Transcript

And can I remind everybody that when you want to speak to please press, wait for your microphone to turn on and wait for the consistent red light. And for those watching by webcast, please don't start speaking until your microphone is showing as a consistent red light also. And finally, the open parts of this meeting will be available for subsequent viewing on the council's website. In terms of apologies to absence at the moment, we only have apologies from Councilor Norma Mackie. Agenda item two, declaration of interests. And can I advise members that they have a responsibility and an article 16 of the members code of conduct to notify the personal or prejudicial interest in any of today's items? Do you any member needs to clean interest? I ask they do so now. Councilor Zalke.

• Yeah, thanks, Chair. Just working on our project with evolving social housing and housing association.
• Thank you very much. And know what there's, okay. Moving to item three, a committee members content to verbally agree the March minutes of our papers as a true record of the meeting.
• Okay. - Yeah, thank you very much. And then moving on to substantive business and quarter for performance reports. And this agenda item is to explore performance in the housing communities and adult services directorate. And to aid our consideration, can I welcome cabinet members, Councillor Peter Bradbury, Councillor Dunie-Sanghani, Councillor Thorne, and officers Jane Thomas and Helen Evans. Would any cabinet members like to make an opening statement before we start with questions? Councillor Thorne.
• Thank you, Chair. Thanks for the opportunity to present to you today the performance figures for housing communities. It's been an incredibly busy year with many challenges, but the service continues to work hard to mitigate these issues. As you know, the demand for housing and homelessness services grew significantly in 23 to 24. This resulted in cabinet declaring a housing emergency in December, 2023. Despite these significant challenges, our commitment to tackle homelessness and address sleeping and support some of the most vulnerable people in the city as continued with some good achievements recorded throughout the year. Unfortunately, homelessness prevention rates haven't quite met the target set. However, given the challenges the services have faced, I'm pleased to see that homelessness was prevented in 77% of cases and plans are being developed to expand prevention help for 24, 25, and we hope that this will help improve these rates further. There's been a sustained detection and rough sleeping in the city of recent months. A rejection from around 50 individuals in November, 2023 to 19 in March, 2024. This has been achieved through targeted work by outreach and multidisciplinary teams together with our partners by increasing and by increasing our emergency accommodation. There continues to be great success with the housing fear scheme, which offers direct placement into tendencies with intensive wraparound support. At the end of the year, 94% of clients utilising the scheme had broken the cycle of homelessness and were maintaining their tendencies, which is a really excellent result. To help address the housing pressures that the city is currently facing, we will continue with our ambitious one-billion council-led programme to deliver 4,000 high-quality, sustainable and innovative homes over 10 years. Then our 67 sites capable of providing 4,567 homes. A total of 1,127 homes have so far been completed with 284 which will be delivered during 2023 and 2024. At the same time, we are committed to improving how we maintain our existing stock. While good progress has been made in terms of completing the oldest repairs, the volume of outstanding repairs remains high. This is resulting in delays to non-emergency repairs being completed. An end-to-end review of the service will be carried out in 2024. This will help us to understand and address how we reduce the number of outstanding works further, therefore improving response terms. Our hubs and libraries have seen visitor numbers increase in 2324, with a 28% increase on the number of visitors recorded in the previous year, and astonishing 1.9 million books were borrowed from our hubs and libraries in 2324, with just over 1 million digital downloads recorded in 2324. And our volunteering service, which is crucial to support our hub services, whilst also helping volunteers to improve their health and wellbeing, or as a pathway into work, it is exceeding the 18,000 targets. In 202324, 19,790 hours of volunteering were given within housing communities. In addition to this, there were 114,450 visits to the online volunteer portal in 202324, a 42% increase compared with 2223. Gem, happy to take any questions.
• Thank you very much. And we'll continue with statements, and then we'll do any questions. That's the case of Councillor Baffrey.
• Yeah, thank you, Councillor. And thank you to the committee for having us here today on the quarter four performance, and which is, again, we'll look over the last 12 minutes, and we've taken into account the work that you did and the inquiry and the task and finish that you did as a committee a year ago, and have increased our targets. You know, for example, initially weekly benefits identified for the clients of the advising target were 17 million, perhaps, now it's 18 million. And the number of customers and assisted with universal credit financial support, the target was 3,000, and now that's gone up to 5,000. And we are already exceeding those targets, even though they are going in next year. We've exceeded those KPIs already, and I think that goes to show the level of the man that is out there for support from our advice team and many advice team as well. If I could just go through a few numbers for you. I mean, not all of these KPIs, but something they're worth highlighting because of the excellent work of the team, and also they're important indicators, even if they're not KPIs, as to where we're going. So I mean, 14,500 customers were assisted by the money advice team with over 2.1 million pounds, say, for residents who were assisted by both of our teams in our hubs. 20 million pounds of additional weekly benefits were identified for our clients and our residents. You know, 6,608 customers were supported and assisted with universal credit financial support. Over the annual target of 3,000, that has been increased to 5,000, because it showed that there's a lot of demand there. We've had 31,000 calls into our advice line. The welfare of the liaison team continued to provide support and advice to council tenants, and we've record numbers going in there. We had a lot of that is to do with lenders area and discretion. Yeah, and so many advice team working close to Cardiff, food bank, so we get and we've given 15 over 1,500 vouchers, in fact 1,554 food bank vouchers. We got dedicated fuel and food poverty champions and we've held 30 food and fuel poverty events. And the man remains incredibly high, even as we see inflation falling, interest rate is still quite high, and there's still quite a squeeze on people in terms of the cost of living. So our team continued to work hard. The cross portfolio and the offices work with the three of us to ensure that we're making sure we're giving the right amount of assistance to our residents across Cardiff. And if there's one thing I think the three of us would like to say is we went very closely together to make sure that we're delivering for the people of Cardiff in terms of our portfolio where it is. Thank you very much. Anything for you, Councillor Ioannoni? Thank you, Councillor. The other services performance report provides an update on the good work that has been undertaken with public health wells and other partners with the aim of reducing health and inequality across the city. I am really pleased to announce that from now on, whenever the birth is registered in Cardiff, the parents will receive information leaflets around childhood immunization within the birth pack. This is a result of successful collaboration between Cardiff and well, local public health team and Cardiff Council's community-welling strategy team and registration services. The original Welsh and English document has been translated into a Bengali, Polish and Arabic to ensure that this difference will be read and understood by many of the communities in the city as possible. I'm also pleased to say that the new health improvement officer will be recruited shortly. This post will be funded by health but will still sit in within the Council community-welling and strategy team. This will help us to make the important work forwarded into the future and that will be really key point where we can get more engaged with the community as well. