Transcript

Thank you. We're going to start now. Hi. Good evening. Salaam alaikum and welcome to the Suburban Scrutiny Committee meeting. My name is Councillor Jahan Choudry and I will be chairing this meeting. Can I remind everyone that this meeting is being filmed for the Council website for public being. Those participating in this meeting will be included in the footage. If there are any technical issues, I will decide if and how the meeting should continue after taking advice from the officers. Members should only speak on my direction and ensure to speak clearly into the microphones. Apologies. Thomas, is there any apology? Good evening Chair. We have no apologies this evening. Thank you. Okay. We have apologies from Julie Loeven, Conference Director of Resources and the Mayor has also sent his apologies and unfortunately I think he was only notified last week and he is required in the evening and I think we'll ensure that he's been invited in sufficient time so he can check his diary and make space available for us. Declare of regular interest. Can members declare what they have any disclosure of regular interest and indicate which aspect the interest relates to and state whether interest is personal or prejudiced nature. Before we start, I'm going to update. I need your attention from us as well. It's not today's meeting. It was last call in because there was some mess up and the report was published very late. I didn't realise especially for myself there is an item I should have declared my interest on. There's one or two companies, one company in particular, the award was made from Carowatt and I'm not sure if the name, if this is still true then I know this guy. I think it should be noted. Anybody have any interest? Nothing. Okay. Anybody have any interest? No. Okay. So the minutes from our meeting on 10 September 2024 have been circulated. Can the members who were present confirm this as true and accurate record? Yeah. So the action log has been published. There are no outstanding actions to address. Do members have any comments on the action log? So now the following change to the political composition of the council. We need to amend our scrutiny committee membership accordingly. Thomas, can you introduce this report and set out the changes required? Good evening, Chair. As of last fall council, the council moved into no overall control which changed the committee membership up so we have gained two new independent members and that will be agreed for council. As I believe the committee is minded to, they are able now to appoint a new scrutiny lead and just to note that affirmative recommendation 3 in this report, as we have to receive nominations from political groups to give the effect of the new portability of the subcommittee changes. The committee is asked to note the appointments will be approved by the council's monitoring officer and the constitutional powers, following receipt of nominations from leaders of the political groups and committee members will be informed of those appointments. So by next committee we should have an idea of the subcommittees as well. Thank you, Thomas. As you heard, because we don't have any non-nomination for the independent members, so the scrutiny leads positions that are packaged by us by another lead position will be decided in the next meeting when we know who is the full independent member. So it will be decided on full council, next one council and after that the next meeting we will decide, I mean I think we can discuss and decide the scrutiny leads. Thank you. Before we begin, I would like to note a change to the order of the published agenda. If the chief executive is presenting report on pre-decision scrutiny, we will move this on the agenda to follow the first two items he is discussing with us. The item on US justice and rental years will follow this. Our first item is discussion on late cabinet reports and the appointment of an interim strategy scrutiny officer. In cabinet on 11 September 2024, a number of reports were published very late. These included the report on fire safety, capital HRA, pre-requirement route of HRA capital investment, approval of inclusionary grant from GLA and MH CLG2 capital programme and the domestic care contract award. These are quite significant reports with some published only two hours before the cabinet meeting, which provided no opportunity for scrutiny but for scrutiny by us. Members recall our conversation at our last meeting when we considered the co-lead on the military care contract. A lot of conversation focused on the impact of the late publication. I had asked the chief executive to attend the last meeting but he was on leave. We want him to explain why reports were published so late and what he is doing about this to ensure this does not happen again and scrutiny and other stakeholders have sufficient time to review important decisions being taken by cabinet. Can I also note that three items for this evening agenda, including the LG action plan report you are presenting were submitted late as well, despite the officer requesting this insufficient time. In addition to timely access to cabinet reports, it is important that scrutiny reports are submitted on time to allow us time to prepare for the meetings. We would also like to discuss the recent interim appointment of Treasury Scrutiny Officer. We expressed concern at our last meeting that we had not been engaged in this appointment. We also question the possibility of conflict of interest with the officer responsible for one of the largest areas of scrutiny through the care children and education subcommittee. Steve, I would like to welcome you to make some opening comments and then I will open it up to the committee for their comments and the questions. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for inviting me this evening. If it is okay, I will tackle the statutory scrutiny officer role first and then move into the cabinet late reports and what I am doing to improve things. Actually, they sort of merged together. In relation to the statutory scrutiny officer, you will recall that I met you all in June at a development event and then I submitted a report on the 9th of July which had an improvement plan in it that detailed that I would make an appointment of a corporate director to the interim role and the improvement plan was agreed. So I have done that. The reason I have done it, and I wrote to all members this week I think or recently in the last few days, setting out what else I have done to improve the performance and the effectiveness of scrutiny. I categorize things under seven headings. I hope you have all had the chance to read it. The first point that I covered was the appointment of the statutory scrutiny officer. I remind members, and I know you are all aware of this, that scrutiny was originally established under the 2000 Act. It was then amended in 2011 under the Localism Act. In that Act and in that amendment, it makes it very clear about what the role of the statutory scrutiny officer is. Having made a commitment to appoint a corporate director on an interim basis, Mr. Reddy has been given the brief to ensure that the status and profile of the committee is enhanced across the Council, that we prioritize the forward plan of the overview and scrutiny committee, and we ensure that it fully exercises its powers in that respect. All of those things have been a concern of this committee for at least the last 12 months. The rest of the letter that I wrote to you all covers issues such as restructuring the scrutiny support team, engagement with other boroughs, legal representation at all overview and scrutiny committee meetings, and you have that this evening. That will continue to be the case. The creation of a scrutiny executive protocol, development opportunities for members, and we have talked about personal development plans and skills audits, and we talked about engaging external experts. All of those things are progressing. All of them need to raise the profile and effectiveness of the scrutiny committee, but also the infrastructure that's there to support you. It's failures in that infrastructure and the arrangements that are in place to support you that in part led to the committee reports being considered or dispatched late for the September committee. There's no excuse for it, so although we've made some changes to processes and systems, there's going to be a degree of catch-up. All of the reports, or the three housing and regeneration reports that were considered, could have been taken by the mayor under the IMD procedure. He didn't want to do that. I understand he wanted there to be a degree of transparency, but that is no excuse for the reports not being submitted to the overview and scrutiny committee. I have raised those concerns with the interim corporate director of housing and regeneration, who is no longer with us, but have had assurances from the corporate director, David Joyce, the new appointed corporate director, that systems we put in place for that not to happen again. You have my commitment that it won't. We have not been very good at this, and we haven't been very good at it for about a year and a half, and we need to get better at it. I'm hoping that the letter that I sent to you all gives some meat on the bones in that respect. I also said that I would ensure that when you had future reports where you wanted to question whether it be pre-cabinet, post-cabinet or being implemented, as laid down in the regulations in the act, that you would have proper officer attendance here to scrutinise those officers that are responsible. So tonight, and for every other time that you scrutinise Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 performance reports, you will have every corporate director and you'll have their management teams. That's why you have a number of officers here tonight. I'm determined to raise the profile, but I'm not going to make excuses for reports being late when there is no excuse. We did not cover ourselves in glory, and we need to get better at it. Thank you, Steve. Do members have any questions or comments? Can I have your name, please? I'd like to thank you, Steve, for getting up to that speed, but I'd like to see in the future a lot more where the direction is going, scrutiny, that's the way it should be. Thank you for coming up to that speed so quickly. Thank you for that. So I'll start off with a positive, which is I appreciate the fact that you've come in here and you said there's no excuses for late reports, especially when we were put through the last committee of trying to get to the bottom of that, and had they just said that, I think we would have been in a much better place, and we did want you at that committee, and I understand that due to your leave you weren't able to attend that. Yes, there's no excuses for that, that's something that needs improving, but I want to now move on to the overall improvement plan that you've spoken about. This is something, Steve, you and I have spoken on different platforms, different committees, over months, and there's been reassurance about listening, and I'm sorry to say that I think you failed to do that. The statutory officer, and I've spoken to Mr Ready just before this, this is nothing to do with Mr Ready personally, and I'm looking forward to working with him, but the previous SSO officer who had supported us, we've sat in this committee, when you've turned up at the development event for ONS and every time you've spoken to us, we have always said that we actually like the set up and the support that officers give us, we want to keep the officers as it is, and we would like additional resources. You reassured us time and time again, and then you went off and then you sent us this letter almost like saying you were happy and proud to ignore us, and I don't actually appreciate that. When you talk about some of your improvement plans for overview and scrutiny, I cannot up until now can see what you mean when you say these are the measures in place, what outcomes you're trying to achieve, because you are pre-empting what