent that it doesn't necessarily, that it may undermine the value of scrutiny. But one of the things I really be mindful of is it's not my decision. Your programme, what you want to do is a matter for you. Scrutiny has to be free to be able to scrutinise the functions of the executive and have the resource to do it effectively. So, one of the proposals that I was going to make was that we change the relationship with the executive officers of the council that are responsible for delivering the services that you scrutinise. So, in my estimation, I've already explained to the HR committee earlier this week that a corporate director will attend every meeting of the HR committee, and if the HR committee are willing, they can focus their efforts on a particular error service provision or a particular error of council service delivery. Overview and scrutiny might want to do the same. I think I need to attend more regularly, and I intend doing so. So, if the overview and scrutiny committee want to ask me direct questions as your statutory head of paid service, then I'm more than happy to do that as well. And I've always said that from this year, when you establish your work program and you have a special event to do that, that I would like to be present at that as well. That's an overview. If you don't mind, I'm just going to ask Robin to take you through some of the proposals that I'm putting forward, but please understand it's on the basis. This is your committee, and I want to make sure you've got the resources to be able to do the work that you feel you need to do. Thank you, Robin. Thank you very much. Well, I want to build, really, on what Steve has said. I think we're in a moment in time where I think we've recognised some of the excellent work that the overview and scrutiny function has performed over the last few years, and the improvements that they've made in terms of the work of scrutiny, particularly the collaborative groups that come together around specific issues. They've done some really, really useful and positive work and some really good recommendations have come out of those. But there is, I think, a recognition within the Council, certainly within the corporate management team, that we really do need to push on and support over in scrutiny to become better at a faster rate. And that means, in many ways, increasing the profile over in scrutiny has across the organisation. It means engaging much more proactively with our managers to ensure they understand just how important over in scrutiny is to the work that they do. And it also means promoting a more collaborative and supportive relationship between the executive function and the over in scrutiny function, which I know members of over in scrutiny are keen to do, and I know the executive is keen to do as well, and looking at the work that has come out of over in scrutiny in terms of their performance review, and that was very clearly stated there. So this report was presented to Cabinet in that light. It was an opportunity to give over in scrutiny a higher profile and to promote a positive and supportive approach between scrutiny function and the executive. It set out a series of actions that were effectively or are effectively for the chief executive to make within the constitution to better improve the administration and support for the scrutiny function. But it also set out a range of suggested actions that would be recommended to over in scrutiny to examine and review and see if they wanted to support as part of their own improvement plan. I don't intend to take you through the whole document because it will just run into time in relation to the amount of time you've got for questions, and I know the importance of the sessions really is in the questions that you ask rather than Council officers droning on. But the suggested improvements that are in the paper that was put to Cabinet are centred in two or five areas. One is increasing the profile of scrutiny within the Council, which I think is essential. The other is improving the quality of administrative support for scrutiny members. And I know there's been some frustrations expressed by scrutiny members in the past about elements of that support and the amount of resource that is aligned to the scrutiny function. Certainly, I think there was an appetite within CMT and with executive to review. Increasing the profile of scrutiny within the community. I know that I just want to clarify something. I'm going to stop for you a minute. Stop you for a minute. I just want to clarify your point on the agenda. I was advised, I was reminded to take this item on our agenda basis as we discuss with members. So I was advised to take this item as an item basis to discuss. That's what I want to clarify at this point because this is not on the agenda on this point. It was in a bit so we wanted to take this move forward this agenda because of this urgent nature. We discussed it in the committee meeting with the members as well. Continue now. Thank you. So the increase in the profile of scrutiny within the community. I know you've done some very good work there. There's been some outreach work there. But there's much more that can be done to raise the profile of over in scrutiny within the community and promote the important work that you do. And becoming more outward focused as an organisation, learning from others, sharing our experience over in scrutiny with others in order to improve what we do and how we do it. And that links him as a final area of suggestions which is about working more collaboratively. Do you want to go on to the next slide? I suppose the only other common chair I would make