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, well, we'll move straight into questions and we'll start with questions on adult services, if that's okay just so they're presented in the report. Do any member want to start the questions off? Come to another part. Thanks, Chair. Just, I'm going to read through the quarter four and looking at the Appendix A for Adult Services. I note that there was 1,593 overdue reviews or reassessments that had not been taken place. I just want to get an understanding really. A, is this a statutory duty of the Council that needs to be done every 12 months and how do we know that we're not putting people at risk by not carrying out those reviews? I did note that, I think you said, you were doing some data cleansing, I think the term was. But yeah, if you could just expand on that, I'd appreciate it, thanks. Yes, we are meant to do a review every 12 months. Obviously, how we do that review, it can be light touch in some cases and it can be more in depth in other cases. We've got quite a backlog of old cases in there that we need to review. We think that they have been carried out but the data is not accurate, unfortunately. Because if we've done, for example, another full reassessment during the year or if we've had other involvement with the service user that means that we don't need to do a review, those are not always captured and we know that's the case because we've done some data kinds and we know those figures are not quite right, but we're still quoting those until we've got better figures to put in their place. And it's the top priority for next year to make sure that we completely carry out all of the reviews. This year, we've been focusing on getting all of the assessments updates, make sure we've had eyes on all of our service users and they've all got the services they need and next year would be prioritised in getting all of those reviews up to date and that data cleansed. And supplementary. Yeah, so, is there, do you know that there is anybody who hasn't been assessed within the last 12 months? Or are you saying because maybe their circumstances change and they've needed additional help or less help that they've effectively been assessed? Or are we putting people at risk because they haven't been assessed within the last 12 months? Well, have not been assessed in the last 12 months but they will be lower needs cases. Before I bring Councillor McGarrion on the issues of the care reviews, there's a particular trend in those with disabilities in their care reviews. Is that to do with the level of risk or the type of service provided? It just looked for the kind of understanding of why there was a particular scene to be trailing off? With learning disabilities, the clients are likely to be very high needs and they're likely to be staying open with the social worker for much longer. So even though the initial assessment might have been carried up a year ago, they're not strictly in review. So there's not such a need. And strangely, if I was talking about that with the CIW, the care inspector at Wales this morning who, you know, fully understood that those cases are much more likely to be constantly under review, if you'd like, rather than having their annual review. So they're less needed. But we've got to do a lot more work on the recording of that rather than actually, you know, what we're concerned about people's risks, to be honest with him. OK, thank you very much. Councillor McGarry. Thank you, Chair. Yes, it's to do with the integrated discharge hub, doing referrals to triage within one working day. I see that the reason why it's not meeting the target is because of staff resources and there's more additional tasks to be done. So is that improving now? I get to do, you know, quite a lot of those within, a high percentage within one day. But in reality, it's better to get them done properly and to get the full work done so that the integrated discharge hub team are now doing cases that do have mental capacity concerns around them. They're taking on a wider range of cases. So it has stopped us getting as many done as we would want to within one day. But I think really the performance is really still quite good on that in terms of turning the cases around quite quickly, given the complexity that is coming through. It's a monetary question. Sorry, so is there still a staffing resource problem? Or have you got enough staff there? Numbers are now up to where we're expecting them to be. Obviously that does change on a month-by-month basis, really. But at the moment, we're happy with the level of staff. And really happy with the way that the hub is working overall in terms of sending the right people to the right place and getting the people out. Without them even going into the social work team, they're getting quite a considerable number of people home. We're doing on average 44 hospital discharges with care a week, and very few of those actually go through the social work team. On the IDH and the pathways of care, a lot of the days delays are rated to social work delays. Is that a capacity problem? What's its behind that capacity? Capacity and the social work team in the hospital, we put an additional manager in there, but it's mainly to focus on the more complex cases. Like I said, most cases don't go to the social work team now, unless they are quite complicated. So I think we have got a number of cases that aren't yet allocated to social workers at this very moment in time. And that will depend on the number coming in, the cases coming in. We had a huge peak during February and March that we're still trying to recover from. So it's a bit of a mix of issues, but mainly it's to do with the complexity of the cases. And I think a real focus for this coming year, for this year we're in, is going to be resolving some of these very long-term cases and seeing if we can do things more quickly. If they need to go to court or protection, is there any alternative way of supporting those people? 'Cause those are the ones that end up with very long stays in hospital.
• Okay, thank you. Any further questions? Council McGarry.
• Thank you, Chair. Yes, to do with the disabled facilities grants, I know we are good, we're below the Welsh average, but it's still red in terms of target. And I see that one of the reasons is that the capacity of the current contractors to be able to meet the target. That always been the case. And when did we find out that they didn't really have the capacity to meet the targets? And why didn't we procure more contractors earlier? Because it's obviously going to take a while for them to come in.