you think the problem is, and then it's you that's given us the solution, and we have no input on that. You do try and display a very good picture of you trying to cooperate with us and trying to listen to us, but in reality, this action is a proof that you're not listening to us. We've got the LGA, we've had the LGA outcome which had a lot of failures and some improvements that we needed to do. We have to compare that LGA report to previous LGA report and try and find out what the change is, because that is a change. There are times when this committee has been fantastic, has been on the ball, reports haven't been, there have been occasions where reports have been late and reasons have been put forward, but not to the extent in the last two and a half years. This is a new problem that this committee and this council has adopted and we need to change that, but most importantly what I want to say to you, Mr Halsey, is there's a cultural problem and I cannot see from these plans that the plan addresses the actual culture. In fact, it makes it worse. I actually have no confidence in the plan going forward and I actually want to hear what you have to say for this. Thank you for that and it's always helpful to get feedback. Perhaps it would have also been helpful if we had that feedback when you considered the improvement plan in July, because it was very clear then about my perception of the functionality of the committee. I also, when I came along to the development event and I listened to the concerns that you had raised, not you, but the members had raised, other members had raised and when I came to the last committee meeting as well, it was considered, because you agreed the improvement plan, that these were the right actions, number one. Number two, it would be really interesting to understand what you considered to be good functionality, because in my estimation the overview and scrutiny committee is not functioning at capacity. Part of the reason for going to other local authorities was to test what is best practice and already some of those members that have been to other local authorities and some of the officers that have engaged I set out in my letter with other local authorities have adopted best practice from elsewhere. But this is about continuous improvement, whether or not, and the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We only agreed this 12 weeks ago and we're trying to ramp forward a more effective process. So actually, I appreciate the comments, I understand the frustration, but so, for example, with the scrutiny officer role, it was clear and you agreed what I was going to do. So it's a little, when we talked about making an interim appointment at corporate director, it's in the report and it's webcast, so it's very clear what was agreed. So I have done that. However, it's an interim appointment. It's meant to raise the profile and ability for scrutiny to engage with the executive by allocating and asking a corporate director to undertake that role, but it is interim. And one of the things that I referred to in my letter to you all is my intention to involve you in the permanent appointment, my intention to talk to you about the resource that you need to undertake scrutiny effectively, because I do not believe you've got an effective resource at the moment. This is a third time I've spoken to you about this and it's still my position. The restructure that will add additional resource to the staffing resource that supports overview and scrutiny is subject to the restructure that you've also had reported that's reviewing the structure of the relationship between the chief executive's department and the resource department and elements of which will be picked up in the SIT review. Also though, as we progress and as you have each overview and scrutiny committee, I'm more than happy to come back every meeting and talk to you about how this is being rolled out. It would also then be particularly healthy. What other elements of this particularly, specifically, are you concerned about other than the statutory scrutiny lead appointments on an interim basis? It would help me, genuinely, if you could point out what those areas are. Firstly, that's not my recollection of the conversations that you've had with this committee and it's on record. You've come here and you've always said this is an open plan, this is flexible plan, this is one that I want to work with you all with and you never once said that when we asked you that we like the offices, we want to keep the offices as it is, you've never once contested that. You've said additional, you've always said additional resources, additional support. Regarding the previous SSO, I'd like to know where the failures were, where the issues were. If there was a failure in the part of the last officer, by the way, an experienced officer, a BAME officer that's been in this role for a very long time, now we've lost that experience, we've lost that connection. Especially someone who actually took over from Sharon who helped and worked towards making sure that transition was seamless. The thing I don't understand is you're talking and you're telling me about all these improvements but what I'm failing to understand is how some of these actions achieve your improvements and you say you're listening but I'm not being heard. You're saying that we agreed to this and I'm saying that's not what we've agreed. So clearly we have two different understandings of what happened to lead us here. I'm happy to respond to all of it but I appreciate that I'm happy to have the conversation outside, I'm happy to confirm arrangements in writing, I'm happy to meet on a one-to-one basis, I'm happy to meet with the subcommittee, I'm happy to do all of those things. I'm not prepared to talk about an individual officer obviously and you're right that the officer that was the statutory scrutiny officer did it following Sharon's department on an interim basis, he wasn't a permanent appointment, it was interim subject to a structural review which we're now doing and it sat alongside my commitment to ensure that you had the most senior levels of the organisation engaged in the scrutiny function, hence the allocation of the role to a corporate director on an interim basis. But I understand the frustration, I'm trying to be as objective and accept the challenge as openly as I can. If there are areas of this engagement, this improvement plan that members do not want me to pursue then it would be very helpful to know which ones they are. It would also be because it will dictate how the plan evolves. I'm also more than happy to add things to it. It will be an additional resource, there will be more resource allocated to the officer cohort to progress the scrutiny function. That's a commitment I've made and it's in the MTFS as well. Thank you all. I do apologise, I should have said it before, before I move to Natalie I just want to welcome a new member, Councillor Abdi Mohamed. Thank you and welcome to our committee usually. I think Councillor Abdi is replacing Councillor Aminale. Thank you, I'm sorry about that. Councillor Natalie Bien. Thanks Chair. So, I think there are, like I don't really have any, necessarily any issues with other parts of the plan, but I guess is there a way that we can keep track of this and make sure that it's being implemented? Is there a kind of action plan for, for example, engagement with other boroughs and member development? Is there a way to review it at the end of the municipal year to see where we've got to? And I think I will also just make a few comments on the appointment of the SSO or interim SSO. I think it's welcomed to have a corporate director taking on this role, but there is an anxiety, I can already feel an anxiety, an anxiety in raising issues that are, like scrutiny is a function that operates sometimes in conflict with things that the council are doing. There is a clear conflict. I've spoken to Mr. Reddy about this, but I think we do need to review this, it needs to be like an organic process. And if there are conflicts that arise, I hope that scrutiny members can be empowered to take that, you know, where do we take that? And the other thing that I would like to know is, is there an action plan for actioning specifically how the corporate directors and senior team managers, the directors that are in the room at the moment, is there a specific plan for how they will be enabled to better plan their work going forward? So I spoke to Mr. Reddy this week, and he made a very good suggestion of some workshopping with the senior team leaders in the council to, it's a sort of workshopping for like looking forward, looking ahead at work plans and looking at how they can be better scheduled and how scrutiny can have a better oversight of what's going on. So, yeah, those are some general points and questions. Thank you, councilor, naturally. I think the scrutiny improvement plan will come to scrutiny about six months time, isn't it? So we'll have a more chance of discussing it. So can you answer the later part of the question? Thank you, chair. So, yes, I accept that. An action plan that monitors progress with the improvement plan can come on a regular basis, and I'm more than happy to come to talk to it on a regular basis, and we have the regular reporting back to full council on an annual basis and all of those things that will be picked up there anyway, but in any event, I'm more than happy to come back. This plan will evolve, as I said, when I presented to committee, so there may well be things that you want to add to it. It is your committee. I'm very clear, having had discussions with a number of advisors and other stakeholders in relation to my function, my role is to ensure you've got the resource to carry out your statutory role, and in my estimation historically that has not always been the case. So I'm more than happy for the improvement plan to progress and be added to and to be amended as we move forward. In terms of the statutory officer, just to repeat, I accept the point completely, it's an interim appointment. It's just interim. It's to make sure that we do some of the actions in an improvement plan as early as is practical to be possible by having a corporate director immediately, but I accept completely that the person that does it on a permanent basis has to be ideally placed within the organisation to solidify the connection between the executive and the scrutiny function. That's what the guidance says, and that isn't -- that so far we haven't got quite right, but I accept all of the other points. Thanks. Briefly following on from that, I suppose, I think my concern around the appointment is around traditionally that the statutory scrutiny officer has been the director of strategy and reports into the chief executive and is part of the corporate centre rather than service delivery. So my question will be going forward, can you assure us that the statutory scrutiny officer on a more permanent basis will be part of the corporate centre and then as part of that are you actively seeking to recruit a full-time director of strategy? Or will it be a different role? Thank you. Thank you, James. Thank you for that. So thank you for the issue, raising the issue. So there's a balance in my estimation. So we are currently restructuring the centre. You've had a report about that and it's been to the HR committee. So my comment earlier on about restructuring the relationship between the resources department and the chief executives department will pick up whether or not the director of strategy improvement and transformation, the director of SIT, is a role that we will continue with or not. The target operating model that we've discussed previously is empowering the directorates to get on and deliver services. I won't go into that now, but you're right. Ideally the statutory scrutiny officer would be a corporate function based in the centre of the organisation at the most senior level possible. But I don't want to commit to saying we're going to have a director of SIT, which I think is the point that you were making at this point