is that I can't emphasise enough that I absolutely accept some really good work that scrutiny has done. I think some of the training and development opportunities, I think the personal budgets for training, these are all good initiatives. They really are. But it is my view that we haven't quite got it right. So one of the things that I've asked officers to do is to visit other local authorities. And there have been some visits already to those local authorities in London that are held up as exemplars of how effectively scrutiny can work. And Matthew has already been on one of those visits and I'm sure he can comment on what was covered there and what's planned moving forward if it's what the over in scrutiny committee wanted to do. It's about empowering the over in scrutiny committee as well. Thank you Stephen for your quick presentation. Do members have any questions? I'll take, as I said before, one question I know you're going to end up annoyed already. So I'll take one question if it's important. I'll take all of those. Just one minute. Let me write it down. Anybody else? Thank you. And I think Stephen and I have spoken briefly when we were at HR committee and I did say I'll come back and I had some strong views about this. I really do appreciate this work that's been put together. And before I make my comments I do want to say I understand the intention in trying to get this right. This is a statue duty of the council. It hasn't worked too well, especially in the last two years trying to get the best out of this committee. But what you've done in trying to help, I think you've put the cart before the board and you've preempted what you think needs to happen. And I think the fact that this paper has gone to cabinet in a week that we didn't actually have an awareness committee and then you've passed it and you've come here and you're saying we want to empower you. You've passed this through cabinet. Please let me comment. You've passed this through cabinet and you're now saying to the awareness committee I want to empower you. There's something quite doesn't marry up there. There's loads of things that are in there that are from the LGA report which you forget to mention but that's where it's come from and some of it's come from us as a committee but there's loads of things also missing. I get the bit that we get to decide what the work plan is but actually we also know what the issues are therefore we should have a say in the structures. So I think I like Mr. Hosea. I think a lot of it falls on your shoulders about getting this right. I do think that it's a failure that you've come to us after the cabinet meeting number one and number two I think even in the cabinet meeting which I've watched online there was a cabinet member so he is part of the exec. He makes a comment that says I've had more call-ins in the last two years than it was between 2018 and 2022 so I'd like to see figures of that if that is actually correct. Secondly, it's incorrect for an exec member to comment on that because call-ins aren't decided by us. It's decided by any five members of this council. So that shouldn't be criticism of us of ONS members and I found that really bad watching. You did not once stop that exec member to say actually it's incorrect and it's actually a conflict of interest for you to comment on that because the ONS is here to hold the mayor and the cabinet to account. Okay, so the question, okay, so first of all I would say that you will see from the report that the cabinet won't ask to agree anything or endorse anything. It was a noting report because the report makes it very clear about where the responsibility for scrutiny lies, what responsibility. I have a chief executive and what responsibility the over and scrutiny has for its own function and its own working. I accept completely though that we have to start somewhere. So I've had a view for some considerable time which we have shared and I've talked about quite openly that I don't think the scrutiny function is as effective as it could be. I think that's been endorsed by some of the work that's gone on recently in closing the council's accounts through the annual governance statements, two things that I would have thought of viewing scrutiny should take an interest in on an annual basis. So there are simple things that haven't happened in the past that need to happen. So my approach to bringing this forward was always about making sure that we had a more effective over and scrutiny function in the coming years. No disrespect was intended at all, not at all. The over and scrutiny committee will decide its forward plan. The over and scrutiny committee will talk to me, I'm sure, about the number of subcommittees, the number of meetings, the additional resource that you need to do your work effectively. But let's not forget that that is resourced by the budget and the decision to support it in terms of officer time, resource time, financial time does fall in part to the executive. So it was absolutely right that a report goes to cabinet for them to note the actions that I'm going to propose to you and the actions I intend taking as head of paid service. And I think it's remiss if the council not to have done it before. Thank you. Councillor ADAMS. Thank you, Chair. Two seven head of paid services. Thank you for your update on resource variable for scrutiny. Last year's when I was a chair for housing, we had put through a lot of requests that housing is very complex issue, more than 58% of the problem within the council is housing issue. And scrutiny around the proposal to have an additional meeting or additional subcommittee. Can you be able to