• I think it's to do with the demand that's coming through and the nature of the demand that's coming through to the team. So there is quite a high level of demand coming in. And obviously if it depends what that demand is, doesn't it, 'cause it can range from an extension to a small bathroom works. So it is mainly to do with the demand. Plus also we can only work within the resources we've got. So we did slow down work towards the end of last year, before the new budgets came in. Just slightly in order to make sure we stayed within budget. But generally speaking, we obviously felt we had enough contractors, but we've decided to go out for another one. Unfortunately there has been a little bit of bad news and potentially around that. So we're just seeing if we can award the contract in terms of that. So it may be delayed unfortunately. But yes, we obviously thought we had enough contractors, but no we don't, so we're gonna go in for more. And then on other services, 'cause of the child.
• Yeah, thanks. It was just about direct payments. I know we're gonna do a bit of a deeper dive in the next few months on it. But I was wondering two things. One was whether they are fully funded by Cardiff Council or whether sometimes say the NHS will fund as well in a sort of a joint package. And the other question was, do we know how many people are just using family members, for example, to fulfill that role for direct payments?
• I don't have these.
• Many figures for family members. There are some controls around family members claiming direct payments. Generally they can't live in the same property if they're delivering the direct payment. But so I'm afraid I don't have any figures. I don't think we've recorded any either to be honest with you. So in terms of most of that is funded by, the vast majority is funded by the council. In some occasions we will commission direct payments on behalf of health if we just pay a small amount because health don't commission direct payments. And in some cases they can be the best way forward for the individual.
• So yeah, especially really quite high-neas disability cases where the family are coordinating the care on behalf of the individual. And health want to provide a direct payment but they can't under their current rules or under their current arrangements. So we might do that in very limited circumstances.
• Thank you, Dane. Shall we move on to questions on housing? Next, Councillor Celent.
• And yeah, I thank you for mentioning the repairs, Linda. I appreciate that you are trying your best. I think we've all experienced problems with repairs with residents in our awards. And so I'm just wondering whether there's any more you can do. I'm particularly on this sort of communication aspect 'cause I think we find tenants who don't know what's happening and they don't hear or even they get a call to say we're coming around now when it's not convenient and this sort of thing or they're not actually at the property. You know, just wondering whether there's any how do any thoughts on that?
• Yeah, we're introducing a new system which is an online system but we needed to look at some of the work practices. And the other issue is it means that with the new system tenants can actually choose their own date. But part of the problem with rolling it out is that we still have a backlog of repairs left from COVID. So if we roll it out now, there would be no dates for tenants to choose. So I think in June, I think it's been tested with staff putting those repairs on to see how it works. And hopefully, if we can get the backlog done, we can roll it out later this year. I also spoke to Naomi who was managing a part of the service this morning. She's doing some training and she's got an idea. She was interested in perhaps asking councilors if they wanted to do a little video from themselves saying what they thought the problems were. And I actually suggested the props. I also go and speak to them when they're doing the training at the start of the session, not sit through it just to give the my take and from the complaints that I received both from councilors and from tenants. Because it's with remembering that the majority of repairs are done online on time and are done well. But it's my knowledge of repairs that are not. But that's what we judge the service when we get those complaints and I do it myself. And the other issue and I did raise a cabinet is that people sometimes get frustrated from the very get go when they're trying 2087, 2087 and they're hanging on too long waiting for a response. So they give up, then they try the next day and they try the next day. So they're frustrated from the very beginning before they even start to repair it. And so if they can't get their repair, date it in a timely fashion and if something goes wrong with that, that just blows it out of the world. It says me because it's from the time they get the need to repair to the time they get it done is they judge the whole service. So we are doing some work on it. And if any councilors would be happy to do a little video of themselves talking about their experience of the repair service that you're aware of from Tenet's point of view and please still get in touch because they only would appreciate that. So anybody from the scrutiny, please come forward.
• Open invitation. Councillor Lewis, did you wanna come in with a question on this? You might need to turn your camera off. We've got some--
• Yes.
• There we go. We can see you now.
• Can you hear me?
• Yes.
• Over to you. Oh, you've turned your microphone off now, Councillor Lewis. You might need to request to speak again. Can you try requesting to speak? And then we can bring you up on the system. Okay, while we're waiting, we'll take, go to another question. Anybody else want to come in?
• Chair, please, James, come in and I'll move there.
• Yeah, James?
• Yes, it's just to say that a huge amount of work has been done to improve the repair service this year, but I think we're really aware that we need to do more on it and that we will be going, you know, route and branch really to have another look at it and to see what we can do to improve the service. We have still got quite a lot of work outstanding, which we need to address through an additional contract with our, you know, an additional arrangement with our contractors. So we're certainly not saying that everything is well. We know that we've got some issues. We're getting messages out to tenants as well. We need to do more work on and we need to increase the, you know, the speed which we're doing, the urgent repairs in particular. So it is going to be a priority this year to improve that.
• Great, thank you. Is your mic from?
• I'll just take it out as I've got it on the screen. I come to, well, Councillor Lewis has joined us again. So did you try with Councillor Lewis first?
• Right, let me now.
• Yes.
• Okay, thanks. My question was continuing on about repairs for performance and I just wanted to give me more some regulations about contractors giving work out to subcontracts and whether this is causing any complaints about work because we've been experiencing that repairs are...
• I think we've lost you this. Sorry, Councillor Lewis. I think Councillor Lewis questions.
• I think Councillor Lewis questions.
• I've been coming to about an 8/10 because what, what do you think about that?
• So we lost your connection there. But I think we've got the, just the question and subcontracting and what we, what we provide as a Councillor on subcontracting.