because it's currently subject to consultation with staff, and I will report back when that's concluded. Thank you, guys. Is there any other question on that? Thank you, Chair. So I'm just trying to understand what was the need for another interim. So you already had an interim. Are you able to just kind of explain a bit more? Thanks. So in my estimation - I'm sorry, I don't want to repeat my - I understand the question. Just to repeat myself, I know that the officer that was - and I don't want to talk about individual officers either because that would be inappropriate. However, the previous interim statutory scrutiny officer is now moved from the department and all of his functions that he was in, and he is now in the resources department. That role, which has been subject to consultation as part of the research process, has taken some of those functions with him. However, you will recall that when I spoke at the committee last time, I was - my view is that the scrutiny function and the role supporting it should be part of the democratic services area of work, which has not moved over to resources. It's still in the chief executive's department. That's number one. Number two, you have, as a committee, raised issues with me about the performance and culture of overview and scrutiny, both within the committee and within the council, and I also attended a development session where an external organisation facilitated a discussion, and they fed back to you some of their thoughts about the functionality of this committee. It was all of those things, and then the development evening that you had, that led me to conclude that there are things that we can do much better. One of those things is to make sure that you've got additional resource, and one of those things I think is key is to raise the profile of this committee corporately. It is not the first thought of officers in the council to ensure that overview and scrutiny is engaged when they're taking a report forward to cabinet, and it should be. We need a more senior corporate presence to make sure those things happen. If members think that there is a better way of making that happen, then I'm more than happy to have that discussion. As the council said previously, I'm more than happy to come back and engage, because I have made the point consistently, this is your committee. If I recommend things that I understand that you've agreed, but then you're not happy with, then you, as I say, let me know what they are. Thank you. Before I move on, I just want to make a comment also, because I think the interim is going to be supported for two weeks now. I've received your e-mail, I think, but I'm still waiting as a chair to receive the e-mail from the interim to introduce himself. So I haven't been contacted, or I haven't received an e-mail or anything yet. Or I haven't been introduced. I mean, I should have been introduced by him, or by anybody. I just received the e-mail confirming that scrutiny. I wasn't introduced, or I wasn't received an e-mail from anyone. Okay, so I'll just make a note on that one, please. Thank you. Our next substantial item is an update on the progress of the SGA corporate PR review, challenge action plan, not review, sorry, action plan. Following a corporate PR challenge in September 2023, the Council has been delivering an action plan in response to SGA recommendations. The committee would like to receive an update on the review. Steve, can you present this item, and welcome to Ayesha Hakim Rahma, Acting Deputy Director, Strategy Improvement and Transformation, and Salama, Corporate Transformation Program Manager. You will have ten minutes to review, and then I'll move to the members' questions. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So I'll give a quick overview and then hand over to Salama for a reference to positive organisational impact. So the London Borough of Tower Hamlets underwent their local government association corporate PR challenge in September 2023. The CPC report, so the report that came out, did reference a number of positive attributes of the local authority, but also 18 core recommendations to address gaps and ensure continuous development. Approximately ten months following a corporate PR challenge, it is best practice for the local government association to conduct a progress review, and while we were very happy for that to come through and anticipating a progress review in August of this year, unfortunately the LGA informed us of a delay due to officer availability at their end. So we have absolutely expressed disappointment and requested alternative dates for the review at the point at which 12 months pass if they do not come back to us. In some cases, it's more appropriate that they undertake the review completely from start as opposed to a progress review. So we are waiting on them to come back to us. In terms of progress to date, so as of August 2024, it's always a month in arrears, and with the overview and scrutiny timeline, that takes us to August 2024. 84% of all identified actions across the recommendations have been completed, and we anticipate 91% to be completed by the end of November. At this stage, there are no significant risks or issues to flag. Every corporate PR challenge recommendation and associated action update has been reviewed, approved, and signed off by the relevant corporate director. There are three actions that are contingent on the council's long-term strategic vision. We're aiming for the strategic vision to be launched in February 2025. If that timeline is met, then the risks to the timeline for those dependencies are considered manageable. Just for your reference, when you see the completion rates in terms of percentages, they relate directly to the recommendation itself. However, of course, the council's ambition goes wider than this, so you will note that for the majority of recommendations, there are now bullet points highlighting the council's extension of each recommendation. Overall, the council is making steady progress towards completing the 18 recommendations by March 2025, and what we'd like today is not only for you to note the reference to our progress, but more importantly, to suggest any key areas of attention in advance of an upcoming progress review. What we've intentionally done is structured the report in a way that hopefully enables it to be open to scrutiny. We're quite keen to hear your thoughts across the board. I'll hand over to Salome to pick it up on positive organisational impact, and then open up for questions. Thank you, Ayesha. Good evening, everyone. Today, I will cover three key areas of positive organisational impact, focusing on finance, internal governance, and diversity and inclusion. Let's start with finance. In 2023, the council started with a quite significant deficit, exceeding circa £38 million, and there were a lot of incomplete financial accounts starting from financial year 2016/17. This resulted in council having to rely heavily on reserves of after £13 million. However, thanks to comprehensive MTFS, which is now in place, significant achievements have been made. The current MTFS has identified the savings of over £43 million, and as of quarter four of 2023, the general fund reserve exceeded the minimum recommended level of £20 million. Furthermore, council has closed the outstanding year-to-year accounts, which were signed off by external auditors. Improved financial planning has also enabled increased investment in crucial areas such as frontline services, community support programmes to enable and help vulnerable residents, and so on. Lastly, to ensure the financial discipline is at heart of the council's operation, the new target operating model has incorporated the design principle which revolves around council being value-driven. Now I will move on to the internal governance. In this area, we are very proud to say that council has achieved unprecedented stability at the senior leadership level. Currently, the chief executive and all corporate directors are permanent in their position. This makes our Hamlet's council one of the few councils in the whole country with permanent leadership in place. To further enhance internal governance, the transformation boards were reviewed and streamlined, decreasing their total number from six to three through merger of a few boards and through dissemination of directorate budget monitoring groups into directorates. Speaking of boards, there was another exercise that was undertaken by the council. It was boards rationalisation programme which examined all officer-led boards and in the end this resulted in decrees of the officer-led boards from 250 to only 47 at the moment. Lastly, the CEO has further delegated more decision-making authority on senior leadership and again this is in line with the new target operating model which focuses on empowering directorates. The last bit I will talk about is diversity and inclusion. The council has established women's commission to understand the role that women from different backgrounds play in policy-making and to enable and amplify their voices in the community. The council has also launched Be A Councillor campaign which is again aligned with the LGA principles and aims to increase the representation of women and underrepresented groups in the local government. Council also made tangible progress in ensuring that underrepresented groups including women and individuals from diverse backgrounds have a stronger voice in decision-making process through reviewing constantly and adjusting committee composition. In the report, it says that the events are planned but they have already taken place. The Black History Month celebration in October, it already took place. This was also part of the LGA plan and additionally council has... You've got two minutes, please. You've got two more minutes. Sorry, I'm almost done. Council has also launched a feedback collection mechanism which allows to collect feedback if anyone has had any negative experience of speaking at the committees. This will enable learning and provide a significant baseline to understand the extent of any issues if there are. And lastly, council has completed a review and implemented a framework to enable staff-led group chairs to dedicate time away from their substantive duties to help develop staff equalities networks. That is all for today. I'm open for any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Do members have any questions on this topic? I've started the new boy. Thank you, chair, for the welcome and for letting me go first. Thank you for this. It's comprehensive. I think if you're looking for feedback and if I'm being completely honest, I'm surprised at this paper actually and I think it takes an overtly political tone that I don't expect from officers and I think having worked in government, there's a lot here that I think we need to unpack. I appreciate I haven't got much time, so I'll go straight to it. Financial sustainability, in 2013, or '23, sorry, the council inherited. Inherited from who? Your council officers and I think the administration has changed, officers haven't, and I think keeping that impartiality I think is incredibly important to keep the faith and the trust of all political parties. In terms of 3.15, the internal governance, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say unprecedented, if I'm being honest. I think maybe it's an overuse or overzealousness of words, but previously there's been exact teams that have been in place. It's not unheard of that. I think the idea of unprecedented I think maybe is a bit much and I appreciate we're put in a positive spin, but the politicians put a positive spin on that. In terms of the diversity point, 3.20, it kind of strikes me as the bare minimum of things that we should be doing, so the Black History Month that we've spoken about, that should be our bread and butter. There are people of colour in this borough that expect that, and our leadership from our council, and to put that in here as if it's gone above and beyond I think is, so toning that down I think is important. There's loads more that can be said, and I'm sure there's loads of other members that want to, but my biggest advice is slightly surprised. I mean, this is a report in the Chief Executive's name and it's, I think, takes the wrong tone in terms of how political it is, but I'm sure other people also kind of give their opinion. As a new member, that's how it strikes me, a member of the public only weeks ago, so I think for me it's just, yeah, I see the need to put a positive spin on it, but I think there's a line, and I think it's cross the line. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Do you want to respond? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Absolutely noted in relation to political tone, and maybe that's something for us to review. In terms of the word unprecedented, that was actually noted in the corporate peer challenge report themselves, so we have lifted that. I would just say having a permanent corporate leadership team, there are in fact very few councils in London at the moment that do have a permanent senior leadership team. There is either one interim or, you know, option like that, so in that sense, yeah, so under 3.15, that's the reference to unprecedented stability in the senior leadership due to permanent corporate leadership team, but yeah, also appreciate the reference on references like Black History Month for diversity is an absolute given, so we can reflect on that as well. Thank you. So I think that's really helpful, and I appreciate you taking the point about Black History Month and the need to, that is our bread and butter, that absolutely is the point. My point about 3.15 is 18 months ago, two years ago, there was a full exact team in place at how it was council, the idea that it's unprecedented. I think, I appreciate it might be the context of other London brothers, but it's not unprecedented for this council, and to use such a word, I think, is misjudged. Councillor Boudreaux, Chair. Thank you, Chair. Thanks for the presentation. I'm just going to pick up on something. You mentioned the Women's Commissions. Does any of the member, my colleague here, sit on that body, and if you could give us a bit more information on that. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Chair, am I able to go back with the information and directly give the information through, because I'm not entirely sure in relation to that, and I definitely don't want to reference that without the due information on the commission, the Women's Commission. You mentioned you've got a new Women's Commission in place. I just want to know if any of my colleagues here, Councillors sitting on that body, Lady Councillors. The answer is no. Thank you. Can you make a note on that, please? Thank you. I would have to agree with the point on the tongue, because rather than, it gives the vibe, rather than you're constantly striving for improvement, it gives the vibe that this is one big giant pat on the back and haven't we done well, unfortunately, which I just think is the wrong, I just think it's the wrong tongue. But I'm going to go back to the diversity and inclusion point. I have to say, when I first read this, it took me a few minutes to really take a minute and calm down after reading it, because I have to be honest, and this of course is not aimed at either of you, I find this to be personally insulting. Women in this council went and spoke to the LGA and talked about their experiences in this council, talked about how they'd been treated in these committees. They talked about the knock-on impact that that was having in the community. I've been on the receiving end of some absolutely horrendous aggression and abuse, which is a direct knock-on impact of what happens in this room, and to be told, don't worry, there's a women's commission, that you're fully aware that a number of the councillors, in fact, actually, maybe all but one women councillors raised concerns about, actually, and criticised, when we did a motion on this, at the full council meeting, and to be told that there's a Be A Councillor campaign, I have to say I find that quite insulting. And again, the tone doesn't help, so this is, haven't we done well, when actually a lot of us are still sitting here on the receiving end of horrific misogynistic abuse on a daily basis because of what's happening in this building, because the culture hasn't changed. So I would just love to see what you're seeing that says that the council has made great strides, because I don't think any of us have seen that, and I think it's important to point out that we certainly haven't been asked either. It's all well and good to ask a women's commission, they're not the people that contributed to this report, so I don't understand why they're the main sort of consultee in this, when this wasn't even established at the time. So the people that actually contributed to this and spoke to the LGA haven't been consulted, a body set up afterwards has been, to me that doesn't make any sense. So I just wonder what the logic behind that is, and what are these great strides that have been made, because I'm not seeing them. Thank you, can you respond to it? Do you want to respond to it? It's Councillor Amy Lee, I think she made a brilliant point, because she was established a woman council and wasn't, any woman councilor wasn't consulted, and I remember as well in this committee we had a chat about women getting abused during the January election campaign as well. Sorry, Chair, just more of a noting item, but there was a Be A Councillor event last Saturday, and I know Councillor Bienfert was there, and a Labour Party representative, Councillor Oula was there, and I myself was there as well. It was a cross-party thing. There were many female participants there, and some of us got grilled. Do you want to make any comment on that, please? I will be brief. I take the point. The Women's Commission originally and is still, has been established to generate an action plan. What is it that that Commission thinks we should do? My point is, why didn't you concern the women council when you were forming the Women's Commission? That's the point, can you clarify, please? As I recall, and I will go back and check, the people, members that were interviewed as part of the corporate peer challenge process were not detailed in the report. So it's just a practical point. Some people, in fact, there are, and I don't want to, there are councillors that were interviewed that didn't want to be named in the report. I'm not suggesting that was the case here, but I will go back and check, because it's a very good point. But I would make the point that this is in its very early stages. We have to learn about this, because this is an issue. It's raised in the corporate peer challenge, it's raised in other reports as well, and, but it's not the only thing we're doing. So when we talk about the Women's Commission, there's the 'Be a Councillor' campaign, that's targeted towards having more women involved, and we do need to develop a more effective action plan. I get it completely, and I've spoken to individual councillors about that, and this needs to evolve. What this report does, and as it was presented, it gives a response to the recommendation. It's not suggesting that this is concluded, that we've done a brilliant job, we're 90% of the way, or 87% of the way there. We're 87% of the way there in relation to the action that came out of the action plan. This will be an ongoing issue. And I think what would be really helpful, it's completely up to the overview and scrutiny committee, if we brought a more detailed action plan back to the next, well, a meeting when you think it would be appropriate. Thank you chair. Thank you for your presentation. My question relates to the discussion around performance. I think it's recommendation six, I will just actually verify this. My sense from the report is that the centre of gravity that is emerging from the LGA report is around, like the performance management of financial performance. And I think that is, there is definitely merit in that. But I'm concerned that there isn't enough focus on, you know, we're a public body, and we are also judged on our performance, like service performance, that doesn't seem to be a lot in the report of detail about how we are progressing on service on performance, like service performance management, and keeping track of that in the same way that there's a new piece of financial performance, there's a new piece of financial tracking software that's been procured. Yeah, that's my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you for that. We have a range of mechanisms in place to monitor service performance. They are considered at a departmental level, at a service level, at a corporate management team level, at a mayor's advisory board. In fact, I think that's always been the case for a number of years, even prior to the executive mayor model when we used to have leader advisory boards back in the early '00s. So more than happy to bring those arrangements forward and explain how we monitor and manage that, if that's your suggestion. I'm sorry if I've got that wrong. And we also obviously have quarterly reports on service performance as well. Thank you, chair. I think I agree with some of the comments from my colleagues about the tone of the report, and I'm not as surprised. I've seen this a few times, but this is probably the most overtly political report I've read so far. And actually, I'll even say this, I've thought about this and I wanted to be careful and really be thoughtful and helpful with this, but this part of it that's quite, for me personally, it's quite fictional. I sat there thinking like, this is an alternate universe. There are some really good bits and there's some action points that I have genuinely helped, and you can see that. And I think it's really brave and bold for you to have chosen to present it as it is, because the LGA report review is coming back, and the elephant in the room, the first value report is going to be in at some point. And those are two things that are also running simultaneously with this, and the report as it is actually will fundamentally reveal some of the issues with this council, that while these problems that exist, and if the report, the best value report reveals more issues and some that are matched up with the LGA, and the LGA still don't quite think we're as far ahead as this report is saying, then it says actually the way we look at our own running of things isn't quite matching up, and the best way to get things sorted is first admit there's a problem and then move forward. I mean, there have been improvements, and that isn't to say that offices and the team and Steve hasn't brought a lot of work and thought behind it, but I do think this is a little bit off, and I just want to, there's loads of examples I can give, I'm not going to, I just want to give one, just to give you the tone of the report that I have an issue with. So when it talks about the mayoral function, the mayoral office, there was lots of things in the report about the mayoral office, about trust, it talked about the two cultures, it talked about, and you've given one quote, and you've restructured the council, and the offices have been mainstreamed into the council, there's a question about best value which we'll wait and see, but the way that it presents itself here isn't the way that the LGA report was reviewed, it's not the report that we first read, and I just think this is misrepresentation in some shape and form, sorry. Thank you, can I be very brief please, thank you. Thank you, thank you Councillor Islam. The one reference that maybe I should have highlighted more strongly as part of the introduction is in every case, any progress is directly referenced in terms of the review itself, so for example, with the mayor's office specifically, the recommendation just focuses on a review of the roles, functions and deployment of offices to ensure streamlined decision making, improved removal of barriers and duplication elsewhere in the council, so I think it might be where we are directly