elaborate that when it's a resource variable, do you mean by the housing side of it? It's going to be a resource variable, housing scrutiny, or is there overall scrutiny? I was just going to make it clear on that. Okay. So, thank you for the question. So, under the last cycle, last year I received correspondence from the then chair endorsed by the committee about increasing the number of meetings for the housing, whatever the title was of the housing subcommittee. My view and my response at the time was we didn't have sufficient capacity or resource to do it. Now I think those circumstances have changed. So, under the reorganization of the officer's structure, which I'm happy to come to your next meeting to talk about in detail, we will make sufficient resource available to have the number of meetings that you aspire to. There are some restrictions though. We only have so many officers. You only have so many weeks. You only have so much time that you as members can give to this work program. So, we will need to make sure that you prioritize your work, that you're happy with the profile and priority of your work program. And if that means additional meetings to address housing, then we will arrange for additional meetings to address for that subcommittee to meet. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Steve. This is really good that you want to do this and it shows that, you know, you're thinking in the right direction. However, first of all, going forward, which you said about more effective function of the overuse overuse scrutiny committee going forward. Don't you think it would be wise to have maybe in the next term, when we, not next, I'm sorry, the next year, when we are looking again at committee members to have someone from your position as chair overuse scrutiny, to make sure that it's scrutinized improperly, because there can be a problem of having the same part of scrutinizing each other. That's one point. The second point is some of these changes seem to be coming from a top heavy and sort of trickling down, rather than coming from the actual committee itself and going up. So, that's a problem as well. And also about the mayor, you know, would we be seeing more of the mayor coming in to be questioned? Because again, that's important scrutiny. And if you want to empower this committee, surely part of that empowerment is making sure that we can hold the lead of this council, the mayor, to, to account on a regular basis. Thank you. I think I'll be with all of that. Can I just comment on the chair position first of all? So, it was suggested as part of the corporate peer challenge process that the council consider having a member who's not part of the majority group, chairing the committee. So, we set about contacting other local authorities to see best practice, you know, as much as anything else. And actually, there are a limited number of local authorities that follow that practice. However, one of the things, and that has been presented back to the executive as a proposal. It wasn't something that found favour in the current municipal year, but I think it's something that we need to do a little bit more work on. I do. I'm also taken by the fact that effective scrutiny is a really interesting thing from my perspective. So, in a local authority where the council is run by one group, and you might have the odd minority group, but the council is basically, it's interesting to consider what effective scrutiny is in those circumstances. Then, it's interesting to think about how you then, at the other extreme, where you have a council like Taohannis, where you have, it's much, the waiting is, it is much closer. You have X number of majority group, you have some young group members, and then you have a minority group, and how we function over you and scrutiny in that respect. I think one of the difficulties, and I'm not saying I've got the answer to this right now, but one of the difficulties is, in my estimation, the sum of the overview and scrutiny meetings that I witnessed either online or whether I've been here or whether I observed, they do tend, in my estimation, to get politicised to the extent that rather than pursuing the particular topic where scrutiny can add value, we seem to spend quite a lot of time knocking lumps out of each other on occasion, and I just think there's a better way of doing it. Now, whether that is as a result of thinking about in chairs, I don't think it is. I think it's about your scrutiny subcommittee infrastructure. I think that's really important, but also the task and finish groups. I'm not sure what you've called them here, historically, but having task and finish groups that have a real objective, have a beginning, a middle and an end, and report back, and then they influence executive decisions. The bit that's also missing for me is the way in which scrutiny then impacts upon policy establishment and strategic development in the council. I think there's been a bit of a gap in that respect, so we set our strategic plan, our strategic objective as a local authority, that it's been really interesting to ask Robin and his guys to look at, actually, how did scrutiny influence that? Yes, you called it in. Yes, you can scrutinise it before it goes to cabinet, before it goes to council, but how did your work, the previous year, add value to the strategic plan that the council now bases its MTFS on and its work programme for the next three or four years. We've got to get sharper at that as well. I'm now talking far too much now, and I've moved away from the question, but the other issues that you raise, I agree. Thank you, sir. Okay. Okay. What's your