• I'll just a subcontractor. The contractor would have to agree that with us. You know, they would have to be an approved subcontractor. But I think that when they do subcontract, we do lose that communication link as well. It further increases that problem about making sure that tenants are fully updated of what's going on. And we, in fact, were fully updated with what's going on. So yes, there is control over subcontractors and who they do subcontract to. I think it just adds to the complexity of the whole arrangement. And it's a very, very big business that repairs service. It does a lot of repairs. And as Councillor Thorne said, a lot of those are successfully done. It is just that, you know, some cases go, seem to go, you know, quite badly wrong. And that is almost always to do with communication.
• Thank you. And Councillor Ahmed.
• Thank you, Chair. Yeah, most of you Jane already answered. But one thing I'll reiterate, obviously, as Linda says, it's a big, big problem with these. But I would just reiterate in my ward, like in Fairwater, is so many old buildings and repair is all the time is needed. But when and does as tenants get the time for repair, the people who cut turns up to work is not actually proper contractor. And the people probably subcontracting, so is the responsibility to the council to actually arrange those with the tenant and the actual contractor who is being, you know, given the job, to give their subcontractor in the right place and right people where mostly elderly people and people are vulnerable to get the repairs. And most of the time is not being done because of the security and safety issues, few cases Linda might be aware of, I did mention. So please, would the council make sure about these things? Thank you.
• I'm not sure if anyone. Yeah, great, Councillor McGarry.
• Thank you, Chair, yes, it's just to do, a congratulations really on securing a lot of funding for the regeneration initiatives in the communities. I just wondered how much control we have over what that's spent on, 'cause I think a lot of it is Section 106 monies. So can we decide how those communities are regenerated?
• I guess it depends which part it's coming from, really, isn't it? 'Cause we've got our own capital programme where we've got a gene regeneration fund which council is bid for. And then we've got the trip funding which comes from Welsh government, which is specifically about doing certain things, but world councillors do get consulted on every single thing that we do. So if you've got any funding that's available for your board, you will be consulted.
• Great, can I just find a question on void properties? There was an increased number of void properties and in the number of vacant stock across 2324 is that a symptom of the repairs issue? When is it all part of the same team or was that, is it a broader issue with voiding in the itself? So page 102 was the average number of days to not avoid property?
• Okay, thank you, I've got that bit. So in terms of the average number of days to turn around to avoid property, a right that has increased ever so slightly. And the reason for this really is the increase in the buybacks which requires some significant work initially to get them up to scratch. So that's the tip for that. And then simply that has a knock on effect then on the top percentage of housing stock that's vacant. So it's to do with the increased number of buybacks.
• A positive in a way that we're having more stock than available to tenants?
• Yes.
• Councillor Thorne?
• Yeah, Councillor Thorne.
• You're just saying, I don't think you're a chair at the time of Councillor Taylor that scrutiny did look at void properties and part of the issue too is that those properties that become available frequently and because of a death and which means that sometimes those tenants have lived in that property for 30 years. So once that property becomes vacant, there's an awful lot of work needed to do into it. We did take scrutiny a few years ago around a number of properties so that they could see the amount of work that sometimes needs to do it.
• Thank you.
• Okay, we'll turn to questions on advice services then. Anybody wanna? Councillor McGary.
• Thank you, Chair. Just you mentioned, Peter, that you work with the other portfolios quite a bit and I'm assuming that you help with housing. I noticed that there was a lot of people that were made homeless because of coming out of rented accommodation because presumably they can't meet their rents and I'd presume that you help people like that. I mean, so the advice services fall with me but the housing service and homelessness falls with Linda but when you're going into people who come into a herb don't understand the differences between the political leadership and the portfolio. So what they will, oh, happens hence the happiness. People come into the herb so speak to our advice services, our advice services then and our herb staff then liaise with homelessness or look at what benefits, what's available in terms of benefits to pay the rent. Often, I've seen this in my own world in terms of like private rent, the private rented sector and the advice services are able to give help through housing benefit and other benefits to try and get people back into the private rented market and that again falls into Linda. But yeah, we debate these issues a lot in cabinet and how the portfolios liaise with each other. And the key thing for us is that when somebody comes into our herbs and asking, oh, rings our advice line or comes into meet anybody in any interaction with the council at all and again, the best quality of advice is possible and we're helping them with the powers that we have available to us to try and sort out some of these quite difficult issues. I don't know if I'll come in, Linda. Just a bit in terms of homes. I say we'll be referred to the homeless prevention team, which we'll do everything they possibly can actually to prevent that new in my statement. I said we hadn't perhaps met the targets that we've been meeting, but actually still prevented 77% of actions and that sometimes is dealing with debt rising from tenants and not being able to pay their own. So did you want to come back on this, Helen? It's OK if I can just add to that. So we've got our renteries pathway, which absolutely looks at everybody who are coming into us with renteries and what we can do to help to support them potentially where we're able to pay off some renteries, perhaps, if that will allow people to stay within their own homes. So it works as part of that prevention model. And while it might sit across two different political portfolios, it comes within housing communities. So we can ensure, therefore, that officers are working really closely together to get the best outcome for our tenants and residents. Thank you. Councilor Child? Yeah, thanks very much. Obviously, as you've said, the Council of Bradbury smashing your targets as usual. The one thing I did note was the housing helpline calls handled and received has gone from court 3% to 92%, down to 78%. And I was just wondering what the reason for that was. And the other question I had was with the hub times, the opening of hubs, and whether the reduced hours have affected the ability to people to get services. Can you start with you, Councilor Bradbury and then Councilor Thorne? Well, I don't know the technical pieces as to why people are making housing helpline. I'm going to follow the officer's lead on that, I think, because they may have an idea. But even with reduced hours in the hubs, and Linda will be able to go in a little bit further, we are still offering a comprehensive service within working time hours, right across the city. So even if it's saying one hub is close, there's advice services, there's other areas where they can get advice. And I can tell you on a Saturday morning in my hub, when I have my