referencing the recommendation itself, although there might be work further to that, that needs to continue. What about the other points that were raised in the report around culture, around the two council culture, I think it's just putting them all in that same place, it's the presentation, I'm trying to reference the tone in the presentation of just being factually accurate about what is what. So I think I need to come in here because it would be unfair for an officer to respond to that, so in relation to the two culture approach, this was something that was raised by a number of members from the administration and that was to do with the previous working approach, what I can certainly say is that we currently have the whole of CLT and the chief executive who are permanent members of staff. The trust issue is absolutely there, those who got appointed into those corporate director posts was done by a cross party panel and agreed upon and ratified at full council in terms of their appointment. So another issue was in relation to staff churn as well, and again, we are fulfilling that criteria, just today we had another appointment subcommittee meeting, we are well on the way in terms of having a fully resourced council in terms of permanent positions at both the top two tiers of this council, and they are mainly at this stage as I speak nearly every single position is filled with permanent members of staff, and those positions that aren't filled through the HR committee papers you will see that there is a timeline and an action plan in order to go to recruitment in order to fill those positions. So this notion of a two tier culture between the politicians and officers, I would say we are very clearly and categorically that's been bridged and I would like to take this opportunity to thank both the chief executive, the corporate directors and various layers of management below that as well. Thank you. So my question really was around the women's commission, but it's kind of been touched on, but can I just, I'm going to ask another question, can I just add on to that. Okay. So, can you tell us what the commission has done so far, and when will it engage with the scrutiny committee. So that's the add on. And my other question is, this is a really positive report highlighting all the actions the council has delivered. Can you tell us about the areas the council has not made progress, and what are you doing about this. Thank you. We're going to move on to the question. So can you answer it briefly. Thank you for that. In relation to the women's commission, can I write to you separately, I don't have the action plan in front of me, or achievements in relation to it, but I'll ensure you get a written response copy to all members, if that's okay. And the very brief response to the second point is that I accept we are on a continuous improvement journey. I'm very clear about that. And there are areas of council performance that need to improve. And perhaps that's an interesting subject of another report, actually. Because this is focusing specifically on the 18 recommendations that came out of the corporate peer challenge. And I did just want to reflect on a comment around the two tier council. I think it's really important. I coined that phrase. I wrote to the secretary of state. I wrote to the corporate peer challenge action team, and I wrote to the chief executive at the LGA. I was concerned about it 18 months ago. No one is more aware of it at an officer level than I. And the corporate -- the lead corporate peer challenge, Carolyn Downs, who I spent a lot of time with discussing it, is very clear that we are aware and we are addressing it in a timely and an appropriate fashion. And I'm more than happy to come back here and discuss that in detail as well, if that would be helpful. We'll now move on to pre-decisional scrutiny. Okay, then. The one time I will allow you that. Sorry about that. I have to allow him because -- Okay. I forgot the question now. After all that build up. So basically, so you noted in the report that the LGA has not been able yet and you're still in discussion with them to come back and sort of do a review and obviously that the end of this process will be a year. I think it will be February next year. But what other discussions have you had with the LGA? I mean, for instance, have they had sight of the action plan? Do they feed back on the action plan, particularly around any of the particular actions and sharpening them up? Because my -- in reading the report, I mean, a lot of the actions I simply like to review, monitor, notes, which is all like important stuff to do. But the point of the LGA, you know, peer review, it highlighted a lot of cultural issues of the way the Council's governed and obviously you've got to put processes in place to change cultures as well as, you know, change people's habits as well. So what I want to know is will we see an outcome of those reviews, those monitorings and what learning has been found as a result of the actions? It's great we've done them, but what have we learned from them? I think it's really helpful and I think we should bring additional learning back. In answer to your question in relation to what discussions we've had with the LGA, I met with Abby Brown and I met with Dennis Skinner recently. We were particularly disappointed that the LGA didn't -- haven't come back yet. And we have written asking them to on several occasions and I've now written to the chief at the LGA and to Dennis who's the head of the process in terms of corporate peer challenges and I've met with Abby Brown as well, the lead member at the LGA who's advising the government about future arrangements for corporate peer challenges. We'd have them back tomorrow and we've made that very, very clear and we're waiting to hear from them. But in relation to your point, yes, I think we should bring back additional learning and I'm more than happy to do that. Finally, now I'm open. We'll now move on to the pre-decision scrutiny. We have two reports that we are going to consider. Quarter one performance report and the cumulative impact assessment policy 2024 to '27. We'll now consider the quarter one performance report first. I would like to thank the Councillor Kabir Ahmed and chief executive for joining us on this item. He will have ten minutes to provide us with an overview and then I'll move on to member projections. Thank you, Councillor Ahmed and chief. You've got ten minutes, please. Right. I'll try to be as brief as possible and assume the report's taken as read. In terms of performance, quarter one performance, at the end of quarter one, our ambitious four year strategic plan, the overall picture is positive. The council continues to deliver on the strategic plan ambitions across the borough while facing unique challenges. Of the strategic performance measures, 24 are green at the end of quarter one. Key achievements. The council's be well brand was launched followed by the transfer of seven leisure centres to council management in May 2024. Tower Hamlets council has introduced a council tax cost of living relief fund to offset a 2.99% rise in council tax. The new fund will mean that those with household incomes of less than 49,500 will not need to pay an increase whilst our established council tax reduction scheme will also continue. Tower Hamlets council is celebrating one year since it became the first local authority in England to roll out free universal school meals to all primary and secondary school pupils up to the age of 16. The secondary school scheme was rolled out from September 2023 with 722,000 investment to schools. The challenges we face are a number of red and amber measures in this report. This is disappointing to both lead members and officers who oversee their delivery. By the end of quarter one, that's April to June 2024, 56 performance measures are reported in six categories, which are as follows. 24 have met or exceeded their target, that's green. Nine are between target and minimum target, amber. Nine are below target, red. One is missing data for quarter one. Eight are data only, so contextual information, and five are reported annually. In relation to the nine red targets, that relates to KPI 006, tonnage of foods provided to aid organisation. This measure has consistently hit its targets for previous years, but is below target in quarter one due to funding being caused for several months. This is projected to be on track by quarter two. KPI 010 leads to overcrowded households. Demands for larger properties are far greater than the supply. Service is increasingly supply of properties and making better use of existing stock where possible. We also have the various different schemes that were discussed at cabinet and in full council in order to support that delivery. So that will create greater inertia in terms of moving towards the green. KPI 021, percentage of education, health and care assessments completed in 20 weeks. A review of systems and caseloads is being currently undertaken, and a recovery plan for assessment and review process is in place to improve performance. KPI 026, percentage of young people that reoffend. We continue to work creatively with the children within our cohort to support them in addressing these issues, and there's a number of mitigations that have been put in by the corporate director. KPI 030, number of arts events delivered. There's been a lower take-up of expected for some events. Earlier promotion of big launch and great get-together for 2025 will be coordinated in early January 2025, but by the end of year we believe that this will be hitting target. KPI 031, percentage of leisure centre users that are female. The launch of the free swimming programme, including women and girls over 16, have a significant impact on performance. As of 23 August, there was 9,275 new free swimming members, of which 86 were female, and we're hoping that this will substantially increase with the free swimming offer for women and girls as the news spreads, and we're looking at creating even more sessions in relation to promoting this service. Number of new jobs, training and apprenticeship opportunities enabled for local people, KPI 032. We expect early engagement activity with developers and review of additional out turns that can be reported against this metric to lead to demonstrable and tangible increases in Quarter 2. KPI 046, level of household recycling. The current measures will take some time to effect change. However, we anticipate that we will start to see some positive results by mid-2425. And lastly, KPI 054, percentage of tenants satisfied with overall service. An end-to-end review of the repair services underway to improve performance. And we've also got a new permanent corporate director for housing and regeneration who carries with him a vast amount of experience in order to challenge and overturn those critical issues that we have in this area. Steve, would you like to add anything else? So you just had one final thing. I gave a commitment when I was here, and we were talking about the improvement plan earlier on, that when you had quarterly reports on performance, that I would make sure that all corporate directors that needed to be here to answer for their services were here, and they are. So David, Joy, to introduce our new corporate director of housing and regeneration, Georgia and Simon are here to answer any questions you might have. Sorry, just one other amendment. I've just got live data now. So data was reviewed, and as of September 30th of 2024, the percentage of female members, which is one of the measurable indicators, is at 71%. So this is live data. Thank you, Councilor Ahmed and the officers. Do members have any questions on this item? So my question is about the, just, can I get an explanation? So in reading the report, there are several KPIs being taken out. I just found my notes, and they seem all very important to do with key targets for the council around recycling and things like that, off the top of my head. So can you just give us an explanation why the KPIs have no longer been this quarter