Transcript

Transcript

Speakers, please turn on the microphone by pressing the speaker icon when speaking, and off when finished. Please speak directly into the microphone so that the audio can be picked up clearly for those joining the meeting in the gallery and remotely. Are the minutes of the previous meeting held on 16 July 2024 agreed as a correct record? Agreed. In the absence of members, I have received apologies from Councillor Conway. Do members have any declarations to make in relation to any of the agenda items? I'll take that as a no. Right, now the Constitution states that councillors may ask a cabinet member a question of any matter on the cabinet agenda. The first four questions will be from the opposition group members, and I don't know if you can choose between you who's going to ask those questions. Our members, they will be rotating between the groups. Anyway, if you want to come up, Peter, and the 15 minutes will start when you ask your first question, all right? Thank you. I thought it would be a good place to start with the finance report. And one of the things that is in the finance report that I don't quite understand the detail of is that you suggest that the deficit this year of 20 million, which is after using 18 million of reserves, therefore on an ongoing basis, is 38 million, is also after a recovery plan, which is an in-year recovery plan of 7.4 million. Now, the recovery plan seems a bit mysterious because I can't find where this recovery plan was discussed or mentioned other than in this report. And I wondered what services were contributing to this recovery plan and what consultation was planned, what equalities impact assessments had been done in relation to the savings associated with that 7.4 million, because it is treated in the paper as if it's a given, and yet it's appeared out of nowhere. And I didn't know that service changes of this scale could be made without them being agreed in detail by Cabinet. So I wondered how this could possibly be. Thank you, Lida. So I'll respond to the various elements of that question. So you began, Councillor, by mentioning the 18 million of reserves that were applied to offset the 38 million overspend in years. So those were earmarked reserves that were used for specific purposes. The 20 million overspend is only what we would, in the worst case scenario, have to cover for non-earmarked general fund reserves. So that's why we were focusing in on that particular figure rather than the overall overspend. In terms of recovery plans, I think moving forward we may have to be a little bit more precise in what we mean by that term, because there's almost two iterations of recovery plans. There's an immediate direction that we gave executive directors to do whatever they could within their available remit to reduce the overspend that they find within their directed areas. And then there's a subsequent organization-wide recovery plan that is being put together and currently being costed in its entirety that emerged as a result of extensive discussions over the course of August, which I can speak to now. I was going to during my report. But in summary, they were start chamber-style sessions that lasted between two and a half hours, one to two and a half hours, depending on the magnitude of the directorate's budget and the extent of the overspend, where there was, in quite excruciating detail, disgust why spend was happening at all and why a particular spend that was over and above budgetary envelope threshold levels wasn't accounted for. As a result of those discussions over the course of August, we had a session with senior officers and all cabinet members as a half-day session to itemize those elements within our organization-wide recovery plan that we considered palatable to take forward and get robust costings on. They will be fully costed in the coming weeks, and we will be able to present them publicly hereafter. But it's been referred to in the report. Sorry. My understanding was that there are two recovery plans. There's a 7.4 million which is included in the current figures as an assumption that it will be delivered in determining the deficits at paragraph 1.6 of the report. And my question is not about what you are doing to deal with the 20 million plus the 18, because the real deficit on an ongoing basis next year is 38. So for budgeting purposes, I would argue the budget is really, or the cost savings that you need to be looking at is 38. But very specifically, in paragraph 1.6, you refer to a 7.3 something cost saving. And the question that I have is a really simple question. Given that that cost saving is included in the 20 million, i.e. you've assumed that it happens, then it must be specific items, otherwise you couldn't have included it. So my question is, what is in that 7.3 million and how could you decide to do that without it coming to cabinet, without consultation, without any qualities impact assessment, unless you're prepared to give us an absolute assurance that no services are being removed in that 7.3 million? We rely upon the professional judgment of executive directors to determine whether or not a particular service level reduction constitutes something that would come to the stage of requiring impact assessment or would detrimentally affect the provision of service in a particular area. So if it is the judgment of officers after we've given the direction to do what is required to bring overspend thresholds back to the position that they were when we set the budget, then that's an operational decision that the organization is entirely entitled to make. We've given a strategic direction and whatever operational decision making is required to facilitate that is entirely feasible without a cabinet level or indeed council-wide decision. I'm not entirely sure if yours is a question of governance or if it's a question of service provision, but it doesn't. The answer is it's both because I think that a 7.3 million reduction in cost is actually quite significant and therefore I have asked officers what is in that 7.3 million? But I'm asking you as the cabinet member or the cabinet, what is in that 7.3 million? Because it seems to me that the residents of the borough are entitled to know and this is only the first step in the cost reduction that's going to be needed and therefore to me it's a fundamental piece of governance that if we are reducing cost that the residents of this borough are entitled to know what is not going to happen. If I can help. There's a couple of things in what you say, Peter. The 7 million are ones that the services have offered up that do not need an Equalities Impact Assessment, do not result in any reduction in services, in the main services like adults and children and so on, and is put into the MTFS already. What you're talking about is the next lot, the recovery plan, which is a big amount. We're waiting for those figures to be valid. When they're validated, they will come to cabinet and there will be the opportunity for scrutiny calling. So the recovery plans will have the opportunity to go to scrutiny and will be coming to cabinet, but we're waiting for some validation and whether any further savings do need an equality impact assessment, they will have one because it's a legal necessity. No, I understand that. So you are absolutely confident that the 7.3 million, which have been offered up by the services, do not involve any significant service reductions? They are about how services are delivered rather than cutting jobs or anything. However, I'm not promising we will do what is necessary to bring this under control. We inherited a machine that looked good and gleaming when we first got it, then realised it had no real steering and had been out of control for a while, and we're having to bring it back in order. We are determined to do that. We will do that. Part of that is the recovery plan. Part of that is, as you've gone through with you, some of the processes we're doing about spend and some of it is about freezing spend. I would make one request, obviously, which is not going to be dealt with tonight, which is that if somebody could send me an analysis of the 7.3 million, I would be very grateful. But I do think it's something which the administration should think about publishing. Just moving on for a second, in the press release which the Council issued, that accompanied this report, the comment was made by Councillor Knacke that the deficit, which you were referring to the 20 million number rather than the 38 million number or whatever, and that of course doesn't include the short-term benefit that we get for two years from the pensions reduction, but that doesn't go on forever. So the underlying level of benefit, benefit to the budget from SIL monies, pension monies and other things, means that the underlying running deficit is really very, very large indeed. The question that arises is, in your press release, you said that this was equivalent to 5% of the budget. But the reality is that that is true at one level, but unfortunately we have statutory obligations in relation to adults and children and paying our interest bill, which means that the non-statutory element of the budget is massively less than the whole budget. And so given that the deficit, the running deficit is of the order of 40 million pounds, it's arguable that that is close to 100% of the things that we do not have to do. So that the scale of the cost savings that you're going to have to contemplate in the Recovery 2 plan, relative to the things that really matter to the residents, are very, very large. So why did you imply in that press release that this was a 5% problem when it's probably somewhere between a 50% and 100% problem of the things that we're actually allowed to deal with? That particular comment, if I may say, almost encapsulates everything that differentiates a Labour administration from a Conservative one. I do take seriously your knowledge of the structural problems relating to the budget, given that your administration was so heavily responsible for them, and you were aware of them at the time when you were in charge. So to a certain extent, yes, we have inherited this and we're dealing with it in a responsible and appropriate way, in a way which allows us to be an administration which is wholly different from what was before. What you're asking is be less aspirational, be more like us, have less interest in providing a decent quality of service provision for residents across Barnet that actually differentiates you as an administration. And to that extent, I refuse, we are going to deal with the debt problem that we find. We're going to handle overspends, we're going to figure out exactly how to get the budget under control, but we're not going to give up what makes us unique and what makes our administration more beneficial for the residents of Barnet. I would never ask you to give up, but that was not the question that I was asking. What I was asking was that in the press release, you explicitly implied this was a 5% problem. The words that you used could not have been clearer. My point is that is utterly misleading to residents because of the statutory expenditure that we have to make. It's nothing to do with aspiration and three years in, it's a bit rich to blame everything on the previous administration. I have one final question if there's time, but if not, I understand. I was going to say, believe me, we're not blaming everything on the previous administration. There's a lot of blame for the Conservative National Government as well, so you can share the blame with them. 30 seconds, go on, you've got one more. This is a personal bugbear, which is, I think on page 36 and page 73 of papers, you refer to HMO licensing. But the implication of particularly page 73 is that HMO licensing is a money spinner because it's about the fact that the backlog of HMO licensing is reduced and obviously the council gets money in from HMO licensing. My concern is the other end of the telescope, which is to me HMO licensing is about making sure that the quality of accommodation in HMOs is good. And I believe that the motivation of the HMO licensing department as I experienced it, and it doesn't look as though it's changed, is about bringing in money, not about improving the quality of accommodation. And I would therefore please ask you to look at that because the words that are in your paper strongly imply that HMO licensing is seen by those who do it as purely about getting money in and not about improving the quality of accommodation. I assure you that's not the case. I mean, as you know, we have licensed HMOs for some time in Barnet. We have to reflect in finance papers the reality of the cost of the service in relation to whether it's able to cover it. And obviously the team itself has made good progress in dealing with backlog of licensing, which is good. That team is a really valuable part of what the council does, and they provide really good services. And they've been invaluable in dealing with the cladding issue, the low-rise cladding issue, and that expertise is really valued. But they are making an effort to process the licensing far more quicker. The other papers in our plan for Barnet, State and also the other paper, undoubtedly you have to refer to the bottom line. It's the same for parking. All of these sort of things you have to say if there's a financial implication. The papers have to reflect that. But it's certainly not the motivation for doing it. And we provide a service. It gives reassurance to good landlords. And it gives reassurance to people in shared accommodation. As you know, the accommodation pressures are horrendous at the moment. And getting licensing right and running an efficient service is actually a win for both the landlords and for tenants. But I'll just reassure you on that point. It's absolutely not done as a way of making money. The other thing on these things, because you're allowed full-cost recovery, it's financed against staff, but that costing is somewhere else. So you put it as an income. My concern has always been about the inspection regime, which is I know during COVID that there were problems. But I was exceedingly anxious about the amount of time they spent doing paperwork versus actually inspecting what the state of HMOs were. And I would just urge you to look at that, that sort of thing. OK. The 15 minutes are up. I've been told, yeah, we can send you something about the recovery plan. Not just an analysis, but we can have some explanatory notes to make it easier to understand. OK. If we move on to the next item with the outcome of off-stage inspection, Councillor Cokley Webb. Thank you. I don't know how many people have had a real chance to read through all of this report, but when we look at how far the service has come, I personally want to still place again on record my thanks to all the staff that work within this service, that not only worked incredibly hard to give us such a good result for the off-stage, but permanently worked really hard for good outcomes for our young people. And I'm particularly proud of all the extra co-working we've done, so the way that we actually include young people in the decision-making, something that obviously didn't happen years ago, and how they actually value what we do in terms of asking their views and incorporating their views into their care and what we do for them and how we inform them and what's important to them. I'm sure Mr Mandy will probably expand a bit more, but when you look at the actual off-stage judgement, I mean, that is just the single lines where you've got a good, good, outstanding, good and good, but when you look into the depth of everything that went into it to actually achieve this, it is really outstanding from my point of view the work that has been put in and continues to be put in, because it's not just something that's done for Ofsted, it's something that happens every day of the year to make sure that all the young people in the borough get the best outcomes possible, whatever their situation. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I'm very proud of the outcomes that we've had for Ofsted. You'll be aware that the new government have suggested that single-word judgements should go for schools. We're also hoping that they'll make the same approach to children's social care, which also struggles with a complex service being judged by a single word. Some of the words are really good and we're really pleased at the progress that we've made and obviously if you read the letter in detail, you'll see a whole range of really positive interventions and findings. Colleagues who read these letters a lot have all queried with me why the judgments were so low in comparison to the text, but that's a question for Ofsted. An action plan saying what we will do to address the issues that Ofsted have identified, which we are implementing, so they are generally administrative and we will seek to put those systems in place that will ensure those processes work more openly. So I'm really pleased with the overall outcome, very proud of the staff that we have working for Barnet, who have really worked hard over the last five years and we're really committed to implementing the further changes that we need to do to ensure that all children and young people in Barnet flourish, especially those that we are responsible for and that we continue to co-create and co-produce services with them that meet their needs. I'm happy to take any questions. I'll open it for any questions, but I think it should be noted our congratulations to the staff, the young people and the families who took part in this. Anything people want to raise? Councillor Moore. I've got a question at the end, but it's more by way of comment. I would echo the comments that have been made about staff, but I think highlighting one particular phrase within the report I think is really important, that the staff are skilled, tenacious and passionate in what they do with children, and I think that sums up the feeling I have when I talk to members of your service. Obviously, there are many children and young people who have faced challenges, but those for whom we have a particular responsibility as corporate parents will obviously have greater challenges in their lives, and I think it was really pleasing to see particularly the outstanding judgement with regards to young people in care because they are the top of the triangle in terms of those children for whom we are responsible as corporate parents. So I just wanted to note that. Just also to comment, pleased to see the comments, positive comments about the virtual school, particularly about the MASH, multi-agency safeguarding hub as a governor, it's certainly one of those services that schools have relied on for a range of different issues and really important, and then also I would of course say this, but in section 38 of the letter talks about health assessments for the children in care, including dental and optician's appointments, and this has been a challenging area in the past, so it was good to see a positive judgement there. My question really was regarding the action plan and your progress on that. Obviously, you've got deadlines of this month and next for a number of elements of that, but there was one that you set yourself a deadline of August, so I was just curious to how you've made progress with that part of the action plan. This is my first time back since I've been on leave. I'm absolutely convinced that my staff will have implemented the particular actions that they've got. I know some of them were being actioned immediately, but I'll write to you to let you know the particular update on that August action. Just for anyone who's watching, they are systems issues and it's important to get them right, but they were not major criticisms of the department, so it will be useful to know that those have gone into place because it strengthens the system. Thank you. So my deep congratulations to you, Chris, and to your staff for this remarkable achievement. As we know, the children in care and care leavers are some of the most vulnerable people in our society, facing a huge amount of inequalities, so this is an excellent start by the bar of getting this kind of result. There's more to build on, but it's excellent, so congratulations to you and your staff. As a school governor, having been thrown off state not that far back, to get an outstanding and clearly good judgments, which were very clearly in some cases extremely on the border of outstanding, particularly the experiences and progress of children who need help and protection, that's a very strong area. The bar is very high with Ofsted and I think this is an incredible achievement for your staff. I suppose like everyone else, we're very grateful to have a children's service that's delivering this quality of care. It's really impressive. There's lots of bits and pieces, good practice, I mean the virtual school, there's a lot of good practice that's highlighted, the MASH is highlighted as being particularly good as well and I think it's a really good and very reassuring reading. The thing that I'm really pleased about around the whole report is that the outstanding is not just owned by those teams that are the children care teams, actually it flags all of the fantastic work that our intervention and planning teams do, duty and assessment teams do when children come into care, that those processes are run really well. It's got links with our leaving care service because that's where the unaccompanied asylum seeking team is, it's got links with our disabled children services because that's where a whole group of looked after children are, especially with our new autism team as well. So there is really good practice across the whole of the system and I look back over nine and a half years here, that was not the situation, you didn't have tenacious social workers to the extent that you do now and I'm really proud of all the work they do, how focused they are on children's outcomes and the thing that really encouraged me was that nearly all of the social workers were more than happy to speak to Ofsted and you hear of lots of places where they don't want to do that but all of our staff were more than happy to meet with them, they didn't all have that opportunity but they certainly were up for having discussions about what it was like working in Barnet and I think the end paragraph about them I think is the really critical thing. I'm rightly proud of the service they provide which is what that shows. One thing that stood out for me as well is that we also have staff that have left the borough but then have chosen to come back so we're obviously a destination where the staff are valued and they feel happy working here and continue to work here. My comment on that is that they should have never left in the first place, but there we go. Right, I did my bit to thank Chris Munday and the team by deliberately missing our items 5 to 9 in the agenda which we will have to go back to but for the moment the recommendations on this is cabinet is asked to note and consider the inspection findings as part of their corporate responsibility for recognising and prioritising the needs of children and in fulfilling their role as corporate parents. The cabinet to consider and note the full inspection findings and outcomes, as we've done, and cabinet to refer the report to full council for consideration. Are we happy with those recommendations? Alright, thank you, thank you very quickly. Anyway, now I'll start doing my job properly. Item 5, petitions, none. 6 deputations, none. Public questions and comments, none. Matters referred to the Executive, none. And consideration of reports from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee or Scrutiny Subcommittees, if any, none. Right, so we move on to item 11 on the agenda, our plan for Barnet, that is looking at the delivery and outcomes framework for Quarter 1. And in it I think there is much good news. Our work in tackling inequality and reducing poverty has begun. Now that is a long journey, but we're heading in the right direction. These are two issues that were ignored by the previous administration. We've already talked about the Ofsted Judgement and there are also exam results, great exam results. We have begun work in rectifying the 20-year neglect of roads and pavements, as well as inheriting a budget that wasn't quite what it looked like. We did inherit a few thousand potholes. It takes time to deal with it. Another thing in the first quarter is residents moving into the council accommodation in Conan Dell Gardens. We've got the journey to net zeros continuing, as does some real resident participation and neighbourhood working. I don't know if people have any comments on their portfolio areas? Councillor Edwards. I have just one comment really. It's on page 42 under the benchmarking 4.1, particularly where it says Living Well under Caring for People. I'll give people a chance to catch up with getting up to that page. It says that 10 indicators included from the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework with the most forecast for 23/24 to be better or on par with the peer group comparator. So, first of all, I'd like to underline the fact that that's a really good positive feedback about our wonderful staff who work in Adult Social Care, particularly as we're still waiting for the outcome of the CQC inspection which took place recently. But the second bit I think is probably the best disingenuous because it says except for the proportion of adults in contact with secondary mental health services living independently with or without support, I'm reliably informed by our officers that that particular aspect relates to national health service input on mental health and it's not Adult Social Care from the local authority. Therefore, it's quite unfair to be criticised for something that we have no particular control over and I believe it's been raised before. So I'd like to ask officers if they could go back and clarify that because if it is about the national health service, then I think it needs to come away from the performance indicators for our own staff. If I've made myself clear or unclear, please let me know. To be honest, I don't know if anyone can answer that question directly. I mean obviously secondary mental health services would be an NHS responsibility. This is how many of those are living independently and I presume it's something that all boroughs collect but I really don't, I'm not an expert on this. We don't believe we've got anyone in the room that will know that level of detail so we may have to get back to you but certainly we can make sure that the report is clear. Thanks, I just also want to make sure that we're not being assessed on something we have no control over. That was the important point that I wanted to make so yeah, thanks. These things we're asked to collect whether we have any control over them or not. Did Councillor Houston put his hand up? Yeah, there's a couple of things just to highlight. I think there remains to be, in relation to housing and quality affordable homes, there remains to be good progress at Bright Cross. That's a major regeneration scheme and members of the Council were aware that obviously the low-rise decant into new homes has happened in terms of the Whitefields Estate which is a landmark. The high-rise units will start to move into their new homes later this year. We've reformed and restarted the Barnet Homelessness Forum which has given members of the Council to be very aware of the homeless pressures that are causing our overspend on temporary accommodation. There's been a lot of good work in terms of dealing with homelessness but the pressures have overwhelmed across London councils and that's something that we'll discuss when we come to the budget. There is good work and one of the statistics I would just point out is actually that Homelessness Prevention's KPI we actually improved on so that's the route we are making. There's a lot of good work going on, it's just the demand is outstretching our ability to house people and that's a real challenge across London. One of the ways of dealing with that is to deal with supply inside of housing and there are some moving forwards on Great Park Northeast which is referred to in the report. There was a Topping Out ceremony which our new MP for Hendon attended for the Upper Lower Fosters Estate which is a very good piece of work because it was a co-designed piece of regeneration and it's really good to see that coming forward. That's 142 homes and 75 extra care places. There is one statistic that members of cabinet might be concerned about and I just want to provide some context to that. In the section about the performing less well, we have actually gone below the target for the decent home. We have a very high, Barnet Homes has a very robust record in dealing with compliance but we have fallen slightly, very marginally below the target on decent home standards. We have a high target of 99.6%, the target is 98.5% and we're at 97.8%. The reason for that is entirely to do with the identified problems with the panel system blocks that we're aware of, the low-rise panel systems. Really when you've got the category one hazards, they are not a decent homes compliance so the decision was to include them in the council homes that were affected in the decent homes target. That's the reason why that target, which has always been met, has fallen below that and I think just to provide reassurance, that's a known issue that we're dealing with and that's the reason why that target is not met. We've got a strategy to obviously deal with that and Remedy works within two years so Remedy was the council on properties within two years so I think I can provide reassurance on that. We're still very much performing in relation to our general stock in terms of decent homes. It doesn't really appear in the family friendly section but I know that the conversations that we've had with Barnet Homes and with Councillor Houston has meant that we've actually improved the number of accommodation that we can provide for care leavers and that is a really, really welcome thing that we've done over the past 18 months to actually make sure that more properties are put forward for care leavers when they are ready to live independently. When you look through the family friendly headings there, just a couple of things to note is that we've obviously had a child and family early help action plan has been published and I can't over emphasise the importance of making sure that early help, what it does and how it works in the borough, means that people get help at the earliest proper opportunity which means that that avoids crisis further down the line. And then when we've had the Healthy Child Programme that's gone to Whittington Health Trust, that's something that took quite a while to sort out but that is now starting to work well and means that the actual visits that should have been made are now being made and that mothers and young people are actually getting the checks that they need on time. When we got the corporate parenting annual report, that you can see the amount of work that goes in to make sure that these young people have all the help possible at every stage of their life, whether it be the people that are looking after them or the services that offer their help and support. It's something that we need to be really proud of because that's something that, again, if that just doesn't happen at the right time, that can really affect helping with their trauma, helping with their future prospects and that's something that we really are good at doing and something that we've been recognised that we're good at doing. I think if Sara was here she would have talked more on the serious violence duty strategy but it's something that we're making sure that it's something that we don't just take as something that another department should do but something that we get involved with and we have a strategy to be targeting the young people that are at risk of either exploitation or serious violence. So we try and pick up the cases early on, not wait for tragedies to happen. Thank you. I wanted to highlight some excellent partnership work that's dotted throughout this report but everything from working to improve our tennis courts by working with the Lawn Tennis Association to actually working with different services across the council, the work is really impressive but it also addresses the need to be cost conscious and improve services for residents. And I think one thing that we can particularly highlight is improving our accesses to services so that means libraries working together with the housing options team, it also means things like Ask Barnett, the chat function which went live over summer, our residents are able to get the support that they need and the services they need in an easier and more efficient way. And I think as a council it means that we're working more effectively with our residents and able to serve them in a better way. I'd also just really like to highlight once again, and I know we have talked about this in cabinet before, but just the difference functioning CCTV service makes to our borough residents. I was at a resident's association AGM over the weekend and just having cameras that are working, that are monitored is really bringing change to people's lives. Thank you, Chair. I'd just like to comment on one or two of the areas that particularly impact on health and wellbeing issues. There are health and wellbeing issues threaded through the report and that reflects the importance of the wider determinants of health in sections around poverty alleviation and around housing and around environment. They and many others impact on the health and wellbeing of our residents and on page 44 we talk about the joint strategic needs analysis which is a repository of a whole range of data that helps us, helps inform our services across the borough. It's gone through a major refresh this year and it was a real pleasure to see in the training session last week a whole range of members but actually also some of our partners from the health and wellbeing board, from the voluntary sector and from some of our GPs who are actually on the session hearing about the value and the data within the joint strategic needs analysis. It will also inform our current joint health and wellbeing strategy and the report talks about a number of areas that come out of the joint health and wellbeing strategy and that's around, for example, dementia, being dementia friendly, some really excellent work that's gone on. Being age friendly again some really good work that's gone on. We've been working with bus companies locally to enable drivers to be more aware of those passengers with greater needs. We've done some work on homeless health which has impacts for the homelessness strategy and those within the borough homeless. It was Fit and Active Barnet enabling residents to stay healthy and the referring into that service for a whole range of health reasons to keep people mobile. But it will also be really important as we develop the next health and wellbeing strategy, the 2025/29 strategy and I'm looking forward both to using the GS&A to really start to hone in on the health inequalities across the borough in our mission to tackle health inequalities as mentioned on page 47 and to be the healthiest borough. And I'm looking forward to co-producing that with partners, again talking about community engagement as my colleague did but also through the ICB and the voluntary sector so that we can have the next joint health and wellbeing strategy that really starts to set us on that path to be the healthiest borough. Thank you. I was just looking through the various achievements. I just wanted to say a few things worth highlighting here particularly in the Safe Attractive Neighbours and Town Centres section where it was pleasing to see that the street cleanliness inspections all exceeded our target and indeed that all the planned road and pavement programs were delivered because it's not just a question of having the plan in place, it's important that we actually deliver on those as well and we are there. Also to show that 97% of fly tips were collected within our target but on that we're actually now doing more and we should see improvement in that over the coming year because as a result of the Clean Up Barnet campaign we're actually getting enforcement staff working with the street scene officers as they go out so we want to see more awareness of how to report fly tips and more fines and prosecutions if people don't do what they're supposed to do and do fly tips. So although we're doing well there's actually more to do over the coming year and just good things to mention under the open spaces enhancing local environment section where we saw the sustainable urban drainage scheme at Hollywood Park and again there are two more planned over the coming year and also the green flag at Cherry Tree Wood and there's going to be a flag raising ceremony in a couple of weeks time so just thought there's a few things there that were worth highlighting. Thank you. Thank you Lita. So I thought that it would be relevant given the comments that Councillor Zinkin made to remind people that a very important element of my portfolio and a very important thread of the Labour Administration's desire to benefit residents of Barnet is the reducing poverty agenda which is not just innovative and forward thinking in local government terms but it is genuinely something that we're very proud of in terms of what's already been done whilst it was in the community wealth building portfolio but what we've got planned in future. It also highlights why financial sustainability is so important for us. If we don't have the foundations of the council right, if we're not providing a solid bedrock on which to provide a robust and imaginative and aspirational agenda then we can't achieve either the things that we want at all or indeed to the extent that would make a genuinely positive intervention in people's lives. So not only is reducing poverty agendas fundamental to something that we're interested in but it also highlights why it's so important for us to monitor how spend across the organisation is happening. And the resident's experience element of my portfolio I shouldn't overlook. The Ask Barnet element has just been rolled out which is hugely exciting and we are looking to make use of technology to make the interaction that residents have with the local authority far easier and far more beneficial for both parties. I came across this concept called failure demand, this notion that if you constantly try and contact an organisation but fail to do so it's actually quite a money waster in addition to causing a huge amount of frustration for everybody involved. So that's something that we're attempting to tackle and improve the resident's experience element also. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just draw cabinet's attention to the appendices where I think the performance is generally positive and the benchmarking of authorities is very positive and the risk register just to note a new risk has been added which has to do with the Collingdale office block where there's been discovered some defects from the building spec. If you're going in there don't worry it has been deemed safe but it does mean there'll be some disruption at Collingdale over another month and I'm sure because it's to do with building defects there'll be a legal opinion involved on all sides probably. But what we're asked to do is that cabinet note the contents of our plan for Barnet delivery and outcome quarter one report. So do we note the report? Thank you. The next item is the adult resident's perception survey which is item 12. This was quite a big survey with over 2,000 residents surveyed and it does so generally positive results especially with the trend. The trend nationally and in London had been for things since the pandemic for things to decline where those have been generally positive. I'll just pick out three and then ask if there's any comment. 76% of the council found the council trustworthy, 61% council acts in concern of residents and 70% promotes equal opportunities. All those are quite a big rise compared with the last time the survey was done. So the things that people have noticed about the new administration. From the point of view of looking at trend data I don't know if there's anything that either of you feel we need to talk about. Any particular trends apparent? As you pointed out, we benchmark both our adults and our young people's residents perception survey against an LGA national aggregated survey as well as a London regional one. In the post Covid period perception surveys tended to show greater satisfaction with local authorities than was normal which was put down to a general feel good factor of coming out of the pandemic. What we've seen in national and local comparators is that to drop quite sharply afterwards which hasn't been the case with the results. I think there's some very encouraging results here and uptakes from a high bar as you say and against national trends. I think if she was one of the things she would draw the attention to is the social cohesion and community section. Particularly paragraph 1.34 which puts the context of the survey having been undertaken in the autumn of 2023 at a time of particular community tension in Barnet and in London in the country but particularly affecting some of the communities that live in our borough. I think the resilience of that particular result is very encouraging. Four fifths of residents agree that people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local area. In line with the national average it's very slightly down but no significant difference in the results between ethnic and religious groups and only very slightly down and given what's happened that's a remarkable result. I think it's very encouraging and I think those of us who are involved in our communities, we've also picked up that Barnet actually has really good networks of interfaith and intercommunity groups who work together as well as partnering with the council and other bodies, schools and religious groups, churches, temples, mosques. And synagogues and I think that's something that really makes our borough special and we should be proud of that result. Not to repeat but to add to what Councillor Luciana said, several years are really impressive but I think what underlines it is that this was just a note that this survey was undertaken immediately during a period of high inflation so that's when people will be feeling the pinch, the need for good services increases and even then our customer service was increasing in satisfaction. So I think that's almost 10% up and it's also reflected that residents are feeling that we are more customer focused. I mean I would prefer that for them residents rather than customers but I think it does absolutely show that the focus of this administration is on our residents and residents are feeling that way as well. I would echo very much what the last two colleagues have said and I would comment on the community cohesion issue because I think it is something that we should be proud of but also hold very carefully. I know it's a privilege to have that sense of community cohesion that's given us a result like this at a time when it was really very difficult and I'm going to share a minor anecdote but actually demonstrate I hope how strong that is across the borough. I was there on behalf of the Mayor and licensing a priest in Edgware on Sunday evening and actually one of the things that many of the church members and community members said in welcoming the new priest when they spoke was to make the point about the strength of our multi-faith, interfaith and community networks and how that was a very special thing to have and that they hoped that he would find it as special as they did and so I thought that was a really interesting reflection outside the council to just back that up. But I guess I'm bringing it back to a serious note. Obviously the perception survey is fantastic and I'm really pleased that residents are saying that we're listening and acting on their concerns. But I guess the question is and it's a bit like as people know I'm a bit of a data and fact hound around the JSNA and things like that so I suppose the analog perception survey is what we do with it. And I would reflect that when we were looking at this two years ago there were some issues that we started to unpick about the perceptions of people with disabilities on our services and I was really pleased to see that the perception of equal opportunity and equal access actually had risen because I know that a lot of work and thought went in after that result on disabilities so it was about what we used that data for within the council to look at how we improved our communications and the way we worked with, in that case, a particular part of our, a particular group of our residents. So it will be really interesting to look at the deeper parts of this survey and see how it informs the way we develop our services over the next several years. Thank you. Some of it is asking how we use this data. Obviously we have quite a bit of quantitative data but this is a qualitative one and how we make sure that this plays an important role in planning rather than just something to congratulate ourselves about. I don't know if you've any thought, I mean from a community cohesion point of view, 78% may be a good score but still short at 22% so it's how we get into that virtuous circle of improving all the time. I don't know if, where does this get fed into? What, as Ken from More said, how does this make a difference? We are looking at proactive work on community cohesion at the moment as well, which I think we would be doing anyway at this point in time, but it is something that I agree with Councilor Moore, we can't take for granted even if it's a good result. And what we will be doing as well, there is a young person's perception survey as well and what we're doing, which will be coming to a future cabinet meeting, is analysing them both together and looking at where the strongest areas of need and priority are in that combined dataset. And similarly to people with disabilities in the last survey were regularly less satisfied than others, we'll be looking at whether that is the case again, whether there's any other cross breaks, whether it's geographies or any other kind of demographic data where we can look at, well, these are the audiences and the issues we need to look at. So that work is ongoing. So this is taken through the Tapping the Gaps group as well, so we're looking at different quarters through that group and developing the action plan. The research you mentioned, Councilor Moore, the ethnographic research, so we've got, that's quite got quite a long pipeline on it, so we work with those groups and we're looking at actions on that. But disability is coming out strongly again and there might be other things that are driving that, so an observation we've made is this is a resident's perception survey and the disabled people that might not be taking part might not be accessing our services. But so do we need to think about the different comms, communicate our services, because they might not need the services, so their perception is lower. So we'll be looking at those things as well. So it might be not just about disabled people accessing our services. From a generality of audience, sorry, I thought I'd switch it on, a generality of audience who aren't aware of what goes on, so absolutely that's really important, but it's the data, whether quantitative or qualitative, it's really important we use it to inform what we do and use on resources in the best way we can. Okay, are there any other comments people want to make? So this is a useful snapshot of perception survey and it's the trend data that we look for. Recommendations is that cabinet note the top line findings of the adult resident's perception survey 2324. Are we happy to note that? Yes, thank you. The next item comes to the garden suburb library and I need to remind people that there is exempt information on this, so if people want to ask questions from the exempt section, please indicate. I could try and give an introduction, but it is a bit of a confusion, but the reason it's coming to the cabinet, I presume, is that this counts as less than best consideration because the actual difference in opportunity cost is less than two million. It's not a thing for the Secretary of State, but it's a thing that we have to assure ourselves that if it's not best consideration, it doesn't mean it's not the best value, if that makes sense. I don't know if you want to give a brief introduction to the recent history. Yes, certainly. Robert Brown, Head of Property Services and Valuation. So the Hampstead Garden Suburb Library is run by the Garden Suburb Library Group Limited, who are a charitable group staffed almost totally by volunteers and they've been providing the library service for us in Hampstead for some years. They can't afford to pay rent, but by entering into an agreement with them, whereby they occupy the premises and run the library and keep the place neat and tidy, without rent, we get a library service without having to staff it. Our landlord, Freshwater, has granted us an under lease, £12,850 a year. In turn, they've given us consent to grant a sub under lease to the Garden Suburb Library. And they've agreed to us providing by a side letter, a concession agreement that enables the suburb library group to occupy rent free. There are a number of clauses within the sub under lease and within the side agreement that enable both the library group and the council to break the agreement, should there be a reason to do so. And in turn, we have break clauses in our under lease with Freshwater. So should there arise a scenario whereby the charity is unable to provide the service and the council decides it therefore isn't going to have a library there, we have a number of opportunities to walk away. I think I should draw members attention to why we're deciding this, and it's probably 6.4 on page 96, is the considerations, the four considerations that have to be made. Whether we're the financial assistant directly or indirectly from public resources by public authority yet, does the financial assistant confer an economic advantage on one or more enterprises? Is the financial assistant specific and having a side letter would make it very specific about what we expect of Habsley Gardens, our library, the C&C, it's a charitable company, isn't it? And will it have an effect on competition or investment within the UK, which I doubt, as it's not a trade or investment. But if we're satisfied that these are reaped, what we're being asked to agree to, or the recommendation, is a sublease to the library, a side letter also to the library. And if I'm right, the side letter is something that's just between us and the library, the freshwater need to know it's there, but don't have a say over or can't alter. That's correct, yes. It's between us and the library, we needed freshwater's consent to enter into it, but they're not a party to it. But they're not a party to it, yep, okay. So have people got any questions? Councillor Marl? I would just like to make a comment as the Councillor in the neighbouring ward, because I do appreciate that it's not formally best consideration in the terms of Section 123. But I think, certainly from my knowledge of them, it is a fairly modest contribution to unlock a lot of goodwill from those who run it in a very professional and passionate way, actually. It's delivered by local people with a modest input from library services, but actually of quite high quality, because they rely on the library services to make sure that it is up to the standards of a library in terms of content. And people will have the impression, I suspect, that it's a hamster garden suburb, it's a very affluent, broadly affluent community, but I know that as a member of a neighbouring ward, actually there are residents within that area. There is hidden poverty and hidden need in areas close to that, and I know that there is use of the library by some of those residents, and so it is greater than the impact that you might see on paper. And certainly from the correspondence I got when it was challenging and request to intercede on their behalf, I know it is very well appreciated and supported by many people, so thank you. There we are, good words about it. Any other comments or to remove the recommendations, which is Cabinet approves the grant of the sub-underleash to Garden Suburb Community Library Limited on terms that are shown in Appendix B, the Cabinet approves the grant of the side letter to Garden Suburb Community Library Limited in accordance with the terms set out in Appendix C to this report, the side letter will be an exclusive arrangement between the Council and Garden Suburb Community Library Limited and not capable of assignment, and the Cabinet delegates authority to the lead officer and head of property and portfolio management in consultation with the leader to approve any minor amendments. Right, I think those recommendations also cover what is in the accept section, so can we accept the recommendations and be satisfied that we don't need to go into the exempt because it is covered in the discussion we have had already. Are people agreed? All right, thank you. The next item is the sustainability programme update that I believe Councillor Sniderman is leading on. Thank you, Leader. So this is an update on our sustainability programme and we declared that sustainability and biodiversity emergency just over two years ago, but it's good to take the opportunity within this report to reconfirm our commitment to that. But the declaration is important as it was. More important is the action that we're going to take and this report and the appendix, which has got the full annual report, sets out all of the stuff that we have done over the last year and indeed over the last couple of years. Notably, that includes our citizens' assembly and young people's assemblies and which have greatly contributed to our sustainability action plan. There are lots of details in the report and I can see Jugita has popped up on the screen there. Some of the highlights are including the start we've made on retrofitting, EV charge points, converting streetlights to LEDs, planting a record number of trees and the sustainable urban drainage scheme, which I think is absolutely brilliant that I referred to earlier. And importantly, some of these things are not just helping the environment, they're helping the financial sustainability of the Council, particularly with regards to the LED streetlights and also with retrofitting and insulation, they're actually helping residents financially. I'm sure Barry, Councillor Rowling is looking forward to reading out the full recommendations in a moment, but recommendations also include, importantly, adding a work stream on climate adaptation and resilience, which we will add to our sustainability action plan. And there's a workshop coming up for members organised by Bloomberg, so we can actually look at how that can be embedded within the planning decisions that we take. The recommendation also includes producing a climate budget, which is a bit of a confusing concept to explain, that is not a separate budget, but is a way of identifying measures that reduce carbon emissions within the normal financial budget setting process. The final recommendation is just to note that the Program Director for Culture and Sustainability, Yogita Popat, who's there, who's already in place, is the lead officer for climate change. So as I say, there's loads more details in the report and in the full sustainability report, which is a very good read, so please do look at that to see all of what's going on, but of course we've got lots more to do to reach our net zero, challenging net zero targets. To mention street lighting, I'll go back to the adult perception survey, where 81% were satisfied with the street lighting, up from 74% two years ago. We've just addressed that the early delighting is actually light, as well as cutting down some of the carbon costs. If I go to any questions, does I suppose Yogita or Deborah want to talk to the report? Thank you, and I think some of this we're waiting for, to see what the actual difference things like British Energy made, to work with London councils on some of the power issues, about how clean power and so on. So from what I gather, although we've already declared it, this is a bit like when we're doing Labour Party stuff and somebody has to take a picture to put on Twitter to show it exists, that we work in some virtual world. So although we declared it, this is to put it in writing, that we've declared it. Anyway, any questions for Alan or the officer? Councillor Begg. Thank you. So it's a brilliant report, really highlights all the progress that has been made. So my question really is, do we think that communities have been engaged enough and community participation? So it's the communities that are going to feel this difference in net zero, what that we are doing, and particularly the young communities. So do you think enough has been done to involve them? I'll make a start. I think, yes, I think we have done a lot and we are doing more. I mean, we started with our Citizens' Assembly and Young People's Assemblies, which have never been tried in Barnet before. And indeed, we've got, you know, we've had lots of interest from other authorities in showing the good practice and how we did that. We had a range of action groups that came out of those assemblies that carried on the work within the community. We've got recently Community Energy Barnet has just been formed to start taking forward community energy projects within the borough. And that's led by, by members of the community. And as you said, we're going to look to involve the community in the climate adaptation and resilience work, work going forward. So like across the whole council, I think we've done a lot to involve the community and definitely in the sustainability area. What comes to more than Councillor Houston? Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Councillor Schneider, for what I think is a very exciting and full report and something that I can absolutely get behind. What I was just going to raise the issue about as we as we start to promote this, certainly for parts of the community, people would benefit from understanding the wider impact of a range of this work on broader health implications. So climate resilience against rising summer temperatures have a very clear health impact, particularly on our older residents. Rising summer temperatures have all sorts of negative health impacts, as does the air quality impact of decarbonising, particularly of transport. There are all sorts of very clear evidence now about the impacts of poor air quality, both on children and on older people. And tree planting is one thing in its own right, but actually the positive impacts around combating the urban heat island effect goes further to improve communities resilience against rising temperatures. So I really appreciate the report and support it, but I hope we'll be able to feed that in. And certainly I would welcome and recognise the sorts of work that goes on in our schools through the education programs, because young people can be incredibly evangelical about environmental issues and can convince the rest of the community as well. Thank you. I just want to draw the cabinet members' attention to the really good work that's been done by Barnet Homes in relation to retrofit. Energy saving measures in over 600 council homes. An additional 100 homes are going to be retrofitted through the social housing decarbonisation fund. And we've submitted by March 2025, and we're submitting a bid with other via London councils and a consortium for further funding from the social housing decarbonisation fund. I think one of the things to say about the net zero agenda when it comes to housing is that even if climate change wasn't an issue, and it is an issue, actually this investment is lowering people's fuel bills and basically dealing with cost of living pressures in people in low incomes. And I think it would be the right thing to do irrespective of climate change, but actually it's a very good example of a double win, because by doing the right thing by our planet we're also doing the right thing, lowering the costs for people who are struggling to make ends meet. And with all the pressures of living in London under the cost of living crisis that we've been through. So it's really, really a very positive investment, and I look forward to the Government bringing further measures. But I think we are well placed to be able to be one of those boroughs that actually is leading on this, not following, because actually we've done a lot of good work already, and Government would want partners who can deliver their agenda in terms of retrofitting quickly and efficiently, and I think partner homes and the council are well placed to be able to do that. As I said, some of this is waiting to see what the national change is, isn't it? Any other comments? Or if Alan wants to sum up? Yeah, well just to say, I mean there's been some good comments, and it's just a great report. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you, Geeta, and the team who put this together, and who have been instrumental in driving this work forward. I mean, Council Houston talked about being ready to deliver for the Government, and equally we've got a really good relationship with the GLA, we met with the Deputy Mayor for Environment a couple of weeks ago, and they recognised that from a low base, Barnet is now one of the leading authorities. We've got lots of programmes, we've got lots of ideas, and we're very keen to work with Government, GLA and other partners to take that forward. Thank you, people. Happy we go to the recommendations, but Alan wants to hear me read out. Right, the recommendations. Cabinet reconfirms their commitment to the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency Declaration issued in May 2022 and noted in June 2022. Cabinet note the progress achieved in delivering the Sustainability Action Plan to date, and to include an additional work stream within it to support climate adaptation and resilience. Cabinet delegate authority to the Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change in consultation with the Programme Director, Culture and Sustainability, the monitoring and updating of the Sustainability Action Plan, and to oversee the process of producing a climate budget to address the residual funding gap. And following the changes to the Council Senior Management Team structure approved at Council on the 21st of May 2024, the Council notes the Programme Director, Culture and Sustainability already imposed as the lead officer for climate change. We're happy to agree those recommendations. Moving on to the - well, the forward plan is - the Chief Financial Officer's report, which is both the Quarter 1 financial forecast and the budget management. Councillor Nackley. Thank you very much, Leader. Quite a substantial report, and naturally the contents of it and the implications of it are equally substantial. May I just start by expressing my sincere gratitude to the Finance Team in the Council for both putting the report together, but also all of the oversight work that it betokens that there's a huge amount of work that's now being done with service directorates across the organisation, and the Finance Team have done an extraordinary amount of work to embed themselves within the functioning of the Council in order to provide us with the level of context and detail that we can see in this report. Speaking of context, I think it's important to start with that concept. The report itself is obviously emergent from a background of financial activity and an environment in which we currently exist financially. So the context falls into two categories. We have a national and how that manifests locally. In terms of the national context, people have heard me say this. In the past, local government finance is in a dire situation, exacerbated by 14 years of underinvestment and, to a certain extent, undervaluing of what local government has to offer and the role it plays within an individual's life, both civic or otherwise. As a consequence of that, we find ourselves in a position where we are providing more and more services. We're actually required, we are enjoined by law to provide those services with ever-diminishing resources. The spending power of local authorities, particularly in London, has dwindled in that same period of time, and that shouldn't be forgotten as we move forward. The current government does take that very, very seriously. But in much more recent times, we have seen dramatic financial events that have ripple effects on our current situation, which we've had to deal with during the time that we have been in the administration. So these were not things that we were aware of or could have been aware of prior. And we have had to figure out how best is within our ability to respond to those fiscal calamities, whilst also being aspirational forward thinking and wanting the best for our residents. The fiscal event I'm referring to in September of 2022, when Liz Truss was Prime Minister, also briefly, has still got impacts on us. The inflationary and interest rate consequences that that resulted in nationwide have had very pertinent local effects on us, which I shall speak to when we refer to what the report is actually telling us about in-year spend. Locally, however, there is an important thing to mention, which is we had a change of government structure at the beginning of our administration, which was necessary because we knew that there would be challenges that we faced. Not necessarily the scale of the financial challenge we see here. We didn't forecast that. But we knew that agility would be required and a degree of focus and attention that unified all elements of the executive so that all members, executive members who are responsible for service directorates were able to share their views around a single table. And that is largely why we moved to a cabinet and scrutiny system from the rather inefficient and laborious committee system that existed previously. The way that that system has had a lax oversight of the financial situation of the Council is something we are dealing with now. The consequences of an inability to properly understand the financial consequences of decision-making in the long term is clearly laid out in this particular report. So what does the report actually tell us? If I can turn to page 137 of the cabinet papers in brief, this is the situation we face. We finished last year. The end-of-year out-term report resulted in a £22 million overspend which needed to draw down our reserves to a level below the £40 million threshold that we consider financially optimal. I suppose it's the best term. We have a strategy document, a policy document within the Council that states that that is the optimum position that our general fund non-A mark reserves ought to be at. At the end of the first quarter, unfortunately, we are seeing an end-of-year position that looks very similar to that. However, we do not benefit from the cushion of a reserve position in the same way as we did last year, which makes this an even more acute problem than the potential overspend last year. And I don't want that to go over as though I'm suggesting it as somehow not extremely serious. It is something that the administration has taken note of as a serious concern, and we've already undertaken a series of activities and measures to intervene to ensure that this particular situation doesn't end up being our end-of-year position. Some of the factors that relate to why the end-of-year overspend is at the position it is, perhaps my colleagues will assist me on areas specific to their directorates, but the pressures that were facing us in the last financial year have not dissipated, they've not disappeared. In certain areas, particularly adults and children's services, they have, in fact, become more acute and more pronounced. But in this particular year, one of the emergent pressures that we are facing is the temporary accommodation pressure that is more acutely felt in Barnet because of certain local factors, those being a small social housing stock, once again, consequence of decades of underfunding and under emphasis on providing that level of stock, private landlords leaving the industry so that it means that we are more reliant on emergency temporary accommodation to meet our housing obligations, and of course there's been an increase in applicants for accommodation as well. So all of those factors have mounted in year and have caused a degree of pressure on that element of our expenditure. What are we doing? What is it that we've already started to do to meet this challenge? We haven't just shown up at the cabinet meeting saying this is an awful situation and we've got no idea what we're doing. We spent an entire summer coming together with a plan of intervention to get to understand the fundamentals of why the organization is overspending in the way that it is and put in place measures to try and overcome that. So August was quite an invasive learning exercise. I think officers would agree. One to two and a half hour sessions with service directors querying every single line of their budget expenditure and making them defend, to a certain extent, why the expenditure was necessary and essential. And that has led to the development of what we're calling an organization-wide recovery plan, the specific details of which are yet to be formalized because we're still waiting on those figures to be verified. But it is the first element of what we're looking to put in place. Additionally, there are weekly control panel sessions now, I think four days a week, in particular for the benefit of the adults and children services. If there is essential spend to be done in those directories for the service areas to have to wait a week or longer to sign it off, so we've put in place a weekly program of that sort, which takes into account all expenditure. It does not matter for the purposes of asking the service director to justify that expenditure, what the nature of the spend is or where the funding source comes from. Everything needs to be assessed in first principles, and that includes new contracts, it includes agency spend, it includes all discretionary spend over 5,000 pounds. So we've had the control panels put in. Moving forward, we're going to -- so the other thing we've also done is submitted to the government spending review as part of their consultation to put together the autumn budget what the specific factors in Barnet are that need to be addressed. The particular unique factors we find in adult social care, people living longer with complex comorbidities and poor health, our temporary accommodation situation and such like. We presented to national government what we're facing locally. It isn't just a generic problem that we've said that is not something that we require specific focus on. I think I will actually leave it there. There will be observations that colleagues will be presenting in the discussion that I can respond to. But I think that the core message to take away for the benefit of residents is that the situation is serious. We are aware of that, but they should be heartened by having a labor administration in place to deal with it and a labor government to assist. Thank you very much. Yes, I think we can add to that. One of the issues is, as you say, when we took over the administration, things didn't seem too bad. But the more we looked under the bonnet, the more we found out how poor decision making was, how things were gathering that was going to cause us problems. Some of the things to do with liquidity management would have helped. But one of the things we've done, obviously, is bring in more services in-house, because part of the problem is we didn't have enough control over it. Some of the steering was out of our hands. And if we're going to make a difference, which we need to, because Violet deserves it, if we're going to bring the budget under control, which we will, because we have to, and then people will talk about statutory services for children and adults. Actually balancing the books is also a statutory service, otherwise commissioners come in. So it's important that we recognize it's a big task. The advantage of a cabinet system is we found out about it a lot earlier than we would have. So we're up for the task and we know that we can make the difference to the residents of Barnet by improving the situation. And it's not waiting to see what government does. It's doing things all the time, making a difference, making sure the budget is rained in. I'll open it up to whether officers or cabinet members want to make any comments. Councillor Houston. I think it would be, it's important to make a comment about one of the biggest pressures which Councillor Lakhby mentioned, which is the temporary accommodation, rising cost. Barnet, we've traditionally had a very good record of predicting temporary accommodation. I think the record is good. And what we have faced is an unprecedented change in circumstances. This is reflected in temporary accommodation pressures across other boroughs in London. And it's led to a kind of perfect storm where there's a substantial budget pressure as a result of that. I mean, it takes the number of factors in relation to that. One of the biggest factors is the change in demand. We've had 1596 new housing applications open in the five months to the end of August 2024. That is 65% more than in the August period in 2022. That is a massive, massive difference. Combined on top of that, the cost of temporary accommodation, as Councillor Lakhby mentioned, has gone up. We're now having to use, well basically, the private rent sector cost, the market is not, I think the best way of describing it would be, we've got a real, it's broken actually. There is a crisis in London in relation to housing people who need housing. And basically, the temporary accommodation costs, the supply, and the cost of temporary accommodation has gone up considerably. Not just the demand, but the cost. And we're using a nightly paid temporary accommodation now. The rates for that can vary from, you know, one of the statistics that I just to share with you, for one bed, the annual cost variation on a monthly basis goes up from 7,000 for one bed to 11,000 in April to 11,000 in July. That's a considerable difference, and that's just one bed. I think there's also been a problem with some of the projected supply of a lot of our housing. We've obviously been, as a council, investing in our own council housing, and to say the Colindale Gardens, I was very pleased to be able to go out with local ward councillors at an event to celebrate the kind of handover of Colindale Gardens and the occupation of it by residents, 249 units, and that was done just last week. And we actually, that investment, which was from the housing revenue account, is projected to save the general fund 800,000 a year. So we have been doing an Invest to Save program in relation to investing in housing to try and meet the need. One of the problems we've had is there has been, a lot of the housing supply in any London borough is delivered through housing associations, getting section 106, basically affordable housing, being picked up by housing associations and delivered by housing associations, and we obviously nominate people from our waiting list to that housing. And actually, the supply of that has not been, you know, it has been less than predicted, so again, that's also partly as a result of some housing, basically a lot of housing associations have pulled back on their investment programs because they're in financial difficulties. So I think one of the, I mean, there are many reasons for that, we've discussed this before, but one of the biggest things that Councilman Ackley points out was the inflation, you know, the base of interest rates. The interest rates have been crippling in relation to supplying, you know, anything to do with investment, and I think that is a real concern. One of the things that we have, in the area which I've been responsible for, we've been looking at is to go through the capital program to see where we can actually make, you know, pretty radically look at the capital program and agree basic principles about what we will invest in. Quite a lot of our capital program is tied up with government grant and programs that have already been agreed. A lot of the Brent Cross they spend is in that category. But we have been going through it very ruthlessly with Councilman Ackley and with officers to look at what is essential and what isn't essential, because we do need to make savings and borrowing costs are higher than predicted. It is a shame that we weren't able to borrow more money when interest rates were lower and we have been using, you know, but I think the principle that has now been established is that when we have it with the capital program is that we have to finance it and that internal borrowing isn't the way to do it. Any capital scheme has to be justifiable in its own terms going forward and fully costed, and I think that is one of the things that I am very grateful to officers and also Councilman Ackley is bringing a degree of discipline to the budget process. We have had whole day sessions with cabinet and officers and I certainly feel I understand my budget area better than I did two years ago, even a year ago. And I think there are reasons, there are whole, you know, basically the governance around budgeting, I think, wasn't there in terms of Councilors. When I moved into my role as Chair of the Housing and Growth Committee, that then was. And I think, you know, I definitely feel I have got a far greater understanding of the budget process than I did. But I think it has been very difficult because I do think that, you know, we have definitely been a learning process in terms of how we do budget management. And I think going forward, I feel far more confident, I understand, when we are making decisions that are informed decisions and I think that is really important. And I don't think I felt like that two and a half years ago. I was taking, you know, we were taking things on, you know, and I think that is a major change. Anybody else? Councillor Begg. So obviously every pound counts, not just today or tomorrow, but in future years. So notice that we are writing off huge amounts of debt here and a lot of it seems to be untraceable. There's some quite large amounts of LA mistakes. So is it time for us to look at our processes and systems to see this doesn't happen again? I find it quite astonishing that in this day and age, we can't trace people that are owing debt to local authority. And some of those are really high debt. So we've got some people here that haven't paid 43,000. Most of them are double numbers. So what I really would like to be reassured with is that we do look at the systems again to see how quickly we catch the debt going into long term. Because this is public money that we need to get back with, possibly with reformed systems. Yeah, I don't know if one of the officers want to mention that, but I will say when a debt becomes too difficult or too expensive to retrieve because it's too old or we can't trace people. It is a good accounting practice to actually write it off because we can't make assumptions on it. But I don't know if Kevin or Dean want to talk about the efforts that go into recover the money. Councillor Edwards. Yeah, I just wanted to endorse Councillor Beggs concern about the issue of debt. Because when you do look at it, it is quite substantial. But I take on board what Dean is saying. And I do think officers, to be fair, have been working particularly on social care, trying to get some of that debt down. And we shouldn't forget that. But I do think that maybe, it might have to be a closed session, I don't know, but we do need to maybe as a cabinet collectively look at if we can do any more. Because some of those debts are quite substantial. And the ones that obviously I understand from an accounting point of view, it's better to write some of them off. But some of them are quite large. And it's easy for us to try and pursue people who are our own tenants to get that debt back. But people who are not, it looks like it's much more difficult. And obviously, we do have a hard look at it with offices on adult social care. There are significant debts from people who should have been paying when they've been getting care. And then someone's passed away, and then the whole issue of who is the PAP, who has powers of attorney, and how we can get that off them. So it is quite complicated. But I do think it might be useful to see whether we can, if there are any other ways of trying to increase our debt collection. But I also wanted just to say something about adult social care, particularly in relation to some of the pressures. And I think what's important for members to know or to understand is that it's a fact that it's much more expensive to keep people who qualify for adult social care at home and in the community. And what we're seeing is a decline in the numbers of people who go into residential care and going into nursing care, and rightly so in my view, because it means that they remain in their own homes in the local community. But it's important that we realise that there's a cost implication for that. It's much cheaper for the council to place people in nursing care or residential homes. It's actually quite unlawful to actually force people to do that against their will. But I do think it's important to understand that marketplace in terms of the pressures on adult social care. So keeping people at home in the local community is the most expensive way of doing it, but it's the most dignified way of supporting our citizens. So I just wanted to raise that as part of the overall debate. Thanks. It's going to be looked at, and some of this is questions of interest on whether a debt is secured or not. But Kevin, did you want to come in? And I think some of it is should we first of all offer some debt advice rather than go straight in with, you know, the bailiffs could come round type thing. So there are different ways of collecting debt, as Dean said, and what we do need to look at it. Anybody else? Any comments? Okay. Thank you, leader. It should be said that there are other elements of the programme that we offer that sort of offset the cost of living pressures that may well be generating a situation when people enter into debt. Our benefits calculator is truly quite an innovative tool that I encourage residents to make use of if they need to. I should pick up on something that Councillor Houston very usefully and helpfully referred to. I did say that I would explain why the rise in interest rates was more acutely impactful to local government practice in Barnet and just neglected to do so. So the debt financing portion of our revenue budget commitments currently stands at 4.2 million, which is not an insubstantial amount of money. And it is a concern for us where that figure to increase, particularly in the short term, given the pressures it will cause on other service areas. Naturally, there are very complex reasons for that, but ultimately it comes down to an administrative choice in the past by previous administrations to finance their capital works by internally borrowed revenue rather than going out and borrowing money when it was affordable to do so. And at a time now when we are obligated to fulfill certain capital works priorities, we have no choice but to go out and borrow that money instead. So there are certain factors that legacy issues relating to decisions made by previous administrations which have made the interest rate spike particularly difficult for us to manage as an issue, which will then consequently mean that we have to make some very difficult decisions on what exactly we consider genuinely essential priorities. That's the level of seriousness with which we have to now make the decision making in financial terms. Thank you. Any other comments? Right. On this, there's two parts to the recommendation. One is noting and one is approving. Just to make sure people are aware, the approvals are the changes to the capital programme that Councillor Houston mentioned, the write-offs that Councillor Beggin-Edwards mentioned, also two environments that are 5.2 and 5.3. One is $2 million to the capital financing budget from contingency because of the cost of the borrowing, and the other one is just to note because the decision has been made of a staffing budget due to a restructure of $213,000. Anyway, having pointed that out, the recommendations that cabinet notes the forecast out-turn for 24/25 against the Council's revenue budget, the current use of reserves and the outlook, the expenditure against capital budgets in the year and the work under way to contain expenditure within budgets, but also for the cabinet to approve, the changes to the existing capital programme in relation to additions are set out in sections 6.8 and 6.9 in accordance with the environment rules. The write-offs for housing benefits, sundry debt and council tax arrears as detailed in section 7 and in appendix B, C and D. And lastly, two environments as detailed in sections 5.2 and 5.3. Can we agree with all those? Thank you. Then it's a case of noting the cabinet forward plan. Just a very, very minor point on the forward plan. You'll have noticed that the agenda, the eagle-eyed will have noticed that the agenda today said we had adults and children's resident perception survey and we actually looked at the adults one. The agenda for next month says we have the adults and children's resident perception survey and that's the children's one, so just a technicality. It's a case of keeping people guessing, there's no problem with that. That makes it a bit more exciting. If there's no urgent business, as far as I know, we don't need to move into exempt because we've taken that. So that's the end of the meeting. Thank you everybody. [BLANK_AUDIO]

Transcript

Speakers, please turn on the microphone by pressing the speaker icon when speaking and off when finished. Please speak directly into the microphone so that the audio can be picked up clearly for those joining the meeting in the gallery and remotely. Are the minutes of the previous meeting held on 16 July 2024 agreed as a correct record? Agreed. Absence of members, I have received apologies from Councillor Conway. Do members have any declarations to make in relation to any of the agenda items? Take that as a no. Right, now the Constitution states that councillors may ask a cabinet member a question of any matter on the cabinet agenda. The first four questions will be from the opposition group members, and I don't know if you can choose between you who's going to ask those questions. Members will be rotating between the groups. Anyway, if you want to come up, Peter, and the 15 minutes will start when you ask your first question, all right? Thank you. I thought it would be a good place to start with the finance report, and one of the things that is in the finance report that I don't quite understand the detail of is that you suggest that the deficit this year of 20 million, which is after using 18 million of reserves, therefore on an ongoing basis is 38 million, is also after a recovery plan, which is an in-year recovery plan of 7.4 million. Now, the recovery plan seems a bit mysterious, because I can't find where this recovery plan was discussed or mentioned other than in this report, and I wondered what services were contributing to this recovery plan, and what consultation was planned, what inequalities impact assessments had been done in relation to the savings associated with that 7.4 million, because it is treated in the paper as if it's a given, and yet it's appeared out of nowhere, and I didn't know that service changes of this scale could be made without them being agreed in detail by Cabinet, so I wondered how this could possibly be. Thank you, leader. So I'll respond to the various elements of that question. So you began, Councillor, by mentioning the 18 million of reserves that were applied to offset the 38 million overspend in years, so those were earmarked reserves that were used for specific purposes. The 20 million overspend is only what we would, in the worst case scenario, have to cover for non-earmarked general fund reserves, so that's why we were focusing in on that particular figure rather than the overall overspend. In terms of recovery plans, I think moving forward we may have to be a little bit more precise in what we mean by that term, because there's almost two iterations of recovery plans. There's an immediate direction that we gave executive directors to do whatever they could within their available remit to reduce the overspend that they find within their directed areas, and then there's a subsequent organisation-wide recovery plan that is being put together and currently being costed in its entirety that emerged as a result of extensive discussions over the course of August, which I can speak to now. I was going to during my report, but in summary, they were start chamber style sessions that lasted between two and a half hours, one to two and a half hours, depending on the magnitude of the directorate's budget and the extent of the overspend, where there was, in quite excoriating detail, disgust why spend was happening at all and why a particular spend that was over and above budgetary envelope threshold levels wasn't accounted for. As a result of those discussions over the course of August, we had a session with senior officers and all cabinet members as a half-day session to itemise those elements within our organisation-wide recovery plan that we considered palatable to take forward and get robust costings on. They will be fully costed in the coming weeks and we'll be able to present them publicly hereafter, but it's been referred to in the report. Sorry. My understanding was that there are two recovery plans. There's a 7.4 million, which is included in the current figures as an assumption that it will be delivered in determining the deficits at paragraph 1.6 of the report. And my question is not about what you are doing to deal with the 20 million plus the 18, because the real deficit on an ongoing basis next year is 38. So for budgeting purposes, I would argue the budget is really or the cost savings that you need to be looking at is 38. But very specifically, in paragraph 1.6, you refer to a 7.3 something cost saving. And the question that I have is a really simple question. Given that that cost saving is included in the 20 million, i.e. you assume that it happens, then it must be specific items, otherwise you couldn't have included it. So my question is what is in that 7.3 million and how could you decide to do that without it coming to cabinet, without consultation, without any quality impact assessment, unless you're prepared to give us an absolute assurance that no services are being removed in that 7.3 million? We rely upon the professional judgment of executive directors to determine whether or not a particular service level reduction constitutes something that would come to the stage of requiring impact assessment or would detrimentally affect the provision of service in a particular area. So if it is the judgment of officers after we've given the direction to do what is required to bring overspend thresholds back to the position that they were when we set the budget, then that's an operational decision that the organization is entirely entitled to make. We've given a strategic direction and whatever operational decision making is required to facilitate that is entirely feasible without a cabinet level or indeed council-wide decision. I'm not entirely sure if yours is a question of governance or if it's a question of service provision, but it doesn't. The answer is it's both, because I think that a 7.3 million reduction in cost is actually quite significant and therefore I have asked officers what is in that 7.3 million? But I'm asking you as the cabinet member or the cabinet, what is in that 7.3 million? Because it seems to me that the residents of the borough are entitled to know. And this is only the first step in the cost reduction that's going to be needed. And therefore to me it's a fundamental piece of governance that if we are reducing cost that the residents of this borough are entitled to know what is not going to happen. If I can help. There's a couple of things in what you say, Peter. The 7 million are ones that the services have offered up that do not need an Equalities Impact Assessment, do not result in any reduction in services, in the main services like adults and children and is put into the MTFS already. What you're talking about is the next lot of the recovery plan, which is the bigger map. We're waiting for those figures to be valid. When they're validated they will come to cabinet and there will be the opportunity for scrutiny calling. So the recovery plans will have the opportunity to go to scrutiny and will be coming to cabinet, so we're waiting for some validation. And whether any further savings do need an Equality Impact Assessment they will have one because it's a legal necessity. Now I understand that, so you are absolutely confident that the 7.3 million which have been offered up by the services do not involve any significant service reductions? They are about how services are delivered, rather than cutting jobs or anything. However, I'm not promising we will do what is necessary to bring this under control. We inherited a machine that looked good and gleaming when we first got it, then realised it had no real steering and had been out of control for a while and we're having to bring it back in order. We are determined to do that. We will do that. Part of that is the recovery plan. Part of that is, as you have gone through with you, some of the processes we're doing about spend and some of it is about freezing spend. I would make one request, obviously, which is not going to be dealt with tonight, which is that if somebody could send me an analysis of the 7.3 million I would be very grateful. I do think it's something which the administration should think about publishing. Just moving on for a second, in the press release which the Council issued that accompanied this report, the comment was made by Councillor Knacke that the deficit, which you were referring to the 20 million number rather than the 38 million number or whatever, and that, of course, doesn't include the short term, sorry, it does include the short term benefit that we get for two years from the pensions reduction, but that doesn't go on forever. So the underlying level of benefit, of benefit to the budget from sill monies, pension monies and other things means that the underlying running deficit is really very, very large indeed. The question that arises is, in your press release you said that this was equivalent to 5% of the budget, but the reality is that that is true at one level, but unfortunately we have statutory obligations in relation to adults and children and paying our interest bill, which means that the non-statutory element of the budget is massively less than the whole budget. So given that the deficit, the running deficit is of the order of £40 million, it's arguable that that is close to 100% of the things that we do not have to do. So that the scale of the cost savings that you're going to have to contemplate in the Recovery 2 plan relative to the things that really matter to the residents are very, very large. So why did you imply in that press release that this was a 5% problem when it's probably somewhere between a 50% and 100% problem of the things that we're actually allowed to deal with? That particular comment, leader, if I may say, almost encapsulates everything that differentiates a Labour administration from a Conservative one. I do take seriously your knowledge of the structural problems relating to the budget, given that your administration was so heavily responsible for them and you were aware of them at the time when you were in charge. So to a certain extent, yes, we have inherited this and we're dealing with it in a responsible and appropriate way, in a way which allows us to be an administration which is wholly different from what was before. What you're asking is be less aspirational, be more like us, have less interest in providing a decent quality of service provision for residents across Barnet that actually differentiates you as an administration. And to that extent I refuse. We are going to deal with the debt problem that we find. We're going to handle overspends, we're going to figure out exactly how to get the budget under control, but we're not going to give up what makes us unique and what makes our administration more beneficial for the residents of Barnet. I would never ask you to give up, but that was not the question that I was asking. What I was asking was in the press release you explicitly implied this was a 5% problem. The words that you used could not have been clearer. My point is that is utterly misleading to residents because of the statutory expenditure that we have to make. It's nothing to do with aspiration and three years in it's a bit rich to blame everything on the previous administration. I have one final question if there's time, but if not I understand. I could just say it's not, believe me we're not blaming everything on the previous administration. There's a lot of blame for the Conservative National Government as well. So you can share the blame with them. 30 seconds go on you've got one more. This is a personal bugbear which is I think on page 36 and page 73 of papers you refer to HMO licensing. But the implication of particularly page 73 is that HMO licensing is a money spinner because it's about the fact that the backlog of HMO licensing is reduced. And obviously the council gets money in from HMO licensing. My concern is the other end of the telescope which is to me HMO licensing is about making sure that the quality of accommodation in HMOs is good. And I believe that the motivation of the HMO licensing department as I experienced it and it doesn't look as though it's changed is about bringing in money not about improving the quality of accommodation. And I would therefore please ask you to look at that because the words that are in your paper strongly imply that HMO licensing is seen by those who do it as purely about getting money in and not about improving the quality of accommodation. Councillor Zingavala, I assure you that's not the case. I mean as you know this is a we have licensed HMOs for some time in Barnet. We have to reflect in finance papers the reality of the cost of the service in relation to whether it's able to cover it. And there is obviously the team itself has made good progress in dealing with backlog of licensing which is good. There's been a lot of it's a really invaluable part of that team is really valuable part of what the council does and they provide really good services and they've been invaluable in dealing with the cladding issue, the low-rise cladding issue, that expertise is really valued but they are making an effort to get the process, the licensing far more quicker as the papers in our plan for Barnet state and also the other paper. Undoubtedly you have to refer to the bottom line, it's the same for parking, you know. All these sort of things you have to say if there's a financial implication, the papers have to reflect that but it's certainly not the motivation for doing it and we provide a service. It gives reassurance to good landlords and it gives reassurance to people in shared accommodation. As you know the accommodation pressures are horrendous at the moment and getting licensing right and running an efficient service that is actually a win for both the landlords and for tenants, so yeah. But I'll just reassure you at that point, it's absolutely not done as a way of making money. I think on these things because you're allowed full cost recovery, it's financed against staff but that costing is somewhere else so you put it as an income. My concern has always been about the inspection regime which is I know during COVID that there were problems but I was exceedingly anxious about the amount of time they spent doing paperwork versus actually inspecting what the state of HMOs were and I would just urge you to look at that, that's all. Okay, the 15 minutes you're up, I've been told, yeah we can send you something about the recovery plan, not just an analysis but we can have some explanatory notes to make it easier to understand. Okay, if we move on to the next item with the outcome of off-state inspection, Councillor Cokley Webb. Yeah, thank you. I don't know how many people have had a real chance to read through all of this report but when we look at how far the service has come, I personally want to still place again on record my thanks to all the staff that work within this service that not only worked incredibly hard to give us such a good result for the off-state but permanently worked really hard for good outcomes for our young people and I'm particularly proud of all the extra co-working we've done, so the way that we actually include young people in the decision-making, something that obviously didn't happen years ago and how they actually value what we do in terms of asking their views and incorporating their views into their care and what we do for them and how we inform them and what's important to them. I'm sure Mr Mundy will probably expand a bit more but when you look at the actual off-state judgement, I mean, they're single lines where you've got a good, good, outstanding good and good but when you look into the depth of everything that went into it to actually achieve this, it is really outstanding from my point of view the work that has been put in and continues to be put in because it's not just something that's done for off-state, it's something that happens every day of the year to make sure that all the young people in the borough get the best outcomes possible, whatever the situation. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I'm very proud of the outcomes that we've had for our off-state. You'll be aware that the new government have suggested that single word judgements should go for schools. We're also hoping that they'll make the same approach to children's social care which is also struggles with a complex service being judged by a single word. Some of the words are really good and we're really pleased at the progress that we've made and actually if you read the letter in detail, you'll see a whole range of really positive interventions and findings. Colleagues who read these letters a lot have all queried with me why the judgments were so low in comparison to the text but that's a question for off-state. We've set out an action plan saying what we will do to address the issues that off-state have identified which we are implementing so they are generally administrative and we will seek to put those systems in place that will ensure those processes work more openly. So I'm really pleased with the overall outcome, very proud of the staff that we have working for Barnet who have really worked hard over the last five years and we're really committed to implementing the further changes that we need to do to ensure that all children and young people in Barnet flourish, especially those that we are responsible for and that we continue to co-create and co-produce services with them that meet their needs. I'm happy to take any questions. I'll open it for any questions but I think it should be noted our congratulations to the staff, the young people and the families who took part in this. Anything people want to raise? Councillor Moore? I've got a question at the end but it's more by way of comment. I would echo the comments that have been made about staff but I think highlighting one particular phrase within the report I think is really important, that the staff are skilled, tenacious and passionate in what they do with children and I think that sums up the feeling I have when I talk to members of your service. Obviously there are many children and young people who have faced challenges but those for whom we have a particular responsibility as corporate parents will obviously have greater challenges in their lives and I think it's really pleasing to see particularly the outstanding judgement with regards to young people in care because they are the top of the triangle in terms of those children for whom we are responsible as corporate parents. So I just wanted to note that. Just also to comment, pleased to see the positive comments about the virtual school, particularly about the MASH, multi-agency safeguarding hub as a governor. It's certainly one of those services that schools have relied on for a range of different issues and really important and then also I would of course say this but in section 38 of the letter talks about health assessments for those children in care including dental and optician's appointments and this has been a challenging area in the past so it was good to see a positive judgement there. My question really was regarding the action plan and your progress on that. Obviously you've got deadlines of this month and next for a number of elements of that but there was one that you'd set yourself a deadline of August so I was just curious to how you've made progress with that part of the action plan. This is my first time back since I've been on leave. I'm absolutely convinced that my staff will have implemented the particular actions that they've got. I know some of them were being actioned immediately and so I'll write to you to let you know the particular update on that August action. Just for anyone who's watching, they are systems issues and it's important to get them right but they were not major criticisms of the department and so it's just really, it will be useful to know that those have gone into place because it's strengthened the system. Thank you. So my deep congratulations to you Chris and to your staff for this remarkable achievement. As we know the children in care and care leavers are some of the most vulnerable people in our society facing a huge amount of inequalities so this is an excellent start by the bar of getting this kind of result so there's more to build on but it's excellent so congratulations to you and your staff. As a school governor, having been through an off state not that far back, to get an outstanding and clearly good judgments which were very clearly in some cases extremely on the border of outstanding, particularly the experiences and progress of children who need help and protection, that's a very, very strong area. The bar is very high with Offstead and I think this is an incredible achievement for your staff and I suppose like everyone else, we're very grateful to have a children's service that's delivering this quality of care. It's really impressive. There's lots of bits and pieces, good practice, I mean the virtual school, there's a lot of good practice that's highlighted, the MASH is highlighted as being particularly good as well and I think it's a really good and very reassuring reading. The thing that I'm really pleased about around the whole report is that the outstanding is not just owned by those teams that are the children care teams, actually it flags all of the fantastic work that our intervention and planning teams do, duty and assessment teams do when children come into care, that those processes are run really well. It's got links with our leaving care service because that's where the unaccompanied asylum seeking team is, it's got links with our disabled children's services because that's where a whole group of looked after children are, especially with our new autism team as well. So there is really good practice across the whole of the system and I look back over nine and a half years here, that was not the situation. You didn't have tenacious social workers to the extent that you do now and I'm really proud of all the work they do, how focused they are on children's outcomes. The thing that really encouraged me was that nearly all of the social workers were more than happy to speak to Ofsted and you hear of lots of places where they don't want to do that but all of our staff were more than happy to meet with them. They didn't all have that opportunity but they certainly were up for having discussions about what it was like working in Barnet and I think the end paragraph about them I think is the really critical thing. Greatly proud of the service they provide which is what that shows. One thing that stood out for me as well is that we also have staff that have left the borough but then have chosen to come back. So we're obviously a destination where the staff are valued and they feel happy working here and continue to work here. My comment on that is that they should have never left in the first place but there we go. I did my bit to thank Chris Munday and the team by deliberately missing our items 5 to 9 in the agenda which we will have to go back to but for the moment the recommendations on this is cabinet is asked to note and consider the inspection findings as part of their corporate responsibility for recognising and prioritising the needs of children and in fulfilling their role as corporate parents, that cabinet to consider and note the full inspection findings and outcomes as we've done and cabinet to refer the report to full council for consideration. Are we happy with those recommendations? Alright thank you, thank you very much. Anyway now I'll start doing my job properly. Item 5 petitions, none. Six deputations, none. Public questions and comments, none. Matters referred to the Executive, none. And consideration of reports from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee or Scrutiny Subcommittees, if any, please. Right, so we move on to item 11 on the agenda, our plan for Barnet, that is looking at the delivery and outcomes framework for Quarter 1. And in it I think there is much good news. Our work in tackling inequality and reducing poverty has begun. Now that is a long journey, but we are heading in the right direction. These are two issues that were ignored by the previous administration. We've already talked about the Oxford Judgement and there are also exam results, great exam results. We have begun work in rectifying the 20-year neglect of roads and pavements, as well as inheriting a budget that wasn't quite what it looked like. We did inherit a few thousand potholes, it takes time to deal with it. Another thing in the first quarter is residents moving into the council accommodation in Conan Dell Gardens. We've got the journey to net zeros continuing, as does some real resident participation and neighbourhood working. I don't know if people have any comments on their portfolio areas. Councilor Edwards. I have just one comment really. It's on page 42 under the Benchmarking 4.1, and particularly where it says Living Well on the Caring for People. I'll give people a chance to catch up with getting up to that page. It says that ten indicators included from the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework with most forecasts for 23/24 to be better or on par with the peer group comparator. So first of all I'd like to underline the fact that that's a really good positive feedback about our wonderful staff who work in adult social care, particularly as we're still waiting for the outcome of the CQC inspection which took place recently. But the second bit I think is probably the best disingenuous because it says except for the proportion of adults in contact with secondary mental health services living independently with or without support, I'm reliably informed by our officers, that that particular aspect relates to national health service input on a mental health and it's not adult social care from the local authority. Therefore it's quite unfair to be criticised for something that we have no particular control over. I believe it's been raised before. So I'd like to ask officers if they could go back and clarify that because if it is about the national health service then I think it needs to come away from the performance indicators for our own staff. If I've made myself clear or unclear please let me know. To be honest I don't know if anyone can answer that question directly. I mean obviously secondary mental health services would be an NHS responsibility. This is how many of those are living independently and I presume it's something that all boroughs collect but I really don't, I'm not an expert on this. I don't believe we've got anyone in the room that will know that level of detail so we may have to get back to you but certainly we can make sure that the report is clear. Thanks, I just also want to make sure that we're not being assessed on something we have no control over. That was the important point that I wanted to make so yeah, thanks. There's sometimes these things we're asked to collect whether we have any control over them or not. Yeah, but it's an implied criticism in the report. We'll find out. Thank you. Did Councillor Houston put his hand up? And then alright, we'll move along. Yeah, there's a couple of things just to highlight. I think there remains to be, in relation to housing and quality affordable homes, there remains to be good progress at Brent Cross. That's a major regeneration scheme and members of the committee were aware that obviously the low rise decant into new homes has happened in terms of the Whitefields estate which is a landmark. The high rise units will start to move into their new homes later this year. We've reformed and restarted the Barnet Homelessness Forum which has given members of the cabinet to be very aware of the homeless pressures that are causing our overspend on temporary accommodation. There's been a lot of work, good work in terms of dealing with homelessness but the pressures have overwhelmed across London councils and that's something that we'll discuss when we come to the budget. But there is good work and one of the statistics I would just point out is actually that homelessness prevention's KPI, we actually improved on. So that's the route we are making. There's a lot of good work going on, it's just the demand is outstretching our ability to house people and that's a real challenge across London. One of the ways of dealing with that is to deal with supply inside of housing and there are some moving forwards on Great Park Northeast which is referred to in the report. There was a topping out ceremony which the new MP for Hendon attended for the Upper Lower Foster's estate which is a very good piece of work because it was a co-designed piece of regeneration and it's really good to see that coming forward. That's 142 homes and 75 extra care places. There is one statistic that members of the cabinet might be concerned about and I just want to provide some context to that. In the section about the performing less well, we have actually gone below the target for the decent home. We have a very high, Barnet Homes has a very robust record in dealing with compliance but we have fallen slightly very marginally below the target on decent home standards, a very high target of 99.6%, the target is 98.5% and we're at 97.8%. The reason for that is entirely to do with the identified problems with the panel system blocks that we're aware of, the low rise panel systems. Clearly when you've got the category 1 hazards they are not a decent homes compliance so the decision was to include them in the council homes that were affected in the decent homes target. That's the reason why that target, which has always been met, has fallen below that and I think just to provide reassurance, that's a known issue that we're dealing with and that's the reason why that target is not met. We've got a strategy to obviously deal with that and remedy those works within two years. They remedied those very council properties within two years so I think I can provide reassurance on that. We're still very much performing in relation to our general stock in terms of decent homes. It doesn't really appear in the family friendly section but I know that the conversations that we've had with Barnet Homes and with Councillor Houston has meant that we've actually improved the number of accommodation that we can provide for care leavers and that is a really, really welcome thing that we've done over the past 18 months to actually make sure that more properties are put forward for care leavers when they are ready to live independently. When you look through the family friendly headings there, just a couple of things to note is that we've obviously had a child and family early help action plan has been published and I can't over emphasise the importance of making sure that early help, what it does and how it works in the borough means that people get help at the earliest proper opportunity which means that that avoids crisis further down the line. And then when we've had the child programme that's gone to Whitting Health Trust, that's something that took quite a while to sort out but that is now starting to work well and mean that the actual visits that should have been made are now being made and that mothers and young people are actually getting the checks that they need on time. When we got the corporate parenting annual report, that you can see the amount of work that goes in to make sure that these young people have all the help possible at every stage of their life, whether it be the people that are looking after them or the services that offer their help and support, it's something that we need to be really proud of because that's something that, again, if that just doesn't happen at the right time that can really affect helping with their trauma, helping with their future prospects and that's something that we really are good at doing and something that we've been recognised that we're good at doing. I think if Sara was here she would have talked more on the serious violence duty strategy but it's something that we're making sure that it's something that we don't just take as something that another department should do but something that we get involved with and we have a strategy to be targeting the young people that are at risk of either exploitation or serious violence so we try and pick up the cases early on, not wait for tragedies to happen. Thank you. I wanted to highlight some excellent partnership work that's dotted throughout this report but everything from working to improve our tennis courts by working with the Long Tennis Association to actually working with different services across the Council, the work is really impressive but it also addresses the need to be cost conscious and improve services for residents and I think one thing that we can particularly highlight is improving our accesses to services so that means libraries working together with the housing office, the housing options team, it also means things like Ask Barnett, the chat function which went live over summer, our residents are able to get the support that they need and the resources they need in an easier and more efficient way and I think as a Council it means that we're working more effectively with our residents and able to serve them in a better way. I'd also just really like to highlight once again, and I know we have talked about this in cabinet before, but just the difference functioning CCTV service makes to our borough residents. I was at a residents association AGM over the weekend and just having cameras that are working that are monitored is really bringing change to people's lives. Thank you, Chair. I'd just like to comment on one or two of the areas that particularly impact on health and wellbeing issues. There are health and wellbeing issues threaded through the report and that reflects the importance of the wider determinants of health in sections around poverty alleviation and around housing and around environments. They and many others impact on the health and wellbeing of our residents and on page 44 we talk about the joint strategic needs analysis which is a repository of a whole range of data that helps inform our services across the borough. It's gone through a major refresh this year and it was a real pleasure to see in the training session last week a whole range of members but actually also some of our partners from the health and wellbeing board, from the voluntary sector and from some of our GPs who are actually on the session hearing about the value and the data within the joint strategic needs analysis. It will also inform our current joint health and wellbeing strategy and the report talks about a number of areas that come out of the joint health and wellbeing strategy and that's around, for example, dementia, being dementia friendly, some really excellent work that's gone on, being age friendly, again some really good work that's gone on. We've been working with bus companies locally to enable drivers to be more aware of those passengers with greater needs. We've done some work on homeless health which has impacts for the homelessness strategy and those within the borough of homeless. Fit and Active Barnet enabling residents to stay healthy and the referring into that service for a whole range of health reasons to keep people mobile. But it will also be really important as we develop the next health and wellbeing strategy, the 2025/29 strategy. And I'm looking forward both to using the GSNA to really start to hone in on the health inequalities across the borough in our mission to tackle health inequalities as mentioned on page 47 and to be the healthiest borough. And I'm looking forward to co-producing that with partners, again talking about community engagement as my colleague did, but also through the ICB and the voluntary sector so that we can have the next joint health and wellbeing strategy that really starts to set us on that path to be the healthiest borough. Thank you. I was just looking through the various achievements, just as you called me. I just wanted to, thought there's a few things that are worth highlighting here, particularly in the safe, attractive neighbours and town centres section, where it's pleasing to see that the street cleanliness inspections all exceeded our target and indeed that all the planned road and pavement programs were delivered. It's not just a question of having the plan in place, it's important that we actually deliver on those as well and we are there. Also to show that 97% of fly tips were collected within our target, but on that we're actually now doing more and we should see an improvement in that over the coming year, because as a result of the Clean Up Barnet campaign, we're actually getting enforcement staff working with the street scene officers as they go out, so we want to see more awareness of how to report fly tips and more fines and prosecutions if people don't do what they're supposed to do and do fly tip. Although we're doing well, there's actually more to do over the coming year. Just good things to mention under the open spaces enhancing local environment section, where we saw the sustainable urban drainage scheme at Hallywick Park. Again, there are two more planned over the coming year and also the green flag at Cherry Tree Wood and there's going to be a flag raising ceremony in a couple of weeks' time, so I just thought there's a few things there that were worth highlighting. Thank you. Thank you, Lida. I thought that it would be relevant, given the comments that Councillors Inkin made, to remind people that a very important element of my portfolio and a very important thread of the Labour administration's desire to benefit residents of Barnet is the reducing poverty agenda, which is not just innovative and forward thinking in local government terms, but it is genuinely something that we're very proud of in terms of what's already been done whilst it was in the community wealth building portfolio, but what we've got planned in future. It also highlights why financial sustainability is so important for us. If we don't have the foundations of the Council right, if we're not providing a solid bedrock on which to provide a robust and imaginative and aspirational agenda, then we can't achieve either the things that we want at all or, indeed, to the extent that would make a genuinely positive intervention in people's lives. So not only is reducing poverty agendas fundamental to something that we're interested in, but it also highlights why it's so important for us to monitor how spend across the organisation is happening. And the residents' experience element of my portfolio, I shouldn't overlook. The Ask Barnet element has just been rolled out, which is hugely exciting, and we are looking to make use of technology to make the interaction that residents have with the local authority far easier and far more beneficial for both parties. I came across this concept called failure demand. There's a notion that if you constantly try and contact an organisation but fail to do so, it's actually quite a money-waster, in addition to causing a huge amount of frustration for everybody involved. So that's something that we're attempting to tackle and improve the residents' experience element also. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just draw cabinet's attention to the appendices where I think the performance is generally positive, and the benchmarking of authorities is very positive. And the risk register, just to note, a new risk has been added, which has to do with the Collindale office block, where there's been discovered some defects from the building spec. If you're going in there, don't worry, it has been deemed safe, but it does mean there'll be some disruption at Collindale over another month, and I'm sure because it's to do with building defects there'll be a legal opinion involved on all sides, probably. But what we're asked to do is that cabinet note the contents of our plan for Barnet delivery and outcome, quarter one report. So do we note the report? Thank you. The next item is the adult residents' perception survey, which is item 12. This was quite a big survey, over 2,000 residents surveyed, and it has generally positive results, especially with the trend. The trend nationally and in London had been, since the pandemic, for things to decline where those have been generally positive. I'll just pick out three and then ask if there's any comment. 