surgery, it is still as busy as it was at any other time. But Linda will go into wherever it is, and make a major effect. My anecdotal thing is not really no. And we've done the consultation we've committed to doing a consultation with users of the hubs, which has been completed. And actually, I think that you'll find that the service hasn't been reduced at all. And I'm not sure if, Helen, there's slightly different in all of the hubs, but only very slightly. But in the main, they're nine till five. They still have a late night. They're still Saturdays. They don't close for lunch. I think that's the thing just to hear, Helen. Yeah, absolutely. That's, I think, across all of the hubs that were included within the consultation, it's a total of, I'm going to say, 15 hours. It might be 16 hours across all of the hubs. But what that actually allows us to do is keep some of those hubs open during lunchtime, which is obviously really good. Just to mention, as well, the advice line hours remain the same. So people can, if there's a particular issue that they want, resolves when one of those hubs is closed, but they can continue to contact the advice line. And that the late hours and Saturdays will remain as well. So housing helpline, yes. So in terms of the housing helpline, there's quite simply a resource in issue, unfortunately. So we have looked to put some additional resources in there. As you can see, the calls themselves are actually slightly less in quarter four, but it is a resource in issue. So we will put that right. Could I have one true question? Yeah, no, it's great, thanks. It's good to know that you're keeping an eye on as much as you reduce times and whatever, that people are still getting a good service, so thanks. And then, finally, any questions for Councillor Sengami? I wanted to ask about the-- it's not sufficient the performance data, but there's a business case with the health, with public health, around a cliff edge support, or for those in health and care at the cliff edge, who have other protected equality characteristics. Just looking for, you know, what might that look like, and when might that come to fruition? You know, what's the outcome for that? Which sounds like a really interesting proposal. It's really interesting question. As we say, the care package, which when we have already, you know, significant challenges in that area, while discharging, sometimes the bed signer available, and you know, there's a different possibility. So, probably the office will be the best way to answer you correctly, and how we can take it further. So, we're doing a lot of work with health to meet the people who, you know, tend to fall out of services. So, we've-- the business case was put together for the Inclusive Health Service, so I think that might be what is referred to here, and although there are so many different initiatives, it is really hard to keep your eye on it. So, that would be our homeless people, and our asylum seekers, and people who, you know, tend to fall out of services, as we know, from the committee's previous work, and I understand that they were just successful on that Inclusive Health Bids, and so there will be far more services now available, including things like dentistry and, you know, wider services. A gap that we've been trying to fill through the MTTs that we've been setting up will become sort of more mainstream in the future. So, I think that might be what's referred to. Yeah, absolutely. And from the visit, we had the homeless provision at the gas works that the officers we talked to, they were really complimentary about the in-reach from health, particularly dentistry and GP's. That was really positive. And then the other question I had, I can't see any of the speakers, oh. Can't say they wish I'd bring a new in next, rather than-- Yes, we don't mind. Can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. We can't see you at the moment, but we can hear you. Yeah, I thought it was better for me to switch my camera off. Great, over to you. My question is around the increase in the measles epidemic. And obviously, this is causing issues with public health. And I just wondering what's happening to address this. With respect to the measles, cases has been found more was in the grant and the less number in the car leave. So at the moment, the public health care is absolutely engaged to make sure all the schools has been notified that the children has to be make sure they have been given the vaccination. If not, then they have continuously sending the message through the hack teacher to the parents as well. And their priority is there's an engagement in trying to find it out. If they have not done it, make sure they can do it. So that's what-- and that's one of the-- our post has been planning to recruit as well. And that is the main thing is for the engagement. And make sure we can keep reminding people the immunization for the children is how important it is. Thank you. Unless any other questions? I have one last question around arrangers of the home office. So obviously, that's part of the pressure on how temporary accommodation is released from home. I'm not sure if that's a question for you, Councillor Garnier, for you, Councillor Thorne, in terms of what are we expecting in terms of release from doing-- do we have a better insight then about the numbers coming into card and release and the homelessness requirements? Oh, Helen, thank you. So in terms of the numbers, we are getting some better data. However, as you'll see through that the pack in terms of quarter three and quarter four particularly, we're still seeing a significant number who had just come into us as homeless on the day. And that makes it incredibly difficult. In terms of fourth-coming data, so data over the next six to 12 months, again, we've got some data, how accurate it is, Councillor Taylor, I honestly don't know. So not only are we getting those that are coming as homeless on the day, but also those who have got a very short period of time, so they've been given seven days notice. And that, again, makes it practically impossible to prevent those cases. So still significant numbers that we'll be expecting to see. OK, thank you. Yeah, Councillor CUNY. Thank you. I just want you to add on the point, at the moment, the Home Office has been really running on backlog. They just wanted to clear out as many as people. However, there is a high number of the people has been expected to come into the Cardiff, and same. We are not yet clear on the data. They are not very much clear on the data to provide from themselves as well. And they've been continuously working with the clear swing, and our officers are working with them. However, we are still in order to position to tell the exact data in situation. Hopefully, in due time, we should be able to tell you in a clear position. Thank you. Which is, yeah, entirely a Home Office problem, not one of ours. We just have to deal with the consequences of poor data. OK, brilliant. I think that brings us to the end of the item in the Court of Four Performance. Thank you all for attending. And can we put our thanks, put on record, our thanks to Councillor MACKY for her doing her time as a relevant cabinet member for support for the committee as well. OK, great. Thank you, Mr. Councillor Bradbury and Councillor G Yeah, now we'll move to item five. And the agenda item is housing emergency progress report. And additional proposals. Just do a quick turn over. Joining Councillor Thorn, Jay and Helen, can I welcome Dave Jax and Sarah McGill, sorry, to some following of my words this afternoon. Thank you for joining us today. And can I thank you, Dave, as well, for the briefing you provided us this afternoon on the LHMA. It was a really helpful segue into the meeting today. And the purpose of the agenda is for committee to consider the proposal contained in the cabinet report. And