going forward, and are not being monitored? We did go through a process to evaluate what was necessary and keep in alignment with council priorities. So as part of that process, we spoke to services to say what's important, what can be taken out, what needs to be added. So that was done as part of that process. I don't have individual KPIs and reasons in front of me right now, but I can come back to you, because we do have that information. We have some rationale behind why things were added and removed. Most of the time, in summary, some KPIs were found to be a little bit one-dimensional. So they took out, for example, numbers, and they put in rates. That happened for two of them. So it will be reasons like that, but I can come back to you with detail, if you want. Thanks. Just to reiterate the point, a lot of the KPIs were taken over around very important topics that are key to the council and key to residents as well. So just to make sure if we're not happy in the way that they're being captured, there are other KPIs that make sure that performance is being monitored and we're not just trying to sweep under the carpet any performance indicators in key areas that we're not happy about. There was a review of performance indicators, I don't want to repeat, but I'm more than happy to give an explanation. In fact, if the overview and scrutiny committee wanted to recommend to the appropriate forum that some were reintroduced because they add value, or they're perceived to add value, I'm more than happy to do that as well. Thank you, Councillor Amelie. Thank you. Mine's just about KPI 13, because it's obviously a bit of a surprising one. It's about percentage of primary school pupils in key stage two receiving public funded free school meals because there's a decline there, which is probably not what we would be expecting. There's a few sort of reasons in here about why it's perceived to be happening. I think some of them don't quite match up with the numbers, although the point about mass funded meals, I take that completely. But I just wondered if anybody's actually taken any resident feedback on this one in particular, because I don't know if colleagues have any thoughts on this, but I know I've heard anecdotally from my residents that they believe the quality of the free school meals to be so poor they're taking their kids off them. That's what I've heard from multiple residents, and I just wonder whether anybody's actually asked residents about this, and that might go some way to explaining this strange decline. But I do acknowledge that one of the mitigation actions is to ensure menus are popular, so that's probably being taken to perhaps address that, but I just wondered if anybody actually had any info on this, because I know I've actually heard that from some of my residents. What do you address for you? Question about percentages, I know. Rather about people's opinions on the free school meals. I think we have seen some seasonal fluctuation, and also what we have tried to do with these measures is make sure the performance is based on actual attendance at school as well, because previously we were just basing it on the whole pupil cohort, but we have, Councillor, to be fair, we have received some feedback, so we are looking at some of the quality issues, and indeed on the Children's Scrutiny Committee, we've got a piece of work being done there, to look at some of the feedback, both the quality of food being provided, and also portion size as well. [inaudible] So would you be given a chance to answer Amy's questions regarding this free school lunch? What Steve has, I just wanted... [inaudible] Okay. Amy, me and Steve, we had a meeting previously, one of the things the free school lunch, how the quality and insurance, that's on the children and education framework going forward from February onwards, so there will be a public visit, not almost to various schools, to find out that what is a good value for money is getting served or not. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I was going to touch on the free school meals as well, I'm going to come from the angle of a parent myself, and the feedback I've received from my child in the last year mostly, and I have lots of friends and networks and connections into our homelets, from schools, from the education sectors, from head teachers, from teachers, the feedback is the restrictions that they have with how the contracts are supplied, it has to be the council's contracts, and the quality of the food that's changed, and how children are, the take-up of it. I'm actually surprised, the take-up, considering the feedback I've got, the percentage is higher than what I expected it to be. I was wondering if we can do some work around this, so let's firstly get some feedback from the children, so ultimately these free school meals are for the kids themselves, is there a way of trying to get their view, have them engaged in the process and see what they say, and I think as a council we could do a bit more homework about what's going on here, this is one thing politically across the chamber we are all very proud of as a council, and we want to protect that, we want to support that, we want to work towards that, and if we can do a bit more work I think this will be really helpful. I want to come on the point that James King made about some of the KPIs that have been dropped, it's good to hear that Mr Hosea says we can have a discussion about bringing some of them back, like education attainment, school gates, so all of that has dropped. Can we have a list of all the ones that have been dropped and then maybe we can think about how we have a discussion around that, if we can get a list of all of them that have been dropped since 2022, May 2022, if we can have a list of everything that's been dropped that would be fantastic. I just need help understanding one KPI and I mean to ask this almost every time this report comes, when it comes to lets to overcrowded households, can you explain to me how that works, are we collecting data as in threshold for three beds, two beds, one bed, is that how we're doing it, or is that an overall letting, because I assume even though we're not producing the three beds and the four beds, we're still letting out the one bed and two, so how is this data put together, I just wanted to have a little bit more of an understanding. So if you want a complex answer, I'm sure David is happy to write to you and give you the full details and intricacies, but in basic terms it will be measured against those who are in Band 2A overcrowded and are housed adequately within our athletics policy. (inaudible) No, so 2B is a legal terminology that we use. It will be 1B and 2A? No, so 1A, 1B will be generally around medicals and other issues that are allocated due to mitigations, so you're predominantly focusing around the 2A category in terms of overcrowding. Okay, that's fine, can I have further information, I'm happy for it to be written down, just to get an understanding, I don't mind if it's a bit complex, I'll take some time reading it, and also can I ask for more information about lettings, I would like the council to let me know if there is a trend, one thing I've noticed from residents, especially in the last two years is a lot of people are discouraged and don't bid, even though they are overcrowded purely because of the rent that's advertised on our bidding page, can we do some work around if that is happening and that's affecting our numbers please? I'll come in again on that, so in terms of the rents, the rents are calculated on various different products, so that depends on how the funding is accumulated, so if it's GLA funding... I understand that, but can we do some homework if our people, our residents that are on the list, if there is a trend of discouragement when they see those rents that because they can't afford it they're not bidding, so if we could do some homework so we can try and nip this in the bud and see if there's anything more this council needs to do in order to support them? Council Islam, if you let me answer, so those who are eligible for social housing applications need to earn less than 90,000 pounds, and therefore there are multiple products out there because the earnings vary from one to another, and as a result of that there are various products and various rates of rent, as you'll know we all campaigned against Boris Johnson pushing rents to 80% of market value because that was unaffordable for predominantly the majority of people on the housing waiting list. There are, as I explained earlier, in terms of what the rent settings are, so your social rents will vary within that. We as a council set our rents at the lowest amounts, that's properties that the council are directly in ownership with, which is I believe around 40% of market rate, however other products particularly from RSLs and other organisations can come in at a higher rate, and we've got no control over that because this operates within the law of the land. That is the reality of it, however it will enter the social housing register if it's attributed as social housing. Thank you. Councilor Abdi. Thank you for that. In terms of the red rated points, do we do an analysis of how much this is costing the council by not being able to deliver, or the fact that these are kind of substantially behind, or they're red rated, do we do an analysis to understand the implications on this? As I said to you, this is the quarter one report, we're hoping with mitigations in place to turn around those reds into green, and that's what we work towards year to end. However, this is a snapshot, and we want to be transparent and open, and if you want specific details around the mitigations we've put in place for each of those reds, I'm sure corporate directors will be happy to give you a list of that in order to get it to a green. So that's not quite my question, so my question is, it's red rated, so do we do an analysis while it continues to be red rated, the amount it's costing the council, so I appreciate there's plans in place and mitigation plans to get it to amber and green, but while it remains red, is there a financial cost to the council in this space, that it be red? I suppose the corporate directors will have to see if they do assessments around that. Steve? For all of the indicators, and we're talking about a particular set of indicators, but things for example like recycling, that analysis is done because there's a financial impact of not recycling to a certain level it impacts upon. Do we take, and other corporate directors may have you, makes a really interesting point about to what extent we do take sufficient notice of the financial impact of service failure, as opposed to the service failure itself. And actually I'd like to reflect on that, because I think that's worthy of a more detailed discussion. Yeah, it would be really helpful if you'd come back with an answer, I appreciate different directors or different teams who have an understanding of their own, but actually the community of the entire sum I think is important to understand. And especially, you know, take an example of KP003, the percentage of homeless cases prevented, or you know, the stuff like that. Councillor, you have to be brief please. I'll be brief, so number four, the homeless supported and sustainable accommodation, there'll be one or part of the organisation that will have that figure, but it's important to have it as a whole, so I'd welcome my information on that. Yeah, I think the general tenor of what you're saying is really important, because there are financial consequences of where we're not getting things right, so you know, to give another example, repairs and satisfaction with repairs is a big driver around the tenant satisfaction measures, and we know that often not getting it right first time is a big driver of that, when people have to have several appointments to get a relatively, what seems like a relatively straightforward fix, but that also costs us money, and so it's definitely something which we are looking at as part of the improvement