76% of the council found the council trustworthy, 61% council acts in concern of residents, and 70% promotes equal opportunities. All those are quite a big rise compared with the last time the survey was done. So the things that people have noticed about the new administration – sorry, I'll just get the right page. But from the point of view of looking at trend data, I don't know if there's anything that either of you feel we need to talk about? Any particular trends apparent? As you pointed out, we benchmark both our adults and our young people's residents' perception survey against an LGA national aggregated survey, as well as a London regional one. In the post-COVID period, perception surveys tended to show greater satisfaction with local authorities than was normal, which was put down to a general feel-good factor of coming out of the pandemic. And what we've seen in national and local comparators is that to drop quite sharply afterwards, which hasn't been the case with Bowneck's results. I think there are some very encouraging results here, and upticks from a high bar, as you say, and against national trends. I think, as Councillor Conway – she's not here today, but if she was, one of the things she would draw the attention to is the social education and community section. Particularly in paragraph 1.34, which puts the context of the survey having been undertaken in the autumn of 2023, at a time of particular community tension in Bowneck, and in London in the country, but particularly affecting some of the communities that live in our borough. And I think that the resilience of that particular result is really very encouraging. Four-fifths of residents agree that people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local area, in line with the London average and national average, very slightly down, but no significant difference in the results between ethnic and religious groups, and only very slightly down. Given what has happened, that is a remarkable result. It is very encouraging, and I think those of us who are involved in our communities have also picked up that Bowneck has really good networks of interfaith and intercommunity groups who work together, as well as partnering with the council and other bodies, schools and religious groups, churches, temples, mosques and synagogues, and I think that is something that really makes our borough special, and we should be proud of that result. Not to repeat, but to add to what Councillor Luciana said, several areas are really impressive. I think what underlines it is that this was just a note that this survey was undertaken immediately, during a period of high inflation, so that is when people will be feeling the pinch, the need for good services increases, and even then our customer service was increasing in satisfaction, so I think that is almost 10% up. And it is also reflected that residents are feeling that we are more customer-focused. I mean, I would prefer to call them residents rather than customers, but I think it does absolutely show that the focus of this administration is on our residents, and residents are feeling that way as well. I would echo very much what the last two colleagues have said, and I would comment on the community cohesion issue, because I think it is something that we should be proud of, but also hold very carefully. It is a privilege to have that sense of community cohesion that has given us a result like this at a time when it was really very difficult. I am going to share a minor anecdote, but actually demonstrate, I hope, how strong that is across the borough. I was there on behalf of the Mayor at licensing a priest in Edgware on Sunday evening, and actually one of the things that many of the church members and community members said in welcoming the new priest when they spoke was to make the point about the strength of our multi-faith, inter-faith and community networks, and how that was a very special thing to have, and that they hoped that he would find it as special as they did, and so I thought that was a really interesting reflection outside the council to just back that up. But I guess I'm bringing it back to a serious note. Obviously, the perception survey is fantastic, and I'm really pleased that residents are saying that we're listening and acting on their concerns, but I guess the question is, and it's a bit like, as people know, I'm a bit of a data and fact hound around the JSNA and things like that, so I suppose the adult perception survey, it's what we do with it, and I would reflect that when we were looking at this two years ago, there were some issues that we started to unpick about the perceptions of people with disabilities on our services, and I was really pleased to see that the perception of equal opportunity and equal access actually had risen, because I know that a lot of work and thought went in after that result on disabilities, so it is about what we use that data for within the council to look at how we improved our communications and the way we worked with, in that case, a particular part of our particular group of our residents. So it will be really interesting to look at the deeper parts of this survey and see how it informs the way we develop our services over the next several years, so thank you. Right, time to ask, some of it is asking how we use this data, obviously we have quite a bit of quantitative data, but this is a qualitative one, and how we make sure that this plays an important role in planning, rather than just something to congratulate ourselves about. I don't know if you've only thought, I mean from a community cohesion point of view, 78% may be a good score, but still short by 22%, so it is how we get into that virtuous circle of improving all the time. I don't know if, where does this get fed into, you know, how does this make a difference? We are looking at proactive work on community cohesion at the moment as well, which I think we would be doing anyway at this point in time, but it is something that I agree with council more, we can't take for granted even if it's a good result. And what we will be doing as well, there is a young person's perception survey as well, and what we're doing, which will be coming to a future cabinet meeting, is analysing them both together and looking at where the strongest areas of need and priority are in that combined data set. And similarly to people with disabilities in the last survey, we're regularly less satisfied than others, we'll be looking at whether that is the case again, whether there's any other cross breaks, whether it's geographies or any other kind of demographic data, where we can look at, well, these are the audiences and the issues we need to look at. So that work is ongoing. So this is taken through the Tackling the Gaps group as well, so we're looking at different quarters through that group and developing the action plan. The research, you mentioned councilor Moore, the ethnographic research, so we've got, that's quite a long pipeline on it, so we've worked with those groups and we're looking at actions on that. But disability is coming out strongly again, and there might be other things that are driving that, so an observation we've made is, this is a residence perception survey, and the disabled people that might not be taking part, might not be accessing our services, but so they're, do we need to think about the different comms, communicate our services, because they might not need the service, so their perception is lower, so we'll be looking at those things as well, so it might be not just about disabled people accessing our services. From a generality of audience, sorry, I thought I'd switch it on, a generality of audience who aren't aware of what goes on, so absolutely, that's really important, but it's the data, whether quantitative or qualitative, it's really important we use it to inform what we do, and use our resources in the best way we can. Okay, are there any other comments people want to make? So this is a useful snapshot of perception survey, and it's the trend data that we look for. The recommendations is that cabinet note the top line findings of the adult residence perception survey, 2324. Are we happy to note that? Yes, thank you, thank you, well noted. The next item is Hampstead Gardens suburb library, and I need to remind people that there is exempt information on this, so if people want to ask questions from the exempt section, please indicate. I could try and give an introduction, but it is a bit of a confusion, but the reason it's coming to the cabinet, I presume, is that this counts as less than best consideration, because the actual difference in opportunity cost is less than two million. It's not, I think, for the Secretary of State, but it's the thing that we have to assure ourselves, that if it's not best consideration, it doesn't mean it's not the best value, if that makes sense. And I don't know if you want to give a brief introduction to the recent history? Yes, certainly, Robert Brown, Head of Property Services and Valuation. So the Hampstead Garden suburb library is run by the Garden Suburb Library Group Limited, who are a charitable group staffed almost totally by volunteers, and they've been providing the library service for us in Hampstead for some years. They can't afford to pay rent, but by entering into an agreement with them, whereby they occupy the premises and run the library, and keep the place neat and tidy, without rent, we get a library service without having to staff it. Our landlord, Freshwater, has granted us an underlease, £12,850 a year. In turn, they've given us consent to grant a sub-underlease to the Garden Suburb Library, and they've agreed to us providing, by a side letter, a concession agreement that enables the suburb library group to occupy rent-free. There are a number of clauses within the sub-underlease and within the side agreement that enable both the library group and the council to break the agreement, should there be a reason to do so, and in turn, we have break clauses in our underlease with Freshwater, so should there arise a scenario whereby the charity is unable to provide the service and the council decides it, therefore, isn't going to have a library there, we have a number of opportunities to walk away. I think I should draw members' attention to why we're deciding this, and it's probably 6.4 on page 96, is the considerations, the four considerations that have to be made. Whether the financial assistant, directly or indirectly, from public resources by public authority, does the financial assistant confer an economic advantage on one or more enterprises? Is the financial assistant specific, and having a side letter would make it very specific about what we expect of Hampshire Garden, our library, I think it's the C&C, it's a charitable company, isn't it? And will it have an effect on competition or investment within the UK, which I doubt, as it's not a trade or investment. But if we're satisfied that these are reaped, what we're being asked to agree to, or the recommendation, is a sublease to the library, a side letter also to the library, and if I'm right, the side letter is something that's just between us and the library, that freshwater needs a nose there, but don't have a say over or can't alter. That's correct, yes. It's between us and the library. We needed freshwater's consent to enter into it, but they're not a party to it. But they're not a party to it, yep, okay. So, have people got any questions? Councillor Cornwall. I would just like to make a comment as the Councillor in the neighbouring ward, because I do appreciate that it's not formally best consideration in the terms of Section 1, 2, 3, but I think, certainly from my knowledge of them, it is a fairly modest contribution to unlock a lot of goodwill from those who run it in a very professional and passionate way, actually. It's delivered by local people with a modest input from library services, but actually of quite high quality, because they rely on the library services to make sure that it is up to the standards of a library in terms of content. And people will have the impression, I suspect, that it's Humpstead Gardens suburb, it's a very affluent, broadly affluent community, but I know that as a member of a neighbouring ward, actually there are residents within that area. They're right, there is hidden poverty and hidden need in areas close to that, and I know that there is use of the library by some of those residents, and so it is greater than the impact that you might see on paper. And certainly from the correspondence I got when it was challenging and request to intercede on their behalf, I know it is very well appreciated and supported by many people, so thank you. Here we are. Good words about it. Any other comments or to remove the recommendations? The cabinet approves the grant of the sub-underleash to gardens suburb community library limited on terms that are shown in appendix B. The cabinet approves the grant of the side letter to gardens suburb community library limited in accordance with the terms set out in appendix C to this report. The side letter will be an exclusive arrangement between the council and gardens suburb community library limited and not capable of assignment, and the cabinet delegates authority to the lead officer and head of property and portfolio management in consultation with the leader to approve any minor amendments. I think those recommendations also cover what's in the accept section, so can we accept the recommendations and be satisfied that we don't need to go into the exempt because it's covered in the discussion we've had already. Are people agreed? All right, thank you. The next item is the sustainability program update that I believe Councillor Sniderman is leading on. Thank you, leader. So this is an update on our sustainability program, and we declared that sustainability and biodiversity emergency just over two years ago, but it's good to take the opportunity within this report to reconfirm our commitment to that. But the declaration is important as it was. More important is the action that we're going to take, and this report and the appendix, which has got the full annual report, sets out all of the stuff that we have done over the last year and indeed over the last couple of years. Notably, that includes our citizens assembly and young people's assemblies, which have greatly contributed to our sustainability action plan. There's lots of details in the report, and I can see Jugita has popped up on the screen there. Some of the highlights are including the start we've made on retrofitting EV charge points, converting streetlights to LEDs, planting a record number of trees and the sustainable urban drainage scheme, which I think is absolutely brilliant, that I referred to earlier. And importantly, some of these things are not just helping the environment, they're helping the financial sustainability of the Council, particularly with regards to, you know, the LED streetlights, and also with retrofitting and insulation, they're actually helping residents financially. I'm sure Barry, Councillor Rawlings, looking forward to reading out the full recommendations in a moment, but recommendations also include, importantly, adding a work stream on climate adaptation and resilience, which we will add to our sustainability action plan. And there's a workshop coming up for members organised by Bloomberg, so we can actually look at how that can be embedded within the planning decisions that we take. The recommendation also includes producing a climate budget, which is a bit of a confusing concept to explain, that is not a separate budget, but is a way of identifying measures that reduce carbon emissions within the normal financial budget setting process. The final recommendation is just to note that the Programme Director for Culture and Sustainability, Yogita Popat, who's there, who's already in place, is the lead officer for climate change. So, as I say, there's loads more details in the report and in the full sustainability report, which is a very good read, so please do look at that to see all of what's going on. But, of course, we've got lots more to do to reach our net zero, challenging net zero targets. Did you mention street lighting? I go back to the adult perception survey, where 81% was satisfied with the street lighting, up from 74% two years ago. We've just addressed that the early delighting is actually light, as well as cutting down some of the carbon costs. If I were to do any questions, does I suppose Yogita or Deborah want to talk to the report? Thank you, and I think some of this we're waiting for, to know, to see what the actual difference things like British Energy made to work with London Councils on some of the power issues about how clean power and so on. So, from what I gather, although we've already declared it, this is a bit like when we're doing Labour Party stuff and somebody has to take a picture on Twitter to show it exists, that we work in some virtual world. So, although we declared it, this is to put it in writing, that we've declared it. Anyway, any questions for Alan or the officer? Councillor Begg. Thank you, sir. It's a brilliant report, really highlights all the progress that has been made. So, my question really is, do we think that communities have been engaged enough and community participation? So, it's the communities that are going to feel this difference in net zero work that we are doing, and particularly young communities. So, do you think enough has been done to involve them? I'll make a start. I think, yes, I think we have done a lot and we are doing more. I mean, we started with our Citizens' Assembly and Young People's Assemblies, which have never been tried in Barnet before. And indeed, we've had lots of interest from other authorities in showing the good practice and how we did that. We had a range of action groups that came out of those assemblies that carried on the work within the community. We've got recently Community Energy Barnet has just been formed to start taking forward community energy projects within the borough. And that's led by members of the community. And as Gita said, we're going to look to involve the community in the climate adaptation and resilience work going forward. So, like across the whole council, I think we've done a lot to involve the community, and definitely in the sustainability area. Councilor Moore, then Councilor Houston. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Councilor Schneider, for what I think is a very exciting and full report, and something that I can absolutely get behind. What I was just going to raise the issue about, as we start to promote this, certainly for parts of the community, people would benefit from understanding the wider impact of a range of this work on broader health implications. So, climate resilience against rising summer temperatures have a very clear health impact, particularly on our older residents. Rising summer temperatures have all sorts of negative health impacts, as does the air quality impact of decarbonizing, particularly of transport. There are all sorts of very clear evidence now about the impacts of poor air quality, both on children and on older people. And tree planting is one of the things in its own right, but actually the positive impacts around combating the urban heat island effect goes further to improve communities' resilience against rising temperatures. So, I really appreciate the report and support it, but I hope we'll be able to feed that in, and certainly I would welcome and recognize the sorts of work that goes on in our schools through the education programs, because young people can be incredibly evangelical about environmental issues, and can convince the rest of the community as well. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to draw the Cabinet Member's attention to the really good work that's been done by Barnet Homes in relation to retrofit energy saving measures in over 600 Council homes. An additional 100 homes are going to be retrofitted through the Social Housing Decarbonization Fund, and we've submitted by March 2025, and we're submitting a bid with other via-London councils and a consortium for further funding from the Social Housing Decarbonization Fund. I think one of the things to say about the net-zero agenda when it comes to housing is that even if climate change wasn't an issue, and it is an issue, actually this investment is lowering people's fuel bills and basically dealing with cost of living pressures in people in low incomes. I think it would be the right thing to do irrespective of climate change, but actually it's a very good example of a double win, because by doing the right thing by our planet, we're also doing the right thing, lowering the costs for people who are struggling to make ends meet, with all the pressures of living in London under the cost of living crisis that we've been through. So it's really a very positive investment, and I look forward to the Government bringing further measures, but I think we are well placed to be able to be one of those boroughs that actually is leading on this, not following, because actually we've done a lot of good work already, and Government want partners who can deliver their agenda in terms of retrofitting quickly and efficiently, and I think Planet Homes and the Council are well placed to be able to do that. Yeah, as I said, some of this is waiting to see what the national change is, isn't it? Any other comments? Or if Alan wants to sum up? Yeah, well just to say, I mean there's been some good comments, and it's a great report, just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Jugita and the team who put this together, and who have been instrumental in driving this work forward. I mean, Council Houston talked about being ready to deliver for the Government, and equally we've got a really good relationship with the GLA, we met with the Deputy Mayor for Environment a couple of weeks ago, and they recognise that from a low base, Barnet is now one of the leading authorities, we've got lots of programmes, we've got lots of ideas, and we're very keen to work with Government, GLA and other partners to take that forward. Thank you people, happy we go to the recommendations. Right, the recommendations. Cabinet reconfirms their commitment to the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency Declaration issued in May 2022 and noted in June 2022. Cabinet to note the progress achieved in delivering the Sustainability Action Plan to date, and to include an additional work stream within it to support climate adaptation and resilience. Cabinet delegate authority to the Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change in consultation with the Programme Director, Culture and Sustainability, the monitoring and updating of the Sustainability Action Plan, and to oversee the process of producing a climate budget to address the residual funding gap, and following the changes to the Council Senior Management Team structure approved at Council on the 21st of May 2024, the Council notes the Programme Director, Culture and Sustainability already imposed as the lead officer for climate change. We happy to agree those recommendations? Moving on to the final item, well, the forward plan is the Chief Financial Officer's report, which is both the quarter one financial forecast and the budget management. Councillor Deneckley. Thank you very much, Leader. Quite a substantial report, and naturally the contents of it and the implications of it are equally substantial. May I just start by expressing my sincere gratitude to the Finance Team in the Council for both putting the report together, but also all of the oversight work that it betokens, that there's a huge amount of work that's now being done with service directorates across the organisation, and the Finance Team have done an extraordinary amount of work to embed themselves within the functioning of the Council in order to provide us with the level of context and detail that we can see in this report. Speaking of context, I think it's important to start with that concept. The report itself is obviously emergent from a background of financial activity and an environment in which we currently exist financially. So the context falls into two categories. We have a national and how that manifests locally. In terms of the national context, people have heard me say this. In the past, local government finance is in a dire situation, exacerbated by 14 years of underinvestment and, to a certain extent, undervaluing of what local government has to offer and the role it plays within an individual's life, both civic and/or otherwise. As a consequence of that, we find ourselves in a position where we are providing more and more services. We're actually required, we are enjoined by law to provide those services with ever-diminishing resources. The spending power of local authorities, particularly in London, has dwindled in that same period of time and that shouldn't be forgotten as we move forward and the current government does take that very, very seriously. But in much more recent times, we have seen dramatic financial events that have had ripple effects on our current situation, which we've had to deal with during the time that we have been in the administration. So these were not things that we were aware of or could have been aware of prior and we have had to figure out how best is within our ability to respond to those fiscal calamities whilst also being aspirational forward thinking and wanting the best for our residents. The fiscal event I'm referring to in September of 2022, when Liz Truss was Prime Minister, also briefly has still cut impact, has impacts on us. The inflationary and interest rate consequences that that resulted in nationwide have had very pertinent local effects on us, which I shall speak to when we refer to what the report is actually telling us about in-year spend. Locally, however, there is an important thing to mention, which is we had a change of government structure at the beginning of our administration, which was necessary because we knew that there would be challenges that we faced, not necessarily the scale of the financial challenge we see here. We didn't forecast that, but we knew that agility would be required and a degree of focus and attention that unified all elements of the executive so that all members, executive members who are responsible for service directorates were able to share their views around a single table. And that is largely why we moved to a cabinet and scrutiny system from the rather inefficient and laborious committee system that existed previously. The way that that system has a lax oversight of the financial situation of the Council is something we are dealing with now. The consequences of an inability to properly understand the financial consequences of decision making in the long term is clearly laid out in this particular report. So what does the report actually tell us? If I can turn to page 137 of the cabinet papers in brief, this is the situation we face. We finished last year. The end of year downturn report resulted in a 22 million pound overspend, which needed to draw down our reserves to a level below the 40 million threshold that we consider financially optimal. I suppose it's the best term. We have a strategy document, a policy document within the Council that states that that is the optimum position that our general fund non-amark reserves ought to be at. At the end of the first quarter, unfortunately, we are seeing an end of year position that looks very similar to that. However, we do not benefit from the cushion of a reserve position in the same way as we did last year, which makes this an even more acute problem than the potential overspend last year. And I don't want that to go over as though I'm suggesting it as somehow not extremely serious. It is something that the administration has taken note of as a serious concern, and we've already gone into, we've already undertaken a series of activities and measures to intervene to ensure that this particular situation doesn't end up being our end of year position. Some of the factors that relate to why the end year overspend is at the position it is, perhaps my colleagues will assist me on areas specific to their directorates, but the pressures that were facing us in the last financial year have not dissipated, they've not disappeared. In certain areas, particularly adults and children's services, they have in fact become more acute and more pronounced. But in this particular year, one of the emergent pressures that we are facing is the temporary accommodation pressure that is more acutely felt in Barnet because of certain local factors, those being a small social housing stock, once again, consequence of decades of underfunding and under emphasis on providing that level of stock, private landlords leaving the industry so that it means that we are more reliant on emergency temporary accommodation to meet our housing obligations. And of course, there hasn't been an increase in applicants for accommodation as well. So all of those factors have mounted in year and have caused a degree of pressure on that element of our expenditure. What are we doing? What is it that we've already started to do to meet this challenge? We haven't just shown up at the cabinet meeting saying this is an awful situation and we've got no idea what we're doing. We spent an entire summer coming together with a plan of intervention to get to understand the fundamentals of why the organization is overspending in the way that it is and put in place measures to try and overcome that. So August was quite an invasive learning exercise. I think officers would agree. One to two and a half hour sessions with service directors querying every single line of their budget expenditure and making them defend, to a certain extent, why the expenditure was necessary and essential. And that has led to the development of what we're calling an organization-wide recovery plan. The specific details of which are yet to be formalized because we're still waiting on those figures to be verified. But it is the first element of what we're looking to put in place. Additionally, there are weekly control panel sessions now, I think four days a week, in particular for the benefit of the adults and children's services. We don't want, if there is essential spend, to be done in those directories for the service areas to have to wait a week or longer to sign it off. So we've put in place a weekly program of that sort, which takes into account all expenditure. It does not matter for the purposes of asking the service director to justify that expenditure, what the nature of the spend is or where the funding source comes from. Everything needs to be assessed in first principles. And that includes new contracts, it includes agency spend, it includes all discretionary spend over 5,000 pounds. So we've had the control panels put in. Moving forward, we're going to... So the other thing we've also done is submitted to the government spending review as part of their consultation to put together the autumn budget what the specific factors in Barnet are that need to be addressed. The particular unique factors we find in adult social care, people living longer with complex comorbidities and poor health, our temporary accommodation situation and such like. So we presented to national government what we're facing locally. It isn't just a generic problem that we've said that it is not something that we require specific focus on. I think I will actually leave it there. There will be observations that colleagues will be presenting in the discussion that I can respond to. But I think that the core message to take away for the benefit of residents is that the situation is serious. We are aware of that. But they should be heartened by having a labour administration in place to deal with it and a labour government to assist. Thank you very much. Yes, I think we can add to that. One of the issues is, as you say, when we took over the administration, things didn't seem too bad. But the more we looked under the bonnet, the more we found out how poor decision making was, how things were gathering that was going to cause us problems. The lack of well, some of the things to do with liquidity management would have helped. But one of the things we've done, obviously, is bring in more services in-house, because part of the problem is we didn't have enough control over it. Some of the steering was out of our hands. And if we're going to make a difference, which we need to, because bonnet deserve it, if we're going to bring the budget under control, which we will, because we have to. And then people will talk about statutory services for children and adults. Actually, balancing the books is also a statutory service, otherwise commissioners come in. So it's important that we recognise it's a big task. The advantage of a cabinet system is we found out about it a lot earlier than we would have. We're up for the task and we know that we can make the difference to the residents of bonnet by improving this situation. And it's not waiting to see what government does. It's doing things all the time, making a difference, making sure the budget is rained in. And I'll open it up to whether any officers or cabinet members want to make any comments. Councillor Houston. I think it would be, it's important to make a comment about one of the biggest pressures which Councillor McPhee mentioned, which is the temporary accommodation, rise in cost. We've traditionally had a very good record of predicting temporary accommodation. I think that the record is good. And what we have faced is an unprecedented change in circumstances. This is reflected in temporary accommodation pressures across other boroughs in London. And it's led to a kind of perfect storm where there's a substantial budget pressure as a result of that. I mean, it takes, there's a number of factors in relation to that. One of the biggest factors is the change in demand. We've had 1,596 new housing applications open in the five months to the end of August 2024. That is 65% more than in the August period in 2022. That is a massive, massive difference. Combined on top of that, the cost of temporary accommodation, as Councillor McPhee mentioned, has gone up. It's, we're now having to use, or basically the private rent sector cost, the market is not, I think the best way of describing it would be not, you know, we've got a real, it's broken actually. There is a crisis in London in relation to housing people who need housing. And basically the temporary accommodation costs, the supply, and the cost of temporary accommodation has gone up considerably, not just the demand, but the cost. And we're using a nightly paid temporary accommodation now. The rates for that can vary from, you know, one of the statistics that I just to share with you for one bed, the annual cost variation on a monthly basis goes up from 7,000 for one bed to 11,000 in April to 11,000 in July. That's a considerable difference. And that's just one bed. I think there's also been a problem with some of the projected supply of a lot of our housing. We've obviously been, as a council, investing in our own council housing. And let's say the Colindale Gardens, I was very pleased to be able to go out with local councilors at an event to celebrate the kind of handover of Colindale Gardens and the occupation of it by residents, 249 units. And that was done just last week. And we actually, that investment, which was from the housing revenue account, is projected to save the general fund 800,000 a year. So we have been doing our best to save program in relation to investing in housing to try and meet the need. One of the problems we've had is there has been, a lot of the housing supply in any London borough is delivered through housing associations getting section 106, basically affordable housing, being picked up by housing associations and delivered by housing associations. And we obviously nominate people from our waiting list to that housing. And actually, the supply of that has not been, it has been less than predicted. So again, that's also partly as a result of some housing, basically a lot of housing associations have pulled back on their investment programs because they're in financial difficulties. So I think one of the, there are many reasons for that, we've discussed this before, but one of the biggest things, as Councilman Ackley points out, was the inflation, the base of interest rates. The interest rates have been crippling in relation to supplying, you know, anything to do with investment. And I think that is a real concern. One of the things that we have in the area that which I'm responsible for, we've been looking at, is to go through the capital program to see where we can actually make and pretty radically look at the capital program and agree basic principles about what we will invest in. Quite a lot of our capital program is tied up with government grant and programs that have already been agreed. A lot of the Brent Cross they spend is in that category. But we have been going through it very ruthlessly with Councilman Ackley and with officers to look at what we, you know, what is essential and what isn't essential. Because we do need to make savings and borrowing costs are higher than predicted. One of, it is a shame that we weren't able to borrow more money when interest rates were lower and we have been using, you know, but I think the principle that's now been established is that when we have, with the capital program, is that we have to finance it and that internal borrowing isn't the way to do it. Any capital scheme has to be justifiable in its own terms going forward and fully costed and I think that's one of the things that, you know, I'm very grateful to officers and also Councilman Ackley is bringing that degree of discipline to the budget process. We've had whole day sessions with cabinet and officers and I certainly feel I understand my budget area better than I, you know, I did two years ago, even a year ago, and I think there are, you know, there are reasons, there are whole, you know, basically the governance around budgeting I think wasn't there in terms of Councillors. When I moved into my role as Chair of the Housing and Growth Committee that then was and I think, you know, I definitely feel I've got far greater understanding of the budget process than I did but I think it's been very difficult because I do think that, you know, that we've definitely been a learning process in terms of how we do budget management and I think going forward I feel far more confident that I understand when we're making decisions that are informed decisions and I think that's really important. I don't think I felt like that two and a half years ago. I was taking, you know, we were taking things on, you know, and I think that's a major change. Anybody else? Councillor Begg. So obviously every pound counts, not just today or tomorrow, but in future years. So I've noticed that we are writing off huge amounts of debt here and a lot of it seems to be untraceable. There's some quite large amounts of LA mistakes. So is it time for us to look at our processes and systems to see this doesn't happen again? I find it quite astonishing that in this day and age we can't trace people that are owing debt to a local authority and some of those are really high debt. So we've got some people here that haven't paid 43,000. Most of them are double numbers. So what I really would like to be reassured with is that we do look at the systems again to see how quickly we catch the debt going into long term, because this is public money that we need to get back with possibly with reformed systems. Yeah, I don't know if one of the officers want to mention that, but I will say when a debt becomes too difficult or too expensive to retrieve because it's too old or we can't trace the people, it is a good accounting practice to actually write it off because we can't make assumptions on it. But I don't know if Kevin or Dean want to talk about the efforts that go into recovering the money. Yeah, I just wanted to endorse Councillor Begg's concern about the issue of debt, because when you do look at it it is quite substantial, but I take on board what Dean is saying. I do think officers, to be fair, have been working, particularly in outdoor social care, trying to get some of that debt down, and we shouldn't forget that. But I do think that maybe it might have to be a closed session, I don't know, but we do need to maybe as a cabinet collectively look at if we can do any more, because some of those debts are quite substantial, and the ones that obviously I understand from an accounting point of view, it's better to write some of them off, but some of them are quite large, and it's easy for us to try and pursue people who are our own tenants to get that debt back, but for people who are not, it looks like it's much more difficult, and obviously we do have, with offices on outdoor social care, there are significant debts from people who should have been paying when they've been getting care, and then someone's passed away, and then the whole issue of who is the PAP, who has powers of attorney, and how we can get that off them. So it is quite complicated, but I do think it might be useful to see whether we can, are there any other ways of trying to increase our debt collection, but I also wanted just to say something about adult social care, particularly in relation to some of the pressures, and I think what's important for members to know or to understand is that it's a fact that it's much more expensive to keep people who qualify for adult social care at home and in the community, and what we're seeing is a decline in the numbers of people who go into residential care and going into nursing care, and rightly so in my view, because it means that they remain in their own homes in the local community, but it's important that we realise that there's a cost implication for that, it's much cheaper for the council to place people in nursing care or residential homes, it's actually quite unlawful to actually force people to do that against their will, but but I do think it's important to understand that marketplace in terms of the pressures on adult social care, so keeping people at home in the local community is the most expensive way of doing it, but it's the most dignified way of supporting our citizens, so I just wanted to raise that as part of the overall debate, thanks. It's going to be looked at and some of this is questions of interest on whether a debt is secured or not, but Kevin did you want to come in? And I think some of it is should we first of all offer some debt advice rather than go straight in with you know the bailiffs could come round type thing, so there are different ways of collecting debt as Dean said and what we do need to look at it. Anybody else? Any comments? Thank you leader, it should be said that there are other elements of the program that we offer that sort of offset the cost of living pressures that may well be generating a situation when people enter into debt. Our benefits calculator is truly quite an innovative tool that I encourage residents to make use of if they need to. I should pick up on something that Councillor Houston very usefully and helpfully referred to. I did say that I would explain why the rise in interest rates was more acutely impactful to local government practice and Barnet and just neglected to do so. So the debt financing portion of our revenue budget commitments currently stands at 4.2 million which is not an insubstantial amount of money and it is a concern for us were that figure to increase particularly in the short term given the pressures it will cause on other service areas. Now naturally that is, there are very complex reasons for that but ultimately comes down to an administrative choice in the past by previous administrations to finance their capital works by internally borrowed revenue rather than going out and borrowing money when it was affordable to do so and at a time now when we are obligated to fulfil certain capital works priorities we have no choice but to go out and borrow that money instead. So there are certain factors that legacy issues relating to decisions made by previous administrations which have made the interest rate spike particularly difficult for us to manage as an issue which will then consequently mean that we have to make some very difficult decisions on what exactly we consider genuinely essential priorities. That's the level of seriousness with which we have to now make this the decision making in financial terms. Thank you. Any other comments? On this there's two parts of the recommendation. One is noting and one is approving. Just to make sure people are aware, the approvals are the changes to the capital programme that Councillor used to mention. The write-offs that Councillor Begg and Edwards mentioned. Also two environments of 5.2 and 5.3. One is two million to the capital financing budget from contingency because of the cost of the borrowing and the other one is just to, it's almost to note because the decision has been made of a staffing budget due to a restructure of 213,000. Anyway, having pointed that out, the recommendations that cabinet notes the forecast out turn for 24/25 against the council's revenue budget, the current use of reserves and the outlook, the expenditure against capital budgets in the year and the work underway to contain expenditure within budgets but also for the cabinet to approve. The changes to the existing capital programme in relation to additions are set out in sections 6.8 and 6.9 in accordance with the environment rules. The write-offs for housing benefits, sundry debt and council tax arrears as detailed in section 7 and in appendix B, C and D and lastly two environments as detailed in sections 5.2 and 5.3. Can we agree with all those? No. Thank you. Then it's a case of noting the cabinet forward plan. Just a very, very minor point on the forward plan. You'll have noticed that the agenda, the eagle-eyed will have noticed the agenda today said we had adults and children's resident perception survey and we actually looked at the adults one. The agenda for next month says we have the adults and children's resident perception survey and that's the children's one. So just a technicality. It's a case of keeping people guessing, there's no problem with that. Make it a bit more exciting. If there's no urgent business, as far as I know, we don't need to move into exempt because we've taken that. So that's the end of the meeting. Thank you everybody.

Transcript

Speakers, please turn on the microphone by pressing the speaker icon when speaking and off when finished. Please speak directly into the microphone so that the audio can be picked up clearly for those joining the meeting in the gallery and remotely. Are the minutes of the previous meeting held on 16 July 2024 agreed as a correct record? Agreed. Absence of members, I have received apologies from Councillor Conway. Do members have any declarations to make in relation to any of the agenda items? Take that as a no. Right, now the Constitution states that councillors may ask a cabinet member a question of any matter on the cabinet agenda. The first four questions will be from the opposition group members, and I don't know if you can choose between you who's going to ask those questions. Members will be rotating between the groups. Anyway, if you want to come up, Peter, and the 15 minutes will start when you ask your first question, all right? Thank you. I thought it would be a good place to start with the finance report, and one of the things that is in the finance report that I don't quite understand the detail of is that you suggest that the deficit this year of 20 million, which is after using 18 million of reserves, therefore on an ongoing basis is 38 million, is also after a recovery plan, which is an in-year recovery plan of 7.4 million. Now, the recovery plan seems a bit mysterious, because I can't find where this recovery plan was discussed or mentioned other than in this report, and I wondered what services were contributing to this recovery plan, and what consultation was planned, what inequalities impact assessments had been done in relation to the savings associated with that 7.4 million, because it is treated in the paper as if it's a given, and yet it's appeared out of nowhere, and I didn't know that service changes of this scale could be made without them being agreed in detail by Cabinet, so I wondered how this could possibly be. Thank you, leader. So I'll respond to the various elements of that question. So you began, Councillor, by mentioning the 18 million of reserves that were applied to offset the 38 million overspend in years, so those were earmarked reserves that were used for specific purposes. The 20 million overspend is only what we would, in the worst case scenario, have to cover for non-earmarked general fund reserves, so that's why we were focusing in on that particular figure rather than the overall overspend. In terms of recovery plans, I think moving forward we may have to be a little bit more precise in what we mean by that term, because there's almost two iterations of recovery plans. There's an immediate direction that we gave executive directors to do whatever they could within their available remit to reduce the overspend that they find within their directed areas, and then there's a subsequent organisation-wide recovery plan that is being put together and currently being costed in its entirety that emerged as a result of extensive discussions over the course of August, which I can speak to now. I was going to during my report, but in summary, they were start chamber style sessions that lasted between two and a half hours, one to two and a half hours, depending on the magnitude of the directorate's budget and the extent of the overspend, where there was, in quite excoriating detail, disgust why spend was happening at all and why a particular spend that was over and above budgetary envelope threshold levels wasn't accounted for. As a result of those discussions over the course of August, we had a session with senior officers and all cabinet members as a half-day session to itemise those elements within our organisation-wide recovery plan that we considered palatable to take forward and get robust costings on. They will be fully costed in the coming weeks and we'll be able to present them publicly hereafter, but it's been referred to in the report. Sorry. My understanding was that there are two recovery plans. There's a 7.4 million, which is included in the current figures as an assumption that it will be delivered in determining the deficits at paragraph 1.6 of the report. And my question is not about what you are doing to deal with the 20 million plus the 18, because the real deficit on an ongoing basis next year is 38. So for budgeting purposes, I would argue the budget is really or the cost savings that you need to be looking at is 38. But very specifically, in paragraph 1.6, you refer to a 7.3 something cost saving. And the question that I have is a really simple question. Given that that cost saving is included in the 20 million, i.e. you assume that it happens, then it must be specific items, otherwise you couldn't have included it. So my question is what is in that 7.3 million and how could you decide to do that without it coming to cabinet, without consultation, without any quality impact assessment, unless you're prepared to give us an absolute assurance that no services are being removed in that 7.3 million? We rely upon the professional judgment of executive directors to determine whether or not a particular service level reduction constitutes something that would come to the stage of requiring impact assessment or would detrimentally affect the provision of service in a particular area. So if it is the judgment of officers after we've given the direction to do what is required to bring overspend thresholds back to the position that they were when we set the budget, then that's an operational decision that the organization is entirely entitled to make. We've given a strategic direction and whatever operational decision making is required to facilitate that is entirely feasible without a cabinet level or indeed council-wide decision. I'm not entirely sure if yours is a question of governance or if it's a question of service provision, but it doesn't. The answer is it's both, because I think that a 7.3 million reduction in cost is actually quite significant and therefore I have asked officers what is in that 7.3 million? But I'm asking you as the cabinet member or the cabinet, what is in that 7.3 million? Because it seems to me that the residents of the borough are entitled to know. And this is only the first step in the cost reduction that's going to be needed. And therefore to me it's a fundamental piece of governance that if we are reducing cost that the residents of this borough are entitled to know what is not going to happen. If I can help. There's a couple of things in what you say, Peter. The 7 million are ones that the services have offered up that do not need an Equalities Impact Assessment, do not result in any reduction in services, in the main services like adults and children and is put into the MTFS already. What you're talking about is the next lot of the recovery plan, which is the bigger map. We're waiting for those figures to be valid. When they're validated they will come to cabinet and there will be the opportunity for scrutiny calling. So the recovery plans will have the opportunity to go to scrutiny and will be coming to cabinet, so we're waiting for some validation. And whether any further savings do need an Equality Impact Assessment they will have one because it's a legal necessity. Now I understand that, so you are absolutely confident that the 7.3 million which have been offered up by the services do not involve any significant service reductions? They are about how services are delivered, rather than cutting jobs or anything. However, I'm not promising we will do what is necessary to bring this under control. We inherited a machine that looked good and gleaming when we first got it, then realised it had no real steering and had been out of control for a while and we're having to bring it back in order. We are determined to do that. We will do that. Part of that is the recovery plan. Part of that is, as you have gone through with you, some of the processes we're doing about spend and some of it is about freezing spend. I would make one request, obviously, which is not going to be dealt with tonight, which is that if somebody could send me an analysis of the 7.3 million I would be very grateful. I do think it's something which the administration should think about publishing. Just moving on for a second, in the press release which the Council issued that accompanied this report, the comment was made by Councillor Knacke that the deficit, which you were referring to the 20 million number rather than the 38 million number or whatever, and that, of course, doesn't include the short term, sorry, it does include the short term benefit that we get for two years from the pensions reduction, but that doesn't go on forever. So the underlying level of benefit, of benefit to the budget from sill monies, pension monies and other things means that the underlying running deficit is really very, very large indeed. The question that arises is, in your press release you said that this was equivalent to 5% of the budget, but the reality is that that is true at one level, but unfortunately we have statutory obligations in relation to adults and children and paying our interest bill, which means that the non-statutory element of the budget is massively less than the whole budget. So given that the deficit, the running deficit is of the order of £40 million, it's arguable that that is close to 100% of the things that we do not have to do. So that the scale of the cost savings that you're going to have to contemplate in the Recovery 2 plan relative to the things that really matter to the residents are very, very large. So why did you imply in that press release that this was a 5% problem when it's probably somewhere between a 50% and 100% problem of the things that we're actually allowed to deal with? That particular comment, leader, if I may say, almost encapsulates everything that differentiates a Labour administration from a Conservative one. I do take seriously your knowledge of the structural problems relating to the budget, given that your administration was so heavily responsible for them and you were aware of them at the time when you were in charge. So to a certain extent, yes, we have inherited this and we're dealing with it in a responsible and appropriate way, in a way which allows us to be an administration which is wholly different from what was before. What you're asking is be less aspirational, be more like us, have less interest in providing a decent quality of service provision for residents across Barnet that actually differentiates you as an administration. And to that extent I refuse. We are going to deal with the debt problem that we find. We're going to handle overspends, we're going to figure out exactly how to get the budget under control, but we're not going to give up what makes us unique and what makes our administration more beneficial for the residents of Barnet. I would never ask you to give up, but that was not the question that I was asking. What I was asking was in the press release you explicitly implied this was a 5% problem. The words that you used could not have been clearer. My point is that is utterly misleading to residents because of the statutory expenditure that we have to make. It's nothing to do with aspiration and three years in it's a bit rich to blame everything on the previous administration. I have one final question if there's time, but if not I understand. I could just say it's not, believe me we're not blaming everything on the previous administration. There's a lot of blame for the Conservative National Government as well. So you can share the blame with them. 30 seconds go on you've got one more. This is a personal bugbear which is I think on page 36 and page 73 of papers you refer to HMO licensing. But the implication of particularly page 73 is that HMO licensing is a money spinner because it's about the fact that the backlog of HMO licensing is reduced. And obviously the council gets money in from HMO licensing. My concern is the other end of the telescope which is to me HMO licensing is about making sure that the quality of accommodation in HMOs is good. And I believe that the motivation of the HMO licensing department as I experienced it and it doesn't look as though it's changed is about bringing in money not about improving the quality of accommodation. And I would therefore please ask you to look at that because the words that are in your paper strongly imply that HMO licensing is seen by those who do it as purely about getting money in and not about improving the quality of accommodation. Councillor Zingavala, I assure you that's not the case. I mean as you know this is a we have licensed HMOs for some time in Barnet. We have to reflect in finance papers the reality of the cost of the service in relation to whether it's able to cover it. And there is obviously the team itself has made good progress in dealing with backlog of licensing which is good. There's been a lot of it's a really invaluable part of that team is really valuable part of what the council does and they provide really good services and they've been invaluable in dealing with the cladding issue, the low-rise cladding issue, that expertise is really valued but they are making an effort to get the process, the licensing far more quicker as the papers in our plan for Barnet state and also the other paper. Undoubtedly you have to refer to the bottom line, it's the same for parking, you know. All these sort of things you have to say if there's a financial implication, the papers have to reflect that but it's certainly not the motivation for doing it and we provide a service. It gives reassurance to good landlords and it gives reassurance to people in shared accommodation. As you know the accommodation pressures are horrendous at the moment and getting licensing right and running an efficient service that is actually a win for both the landlords and for tenants, so yeah. But I'll just reassure you at that point, it's absolutely not done as a way of making money. I think on these things because you're allowed full cost recovery, it's financed against staff but that costing is somewhere else so you put it as an income. My concern has always been about the inspection regime which is I know during COVID that there were problems but I was exceedingly anxious about the amount of time they spent doing paperwork versus actually inspecting what the state of HMOs were and I would just urge you to look at that, that's all. Okay, the 15 minutes you're up, I've been told, yeah we can send you something about the recovery plan, not just an analysis but we can have some explanatory notes to make it easier to understand. Okay, if we move on to the next item with the outcome of off-state inspection, Councillor Cokley Webb. Yeah, thank you. I don't know how many people have had a real chance to read through all of this report but when we look at how far the service has come, I personally want to still place again on record my thanks to all the staff that work within this service that not only worked incredibly hard to give us such a good result for the off-state but permanently worked really hard for good outcomes for our young people and I'm particularly proud of all the extra co-working we've done, so the way that we actually include young people in the decision-making, something that obviously didn't happen years ago and how they actually value what we do in terms of asking their views and incorporating their views into their care and what we do for them and how we inform them and what's important to them. I'm sure Mr Mundy will probably expand a bit more but when you look at the actual off-state judgement, I mean, they're single lines where you've got a good, good, outstanding good and good but when you look into the depth of everything that went into it to actually achieve this, it is really outstanding from my point of view the work that has been put in and continues to be put in because it's not just something that's done for off-state, it's something that happens every day of the year to make sure that all the young people in the borough get the best outcomes possible, whatever the situation. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I'm very proud of the outcomes that we've had for our off-state. You'll be aware that the new government have suggested that single word judgements should go for schools. We're also hoping that they'll make the same approach to children's social care which is also struggles with a complex service being judged by a single word. Some of the words are really good and we're really pleased at the progress that we've made and actually if you read the letter in detail, you'll see a whole range of really positive interventions and findings. Colleagues who read these letters a lot have all queried with me why the judgments were so low in comparison to the text but that's a question for off-state. We've set out an action plan saying what we will do to address the issues that off-state have identified which we are implementing so they are generally administrative and we will seek to put those systems in place that will ensure those processes work more openly. So I'm really pleased with the overall outcome, very proud of the staff that we have working for Barnet who have really worked hard over the last five years and we're really committed to implementing the further changes that we need to do to ensure that all children and young people in Barnet flourish, especially those that we are responsible for and that we continue to co-create and co-produce services with them that meet their needs. I'm happy to take any questions. I'll open it for any questions but I think it should be noted our congratulations to the staff, the young people and the families who took part in this. Anything people want to raise? Councillor Moore? I've got a question at the end but it's more by way of comment. I would echo the comments that have been made about staff but I think highlighting one particular phrase within the report I think is really important, that the staff are skilled, tenacious and passionate in what they do with children and I think that sums up the feeling I have when I talk to members of your service. Obviously there are many children and young people who have faced challenges but those for whom we have a particular responsibility as corporate parents will obviously have greater challenges in their lives and I think it's really pleasing to see particularly the outstanding judgement with regards to young people in care because they are the top of the triangle in terms of those children for whom we are responsible as corporate parents. So I just wanted to note that. Just also to comment, pleased to see the positive comments about the virtual school, particularly about the MASH, multi-agency safeguarding hub as a governor. It's certainly one of those services that schools have relied on for a range of different issues and really important and then also I would of course say this but in section 38 of the letter talks about health assessments for those children in care including dental and optician's appointments and this has been a challenging area in the past so it was good to see a positive judgement there. My question really was regarding the action plan and your progress on that. Obviously you've got deadlines of this month and next for a number of elements of that but there was one that you'd set yourself a deadline of August so I was just curious to how you've made progress with that part of the action plan. This is my first time back since I've been on leave. I'm absolutely convinced that my staff will have implemented the particular actions that they've got. I know some of them were being actioned immediately and so I'll write to you to let you know the particular update on that August action. Just for anyone who's watching, they are systems issues and it's important to get them right but they were not major criticisms of the department and so it's just really, it will be useful to know that those have gone into place because it's strengthened the system. Thank you. So my deep congratulations to you Chris and to your staff for this remarkable achievement. As we know the children in care and care leavers are some of the most vulnerable people in our society facing a huge amount of inequalities so this is an excellent start by the bar of getting this kind of result so there's more to build on but it's excellent so congratulations to you and your staff. As a school governor, having been through an off state not that far back, to get an outstanding and clearly good judgments which were very clearly in some cases extremely on the border of outstanding, particularly the experiences and progress of children who need help and protection, that's a very, very strong area. The bar is very high with Offstead and I think this is an incredible achievement for your staff and I suppose like everyone else, we're very grateful to have a children's service that's delivering this quality of care. It's really impressive. There's lots of bits and pieces, good practice, I mean the virtual school, there's a lot of good practice that's highlighted, the MASH is highlighted as being particularly good as well and I think it's a really good and very reassuring reading. The thing that I'm really pleased about around the whole report is that the outstanding is not just owned by those teams that are the children care teams, actually it flags all of the fantastic work that our intervention and planning teams do, duty and assessment teams do when children come into care, that those processes are run really well. It's got links with our leaving care service because that's where the unaccompanied asylum seeking team is, it's got links with our disabled children's services because that's where a whole group of looked after children are, especially with our new autism team as well. So there is really good practice across the whole of the system and I look back over nine and a half years here, that was not the situation. You didn't have tenacious social workers to the extent that you do now and I'm really proud of all the work they do, how focused they are on children's outcomes. The thing that really encouraged me was that nearly all of the social workers were more than happy to speak to Ofsted and you hear of lots of places where they don't want to do that but all of our staff were more than happy to meet with them. They didn't all have that opportunity but they certainly were up for having discussions about what it was like working in Barnet and I think the end paragraph about them I think is the really critical thing. Greatly proud of the service they provide which is what that shows. One thing that stood out for me as well is that we also have staff that have left the borough but then have chosen to come back. So we're obviously a destination where the staff are valued and they feel happy working here and continue to work here. My comment on that is that they should have never left in the first place but there we go. I did my bit to thank Chris Munday and the team by deliberately missing our items 5 to 9 in the agenda which we will have to go back to but for the moment the recommendations on this is cabinet is asked to note and consider the inspection findings as part of their corporate responsibility for recognising and prioritising the needs of children and in fulfilling their role as corporate parents, that cabinet to consider and note the full inspection findings and outcomes as we've done and cabinet to refer the report to full council for consideration. Are we happy with those recommendations? Alright thank you, thank you very much. Anyway now I'll start doing my job properly. Item 5 petitions, none. Six deputations, none. Public questions and comments, none. Matters referred to the Executive, none. And consideration of reports from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee or Scrutiny Subcommittees, if any, please. Right, so we move on to item 11 on the agenda, our plan for Barnet, that is looking at the delivery and outcomes framework for Quarter 1. And in it I think there is much good news. Our work in tackling inequality and reducing poverty has begun. Now that is a long journey, but we are heading in the right direction. These are two issues that were ignored by the previous administration. We've already talked about the Oxford Judgement and there are also exam results, great exam results. We have begun work in rectifying the 20-year neglect of roads and pavements, as well as inheriting a budget that wasn't quite what it looked like. We did inherit a few thousand potholes, it takes time to deal with it. Another thing in the first quarter is residents moving into the council accommodation in Conan Dell Gardens. We've got the journey to net zeros continuing, as does some real resident participation and neighbourhood working. I don't know if people have any comments on their portfolio areas. Councilor Edwards. I have just one comment really. It's on page 42 under the Benchmarking 4.1, and particularly where it says Living Well on the Caring for People. I'll give people a chance to catch up with getting up to that page. It says that ten indicators included from the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework with most forecasts for 23/24 to be better or on par with the peer group comparator. So first of all I'd like to underline the fact that that's a really good positive feedback about our wonderful staff who work in adult social care, particularly as we're still waiting for the outcome of the CQC inspection which took place recently. But the second bit I think is probably the best disingenuous because it says except for the proportion of adults in contact with secondary mental health services living independently with or without support, I'm reliably informed by our officers, that that particular aspect relates to national health service input on a mental health and it's not adult social care from the local authority. Therefore it's quite unfair to be criticised for something that we have no particular control over. I believe it's been raised before. So I'd like to ask officers if they could go back and clarify that because if it is about the national health service then I think it needs to come away from the performance indicators for our own staff. If I've made myself clear or unclear please let me know. To be honest I don't know if anyone can answer that question directly. I mean obviously secondary mental health services would be an NHS responsibility. This is how many of those are living independently and I presume it's something that all boroughs collect but I really don't, I'm not an expert on this. I don't believe we've got anyone in the room that will know that level of detail so we may have to get back to you but certainly we can make sure that the report is clear. Thanks, I just also want to make sure that we're not being assessed on something we have no control over. That was the important point that I wanted to make so yeah, thanks. There's sometimes these things we're asked to collect whether we have any control over them or not. Yeah, but it's an implied criticism in the report. We'll find out. Thank you. Did Councillor Houston put his hand up? And then alright, we'll move along. Yeah, there's a couple of things just to highlight. I think there remains to be, in relation to housing and quality affordable homes, there remains to be good progress at Brent Cross. That's a major regeneration scheme and members of the committee were aware that obviously the low rise decant into new homes has happened in terms of the Whitefields estate which is a landmark. The high rise units will start to move into their new homes later this year. We've reformed and restarted the Barnet Homelessness Forum which has given members of the cabinet to be very aware of the homeless pressures that are causing our overspend on temporary accommodation. There's been a lot of work, good work in terms of dealing with homelessness but the pressures have overwhelmed across London councils and that's something that we'll discuss when we come to the budget. But there is good work and one of the statistics I would just point out is actually that homelessness prevention's KPI, we actually improved on. So that's the route we are making. There's a lot of good work going on, it's just the demand is outstretching our ability to house people and that's a real challenge across London. One of the ways of dealing with that is to deal with supply inside of housing and there are some moving forwards on Great Park Northeast which is referred to in the report. There was a topping out ceremony which the new MP for Hendon attended for the Upper Lower Foster's estate which is a very good piece of work because it was a co-designed piece of regeneration and it's really good to see that coming forward. That's 142 homes and 75 extra care places. There is one statistic that members of the cabinet might be concerned about and I just want to provide some context to that. In the section about the performing less well, we have actually gone below the target for the decent home. We have a very high, Barnet Homes has a very robust record in dealing with compliance but we have fallen slightly very marginally below the target on decent home standards, a very high target of 99.6%, the target is 98.5% and we're at 97.8%. The reason for that is entirely to do with the identified problems with the panel system blocks that we're aware of, the low rise panel systems. Clearly when you've got the category 1 hazards they are not a decent homes compliance so the decision was to include them in the council homes that were affected in the decent homes target. That's the reason why that target, which has always been met, has fallen below that and I think just to provide reassurance, that's a known issue that we're dealing with and that's the reason why that target is not met. We've got a strategy to obviously deal with that and remedy those works within two years. They remedied those very council properties within two years so I think I can provide reassurance on that. We're still very much performing in relation to our general stock in terms of decent homes. It doesn't really appear in the family friendly section but I know that the conversations that we've had with Barnet Homes and with Councillor Houston has meant that we've actually improved the number of accommodation that we can provide for care leavers and that is a really, really welcome thing that we've done over the past 18 months to actually make sure that more properties are put forward for care leavers when they are ready to live independently. When you look through the family friendly headings there, just a couple of things to note is that we've obviously had a child and family early help action plan has been published and I can't over emphasise the importance of making sure that early help, what it does and how it works in the borough means that people get help at the earliest proper opportunity which means that that avoids crisis further down the line. And then when we've had the child programme that's gone to Whitting Health Trust, that's something that took quite a while to sort out but that is now starting to work well and mean that the actual visits that should have been made are now being made and that mothers and young people are actually getting the checks that they need on time. When we got the corporate parenting annual report, that you can see the amount of work that goes in to make sure that these young people have all the help possible at every stage of their life, whether it be the people that are looking after them or the services that offer their help and support, it's something that we need to be really proud of because that's something that, again, if that just doesn't happen at the right time that can really affect helping with their trauma, helping with their future prospects and that's something that we really are good at doing and something that we've been recognised that we're good at doing. I think if Sara was here she would have talked more on the serious violence duty strategy but it's something that we're making sure that it's something that we don't just take as something that another department should do but something that we get involved with and we have a strategy to be targeting the young people that are at risk of either exploitation or serious violence so we try and pick up the cases early on, not wait for tragedies to happen. Thank you. I wanted to highlight some excellent partnership work that's dotted throughout this report but everything from working to improve our tennis courts by working with the Long Tennis Association to actually working with different services across the Council, the work is really impressive but it also addresses the need to be cost conscious and improve services for residents and I think one thing that we can particularly highlight is improving our accesses to services so that means libraries working together with the housing office, the housing options team, it also means things like Ask Barnett, the chat function which went live over summer, our residents are able to get the support that they need and the resources they need in an easier and more efficient way and I think as a Council it means that we're working more effectively with our residents and able to serve them in a better way. I'd also just really like to highlight once again, and I know we have talked about this in cabinet before, but just the difference functioning CCTV service makes to our borough residents. I was at a residents association AGM over the weekend and just having cameras that are working that are monitored is really bringing change to people's lives. Thank you, Chair. I'd just like to comment on one or two of the areas that particularly impact on health and wellbeing issues. There are health and wellbeing issues threaded through the report and that reflects the importance of the wider determinants of health in sections around poverty alleviation and around housing and around environments. They and many others impact on the health and wellbeing of our residents and on page 44 we talk about the joint strategic needs analysis which is a repository of a whole range of data that helps inform our services across the borough. It's gone through a major refresh this year and it was a real pleasure to see in the training session last week a whole range of members but actually also some of our partners from the health and wellbeing board, from the voluntary sector and from some of our GPs who are actually on the session hearing about the value and the data within the joint strategic needs analysis. It will also inform our current joint health and wellbeing strategy and the report talks about a number of areas that come out of the joint health and wellbeing strategy and that's around, for example, dementia, being dementia friendly, some really excellent work that's gone on, being age friendly, again some really good work that's gone on. We've been working with bus companies locally to enable drivers to be more aware of those passengers with greater needs. We've done some work on homeless health which has impacts for the homelessness strategy and those within the borough of homeless. Fit and Active Barnet enabling residents to stay healthy and the referring into that service for a whole range of health reasons to keep people mobile. But it will also be really important as we develop the next health and wellbeing strategy, the 2025/29 strategy. And I'm looking forward both to using the GSNA to really start to hone in on the health inequalities across the borough in our mission to tackle health inequalities as mentioned on page 47 and to be the healthiest borough. And I'm looking forward to co-producing that with partners, again talking about community engagement as my colleague did, but also through the ICB and the voluntary sector so that we can have the next joint health and wellbeing strategy that really starts to set us on that path to be the healthiest borough. Thank you. I was just looking through the various achievements, just as you called me. I just wanted to, thought there's a few things that are worth highlighting here, particularly in the safe, attractive neighbours and town centres section, where it's pleasing to see that the street cleanliness inspections all exceeded our target and indeed that all the planned road and pavement programs were delivered. It's not just a question of having the plan in place, it's important that we actually deliver on those as well and we are there. Also to show that 97% of fly tips were collected within our target, but on that we're actually now doing more and we should see an improvement in that over the coming year, because as a result of the Clean Up Barnet campaign, we're actually getting enforcement staff working with the street scene officers as they go out, so we want to see more awareness of how to report fly tips and more fines and prosecutions if people don't do what they're supposed to do and do fly tip. Although we're doing well, there's actually more to do over the coming year. Just good things to mention under the open spaces enhancing local environment section, where we saw the sustainable urban drainage scheme at Hallywick Park. Again, there are two more planned over the coming year and also the green flag at Cherry Tree Wood and there's going to be a flag raising ceremony in a couple of weeks' time, so I just thought there's a few things there that were worth highlighting. Thank you. Thank you, Lida. I thought that it would be relevant, given the comments that Councillors Inkin made, to remind people that a very important element of my portfolio and a very important thread of the Labour administration's desire to benefit residents of Barnet is the reducing poverty agenda, which is not just innovative and forward thinking in local government terms, but it is genuinely something that we're very proud of in terms of what's already been done whilst it was in the community wealth building portfolio, but what we've got planned in future. It also highlights why financial sustainability is so important for us. If we don't have the foundations of the Council right, if we're not providing a solid bedrock on which to provide a robust and imaginative and aspirational agenda, then we can't achieve either the things that we want at all or, indeed, to the extent that would make a genuinely positive intervention in people's lives. So not only is reducing poverty agendas fundamental to something that we're interested in, but it also highlights why it's so important for us to monitor how spend across the organisation is happening. And the residents' experience element of my portfolio, I shouldn't overlook. The Ask Barnet element has just been rolled out, which is hugely exciting, and we are looking to make use of technology to make the interaction that residents have with the local authority far easier and far more beneficial for both parties. I came across this concept called failure demand. There's a notion that if you constantly try and contact an organisation but fail to do so, it's actually quite a money-waster, in addition to causing a huge amount of frustration for everybody involved. So that's something that we're attempting to tackle and improve the residents' experience element also. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just draw cabinet's attention to the appendices where I think the performance is generally positive, and the benchmarking of authorities is very positive. And the risk register, just to note, a new risk has been added, which has to do with the Collindale office block, where there's been discovered some defects from the building spec. If you're going in there, don't worry, it has been deemed safe, but it does mean there'll be some disruption at Collindale over another month, and I'm sure because it's to do with building defects there'll be a legal opinion involved on all sides, probably. But what we're asked to do is that cabinet note the contents of our plan for Barnet delivery and outcome, quarter one report. So do we note the report? Thank you. The next item is the adult residents' perception survey, which is item 12. This was quite a big survey, over 2,000 residents surveyed, and it has generally positive results, especially with the trend. The trend nationally and in London had been, since the pandemic, for things to decline where those have been generally positive. I'll just pick out three and then ask if there's any comment. 76% of the council found the council trustworthy, 61% council acts in concern of residents, and 70% promotes equal opportunities. All those are quite a big rise compared with the last time the survey was done. So the things that people have noticed about the new administration – sorry, I'll just get the right page. But from the point of view of looking at trend data, I don't know if there's anything that either of you feel we need to talk about? Any particular trends apparent? As you pointed out, we benchmark both our adults and our young people's residents' perception survey against an LGA national aggregated survey, as well as a London regional one. In the post-COVID period, perception surveys tended to show greater satisfaction with local authorities than was normal, which was put down to a general feel-good factor of coming out of the pandemic. And what we've seen in national and local comparators is that to drop quite sharply afterwards, which hasn't been the case with Bowneck's results. I think there are some very encouraging results here, and upticks from a high bar, as you say, and against national trends. I think, as Councillor Conway – she's not here today, but if she was, one of the things she would draw the attention to is the social education and community section. Particularly in paragraph 1.34, which puts the context of the survey having been undertaken in the autumn of 2023, at a time of particular community tension in Bowneck, and in London in the country, but particularly affecting some of the communities that live in our borough. And I think that the resilience of that particular result is really very encouraging. Four-fifths of residents agree that people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local area, in line with the London average and national average, very slightly down, but no significant difference in the results between ethnic and religious groups, and only very slightly down. Given what has happened, that is a remarkable result. It is very encouraging, and I think those of us who are involved in our communities have also picked up that Bowneck has really good networks of interfaith and intercommunity groups who work together, as well as partnering with the council and other bodies, schools and religious groups, churches, temples, mosques and synagogues, and I think that is something that really makes our borough special, and we should be proud of that result. Not to repeat, but to add to what Councillor Luciana said, several areas are really impressive. I think what underlines it is that this was just a note that this survey was undertaken immediately, during a period of high inflation, so that is when people will be feeling the pinch, the need for good services increases, and even then our customer service was increasing in satisfaction, so I think that is almost 10% up. And it is also reflected that residents are feeling that we are more customer-focused. I mean, I would prefer to call them residents rather than customers, but I think it does absolutely show that the focus of this administration is on our residents, and residents are feeling that way as well. I would echo very much what the last two colleagues have said, and I would comment on the community cohesion issue, because I think it is something that we should be proud of, but also hold very carefully. It is a privilege to have that sense of community cohesion that has given us a result like this at a time when it was really very difficult. I am going to share a minor anecdote, but actually demonstrate, I hope, how strong that is across the borough. I was there on behalf of the Mayor at licensing a priest in Edgware on Sunday evening, and actually one of the things that many of the church members and community members said in welcoming the new priest when they spoke was to make the point about the strength of our multi-faith, inter-faith and community networks, and how that was a very special thing to have, and that they hoped that he would find it as special as they did, and so I thought that was a really interesting reflection outside the council to just back that up. But I guess I'm bringing it back to a serious note. Obviously, the perception survey is fantastic, and I'm really pleased that residents are saying that we're listening and acting on their concerns, but I guess the question is, and it's a bit like, as people know, I'm a bit of a data and fact hound around the JSNA and things like that, so I suppose the adult perception survey, it's what we do with it, and I would reflect that when we were looking at this two years ago, there were some issues that we started to unpick about the perceptions of people with disabilities on our services, and I was really pleased to see that the perception of equal opportunity and equal access actually had risen, because I know that a lot of work and thought went in after that result on disabilities, so it is about what we use that data for within the council to look at how we improved our communications and the way we worked with, in that case, a particular part of our particular group of our residents. So it will be really interesting to look at the deeper parts of this survey and see how it informs the way we develop our services over the next several years, so thank you. Right, time to ask, some of it is asking how we use this data, obviously we have quite a bit of quantitative data, but this is a qualitative one, and how we make sure that this plays an important role in planning, rather than just something to congratulate ourselves about. I don't know if you've only thought, I mean from a community cohesion point of view, 78% may be a good score, but still short by 22%, so it is how we get into that virtuous circle of improving all the time. I don't know if, where does this get fed into, you know, how does this make a difference? We are looking at proactive work on community cohesion at the moment as well, which I think we would be doing anyway at this point in time, but it is something that I agree with council more, we can't take for granted even if it's a good result. And what we will be doing as well, there is a young person's perception survey as well, and what we're doing, which will be coming to a future cabinet meeting, is analysing them both together and looking at where the strongest areas of need and priority are in that combined data set. And similarly to people with disabilities in the last survey, we're regularly less satisfied than others, we'll be looking at whether that is the case again, whether there's any other cross breaks, whether it's geographies or any other kind of demographic data, where we can look at, well, these are the audiences and the issues we need to look at. So that work is ongoing. So this is taken through the Tackling the Gaps group as well, so we're looking at different quarters through that group and developing the action plan. The research, you mentioned councilor Moore, the ethnographic research, so we've got, that's quite a long pipeline on it, so we've worked with those groups and we're looking at actions on that. But disability is coming out strongly again, and there might be other things that are driving that, so an observation we've made is, this is a residence perception survey, and the disabled people that might not be taking part, might not be accessing our services, but so they're, do we need to think about the different comms, communicate our services, because they might not need the service, so their perception is lower, so we'll be looking at those things as well, so it might be not just about disabled people accessing our services. From a generality of audience, sorry, I thought I'd switch it on, a generality of audience who aren't aware of what goes on, so absolutely, that's really important, but it's the data, whether quantitative or qualitative, it's really important we use it to inform what we do, and use our resources in the best way we can. Okay, are there any other comments people want to make? So this is a useful snapshot of perception survey, and it's the trend data that we look for. The recommendations is that cabinet note the top line findings of the adult residence perception survey, 2324. Are we happy to note that? Yes, thank you, thank you, well noted. The next item is Hampstead Gardens suburb library, and I need to remind people that there is exempt information on this, so if people want to ask questions from the exempt section, please indicate. I could try and give an introduction, but it is a bit of a confusion, but the reason it's coming to the cabinet, I presume, is that this counts as less than best consideration, because the actual difference in opportunity cost is less than two million. It's not, I think, for the Secretary of State, but it's the thing that we have to assure ourselves, that if it's not best consideration, it doesn't mean it's not the best value, if that makes sense. And I don't know if you want to give a brief introduction to the recent history? Yes, certainly, Robert Brown, Head of Property Services and Valuation. So the Hampstead Garden suburb library is run by the Garden Suburb Library Group Limited, who are a charitable group staffed almost totally by volunteers, and they've been providing the library service for us in Hampstead for some years. They can't afford to pay rent, but by entering into an agreement with them, whereby they occupy the premises and run the library, and keep the place neat and tidy, without rent, we get a library service without having to staff it. Our landlord, Freshwater, has granted us an underlease, £12,850 a year. In turn, they've given us consent to grant a sub-underlease to the Garden Suburb Library, and they've agreed to us providing, by a side letter, a concession agreement that enables the suburb library group to occupy rent-free. There are a number of clauses within the sub-underlease and within the side agreement that enable both the library group and the council to break the agreement, should there be a reason to do so, and in turn, we have break clauses in our underlease with Freshwater, so should there arise a scenario whereby the charity is unable to provide the service and the council decides it, therefore, isn't going to have a library there, we have a number of opportunities to walk away. I think I should draw members' attention to why we're deciding this, and it's probably 6.4 on page 96, is the considerations, the four considerations that have to be made. Whether the financial assistant, directly or indirectly, from public resources by public authority, does the financial assistant confer an economic advantage on one or more enterprises? Is the financial assistant specific, and having a side letter would make it very specific about what we expect of Hampshire Garden, our library, I think it's the C&C, it's a charitable company, isn't it? And will it have an effect on competition or investment within the UK, which I doubt, as it's not a trade or investment. But if we're satisfied that these are reaped, what we're being asked to agree to, or the recommendation, is a sublease to the library, a side letter also to the library, and if I'm right, the side letter is something that's just between us and the library, that freshwater needs a nose there, but don't have a say over or can't alter. That's correct, yes. It's between us and the library. We needed freshwater's consent to enter into it, but they're not a party to it. But they're not a party to it, yep, okay. So, have people got any questions? Councillor Cornwall. I would just like to make a comment as the Councillor in the neighbouring ward, because I do appreciate that it's not formally best consideration in the terms of Section 1, 2, 3, but I think, certainly from my knowledge of them, it is a fairly modest contribution to unlock a lot of goodwill from those who run it in a very professional and passionate way, actually. It's delivered by local people with a modest input from library services, but actually of quite high quality, because they rely on the library services to make sure that it is up to the standards of a library in terms of content. And people will have the impression, I suspect, that it's Humpstead Gardens suburb, it's a very affluent, broadly affluent community, but I know that as a member of a neighbouring ward, actually there are residents within that area. They're right, there is hidden poverty and hidden need in areas close to that, and I know that there is use of the library by some of those residents, and so it is greater than the impact that you might see on paper. And certainly from the correspondence I got when it was challenging and request to intercede on their behalf, I know it is very well appreciated and supported by many people, so thank you. Here we are. Good words about it. Any other comments or to remove the recommendations? The cabinet approves the grant of the sub-underleash to gardens suburb community library limited on terms that are shown in appendix B. The cabinet approves the grant of the side letter to gardens suburb community library limited in accordance with the terms set out in appendix C to this report. The side letter will be an exclusive arrangement between the council and gardens suburb community library limited and not capable of assignment, and the cabinet delegates authority to the lead officer and head of property and portfolio management in consultation with the leader to approve any minor amendments. I think those recommendations also cover what's in the accept section, so can we accept the recommendations and be satisfied that we don't need to go into the exempt because it's covered in the discussion we've had already. Are people agreed? All right, thank you. The next item is the sustainability program update that I believe Councillor Sniderman is leading on. Thank you, leader. So this is an update on our sustainability program, and we declared that sustainability and biodiversity emergency just over two years ago, but it's good to take the opportunity within this report to reconfirm our commitment to that. But the declaration is important as it was. More important is the action that we're going to take, and this report and the appendix, which has got the full annual report, sets out all of the stuff that we have done over the last year and indeed over the last couple of years. Notably, that includes our citizens assembly and young people's assemblies, which have greatly contributed to our sustainability action plan. There's lots of details in the report, and I can see Jugita has popped up on the screen there. Some of the highlights are including the start we've made on retrofitting EV charge points, converting streetlights to LEDs, planting a record number of trees and the sustainable urban drainage scheme, which I think is absolutely brilliant, that I referred to earlier. And importantly, some of these things are not just helping the environment, they're helping the financial sustainability of the Council, particularly with regards to, you know, the LED streetlights, and also with retrofitting and insulation, they're actually helping residents financially. I'm sure Barry, Councillor Rawlings, looking forward to reading out the full recommendations in a moment, but recommendations also include, importantly, adding a work stream on climate adaptation and resilience, which we will add to our sustainability action plan. And there's a workshop coming up for members organised by Bloomberg, so we can actually look at how that can be embedded within the planning decisions that we take. The recommendation also includes producing a climate budget, which is a bit of a confusing concept to explain, that is not a separate budget, but is a way of identifying measures that reduce carbon emissions within the normal financial budget setting process. The final recommendation is just to note that the Programme Director for Culture and Sustainability, Yogita Popat, who's there, who's already in place, is the lead officer for climate change. So, as I say, there's loads more details in the report and in the full sustainability report, which is a very good read, so please do look at that to see all of what's going on. But, of course, we've got lots more to do to reach our net zero, challenging net zero targets. Did you mention street lighting? I go back to the adult perception survey, where 81% was satisfied with the street lighting, up from 74% two years ago. We've just addressed that the early delighting is actually light, as well as cutting down some of the carbon costs. If I were to do any questions, does I suppose Yogita or Deborah want to talk to the report? Thank you, and I think some of this we're waiting for, to know, to see what the actual difference things like British Energy made to work with London Councils on some of the power issues about how clean power and so on. So, from what I gather, although we've already declared it, this is a bit like when we're doing Labour Party stuff and somebody has to take a picture on Twitter to show it exists, that we work in some virtual world. So, although we declared it, this is to put it in writing, that we've declared it. Anyway, any questions for Alan or the officer? Councillor Begg. Thank you, sir. It's a brilliant report, really highlights all the progress that has been made. So, my question really is, do we think that communities have been engaged enough and community participation? So, it's the communities that are going to feel this difference in net zero work that we are doing, and particularly young communities. So, do you think enough has been done to involve them? I'll make a start. I think, yes, I think we have done a lot and we are doing more. I mean, we started with our Citizens' Assembly and Young People's Assemblies, which have never been tried in Barnet before. And indeed, we've had lots of interest from other authorities in showing the good practice and how we did that. We had a range of action groups that came out of those assemblies that carried on the work within the community. We've got recently Community Energy Barnet has just been formed to start taking forward community energy projects within the borough. And that's led by members of the community. And as Gita said, we're going to look to involve the community in the climate adaptation and resilience work going forward. So, like across the whole council, I think we've done a lot to involve the community, and definitely in the sustainability area. Councilor Moore, then Councilor Houston. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Councilor Schneider, for what I think is a very exciting and full report, and something that I can absolutely get behind. What I was just going to raise the issue about, as we start to promote this, certainly for parts of the community, people would benefit from understanding the wider impact of a range of this work on broader health implications. So, climate resilience against rising summer temperatures have a very clear health impact, particularly on our older residents. Rising summer temperatures have all sorts of negative health impacts, as does the air quality impact of decarbonizing, particularly of transport. There are all sorts of very clear evidence now about the impacts of poor air quality, both on children and on older people. And tree planting is one of the things in its own right, but actually the positive impacts around combating the urban heat island effect goes further to improve communities' resilience against rising temperatures. So, I really appreciate the report and support it, but I hope we'll be able to feed that in, and certainly I would welcome and recognize the sorts of work that goes on in our schools through the education programs, because young people can be incredibly evangelical about environmental issues, and can convince the rest of the community as well. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to draw the Cabinet Member's attention to the really good work that's been done by Barnet Homes in relation to retrofit energy saving measures in over 600 Council homes. An additional 100 homes are going to be retrofitted through the Social Housing Decarbonization Fund, and we've submitted by March 2025, and we're submitting a bid with other via-London councils and a consortium for further funding from the Social Housing Decarbonization Fund. I think one of the things to say about the net-zero agenda when it comes to housing is that even if climate change wasn't an issue, and it is an issue, actually this investment is lowering people's fuel bills and basically dealing with cost of living pressures in people in low incomes. I think it would be the right thing to do irrespective of climate change, but actually it's a very good example of a double win, because by doing the right thing by our planet, we're also doing the right thing, lowering the costs for people who are struggling to make ends meet, with all the pressures of living in London under the cost of living crisis that we've been through. So it's really a very positive investment, and I look forward to the Government bringing further measures, but I think we are well placed to be able to be one of those boroughs that actually is leading on this, not following, because actually we've done a lot of good work already, and Government want partners who can deliver their agenda in terms of retrofitting quickly and efficiently, and I think Planet Homes and the Council are well placed to be able to do that. Yeah, as I said, some of this is waiting to see what the national change is, isn't it? Any other comments? Or if Alan wants to sum up? Yeah, well just to say, I mean there's been some good comments, and it's a great report, just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Jugita and the team who put this together, and who have been instrumental in driving this work forward. I mean, Council Houston talked about being ready to deliver for the Government, and equally we've got a really good relationship with the GLA, we met with the Deputy Mayor for Environment a couple of weeks ago, and they recognise that from a low base, Barnet is now one of the leading authorities, we've got lots of programmes, we've got lots of ideas, and we're very keen to work with Government, GLA and other partners to take that forward. Thank you people, happy we go to the recommendations. Right, the recommendations. Cabinet reconfirms their commitment to the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency Declaration issued in May 2022 and noted in June 2022. Cabinet to note the progress achieved in delivering the Sustainability Action Plan to date, and to include an additional work stream within it to support climate adaptation and resilience. Cabinet delegate authority to the Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change in consultation with the Programme Director, Culture and Sustainability, the monitoring and updating of the Sustainability Action Plan, and to oversee the process of producing a climate budget to address the residual funding gap, and following the changes to the Council Senior Management Team structure approved at Council on the 21st of May 2024, the Council notes the Programme Director, Culture and Sustainability already imposed as the lead officer for climate change. We happy to agree those recommendations? Moving on to the final item, well, the forward plan is the Chief Financial Officer's report, which is both the quarter one financial forecast and the budget management. Councillor Deneckley. Thank you very much, Leader. Quite a substantial report, and naturally the contents of it and the implications of it are equally substantial. May I just start by expressing my sincere gratitude to the Finance Team in the Council for both putting the report together, but also all of the oversight work that it betokens, that there's a huge amount of work that's now being done with service directorates across the organisation, and the Finance Team have done an extraordinary amount of work to embed themselves within the functioning of the Council in order to provide us with the level of context and detail that we can see in this report. Speaking of context, I think it's important to start with that concept. The report itself is obviously emergent from a background of financial activity and an environment in which we currently exist financially. So the context falls into two categories. We have a national and how that manifests locally. In terms of the national context, people have heard me say this. In the past, local government finance is in a dire situation, exacerbated by 14 years of underinvestment and, to a certain extent, undervaluing of what local government has to offer and the role it plays within an individual's life, both civic and/or otherwise. As a consequence of that, we find ourselves in a position where we are providing more and more services. We're actually required, we are enjoined by law to provide those services with ever-diminishing resources. The spending power of local authorities, particularly in London, has dwindled in that same period of time and that shouldn't be forgotten as we move forward and the current government does take that very, very seriously. But in much more recent times, we have seen dramatic financial events that have had ripple effects on our current situation, which we've had to deal with during the time that we have been in the administration. So these were not things that we were aware of or could have been aware of prior and we have had to figure out how best is within our ability to respond to those fiscal calamities whilst also being aspirational forward thinking and wanting the best for our residents. The fiscal event I'm referring to in September of 2022, when Liz Truss was Prime Minister, also briefly has still cut impact, has impacts on us. The inflationary and interest rate consequences that that resulted in nationwide have had very pertinent local effects on us, which I shall speak to when we refer to what the report is actually telling us about in-year spend. Locally, however, there is an important thing to mention, which is we had a change of government structure at the beginning of our administration, which was necessary because we knew that there would be challenges that we faced, not necessarily the scale of the financial challenge we see here. We didn't forecast that, but we knew that agility would be required and a degree of focus and attention that unified all elements of the executive so that all members, executive members who are responsible for service directorates were able to share their views around a single table. And that is largely why we moved to a cabinet and scrutiny system from the rather inefficient and laborious committee system that existed previously. The way that that system has a lax oversight of the financial situation of the Council is something we are dealing with now. The consequences of an inability to properly understand the financial consequences of decision making in the long term is clearly laid out in this particular report. So what does the report actually tell us? If I can turn to page 137 of the cabinet papers in brief, this is the situation we face. We finished last year. The end of year downturn report resulted in a 22 million pound overspend, which needed to draw down our reserves to a level below the 40 million threshold that we consider financially optimal. I suppose it's the best term. We have a strategy document, a policy document within the Council that states that that is the optimum position that our general fund non-amark reserves ought to be at. At the end of the first quarter, unfortunately, we are seeing an end of year position that looks very similar to that. However, we do not benefit from the cushion of a reserve position in the same way as we did last year, which makes this an even more acute problem than the potential overspend last year. And I don't want that to go over as though I'm suggesting it as somehow not extremely serious. It is something that the administration has taken note of as a serious concern, and we've already gone into, we've already undertaken a series of activities and measures to intervene to ensure that this particular situation doesn't end up being our end of year position. Some of the factors that relate to why the end year overspend is at the position it is, perhaps my colleagues will assist me on areas specific to their directorates, but the pressures that were facing us in the last financial year have not dissipated, they've not disappeared. In certain areas, particularly adults and children's services, they have in fact become more acute and more pronounced. But in this particular year, one of the emergent pressures that we are facing is the temporary accommodation pressure that is more acutely felt in Barnet because of certain local factors, those being a small social housing stock, once again, consequence of decades of underfunding and under emphasis on providing that level of stock, private landlords leaving the industry so that it means that we are more reliant on emergency temporary accommodation to meet our housing obligations. And of course, there hasn't been an increase in applicants for accommodation as well. So all of those factors have mounted in year and have caused a degree of pressure on that element of our expenditure. What are we doing? What is it that we've already started to do to meet this challenge? We haven't just shown up at the cabinet meeting saying this is an awful situation and we've got no idea what we're doing. We spent an entire summer coming together with a plan of intervention to get to understand the fundamentals of why the organization is overspending in the way that it is and put in place measures to try and overcome that. So August was quite an invasive learning exercise. I think officers would agree. One to two and a half hour sessions with service directors querying every single line of their budget expenditure and making them defend, to a certain extent, why the expenditure was necessary and essential. And that has led to the development of what we're calling an organization-wide recovery plan. The specific details of which are yet to be formalized because we're still waiting on those figures to be verified. But it is the first element of what we're looking to put in place. Additionally, there are weekly control panel sessions now, I think four days a week, in particular for the benefit of the adults and children's services. We don't want, if there is essential spend, to be done in those directories for the service areas to have to wait a week or longer to sign it off. So we've put in place a weekly program of that sort, which takes into account all expenditure. It does not matter for the purposes of asking the service director to justify that expenditure, what the nature of the spend is or where the funding source comes from. Everything needs to be assessed in first principles. And that includes new contracts, it includes agency spend, it includes all discretionary spend over 5,000 pounds. So we've had the control panels put in. Moving forward, we're going to... So the other thing we've also done is submitted to the government spending review as part of their consultation to put together the autumn budget what the specific factors in Barnet are that need to be addressed. The particular unique factors we find in adult social care, people living longer with complex comorbidities and poor health, our temporary accommodation situation and such like. So we presented to national government what we're facing locally. It isn't just a generic problem that we've said that it is not something that we require specific focus on. I think I will actually leave it there. There will be observations that colleagues will be presenting in the discussion that I can respond to. But I think that the core message to take away for the benefit of residents is that the situation is serious. We are aware of that. But they should be heartened by having a labour administration in place to deal with it and a labour government to assist. Thank you very much. Yes, I think we can add to that. One of the issues is, as you say, when we took over the administration, things didn't seem too bad. But the more we looked under the bonnet, the more we found out how poor decision making was, how things were gathering that was going to cause us problems. The lack of well, some of the things to do with liquidity management would have helped. But one of the things we've done, obviously, is bring in more services in-house, because part of the problem is we didn't have enough control over it. Some of the steering was out of our hands. And if we're going to make a difference, which we need to, because bonnet deserve it, if we're going to bring the budget under control, which we will, because we have to. And then people will talk about statutory services for children and adults. Actually, balancing the books is also a statutory service, otherwise commissioners come in. So it's important that we recognise it's a big task. The advantage of a cabinet system is we found out about it a lot earlier than we would have. We're up for the task and we know that we can make the difference to the residents of bonnet by improving this situation. And it's not waiting to see what government does. It's doing things all the time, making a difference, making sure the budget is rained in. And I'll open it up to whether any officers or cabinet members want to make any comments. Councillor Houston. I think it would be, it's important to make a comment about one of the biggest pressures which Councillor McPhee mentioned, which is the temporary accommodation, rise in cost. We've traditionally had a very good record of predicting temporary accommodation. I think that the record is good. And what we have faced is an unprecedented change in circumstances. This is reflected in temporary accommodation pressures across other boroughs in London. And it's led to a kind of perfect storm where there's a substantial budget pressure as a result of that. I mean, it takes, there's a number of factors in relation to that. One of the biggest factors is the change in demand. We've had 1,596 new housing applications open in the five months to the end of August 2024. That is 65% more than in the August period in 2022. That is a massive, massive difference. Combined on top of that, the cost of temporary accommodation, as Councillor McPhee mentioned, has gone up. It's, we're now having to use, or basically the private rent sector cost, the market is not, I think the best way of describing it would be not, you know, we've got a real, it's broken actually. There is a crisis in London in relation to housing people who need housing. And basically the temporary accommodation costs, the supply, and the cost of temporary accommodation has gone up considerably, not just the demand, but the cost. And we're using a nightly paid temporary accommodation now. The rates for that can vary from, you know, one of the statistics that I just to share with you for one bed, the annual cost variation on a monthly basis goes up from 7,000 for one bed to 11,000 in April to 11,000 in July. That's a considerable difference. And that's just one bed. I think there's also been a problem with some of the projected supply of a lot of our housing. We've obviously been, as a council, investing in our own council housing. And let's say the Colindale Gardens, I was very pleased to be able to go out with local councilors at an event to celebrate the kind of handover of Colindale Gardens and the occupation of it by residents, 249 units. And that was done just last week. And we actually, that investment, which was from the housing revenue account, is projected to save the general fund 800,000 a year. So we have been doing our best to save program in relation to investing in housing to try and meet the need. One of the problems we've had is there has been, a lot of the housing supply in any London borough is delivered through housing associations getting section 106, basically affordable housing, being picked up by housing associations and delivered by housing associations. And we obviously nominate people from our waiting list to that housing. And actually, the supply of that has not been, it has been less than predicted. So again, that's also partly as a result of some housing, basically a lot of housing associations have pulled back on their investment programs because they're in financial difficulties. So I think one of the, there are many reasons for that, we've discussed this before, but one of the biggest things, as Councilman Ackley points out, was the inflation, the base of interest rates. The interest rates have been crippling in relation to supplying, you know, anything to do with investment. And I think that is a real concern. One of the things that we have in the area that which I'm responsible for, we've been looking at, is to go through the capital program to see where we can actually make and pretty radically look at the capital program and agree basic principles about what we will invest in. Quite a lot of our capital program is tied up with government grant and programs that have already been agreed. A lot of the Brent Cross they spend is in that category. But we have been going through it very ruthlessly with Councilman Ackley and with officers to look at what we, you know, what is essential and what isn't essential. Because we do need to make savings and borrowing costs are higher than predicted. One of, it is a shame that we weren't able to borrow more money when interest rates were lower and we have been using, you know, but I think the principle that's now been established is that when we have, with the capital program, is that we have to finance it and that internal borrowing isn't the way to do it. Any capital scheme has to be justifiable in its own terms going forward and fully costed and I think that's one of the things that, you know, I'm very grateful to officers and also Councilman Ackley is bringing that degree of discipline to the budget process. We've had whole day sessions with cabinet and officers and I certainly feel I understand my budget area better than I, you know, I did two years ago, even a year ago, and I think there are, you know, there are reasons, there are whole, you know, basically the governance around budgeting I think wasn't there in terms of Councillors. When I moved into my role as Chair of the Housing and Growth Committee that then was and I think, you know, I definitely feel I've got far greater understanding of the budget process than I did but I think it's been very difficult because I do think that, you know, that we've definitely been a learning process in terms of how we do budget management and I think going forward I feel far more confident that I understand when we're making decisions that are informed decisions and I think that's really important. I don't think I felt like that two and a half years ago. I was taking, you know, we were taking things on, you know, and I think that's a major change. Anybody else? Councillor Begg. So obviously every pound counts, not just today or tomorrow, but in future years. So I've noticed that we are writing off huge amounts of debt here and a lot of it seems to be untraceable. There's some quite large amounts of LA mistakes. So is it time for us to look at our processes and systems to see this doesn't happen again? I find it quite astonishing that in this day and age we can't trace people that are owing debt to a local authority and some of those are really high debt. So we've got some people here that haven't paid 43,000. Most of them are double numbers. So what I really would like to be reassured with is that we do look at the systems again to see how quickly we catch the debt going into long term, because this is public money that we need to get back with possibly with reformed systems. Yeah, I don't know if one of the officers want to mention that, but I will say when a debt becomes too difficult or too expensive to retrieve because it's too old or we can't trace the people, it is a good accounting practice to actually write it off because we can't make assumptions on it. But I don't know if Kevin or Dean want to talk about the efforts that go into recovering the money. Yeah, I just wanted to endorse Councillor Begg's concern about the issue of debt, because when you do look at it it is quite substantial, but I take on board what Dean is saying. I do think officers, to be fair, have been working, particularly in outdoor social care, trying to get some of that debt down, and we shouldn't forget that. But I do think that maybe it might have to be a closed session, I don't know, but we do need to maybe as a cabinet collectively look at if we can do any more, because some of those debts are quite substantial, and the ones that obviously I understand from an accounting point of view, it's better to write some of them off, but some of them are quite large, and it's easy for us to try and pursue people who are our own tenants to get that debt back, but for people who are not, it looks like it's much more difficult, and obviously we do have, with offices on outdoor social care, there are significant debts from people who should have been paying when they've been getting care, and then someone's passed away, and then the whole issue of who is the PAP, who has powers of attorney, and how we can get that off them. So it is quite complicated, but I do think it might be useful to see whether we can, are there any other ways of trying to increase our debt collection, but I also wanted just to say something about adult social care, particularly in relation to some of the pressures, and I think what's important for members to know or to understand is that it's a fact that it's much more expensive to keep people who qualify for adult social care at home and in the community, and what we're seeing is a decline in the numbers of people who go into residential care and going into nursing care, and rightly so in my view, because it means that they remain in their own homes in the local community, but it's important that we realise that there's a cost implication for that, it's much cheaper for the council to place people in nursing care or residential homes, it's actually quite unlawful to actually force people to do that against their will, but but I do think it's important to understand that marketplace in terms of the pressures on adult social care, so keeping people at home in the local community is the most expensive way of doing it, but it's the most dignified way of supporting our citizens, so I just wanted to raise that as part of the overall debate, thanks. It's going to be looked at and some of this is questions of interest on whether a debt is secured or not, but Kevin did you want to come in? And I think some of it is should we first of all offer some debt advice rather than go straight in with you know the bailiffs could come round type thing, so there are different ways of collecting debt as Dean said and what we do need to look at it. Anybody else? Any comments? Thank you leader, it should be said that there are other elements of the program that we offer that sort of offset the cost of living pressures that may well be generating a situation when people enter into debt. Our benefits calculator is truly quite an innovative tool that I encourage residents to make use of if they need to. I should pick up on something that Councillor Houston very usefully and helpfully referred to. I did say that I would explain why the rise in interest rates was more acutely impactful to local government practice and Barnet and just neglected to do so. So the debt financing portion of our revenue budget commitments currently stands at 4.2 million which is not an insubstantial amount of money and it is a concern for us were that figure to increase particularly in the short term given the pressures it will cause on other service areas. Now naturally that is, there are very complex reasons for that but ultimately comes down to an administrative choice in the past by previous administrations to finance their capital works by internally borrowed revenue rather than going out and borrowing money when it was affordable to do so and at a time now when we are obligated to fulfil certain capital works priorities we have no choice but to go out and borrow that money instead. So there are certain factors that legacy issues relating to decisions made by previous administrations which have made the interest rate spike particularly difficult for us to manage as an issue which will then consequently mean that we have to make some very difficult decisions on what exactly we consider genuinely essential priorities. That's the level of seriousness with which we have to now make this the decision making in financial terms. Thank you. Any other comments? On this there's two parts of the recommendation. One is noting and one is approving. Just to make sure people are aware, the approvals are the changes to the capital programme that Councillor used to mention. The write-offs that Councillor Begg and Edwards mentioned. Also two environments of 5.2 and 5.3. One is two million to the capital financing budget from contingency because of the cost of the borrowing and the other one is just to, it's almost to note because the decision has been made of a staffing budget due to a restructure of 213,000. Anyway, having pointed that out, the recommendations that cabinet notes the forecast out turn for 24/25 against the council's revenue budget, the current use of reserves and the outlook, the expenditure against capital budgets in the year and the work underway to contain expenditure within budgets but also for the cabinet to approve. The changes to the existing capital programme in relation to additions are set out in sections 6.8 and 6.9 in accordance with the environment rules. The write-offs for housing benefits, sundry debt and council tax arrears as detailed in section 7 and in appendix B, C and D and lastly two environments as detailed in sections 5.2 and 5.3. Can we agree with all those? No. Thank you. Then it's a case of noting the cabinet forward plan. Just a very, very minor point on the forward plan. You'll have noticed that the agenda, the eagle-eyed will have noticed the agenda today said we had adults and children's resident perception survey and we actually looked at the adults one. The agenda for next month says we have the adults and children's resident perception survey and that's the children's one. So just a technicality. It's a case of keeping people guessing, there's no problem with that. Make it a bit more exciting. If there's no urgent business, as far as I know, we don't need to move into exempt because we've taken that. So that's the end of the meeting. Thank you everybody.