can I remind members that appendices be to hate in our papers, for example, from publication. And so any questions on this information, such as costing, location, and the legal advice, we take an enclosed session. And what we're proposing to do is, Councillor Thorn, if you were to make a statement, we're starting to close session for the presentation. And then do with any questions in the public papers at the very end before the conclusion of the meeting. So Councillor Thorn, I'll start with you. Thanks to her, committee will remember that in December we declared a housing emergency in Cardiff. This was because, like many cities across the UK, we were facing massive and unprecedented demand for homeless services. I think in this room we have an understanding of the key reasons for this huge increase in demand. The affordability and availability of properties in the private rented sector, reducing levels of home ownership, increasing numbers of students, legislative changes, demand resulting from war and conflict across the world, and then depending at all, and the insufficiency of affordable housing. In December we talked about a range of measures aimed at reducing demand and increasing the supply of affordable homes in the city. The report provides this report, provides an update on the progress of those initiatives, and also some new accommodation opportunities to replace a previous large-scale purchase option that was withdrawn by the vendor. The pressure on the homeless services is still extraordinary and the staff are doing a remarkable job every day to provide the support to have the families and individuals need. There are signs of progress and this is encouraging, but as we know development is not speedy and that's why I'm so keen to ensure that we use every delivery option available to us to increase the affordable accommodation across the city. An example that's not actually in this report of what development can do is the recently completed Addison House independent living scheme in Rumlee. The 44 new homes have been released, have released 34 immediately available family homes almost overnight for families, for families who need them, and the former residents of those properties and in state-of-the-art new apartments that meet their current and future needs. And as I said, they released 34 family homes immediately. Some of our new proposals are quite innovative. We need innovative solutions to address not just the current housing need, but those for the future as well. The local housing needs assessment appended to this report shows the five-year level of predicted need and it is daunting. So we need to increase both the scale and place of what we're doing, and I'm excited about the options to increase the use of module homes as part of our proposal. I'll stop there, but happy to answer any questions along with offices.
• Thank you very much. Well, we'll move to the presentation next, but before that, I need to propose that we enter a closed session for the presentation and reopen the meeting, fall into delivery and questions on the closed matters. So in line with legal reasons out on the papers, a member's content to cease the webcast and enter a closed session. Okay, thank you very much, I should wait for it. Let's see if we can. Great, we'll now turn two questions on papers in the public domain if anybody wanted to start us off.
• Can I just ask in terms of the December proposals and the sequencing around the proposal to the cabinet being made, and then the uncertainty around some of the land ownership and then the commercial decision. Is there anything that we can learn from the sequencing of that or was that just a nature of the commercial decision?
• I think, at the time of the report, we were looking at a very wide range of opportunities to try and address the emergency. I think we wanted to ensure that we had the maximum opportunity to secure the large scale purchase that we identified in that report. I think going forward, potentially, if this becomes an approach that we want to continue to take, that there may be something about the timing so that we perhaps, as we have in this report, actually got great a certainty that we're going to be able to achieve the objective that we have in mind. But I suppose it was quite an innovative approach in the December report, and still is actually. And so yes, there's some learning, I would say, in terms of when we bring these opportunities forward.
• Yeah, 'cause clearly there was proposal brought forward. There's the immediate need, but obviously, that obviously commercial decisions have set us back in terms of deliverability. So yeah, that learning process is obviously helpful if it's a future approach. Councillor Lend?
• Thanks. It's probably just a type of, it's just about the figures on the housing waiting list for people over 50. You've got 680, 18, 15, and 15 now. And then you've got 834 between 1670, and then 78 over 80. So there's no people on that sort of between 70 and 80. So should that say 60 to 80, the 834, you know?
• It's, I've got it listed on two different pages, page 51 or 25, we'll listen to two different page numbers on there.
• So that information might be in our cover report rather than the cabinet report. So, office might not have it to hand.
• Maybe the middle figure should be 60 to 80, should it?
• I was just curious about the figures really. 'Cause according to those figures, they do add up, but according to those figures, there's no people between 70 and 80 on the waiting list. I can't be right. I think it's just a mistake, but I was just wondering about it not at all.
• We'd have a look at that and rectify that if that is the case, yeah.
• Councillor Lewis, I saw your name come up. Did you have a question?
• Yes.
• No. In terms of the hotel accommodation, obviously, Helen, you mentioned that it's not, it's a solution, but it's not ideal for the families, particularly there for a long time. On our visit, we heard a lot of uncertainty and concern from residents for how long they were going to be there. There was some questions around access to play in recreational facilities for children. Just wondering how that communication between residents at the hotel and the staff who are based at the hotel is going and how improvements are being taken forward in terms of making the best of that living experience for families that are there for quite a long time.
• Yeah, absolutely. So as well as our staff that you're quite rightly, you know, available 24/7, we've also put in some additional services that sits, you know, across housing and communities. So for example, we've got our early help team going in, as well as our play services. So the play services don't sit within early help. To provide some other opportunities for families with children of all ages, really, to be able to participate in activities. In addition to which we've got our into work teams that are going in regularly, as well as our many advice teams. So it's not just the support offices now that are on site. It is about wrapping all of those different services around those families and individuals as well in some of our single person hotels to make sure that there is other things to do. Of course, it's just making sure that there are activities that are available throughout the day. So our Diversionry activity team, as well, are also providing some stuff in the hotels, too, for our single people. So, yeah, there are much more activities that are going on now. Unfortunately, the length of time that people are staying in some of the family hotels, certainly, is much longer than we would like. But as already, as Jamie has mentioned, in terms of when we get the gas works, the units available and ready to go, that would be real big achievements in making sure that we can reduce some of those stays. And people within those hotels getting them moved out into the gas works.