name also? How do you raise? Just to add, so you talked about the political issues within this committee. So what Councillor Ali suggested, don't you think that's a good idea to have a chair who is neither from these parties and has someone, an officer or someone perhaps independent? Do I personally think it's a good idea? Let's be clear about what statuary required, what the constitution required, and the political balance in the local authority. I may have a view, there may be some that even think that it may be best practice, but the council establishes its committees. The council has an AGM, the council makes those decisions, and the council will continue to be free to do that. I have a responsibility for making sure that once the overview and scrutiny committee has been established, that it adds as much value as it possibly can, it's got the resources to do its job. So I understand the aspiration, we haven't been able to find many local authorities that operate in that way, and I'm not sure necessarily that there'll be an appetite for us to be the first. Robin Akshay, should I ask Robin, do you want to pass comment? I'd just like to reflect on some of the positive feedback in your own performance review and recognition that there is a will within the group of over in scrutiny members to work more collaboratively together going forward. I think that's a really positive mindset to maintain, because the most effective scrutiny activities are brought about when that actually happens. And tribal political lines are set aside to focus on key issues, key problems, and bringing together different perspectives around that problem and coming up with positive and useful suggestions that the organisation can then take forward. That's really made a real difference. I think that's recognised by all scrutiny members. And I look forward to a positive growth progress on that front. And I'm not sure necessarily that without that will, whoever is chairing, he's not going to make a difference. I think it ultimately comes from the will of the individual scrutiny members and how they choose to collaborate and work together on specific issues. And I should also add to that part of the report talks about the role of the statutory scrutiny officer. And one of the things that I'm minding, one of the things I have been thinking about is the role needs to be much more integrated into the work that the authority does as opposed to historically being presenters and aside. And we need to do, and I've been talked to episode about that. Exactly. Thank you, everyone. Is there any more questions from members? You were confusing, yes, Asma. So, Chair, if you'll allow me, this is my first ONS. And what I'm struck by is how well-run a meeting this is, and that is not chair. You know how much I like you, but that is down to the officers and their hard work. I've seen a lot of restructures, reviews, performance, plan, whatever you want to call it. I've seen a lot of them, and they never run smoothly. So, how can you ensure that these plans that you have are not going to actually disrupt the scrutiny that we do here? Because there is nothing like a change program, a restructure, a review, whatever name you stick on it, to cause chaos. And is this the right time, mid-term, to do this? Okay, so, thank you for that. To be absolutely clear, the reason for restructuring the Council, and we're in the second phase now, the three-phase process, is because what we had before wasn't working, as is evident from third-party comment about the Council's performance in some areas, which when I come back to talk about the restructure, I'm more than happy to go into in some detail. So, we only try and fix something that's broken, or we want to make it work more effectively. If it's not broken, why fix it? The restructure that's taking place in the local authority, the officer restructure, should not just add value in terms of the services that we're providing, but should give much more opportunity for overview and scrutiny to engage. One of the things that we will be doing as a result of the restructuring is having more scrutiny officers. So, my view is, yes, you've got some excellent officers. Officers work really hard at doing this, and even officers predecessor before, when Sharon was here, it worked really well. But there's a capacity issue. There's lots that the scrutiny committee would like to do, but we just didn't have enough people, or adequate resource, or time in the calendar, or whatever it might be to address all of the issues effectively. And there is very little point in my estimation in having, it's interesting some of the comments that we've had this evening about particular projects or task and finish groups or reviews that have been undertaken, and we're back in here asking about whether they've had an impact. Can we do it again? Can we revisit it? Well, if we've done it properly and we've done it effectively, then we shouldn't have to ask that question. It should already be informing the Council's agenda, and as I mentioned earlier on the strategic direction of the Council, that's what I want to get to. I want to be an exemplar. If I thought it could wait another three years, let's not misunderstand. It's your decision. If you don't want to, and you want to wait another three years, that's the overview and scrutiny committee's decision. It's not what I would recommend, because I think we can do better. I'll be last, my son. It's just the last point about the statutory officer. If you could just explain a little bit more what that means for us, because to be honest, you mentioned Sharon, right? When we had the transition between