Transcript

Speakers, please turn on the microphone by pressing the speaker icon when speaking and off when finished. Please speak directly into the microphone so that the audio can be picked up clearly for those joining the meeting in the gallery and remotely. Are the minutes of the previous meeting held on 16 July 2024 agreed as a correct record? Agreed. Absence of members, I have received apologies from Councillor Conway. Do members have any declarations to make in relation to any of the agenda items? Take that as a no. Right, now the Constitution states that councillors may ask a cabinet member a question of any matter on the cabinet agenda. The first four questions will be from the opposition group members, and I don't know if you can choose between you who's going to ask those questions. Members will be rotating between the groups. Anyway, if you want to come up, Peter, and the 15 minutes will start when you ask your first question, all right? Thank you. I thought it would be a good place to start with the finance report, and one of the things that is in the finance report that I don't quite understand the detail of is that you suggest that the deficit this year of 20 million, which is after using 18 million of reserves, therefore on an ongoing basis is 38 million, is also after a recovery plan, which is an in-year recovery plan of 7.4 million. Now, the recovery plan seems a bit mysterious, because I can't find where this recovery plan was discussed or mentioned other than in this report, and I wondered what services were contributing to this recovery plan, and what consultation was planned, what inequalities impact assessments had been done in relation to the savings associated with that 7.4 million, because it is treated in the paper as if it's a given, and yet it's appeared out of nowhere, and I didn't know that service changes of this scale could be made without them being agreed in detail by Cabinet, so I wondered how this could possibly be. Thank you, leader. So I'll respond to the various elements of that question. So you began, Councillor, by mentioning the 18 million of reserves that were applied to offset the 38 million overspend in years, so those were earmarked reserves that were used for specific purposes. The 20 million overspend is only what we would, in the worst case scenario, have to cover for non-earmarked general fund reserves, so that's why we were focusing in on that particular figure rather than the overall overspend. In terms of recovery plans, I think moving forward we may have to be a little bit more precise in what we mean by that term, because there's almost two iterations of recovery plans. There's an immediate direction that we gave executive directors to do whatever they could within their available remit to reduce the overspend that they find within their directed areas, and then there's a subsequent organisation-wide recovery plan that is being put together and currently being costed in its entirety that emerged as a result of extensive discussions over the course of August, which I can speak to now. I was going to during my report, but in summary, they were start chamber style sessions that lasted between two and a half hours, one to two and a half hours, depending on the magnitude of the directorate's budget and the extent of the overspend, where there was, in quite excoriating detail, disgust why spend was happening at all and why a particular spend that was over and above budgetary envelope threshold levels wasn't accounted for. As a result of those discussions over the course of August, we had a session with senior officers and all cabinet members as a half-day session to itemise those elements within our organisation-wide recovery plan that we considered palatable to take forward and get robust costings on. They will be fully costed in the coming weeks and we'll be able to present them publicly hereafter, but it's been referred to in the report. Sorry. My understanding was that there are two recovery plans. There's a 7.4 million, which is included in the current figures as an assumption that it will be delivered in determining the deficits at paragraph 1.6 of the report. And my question is not about what you are doing to deal with the 20 million plus the 18, because the real deficit on an ongoing basis next year is 38. So for budgeting purposes, I would argue the budget is really or the cost savings that you need to be looking at is 38. But very specifically, in paragraph 1.6, you refer to a 7.3 something cost saving. And the question that I have is a really simple question. Given that that cost saving is included in the 20 million, i.e. you assume that it happens, then it must be specific items, otherwise you couldn't have included it. So my question is what is in that 7.3 million and how could you decide to do that without it coming to cabinet, without consultation, without any quality impact assessment, unless you're prepared to give us an absolute assurance that no services are being removed in that 7.3 million? We rely upon the professional judgment of executive directors to determine whether or not a particular service level reduction constitutes something that would come to the stage of requiring impact assessment or would detrimentally affect the provision of service in a particular area. So if it is the judgment of officers after we've given the direction to do what is required to bring overspend thresholds back to the position that they were when we set the budget, then that's an operational decision that the organization is entirely entitled to make. We've given a strategic direction and whatever operational decision making is required to facilitate that is entirely feasible without a cabinet level or indeed council-wide decision. I'm not entirely sure if yours is a question of governance or if it's a question of service provision, but it doesn't. The answer is it's both, because I think that a 7.3 million reduction in cost is actually quite significant and therefore I have asked officers what is in that 7.3 million? But I'm asking you as the cabinet member or the cabinet, what is in that 7.3 million? Because it seems to me that the residents of the borough are entitled to know. And this is only the first step in the cost reduction that's going to be needed. And therefore to me it's a fundamental piece of governance that if we are reducing cost that the residents of this borough are entitled to know what is not going to happen. If I can help. There's a couple of things in what you say, Peter. The 7 million are ones that the services have offered up that do not need an Equalities Impact Assessment, do not result in any reduction in services, in the main services like adults and children and is put into the MTFS already. What you're talking about is the next lot of the recovery plan, which is the bigger map. We're waiting for those figures to be valid. When they're validated they will come to cabinet and there will be the opportunity for scrutiny calling. So the recovery plans will have the opportunity to go to scrutiny and will be coming to cabinet, so we're waiting for some validation. And whether any further savings do need an Equality Impact Assessment they will have one because it's a legal necessity. Now I understand that, so you are absolutely confident that the 7.3 million which have been offered up by the services do not involve any significant service reductions? They are about how services are delivered, rather than cutting jobs or anything. However, I'm not promising we will do what is necessary to bring this under control. We inherited a machine that looked good and gleaming when we first got it, then realised it had no real steering and had been out of control for a while and we're having to bring it back in order. We are determined to do that. We will do that. Part of that is the recovery plan. Part of that is, as you have gone through with you, some of the processes we're doing about spend and some of it is about freezing spend. I would make one request, obviously, which is not going to be dealt with tonight, which is that if somebody could send me an analysis of the 7.3 million I would be very grateful. I do think it's something which the administration should think about publishing. Just moving on for a second, in the press release which the Council issued that accompanied this report, the comment was made by Councillor Knacke that the deficit, which you were referring to the 20 million number rather than the 38 million number or whatever, and that, of course, doesn't include the short term, sorry, it does include the short term benefit that we get for two years from the pensions reduction, but that doesn't go on forever. So the underlying level of benefit, of benefit to the budget from sill monies, pension monies and other things means that the underlying running deficit is really very, very large indeed. The question that arises is, in your press release you said that this was equivalent to 5% of the budget, but the reality is that that is true at one level, but unfortunately we have statutory obligations in relation to adults and children and paying our interest bill, which means that the non-statutory element of the budget is massively less than the whole budget. So given that the deficit, the running deficit is of the order of £40 million, it's arguable that that is close to 100% of the things that we do not have to do. So that the scale of the cost savings that you're going to have to contemplate in the Recovery 2 plan relative to the things that really matter to the residents are very, very large. So why did you imply in that press release that this was a 5% problem when it's probably somewhere between a 50% and 100% problem of the things that we're actually allowed to deal with? That particular comment, leader, if I may say, almost encapsulates everything that differentiates a Labour administration from a Conservative one. I do take seriously your knowledge of the structural problems relating to the budget, given that your administration was so heavily responsible for them and you were aware of them at the time when you were in charge. So to a certain extent, yes, we have inherited this and we're dealing with it in a responsible and appropriate way, in a way which allows us to be an administration which is wholly different from what was before. What you're asking is be less aspirational, be more like us, have less interest in providing a decent quality of service provision for residents across Barnet that actually differentiates you as an administration. And to that extent I refuse. We are going to deal with the debt problem that we find. We're going to handle overspends, we're going to figure out exactly how to get the budget under control, but we're not going to give up what makes us unique and what makes our administration more beneficial for the residents of Barnet. I would never ask you to give up, but that was not the question that I was asking. What I was asking was in the press release you explicitly implied this was a 5% problem. The words that you used could not have been clearer. My point is that is utterly misleading to residents because of the statutory expenditure that we have to make. It's nothing to do with aspiration and three years in it's a bit rich to blame everything on the previous administration. I have one final question if there's time, but if not I understand. I could just say it's not, believe me we're not blaming everything on the previous administration. There's a lot of blame for the Conservative National Government as well. So you can share the blame with them. 30 seconds go on you've got one more. This is a personal bugbear which is I think on page 36 and page 73 of papers you refer to HMO licensing. But the implication of particularly page 73 is that HMO licensing is a money spinner because it's about the fact that the backlog of HMO licensing is reduced. And obviously the council gets money in from HMO licensing. My concern is the other end of the telescope which is to me HMO licensing is about making sure that the quality of accommodation in HMOs is good. And I believe that the motivation of the HMO licensing department as I experienced it and it doesn't look as though it's changed is about bringing in money not about improving the quality of accommodation. And I would therefore please ask you to look at that because the words that are in your paper strongly imply that HMO licensing is seen by those who do it as purely about getting money in and not about improving the quality of accommodation. Councillor Zingavala, I assure you that's not the case. I mean as you know this is a we have licensed HMOs for some time in Barnet. We have to reflect in finance papers the reality of the cost of the service in relation to whether it's able to cover it. And there is obviously the team itself has made good progress in dealing with backlog of licensing which is good. There's been a lot of it's a really invaluable part of that team is really valuable part of what the council does and they provide really good services and they've been invaluable in dealing with the cladding issue, the low-rise cladding issue, that expertise is really valued but they are making an effort to get the process, the licensing far more quicker as the papers in our plan for Barnet state and also the other paper. Undoubtedly you have to refer to the bottom line, it's the same for parking, you know. All these sort of things you have to say if there's a financial implication, the papers have to reflect that but it's certainly not the motivation for doing it and we provide a service. It gives reassurance to good landlords and it gives reassurance to people in shared accommodation. As you know the accommodation pressures are horrendous at the moment and getting licensing right and running an efficient service that is actually a win for both the landlords and for tenants, so yeah. But I'll just reassure you at that point, it's absolutely not done as a way of making money. I think on these things because you're allowed full cost recovery, it's financed against staff but that costing is somewhere else so you put it as an income. My concern has always been about the inspection regime which is I know during COVID that there were problems but I was exceedingly anxious about the amount of time they spent doing paperwork versus actually inspecting what the state of HMOs were and I would just urge you to look at that, that's all. Okay, the 15 minutes you're up, I've been told, yeah we can send you something about the recovery plan, not just an analysis but we can have some explanatory notes to make it easier to understand. Okay, if we move on to the next item with the outcome of off-state inspection, Councillor Cokley Webb. Yeah, thank you. I don't know how many people have had a real chance to read through all of this report but when we look at how far the service has come, I personally want to still place again on record my thanks to all the staff that work within this service that not only worked incredibly hard to give us such a good result for the off-state but permanently worked really hard for good outcomes for our young people and I'm particularly proud of all the extra co-working we've done, so the way that we actually include young people in the decision-making, something that obviously didn't happen years ago and how they actually value what we do in terms of asking their views and incorporating their views into their care and what we do for them and how we inform them and what's important to them. I'm sure Mr Mundy will probably expand a bit more but when you look at the actual off-state judgement, I mean, they're single lines where you've got a good, good, outstanding good and good but when you look into the depth of everything that went into it to actually achieve this, it is really outstanding from my point of view the work that has been put in and continues to be put in because it's not just something that's done for off-state, it's something that happens every day of the year to make sure that all the young people in the borough get the best outcomes possible, whatever the situation. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I'm very proud of the outcomes that we've had for our off-state. You'll be aware that the new government have suggested that single word judgements should go for schools. We're also hoping that they'll make the same approach to children's social care which is also struggles with a complex service being judged by a single word. Some of the words are really good and we're really pleased at the progress that we've made and actually if you read the letter in detail, you'll see a whole range of really positive interventions and findings. Colleagues who read these letters a lot have all queried with me why the judgments were so low in comparison to the text but that's a question for off-state. We've set out an action plan saying what we will do to address the issues that off-state have identified which we are implementing so they are generally administrative and we will seek to put those systems in place that will ensure those processes work more openly. So I'm really pleased with the overall outcome, very proud of the staff that we have working for Barnet who have really worked hard over the last five years and we're really committed to implementing the further changes that we need to do to ensure that all children and young people in Barnet flourish, especially those that we are responsible for and that we continue to co-create and co-produce services with them that meet their needs. I'm happy to take any questions. I'll open it for any questions but I think it should be noted our congratulations to the staff, the young people and the families who took part in this. Anything people want to raise? Councillor Moore? I've got a question at the end but it's more by way of comment. I would echo the comments that have been made about staff but I think highlighting one particular phrase within the report I think is really important, that the staff are skilled, tenacious and passionate in what they do with children and I think that sums up the feeling I have when I talk to members of your service. Obviously there are many children and young people who have faced challenges but those for whom we have a particular responsibility as corporate parents will obviously have greater challenges in their lives and I think it's really pleasing to see particularly the outstanding judgement with regards to young people in care because they are the top of the triangle in terms of those children for whom we are responsible as corporate parents. So I just wanted to note that. Just also to comment, pleased to see the positive comments about the virtual school, particularly about the MASH, multi-agency safeguarding hub as a governor. It's certainly one of those services that schools have relied on for a range of different issues and really important and then also I would of course say this but in section 38 of the letter talks about health assessments for those children in care including dental and optician's appointments and this has been a challenging area in the past so it was good to see a positive judgement there. My question really was regarding the action plan and your progress on that. Obviously you've got deadlines of this month and next for a number of elements of that but there was one that you'd set yourself a deadline of August so I was just curious to how you've made progress with that part of the action plan. This is my first time back since I've been on leave. I'm absolutely convinced that my staff will have implemented the particular actions that they've got. I know some of them were being actioned immediately and so I'll write to you to let you know the particular update on that August action. Just for anyone who's watching, they are systems issues and it's important to get them right but they were not major criticisms of the department and so it's just really, it will be useful to know that those have gone into place because it's strengthened the system. Thank you. So my deep congratulations to you Chris and to your staff for this remarkable achievement. As we know the children in care and care leavers are some of the most vulnerable people in our society facing a huge amount of inequalities so this is an excellent start by the bar of getting this kind of result so there's more to build on but it's excellent so congratulations to you and your staff. As a school governor, having been through an off state not that far back, to get an outstanding and clearly good judgments which were very clearly in some cases extremely on the border of outstanding, particularly the experiences and progress of children who need help and protection, that's a very, very strong area. The bar is very high with Offstead and I think this is an incredible achievement for your staff and I suppose like everyone else, we're very grateful to have a children's service that's delivering this quality of care. It's really impressive. There's lots of bits and pieces, good practice, I mean the virtual school, there's a lot of good practice that's highlighted, the MASH is highlighted as being particularly good as well and I think it's a really good and very reassuring reading. The thing that I'm really pleased about around the whole report is that the outstanding is not just owned by those teams that are the children care teams, actually it flags all of the fantastic work that our intervention and planning teams do, duty and assessment teams do when children come into care, that those processes are run really well. It's got links with our leaving care service because that's where the unaccompanied asylum seeking team is, it's got links with our disabled children's services because that's where a whole group of looked after children are, especially with our new autism team as well. So there is really good practice across the whole of the system and I look back over nine and a half years here, that was not the situation. You didn't have tenacious social workers to the extent that you do now and I'm really proud of all the work they do, how focused they are on children's outcomes. The thing that really encouraged me was that nearly all of the social workers were more than happy to speak to Ofsted and you hear of lots of places where they don't want to do that but all of our staff were more than happy to meet with them. They didn't all have that opportunity but they certainly were up for having discussions about what it was like working in Barnet and I think the end paragraph about them I think is the really critical thing. Greatly proud of the service they provide which is what that shows. One thing that stood out for me as well is that we also have staff that have left the borough but then have chosen to come back. So we're obviously a destination where the staff are valued and they feel happy working here and continue to work here. My comment on that is that they should have never left in the first place but there we go. I did my bit to thank Chris Munday and the team by deliberately missing our items 5 to 9 in the agenda which we will have to go back to but for the moment the recommendations on this is cabinet is asked to note and consider the inspection findings as part of their corporate responsibility for recognising and prioritising the needs of children and in fulfilling their role as corporate parents, that cabinet to consider and note the full inspection findings and outcomes as we've done and cabinet to refer the report to full council for consideration. Are we happy with those recommendations? Alright thank you, thank you very much. Anyway now I'll start doing my job properly. Item 5 petitions, none. Six deputations, none. Public questions and comments, none. Matters referred to the Executive, none. And consideration of reports from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee or Scrutiny Subcommittees, if any, please. Right, so we move on to item 11 on the agenda, our plan for Barnet, that is looking at the delivery and outcomes framework for Quarter 1. And in it I think there is much good news. Our work in tackling inequality and reducing poverty has begun. Now that is a long journey, but we are heading in the right direction. These are two issues that were ignored by the previous administration. We've already talked about the Oxford Judgement and there are also exam results, great exam results. We have begun work in rectifying the 20-year neglect of roads and pavements, as well as inheriting a budget that wasn't quite what it looked like. We did inherit a few thousand potholes, it takes time to deal with it. Another thing in the first quarter is residents moving into the council accommodation in Conan Dell Gardens. We've got the journey to net zeros continuing, as does some real resident participation and neighbourhood working. I don't know if people have any comments on their portfolio areas. Councilor Edwards. I have just one comment really. It's on page 42 under the Benchmarking 4.1, and particularly where it says Living Well on the Caring for People. I'll give people a chance to catch up with getting up to that page. It says that ten indicators included from the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework with most forecasts for 23/24 to be better or on par with the peer group comparator. So first of all I'd like to underline the fact that that's a really good positive feedback about our wonderful staff who work in adult social care, particularly as we're still waiting for the outcome of the CQC inspection which took place recently. But the second bit I think is probably the best disingenuous because it says except for the proportion of adults in contact with secondary mental health services living independently with or without support, I'm reliably informed by our officers, that that particular aspect relates to national health service input on a mental health and it's not adult social care from the local authority. Therefore it's quite unfair to be criticised for something that we have no particular control over. I believe it's been raised before. So I'd like to ask officers if they could go back and clarify that because if it is about the national health service then I think it needs to come away from the performance indicators for our own staff. If I've made myself clear or unclear please let me know. To be honest I don't know if anyone can answer that question directly. I mean obviously secondary mental health services would be an NHS responsibility. This is how many of those are living independently and I presume it's something that all boroughs collect but I really don't, I'm not an expert on this. I don't believe we've got anyone in the room that will know that level of detail so we may have to get back to you but certainly we can make sure that the report is clear. Thanks, I just also want to make sure that we're not being assessed on something we have no control over. That was the important point that I wanted to make so yeah, thanks. There's sometimes these things we're asked to collect whether we have any control over them or not. Yeah, but it's an implied criticism in the report. We'll find out. Thank you. Did Councillor Houston put his hand up? And then alright, we'll move along. Yeah, there's a couple of things just to highlight. I think there remains to be, in relation to housing and quality affordable homes, there remains to be good progress at Brent Cross. That's a major regeneration scheme and members of the committee were aware that obviously the low rise decant into new homes has happened in terms of the Whitefields estate which is a landmark. The high rise units will start to move into their new homes later this year. We've reformed and restarted the Barnet Homelessness Forum which has given members of the cabinet to be very aware of the homeless pressures that are causing our overspend on temporary accommodation. There's been a lot of work, good work in terms of dealing with homelessness but the pressures have overwhelmed across London councils and that's something that we'll discuss when we come to the budget. But there is good work and one of the statistics I would just point out is actually that homelessness prevention's KPI, we actually improved on. So that's the route we are making. There's a lot of good work going on, it's just the demand is outstretching our ability to house people and that's a real challenge across London. One of the ways of dealing with that is to deal with supply inside of housing and there are some moving forwards on Great Park Northeast which is referred to in the report. There was a topping out ceremony which the new MP for Hendon attended for the Upper Lower Foster's estate which is a very good piece of work because it was a co-designed piece of regeneration and it's really good to see that coming forward. That's 142 homes and 75 extra care places. There is one statistic that members of the cabinet might be concerned about and I just want to provide some context to that. In the section about the performing less well, we have actually gone below the target for the decent home. We have a very high, Barnet Homes has a very robust record in dealing with compliance but we have fallen slightly very marginally below the target on decent home standards, a very high target of 99.6%, the target is 98.5% and we're at 97.8%. The reason for that is entirely to do with the identified problems with the panel system blocks that we're aware of, the low rise panel systems. Clearly when you've got the category 1 hazards they are not a decent homes compliance so the decision was to include them in the council homes that were affected in the decent homes target. That's the reason why that target, which has always been met, has fallen below that and I think just to provide reassurance, that's a known issue that we're dealing with and that's the reason why that target is not met. We've got a strategy to obviously deal with that and remedy those works within two years. They remedied those very council properties within two years so I think I can provide reassurance on that. We're still very much performing in relation to our general stock in terms of decent homes. It doesn't really appear in the family friendly section but I know that the conversations that we've had with Barnet Homes and with Councillor Houston has meant that we've actually improved the number of accommodation that we can provide for care leavers and that is a really, really welcome thing that we've done over the past 18 months to actually make sure that more properties are put forward for care leavers when they are ready to live independently. When you look through the family friendly headings there, just a couple of things to note is that we've obviously had a child and family early help action plan has been published and I can't over emphasise the importance of making sure that early help, what it does and how it works in the borough means that people get help at the earliest proper opportunity which means that that avoids crisis further down the line. And then when we've had the child programme that's gone to Whitting Health Trust, that's something that took quite a while to sort out but that is now starting to work well and mean that the actual visits that should have been made are now being made and that mothers and young people are actually getting the checks that they need on time. When we got the corporate parenting annual report, that you can see the amount of work that goes in to make sure that these young people have all the help possible at every stage of their life, whether it be the people that are looking after them or the services that offer their help and support, it's something that we need to be really proud of because that's something that, again, if that just doesn't happen at the right time that can really affect helping with their trauma, helping with their future prospects and that's something that we really are good at doing and something that we've been recognised that we're good at doing. I think if Sara was here she would have talked more on the serious violence duty strategy but it's something that we're making sure that it's something that we don't just take as something that another department should do but something that we get involved with and we have a strategy to be targeting the young people that are at risk of either exploitation or serious violence so we try and pick up the cases early on, not wait for tragedies to happen. Thank you. I wanted to highlight some excellent partnership work that's dotted throughout this report but everything from working to improve our tennis courts by working with the Long Tennis Association to actually working with different services across the Council, the work is really impressive but it also addresses the need to be cost conscious and improve services for residents and I think one thing that we can particularly highlight is improving our accesses to services so that means libraries working together with the housing office, the housing options team, it also means things like Ask Barnett, the chat function which went live over summer, our residents are able to get the support that they need and the resources they need in an easier and more efficient way and I think as a Council it means that we're working more effectively with our residents and able to serve them in a better way. I'd also just really like to highlight once again, and I know we have talked about this in cabinet before, but just the difference functioning CCTV service makes to our borough residents. I was at a residents association AGM over the weekend and just having cameras that are working that are monitored is really bringing change to people's lives. Thank you, Chair. I'd just like to comment on one or two of the areas that particularly impact on health and wellbeing issues. There are health and wellbeing issues threaded through the report and that reflects the importance of the wider determinants of health in sections around poverty alleviation and around housing and around environments. They and many others impact on the health and wellbeing of our residents and on page 44 we talk about the joint strategic needs analysis which is a repository of a whole range of data that helps inform our services across the borough. It's gone through a major refresh this year and it was a real pleasure to see in the training session last week a whole range of members but actually also some of our partners from the health and wellbeing board, from the voluntary sector and from some of our GPs who are actually on the session hearing about the value and the data within the joint strategic needs analysis. It will also inform our current joint health and wellbeing strategy and the report talks about a number of areas that come out of the joint health and wellbeing strategy and that's around, for example, dementia, being dementia friendly, some really excellent work that's gone on, being age friendly, again some really good work that's gone on. We've been working with bus companies locally to enable drivers to be more aware of those passengers with greater needs. We've done some work on homeless health which has impacts for the homelessness strategy and those within the borough of homeless. Fit and Active Barnet enabling residents to stay healthy and the referring into that service for a whole range of health reasons to keep people mobile. But it will also be really important as we develop the next health and wellbeing strategy, the 2025/29 strategy. And I'm looking forward both to using the GSNA to really start to hone in on the health inequalities across the borough in our mission to tackle health inequalities as mentioned on page 47 and to be the healthiest borough. And I'm looking forward to co-producing that with partners, again talking about community engagement as my colleague did, but also through the ICB and the voluntary sector so that we can have the next joint health and wellbeing strategy that really starts to set us on that path to be the healthiest borough. Thank you. I was just looking through the various achievements, just as you called me. I just wanted to, thought there's a few things that are worth highlighting here, particularly in the safe, attractive neighbours and town centres section, where it's pleasing to see that the street cleanliness inspections all exceeded our target and indeed that all the planned road and pavement programs were delivered. It's not just a question of having the plan in place, it's important that we actually deliver on those as well and we are there. Also to show that 97% of fly tips were collected within our target, but on that we're actually now doing more and we should see an improvement in that over the coming year, because as a result of the Clean Up Barnet campaign, we're actually getting enforcement staff working with the street scene officers as they go out, so we want to see more awareness of how to report fly tips and more fines and prosecutions if people don't do what they're supposed to do and do fly tip. Although we're doing well, there's actually more to do over the coming year. Just good things to mention under the open spaces enhancing local environment section, where we saw the sustainable urban drainage scheme at Hallywick Park. Again, there are two more planned over the coming year and also the green flag at Cherry Tree Wood and there's going to be a flag raising ceremony in a couple of weeks' time, so I just thought there's a few things there that were worth highlighting. Thank you. Thank you, Lida. I thought that it would be relevant, given the comments that Councillors Inkin made, to remind people that a very important element of my portfolio and a very important thread of the Labour administration's desire to benefit residents of Barnet is the reducing poverty agenda, which is not just innovative and forward thinking in local government terms, but it is genuinely something that we're very proud of in terms of what's already been done whilst it was in the community wealth building portfolio, but what we've got planned in future. It also highlights why financial sustainability is so important for us. If we don't have the foundations of the Council right, if we're not providing a solid bedrock on which to provide a robust and imaginative and aspirational agenda, then we can't achieve either the things that we want at all or, indeed, to the extent that would make a genuinely positive intervention in people's lives. So not only is reducing poverty agendas fundamental to something that we're interested in, but it also highlights why it's so important for us to monitor how spend across the organisation is happening. And the residents' experience element of my portfolio, I shouldn't overlook. The Ask Barnet element has just been rolled out, which is hugely exciting, and we are looking to make use of technology to make the interaction that residents have with the local authority far easier and far more beneficial for both parties. I came across this concept called failure demand. There's a notion that if you constantly try and contact an organisation but fail to do so, it's actually quite a money-waster, in addition to causing a huge amount of frustration for everybody involved. So that's something that we're attempting to tackle and improve the residents' experience element also. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just draw cabinet's attention to the appendices where I think the performance is generally positive, and the benchmarking of authorities is very positive. And the risk register, just to note, a new risk has been added, which has to do with the Collindale office block, where there's been discovered some defects from the building spec. If you're going in there, don't worry, it has been deemed safe, but it does mean there'll be some disruption at Collindale over another month, and I'm sure because it's to do with building defects there'll be a legal opinion involved on all sides, probably. But what we're asked to do is that cabinet note the contents of our plan for Barnet delivery and outcome, quarter one report. So do we note the report? Thank you. The next item is the adult residents' perception survey, which is item 12. This was quite a big survey, over 2,000 residents surveyed, and it has generally positive results, especially with the trend. The trend nationally and in London had been, since the pandemic, for things to decline where those have been generally positive. I'll just pick out three and then ask if there's any comment. 76% of the council found the council trustworthy, 61% council acts in concern of residents, and 70% promotes equal opportunities. All those are quite a big rise compared with the last time the survey was done. So the things that people have noticed about the new administration – sorry, I'll just get the right page. But from the point of view of looking at trend data, I don't know if there's anything that either of you feel we need to talk about? Any particular trends apparent? As you pointed out, we benchmark both our adults and our young people's residents' perception survey against an LGA national aggregated survey, as well as a London regional one. In the post-COVID period, perception surveys tended to show greater satisfaction with local authorities than was normal, which was put down to a general feel-good factor of coming out of the pandemic. And what we've seen in national and local comparators is that to drop quite sharply afterwards, which hasn't been the case with Bowneck's results. I think there are some very encouraging results here, and upticks from a high bar, as you say, and against national trends. I think, as Councillor Conway – she's not here today, but if she was, one of the things she would draw the attention to is the social education and community section. Particularly in paragraph 1.34, which puts the context of the survey having been undertaken in the autumn of 2023, at a time of particular community tension in Bowneck, and in London in the country, but particularly affecting some of the communities that live in our borough. And I think that the resilience of that particular result is really very encouraging. Four-fifths of residents agree that people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local area, in line with the London average and national average, very slightly down, but no significant difference in the results between ethnic and religious groups, and only very slightly down. Given what has happened, that is a remarkable result. It is very encouraging, and I think those of us who are involved in our communities have also picked up that Bowneck has really good networks of interfaith and intercommunity groups who work together, as well as partnering with the council and other bodies, schools and religious groups, churches, temples, mosques and synagogues, and I think that is something that really makes our borough special, and we should be proud of that result. Not to repeat, but to add to what Councillor Luciana said, several areas are really impressive. I think what underlines it is that this was just a note that this survey was undertaken immediately, during a period of high inflation, so that is when people will be feeling the pinch, the need for good services increases, and even then our customer service was increasing in satisfaction, so I think that is almost 10% up. And it is also reflected that residents are feeling that we are more customer-focused. I mean, I would prefer to call them residents rather than customers, but I think it does absolutely show that the focus of this administration is on our residents, and residents are feeling that way as well. I would echo very much what the last two colleagues have said, and I would comment on the community cohesion issue, because I think it is something that we should be proud of, but also hold very carefully. It is a privilege to have that sense of community cohesion that has given us a result like this at a time when it was really very difficult. I am going to share a minor anecdote, but actually demonstrate, I hope, how strong that is across the borough. I was there on behalf of the Mayor at licensing a priest in Edgware on Sunday evening, and actually one of the things that many of the church members and community members said in welcoming the new priest when they spoke was to make the point about the strength of our multi-faith, inter-faith and community networks, and how that was a very special thing to have, and that they hoped that he would find it as special as they did, and so I thought that was a really interesting reflection outside the council to just back that up. But I guess I'm bringing it back to a serious note. Obviously, the perception survey is fantastic, and I'm really pleased that residents are saying that we're listening and acting on their concerns, but I guess the question is, and it's a bit like, as people know, I'm a bit of a data and fact hound around the JSNA and things like that, so I suppose the adult perception survey, it's what we do with it, and I would reflect that when we were looking at this two years ago, there were some issues that we started to unpick about the perceptions of people with disabilities on our services, and I was really pleased to see that the perception of equal opportunity and equal access actually had risen, because I know that a lot of work and thought went in after that result on disabilities, so it is about what we use that data for within the council to look at how we improved our communications and the way we worked with, in that case, a particular part of our particular group of our residents. So it will be really interesting to look at the deeper parts of this survey and see how it informs the way we develop our services over the next several years, so thank you. Right, time to ask, some of it is asking how we use this data, obviously we have quite a bit of quantitative data, but this is a qualitative one, and how we make sure that this plays an important role in planning, rather than just something to congratulate ourselves about. I don't know if you've only thought, I mean from a community cohesion point of view, 78% may be a good score, but still short by 22%, so it is how we get into that virtuous circle of improving all the time. I don't know if, where does this get fed into, you know, how does this make a difference? We are looking at proactive work on community cohesion at the moment as well, which I think we would be doing anyway at this point in time, but it is something that I agree with council more, we can't take for granted even if it's a good result. And what we will be doing as well, there is a young person's perception survey as well, and what we're doing, which will be coming to a future cabinet meeting, is analysing them both together and looking at where the strongest areas of need and priority are in that combined data set. And similarly to people with disabilities in the last survey, we're regularly less satisfied than others, we'll be looking at whether that is the case again, whether there's any other cross breaks, whether it's geographies or any other kind of demographic data, where we can look at, well, these are the audiences and the issues we need to look at. So that work is ongoing. So this is taken through the Tackling the Gaps group as well, so we're looking at different quarters through that group and developing the action plan. The research, you mentioned councilor Moore, the ethnographic research, so we've got, that's quite a long pipeline on it, so we've worked with those groups and we're looking at actions on that. But disability is coming out strongly again, and there might be other things that are driving that, so an observation we've made is, this is a residence perception survey, and the disabled people that might not be taking part, might not be accessing our services, but so they're, do we need to think about the different comms, communicate our services, because they might not need the service, so their perception is lower, so we'll be looking at those things as well, so it might be not just about disabled people accessing our services. From a generality of audience, sorry, I thought I'd switch it on, a generality of audience who aren't aware of what goes on, so absolutely, that's really important, but it's the data, whether quantitative or qualitative, it's really important we use it to inform what we do, and use our resources in the best way we can. Okay, are there any other comments people want to make? So this is a useful snapshot of perception survey, and it's the trend data that we look for. The recommendations is that cabinet note the top line findings of the adult residence perception survey, 2324. Are we happy to note that? Yes, thank you, thank you, well noted. The next item is Hampstead Gardens suburb library, and I need to remind people that there is exempt information on this, so if people want to ask questions from the exempt section, please indicate. I could try and give an introduction, but it is a bit of a confusion, but the reason it's coming to the cabinet, I presume, is that this counts as less than best consideration, because the actual difference in opportunity cost is less than two million. It's not, I think, for the Secretary of State, but it's the thing that we have to assure ourselves, that if it's not best consideration, it doesn't mean it's not the best value, if that makes sense. And I don't know if you want to give a brief introduction to the recent history? Yes, certainly, Robert Brown, Head of Property Services and Valuation. So the Hampstead Garden suburb library is run by the Garden Suburb Library Group Limited, who are a charitable group staffed almost totally by volunteers, and they've been providing the library service for us in Hampstead for some years. They can't afford to pay rent, but by entering into an agreement with them, whereby they occupy the premises and run the library, and keep the place neat and tidy, without rent, we get a library service without having to staff it. Our landlord, Freshwater, has granted us an underlease, £12,850 a year. In turn, they've given us consent to grant a sub-underlease to the Garden Suburb Library, and they've agreed to us providing, by a side letter, a concession agreement that enables the suburb library group to occupy rent-free. There are a number of clauses within the sub-underlease and within the side agreement that enable both the library group and the council to break the agreement, should there be a reason to do so, and in turn, we have break clauses in our underlease with Freshwater, so should there arise a scenario whereby the charity is unable to provide the service and the council decides it, therefore, isn't going to have a library there, we have a number of opportunities to walk away. I think I should draw members' attention to why we're deciding this, and it's probably 6.4 on page 96, is the considerations, the four considerations that have to be made. Whether the financial assistant, directly or indirectly, from public resources by public authority, does the financial assistant confer an economic advantage on one or more enterprises? Is the financial assistant specific, and having a side letter would make it very specific about what we expect of Hampshire Garden, our library, I think it's the C&C, it's a charitable company, isn't it? And will it have an effect on competition or investment within the UK, which I doubt, as it's not a trade or investment. But if we're satisfied that these are reaped, what we're being asked to agree to, or the recommendation, is a sublease to the library, a side letter also to the library, and if I'm right, the side letter is something that's just between us and the library, that freshwater needs a nose there, but don't have a say over or can't alter. That's correct, yes. It's between us and the library. We needed freshwater's consent to enter into it, but they're not a party to it. But they're not a party to it, yep, okay. So, have people got any questions? Councillor Cornwall. I would just like to make a comment as the Councillor in the neighbouring ward, because I do appreciate that it's not formally best consideration in the terms of Section 1, 2, 3, but I think, certainly from my knowledge of them, it is a fairly modest contribution to unlock a lot of goodwill from those who run it in a very professional and passionate way, actually. It's delivered by local people with a modest input from library services, but actually of quite high quality, because they rely on the library services to make sure that it is up to the standards of a library in terms of content. And people will have the impression, I suspect, that it's Humpstead Gardens suburb, it's a very affluent, broadly affluent community, but I know that as a member of a neighbouring ward, actually there are residents within that area. They're right, there is hidden poverty and hidden need in areas close to that, and I know that there is use of the library by some of those residents, and so it is greater than the impact that you might see on paper. And certainly from the correspondence I got when it was challenging and request to intercede on their behalf, I know it is very well appreciated and supported by many people, so thank you. Here we are. Good words about it. Any other comments or to remove the recommendations? The cabinet approves the grant of the sub-underleash to gardens suburb community library limited on terms that are shown in appendix B. The cabinet approves the grant of the side letter to gardens suburb community library limited in accordance with the terms set out in appendix C to this report. The side letter will be an exclusive arrangement between the council and gardens suburb community library limited and not capable of assignment, and the cabinet delegates authority to the lead officer and head of property and portfolio management in consultation with the leader to approve any minor amendments. I think those recommendations also cover what's in the accept section, so can we accept the recommendations and be satisfied that we don't need to go into the exempt because it's covered in the discussion we've had already. Are people agreed? All right, thank you. The next item is the sustainability program update that I believe Councillor Sniderman is leading on. Thank you, leader. So this is an update on our sustainability program, and we declared that sustainability and biodiversity emergency just over two years ago, but it's good to take the opportunity within this report to reconfirm our commitment to that. But the declaration is important as it was. More important is the action that we're going to take, and this report and the appendix, which has got the full annual report, sets out all of the stuff that we have done over the last year and indeed over the last couple of years. Notably, that includes our citizens assembly and young people's assemblies, which have greatly contributed to our sustainability action plan. There's lots of details in the report, and I can see Jugita has popped up on the screen there. Some of the highlights are including the start we've made on retrofitting EV charge points, converting streetlights to LEDs, planting a record number of trees and the sustainable urban drainage scheme, which I think is absolutely brilliant, that I referred to earlier. And importantly, some of these things are not just helping the environment, they're helping the financial sustainability of the Council, particularly with regards to, you know, the LED streetlights, and also with retrofitting and insulation, they're actually helping residents financially. I'm sure Barry, Councillor Rawlings, looking forward to reading out the full recommendations in a moment, but recommendations also include, importantly, adding a work stream on climate adaptation and resilience, which we will add to our sustainability action plan. And there's a workshop coming up for members organised by Bloomberg, so we can actually look at how that can be embedded within the planning decisions that we take. The recommendation also includes producing a climate budget, which is a bit of a confusing concept to explain, that is not a separate budget, but is a way of identifying measures that reduce carbon emissions within the normal financial budget setting process. The final recommendation is just to note that the Programme Director for Culture and Sustainability, Yogita Popat, who's there, who's already in place, is the lead officer for climate change. So, as I say, there's loads more details in the report and in the full sustainability report, which is a very good read, so please do look at that to see all of what's going on. But, of course, we've got lots more to do to reach our net zero, challenging net zero targets. Did you mention street lighting? I go back to the adult perception survey, where 81% was satisfied with the street lighting, up from 74% two years ago. We've just addressed that the early delighting is actually light, as well as cutting down some of the carbon costs. If I were to do any questions, does I suppose Yogita or Deborah want to talk to the report? Thank you, and I think some of this we're waiting for, to know, to see what the actual difference things like British Energy made to work with London Councils on some of the power issues about how clean power and so on. So, from what I gather, although we've already declared it, this is a bit like when we're doing Labour Party stuff and somebody has to take a picture on Twitter to show it exists, that we work in some virtual world. So, although we declared it, this is to put it in writing, that we've declared it. Anyway, any questions for Alan or the officer? Councillor Begg. Thank you, sir. It's a brilliant report, really highlights all the progress that has been made. So, my question really is, do we think that communities have been engaged enough and community participation? So, it's the communities that are going to feel this difference in net zero work that we are doing, and particularly young communities. So, do you think enough has been done to involve them? I'll make a start. I think, yes, I think we have done a lot and we are doing more. I mean, we started with our Citizens' Assembly and Young People's Assemblies, which have never been tried in Barnet before. And indeed, we've had lots of interest from other authorities in showing the good practice and how we did that. We had a range of action groups that came out of those assemblies that carried on the work within the community. We've got recently Community Energy Barnet has just been formed to start taking forward community energy projects within the borough. And that's led by members of the community. And as Gita said, we're going to look to involve the community in the climate adaptation and resilience work going forward. So, like across the whole council, I think we've done a lot to involve the community, and definitely in the sustainability area. Councilor Moore, then Councilor Houston. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Councilor Schneider, for what I think is a very exciting and full report, and something that I can absolutely get behind. What I was just going to raise the issue about, as we start to promote this, certainly for parts of the community, people would benefit from understanding the wider impact of a range of this work on broader health implications. So, climate resilience against rising summer temperatures have a very clear health impact, particularly on our older residents. Rising summer temperatures have all sorts of negative health impacts, as does the air quality impact of decarbonizing, particularly of transport. There are all sorts of very clear evidence now about the impacts of poor air quality, both on children and on older people. And tree planting is one of the things in its own right, but actually the positive impacts around combating the urban heat island effect goes further to improve communities' resilience against rising temperatures. So, I really appreciate the report and support it, but I hope we'll be able to feed that in, and certainly I would welcome and recognize the sorts of work that goes on in our schools through the education programs, because young people can be incredibly evangelical about environmental issues, and can convince the rest of the community as well. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to draw the Cabinet Member's attention to the really good work that's been done by Barnet Homes in relation to retrofit energy saving measures in over 600 Council homes. An additional 100 homes are going to be retrofitted through the Social Housing Decarbonization Fund, and we've submitted by March 2025, and we're submitting a bid with other via-London councils and a consortium for further funding from the Social Housing Decarbonization Fund. I think one of the things to say about the net-zero agenda when it comes to housing is that even if climate change wasn't an issue, and it is an issue, actually this investment is lowering people's fuel bills and basically dealing with cost of living pressures in people in low incomes. I think it would be the right thing to do irrespective of climate change, but actually it's a very good example of a double win, because by doing the right thing by our planet, we're also doing the right thing, lowering the costs for people who are struggling to make ends meet, with all the pressures of living in London under the cost of living crisis that we've been through. So it's really a very positive investment, and I look forward to the Government bringing further measures, but I think we are well placed to be able to be one of those boroughs that actually is leading on this, not following, because actually we've done a lot of good work already, and Government want partners who can deliver their agenda in terms of retrofitting quickly and efficiently, and I think Planet Homes and the Council are well placed to be able to do that. Yeah, as I said, some of this is waiting to see what the national change is, isn't it? Any other comments? Or if Alan wants to sum up? Yeah, well just to say, I mean there's been some good comments, and it's a great report, just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Jugita and the team who put this together, and who have been instrumental in driving this work forward. I mean, Council Houston talked about being ready to deliver for the Government, and equally we've got a really good relationship with the GLA, we met with the Deputy Mayor for Environment a couple of weeks ago, and they recognise that from a low base, Barnet is now one of the leading authorities, we've got lots of programmes, we've got lots of ideas, and we're very keen to work with Government, GLA and other partners to take that forward. Thank you people, happy we go to the recommendations. Right, the recommendations. Cabinet reconfirms their commitment to the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency Declaration issued in May 2022 and noted in June 2022. Cabinet to note the progress achieved in delivering the Sustainability Action Plan to date, and to include an additional work stream within it to support climate adaptation and resilience. Cabinet delegate authority to the Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change in consultation with the Programme Director, Culture and Sustainability, the monitoring and updating of the Sustainability Action Plan, and to oversee the process of producing a climate budget to address the residual funding gap, and following the changes to the Council Senior Management Team structure approved at Council on the 21st of May 2024, the Council notes the Programme Director, Culture and Sustainability already imposed as the lead officer for climate change. We happy to agree those recommendations? Moving on to the final item, well, the forward plan is the Chief Financial Officer's report, which is both the quarter one financial forecast and the budget management. Councillor Deneckley. Thank you very much, Leader. Quite a substantial report, and naturally the contents of it and the implications of it are equally substantial. May I just start by expressing my sincere gratitude to the Finance Team in the Council for both putting the report together, but also all of the oversight work that it betokens, that there's a huge amount of work that's now being done with service directorates across the organisation, and the Finance Team have done an extraordinary amount of work to embed themselves within the functioning of the Council in order to provide us with the level of context and detail that we can see in this report. Speaking of context, I think it's important to start with that concept. The report itself is obviously emergent from a background of financial activity and an environment in which we currently exist financially. So the context falls into two categories. We have a national and how that manifests locally. In terms of the national context, people have heard me say this. In the past, local government finance is in a dire situation, exacerbated by 14 years of underinvestment and, to a certain extent, undervaluing of what local government has to offer and the role it plays within an individual's life, both civic and/or otherwise. As a consequence of that, we find ourselves in a position where we are providing more and more services. We're actually required, we are enjoined by law to provide those services with ever-diminishing resources. The spending power of local authorities, particularly in London, has dwindled in that same period of time and that shouldn't be forgotten as we move forward and the current government does take that very, very seriously. But in much more recent times, we have seen dramatic financial events that have had ripple effects on our current situation, which we've had to deal with during the time that we have been in the administration. So these were not things that we were aware of or could have been aware of prior and we have had to figure out how best is within our ability to respond to those fiscal calamities whilst also being aspirational forward thinking and wanting the best for our residents. The fiscal event I'm referring to in September of 2022, when Liz Truss was Prime Minister, also briefly has still cut impact, has impacts on us. The inflationary and interest rate consequences that that resulted in nationwide have had very pertinent local effects on us, which I shall speak to when we refer to what the report is actually telling us about in-year spend. Locally, however, there is an important thing to mention, which is we had a change of government structure at the beginning of our administration, which was necessary because we knew that there would be challenges that we faced, not necessarily the scale of the financial challenge we see here. We didn't forecast that, but we knew that agility would be required and a degree of focus and attention that unified all elements of the executive so that all members, executive members who are responsible for service directorates were able to share their views around a single table. And that is largely why we moved to a cabinet and scrutiny system from the rather inefficient and laborious committee system that existed previously. The way that that system has a lax oversight of the financial situation of the Council is something we are dealing with now. The consequences of an inability to properly understand the financial consequences of decision making in the long term is clearly laid out in this particular report. So what does the report actually tell us? If I can turn to page 137 of the cabinet papers in brief, this is the situation we face. We finished last year. The end of year downturn report resulted in a 22 million pound overspend, which needed to draw down our reserves to a level below the 40 million threshold that we consider financially optimal. I suppose it's the best term. We have a strategy document, a policy document within the Council that states that that is the optimum position that our general fund non-amark reserves ought to be at. At the end of the first quarter, unfortunately, we are seeing an end of year position that looks very similar to that. However, we do not benefit from the cushion of a reserve position in the same way as we did last year, which makes this an even more acute problem than the potential overspend last year. And I don't want that to go over as though I'm suggesting it as somehow not extremely serious. It is something that the administration has taken note of as a serious concern, and we've already gone into, we've already undertaken a series of activities and measures to intervene to ensure that this particular situation doesn't end up being our end of year position. Some of the factors that relate to why the end year overspend is at the position it is, perhaps my colleagues will assist me on areas specific to their directorates, but the pressures that were facing us in the last financial year have not dissipated, they've not disappeared. In certain areas, particularly adults and children's services, they have in fact become more acute and more pronounced. But in this particular year, one of the emergent pressures that we are facing is the temporary accommodation pressure that is more acutely felt in Barnet because of certain local factors, those being a small social housing stock, once again, consequence of decades of underfunding and under emphasis on providing that level of stock, private landlords leaving the industry so that it means that we are more reliant on emergency temporary accommodation to meet our housing obligations. And of course, there hasn't been an increase in applicants for accommodation as well. So all of those factors have mounted in year and have caused a degree of pressure on that element of our expenditure. What are we doing? What is it that we've already started to do to meet this challenge? We haven't just shown up at the cabinet meeting saying this is an awful situation and we've got no idea what we're doing. We spent an entire summer coming together with a plan of intervention to get to understand the fundamentals of why the organization is overspending in the way that it is and put in place measures to try and overcome that. So August was quite an invasive learning exercise. I think officers would agree. One to two and a half hour sessions with service directors querying every single line of their budget expenditure and making them defend, to a certain extent, why the expenditure was necessary and essential. And that has led to the development of what we're calling an organization-wide recovery plan. The specific details of which are yet to be formalized because we're still waiting on those figures to be verified. But it is the first element of what we're looking to put in place. Additionally, there are weekly control panel sessions now, I think four days a week, in particular for the benefit of the adults and children's services. We don't want, if there is essential spend, to be done in those directories for the service areas to have to wait a week or longer to sign it off. So we've put in place a weekly program of that sort, which takes into account all expenditure. It does not matter for the purposes of asking the service director to justify that expenditure, what the nature of the spend is or where the funding source comes from. Everything needs to be assessed in first principles. And that includes new contracts, it includes agency spend, it includes all discretionary spend over 5,000 pounds. So we've had the control panels put in. Moving forward, we're going to... So the other thing we've also done is submitted to the government spending review as part of their consultation to put together the autumn budget what the specific factors in Barnet are that need to be addressed. The particular unique factors we find in adult social care, people living longer with complex comorbidities and poor health, our temporary accommodation situation and such like. So we presented to national government what we're facing locally. It isn't just a generic problem that we've said that it is not something that we require specific focus on. I think I will actually leave it there. There will be observations that colleagues will be presenting in the discussion that I can respond to. But I think that the core message to take away for the benefit of residents is that the situation is serious. We are aware of that. But they should be heartened by having a labour administration in place to deal with it and a labour government to assist. Thank you very much. Yes, I think we can add to that. One of the issues is, as you say, when we took over the administration, things didn't seem too bad. But the more we looked under the bonnet, the more we found out how poor decision making was, how things were gathering that was going to cause us problems. The lack of well, some of the things to do with liquidity management would have helped. But one of the things we've done, obviously, is bring in more services in-house, because part of the problem is we didn't have enough control over it. Some of the steering was out of our hands. And if we're going to make a difference, which we need to, because bonnet deserve it, if we're going to bring the budget under control, which we will, because we have to. And then people will talk about statutory services for children and adults. Actually, balancing the books is also a statutory service, otherwise commissioners come in. So it's important that we recognise it's a big task. The advantage of a cabinet system is we found out about it a lot earlier than we would have. We're up for the task and we know that we can make the difference to the residents of bonnet by improving this situation. And it's not waiting to see what government does. It's doing things all the time, making a difference, making sure the budget is rained in. And I'll open it up to whether any officers or cabinet members want to make any comments. Councillor Houston. I think it would be, it's important to make a comment about one of the biggest pressures which Councillor McPhee mentioned, which is the temporary accommodation, rise in cost. We've traditionally had a very good record of predicting temporary accommodation. I think that the record is good. And what we have faced is an unprecedented change in circumstances. This is reflected in temporary accommodation pressures across other boroughs in London. And it's led to a kind of perfect storm where there's a substantial budget pressure as a result of that. I mean, it takes, there's a number of factors in relation to that. One of the biggest factors is the change in demand. We've had 1,596 new housing applications open in the five months to the end of August 2024. That is 65% more than in the August period in 2022. That is a massive, massive difference. Combined on top of that, the cost of temporary accommodation, as Councillor McPhee mentioned, has gone up. It's, we're now having to use, or basically the private rent sector cost, the market is not, I think the best way of describing it would be not, you know, we've got a real, it's broken actually. There is a crisis in London in relation to housing people who need housing. And basically the temporary accommodation costs, the supply, and the cost of temporary accommodation has gone up considerably, not just the demand, but the cost. And we're using a nightly paid temporary accommodation now. The rates for that can vary from, you know, one of the statistics that I just to share with you for one bed, the annual cost variation on a monthly basis goes up from 7,000 for one bed to 11,000 in April to 11,000 in July. That's a considerable difference. And that's just one bed. I think there's also been a problem with some of the projected supply of a lot of our housing. We've obviously been, as a council, investing in our own council housing. And let's say the Colindale Gardens, I was very pleased to be able to go out with local councilors at an event to celebrate the kind of handover of Colindale Gardens and the occupation of it by residents, 249 units. And that was done just last week. And we actually, that investment, which was from the housing revenue account, is projected to save the general fund 800,000 a year. So we have been doing our best to save program in relation to investing in housing to try and meet the need. One of the problems we've had is there has been, a lot of the housing supply in any London borough is delivered through housing associations getting section 106, basically affordable housing, being picked up by housing associations and delivered by housing associations. And we obviously nominate people from our waiting list to that housing. And actually, the supply of that has not been, it has been less than predicted. So again, that's also partly as a result of some housing, basically a lot of housing associations have pulled back on their investment programs because they're in financial difficulties. So I think one of the, there are many reasons for that, we've discussed this before, but one of the biggest things, as Councilman Ackley points out, was the inflation, the base of interest rates. The interest rates have been crippling in relation to supplying, you know, anything to do with investment. And I think that is a real concern. One of the things that we have in the area that which I'm responsible for, we've been looking at, is to go through the capital program to see where we can actually make and pretty radically look at the capital program and agree basic principles about what we will invest in. Quite a lot of our capital program is tied up with government grant and programs that have already been agreed. A lot of the Brent Cross they spend is in that category. But we have been going through it very ruthlessly with Councilman Ackley and with officers to look at what we, you know, what is essential and what isn't essential. Because we do need to make savings and borrowing costs are higher than predicted. One of, it is a shame that we weren't able to borrow more money when interest rates were lower and we have been using, you know, but I think the principle that's now been established is that when we have, with the capital program, is that we have to finance it and that internal borrowing isn't the way to do it. Any capital scheme has to be justifiable in its own terms going forward and fully costed and I think that's one of the things that, you know, I'm very grateful to officers and also Councilman Ackley is bringing that degree of discipline to the budget process. We've had whole day sessions with cabinet and officers and I certainly feel I understand my budget area better than I, you know, I did two years ago, even a year ago, and I think there are, you know, there are reasons, there are whole, you know, basically the governance around budgeting I think wasn't there in terms of Councillors. When I moved into my role as Chair of the Housing and Growth Committee that then was and I think, you know, I definitely feel I've got far greater understanding of the budget process than I did but I think it's been very difficult because I do think that, you know, that we've definitely been a learning process in terms of how we do budget management and I think going forward I feel far more confident that I understand when we're making decisions that are informed decisions and I think that's really important. I don't think I felt like that two and a half years ago. I was taking, you know, we were taking things on, you know, and I think that's a major change. Anybody else? Councillor Begg. So obviously every pound counts, not just today or tomorrow, but in future years. So I've noticed that we are writing off huge amounts of debt here and a lot of it seems to be untraceable. There's some quite large amounts of LA mistakes. So is it time for us to look at our processes and systems to see this doesn't happen again? I find it quite astonishing that in this day and age we can't trace people that are owing debt to a local authority and some of those are really high debt. So we've got some people here that haven't paid 43,000. Most of them are double numbers. So what I really would like to be reassured with is that we do look at the systems again to see how quickly we catch the debt going into long term, because this is public money that we need to get back with possibly with reformed systems. Yeah, I don't know if one of the officers want to mention that, but I will say when a debt becomes too difficult or too expensive to retrieve because it's too old or we can't trace the people, it is a good accounting practice to actually write it off because we can't make assumptions on it. But I don't know if Kevin or Dean want to talk about the efforts that go into recovering the money. Yeah, I just wanted to endorse Councillor Begg's concern about the issue of debt, because when you do look at it it is quite substantial, but I take on board what Dean is saying. I do think officers, to be fair, have been working, particularly in outdoor social care, trying to get some of that debt down, and we shouldn't forget that. But I do think that maybe it might have to be a closed session, I don't know, but we do need to maybe as a cabinet collectively look at if we can do any more, because some of those debts are quite substantial, and the ones that obviously I understand from an accounting point of view, it's better to write some of them off, but some of them are quite large, and it's easy for us to try and pursue people who are our own tenants to get that debt back, but for people who are not, it looks like it's much more difficult, and obviously we do have, with offices on outdoor social care, there are significant debts from people who should have been paying when they've been getting care, and then someone's passed away, and then the whole issue of who is the PAP, who has powers of attorney, and how we can get that off them. So it is quite complicated, but I do think it might be useful to see whether we can, are there any other ways of trying to increase our debt collection, but I also wanted just to say something about adult social care, particularly in relation to some of the pressures, and I think what's important for members to know or to understand is that it's a fact that it's much more expensive to keep people who qualify for adult social care at home and in the community, and what we're seeing is a decline in the numbers of people who go into residential care and going into nursing care, and rightly so in my view, because it means that they remain in their own homes in the local community, but it's important that we realise that there's a cost implication for that, it's much cheaper for the council to place people in nursing care or residential homes, it's actually quite unlawful to actually force people to do that against their will, but but I do think it's important to understand that marketplace in terms of the pressures on adult social care, so keeping people at home in the local community is the most expensive way of doing it, but it's the most dignified way of supporting our citizens, so I just wanted to raise that as part of the overall debate, thanks. It's going to be looked at and some of this is questions of interest on whether a debt is secured or not, but Kevin did you want to come in? And I think some of it is should we first of all offer some debt advice rather than go straight in with you know the bailiffs could come round type thing, so there are different ways of collecting debt as Dean said and what we do need to look at it. Anybody else? Any comments? Thank you leader, it should be said that there are other elements of the program that we offer that sort of offset the cost of living pressures that may well be generating a situation when people enter into debt. Our benefits calculator is truly quite an innovative tool that I encourage residents to make use of if they need to. I should pick up on something that Councillor Houston very usefully and helpfully referred to. I did say that I would explain why the rise in interest rates was more acutely impactful to local government practice and Barnet and just neglected to do so. So the debt financing portion of our revenue budget commitments currently stands at 4.2 million which is not an insubstantial amount of money and it is a concern for us were that figure to increase particularly in the short term given the pressures it will cause on other service areas. Now naturally that is, there are very complex reasons for that but ultimately comes down to an administrative choice in the past by previous administrations to finance their capital works by internally borrowed revenue rather than going out and borrowing money when it was affordable to do so and at a time now when we are obligated to fulfil certain capital works priorities we have no choice but to go out and borrow that money instead. So there are certain factors that legacy issues relating to decisions made by previous administrations which have made the interest rate spike particularly difficult for us to manage as an issue which will then consequently mean that we have to make some very difficult decisions on what exactly we consider genuinely essential priorities. That's the level of seriousness with which we have to now make this the decision making in financial terms. Thank you. Any other comments? On this there's two parts of the recommendation. One is noting and one is approving. Just to make sure people are aware, the approvals are the changes to the capital programme that Councillor used to mention. The write-offs that Councillor Begg and Edwards mentioned. Also two environments of 5.2 and 5.3. One is two million to the capital financing budget from contingency because of the cost of the borrowing and the other one is just to, it's almost to note because the decision has been made of a staffing budget due to a restructure of 213,000. Anyway, having pointed that out, the recommendations that cabinet notes the forecast out turn for 24/25 against the council's revenue budget, the current use of reserves and the outlook, the expenditure against capital budgets in the year and the work underway to contain expenditure within budgets but also for the cabinet to approve. The changes to the existing capital programme in relation to additions are set out in sections 6.8 and 6.9 in accordance with the environment rules. The write-offs for housing benefits, sundry debt and council tax arrears as detailed in section 7 and in appendix B, C and D and lastly two environments as detailed in sections 5.2 and 5.3. Can we agree with all those? No. Thank you. Then it's a case of noting the cabinet forward plan. Just a very, very minor point on the forward plan. You'll have noticed that the agenda, the eagle-eyed will have noticed the agenda today said we had adults and children's resident perception survey and we actually looked at the adults one. The agenda for next month says we have the adults and children's resident perception survey and that's the children's one. So just a technicality. It's a case of keeping people guessing, there's no problem with that. Make it a bit more exciting. If there's no urgent business, as far as I know, we don't need to move into exempt because we've taken that. So that's the end of the meeting. Thank you everybody.

Transcript

Speakers, please turn on the microphone by pressing the speaker icon when speaking and off when finished. Please speak directly into the microphone so that the audio can be picked up clearly for those joining the meeting in the gallery and remotely. Are the minutes of the previous meeting held on 16 July 2024 agreed as a correct record? Agreed. Absence of members, I have received apologies from Councillor Conway. Do members have any declarations to make in relation to any of the agenda items? Take that as a no. Right, now the Constitution states that councillors may ask a cabinet member a question of any matter on the cabinet agenda. The first four questions will be from the opposition group members, and I don't know if you can choose between you who's going to ask those questions. Members will be rotating between the groups. Anyway, if you want to come up, Peter, and the 15 minutes will start when you ask your first question, all right? Thank you. I thought it would be a good place to start with the finance report, and one of the things that is in the finance report that I don't quite understand the detail of is that you suggest that the deficit this year of 20 million, which is after using 18 million of reserves, therefore on an ongoing basis is 38 million, is also after a recovery plan, which is an in-year recovery plan of 7.4 million. Now, the recovery plan seems a bit mysterious, because I can't find where this recovery plan was discussed or mentioned other than in this report, and I wondered what services were contributing to this recovery plan, and what consultation was planned, what inequalities impact assessments had been done in relation to the savings associated with that 7.4 million, because it is treated in the paper as if it's a given, and yet it's appeared out of nowhere, and I didn't know that service changes of this scale could be made without them being agreed in detail by Cabinet, so I wondered how this could possibly be. Thank you, leader. So I'll respond to the various elements of that question. So you began, Councillor, by mentioning the 18 million of reserves that were applied to offset the 38 million overspend in years, so those were earmarked reserves that were used for specific purposes. The 20 million overspend is only what we would, in the worst case scenario, have to cover for non-earmarked general fund reserves, so that's why we were focusing in on that particular figure rather than the overall overspend. In terms of recovery plans, I think moving forward we may have to be a little bit more precise in what we mean by that term, because there's almost two iterations of recovery plans. There's an immediate direction that we gave executive directors to do whatever they could within their available remit to reduce the overspend that they find within their directed areas, and then there's a subsequent organisation-wide recovery plan that is being put together and currently being costed in its entirety that emerged as a result of extensive discussions over the course of August, which I can speak to now. I was going to during my report, but in summary, they were start chamber style sessions that lasted between two and a half hours, one to two and a half hours, depending on the magnitude of the directorate's budget and the extent of the overspend, where there was, in quite excoriating detail, disgust why spend was happening at all and why a particular spend that was over and above budgetary envelope threshold levels wasn't accounted for. As a result of those discussions over the course of August, we had a session with senior officers and all cabinet members as a half-day session to itemise those elements within our organisation-wide recovery plan that we considered palatable to take forward and get robust costings on. They will be fully costed in the coming weeks and we'll be able to present them publicly hereafter, but it's been referred to in the report. Sorry. My understanding was that there are two recovery plans. There's a 7.4 million, which is included in the current figures as an assumption that it will be delivered in determining the deficits at paragraph 1.6 of the report. And my question is not about what you are doing to deal with the 20 million plus the 18, because the real deficit on an ongoing basis next year is 38. So for budgeting purposes, I would argue the budget is really or the cost savings that you need to be looking at is 38. But very specifically, in paragraph 1.6, you refer to a 7.3 something cost saving. And the question that I have is a really simple question. Given that that cost saving is included in the 20 million, i.e. you assume that it happens, then it must be specific items, otherwise you couldn't have included it. So my question is what is in that 7.3 million and how could you decide to do that without it coming to cabinet, without consultation, without any quality impact assessment, unless you're prepared to give us an absolute assurance that no services are being removed in that 7.3 million? We rely upon the professional judgment of executive directors to determine whether or not a particular service level reduction constitutes something that would come to the stage of requiring impact assessment or would detrimentally affect the provision of service in a particular area. So if it is the judgment of officers after we've given the direction to do what is required to bring overspend thresholds back to the position that they were when we set the budget, then that's an operational decision that the organization is entirely entitled to make. We've given a strategic direction and whatever operational decision making is required to facilitate that is entirely feasible without a cabinet level or indeed council-wide decision. I'm not entirely sure if yours is a question of governance or if it's a question of service provision, but it doesn't. The answer is it's both, because I think that a 7.3 million reduction in cost is actually quite significant and therefore I have asked officers what is in that 7.3 million? But I'm asking you as the cabinet member or the cabinet, what is in that 7.3 million? Because it seems to me that the residents of the borough are entitled to know. And this is only the first step in the cost reduction that's going to be needed. And therefore to me it's a fundamental piece of governance that if we are reducing cost that the residents of this borough are entitled to know what is not going to happen. If I can help. There's a couple of things in what you say, Peter. The 7 million are ones that the services have offered up that do not need an Equalities Impact Assessment, do not result in any reduction in services, in the main services like adults and children and is put into the MTFS already. What you're talking about is the next lot of the recovery plan, which is the bigger map. We're waiting for those figures to be valid. When they're validated they will come to cabinet and there will be the opportunity for scrutiny calling. So the recovery plans will have the opportunity to go to scrutiny and will be coming to cabinet, so we're waiting for some validation. And whether any further savings do need an Equality Impact Assessment they will have one because it's a legal necessity. Now I understand that, so you are absolutely confident that the 7.3 million which have been offered up by the services do not involve any significant service reductions? They are about how services are delivered, rather than cutting jobs or anything. However, I'm not promising we will do what is necessary to bring this under control. We inherited a machine that looked good and gleaming when we first got it, then realised it had no real steering and had been out of control for a while and we're having to bring it back in order. We are determined to do that. We will do that. Part of that is the recovery plan. Part of that is, as you have gone through with you, some of the processes we're doing about spend and some of it is about freezing spend. I would make one request, obviously, which is not going to be dealt with tonight, which is that if somebody could send me an analysis of the 7.3 million I would be very grateful. I do think it's something which the administration should think about publishing. Just moving on for a second, in the press release which the Council issued that accompanied this report, the comment was made by Councillor Knacke that the deficit, which you were referring to the 20 million number rather than the 38 million number or whatever, and that, of course, doesn't include the short term, sorry, it does include the short term benefit that we get for two years from the pensions reduction, but that doesn't go on forever. So the underlying level of benefit, of benefit to the budget from sill monies, pension monies and other things means that the underlying running deficit is really very, very large indeed. The question that arises is, in your press release you said that this was equivalent to 5% of the budget, but the reality is that that is true at one level, but unfortunately we have statutory obligations in relation to adults and children and paying our interest bill, which means that the non-statutory element of the budget is massively less than the whole budget. So given that the deficit, the running deficit is of the order of £40 million, it's arguable that that is close to 100% of the things that we do not have to do. So that the scale of the cost savings that you're going to have to contemplate in the Recovery 2 plan relative to the things that really matter to the residents are very, very large. So why did you imply in that press release that this was a 5% problem when it's probably somewhere between a 50% and 100% problem of the things that we're actually allowed to deal with? That particular comment, leader, if I may say, almost encapsulates everything that differentiates a Labour administration from a Conservative one. I do take seriously your knowledge of the structural problems relating to the budget, given that your administration was so heavily responsible for them and you were aware of them at the time when you were in charge. So to a certain extent, yes, we have inherited this and we're dealing with it in a responsible and appropriate way, in a way which allows us to be an administration which is wholly different from what was before. What you're asking is be less aspirational, be more like us, have less interest in providing a decent quality of service provision for residents across Barnet that actually differentiates you as an administration. And to that extent I refuse. We are going to deal with the debt problem that we find. We're going to handle overspends, we're going to figure out exactly how to get the budget under control, but we're not going to give up what makes us unique and what makes our administration more beneficial for the residents of Barnet. I would never ask you to give up, but that was not the question that I was asking. What I was asking was in the press release you explicitly implied this was a 5% problem. The words that you used could not have been clearer. My point is that is utterly misleading to residents because of the statutory expenditure that we have to make. It's nothing to do with aspiration and three years in it's a bit rich to blame everything on the previous administration. I have one final question if there's time, but if not I understand. I could just say it's not, believe me we're not blaming everything on the previous administration. There's a lot of blame for the Conservative National Government as well. So you can share the blame with them. 30 seconds go on you've got one more. This is a personal bugbear which is I think on page 36 and page 73 of papers you refer to HMO licensing. But the implication of particularly page 73 is that HMO licensing is a money spinner because it's about the fact that the backlog of HMO licensing is reduced. And obviously the council gets money in from HMO licensing. My concern is the other end of the telescope which is to me HMO licensing is about making sure that the quality of accommodation in HMOs is good. And I believe that the motivation of the HMO licensing department as I experienced it and it doesn't look as though it's changed is about bringing in money not about improving the quality of accommodation. And I would therefore please ask you to look at that because the words that are in your paper strongly imply that HMO licensing is seen by those who do it as purely about getting money in and not about improving the quality of accommodation. Councillor Zingavala, I assure you that's not the case. I mean as you know this is a we have licensed HMOs for some time in Barnet. We have to reflect in finance papers the reality of the cost of the service in relation to whether it's able to cover it. And there is obviously the team itself has made good progress in dealing with backlog of licensing which is good. There's been a lot of it's a really invaluable part of that team is really valuable part of what the council does and they provide really good services and they've been invaluable in dealing with the cladding issue, the low-rise cladding issue, that expertise is really valued but they are making an effort to get the process, the licensing far more quicker as the papers in our plan for Barnet state and also the other paper. Undoubtedly you have to refer to the bottom line, it's the same for parking, you know. All these sort of things you have to say if there's a financial implication, the papers have to reflect that but it's certainly not the motivation for doing it and we provide a service. It gives reassurance to good landlords and it gives reassurance to people in shared accommodation. As you know the accommodation pressures are horrendous at the moment and getting licensing right and running an efficient service that is actually a win for both the landlords and for tenants, so yeah. But I'll just reassure you at that point, it's absolutely not done as a way of making money. I think on these things because you're allowed full cost recovery, it's financed against staff but that costing is somewhere else so you put it as an income. My concern has always been about the inspection regime which is I know during COVID that there were problems but I was exceedingly anxious about the amount of time they spent doing paperwork versus actually inspecting what the state of HMOs were and I would just urge you to look at that, that's all. Okay, the 15 minutes you're up, I've been told, yeah we can send you something about the recovery plan, not just an analysis but we can have some explanatory notes to make it easier to understand. Okay, if we move on to the next item with the outcome of off-state inspection, Councillor Cokley Webb. Yeah, thank you. I don't know how many people have had a real chance to read through all of this report but when we look at how far the service has come, I personally want to still place again on record my thanks to all the staff that work within this service that not only worked incredibly hard to give us such a good result for the off-state but permanently worked really hard for good outcomes for our young people and I'm particularly proud of all the extra co-working we've done, so the way that we actually include young people in the decision-making, something that obviously didn't happen years ago and how they actually value what we do in terms of asking their views and incorporating their views into their care and what we do for them and how we inform them and what's important to them. I'm sure Mr Mundy will probably expand a bit more but when you look at the actual off-state judgement, I mean, they're single lines where you've got a good, good, outstanding good and good but when you look into the depth of everything that went into it to actually achieve this, it is really outstanding from my point of view the work that has been put in and continues to be put in because it's not just something that's done for off-state, it's something that happens every day of the year to make sure that all the young people in the borough get the best outcomes possible, whatever the situation. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I'm very proud of the outcomes that we've had for our off-state. You'll be aware that the new government have suggested that single word judgements should go for schools. We're also hoping that they'll make the same approach to children's social care which is also struggles with a complex service being judged by a single word. Some of the words are really good and we're really pleased at the progress that we've made and actually if you read the letter in detail, you'll see a whole range of really positive interventions and findings. Colleagues who read these letters a lot have all queried with me why the judgments were so low in comparison to the text but that's a question for off-state. We've set out an action plan saying what we will do to address the issues that off-state have identified which we are implementing so they are generally administrative and we will seek to put those systems in place that will ensure those processes work more openly. So I'm really pleased with the overall outcome, very proud of the staff that we have working for Barnet who have really worked hard over the last five years and we're really committed to implementing the further changes that we need to do to ensure that all children and young people in Barnet flourish, especially those that we are responsible for and that we continue to co-create and co-produce services with them that meet their needs. I'm happy to take any questions. I'll open it for any questions but I think it should be noted our congratulations to the staff, the young people and the families who took part in this. Anything people want to raise? Councillor Moore? I've got a question at the end but it's more by way of comment. I would echo the comments that have been made about staff but I think highlighting one particular phrase within the report I think is really important, that the staff are skilled, tenacious and passionate in what they do with children and I think that sums up the feeling I have when I talk to members of your service. Obviously there are many children and young people who have faced challenges but those for whom we have a particular responsibility as corporate parents will obviously have greater challenges in their lives and I think it's really pleasing to see particularly the outstanding judgement with regards to young people in care because they are the top of the triangle in terms of those children for whom we are responsible as corporate parents. So I just wanted to note that. Just also to comment, pleased to see the positive comments about the virtual school, particularly about the MASH, multi-agency safeguarding hub as a governor. It's certainly one of those services that schools have relied on for a range of different issues and really important and then also I would of course say this but in section 38 of the letter talks about health assessments for those children in care including dental and optician's appointments and this has been a challenging area in the past so it was good to see a positive judgement there. My question really was regarding the action plan and your progress on that. Obviously you've got deadlines of this month and next for a number of elements of that but there was one that you'd set yourself a deadline of August so I was just curious to how you've made progress with that part of the action plan. This is my first time back since I've been on leave. I'm absolutely convinced that my staff will have implemented the particular actions that they've got. I know some of them were being actioned immediately and so I'll write to you to let you know the particular update on that August action. Just for anyone who's watching, they are systems issues and it's important to get them right but they were not major criticisms of the department and so it's just really, it will be useful to know that those have gone into place because it's strengthened the system. Thank you. So my deep congratulations to you Chris and to your staff for this remarkable achievement. As we know the children in care and care leavers are some of the most vulnerable people in our society facing a huge amount of inequalities so this is an excellent start by the bar of getting this kind of result so there's more to build on but it's excellent so congratulations to you and your staff. As a school governor, having been through an off state not that far back, to get an outstanding and clearly good judgments which were very clearly in some cases extremely on the border of outstanding, particularly the experiences and progress of children who need help and protection, that's a very, very strong area. The bar is very high with Offstead and I think this is an incredible achievement for your staff and I suppose like everyone else, we're very grateful to have a children's service that's delivering this quality of care. It's really impressive. There's lots of bits and pieces, good practice, I mean the virtual school, there's a lot of good practice that's highlighted, the MASH is highlighted as being particularly good as well and I think it's a really good and very reassuring reading. The thing that I'm really pleased about around the whole report is that the outstanding is not just owned by those teams that are the children care teams, actually it flags all of the fantastic work that our intervention and planning teams do, duty and assessment teams do when children come into care, that those processes are run really well. It's got links with our leaving care service because that's where the unaccompanied asylum seeking team is, it's got links with our disabled children's services because that's where a whole group of looked after children are, especially with our new autism team as well. So there is really good practice across the whole of the system and I look back over nine and a half years here, that was not the situation. You didn't have tenacious social workers to the extent that you do now and I'm really proud of all the work they do, how focused they are on children's outcomes. The thing that really encouraged me was that nearly all of the social workers were more than happy to speak to Ofsted and you hear of lots of places where they don't want to do that but all of our staff were more than happy to meet with them. They didn't all have that opportunity but they certainly were up for having discussions about what it was like working in Barnet and I think the end paragraph about them I think is the really critical thing. Greatly proud of the service they provide which is what that shows. One thing that stood out for me as well is that we also have staff that have left the borough but then have chosen to come back. So we're obviously a destination where the staff are valued and they feel happy working here and continue to work here. My comment on that is that they should have never left in the first place but there we go. I did my bit to thank Chris Munday and the team by deliberately missing our items 5 to 9 in the agenda which we will have to go back to but for the moment the recommendations on this is cabinet is asked to note and consider the inspection findings as part of their corporate responsibility for recognising and prioritising the needs of children and in fulfilling their role as corporate parents, that cabinet to consider and note the full inspection findings and outcomes as we've done and cabinet to refer the report to full council for consideration. Are we happy with those recommendations? Alright thank you, thank you very much. Anyway now I'll start doing my job properly. Item 5 petitions, none. Six deputations, none. Public questions and comments, none. Matters referred to the Executive, none. And consideration of reports from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee or Scrutiny Subcommittees, if any, please. Right, so we move on to item 11 on the agenda, our plan for Barnet, that is looking at the delivery and outcomes framework for Quarter 1. And in it I think there is much good news. Our work in tackling inequality and reducing poverty has begun. Now that is a long journey, but we are heading in the right direction. These are two issues that were ignored by the previous administration. We've already talked about the Oxford Judgement and there are also exam results, great exam results. We have begun work in rectifying the 20-year neglect of roads and pavements, as well as inheriting a budget that wasn't quite what it looked like. We did inherit a few thousand potholes, it takes time to deal with it. Another thing in the first quarter is residents moving into the council accommodation in Conan Dell Gardens. We've got the journey to net zeros continuing, as does some real resident participation and neighbourhood working. I don't know if people have any comments on their portfolio areas. Councilor Edwards. I have just one comment really. It's on page 42 under the Benchmarking 4.1, and particularly where it says Living Well on the Caring for People. I'll give people a chance to catch up with getting up to that page. It says that ten indicators included from the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework with most forecasts for 23/24 to be better or on par with the peer group comparator. So first of all I'd like to underline the fact that that's a really good positive feedback about our wonderful staff who work in adult social care, particularly as we're still waiting for the outcome of the CQC inspection which took place recently. But the second bit I think is probably the best disingenuous because it says except for the proportion of adults in contact with secondary mental health services living independently with or without support, I'm reliably informed by our officers, that that particular aspect relates to national health service input on a mental health and it's not adult social care from the local authority. Therefore it's quite unfair to be criticised for something that we have no particular control over. I believe it's been raised before. So I'd like to ask officers if they could go back and clarify that because if it is about the national health service then I think it needs to come away from the performance indicators for our own staff. If I've made myself clear or unclear please let me know. To be honest I don't know if anyone can answer that question directly. I mean obviously secondary mental health services would be an NHS responsibility. This is how many of those are living independently and I presume it's something that all boroughs collect but I really don't, I'm not an expert on this. I don't believe we've got anyone in the room that will know that level of detail so we may have to get back to you but certainly we can make sure that the report is clear. Thanks, I just also want to make sure that we're not being assessed on something we have no control over. That was the important point that I wanted to make so yeah, thanks. There's sometimes these things we're asked to collect whether we have any control over them or not. Yeah, but it's an implied criticism in the report. We'll find out. Thank you. Did Councillor Houston put his hand up? And then alright, we'll move along. Yeah, there's a couple of things just to highlight. I think there remains to be, in relation to housing and quality affordable homes, there remains to be good progress at Brent Cross. That's a major regeneration scheme and members of the committee were aware that obviously the low rise decant into new homes has happened in terms of the Whitefields estate which is a landmark. The high rise units will start to move into their new homes later this year. We've reformed and restarted the Barnet Homelessness Forum which has given members of the cabinet to be very aware of the homeless pressures that are causing our overspend on temporary accommodation. There's been a lot of work, good work in terms of dealing with homelessness but the pressures have overwhelmed across London councils and that's something that we'll discuss when we come to the budget. But there is good work and one of the statistics I would just point out is actually that homelessness prevention's KPI, we actually improved on. So that's the route we are making. There's a lot of good work going on, it's just the demand is outstretching our ability to house people and that's a real challenge across London. One of the ways of dealing with that is to deal with supply inside of housing and there are some moving forwards on Great Park Northeast which is referred to in the report. There was a topping out ceremony which the new MP for Hendon attended for the Upper Lower Foster's estate which is a very good piece of work because it was a co-designed piece of regeneration and it's really good to see that coming forward. That's 142 homes and 75 extra care places. There is one statistic that members of the cabinet might be concerned about and I just want to provide some context to that. In the section about the performing less well, we have actually gone below the target for the decent home. We have a very high, Barnet Homes has a very robust record in dealing with compliance but we have fallen slightly very marginally below the target on decent home standards, a very high target of 99.6%, the target is 98.5% and we're at 97.8%. The reason for that is entirely to do with the identified problems with the panel system blocks that we're aware of, the low rise panel systems. Clearly when you've got the category 1 hazards they are not a decent homes compliance so the decision was to include them in the council homes that were affected in the decent homes target. That's the reason why that target, which has always been met, has fallen below that and I think just to provide reassurance, that's a known issue that we're dealing with and that's the reason why that target is not met. We've got a strategy to obviously deal with that and remedy those works within two years. They remedied those very council properties within two years so I think I can provide reassurance on that. We're still very much performing in relation to our general stock in terms of decent homes. It doesn't really appear in the family friendly section but I know that the conversations that we've had with Barnet Homes and with Councillor Houston has meant that we've actually improved the number of accommodation that we can provide for care leavers and that is a really, really welcome thing that we've done over the past 18 months to actually make sure that more properties are put forward for care leavers when they are ready to live independently. When you look through the family friendly headings there, just a couple of things to note is that we've obviously had a child and family early help action plan has been published and I can't over emphasise the importance of making sure that early help, what it does and how it works in the borough means that people get help at the earliest proper opportunity which means that that avoids crisis further down the line. And then when we've had the child programme that's gone to Whitting Health Trust, that's something that took quite a while to sort out but that is now starting to work well and mean that the actual visits that should have been made are now being made and that mothers and young people are actually getting the checks that they need on time. When we got the corporate parenting annual report, that you can see the amount of work that goes in to make sure that these young people have all the help possible at every stage of their life, whether it be the people that are looking after them or the services that offer their help and support, it's something that we need to be really proud of because that's something that, again, if that just doesn't happen at the right time that can really affect helping with their trauma, helping with their future prospects and that's something that we really are good at doing and something that we've been recognised that we're good at doing. I think if Sara was here she would have talked more on the serious violence duty strategy but it's something that we're making sure that it's something that we don't just take as something that another department should do but something that we get involved with and we have a strategy to be targeting the young people that are at risk of either exploitation or serious violence so we try and pick up the cases early on, not wait for tragedies to happen. Thank you. I wanted to highlight some excellent partnership work that's dotted throughout this report but everything from working to improve our tennis courts by working with the Long Tennis Association to actually working with different services across the Council, the work is really impressive but it also addresses the need to be cost conscious and improve services for residents and I think one thing that we can particularly highlight is improving our accesses to services so that means libraries working together with the housing office, the housing options team, it also means things like Ask Barnett, the chat function which went live over summer, our residents are able to get the support that they need and the resources they need in an easier and more efficient way and I think as a Council it means that we're working more effectively with our residents and able to serve them in a better way. I'd also just really like to highlight once again, and I know we have talked about this in cabinet before, but just the difference functioning CCTV service makes to our borough residents. I was at a residents association AGM over the weekend and just having cameras that are working that are monitored is really bringing change to people's lives. Thank you, Chair. I'd just like to comment on one or two of the areas that particularly impact on health and wellbeing issues. There are health and wellbeing issues threaded through the report and that reflects the importance of the wider determinants of health in sections around poverty alleviation and around housing and around environments. They and many others impact on the health and wellbeing of our residents and on page 44 we talk about the joint strategic needs analysis which is a repository of a whole range of data that helps inform our services across the borough. It's gone through a major refresh this year and it was a real pleasure to see in the training session last week a whole range of members but actually also some of our partners from the health and wellbeing board, from the voluntary sector and from some of our GPs who are actually on the session hearing about the value and the data within the joint strategic needs analysis. It will also inform our current joint health and wellbeing strategy and the report talks about a number of areas that come out of the joint health and wellbeing strategy and that's around, for example, dementia, being dementia friendly, some really excellent work that's gone on, being age friendly, again some really good work that's gone on. We've been working with bus companies locally to enable drivers to be more aware of those passengers with greater needs. We've done some work on homeless health which has impacts for the homelessness strategy and those within the borough of homeless. Fit and Active Barnet enabling residents to stay healthy and the referring into that service for a whole range of health reasons to keep people mobile. But it will also be really important as we develop the next health and wellbeing strategy, the 2025/29 strategy. And I'm looking forward both to using the GSNA to really start to hone in on the health inequalities across the borough in our mission to tackle health inequalities as mentioned on page 47 and to be the healthiest borough. And I'm looking forward to co-producing that with partners, again talking about community engagement as my colleague did, but also through the ICB and the voluntary sector so that we can have the next joint health and wellbeing strategy that really starts to set us on that path to be the healthiest borough. Thank you. I was just looking through the various achievements, just as you called me. I just wanted to, thought there's a few things that are worth highlighting here, particularly in the safe, attractive neighbours and town centres section, where it's pleasing to see that the street cleanliness inspections all exceeded our target and indeed that all the planned road and pavement programs were delivered. It's not just a question of having the plan in place, it's important that we actually deliver on those as well and we are there. Also to show that 97% of fly tips were collected within our target, but on that we're actually now doing more and we should see an improvement in that over the coming year, because as a result of the Clean Up Barnet campaign, we're actually getting enforcement staff working with the street scene officers as they go out, so we want to see more awareness of how to report fly tips and more fines and prosecutions if people don't do what they're supposed to do and do fly tip. Although we're doing well, there's actually more to do over the coming year. Just good things to mention under the open spaces enhancing local environment section, where we saw the sustainable urban drainage scheme at Hallywick Park. Again, there are two more planned over the coming year and also the green flag at Cherry Tree Wood and there's going to be a flag raising ceremony in a couple of weeks' time, so I just thought there's a few things there that were worth highlighting. Thank you. Thank you, Lida. I thought that it would be relevant, given the comments that Councillors Inkin made, to remind people that a very important element of my portfolio and a very important thread of the Labour administration's desire to benefit residents of Barnet is the reducing poverty agenda, which is not just innovative and forward thinking in local government terms, but it is genuinely something that we're very proud of in terms of what's already been done whilst it was in the community wealth building portfolio, but what we've got planned in future. It also highlights why financial sustainability is so important for us. If we don't have the foundations of the Council right, if we're not providing a solid bedrock on which to provide a robust and imaginative and aspirational agenda, then we can't achieve either the things that we want at all or, indeed, to the extent that would make a genuinely positive intervention in people's lives. So not only is reducing poverty agendas fundamental to something that we're interested in, but it also highlights why it's so important for us to monitor how spend across the organisation is happening. And the residents' experience element of my portfolio, I shouldn't overlook. The Ask Barnet element has just been rolled out, which is hugely exciting, and we are looking to make use of technology to make the interaction that residents have with the local authority far easier and far more beneficial for both parties. I came across this concept called failure demand. There's a notion that if you constantly try and contact an organisation but fail to do so, it's actually quite a money-waster, in addition to causing a huge amount of frustration for everybody involved. So that's something that we're attempting to tackle and improve the residents' experience element also. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just draw cabinet's attention to the appendices where I think the performance is generally positive, and the benchmarking of authorities is very positive. And the risk register, just to note, a new risk has been added, which has to do with the Collindale office block, where there's been discovered some defects from the building spec. If you're going in there, don't worry, it has been deemed safe, but it does mean there'll be some disruption at Collindale over another month, and I'm sure because it's to do with building defects there'll be a legal opinion involved on all sides, probably. But what we're asked to do is that cabinet note the contents of our plan for Barnet delivery and outcome, quarter one report. So do we note the report? Thank you. The next item is the adult residents' perception survey, which is item 12. This was quite a big survey, over 2,000 residents surveyed, and it has generally positive results, especially with the trend. The trend nationally and in London had been, since the pandemic, for things to decline where those have been generally positive. I'll just pick out three and then ask if there's any comment. 