• Thank you. And one of the things we hear is that people once, you know, I appreciate, again, it's how long as a piece of string in terms of when might somebody be moved on from hotel accommodation. One of the things was their own communication. Have you seen that improved with the staff based on site 24/7 in terms of residents reporting that they know where their case is and where they're being considered for accommodation, long-term accommodation?
• Yeah, unfortunately, it can be really difficult, can't it, for us to be able to give families or singles, actually, length of time as to how long they'll be staying at accommodation for. The team are there, they are available, they've got noticeboards up of, you know, how they'd be contacted. They're given their mobile numbers. So, there is a lot of communication that goes back and forth. Of course, things can always be improved. So, I know certainly, I'm quite keen to now go across, actually, with Councillor Thorne. We've mentioned this, hadn't we, about going to some of the different hotels and having some conversations with some residents too, just to make sure that things are as good as they can be, given the difficult circumstances that they are in.
• Absolutely, thank you. Councillor little Sheldon.
• Yeah, thanks. I mean, I noticed, again, when we went to visit one of the family accommodations that a couple of lads, obviously, with a football, playing in the car park, which I'm sure we'd all do. And, you know, are we for thinking come the summer now, they'll need some outdoor space and whether we can put some sort of facility in, even if it's temporary, to allow that to happen. And my other thing, which is a suggestion more than anything, that obviously, when we get to the point, assume in, say, the School in Richmond holiday programme, the SHEP programme happens, can we prioritise families who are living in hotel accommodation, that they would be able to be engaged in that and really promote that to them, so they haven't got to spend their whole summer holiday, you know, in that accommodation that there's other activities with them.
• Yes, absolutely. In terms of the summer holidays, again, we've got some playshacks that we're quite interested to introduce, so we've already got that up in the holiday in, so they're literally, like, container-type units, but they've got things going on in their footballs and cricket and that kind of stuff. So, yeah, absolutely. In terms of the SHEP programme, could we prioritise any type of conversation, we'll obviously listen if our education colleagues, but we can absolutely look at that.
• Councillor Thorne, did you want to come in?
• You were telling the previous question really and your question, and I frequently receive WhatsApp, Facebook messages, Twitter messages, and from people in the hotels, and I understand their frustration at not knowing, and I think they think the staff don't want to tell them, and they're trying to get the message across that nobody can tell them when or where, because they don't know, because we're literally waiting for vacant accommodation, and I do understand it. I spent the whole weekend, when we came messaging back and forth to a young lady, and I didn't mind doing it because I just thought, she was at least engaged with somebody, so it is difficult, and the staff do their best, but how can you, you can't give somebody information if you don't have them, yeah.
• Okay, thank you. Any further questions? No, can I just see clarity on where we were presented with a number of proposals in terms of policy change in December? Can you let us, where is that consultation, and when might those come into effect, and will those proposals only come into effect once that period, that consultation is concluded?
• I'm pleased to say the actual writing of the consultation has now been completed, and we've worked with partners and consulted with partners as well, so it's just over, winging its way over to Councillor Thorne for a final sign off, and will then be sent out. In terms of the questions, you may recall that previously, we were going to consult on intentionality. Now, given where we are, and looking at some of those white paper, recommendations, we've decided actually that we will not be asking about intentionality, and therefore we will be looking at other ways of how we might be able to in line with the white paper to be able to address some of those issues about people who might want to be presenting to try and circumnavigate the system, if you like, but intentionality has now been removed from the consultation.
• Great, thank you. I know that was something that we had in coverage, so that's good news, thank you. And will that require going to cabinet for sign off or given that that's what it had been given in principle approval in terms of where scrutiny might be involved in future post-that consultation?
• My understanding's correct, I think it was delegated anyway, wasn't it? Yeah, so what needs to go back to cabinet?
• Okay, great.
• Okay, if there are no further questions, we can draw the meeting to a close, and thank you again for your time with us today and for taking our questions.
• Thank you. (footsteps) (footsteps) (footsteps) (footsteps)
• Okay, we'll now move on to agenda item seven, which is the way forward, and no need you want to take us to the matters in the public papers, thank you.