Sharon and Officer, we didn't feel a thing. It was just so seamless. So is there a proposal for a change? I didn't understand what you meant by that. I don't mean to mislead. The reason the change is so seamless is as a result of the quality of the officers that were involved. So let's take that as an example. We've got really good officers, limited - I'm sorry if I keep repeating myself - limited by the resource that they have available to be able to do the work to support Unovian scrutiny. My view is that with additional resource, so if we give Officer as a current statutory scrutiny officer more resource, more money, more people, then they're going to be able to support the over and scrutiny function, which in turn allows you to become more productive. I should also say, sorry, I should also say, and I made the point HR committee, but I'll make it again when I come back. The restructure is not a savings exercise. The MTFS is established. We've already offered ER and VR across the organisation, and we continue to do that on an annual basis. This is about investing in services in most need, and that's what the MTFS has been established to do. This is not a savings exercise. There's not going to be reduction in services as a result of the organisation. Reorganisation is going to be enhancement of service provision, including the support to urbanists. If I think, I believe we don't have any more question any members, so we'll move on. Thank you. Thank you, Stephen, for your presentation. It is clear that it is clear there are several improvement activities planned for this scrutiny. It is important that OSCH had the forefront of determining and leading these changes, and I would ask you to ensure that we are engaged on each step before papers are presented, and decision or taken. Sorry? Yeah, it is nothing. Decision taken at Cabinet. I'll look forward to working with you and your official session to ensure that we deliver these changes and driving pro-performance across all of our scrutiny committees. Thank you again, Stephen. So, we're going to move to agenda item seven now. We'll review the statutory guidance for Council on over-view and scrutiny. Our next item, agenda item seven, if you want to note it on your agenda. Our next item considers the recent published statutory guidance for over-view and scrutiny committee. A briefing note on this paper has been published, and I'd like to welcome Abhazul Hawkins, our treasury of scrutiny, and I'd like to introduce this to the committee. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So, just to briefly introduce this report, it's a note and report for the committee. As the Chair mentioned, in April, the Government issued a revised statutory scrutiny guidance following the previous published guidance, which was in May 2019. The guidance just sets out how, as a local authority, we are required to have a scrutiny committee and the various aspect of how we support an effective scrutiny function in local authority. So, that includes a references, therefore, principles of scrutiny in local government, so one of which is providing a critical friend challenge, amplifying the voice and concerns of the public led by independent people and drives improvement in public services. I think it's useful that we've just had a discussion about the various aspects of one, how we ensure a good scrutiny function into our hamlets, and including in the guidance, what we've done is highlight some of the core areas that the guidance talks about. One is a strong culture, so that recognition and legal and democratic legitimacy of scrutiny identify clear roles and focus, how we manage disagreement with the executive who has scrutiny supported, and again, I think that's something we've just talked about, impartiality and that support from scrutiny and profile. It also focuses on resources, so the level of resources, and I think it's really important to hear from the team that he's committed to putting additional resources to support scrutiny committee, and one of the things he was saying to me earlier, that he doesn't want to come to away day when we look at our work program and really look at how both himself and CMT can support development of our committee. I think one of the really interesting thing this year is we've had some consistent over the last two years in terms of membership. We've got a number of new members this year, as well as some experienced Councillors, so we're looking at a session for members around how we develop members understanding off scrutiny, but we will do some further work around looking at skills and how we can support you. So selecting and kind of member development is another key area. I think one of the things they do talk about is powers to access information. Unfortunately, we do seem to be able to access the information, both through request from this committee, but through action log. But it has been an experience when the government was looking at that. There has been authorities where information for scrutiny committees has been only available for an effort-wise. Actually, this is something, again, through the guidance the government has issued a requirement that lots of scrutiny committees can access. And the final thing is around kind of planning of its work programme. So again, I think that's something we do really well. And the Chair mentioned this morning we had a session, open session for residents. We had about 20 residents that came to talk about some of the things they want to kind of in the work programme, but we will be organising a session in the next few weeks for the committee to really look at what's important and we've got some good suggestions from today. But ultimately, as the Council has read this meeting, I've said this is your committee, this is your work programme. So myself and colleagues in the team will support you. And so I thought it was important to bring this paper, but I think it's really kind of helped in the conversations we've had today. So I'm happy to take any comments to your questions. One minute. Thank you, Madam Chair. Do members have any questions? What happens to a lot of our patients? All comments? Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair, for the update. That scrutiny session that was in the town hall today, maybe I didn't see my email or whatever. It wouldn't be nice, maybe we were invited to. That would be nice, thank you. That's your chair. Thank you. I mean, mostly it was a resident session. The chair came and spoke to them briefly. We wanted to kind of really make sure residents feel kind of enabled to engage in. But I think that's something we'll definitely bear in mind. We do do lots of engagement with residents. But I think this was just the first time, just to get some initial feedback from residents of areas that they wanted the committee to focus on. And the chair was there, but I'm definitely happy to kind of future session. Make sure other Councillors are invited. Just a quick follow-up, Chair, if you don't mind. Is it late yet? Yes, yes. Obviously I was the Chair of the Education Committee for two years. I was discussing a lot of things with Justina. Well, she had that plan in place to have maybe like a big day for all the scrutiny lead to have maybe tables outside where we have a lot of rooms and bring the public in to discuss and air their views. You know, it's like a good day out to sharing information, getting to know the people and their concerns. So that would be nice to have an update on that. Thank you. Happy to look at that, Chair. I think particularly where we've got big committee events, where we know residents are coming. We can definitely explore how do we kind of make sure both members and screen has a profile on that. So that's something of a really good idea. Thank you. Thank you very much. Maybe I should start off at the beginning of the year as long as I'm on here. It's first start off by saying thank you to our office. So obviously, I'll finish off with Daniel and Thomas for all that you do. And like both of us made a good point. So I just wanted to understand the creation of the work plan. So obviously Mr. House has presented his structural changes that he wants to make. Because last year we kind of did it straight away where we had kind of an away day where we discussed it here and you kind of put a work plan together. Is it something we can go into straight away? Can you put a date in the diary for us? Or do you expect to wait a bit for Stephen Halsey to tell you how is it going to work? No, I mean, I think we're looking at early next month. Just need to kind of, and I don't know if members have a view because previously we've done it on a Saturday morning. So I don't know if members have a view about kind of Saturday morning or we can do an early evening subject to corporate diary. But I think that's just something we wanted to again check today. Actually, it's a really good reminder of our members have a preference for a Saturday morning. What we've started to do is collect some of those evidence for their way day. So we've got the annual delivery plan looking at the priorities of the council over the next year. I was agreed at cabinet last year. We've got the performance report. We've started to gather intelligence from our complaints reports, members inquiry. We've started to gather a lot of the intelligence to enable. So we just want more going to check corporate diaries. And again, there's a preference for Saturday or evenings evening. So in the next two to three weeks, we'll look at the corporate diary because I appreciate there is quite a lot of meetings. So he's going to be a three and a half hour session. So he's going to be a three and a half hour session. So we will try to do it from sex and hopefully we'll get some food as well. Whole food. That would be a nice idea. Some food. Yeah. But make sure you have hot food, not the cold one. Cold food, sir. No, not the cold one, sir, please. So is there any more questions? Thank you very much. Sorry, I did have a question about the visit to other authorities. Is that also going to be included in a work plan or is it going to be a separate kind of scrutiny improvement plan and work plan schedule? Thank you, Councillor. That's a really good point. So we're trying to do this visit as soon as possible. So we reach out to the different groups, including yourself, to see. We're very much welcome to come along. So as the chief, as I mentioned, we've so far visited, Councillor and Chelsea. We are looking at doing a few more of us, particularly mayoral authorities. So hopefully Lewisham, Hackney and possibly Greenwich. And so, and but we will invite. Who? Listen, listen. Not New York, sorry. Greenwich, Greenwich, I said. Sorry, guys, we are not finished yet. We are not finished. We have one more agenda to go. Oh, my God. How many questions do we have? I'll give you answer. Thank you for the last two years, for union officers. My question to you is about the timing for the calendar. I mentioned last year's rule, but can you make sure that the summer holiday coming? And a lot of us are family members. We've got a lot of other commitments in that. So the scrutiny meeting, do not fall, try to not at the beginning. And sometimes a lot of apology comes in because people kind of come in a scrutiny meeting