76% of the council found the council trustworthy, 61% council acts in concern of residents, and 70% promotes equal opportunities. All those are quite a big rise compared with the last time the survey was done. So the things that people have noticed about the new administration – sorry, I'll just get the right page. But from the point of view of looking at trend data, I don't know if there's anything that either of you feel we need to talk about? Any particular trends apparent? As you pointed out, we benchmark both our adults and our young people's residents' perception survey against an LGA national aggregated survey, as well as a London regional one. In the post-COVID period, perception surveys tended to show greater satisfaction with local authorities than was normal, which was put down to a general feel-good factor of coming out of the pandemic. And what we've seen in national and local comparators is that to drop quite sharply afterwards, which hasn't been the case with Bowneck's results. I think there are some very encouraging results here, and upticks from a high bar, as you say, and against national trends. I think, as Councillor Conway – she's not here today, but if she was, one of the things she would draw the attention to is the social education and community section. Particularly in paragraph 1.34, which puts the context of the survey having been undertaken in the autumn of 2023, at a time of particular community tension in Bowneck, and in London in the country, but particularly affecting some of the communities that live in our borough. And I think that the resilience of that particular result is really very encouraging. Four-fifths of residents agree that people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local area, in line with the London average and national average, very slightly down, but no significant difference in the results between ethnic and religious groups, and only very slightly down. Given what has happened, that is a remarkable result. It is very encouraging, and I think those of us who are involved in our communities have also picked up that Bowneck has really good networks of interfaith and intercommunity groups who work together, as well as partnering with the council and other bodies, schools and religious groups, churches, temples, mosques and synagogues, and I think that is something that really makes our borough special, and we should be proud of that result. Not to repeat, but to add to what Councillor Luciana said, several areas are really impressive. I think what underlines it is that this was just a note that this survey was undertaken immediately, during a period of high inflation, so that is when people will be feeling the pinch, the need for good services increases, and even then our customer service was increasing in satisfaction, so I think that is almost 10% up. And it is also reflected that residents are feeling that we are more customer-focused. I mean, I would prefer to call them residents rather than customers, but I think it does absolutely show that the focus of this administration is on our residents, and residents are feeling that way as well. I would echo very much what the last two colleagues have said, and I would comment on the community cohesion issue, because I think it is something that we should be proud of, but also hold very carefully. It is a privilege to have that sense of community cohesion that has given us a result like this at a time when it was really very difficult. I am going to share a minor anecdote, but actually demonstrate, I hope, how strong that is across the borough. I was there on behalf of the Mayor at licensing a priest in Edgware on Sunday evening, and actually one of the things that many of the church members and community members said in welcoming the new priest when they spoke was to make the point about the strength of our multi-faith, inter-faith and community networks, and how that was a very special thing to have, and that they hoped that he would find it as special as they did, and so I thought that was a really interesting reflection outside the council to just back that up. But I guess I'm bringing it back to a serious note. Obviously, the perception survey is fantastic, and I'm really pleased that residents are saying that we're listening and acting on their concerns, but I guess the question is, and it's a bit like, as people know, I'm a bit of a data and fact hound around the JSNA and things like that, so I suppose the adult perception survey, it's what we do with it, and I would reflect that when we were looking at this two years ago, there were some issues that we started to unpick about the perceptions of people with disabilities on our services, and I was really pleased to see that the perception of equal opportunity and equal access actually had risen, because I know that a lot of work and thought went in after that result on disabilities, so it is about what we use that data for within the council to look at how we improved our communications and the way we worked with, in that case, a particular part of our particular group of our residents. So it will be really interesting to look at the deeper parts of this survey and see how it informs the way we develop our services over the next several years, so thank you. Right, time to ask, some of it is asking how we use this data, obviously we have quite a bit of quantitative data, but this is a qualitative one, and how we make sure that this plays an important role in planning, rather than just something to congratulate ourselves about. I don't know if you've only thought, I mean from a community cohesion point of view, 78% may be a good score, but still short by 22%, so it is how we get into that virtuous circle of improving all the time. I don't know if, where does this get fed into, you know, how does this make a difference? We are looking at proactive work on community cohesion at the moment as well, which I think we would be doing anyway at this point in time, but it is something that I agree with council more, we can't take for granted even if it's a good result. And what we will be doing as well, there is a young person's perception survey as well, and what we're doing, which will be coming to a future cabinet meeting, is analysing them both together and looking at where the strongest areas of need and priority are in that combined data set. And similarly to people with disabilities in the last survey, we're regularly less satisfied than others, we'll be looking at whether that is the case again, whether there's any other cross breaks, whether it's geographies or any other kind of demographic data, where we can look at, well, these are the audiences and the issues we need to look at. So that work is ongoing. So this is taken through the Tackling the Gaps group as well, so we're looking at different quarters through that group and developing the action plan. The research, you mentioned councilor Moore, the ethnographic research, so we've got, that's quite a long pipeline on it, so we've worked with those groups and we're looking at actions on that. But disability is coming out strongly again, and there might be other things that are driving that, so an observation we've made is, this is a residence perception survey, and the disabled people that might not be taking part, might not be accessing our services, but so they're, do we need to think about the different comms, communicate our services, because they might not need the service, so their perception is lower, so we'll be looking at those things as well, so it might be not just about disabled people accessing our services. From a generality of audience, sorry, I thought I'd switch it on, a generality of audience who aren't aware of what goes on, so absolutely, that's really important, but it's the data, whether quantitative or qualitative, it's really important we use it to inform what we do, and use our resources in the best way we can. Okay, are there any other comments people want to make? So this is a useful snapshot of perception survey, and it's the trend data that we look for. The recommendations is that cabinet note the top line findings of the adult residence perception survey, 2324. Are we happy to note that? Yes, thank you, thank you, well noted. The next item is Hampstead Gardens suburb library, and I need to remind people that there is exempt information on this, so if people want to ask questions from the exempt section, please indicate. I could try and give an introduction, but it is a bit of a confusion, but the reason it's coming to the cabinet, I presume, is that this counts as less than best consideration, because the actual difference in opportunity cost is less than two million. It's not, I think, for the Secretary of State, but it's the thing that we have to assure ourselves, that if it's not best consideration, it doesn't mean it's not the best value, if that makes sense. And I don't know if you want to give a brief introduction to the recent history? Yes, certainly, Robert Brown, Head of Property Services and Valuation. So the Hampstead Garden suburb library is run by the Garden Suburb Library Group Limited, who are a charitable group staffed almost totally by volunteers, and they've been providing the library service for us in Hampstead for some years. They can't afford to pay rent, but by entering into an agreement with them, whereby they occupy the premises and run the library, and keep the place neat and tidy, without rent, we get a library service without having to staff it. Our landlord, Freshwater, has granted us an underlease, £12,850 a year. In turn, they've given us consent to grant a sub-underlease to the Garden Suburb Library, and they've agreed to us providing, by a side letter, a concession agreement that enables the suburb library group to occupy rent-free. There are a number of clauses within the sub-underlease and within the side agreement that enable both the library group and the council to break the agreement, should there be a reason to do so, and in turn, we have break clauses in our underlease with Freshwater, so should there arise a scenario whereby the charity is unable to provide the service and the council decides it, therefore, isn't going to have a library there, we have a number of opportunities to walk away. I think I should draw members' attention to why we're deciding this, and it's probably 6.4 on page 96, is the considerations, the four considerations that have to be made. Whether the financial assistant, directly or indirectly, from public resources by public authority, does the financial assistant confer an economic advantage on one or more enterprises? Is the financial assistant specific, and having a side letter would make it very specific about what we expect of Hampshire Garden, our library, I think it's the C&C, it's a charitable company, isn't it? And will it have an effect on competition or investment within the UK, which I doubt, as it's not a trade or investment. But if we're satisfied that these are reaped, what we're being asked to agree to, or the recommendation, is a sublease to the library, a side letter also to the library, and if I'm right, the side letter is something that's just between us and the library, that freshwater needs a nose there, but don't have a say over or can't alter. That's correct, yes. It's between us and the library. We needed freshwater's consent to enter into it, but they're not a party to it. But they're not a party to it, yep, okay. So, have people got any questions? Councillor Cornwall. I would just like to make a comment as the Councillor in the neighbouring ward, because I do appreciate that it's not formally best consideration in the terms of Section 1, 2, 3, but I think, certainly from my knowledge of them, it is a fairly modest contribution to unlock a lot of goodwill from those who run it in a very professional and passionate way, actually. It's delivered by local people with a modest input from library services, but actually of quite high quality, because they rely on the library services to make sure that it is up to the standards of a library in terms of content. And people will have the impression, I suspect, that it's Humpstead Gardens suburb, it's a very affluent, broadly affluent community, but I know that as a member of a neighbouring ward, actually there are residents within that area. They're right, there is hidden poverty and hidden need in areas close to that, and I know that there is use of the library by some of those residents, and so it is greater than the impact that you might see on paper. And certainly from the correspondence I got when it was challenging and request to intercede on their behalf, I know it is very well appreciated and supported by many people, so thank you. Here we are. Good words about it. Any other comments or to remove the recommendations? The cabinet approves the grant of the sub-underleash to gardens suburb community library limited on terms that are shown in appendix B. The cabinet approves the grant of the side letter to gardens suburb community library limited in accordance with the terms set out in appendix C to this report. The side letter will be an exclusive arrangement between the council and gardens suburb community library limited and not capable of assignment, and the cabinet delegates authority to the lead officer and head of property and portfolio management in consultation with the leader to approve any minor amendments. I think those recommendations also cover what's in the accept section, so can we accept the recommendations and be satisfied that we don't need to go into the exempt because it's covered in the discussion we've had already. Are people agreed? All right, thank you. The next item is the sustainability program update that I believe Councillor Sniderman is leading on. Thank you, leader. So this is an update on our sustainability program, and we declared that sustainability and biodiversity emergency just over two years ago, but it's good to take the opportunity within this report to reconfirm our commitment to that. But the declaration is important as it was. More important is the action that we're going to take, and this report and the appendix, which has got the full annual report, sets out all of the stuff that we have done over the last year and indeed over the last couple of years. Notably, that includes our citizens assembly and young people's assemblies, which have greatly contributed to our sustainability action plan. There's lots of details in the report, and I can see Jugita has popped up on the screen there. Some of the highlights are including the start we've made on retrofitting EV charge points, converting streetlights to LEDs, planting a record number of trees and the sustainable urban drainage scheme, which I think is absolutely brilliant, that I referred to earlier. And importantly, some of these things are not just helping the environment, they're helping the financial sustainability of the Council, particularly with regards to, you know, the LED streetlights, and also with retrofitting and insulation, they're actually helping residents financially. I'm sure Barry, Councillor Rawlings, looking forward to reading out the full recommendations in a moment, but recommendations also include, importantly, adding a work stream on climate adaptation and resilience, which we will add to our sustainability action plan. And there's a workshop coming up for members organised by Bloomberg, so we can actually look at how that can be embedded within the planning decisions that we take. The recommendation also includes producing a climate budget, which is a bit of a confusing concept to explain, that is not a separate budget, but is a way of identifying measures that reduce carbon emissions within the normal financial budget setting process. The final recommendation is just to note that the Programme Director for Culture and Sustainability, Yogita Popat, who's there, who's already in place, is the lead officer for climate change. So, as I say, there's loads more details in the report and in the full sustainability report, which is a very good read, so please do look at that to see all of what's going on. But, of course, we've got lots more to do to reach our net zero, challenging net zero targets. Did you mention street lighting? I go back to the adult perception survey, where 81% was satisfied with the street lighting, up from 74% two years ago. We've just addressed that the early delighting is actually light, as well as cutting down some of the carbon costs. If I were to do any questions, does I suppose Yogita or Deborah want to talk to the report? Thank you, and I think some of this we're waiting for, to know, to see what the actual difference things like British Energy made to work with London Councils on some of the power issues about how clean power and so on. So, from what I gather, although we've already declared it, this is a bit like when we're doing Labour Party stuff and somebody has to take a picture on Twitter to show it exists, that we work in some virtual world. So, although we declared it, this is to put it in writing, that we've declared it. Anyway, any questions for Alan or the officer? Councillor Begg. Thank you, sir. It's a brilliant report, really highlights all the progress that has been made. So, my question really is, do we think that communities have been engaged enough and community participation? So, it's the communities that are going to feel this difference in net zero work that we are doing, and particularly young communities. So, do you think enough has been done to involve them? I'll make a start. I think, yes, I think we have done a lot and we are doing more. I mean, we started with our Citizens' Assembly and Young People's Assemblies, which have never been tried in Barnet before. And indeed, we've had lots of interest from other authorities in showing the good practice and how we did that. We had a range of action groups that came out of those assemblies that carried on the work within the community. We've got recently Community Energy Barnet has just been formed to start taking forward community energy projects within the borough. And that's led by members of the community. And as Gita said, we're going to look to involve the community in the climate adaptation and resilience work going forward. So, like across the whole council, I think we've done a lot to involve the community, and definitely in the sustainability area. Councilor Moore, then Councilor Houston. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Councilor Schneider, for what I think is a very exciting and full report, and something that I can absolutely get behind. What I was just going to raise the issue about, as we start to promote this, certainly for parts of the community, people would benefit from understanding the wider impact of a range of this work on broader health implications. So, climate resilience against rising summer temperatures have a very clear health impact, particularly on our older residents. Rising summer temperatures have all sorts of negative health impacts, as does the air quality impact of decarbonizing, particularly of transport. There are all sorts of very clear evidence now about the impacts of poor air quality, both on children and on older people. And tree planting is one of the things in its own right, but actually the positive impacts around combating the urban heat island effect goes further to improve communities' resilience against rising temperatures. So, I really appreciate the report and support it, but I hope we'll be able to feed that in, and certainly I would welcome and recognize the sorts of work that goes on in our schools through the education programs, because young people can be incredibly evangelical about environmental issues, and can convince the rest of the community as well. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to draw the Cabinet Member's attention to the really good work that's been done by Barnet Homes in relation to retrofit energy saving measures in over 600 Council homes. An additional 100 homes are going to be retrofitted through the Social Housing Decarbonization Fund, and we've submitted by March 2025, and we're submitting a bid with other via-London councils and a consortium for further funding from the Social Housing Decarbonization Fund. I think one of the things to say about the net-zero agenda when it comes to housing is that even if climate change wasn't an issue, and it is an issue, actually this investment is lowering people's fuel bills and basically dealing with cost of living pressures in people in low incomes. I think it would be the right thing to do irrespective of climate change, but actually it's a very good example of a double win, because by doing the right thing by our planet, we're also doing the right thing, lowering the costs for people who are struggling to make ends meet, with all the pressures of living in London under the cost of living crisis that we've been through. So it's really a very positive investment, and I look forward to the Government bringing further measures, but I think we are well placed to be able to be one of those boroughs that actually is leading on this, not following, because actually we've done a lot of good work already, and Government want partners who can deliver their agenda in terms of retrofitting quickly and efficiently, and I think Planet Homes and the Council are well placed to be able to do that. Yeah, as I said, some of this is waiting to see what the national change is, isn't it? Any other comments? Or if Alan wants to sum up? Yeah, well just to say, I mean there's been some good comments, and it's a great report, just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Jugita and the team who put this together, and who have been instrumental in driving this work forward. I mean, Council Houston talked about being ready to deliver for the Government, and equally we've got a really good relationship with the GLA, we met with the Deputy Mayor for Environment a couple of weeks ago, and they recognise that from a low base, Barnet is now one of the leading authorities, we've got lots of programmes, we've got lots of ideas, and we're very keen to work with Government, GLA and other partners to take that forward. Thank you people, happy we go to the recommendations. Right, the recommendations. Cabinet reconfirms their commitment to the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency Declaration issued in May 2022 and noted in June 2022. Cabinet to note the progress achieved in delivering the Sustainability Action Plan to date, and to include an additional work stream within it to support climate adaptation and resilience. Cabinet delegate authority to the Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change in consultation with the Programme Director, Culture and Sustainability, the monitoring and updating of the Sustainability Action Plan, and to oversee the process of producing a climate budget to address the residual funding gap, and following the changes to the Council Senior Management Team structure approved at Council on the 21st of May 2024, the Council notes the Programme Director, Culture and Sustainability already imposed as the lead officer for climate change. We happy to agree those recommendations? Moving on to the final item, well, the forward plan is the Chief Financial Officer's report, which is both the quarter one financial forecast and the budget management. Councillor Deneckley. Thank you very much, Leader. Quite a substantial report, and naturally the contents of it and the implications of it are equally substantial. May I just start by expressing my sincere gratitude to the Finance Team in the Council for both putting the report together, but also all of the oversight work that it betokens, that there's a huge amount of work that's now being done with service directorates across the organisation, and the Finance Team have done an extraordinary amount of work to embed themselves within the functioning of the Council in order to provide us with the level of context and detail that we can see in this report. Speaking of context, I think it's important to start with that concept. The report itself is obviously emergent from a background of financial activity and an environment in which we currently exist financially. So the context falls into two categories. We have a national and how that manifests locally. In terms of the national context, people have heard me say this. In the past, local government finance is in a dire situation, exacerbated by 14 years of underinvestment and, to a certain extent, undervaluing of what local government has to offer and the role it plays within an individual's life, both civic and/or otherwise. As a consequence of that, we find ourselves in a position where we are providing more and more services. We're actually required, we are enjoined by law to provide those services with ever-diminishing resources. The spending power of local authorities, particularly in London, has dwindled in that same period of time and that shouldn't be forgotten as we move forward and the current government does take that very, very seriously. But in much more recent times, we have seen dramatic financial events that have had ripple effects on our current situation, which we've had to deal with during the time that we have been in the administration. So these were not things that we were aware of or could have been aware of prior and we have had to figure out how best is within our ability to respond to those fiscal calamities whilst also being aspirational forward thinking and wanting the best for our residents. The fiscal event I'm referring to in September of 2022, when Liz Truss was Prime Minister, also briefly has still cut impact, has impacts on us. The inflationary and interest rate consequences that that resulted in nationwide have had very pertinent local effects on us, which I shall speak to when we refer to what the report is actually telling us about in-year spend. Locally, however, there is an important thing to mention, which is we had a change of government structure at the beginning of our administration, which was necessary because we knew that there would be challenges that we faced, not necessarily the scale of the financial challenge we see here. We didn't forecast that, but we knew that agility would be required and a degree of focus and attention that unified all elements of the executive so that all members, executive members who are responsible for service directorates were able to share their views around a single table. And that is largely why we moved to a cabinet and scrutiny system from the rather inefficient and laborious committee system that existed previously. The way that that system has a lax oversight of the financial situation of the Council is something we are dealing with now. The consequences of an inability to properly understand the financial consequences of decision making in the long term is clearly laid out in this particular report. So what does the report actually tell us? If I can turn to page 137 of the cabinet papers in brief, this is the situation we face. We finished last year. The end of year downturn report resulted in a 22 million pound overspend, which needed to draw down our reserves to a level below the 40 million threshold that we consider financially optimal. I suppose it's the best term. We have a strategy document, a policy document within the Council that states that that is the optimum position that our general fund non-amark reserves ought to be at. At the end of the first quarter, unfortunately, we are seeing an end of year position that looks very similar to that. However, we do not benefit from the cushion of a reserve position in the same way as we did last year, which makes this an even more acute problem than the potential overspend last year. And I don't want that to go over as though I'm suggesting it as somehow not extremely serious. It is something that the administration has taken note of as a serious concern, and we've already gone into, we've already undertaken a series of activities and measures to intervene to ensure that this particular situation doesn't end up being our end of year position. Some of the factors that relate to why the end year overspend is at the position it is, perhaps my colleagues will assist me on areas specific to their directorates, but the pressures that were facing us in the last financial year have not dissipated, they've not disappeared. In certain areas, particularly adults and children's services, they have in fact become more acute and more pronounced. But in this particular year, one of the emergent pressures that we are facing is the temporary accommodation pressure that is more acutely felt in Barnet because of certain local factors, those being a small social housing stock, once again, consequence of decades of underfunding and under emphasis on providing that level of stock, private landlords leaving the industry so that it means that we are more reliant on emergency temporary accommodation to meet our housing obligations. And of course, there hasn't been an increase in applicants for accommodation as well. So all of those factors have mounted in year and have caused a degree of pressure on that element of our expenditure. What are we doing? What is it that we've already started to do to meet this challenge? We haven't just shown up at the cabinet meeting saying this is an awful situation and we've got no idea what we're doing. We spent an entire summer coming together with a plan of intervention to get to understand the fundamentals of why the organization is overspending in the way that it is and put in place measures to try and overcome that. So August was quite an invasive learning exercise. I think officers would agree. One to two and a half hour sessions with service directors querying every single line of their budget expenditure and making them defend, to a certain extent, why the expenditure was necessary and essential. And that has led to the development of what we're calling an organization-wide recovery plan. The specific details of which are yet to be formalized because we're still waiting on those figures to be verified. But it is the first element of what we're looking to put in place. Additionally, there are weekly control panel sessions now, I think four days a week, in particular for the benefit of the adults and children's services. We don't want, if there is essential spend, to be done in those directories for the service areas to have to wait a week or longer to sign it off. So we've put in place a weekly program of that sort, which takes into account all expenditure. It does not matter for the purposes of asking the service director to justify that expenditure, what the nature of the spend is or where the funding source comes from. Everything needs to be assessed in first principles. And that includes new contracts, it includes agency spend, it includes all discretionary spend over 5,000 pounds. So we've had the control panels put in. Moving forward, we're going to... So the other thing we've also done is submitted to the government spending review as part of their consultation to put together the autumn budget what the specific factors in Barnet are that need to be addressed. The particular unique factors we find in adult social care, people living longer with complex comorbidities and poor health, our temporary accommodation situation and such like. So we presented to national government what we're facing locally. It isn't just a generic problem that we've said that it is not something that we require specific focus on. I think I will actually leave it there. There will be observations that colleagues will be presenting in the discussion that I can respond to. But I think that the core message to take away for the benefit of residents is that the situation is serious. We are aware of that. But they should be heartened by having a labour administration in place to deal with it and a labour government to assist. Thank you very much. Yes, I think we can add to that. One of the issues is, as you say, when we took over the administration, things didn't seem too bad. But the more we looked under the bonnet, the more we found out how poor decision making was, how things were gathering that was going to cause us problems. The lack of well, some of the things to do with liquidity management would have helped. But one of the things we've done, obviously, is bring in more services in-house, because part of the problem is we didn't have enough control over it. Some of the steering was out of our hands. And if we're going to make a difference, which we need to, because bonnet deserve it, if we're going to bring the budget under control, which we will, because we have to. And then people will talk about statutory services for children and adults. Actually, balancing the books is also a statutory service, otherwise commissioners come in. So it's important that we recognise it's a big task. The advantage of a cabinet system is we found out about it a lot earlier than we would have. We're up for the task and we know that we can make the difference to the residents of bonnet by improving this situation. And it's not waiting to see what government does. It's doing things all the time, making a difference, making sure the budget is rained in. And I'll open it up to whether any officers or cabinet members want to make any comments. Councillor Houston. I think it would be, it's important to make a comment about one of the biggest pressures which Councillor McPhee mentioned, which is the temporary accommodation, rise in cost. We've traditionally had a very good record of predicting temporary accommodation. I think that the record is good. And what we have faced is an unprecedented change in circumstances. This is reflected in temporary accommodation pressures across other boroughs in London. And it's led to a kind of perfect storm where there's a substantial budget pressure as a result of that. I mean, it takes, there's a number of factors in relation to that. One of the biggest factors is the change in demand. We've had 1,596 new housing applications open in the five months to the end of August 2024. That is 65% more than in the August period in 2022. That is a massive, massive difference. Combined on top of that, the cost of temporary accommodation, as Councillor McPhee mentioned, has gone up. It's, we're now having to use, or basically the private rent sector cost, the market is not, I think the best way of describing it would be not, you know, we've got a real, it's broken actually. There is a crisis in London in relation to housing people who need housing. And basically the temporary accommodation costs, the supply, and the cost of temporary accommodation has gone up considerably, not just the demand, but the cost. And we're using a nightly paid temporary accommodation now. The rates for that can vary from, you know, one of the statistics that I just to share with you for one bed, the annual cost variation on a monthly basis goes up from 7,000 for one bed to 11,000 in April to 11,000 in July. That's a considerable difference. And that's just one bed. I think there's also been a problem with some of the projected supply of a lot of our housing. We've obviously been, as a council, investing in our own council housing. And let's say the Colindale Gardens, I was very pleased to be able to go out with local councilors at an event to celebrate the kind of handover of Colindale Gardens and the occupation of it by residents, 249 units. And that was done just last week. And we actually, that investment, which was from the housing revenue account, is projected to save the general fund 800,000 a year. So we have been doing our best to save program in relation to investing in housing to try and meet the need. One of the problems we've had is there has been, a lot of the housing supply in any London borough is delivered through housing associations getting section 106, basically affordable housing, being picked up by housing associations and delivered by housing associations. And we obviously nominate people from our waiting list to that housing. And actually, the supply of that has not been, it has been less than predicted. So again, that's also partly as a result of some housing, basically a lot of housing associations have pulled back on their investment programs because they're in financial difficulties. So I think one of the, there are many reasons for that, we've discussed this before, but one of the biggest things, as Councilman Ackley points out, was the inflation, the base of interest rates. The interest rates have been crippling in relation to supplying, you know, anything to do with investment. And I think that is a real concern. One of the things that we have in the area that which I'm responsible for, we've been looking at, is to go through the capital program to see where we can actually make and pretty radically look at the capital program and agree basic principles about what we will invest in. Quite a lot of our capital program is tied up with government grant and programs that have already been agreed. A lot of the Brent Cross they spend is in that category. But we have been going through it very ruthlessly with Councilman Ackley and with officers to look at what we, you know, what is essential and what isn't essential. Because we do need to make savings and borrowing costs are higher than predicted. One of, it is a shame that we weren't able to borrow more money when interest rates were lower and we have been using, you know, but I think the principle that's now been established is that when we have, with the capital program, is that we have to finance it and that internal borrowing isn't the way to do it. Any capital scheme has to be justifiable in its own terms going forward and fully costed and I think that's one of the things that, you know, I'm very grateful to officers and also Councilman Ackley is bringing that degree of discipline to the budget process. We've had whole day sessions with cabinet and officers and I certainly feel I understand my budget area better than I, you know, I did two years ago, even a year ago, and I think there are, you know, there are reasons, there are whole, you know, basically the governance around budgeting I think wasn't there in terms of Councillors. When I moved into my role as Chair of the Housing and Growth Committee that then was and I think, you know, I definitely feel I've got far greater understanding of the budget process than I did but I think it's been very difficult because I do think that, you know, that we've definitely been a learning process in terms of how we do budget management and I think going forward I feel far more confident that I understand when we're making decisions that are informed decisions and I think that's really important. I don't think I felt like that two and a half years ago. I was taking, you know, we were taking things on, you know, and I think that's a major change. Anybody else? Councillor Begg. So obviously every pound counts, not just today or tomorrow, but in future years. So I've noticed that we are writing off huge amounts of debt here and a lot of it seems to be untraceable. There's some quite large amounts of LA mistakes. So is it time for us to look at our processes and systems to see this doesn't happen again? I find it quite astonishing that in this day and age we can't trace people that are owing debt to a local authority and some of those are really high debt. So we've got some people here that haven't paid 43,000. Most of them are double numbers. So what I really would like to be reassured with is that we do look at the systems again to see how quickly we catch the debt going into long term, because this is public money that we need to get back with possibly with reformed systems. Yeah, I don't know if one of the officers want to mention that, but I will say when a debt becomes too difficult or too expensive to retrieve because it's too old or we can't trace the people, it is a good accounting practice to actually write it off because we can't make assumptions on it. But I don't know if Kevin or Dean want to talk about the efforts that go into recovering the money. Yeah, I just wanted to endorse Councillor Begg's concern about the issue of debt, because when you do look at it it is quite substantial, but I take on board what Dean is saying. I do think officers, to be fair, have been working, particularly in outdoor social care, trying to get some of that debt down, and we shouldn't forget that. But I do think that maybe it might have to be a closed session, I don't know, but we do need to maybe as a cabinet collectively look at if we can do any more, because some of those debts are quite substantial, and the ones that obviously I understand from an accounting point of view, it's better to write some of them off, but some of them are quite large, and it's easy for us to try and pursue people who are our own tenants to get that debt back, but for people who are not, it looks like it's much more difficult, and obviously we do have, with offices on outdoor social care, there are significant debts from people who should have been paying when they've been getting care, and then someone's passed away, and then the whole issue of who is the PAP, who has powers of attorney, and how we can get that off them. So it is quite complicated, but I do think it might be useful to see whether we can, are there any other ways of trying to increase our debt collection, but I also wanted just to say something about adult social care, particularly in relation to some of the pressures, and I think what's important for members to know or to understand is that it's a fact that it's much more expensive to keep people who qualify for adult social care at home and in the community, and what we're seeing is a decline in the numbers of people who go into residential care and going into nursing care, and rightly so in my view, because it means that they remain in their own homes in the local community, but it's important that we realise that there's a cost implication for that, it's much cheaper for the council to place people in nursing care or residential homes, it's actually quite unlawful to actually force people to do that against their will, but but I do think it's important to understand that marketplace in terms of the pressures on adult social care, so keeping people at home in the local community is the most expensive way of doing it, but it's the most dignified way of supporting our citizens, so I just wanted to raise that as part of the overall debate, thanks. It's going to be looked at and some of this is questions of interest on whether a debt is secured or not, but Kevin did you want to come in? And I think some of it is should we first of all offer some debt advice rather than go straight in with you know the bailiffs could come round type thing, so there are different ways of collecting debt as Dean said and what we do need to look at it. Anybody else? Any comments? Thank you leader, it should be said that there are other elements of the program that we offer that sort of offset the cost of living pressures that may well be generating a situation when people enter into debt. Our benefits calculator is truly quite an innovative tool that I encourage residents to make use of if they need to. I should pick up on something that Councillor Houston very usefully and helpfully referred to. I did say that I would explain why the rise in interest rates was more acutely impactful to local government practice and Barnet and just neglected to do so. So the debt financing portion of our revenue budget commitments currently stands at 4.2 million which is not an insubstantial amount of money and it is a concern for us were that figure to increase particularly in the short term given the pressures it will cause on other service areas. Now naturally that is, there are very complex reasons for that but ultimately comes down to an administrative choice in the past by previous administrations to finance their capital works by internally borrowed revenue rather than going out and borrowing money when it was affordable to do so and at a time now when we are obligated to fulfil certain capital works priorities we have no choice but to go out and borrow that money instead. So there are certain factors that legacy issues relating to decisions made by previous administrations which have made the interest rate spike particularly difficult for us to manage as an issue which will then consequently mean that we have to make some very difficult decisions on what exactly we consider genuinely essential priorities. That's the level of seriousness with which we have to now make this the decision making in financial terms. Thank you. Any other comments? On this there's two parts of the recommendation. One is noting and one is approving. Just to make sure people are aware, the approvals are the changes to the capital programme that Councillor used to mention. The write-offs that Councillor Begg and Edwards mentioned. Also two environments of 5.2 and 5.3. One is two million to the capital financing budget from contingency because of the cost of the borrowing and the other one is just to, it's almost to note because the decision has been made of a staffing budget due to a restructure of 213,000. Anyway, having pointed that out, the recommendations that cabinet notes the forecast out turn for 24/25 against the council's revenue budget, the current use of reserves and the outlook, the expenditure against capital budgets in the year and the work underway to contain expenditure within budgets but also for the cabinet to approve. The changes to the existing capital programme in relation to additions are set out in sections 6.8 and 6.9 in accordance with the environment rules. The write-offs for housing benefits, sundry debt and council tax arrears as detailed in section 7 and in appendix B, C and D and lastly two environments as detailed in sections 5.2 and 5.3. Can we agree with all those? No. Thank you. Then it's a case of noting the cabinet forward plan. Just a very, very minor point on the forward plan. You'll have noticed that the agenda, the eagle-eyed will have noticed the agenda today said we had adults and children's resident perception survey and we actually looked at the adults one. The agenda for next month says we have the adults and children's resident perception survey and that's the children's one. So just a technicality. It's a case of keeping people guessing, there's no problem with that. Make it a bit more exciting. If there's no urgent business, as far as I know, we don't need to move into exempt because we've taken that. So that's the end of the meeting. Thank you everybody.

Transcript

Speakers, please turn on the microphone by pressing the speaker icon when speaking and off when finished. Please speak directly into the microphone so that the audio can be picked up clearly for those joining the meeting in the gallery and remotely. Are the minutes of the previous meeting held on 16 July 2024 agreed as a correct record? Agreed. Absence of members, I have received apologies from Councillor Conway. Do members have any declarations to make in relation to any of the agenda items? Take that as a no. Right, now the Constitution states that councillors may ask a cabinet member a question of any matter on the cabinet agenda. The first four questions will be from the opposition group members, and I don't know if you can choose between you who's going to ask those questions. Members will be rotating between the groups. Anyway, if you want to come up, Peter, and the 15 minutes will start when you ask your first question, all right? Thank you. I thought it would be a good place to start with the finance report, and one of the things that is in the finance report that I don't quite understand the detail of is that you suggest that the deficit this year of 20 million, which is after using 18 million of reserves, therefore on an ongoing basis is 38 million, is also after a recovery plan, which is an in-year recovery plan of 7.4 million. Now, the recovery plan seems a bit mysterious, because I can't find where this recovery plan was discussed or mentioned other than in this report, and I wondered what services were contributing to this recovery plan, and what consultation was planned, what inequalities impact assessments had been done in relation to the savings associated with that 7.4 million, because it is treated in the paper as if it's a given, and yet it's appeared out of nowhere, and I didn't know that service changes of this scale could be made without them being agreed in detail by Cabinet, so I wondered how this could possibly be. Thank you, leader. So I'll respond to the various elements of that question. So you began, Councillor, by mentioning the 18 million of reserves that were applied to offset the 38 million overspend in years, so those were earmarked reserves that were used for specific purposes. The 20 million overspend is only what we would, in the worst case scenario, have to cover for non-earmarked general fund reserves, so that's why we were focusing in on that particular figure rather than the overall overspend. In terms of recovery plans, I think moving forward we may have to be a little bit more precise in what we mean by that term, because there's almost two iterations of recovery plans. There's an immediate direction that we gave executive directors to do whatever they could within their available remit to reduce the overspend that they find within their directed areas, and then there's a subsequent organisation-wide recovery plan that is being put together and currently being costed in its entirety that emerged as a result of extensive discussions over the course of August, which I can speak to now. I was going to during my report, but in summary, they were start chamber style sessions that lasted between two and a half hours, one to two and a half hours, depending on the magnitude of the directorate's budget and the extent of the overspend, where there was, in quite excoriating detail, disgust why spend was happening at all and why a particular spend that was over and above budgetary envelope threshold levels wasn't accounted for. As a result of those discussions over the course of August, we had a session with senior officers and all cabinet members as a half-day session to itemise those elements within our organisation-wide recovery plan that we considered palatable to take forward and get robust costings on. They will be fully costed in the coming weeks and we'll be able to present them publicly hereafter, but it's been referred to in the report. Sorry. My understanding was that there are two recovery plans. There's a 7.4 million, which is included in the current figures as an assumption that it will be delivered in determining the deficits at paragraph 1.6 of the report. And my question is not about what you are doing to deal with the 20 million plus the 18, because the real deficit on an ongoing basis next year is 38. So for budgeting purposes, I would argue the budget is really or the cost savings that you need to be looking at is 38. But very specifically, in paragraph 1.6, you refer to a 7.3 something cost saving. And the question that I have is a really simple question. Given that that cost saving is included in the 20 million, i.e. you assume that it happens, then it must be specific items, otherwise you couldn't have included it. So my question is what is in that 7.3 million and how could you decide to do that without it coming to cabinet, without consultation, without any quality impact assessment, unless you're prepared to give us an absolute assurance that no services are being removed in that 7.3 million? We rely upon the professional judgment of executive directors to determine whether or not a particular service level reduction constitutes something that would come to the stage of requiring impact assessment or would detrimentally affect the provision of service in a particular area. So if it is the judgment of officers after we've given the direction to do what is required to bring overspend thresholds back to the position that they were when we set the budget, then that's an operational decision that the organization is entirely entitled to make. We've given a strategic direction and whatever operational decision making is required to facilitate that is entirely feasible without a cabinet level or indeed council-wide decision. I'm not entirely sure if yours is a question of governance or if it's a question of service provision, but it doesn't. The answer is it's both, because I think that a 7.3 million reduction in cost is actually quite significant and therefore I have asked officers what is in that 7.3 million? But I'm asking you as the cabinet member or the cabinet, what is in that 7.3 million? Because it seems to me that the residents of the borough are entitled to know. And this is only the first step in the cost reduction that's going to be needed. And therefore to me it's a fundamental piece of governance that if we are reducing cost that the residents of this borough are entitled to know what is not going to happen. If I can help. There's a couple of things in what you say, Peter. The 7 million are ones that the services have offered up that do not need an Equalities Impact Assessment, do not result in any reduction in services, in the main services like adults and children and is put into the MTFS already. What you're talking about is the next lot of the recovery plan, which is the bigger map. We're waiting for those figures to be valid. When they're validated they will come to cabinet and there will be the opportunity for scrutiny calling. So the recovery plans will have the opportunity to go to scrutiny and will be coming to cabinet, so we're waiting for some validation. And whether any further savings do need an Equality Impact Assessment they will have one because it's a legal necessity. Now I understand that, so you are absolutely confident that the 7.3 million which have been offered up by the services do not involve any significant service reductions? They are about how services are delivered, rather than cutting jobs or anything. However, I'm not promising we will do what is necessary to bring this under control. We inherited a machine that looked good and gleaming when we first got it, then realised it had no real steering and had been out of control for a while and we're having to bring it back in order. We are determined to do that. We will do that. Part of that is the recovery plan. Part of that is, as you have gone through with you, some of the processes we're doing about spend and some of it is about freezing spend. I would make one request, obviously, which is not going to be dealt with tonight, which is that if somebody could send me an analysis of the 7.3 million I would be very grateful. I do think it's something which the administration should think about publishing. Just moving on for a second, in the press release which the Council issued that accompanied this report, the comment was made by Councillor Knacke that the deficit, which you were referring to the 20 million number rather than the 38 million number or whatever, and that, of course, doesn't include the short term, sorry, it does include the short term benefit that we get for two years from the pensions reduction, but that doesn't go on forever. So the underlying level of benefit, of benefit to the budget from sill monies, pension monies and other things means that the underlying running deficit is really very, very large indeed. The question that arises is, in your press release you said that this was equivalent to 5% of the budget, but the reality is that that is true at one level, but unfortunately we have statutory obligations in relation to adults and children and paying our interest bill, which means that the non-statutory element of the budget is massively less than the whole budget. So given that the deficit, the running deficit is of the order of £40 million, it's arguable that that is close to 100% of the things that we do not have to do. So that the scale of the cost savings that you're going to have to contemplate in the Recovery 2 plan relative to the things that really matter to the residents are very, very large. So why did you imply in that press release that this was a 5% problem when it's probably somewhere between a 50% and 100% problem of the things that we're actually allowed to deal with? That particular comment, leader, if I may say, almost encapsulates everything that differentiates a Labour administration from a Conservative one. I do take seriously your knowledge of the structural problems relating to the budget, given that your administration was so heavily responsible for them and you were aware of them at the time when you were in charge. So to a certain extent, yes, we have inherited this and we're dealing with it in a responsible and appropriate way, in a way which allows us to be an administration which is wholly different from what was before. What you're asking is be less aspirational, be more like us, have less interest in providing a decent quality of service provision for residents across Barnet that actually differentiates you as an administration. And to that extent I refuse. We are going to deal with the debt problem that we find. We're going to handle overspends, we're going to figure out exactly how to get the budget under control, but we're not going to give up what makes us unique and what makes our administration more beneficial for the residents of Barnet. I would never ask you to give up, but that was not the question that I was asking. What I was asking was in the press release you explicitly implied this was a 5% problem. The words that you used could not have been clearer. My point is that is utterly misleading to residents because of the statutory expenditure that we have to make. It's nothing to do with aspiration and three years in it's a bit rich to blame everything on the previous administration. I have one final question if there's time, but if not I understand. I could just say it's not, believe me we're not blaming everything on the previous administration. There's a lot of blame for the Conservative National Government as well. So you can share the blame with them. 30 seconds go on you've got one more. This is a personal bugbear which is I think on page 36 and page 73 of papers you refer to HMO licensing. But the implication of particularly page 73 is that HMO licensing is a money spinner because it's about the fact that the backlog of HMO licensing is reduced. And obviously the council gets money in from HMO licensing. My concern is the other end of the telescope which is to me HMO licensing is about making sure that the quality of accommodation in HMOs is good. And I believe that the motivation of the HMO licensing department as I experienced it and it doesn't look as though it's changed is about bringing in money not about improving the quality of accommodation. And I would therefore please ask you to look at that because the words that are in your paper strongly imply that HMO licensing is seen by those who do it as purely about getting money in and not about improving the quality of accommodation. Councillor Zingavala, I assure you that's not the case. I mean as you know this is a we have licensed HMOs for some time in Barnet. We have to reflect in finance papers the reality of the cost of the service in relation to whether it's able to cover it. And there is obviously the team itself has made good progress in dealing with backlog of licensing which is good. There's been a lot of it's a really invaluable part of that team is really valuable part of what the council does and they provide really good services and they've been invaluable in dealing with the cladding issue, the low-rise cladding issue, that expertise is really valued but they are making an effort to get the process, the licensing far more quicker as the papers in our plan for Barnet state and also the other paper. Undoubtedly you have to refer to the bottom line, it's the same for parking, you know. All these sort of things you have to say if there's a financial implication, the papers have to reflect that but it's certainly not the motivation for doing it and we provide a service. It gives reassurance to good landlords and it gives reassurance to people in shared accommodation. As you know the accommodation pressures are horrendous at the moment and getting licensing right and running an efficient service that is actually a win for both the landlords and for tenants, so yeah. But I'll just reassure you at that point, it's absolutely not done as a way of making money. I think on these things because you're allowed full cost recovery, it's financed against staff but that costing is somewhere else so you put it as an income. My concern has always been about the inspection regime which is I know during COVID that there were problems but I was exceedingly anxious about the amount of time they spent doing paperwork versus actually inspecting what the state of HMOs were and I would just urge you to look at that, that's all. Okay, the 15 minutes you're up, I've been told, yeah we can send you something about the recovery plan, not just an analysis but we can have some explanatory notes to make it easier to understand. Okay, if we move on to the next item with the outcome of off-state inspection, Councillor Cokley Webb. Yeah, thank you. I don't know how many people have had a real chance to read through all of this report but when we look at how far the service has come, I personally want to still place again on record my thanks to all the staff that work within this service that not only worked incredibly hard to give us such a good result for the off-state but permanently worked really hard for good outcomes for our young people and I'm particularly proud of all the extra co-working we've done, so the way that we actually include young people in the decision-making, something that obviously didn't happen years ago and how they actually value what we do in terms of asking their views and incorporating their views into their care and what we do for them and how we inform them and what's important to them. I'm sure Mr Mundy will probably expand a bit more but when you look at the actual off-state judgement, I mean, they're single lines where you've got a good, good, outstanding good and good but when you look into the depth of everything that went into it to actually achieve this, it is really outstanding from my point of view the work that has been put in and continues to be put in because it's not just something that's done for off-state, it's something that happens every day of the year to make sure that all the young people in the borough get the best outcomes possible, whatever the situation. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I'm very proud of the outcomes that we've had for our off-state. You'll be aware that the new government have suggested that single word judgements should go for schools. We're also hoping that they'll make the same approach to children's social care which is also struggles with a complex service being judged by a single word. Some of the words are really good and we're really pleased at the progress that we've made and actually if you read the letter in detail, you'll see a whole range of really positive interventions and findings. Colleagues who read these letters a lot have all queried with me why the judgments were so low in comparison to the text but that's a question for off-state. We've set out an action plan saying what we will do to address the issues that off-state have identified which we are implementing so they are generally administrative and we will seek to put those systems in place that will ensure those processes work more openly. So I'm really pleased with the overall outcome, very proud of the staff that we have working for Barnet who have really worked hard over the last five years and we're really committed to implementing the further changes that we need to do to ensure that all children and young people in Barnet flourish, especially those that we are responsible for and that we continue to co-create and co-produce services with them that meet their needs. I'm happy to take any questions. I'll open it for any questions but I think it should be noted our congratulations to the staff, the young people and the families who took part in this. Anything people want to raise? Councillor Moore? I've got a question at the end but it's more by way of comment. I would echo the comments that have been made about staff but I think highlighting one particular phrase within the report I think is really important, that the staff are skilled, tenacious and passionate in what they do with children and I think that sums up the feeling I have when I talk to members of your service. Obviously there are many children and young people who have faced challenges but those for whom we have a particular responsibility as corporate parents will obviously have greater challenges in their lives and I think it's really pleasing to see particularly the outstanding judgement with regards to young people in care because they are the top of the triangle in terms of those children for whom we are responsible as corporate parents. So I just wanted to note that. Just also to comment, pleased to see the positive comments about the virtual school, particularly about the MASH, multi-agency safeguarding hub as a governor. It's certainly one of those services that schools have relied on for a range of different issues and really important and then also I would of course say this but in section 38 of the letter talks about health assessments for those children in care including dental and optician's appointments and this has been a challenging area in the past so it was good to see a positive judgement there. My question really was regarding the action plan and your progress on that. Obviously you've got deadlines of this month and next for a number of elements of that but there was one that you'd set yourself a deadline of August so I was just curious to how you've made progress with that part of the action plan. This is my first time back since I've been on leave. I'm absolutely convinced that my staff will have implemented the particular actions that they've got. I know some of them were being actioned immediately and so I'll write to you to let you know the particular update on that August action. Just for anyone who's watching, they are systems issues and it's important to get them right but they were not major criticisms of the department and so it's just really, it will be useful to know that those have gone into place because it's strengthened the system. Thank you. So my deep congratulations to you Chris and to your staff for this remarkable achievement. As we know the children in care and care leavers are some of the most vulnerable people in our society facing a huge amount of inequalities so this is an excellent start by the bar of getting this kind of result so there's more to build on but it's excellent so congratulations to you and your staff. As a school governor, having been through an off state not that far back, to get an outstanding and clearly good judgments which were very clearly in some cases extremely on the border of outstanding, particularly the experiences and progress of children who need help and protection, that's a very, very strong area. The bar is very high with Offstead and I think this is an incredible achievement for your staff and I suppose like everyone else, we're very grateful to have a children's service that's delivering this quality of care. It's really impressive. There's lots of bits and pieces, good practice, I mean the virtual school, there's a lot of good practice that's highlighted, the MASH is highlighted as being particularly good as well and I think it's a really good and very reassuring reading. The thing that I'm really pleased about around the whole report is that the outstanding is not just owned by those teams that are the children care teams, actually it flags all of the fantastic work that our intervention and planning teams do, duty and assessment teams do when children come into care, that those processes are run really well. It's got links with our leaving care service because that's where the unaccompanied asylum seeking team is, it's got links with our disabled children's services because that's where a whole group of looked after children are, especially with our new autism team as well. So there is really good practice across the whole of the system and I look back over nine and a half years here, that was not the situation. You didn't have tenacious social workers to the extent that you do now and I'm really proud of all the work they do, how focused they are on children's outcomes. The thing that really encouraged me was that nearly all of the social workers were more than happy to speak to Ofsted and you hear of lots of places where they don't want to do that but all of our staff were more than happy to meet with them. They didn't all have that opportunity but they certainly were up for having discussions about what it was like working in Barnet and I think the end paragraph about them I think is the really critical thing. Greatly proud of the service they provide which is what that shows. One thing that stood out for me as well is that we also have staff that have left the borough but then have chosen to come back. So we're obviously a destination where the staff are valued and they feel happy working here and continue to work here. My comment on that is that they should have never left in the first place but there we go. I did my bit to thank Chris Munday and the team by deliberately missing our items 5 to 9 in the agenda which we will have to go back to but for the moment the recommendations on this is cabinet is asked to note and consider the inspection findings as part of their corporate responsibility for recognising and prioritising the needs of children and in fulfilling their role as corporate parents, that cabinet to consider and note the full inspection findings and outcomes as we've done and cabinet to refer the report to full council for consideration. Are we happy with those recommendations? Alright thank you, thank you very much. Anyway now I'll start doing my job properly. Item 5 petitions, none. Six deputations, none. Public questions and comments, none. Matters referred to the Executive, none. And consideration of reports from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee or Scrutiny Subcommittees, if any, please. Right, so we move on to item 11 on the agenda, our plan for Barnet, that is looking at the delivery and outcomes framework for Quarter 1. And in it I think there is much good news. Our work in tackling inequality and reducing poverty has begun. Now that is a long journey, but we are heading in the right direction. These are two issues that were ignored by the previous administration. We've already talked about the Oxford Judgement and there are also exam results, great exam results. We have begun work in rectifying the 20-year neglect of roads and pavements, as well as inheriting a budget that wasn't quite what it looked like. We did inherit a few thousand potholes, it takes time to deal with it. Another thing in the first quarter is residents moving into the council accommodation in Conan Dell Gardens. We've got the journey to net zeros continuing, as does some real resident participation and neighbourhood working. I don't know if people have any comments on their portfolio areas. Councilor Edwards. I have just one comment really. It's on page 42 under the Benchmarking 4.1, and particularly where it says Living Well on the Caring for People. I'll give people a chance to catch up with getting up to that page. It says that ten indicators included from the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework with most forecasts for 23/24 to be better or on par with the peer group comparator. So first of all I'd like to underline the fact that that's a really good positive feedback about our wonderful staff who work in adult social care, particularly as we're still waiting for the outcome of the CQC inspection which took place recently. But the second bit I think is probably the best disingenuous because it says except for the proportion of adults in contact with secondary mental health services living independently with or without support, I'm reliably informed by our officers, that that particular aspect relates to national health service input on a mental health and it's not adult social care from the local authority. Therefore it's quite unfair to be criticised for something that we have no particular control over. I believe it's been raised before. So I'd like to ask officers if they could go back and clarify that because if it is about the national health service then I think it needs to come away from the performance indicators for our own staff. If I've made myself clear or unclear please let me know. To be honest I don't know if anyone can answer that question directly. I mean obviously secondary mental health services would be an NHS responsibility. This is how many of those are living independently and I presume it's something that all boroughs collect but I really don't, I'm not an expert on this. I don't believe we've got anyone in the room that will know that level of detail so we may have to get back to you but certainly we can make sure that the report is clear. Thanks, I just also want to make sure that we're not being assessed on something we have no control over. That was the important point that I wanted to make so yeah, thanks. There's sometimes these things we're asked to collect whether we have any control over them or not. Yeah, but it's an implied criticism in the report. We'll find out. Thank you. Did Councillor Houston put his hand up? And then alright, we'll move along. Yeah, there's a couple of things just to highlight. I think there remains to be, in relation to housing and quality affordable homes, there remains to be good progress at Brent Cross. That's a major regeneration scheme and members of the committee were aware that obviously the low rise decant into new homes has happened in terms of the Whitefields estate which is a landmark. The high rise units will start to move into their new homes later this year. We've reformed and restarted the Barnet Homelessness Forum which has given members of the cabinet to be very aware of the homeless pressures that are causing our overspend on temporary accommodation. There's been a lot of work, good work in terms of dealing with homelessness but the pressures have overwhelmed across London councils and that's something that we'll discuss when we come to the budget. But there is good work and one of the statistics I would just point out is actually that homelessness prevention's KPI, we actually improved on. So that's the route we are making. There's a lot of good work going on, it's just the demand is outstretching our ability to house people and that's a real challenge across London. One of the ways of dealing with that is to deal with supply inside of housing and there are some moving forwards on Great Park Northeast which is referred to in the report. There was a topping out ceremony which the new MP for Hendon attended for the Upper Lower Foster's estate which is a very good piece of work because it was a co-designed piece of regeneration and it's really good to see that coming forward. That's 142 homes and 75 extra care places. There is one statistic that members of the cabinet might be concerned about and I just want to provide some context to that. In the section about the performing less well, we have actually gone below the target for the decent home. We have a very high, Barnet Homes has a very robust record in dealing with compliance but we have fallen slightly very marginally below the target on decent home standards, a very high target of 99.6%, the target is 98.5% and we're at 97.8%. The reason for that is entirely to do with the identified problems with the panel system blocks that we're aware of, the low rise panel systems. Clearly when you've got the category 1 hazards they are not a decent homes compliance so the decision was to include them in the council homes that were affected in the decent homes target. That's the reason why that target, which has always been met, has fallen below that and I think just to provide reassurance, that's a known issue that we're dealing with and that's the reason why that target is not met. We've got a strategy to obviously deal with that and remedy those works within two years. They remedied those very council properties within two years so I think I can provide reassurance on that. We're still very much performing in relation to our general stock in terms of decent homes. It doesn't really appear in the family friendly section but I know that the conversations that we've had with Barnet Homes and with Councillor Houston has meant that we've actually improved the number of accommodation that we can provide for care leavers and that is a really, really welcome thing that we've done over the past 18 months to actually make sure that more properties are put forward for care leavers when they are ready to live independently. When you look through the family friendly headings there, just a couple of things to note is that we've obviously had a child and family early help action plan has been published and I can't over emphasise the importance of making sure that early help, what it does and how it works in the borough means that people get help at the earliest proper opportunity which means that that avoids crisis further down the line. And then when we've had the child programme that's gone to Whitting Health Trust, that's something that took quite a while to sort out but that is now starting to work well and mean that the actual visits that should have been made are now being made and that mothers and young people are actually getting the checks that they need on time. When we got the corporate parenting annual report, that you can see the amount of work that goes in to make sure that these young people have all the help possible at every stage of their life, whether it be the people that are looking after them or the services that offer their help and support, it's something that we need to be really proud of because that's something that, again, if that just doesn't happen at the right time that can really affect helping with their trauma, helping with their future prospects and that's something that we really are good at doing and something that we've been recognised that we're good at doing. I think if Sara was here she would have talked more on the serious violence duty strategy but it's something that we're making sure that it's something that we don't just take as something that another department should do but something that we get involved with and we have a strategy to be targeting the young people that are at risk of either exploitation or serious violence so we try and pick up the cases early on, not wait for tragedies to happen. Thank you. I wanted to highlight some excellent partnership work that's dotted throughout this report but everything from working to improve our tennis courts by working with the Long Tennis Association to actually working with different services across the Council, the work is really impressive but it also addresses the need to be cost conscious and improve services for residents and I think one thing that we can particularly highlight is improving our accesses to services so that means libraries working together with the housing office, the housing options team, it also means things like Ask Barnett, the chat function which went live over summer, our residents are able to get the support that they need and the resources they need in an easier and more efficient way and I think as a Council it means that we're working more effectively with our residents and able to serve them in a better way. I'd also just really like to highlight once again, and I know we have talked about this in cabinet before, but just the difference functioning CCTV service makes to our borough residents. I was at a residents association AGM over the weekend and just having cameras that are working that are monitored is really bringing change to people's lives. Thank you, Chair. I'd just like to comment on one or two of the areas that particularly impact on health and wellbeing issues. There are health and wellbeing issues threaded through the report and that reflects the importance of the wider determinants of health in sections around poverty alleviation and around housing and around environments. They and many others impact on the health and wellbeing of our residents and on page 44 we talk about the joint strategic needs analysis which is a repository of a whole range of data that helps inform our services across the borough. It's gone through a major refresh this year and it was a real pleasure to see in the training session last week a whole range of members but actually also some of our partners from the health and wellbeing board, from the voluntary sector and from some of our GPs who are actually on the session hearing about the value and the data within the joint strategic needs analysis. It will also inform our current joint health and wellbeing strategy and the report talks about a number of areas that come out of the joint health and wellbeing strategy and that's around, for example, dementia, being dementia friendly, some really excellent work that's gone on, being age friendly, again some really good work that's gone on. We've been working with bus companies locally to enable drivers to be more aware of those passengers with greater needs. We've done some work on homeless health which has impacts for the homelessness strategy and those within the borough of homeless. Fit and Active Barnet enabling residents to stay healthy and the referring into that service for a whole range of health reasons to keep people mobile. But it will also be really important as we develop the next health and wellbeing strategy, the 2025/29 strategy. And I'm looking forward both to using the GSNA to really start to hone in on the health inequalities across the borough in our mission to tackle health inequalities as mentioned on page 47 and to be the healthiest borough. And I'm looking forward to co-producing that with partners, again talking about community engagement as my colleague did, but also through the ICB and the voluntary sector so that we can have the next joint health and wellbeing strategy that really starts to set us on that path to be the healthiest borough. Thank you. I was just looking through the various achievements, just as you called me. I just wanted to, thought there's a few things that are worth highlighting here, particularly in the safe, attractive neighbours and town centres section, where it's pleasing to see that the street cleanliness inspections all exceeded our target and indeed that all the planned road and pavement programs were delivered. It's not just a question of having the plan in place, it's important that we actually deliver on those as well and we are there. Also to show that 97% of fly tips were collected within our target, but on that we're actually now doing more and we should see an improvement in that over the coming year, because as a result of the Clean Up Barnet campaign, we're actually getting enforcement staff working with the street scene officers as they go out, so we want to see more awareness of how to report fly tips and more fines and prosecutions if people don't do what they're supposed to do and do fly tip. Although we're doing well, there's actually more to do over the coming year. Just good things to mention under the open spaces enhancing local environment section, where we saw the sustainable urban drainage scheme at Hallywick Park. Again, there are two more planned over the coming year and also the green flag at Cherry Tree Wood and there's going to be a flag raising ceremony in a couple of weeks' time, so I just thought there's a few things there that were worth highlighting. Thank you. Thank you, Lida. I thought that it would be relevant, given the comments that Councillors Inkin made, to remind people that a very important element of my portfolio and a very important thread of the Labour administration's desire to benefit residents of Barnet is the reducing poverty agenda, which is not just innovative and forward thinking in local government terms, but it is genuinely something that we're very proud of in terms of what's already been done whilst it was in the community wealth building portfolio, but what we've got planned in future. It also highlights why financial sustainability is so important for us. If we don't have the foundations of the Council right, if we're not providing a solid bedrock on which to provide a robust and imaginative and aspirational agenda, then we can't achieve either the things that we want at all or, indeed, to the extent that would make a genuinely positive intervention in people's lives. So not only is reducing poverty agendas fundamental to something that we're interested in, but it also highlights why it's so important for us to monitor how spend across the organisation is happening. And the residents' experience element of my portfolio, I shouldn't overlook. The Ask Barnet element has just been rolled out, which is hugely exciting, and we are looking to make use of technology to make the interaction that residents have with the local authority far easier and far more beneficial for both parties. I came across this concept called failure demand. There's a notion that if you constantly try and contact an organisation but fail to do so, it's actually quite a money-waster, in addition to causing a huge amount of frustration for everybody involved. So that's something that we're attempting to tackle and improve the residents' experience element also. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just draw cabinet's attention to the appendices where I think the performance is generally positive, and the benchmarking of authorities is very positive. And the risk register, just to note, a new risk has been added, which has to do with the Collindale office block, where there's been discovered some defects from the building spec. If you're going in there, don't worry, it has been deemed safe, but it does mean there'll be some disruption at Collindale over another month, and I'm sure because it's to do with building defects there'll be a legal opinion involved on all sides, probably. But what we're asked to do is that cabinet note the contents of our plan for Barnet delivery and outcome, quarter one report. So do we note the report? Thank you. The next item is the adult residents' perception survey, which is item 12. This was quite a big survey, over 2,000 residents surveyed, and it has generally positive results, especially with the trend. The trend nationally and in London had been, since the pandemic, for things to decline where those have been generally positive. I'll just pick out three and then ask if there's any comment. 76% of the council found the council trustworthy, 61% council acts in concern of residents, and 70% promotes equal opportunities. All those are quite a big rise compared with the last time the survey was done. So the things that people have noticed about the new administration – sorry, I'll just get the right page. But from the point of view of looking at trend data, I don't know if there's anything that either of you feel we need to talk about? Any particular trends apparent? As you pointed out, we benchmark both our adults and our young people's residents' perception survey against an LGA national aggregated survey, as well as a London regional one. In the post-COVID period, perception surveys tended to show greater satisfaction with local authorities than was normal, which was put down to a general feel-good factor of coming out of the pandemic. And what we've seen in national and local comparators is that to drop quite sharply afterwards, which hasn't been the case with Bowneck's results. I think there are some very encouraging results here, and upticks from a high bar, as you say, and against national trends. I think, as Councillor Conway – she's not here today, but if she was, one of the things she would draw the attention to is the social education and community section. Particularly in paragraph 1.34, which puts the context of the survey having been undertaken in the autumn of 2023, at a time of particular community tension in Bowneck, and in London in the country, but particularly affecting some of the communities that live in our borough. And I think that the resilience of that particular result is really very encouraging. Four-fifths of residents agree that people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local area, in line with the London average and national average, very slightly down, but no significant difference in the results between ethnic and religious groups, and only very slightly down. Given what has happened, that is a remarkable result. It is very encouraging, and I think those of us who are involved in our communities have also picked up that Bowneck has really good networks of interfaith and intercommunity groups who work together, as well as partnering with the council and other bodies, schools and religious groups, churches, temples, mosques and synagogues, and I think that is something that really makes our borough special, and we should be proud of that result. Not to repeat, but to add to what Councillor Luciana said, several areas are really impressive. I think what underlines it is that this was just a note that this survey was undertaken immediately, during a period of high inflation, so that is when people will be feeling the pinch, the need for good services increases, and even then our customer service was increasing in satisfaction, so I think that is almost 10% up. And it is also reflected that residents are feeling that we are more customer-focused. I mean, I would prefer to call them residents rather than customers, but I think it does absolutely show that the focus of this administration is on our residents, and residents are feeling that way as well. I would echo very much what the last two colleagues have said, and I would comment on the community cohesion issue, because I think it is something that we should be proud of, but also hold very carefully. It is a privilege to have that sense of community cohesion that has given us a result like this at a time when it was really very difficult. I am going to share a minor anecdote, but actually demonstrate, I hope, how strong that is across the borough. I was there on behalf of the Mayor at licensing a priest in Edgware on Sunday evening, and actually one of the things that many of the church members and community members said in welcoming the new priest when they spoke was to make the point about the strength of our multi-faith, inter-faith and community networks, and how that was a very special thing to have, and that they hoped that he would find it as special as they did, and so I thought that was a really interesting reflection outside the council to just back that up. But I guess I'm bringing it back to a serious note. Obviously, the perception survey is fantastic, and I'm really pleased that residents are saying that we're listening and acting on their concerns, but I guess the question is, and it's a bit like, as people know, I'm a bit of a data and fact hound around the JSNA and things like that, so I suppose the adult perception survey, it's what we do with it, and I would reflect that when we were looking at this two years ago, there were some issues that we started to unpick about the perceptions of people with disabilities on our services, and I was really pleased to see that the perception of equal opportunity and equal access actually had risen, because I know that a lot of work and thought went in after that result on disabilities, so it is about what we use that data for within the council to look at how we improved our communications and the way we worked with, in that case, a particular part of our particular group of our residents. So it will be really interesting to look at the deeper parts of this survey and see how it informs the way we develop our services over the next several years, so thank you. Right, time to ask, some of it is asking how we use this data, obviously we have quite a bit of quantitative data, but this is a qualitative one, and how we make sure that this plays an important role in planning, rather than just something to congratulate ourselves about. I don't know if you've only thought, I mean from a community cohesion point of view, 78% may be a good score, but still short by 22%, so it is how we get into that virtuous circle of improving all the time. I don't know if, where does this get fed into, you know, how does this make a difference? We are looking at proactive work on community cohesion at the moment as well, which I think we would be doing anyway at this point in time, but it is something that I agree with council more, we can't take for granted even if it's a good result. And what we will be doing as well, there is a young person's perception survey as well, and what we're doing, which will be coming to a future cabinet meeting, is analysing them both together and looking at where the strongest areas of need and priority are in that combined data set. And similarly to people with disabilities in the last survey, we're regularly less satisfied than others, we'll be looking at whether that is the case again, whether there's any other cross breaks, whether it's geographies or any other kind of demographic data, where we can look at, well, these are the audiences and the issues we need to look at. So that work is ongoing. So this is taken through the Tackling the Gaps group as well, so we're looking at different quarters through that group and developing the action plan. The research, you mentioned councilor Moore, the ethnographic research, so we've got, that's quite a long pipeline on it, so we've worked with those groups and we're looking at actions on that. But disability is coming out strongly again, and there might be other things that are driving that, so an observation we've made is, this is a residence perception survey, and the disabled people that might not be taking part, might not be accessing our services, but so they're, do we need to think about the different comms, communicate our services, because they might not need the service, so their perception is lower, so we'll be looking at those things as well, so it might be not just about disabled people accessing our services. From a generality of audience, sorry, I thought I'd switch it on, a generality of audience who aren't aware of what goes on, so absolutely, that's really important, but it's the data, whether quantitative or qualitative, it's really important we use it to inform what we do, and use our resources in the best way we can. Okay, are there any other comments people want to make? So this is a useful snapshot of perception survey, and it's the trend data that we look for. The recommendations is that cabinet note the top line findings of the adult residence perception survey, 2324. Are we happy to note that? Yes, thank you, thank you, well noted. The next item is Hampstead Gardens suburb library, and I need to remind people that there is exempt information on this, so if people want to ask questions from the exempt section, please indicate. I could try and give an introduction, but it is a bit of a confusion, but the reason it's coming to the cabinet, I presume, is that this counts as less than best consideration, because the actual difference in opportunity cost is less than two million. It's not, I think, for the Secretary of State, but it's the thing that we have to assure ourselves, that if it's not best consideration, it doesn't mean it's not the best value, if that makes sense. And I don't know if you want to give a brief introduction to the recent history? Yes, certainly, Robert Brown, Head of Property Services and Valuation. So the Hampstead Garden suburb library is run by the Garden Suburb Library Group Limited, who are a charitable group staffed almost totally by volunteers, and they've been providing the library service for us in Hampstead for some years. They can't afford to pay rent, but by entering into an agreement with them, whereby they occupy the premises and run the library, and keep the place neat and tidy, without rent, we get a library service without having to staff it. Our landlord, Freshwater, has granted us an underlease, £12,850 a year. In turn, they've given us consent to grant a sub-underlease to the Garden Suburb Library, and they've agreed to us providing, by a side letter, a concession agreement that enables the suburb library group to occupy rent-free. There are a number of clauses within the sub-underlease and within the side agreement that enable both the library group and the council to break the agreement, should there be a reason to do so, and in turn, we have break clauses in our underlease with Freshwater, so should there arise a scenario whereby the charity is unable to provide the service and the council decides it, therefore, isn't going to have a library there, we have a number of opportunities to walk away. I think I should draw members' attention to why we're deciding this, and it's probably 6.4 on page 96, is the considerations, the four considerations that have to be made. Whether the financial assistant, directly or indirectly, from public resources by public authority, does the financial assistant confer an economic advantage on one or more enterprises? Is the financial assistant specific, and having a side letter would make it very specific about what we expect of Hampshire Garden, our library, I think it's the C&C, it's a charitable company, isn't it? And will it have an effect on competition or investment within the UK, which I doubt, as it's not a trade or investment. But if we're satisfied that these are reaped, what we're being asked to agree to, or the recommendation, is a sublease to the library, a side letter also to the library, and if I'm right, the side letter is something that's just between us and the library, that freshwater needs a nose there, but don't have a say over or can't alter. That's correct, yes. It's between us and the library. We needed freshwater's consent to enter into it, but they're not a party to it. But they're not a party to it, yep, okay. So, have people got any questions? Councillor Cornwall. I would just like to make a comment as the Councillor in the neighbouring ward, because I do appreciate that it's not formally best consideration in the terms of Section 1, 2, 3, but I think, certainly from my knowledge of them, it is a fairly modest contribution to unlock a lot of goodwill from those who run it in a very professional and passionate way, actually. It's delivered by local people with a modest input from library services, but actually of quite high quality, because they rely on the library services to make sure that it is up to the standards of a library in terms of content. And people will have the impression, I suspect, that it's Humpstead Gardens suburb, it's a very affluent, broadly affluent community, but I know that as a member of a neighbouring ward, actually there are residents within that area. They're right, there is hidden poverty and hidden need in areas close to that, and I know that there is use of the library by some of those residents, and so it is greater than the impact that you might see on paper. And certainly from the correspondence I got when it was challenging and request to intercede on their behalf, I know it is very well appreciated and supported by many people, so thank you. Here we are. Good words about it. Any other comments or to remove the recommendations? The cabinet approves the grant of the sub-underleash to gardens suburb community library limited on terms that are shown in appendix B. The cabinet approves the grant of the side letter to gardens suburb community library limited in accordance with the terms set out in appendix C to this report. The side letter will be an exclusive arrangement between the council and gardens suburb community library limited and not capable of assignment, and the cabinet delegates authority to the lead officer and head of property and portfolio management in consultation with the leader to approve any minor amendments. I think those recommendations also cover what's in the accept section, so can we accept the recommendations and be satisfied that we don't need to go into the exempt because it's covered in the discussion we've had already. Are people agreed? All right, thank you. The next item is the sustainability program update that I believe Councillor Sniderman is leading on. Thank you, leader. So this is an update on our sustainability program, and we declared that sustainability and biodiversity emergency just over two years ago, but it's good to take the opportunity within this report to reconfirm our commitment to that. But the declaration is important as it was. More important is the action that we're going to take, and this report and the appendix, which has got the full annual report, sets out all of the stuff that we have done over the last year and indeed over the last couple of years. Notably, that includes our citizens assembly and young people's assemblies, which have greatly contributed to our sustainability action plan. There's lots of details in the report, and I can see Jugita has popped up on the screen there. Some of the highlights are including the start we've made on retrofitting EV charge points, converting streetlights to LEDs, planting a record number of trees and the sustainable urban drainage scheme, which I think is absolutely brilliant, that I referred to earlier. And importantly, some of these things are not just helping the environment, they're helping the financial sustainability of the Council, particularly with regards to, you know, the LED streetlights, and also with retrofitting and insulation, they're actually helping residents financially. I'm sure Barry, Councillor Rawlings, looking forward to reading out the full recommendations in a moment, but recommendations also include, importantly, adding a work stream on climate adaptation and resilience, which we will add to our sustainability action plan. And there's a workshop coming up for members organised by Bloomberg, so we can actually look at how that can be embedded within the planning decisions that we take. The recommendation also includes producing a climate budget, which is a bit of a confusing concept to explain, that is not a separate budget, but is a way of identifying measures that reduce carbon emissions within the normal financial budget setting process. The final recommendation is just to note that the Programme Director for Culture and Sustainability, Yogita Popat, who's there, who's already in place, is the lead officer for climate change. So, as I say, there's loads more details in the report and in the full sustainability report, which is a very good read, so please do look at that to see all of what's going on. But, of course, we've got lots more to do to reach our net zero, challenging net zero targets. Did you mention street lighting? I go back to the adult perception survey, where 81% was satisfied with the street lighting, up from 74% two years ago. We've just addressed that the early delighting is actually light, as well as cutting down some of the carbon costs. If I were to do any questions, does I suppose Yogita or Deborah want to talk to the report? Thank you, and I think some of this we're waiting for, to know, to see what the actual difference things like British Energy made to work with London Councils on some of the power issues about how clean power and so on. So, from what I gather, although we've already declared it, this is a bit like when we're doing Labour Party stuff and somebody has to take a picture on Twitter to show it exists, that we work in some virtual world. So, although we declared it, this is to put it in writing, that we've declared it. Anyway, any questions for Alan or the officer? Councillor Begg. Thank you, sir. It's a brilliant report, really highlights all the progress that has been made. So, my question really is, do we think that communities have been engaged enough and community participation? So, it's the communities that are going to feel this difference in net zero work that we are doing, and particularly young communities. So, do you think enough has been done to involve them? I'll make a start. I think, yes, I think we have done a lot and we are doing more. I mean, we started with our Citizens' Assembly and Young People's Assemblies, which have never been tried in Barnet before. And indeed, we've had lots of interest from other authorities in showing the good practice and how we did that. We had a range of action groups that came out of those assemblies that carried on the work within the community. We've got recently Community Energy Barnet has just been formed to start taking forward community energy projects within the borough. And that's led by members of the community. And as Gita said, we're going to look to involve the community in the climate adaptation and resilience work going forward. So, like across the whole council, I think we've done a lot to involve the community, and definitely in the sustainability area. Councilor Moore, then Councilor Houston. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Councilor Schneider, for what I think is a very exciting and full report, and something that I can absolutely get behind. What I was just going to raise the issue about, as we start to promote this, certainly for parts of the community, people would benefit from understanding the wider impact of a range of this work on broader health implications. So, climate resilience against rising summer temperatures have a very clear health impact, particularly on our older residents. Rising summer temperatures have all sorts of negative health impacts, as does the air quality impact of decarbonizing, particularly of transport. There are all sorts of very clear evidence now about the impacts of poor air quality, both on children and on older people. And tree planting is one of the things in its own right, but actually the positive impacts around combating the urban heat island effect goes further to improve communities' resilience against rising temperatures. So, I really appreciate the report and support it, but I hope we'll be able to feed that in, and certainly I would welcome and recognize the sorts of work that goes on in our schools through the education programs, because young people can be incredibly evangelical about environmental issues, and can convince the rest of the community as well. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to draw the Cabinet Member's attention to the really good work that's been done by Barnet Homes in relation to retrofit energy saving measures in over 600 Council homes. An additional 100 homes are going to be retrofitted through the Social Housing Decarbonization Fund, and we've submitted by March 2025, and we're submitting a bid with other via-London councils and a consortium for further funding from the Social Housing Decarbonization Fund. I think one of the things to say about the net-zero agenda when it comes to housing is that even if climate change wasn't an issue, and it is an issue, actually this investment is lowering people's fuel bills and basically dealing with cost of living pressures in people in low incomes. I think it would be the right thing to do irrespective of climate change, but actually it's a very good example of a double win, because by doing the right thing by our planet, we're also doing the right thing, lowering the costs for people who are struggling to make ends meet, with all the pressures of living in London under the cost of living crisis that we've been through. So it's really a very positive investment, and I look forward to the Government bringing further measures, but I think we are well placed to be able to be one of those boroughs that actually is leading on this, not following, because actually we've done a lot of good work already, and Government want partners who can deliver their agenda in terms of retrofitting quickly and efficiently, and I think Planet Homes and the Council are well placed to be able to do that. Yeah, as I said, some of this is waiting to see what the national change is, isn't it? Any other comments? Or if Alan wants to sum up? Yeah, well just to say, I mean there's been some good comments, and it's a great report, just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Jugita and the team who put this together, and who have been instrumental in driving this work forward. I mean, Council Houston talked about being ready to deliver for the Government, and equally we've got a really good relationship with the GLA, we met with the Deputy Mayor for Environment a couple of weeks ago, and they recognise that from a low base, Barnet is now one of the leading authorities, we've got lots of programmes, we've got lots of ideas, and we're very keen to work with Government, GLA and other partners to take that forward. Thank you people, happy we go to the recommendations. Right, the recommendations. Cabinet reconfirms their commitment to the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency Declaration issued in May 2022 and noted in June 2022. Cabinet to note the progress achieved in delivering the Sustainability Action Plan to date, and to include an additional work stream within it to support climate adaptation and resilience. Cabinet delegate authority to the Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change in consultation with the Programme Director, Culture and Sustainability, the monitoring and updating of the Sustainability Action Plan, and to oversee the process of producing a climate budget to address the residual funding gap, and following the changes to the Council Senior Management Team structure approved at Council on the 21st of May 2024, the Council notes the Programme Director, Culture and Sustainability already imposed as the lead officer for climate change. We happy to agree those recommendations? Moving on to the final item, well, the forward plan is the Chief Financial Officer's report, which is both the quarter one financial forecast and the budget management. Councillor Deneckley. Thank you very much, Leader. Quite a substantial report, and naturally the contents of it and the implications of it are equally substantial. May I just start by expressing my sincere gratitude to the Finance Team in the Council for both putting the report together, but also all of the oversight work that it betokens, that there's a huge amount of work that's now being done with service directorates across the organisation, and the Finance Team have done an extraordinary amount of work to embed themselves within the functioning of the Council in order to provide us with the level of context and detail that we can see in this report. Speaking of context, I think it's important to start with that concept. The report itself is obviously emergent from a background of financial activity and an environment in which we currently exist financially. So the context falls into two categories. We have a national and how that manifests locally. In terms of the national context, people have heard me say this. In the past, local government finance is in a dire situation, exacerbated by 14 years of underinvestment and, to a certain extent, undervaluing of what local government has to offer and the role it plays within an individual's life, both civic and/or otherwise. As a consequence of that, we find ourselves in a position where we are providing more and more services. We're actually required, we are enjoined by law to provide those services with ever-diminishing resources. The spending power of local authorities, particularly in London, has dwindled in that same period of time and that shouldn't be forgotten as we move forward and the current government does take that very, very seriously. But in much more recent times, we have seen dramatic financial events that have had ripple effects on our current situation, which we've had to deal with during the time that we have been in the administration. So these were not things that we were aware of or could have been aware of prior and we have had to figure out how best is within our ability to respond to those fiscal calamities whilst also being aspirational forward thinking and wanting the best for our residents. The fiscal event I'm referring to in September of 2022, when Liz Truss was Prime Minister, also briefly has still cut impact, has impacts on us. The inflationary and interest rate consequences that that resulted in nationwide have had very pertinent local effects on us, which I shall speak to when we refer to what the report is actually telling us about in-year spend. Locally, however, there is an important thing to mention, which is we had a change of government structure at the beginning of our administration, which was necessary because we knew that there would be challenges that we faced, not necessarily the scale of the financial challenge we see here. We didn't forecast that, but we knew that agility would be required and a degree of focus and attention that unified all elements of the executive so that all members, executive members who are responsible for service directorates were able to share their views around a single table. And that is largely why we moved to a cabinet and scrutiny system from the rather inefficient and laborious committee system that existed previously. The way that that system has a lax oversight of the financial situation of the Council is something we are dealing with now. The consequences of an inability to properly understand the financial consequences of decision making in the long term is clearly laid out in this particular report. So what does the report actually tell us? If I can turn to page 137 of the cabinet papers in brief, this is the situation we face. We finished last year. The end of year downturn report resulted in a 22 million pound overspend, which needed to draw down our reserves to a level below the 40 million threshold that we consider financially optimal. I suppose it's the best term. We have a strategy document, a policy document within the Council that states that that is the optimum position that our general fund non-amark reserves ought to be at. At the end of the first quarter, unfortunately, we are seeing an end of year position that looks very similar to that. However, we do not benefit from the cushion of a reserve position in the same way as we did last year, which makes this an even more acute problem than the potential overspend last year. And I don't want that to go over as though I'm suggesting it as somehow not extremely serious. It is something that the administration has taken note of as a serious concern, and we've already gone into, we've already undertaken a series of activities and measures to intervene to ensure that this particular situation doesn't end up being our end of year position. Some of the factors that relate to why the end year overspend is at the position it is, perhaps my colleagues will assist me on areas specific to their directorates, but the pressures that were facing us in the last financial year have not dissipated, they've not disappeared. In certain areas, particularly adults and children's services, they have in fact become more acute and more pronounced. But in this particular year, one of the emergent pressures that we are facing is the temporary accommodation pressure that is more acutely felt in Barnet because of certain local factors, those being a small social housing stock, once again, consequence of decades of underfunding and under emphasis on providing that level of stock, private landlords leaving the industry so that it means that we are more reliant on emergency temporary accommodation to meet our housing obligations. And of course, there hasn't been an increase in applicants for accommodation as well. So all of those factors have mounted in year and have caused a degree of pressure on that element of our expenditure. What are we doing? What is it that we've already started to do to meet this challenge? We haven't just shown up at the cabinet meeting saying this is an awful situation and we've got no idea what we're doing. We spent an entire summer coming together with a plan of intervention to get to understand the fundamentals of why the organization is overspending in the way that it is and put in place measures to try and overcome that. So August was quite an invasive learning exercise. I think officers would agree. One to two and a half hour sessions with service directors querying every single line of their budget expenditure and making them defend, to a certain extent, why the expenditure was necessary and essential. And that has led to the development of what we're calling an organization-wide recovery plan. The specific details of which are yet to be formalized because we're still waiting on those figures to be verified. But it is the first element of what we're looking to put in place. Additionally, there are weekly control panel sessions now, I think four days a week, in particular for the benefit of the adults and children's services. We don't want, if there is essential spend, to be done in those directories for the service areas to have to wait a week or longer to sign it off. So we've put in place a weekly program of that sort, which takes into account all expenditure. It does not matter for the purposes of asking the service director to justify that expenditure, what the nature of the spend is or where the funding source comes from. Everything needs to be assessed in first principles. And that includes new contracts, it includes agency spend, it includes all discretionary spend over 5,000 pounds. So we've had the control panels put in. Moving forward, we're going to... So the other thing we've also done is submitted to the government spending review as part of their consultation to put together the autumn budget what the specific factors in Barnet are that need to be addressed. The particular unique factors we find in adult social care, people living longer with complex comorbidities and poor health, our temporary accommodation situation and such like. So we presented to national government what we're facing locally. It isn't just a generic problem that we've said that it is not something that we require specific focus on. I think I will actually leave it there. There will be observations that colleagues will be presenting in the discussion that I can respond to. But I think that the core message to take away for the benefit of residents is that the situation is serious. We are aware of that. But they should be heartened by having a labour administration in place to deal with it and a labour government to assist. Thank you very much. Yes, I think we can add to that. One of the issues is, as you say, when we took over the administration, things didn't seem too bad. But the more we looked under the bonnet, the more we found out how poor decision making was, how things were gathering that was going to cause us problems. The lack of well, some of the things to do with liquidity management would have helped. But one of the things we've done, obviously, is bring in more services in-house, because part of the problem is we didn't have enough control over it. Some of the steering was out of our hands. And if we're going to make a difference, which we need to, because bonnet deserve it, if we're going to bring the budget under control, which we will, because we have to. And then people will talk about statutory services for children and adults. Actually, balancing the books is also a statutory service, otherwise commissioners come in. So it's important that we recognise it's a big task. The advantage of a cabinet system is we found out about it a lot earlier than we would have. We're up for the task and we know that we can make the difference to the residents of bonnet by improving this situation. And it's not waiting to see what government does. It's doing things all the time, making a difference, making sure the budget is rained in. And I'll open it up to whether any officers or cabinet members want to make any comments. Councillor Houston. I think it would be, it's important to make a comment about one of the biggest pressures which Councillor McPhee mentioned, which is the temporary accommodation, rise in cost. We've traditionally had a very good record of predicting temporary accommodation. I think that the record is good. And what we have faced is an unprecedented change in circumstances. This is reflected in temporary accommodation pressures across other boroughs in London. And it's led to a kind of perfect storm where there's a substantial budget pressure as a result of that. I mean, it takes, there's a number of factors in relation to that. One of the biggest factors is the change in demand. We've had 1,596 new housing applications open in the five months to the end of August 2024. That is 65% more than in the August period in 2022. That is a massive, massive difference. Combined on top of that, the cost of temporary accommodation, as Councillor McPhee mentioned, has gone up. It's, we're now having to use, or basically the private rent sector cost, the market is not, I think the best way of describing it would be not, you know, we've got a real, it's broken actually. There is a crisis in London in relation to housing people who need housing. And basically the temporary accommodation costs, the supply, and the cost of temporary accommodation has gone up considerably, not just the demand, but the cost. And we're using a nightly paid temporary accommodation now. The rates for that can vary from, you know, one of the statistics that I just to share with you for one bed, the annual cost variation on a monthly basis goes up from 7,000 for one bed to 11,000 in April to 11,000 in July. That's a considerable difference. And that's just one bed. I think there's also been a problem with some of the projected supply of a lot of our housing. We've obviously been, as a council, investing in our own council housing. And let's say the Colindale Gardens, I was very pleased to be able to go out with local councilors at an event to celebrate the kind of handover of Colindale Gardens and the occupation of it by residents, 249 units. And that was done just last week. And we actually, that investment, which was from the housing revenue account, is projected to save the general fund 800,000 a year. So we have been doing our best to save program in relation to investing in housing to try and meet the need. One of the problems we've had is there has been, a lot of the housing supply in any London borough is delivered through housing associations getting section 106, basically affordable housing, being picked up by housing associations and delivered by housing associations. And we obviously nominate people from our waiting list to that housing. And actually, the supply of that has not been, it has been less than predicted. So again, that's also partly as a result of some housing, basically a lot of housing associations have pulled back on their investment programs because they're in financial difficulties. So I think one of the, there are many reasons for that, we've discussed this before, but one of the biggest things, as Councilman Ackley points out, was the inflation, the base of interest rates. The interest rates have been crippling in relation to supplying, you know, anything to do with investment. And I think that is a real concern. One of the things that we have in the area that which I'm responsible for, we've been looking at, is to go through the capital program to see where we can actually make and pretty radically look at the capital program and agree basic principles about what we will invest in. Quite a lot of our capital program is tied up with government grant and programs that have already been agreed. A lot of the Brent Cross they spend is in that category. But we have been going through it very ruthlessly with Councilman Ackley and with officers to look at what we, you know, what is essential and what isn't essential. Because we do need to make savings and borrowing costs are higher than predicted. One of, it is a shame that we weren't able to borrow more money when interest rates were lower and we have been using, you know, but I think the principle that's now been established is that when we have, with the capital program, is that we have to finance it and that internal borrowing isn't the way to do it. Any capital scheme has to be justifiable in its own terms going forward and fully costed and I think that's one of the things that, you know, I'm very grateful to officers and also Councilman Ackley is bringing that degree of discipline to the budget process. We've had whole day sessions with cabinet and officers and I certainly feel I understand my budget area better than I, you know, I did two years ago, even a year ago, and I think there are, you know, there are reasons, there are whole, you know, basically the governance around budgeting I think wasn't there in terms of Councillors. When I moved into my role as Chair of the Housing and Growth Committee that then was and I think, you know, I definitely feel I've got far greater understanding of the budget process than I did but I think it's been very difficult because I do think that, you know, that we've definitely been a learning process in terms of how we do budget management and I think going forward I feel far more confident that I understand when we're making decisions that are informed decisions and I think that's really important. I don't think I felt like that two and a half years ago. I was taking, you know, we were taking things on, you know, and I think that's a major change. Anybody else? Councillor Begg. So obviously every pound counts, not just today or tomorrow, but in future years. So I've noticed that we are writing off huge amounts of debt here and a lot of it seems to be untraceable. There's some quite large amounts of LA mistakes. So is it time for us to look at our processes and systems to see this doesn't happen again? I find it quite astonishing that in this day and age we can't trace people that are owing debt to a local authority and some of those are really high debt. So we've got some people here that haven't paid 43,000. Most of them are double numbers. So what I really would like to be reassured with is that we do look at the systems again to see how quickly we catch the debt going into long term, because this is public money that we need to get back with possibly with reformed systems. Yeah, I don't know if one of the officers want to mention that, but I will say when a debt becomes too difficult or too expensive to retrieve because it's too old or we can't trace the people, it is a good accounting practice to actually write it off because we can't make assumptions on it. But I don't know if Kevin or Dean want to talk about the efforts that go into recovering the money. Yeah, I just wanted to endorse Councillor Begg's concern about the issue of debt, because when you do look at it it is quite substantial, but I take on board what Dean is saying. I do think officers, to be fair, have been working, particularly in outdoor social care, trying to get some of that debt down, and we shouldn't forget that. But I do think that maybe it might have to be a closed session, I don't know, but we do need to maybe as a cabinet collectively look at if we can do any more, because some of those debts are quite substantial, and the ones that obviously I understand from an accounting point of view, it's better to write some of them off, but some of them are quite large, and it's easy for us to try and pursue people who are our own tenants to get that debt back, but for people who are not, it looks like it's much more difficult, and obviously we do have, with offices on outdoor social care, there are significant debts from people who should have been paying when they've been getting care, and then someone's passed away, and then the whole issue of who is the PAP, who has powers of attorney, and how we can get that off them. So it is quite complicated, but I do think it might be useful to see whether we can, are there any other ways of trying to increase our debt collection, but I also wanted just to say something about adult social care, particularly in relation to some of the pressures, and I think what's important for members to know or to understand is that it's a fact that it's much more expensive to keep people who qualify for adult social care at home and in the community, and what we're seeing is a decline in the numbers of people who go into residential care and going into nursing care, and rightly so in my view, because it means that they remain in their own homes in the local community, but it's important that we realise that there's a cost implication for that, it's much cheaper for the council to place people in nursing care or residential homes, it's actually quite unlawful to actually force people to do that against their will, but but I do think it's important to understand that marketplace in terms of the pressures on adult social care, so keeping people at home in the local community is the most expensive way of doing it, but it's the most dignified way of supporting our citizens, so I just wanted to raise that as part of the overall debate, thanks. It's going to be looked at and some of this is questions of interest on whether a debt is secured or not, but Kevin did you want to come in? And I think some of it is should we first of all offer some debt advice rather than go straight in with you know the bailiffs could come round type thing, so there are different ways of collecting debt as Dean said and what we do need to look at it. Anybody else? Any comments? Thank you leader, it should be said that there are other elements of the program that we offer that sort of offset the cost of living pressures that may well be generating a situation when people enter into debt. Our benefits calculator is truly quite an innovative tool that I encourage residents to make use of if they need to. I should pick up on something that Councillor Houston very usefully and helpfully referred to. I did say that I would explain why the rise in interest rates was more acutely impactful to local government practice and Barnet and just neglected to do so. So the debt financing portion of our revenue budget commitments currently stands at 4.2 million which is not an insubstantial amount of money and it is a concern for us were that figure to increase particularly in the short term given the pressures it will cause on other service areas. Now naturally that is, there are very complex reasons for that but ultimately comes down to an administrative choice in the past by previous administrations to finance their capital works by internally borrowed revenue rather than going out and borrowing money when it was affordable to do so and at a time now when we are obligated to fulfil certain capital works priorities we have no choice but to go out and borrow that money instead. So there are certain factors that legacy issues relating to decisions made by previous administrations which have made the interest rate spike particularly difficult for us to manage as an issue which will then consequently mean that we have to make some very difficult decisions on what exactly we consider genuinely essential priorities. That's the level of seriousness with which we have to now make this the decision making in financial terms. Thank you. Any other comments? On this there's two parts of the recommendation. One is noting and one is approving. Just to make sure people are aware, the approvals are the changes to the capital programme that Councillor used to mention. The write-offs that Councillor Begg and Edwards mentioned. Also two environments of 5.2 and 5.3. One is two million to the capital financing budget from contingency because of the cost of the borrowing and the other one is just to, it's almost to note because the decision has been made of a staffing budget due to a restructure of 213,000. Anyway, having pointed that out, the recommendations that cabinet notes the forecast out turn for 24/25 against the council's revenue budget, the current use of reserves and the outlook, the expenditure against capital budgets in the year and the work underway to contain expenditure within budgets but also for the cabinet to approve. The changes to the existing capital programme in relation to additions are set out in sections 6.8 and 6.9 in accordance with the environment rules. The write-offs for housing benefits, sundry debt and council tax arrears as detailed in section 7 and in appendix B, C and D and lastly two environments as detailed in sections 5.2 and 5.3. Can we agree with all those? No. Thank you. Then it's a case of noting the cabinet forward plan. Just a very, very minor point on the forward plan. You'll have noticed that the agenda, the eagle-eyed will have noticed the agenda today said we had adults and children's resident perception survey and we actually looked at the adults one. The agenda for next month says we have the adults and children's resident perception survey and that's the children's one. So just a technicality. It's a case of keeping people guessing, there's no problem with that. Make it a bit more exciting. If there's no urgent business, as far as I know, we don't need to move into exempt because we've taken that. So that's the end of the meeting. Thank you everybody.

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