• Thank you, Chair. So as usual, what I'll do now is I'll quick summary of the headline questions and comments you made, then I'll circulate a draft letter for your review, for your additions, for your amendments. So if I miss anything, or if there's anything in addition to what you've already said at the meeting, you'd like included in the draft letter before you see it, please let me know. So I'll start with your comments and questions on the court for performance. So you started really by, you noted your concern around the number of overdue assessments, and you explored in particular this implication around our statutory responsibility, and also around the importance of avoiding risks on the service users. Within those discussions as well, you also noted the trend within care reviews around outstanding care reviews, sorry for learning disabilities, for those with learning disabilities. It appeared from the response what we were getting was that they recognise that a review of data and how it's captured is required, and it's something that they're looking into. You noted the target for the integrated discharge hub is not being reached, and the papers said that more resource is required, and you heard about what their plans are, what their current plans are to address this. Within the response they also said that they are happy with the level of staff within the integrated discharge hub, and the overall workings of the hub, they are content with it. You noted your concerns that the papers really seems to highlight that the reason in for delays in care could be attributed to social work. But what you hear from the response is what the real crux of the issue is that the main issue is due to the complexity of cases in the length of time, it's taken to address them. And again, that's going to be a priority for the service area. You noted concern around meeting and disabled facility grants targets, and also that the reports seem to attribute the reason to contractor's capacity. They acknowledge that there is work around contractors needed in this area, but a lot of the issue is due to the amount of demand coming in for this service. With regard to direct payments, you explored how many people are in receipt of direct payments using family members, and it was confirmed that there are in controls in place to avoid this, recognizing that they could potentially be issues within that. There's a lot of discussions around repairs and the performance around the repairs team. And you noted within the many comments that there's this high, you'll see in a lot within your own ward work, or there's lots of concern from leaseholders around how long they're waiting, the quality of repairs, et cetera. And also as well, in particular, you stress the need for stronger communication from the repairs team to the leaseholders. And again, within the response, you hear that there's been much work on going within the repairs team, and this is going to continue to be a priority for the year. And you also hear about a forthcoming plan where they want to have the councillors link in with the repairs team and provide videos on what their residents, what their constituents have experienced. So if any member in particular is interested in being part of that work, let me know when I could confirm it in the letter for you and ask Naomi to contact you directly. You also as well within repairs, you noted concern really about the use of subcontractors and how this impacted communication or potential quality. They did confirm that there is control around subcontractors, but they do recognise that when subcontractors are applied, they do lose a degree of communication. You explored how much control we have over the regeneration money, sorry, going back to slightly to repairs as well. You also explored if the decreased performance within voids ties into this issue with the repairs team. And you heard that no, the lesson is really quite positive. The reason, sorry, is quite positive. It's due to the increased number of buybacks that they've been doing. You explored adult services collaboration with other services, and this also led into discussion around the importance of cabinet member collaboration and joining at their line in their portfolios. You explored and you know, you questioned really and you wanted to test if there's issues around capacity within the advice services, given there was a decrease in the number of calls handled. You welcomed that services and all their quality have been reduced, despite the changes in herbs opening times since their budget proposals. You explored and welcomed the progress of work with public health around health services for those on the cliff edge. And you heard around the measles epidemic in particular around the work with schools and engagement that the cabinet member and officers are pursuing. And then you also as well received an update on on the pressures really arising from changes from the home office accommodation. And you hear that it appears the pressures are very much still there seems as there's been significant spike in homeless on the day and short notice cases presented. And then lastly, you wish to place on record your thanks to Councillor MACKIE for his support with the committee during performance monitoring the past two years. Was there anything else or anything in addition?
• I think there's all captured. (indistinct chatter)
• Yeah, is that okay, Chair?
• Yeah, great.
• Thank you.
• So I move.
• So I'll move on, I'll say your comments in the open part of the housing emergency session. And then Chair, we may need to close the meeting and then I'll summarize your comments on the closed sessions again. Just summarize very briefly the comments you made in the open part of the meeting. If I miss anything, please let me know. So I think you want to start by thanking Dave for the briefing he gave us on the local housing market assessment which from particularly useful and clear and insightful. You explored really the timeline of the December proposals in regard to sequencing and the learning that can be gained from this. And within the discussions to avoid this situation happening again, I think that's what you were really trying to get at. And you stressed really the importance of this learning and it seemed, they recognized and they agreed with you that yes, learning can be done on that matter. Councilor Len, I wasn't too sure. I missed your question. Sorry, could you repeat it to me? 'Cause I might be able to answer it now.
• It's in the report. And I wonder if I said it was a cover-in report. It's the, it has got a title on the front. It's not the cabin at bit. No, it's not confidential. So well, so where we got the count of it. It's in that document. Which is, which gives all the figures for everything, doesn't it really? If you look then at what is page 25 of that report. It says, As of the 1st of April, 2023, there were 1,592 applicants on the housing waiting list over the age of 50. And then it sort of breaks it down. It's 688 between 1559, 834 between 1670 and 78 over 80. But it doesn't mention anybody between 70 and 80. So I don't know whether that means that middle figure should be 6280. They do add up to the figure at the top, the 1592. They do add up to that. So I think it's probably just a typo, but it was, you know... But we can certainly draw there. I think they'd welcome us bringing that to their attention, maybe, and for them to rectify it so we can include that in the letter. Regarding the hotel accommodation, you drew quite heavily upon the committee's recent visit and within your comments, you were stressing really, you understood that it's difficult to do, but just really the importance of staff, wherever possible, communicating with residents about the situation or the potential, the length of stay, et cetera. And also the importance and the need to provide recreational facilities for the hotel residents to try and ease their situation in whatever way. And you also as well, we could look to possibly turn this into a recommendation. You looked about... You questioned and they seemed to accept it that if families in hotel accommodations could potentially be prioritised for certain programmes, particularly in the summer holidays, with members in agreement, I could turn that into a recommendation. Yeah. Okay. And then you also requested an update on the December's policy proposals consultation. You heard that the consultation, the actual document, there's a wait and final sign off and then it looks like it's going out. You also heard in line with what the committee said when it came before it was in December, that they're no longer looking at the specific issue around intentionality and instead they're looking to more align it with the Welsh Government's intentions in their Welsh paper, which is exactly what we put in our letters, in our letter. Yeah, so they were the key comments I picked up in the open session if there's anything else. No, covers my notes. Okay, great. Well, in which case, then we'll close the meeting there and then discuss the confidential matters. So... Oh, sorry. Oh, Councillor Lewis, do you want to come in? Sorry. Missed you. No, no, I might have missed it. Did you mention the measles epidemic? We did. Yeah. Oh, sorry. No, no, no, no problem. Into the Court of Four performance is captured in the letter. Thank you. Okay, in which case, then, thank you all for your attendance again today. Our next meeting will be agreed at the Council's AGM in May when we'll get the timetable for meetings through for the next of the year. So thank you and I'll formally close the meeting there.