because they already have other engagement already. So it does not make it effective. If you're doing the summer, if you don't remember, present, that's the one I say. Please make note on that, please. Well, thank you, Councillor. We'll have a look. So last week for Council or week before the Council agreed the calendar of meetings. And I will have a look and talk to 11 colleagues where if there are any meetings that fall during the school holiday. Thank you. I will just take one more brief question from Jamie. Oh, my, please. I just don't like to echo what everybody has already said about this. So anyway, I commend the work and the hard work you put in. Just wanted to say about the changes of the day. Were there any kind of like advanced notice about, it used to be Monday's scrutiny. Suddenly realized my calendar has jumped to Tuesday afternoon, which is a slight bit of a clash with my other expectations outside. So how did that kind of happen? Or was it already planned to be on Tuesday? That's all. Thank you. Thanks for your comments. Yes. I think the Councillor. We knew the chair last year. We mentioned Monday clashes with both the mayor's surgery and other members, cabinet members attending. So that's why in order to ensure that the mayor and other cabinet members can attend that we were proposing. So we did look about it. I'm not sure if you want here. Yeah. That's it. We talked about it. I appreciate it. You might not be aware of that. Thank you very much. The strategic guidance is very useful to remind us of how this committee should work and operate within the council. As we deliver the improvement plans, we have discussed the evening. It's important that we are aligned with the guidance and ease. It is a measure of best practice. So can I ask the attention of the members for the agenda item? Eight is for your information only. If you just look at the page 65 and 86, you'll see the forthcoming designs. And agenda item nine is Obalbi Scrutini Committee Quarian Action Board. I don't think there is a Quarian Action Board. We've already done it at the beginning. There is no petition agenda item nine is petition. So there is no petition. There is no other school. We've already done the Mayors first night. And pre-designed agenda item two is pre-designed Scrutini for under-secret cabinet papers. It's not cabinet papers. There's no calling. So we're going to move to agenda item 14. They are final one. Our final substitution item considered the attendance of our co-op teacher. Can I ask someone to introduce the report please by someone? Good evening. Again, Chair. Just say this report is sort of an obligation. The Council has to talk about co-opity attendance. Our committee meetings. So for tonight members, you have essentially the note report. See the attendance until it's within it. And then decide on the two cases within the report what you wish to do. We can simply take no action. Or there's as outlined in 3.6, you can say we can write to those co-opities. You can say we will look at the attendance six months time to see what's happened. You can ask them to be removed. Or we take no action. So, or finally you can decide what you feel is an appropriate course of action as a committee. The two, the two property members are in the report. There is a confidential appendix about that you may talk about. If you want to go into details on that, we can move into a closed session on the, on the chair's, chair's guidance. But essentially a committee is up to you what you want to do with the next course of action. Okay. Thank you Thomas. Thomas has set out the two actions. The members are really comments about, about what action they would like to take. Councillor SMYSLAM. Can I propose that we support the co-opities with trying to help them with the barriers they have with attending. And keep them as it is. But, you know, the support is put in, so the recommendation is that we put the support in place for them. And I hope the committee can agree to that. Councillor MURPHY. Councillor MURPHY. Yes, Councillor MURPHY. Yes, Councillor MURPHY. Yes, Councillor MURPHY. Thank you, Councillor MURPHY. So, yes, would you suggest that in six months time we bring this back and find out how the officers and the council has done to support them as well. As their actions as well. Councillor MURPHY. Thank you, Councillor MURPHY. Thank you, Councillor MURPHY. Thank you, Councillor MURPHY. Councillor MURPHY. Thank you, everybody. Does anyone here will move to the final agenda or be there? Does anyone have any other business to raise? No? Councillor MURPHY. Thank you very much. Councillor MURPHY. Sorry, Chair. Councillor MURPHY. Yes, Councillor MURPHY. Yes, Councillor MURPHY. Yes, Councillor MURPHY. I thought there was also the forthcoming decisions discussion or has that been moved, hasn't it? Councillor MURPHY. That's been moved, hasn't it? Councillor MURPHY. Because of the cabinet last week. Councillor MURPHY. Councillor MURPHY. No, no. I just wanted to clarify that we're not discussing that now. Councillor MURPHY. No, I don't. It's okay. Councillor MURPHY. Thank you. That come to our business this evening. Our next meeting will be on Thursday 9th of July. There will be an introduction to Scootini for OSC members. So the officer will be in touch with further details. We'll also be holding our work program setting workshop in June. So please look out for further details from officer on this. Please also make sure you make yourself available to meet with your support officer who will be in contact with you shortly to start preparation for committee meetings and work planning. Thank you everyone for... Councillor MURPHY.