plan, because obviously all of that underpins the sort of health of the housing revenue account, so I do think you're right, I think it's something that is foremost in our mind when we put resources into trying to get the right actions in place to turn the position around, and it's something we have to keep monitoring all the time. Thank you, Councillor. Thanks, chair. The main KPI in my scrutiny portfolio is obviously KPI 46, the level of household recycling. I just picked up on the fact that there's quite a lot of mention around contamination in this report. I don't know if there's anything in particular that is contamination at a particularly high level at the moment, is there anything particular that was behind the mention of contamination, but on a more positive note, I'm really pleased to see the number of trees planted significantly exceeding the target, really good to see, and also really good to see that the children engaged in school cycle schemes has now bounced back after a decrease previously. Just something on contamination would be really helpful. Thank you, Councillor. There is a lot going on to improve recycling, so I take the point, Councillor Abdu, raised around the finances around some of this, because it costs us more to dispose of contaminated waste. It's just an incentive for us to turn that around, so we've done a lot of work with engaging with schools, faith groups. I went to the East London mosque on Friday prayers where the imam gave a very, very good sermon around recycling and how to minimise waste. Furthermore, we've drafted a letter for the mayor to send to the Secretary of State to drive up recycling, because at the moment, I think scrutiny probably understands more than anyone about the issues around the challenges of recycling in this borough, 18% high-rise, high levels of deprivation, but we collect the waste, and I keep on saying this, and we're trying to get to a point with the Secretary of State that he introduced his powers, what we're suggesting, introduced powers to require RSLs, British landlords, to provide good recycling infrastructure and ensure that their 10th-generation leaseholders take responsibility for their waste, and as you know, food waste is coming, there will be compulsory collections by 2027. So all those things are in play, and we're committed to ensure that we provide a better resource and improved service for residents of the borough, and if you need more detail, I've got my colleagues behind me who are the experts on that, but just to wish to show to members that we are trying to drive this up in as many ways as possible, talking to Lancers Council, talking to London Med, Tipton Med for Environment, and organisations like LeadNet, so, you know, Local Environmental Directors Network, sorry to use that acronym. So we are taking our responsibilities seriously, and we're passionate about driving up the improvement in recycling rate, but it is what it is, but, Richard, I'm sure I'll say something in a minute, but there are some green shoots and things are beginning to improve, so in the second quarter you will see the improvement, I promise you. Thank you. Sorry, can I just add, I think it's one of education, it's something that isn't going to happen overnight, but it's something that we can strive to work towards, and that's what we're trying to do, and I myself have been out and about with both the Director and the Corporate Director, where we've identified areas of fly tipping, which partly plays a role in cross-contamination, of the inappropriate use of the sort of recycling bins as direct waste bins, and I think we also need to do some configurations around the formulas that are used in terms of capacity to contain waste, because where there's a waste overflow, that then results in the recycling bins being used for waste disposal, so there are lots of different metrics we've got to work out and review, so I just wanted to throw that in as well. Just to confirm the numbers, so contamination levels have actually improved, so last year we were averaging 30%, which is significant, it's still not good, but we've improved this year to 24% in September, so that's a big shift percentage-wise, and we're looking at this weekly, and we've got initiatives to try and improve that further, but we've improved from an average of 30% to 24% in September, but it's still high, and it's a significant impact. Thank you, Councillor James King, the final brief, please. Just a quick one, this is the third quarter in a row where education, health and care plans have been underperforming, and there's been a significant drop this quarter, so I don't have an explanation as to what that is, and what work is being done to remedy this as soon as possible. Thank you. Yeah, it is disappointing, the performance, even though we're not happy with this clearly, is still in line with the national average, you'll have read nationally the massive rise in demand for education, health and care plans, and it's no different locally, it's gone up from 2,000 to over 4,000 plans, and whilst the team have been working really hard, they've been struggling with that demand, previously issues with delay were linked to inputs from some of our partners, because an education, health and care plan is constructed based on inputs from a range of professionals, and we have worked hard with professionals to address that, so we are now getting inputs from other teams more rapidly. We have got an improvement plan that's developed, and appointments of a new team manager and additional posts should allow us to see performance improve, but I think we have to recognise that it's a national issue, and there's pressure on nationally to review the SENS system and the funding for it as well, but we can share with the committee the detail of the improvement plan and the additional posts and resources we are applying. Thank you, before I move on, I just want to raise a question as well. As a local council, I have reached me regarding this issue as well, my state is infested with rot, people have their car damaged, recently three people have their car damaged, and one resident, virtually the rat went into their house as well now, and it's so severe, and I've seen myself, the rat is very big as well, and women and children are really scared to go to the dustbin, to throw their dustbin, and it's causing a havoc, I've contacted the local address of Poploharka, they say it's council's problem, I've reached the local ME as well, and the council says it's wrong, you have to contact Poploharka, so he's responsible for that, he's coming from the drain as well, and the local communal refuge area is infested with rot. Thank you chair, did you say you've raised members inquiries on this? If you leave it with me, I'll look into it tomorrow, because I mean we can't have this... I have raised few members in any way. If you allow me to finish, just bear with me, because I'm trying to help. Now I know what I know, it's identically fair for either residents or members to be given this ping pong, it should be Poploharka, but we have got powers that we can start to deal with these, so I will speak to my colleagues in the morning to see what we can do, but Poploharka should take responsibility, this is typified for me, that the issues around RSLs always got hands off, be it recycling, be it rats, we had problems with telephone house, our own internal house, and so we dealt with it very very quickly, as best they could, and I went down to site and saw the rats come out of the drains, and a new road as well, so where we can do things we will, but I don't think it's fair for members, and I say residents to get pulled between two different bodies, but I'll look into it for you and give you a direct response, thank you. The residents are reporting the rats going through their toilet pipe, and going to their toilets and houses, and attacking their houses, one resident got his toilet comor damaged by the rats, has he gone through the pipe, gone upstairs? So, Chair, I think that clearly would be a landlord responsibility, but in any case, as corporate director, Simon will exercise all his powers, in order to address this issue, both from the council, and as we discuss it, and take it forward with Poploharka as well, there are some local by-laws and powers that the council has, in order to enforce certain actions, and he will pursue that. Just lastly, before you move on to the next item, I suggest that every member of the scrutiny panel does the visits to schools, in order to sort of check the quality of the free school dinners. I think it will be good, and it will be a good exercise for everybody to see the quality, and you know, corporate director, Steve Reddy, I think, you've sampled it yourself, I miss... Yeah, yeah, yeah, it might be a little bit better than Liverpool, but we need to satisfy scrutiny members as well. Thank you very much. Councillor Choudry, yes, I was just going to actually raise about the point, you raised about the rat infestation, I know you raised it with me earlier today, and we'll wait for the ME to come through. We have an obligation when we could actually look at that, already been mentioned, RSL Poploharka is ultimately responsible, but as a council, we could actually serve notice, so obviously I'll take that, the detail, and speak to the officers, and report a serve notice to RSL to do their due diligence checks, and ensure that that is dealt with. Another checkpoint, is it possible to arrange a residence meeting from council point of view, so you can go to the local centre, because the local residence is really worried, and they are really angry with council and RSL as well. They want to meet their officers, and show their view, discuss the visit with them. We could take that back and work with the RSL and the council officers and arrange... Can you arrange something, can you arrange something, and contact me at the local residence? Yes, chair. Thank you, Nelkha. Councillor, in regards to the preschool meals, we did a challenge session. Councillor Woodrow can confirm that. So obviously we've discussed this in detail about the quality, the quantity, I have children, I have friends, and nothing's come about it. So you're now, we're going back to square one, so I do want someone to kind of look into this, as opposed to just going back a step. Before you answer, before you answer, Councillor Badur wants to add a point, as also you can answer both points. Thank you, chair, sorry. Yes, as the chair of this education company last year, I have visited a number of schools with my colleague and others, and I had lunches at a few places, especially Central Foundation Girls' School. Very good indeed, yes. So I was happy. There's a school body that sits. The students sort of go through the menu. If there are any issues, they're allowed to move that from the menu itself. So the power goes to the people, so I was very happy with that. Thank you very much. Thank you, chair. Chair, just on Halima, I just said it's on the agenda now, on February, so there will be, I said, invite everybody to go around randomly to the school with a short notice to see, test the food. Some of the prior report coming out is some of the schools subcontracting to the external company, and that's where the problem is, not the internally where council supply the food is. So there's a two side of the coin as well, so we need to see whether the school gone for external company to supply the lunches. Thank you, chair. Can you very, very briefly answer? I'll be very brief. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Halima, thank you for doing that hard work. I'm sure Mr. Reddy will be happy to review that. And moving forward, I think it should be an annual visit to test the sampling of the food in primary schools. Not my portfolio, but I hear the deputy mayor does enjoy a preschool meal. I would love some chicken bag right there. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, our next item is an update on tackling temporary dentures. I would like to welcome our council member. Oh, sorry. Sorry, I was missing something. We will now focus on community impact assessment policy 2024 to '27. This is a budget and policy framework item, and the QSAC committee views before it is agreed at full council. Can I invite councilor Shafi Ahmad, cabinet member, for the environment and the climate emergency. Ashraf Ali, director of public realm, and Tom Lewis, service manager and regulatory service, to present this report, please. Sorry. Please. Okay, councilor Shafi Ahmad, can you begin, please? Thank you, and good evening, chair. The objective of the CIP policy is to reduce crime and disorder public nuisance in areas with high saturation of licensed premises. Having a CIP means that any applicant that wishes to apply for a license under the Licensing Act within the CIP assessment must prove that they would not add to the detriment of the area. So the council reviews its impact every three years. In November 2014, an impact assessment was designated, and in around the Brooklyn area in 2020/18, a second designation was introduced in the Bethnal Green. The reason for the council to choose to introduce these policies in Tawahomas was due to the saturation of licensed premises within these areas. And alcohol-related crime and disorder and public nuisance was shown to be linked to the licensed premises. We now have to consider whether to keep, amend or remove one or both of these policies. Since the introduction, incidents of crime and antisocial behaviour linked to licensed premises within these areas have seen a reduction through there, and there was a slight increase in 2020. So the review of this in the Brick Lane and Bethnal Green report looks at the data related to the crime and antisocial behaviour, London ambulance call-outs and complaints received by council between 2020 to the end of 2023. The report and the GIS data map shows that the evidence supports the retention of the expansion of the Brick Lane, impact assessment, CIA, at the southern edge, and the removal of the Bethnal Green, CIA. I'll now hand over to Tom to mention anything, if you need to cover anything else. Thank you. We're just happy to take any questions, council. Do members have any questions on this item? Thank you for that. In the report, it talks about the discussion of Hackney Wick potentially being within this zone, but being decided against. If you could talk a bit more about the analysis that was done to decide against this, I'd welcome you to come to Hackney Wick in Fyshinde on a Friday night outside Hackney Wick Station. I appreciate it goes into two local authorities, but the area is not like it was five, ten years ago, and there is a lot that goes on there. Some that's reported and a lot that's not reported, so it would be helpful to understand your analysis there. Thank you, council Abdu. We did look at Hackney Wick. It was raised at the Community Safety Partnership on the 20th of February and the 7th of May in 2024, and they raised those concerns there. Unfortunately, we have to base it on the evidence that we've got, that we've got from the police. We've got the evidence from the police crime stats and 101 course, which is ASB, and it just doesn't... With that in line with the saturation of licensed premises in that area, when you look at it as a whole borough, we've just not got the evidence to say we can definitely put a cumulative impact in that area. Between us adopting this originally in 2014 and now into this year, 2024, just before the last revision of this, it took the cumulative impact zones from guidance, the Home Office guidance, and put them into the Act itself. That created a greater degree of evidence needed to show that you have to put a cumulative impact zone in that area. So if we don't have the evidence behind us, we can't really put it in. This is also why we did consultation as well, and it wasn't really picked up about Hackney Wick, apart from what was mentioned in the community safety meetings. But that said, we recognise there is a bit of a problem brewing in that area, and we are working with the police, community safety, and parking as well, to look at doing environmental... I think the police have already done an environmental impact assessment in that area, and there are projects going on, actually this autumn as well, looking at impacts in licensing and robbers and stuff in that area, and drugs associated with parking as well. So we are looking at it, we've also put CCTV, or additional CCTV in there, using our late night levy resources. So it's not that we're not looking at that area, it's just that in terms of cumulative impact zones, it's not the evidence to support putting one in that area. Can I just come back on one thing? So I appreciate it, it's helpful to understand, very briefly, now it is put on a statute box, it's a higher threshold, that's fine. It would be helpful to understand, maybe you can share some of the data around, the data in Hackney Wick and Fish Island, and how short it fell of the threshold that's needed, because there's loads of areas in town of Hamlets that might fall short of the threshold, the legal threshold, doesn't mean there isn't serious problems that are going to happen in that area. And actually, it's the areas that fall just short, sometimes that seem to be a bit more neglected, so it would be helpful to have that information in the future. Thank you, Jack. I could actually point you to it now, if you want to. So if you look at Appendix 8 of the report, the consultation report into the cumulative impact zone, that actually gives you maps in there. You might need to enlarge them on your screen, but it gives you the hotspot maps, and it gives you the crime, so you've got two sets of maps, one with the crime reference numbers, and one with the ASB call-outs, that's the 101 calls. So that's where you can see, and it's also got the licence premises on those maps as well, I appreciate they might be quite small on the laptop, but if you zoom in, you should be able to see that. If you need anything else, I can send you the GIS map as well. Yeah, that's really helpful, so again, I'm looking at page 15 on Figure 2, but it would be really helpful, does HackMe share this data with you in terms of, because it's obviously on the bubble boundaries, and seeing it on just the other flip side on the HackMe side would also be helpful to understand this, because you can appreciate a lot isn't reported. This, I think, probably underplays some of this, and I suspect there is more, if you delve a bit deeper, ultimately, I think there's a lot more there, so it's helpful to kind of see the figures. Still not entirely convinced, but I appreciate your point. Thank you. Councilor, last question. Yes, Chair, just a quick one. The CIZ covers the ward that I represent and the surrounding areas, and it's quite similar to Councilor Mohamed's points about HackMe sharing that, and I understand the restrictions when it comes to actually trying to implement it, but the CIZ that we have now, obviously, we're recommending we carry that on. I just wondered, I've looked at the report, I just wonder if I've missed anything as far as, is there any change in the review this time round that we haven't had any before? And the only thing that comes to mind for me is the sharing of data with our local S&T teams, the Brick Lane and Weavers, the Bedford Green area, seen as we've been struggling to have a full team. Has there been any connection, any data that we were able to share between the CIZ and what they know as well? So we did a 12-week consultation, and we sent out consultations to as many people as I could think of, to be honest. It did include the Safe Neighbourhoods boards as well, and I did it twice. So the consultation went from the 31st of January to the 25th of April this year, and I did a reminder part way through the year as well. So it has gone to those. In terms of sharing the data without actually going through the actual reports with the fine tooth comb, because I had non-anomalised this one when it came to these boards because it's a public document, but we could look at who's actually responded, but that would be where those areas should respond into the consultation and put their voices in there. That would be where they'd want to share their data, I would have thought. Does that answer the question? Yeah, it does, and also with trying to get feedback on these things are quite difficult because when you're running the consultation you want to have a lot of people trying to feed into it. It's very hard to engage, but when something goes wrong and there's actual problems in the area, then that's when you get lots of response. But I just wondered if there's a way of us recording throughout the period instead of just waiting for it. Do you see that could be a way to collect data for us? The best way is, if it's a complaint about a licensed premises breaching their conditions, is to complain to the licensing team. So licenseenactouthamlets.gov.uk or 0207 364 5008. If it's crime, then it's best, and it's not a 999 call, then it's best to report that through the 101 calls because we use the 101 data and the crime reference data to define the evidence for these report, for these cumulative impact zones. So yeah, that's probably the best way of doing it. We also use the data for complaints to our noise team and complaints to our licensing team as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will move on now. Our next item is an update on tackling temporary rents area. I'd like to welcome, is he... I suppose to... I can see Councillor Saeedar must be there, but is it you representing this one? Thank you. So I'd like to welcome Councillor Kobi Ramad, cabinet member. Please say if I can give apologies. And can I have your attention please, Councillor? Can I have your attention, please? So I'll begin again. I would like to welcome Councillor Kobi Ramad, cabinet member for housing, and Abdullah Zakasemdai for finance for presenting, to present this item. He will have five minutes, and I'll let you know when you're nearing the last minute. You may start now, please. Thank you, chair. I'll take most of the report as read in order to expedite the process. In the interest of probity, transparency and honesty, this report was... The audit in October 2023 was internally commissioned by Karen Swift into the rental arrears. The one prior to that took place in 2011 with the outcomes from 2012. And within the report, there was no corporate oversight of the rent accounts for the period leading up to between 2011 to 2023 October. So I think that's really important to acknowledge and understand. There are two sums of money which are attached to this. One dates back to 2012, which is 11.94 million, which is arrears. And the other is just under 8.9 million, which was articulated at the audit in 2023. So we're working against two sets of figures here. So that's to draw context to it. What I can say is the service is proactively working at it, but from a budgetary perspective, we've allocated 18.8 million within the MTFS in order to consider bad debt. However, we're not giving up at that. So we've got team setup, we've got updated software, which is included within the report, Mobisoft, which will assist us in collecting more of that bad debt. Currently, since October 2023, the amount has been reduced and we've collected an additional 1.3 million. So the current amount to date is around 7.5 million of that first figure. In relation to the older debt that's there, it's 11.5 million, so we've clawed back around another 400,000 pounds to that. I have officers here who can give you updates in relation to the specific measures we've put in, but a lot of it's contained within the report. What I can assure you is that we've allocated two additional officers in order to go over those old debts. Sorry, we've allocated five additional officers to go over this debt and specifically focus on rent collection. However, with that, it's important to understand the current process hasn't been enabled due to a multiple of reasons, and COVID plays a pivotal role, as well as our roles in terms of evictions, our roles in terms of taking people to court, because pretty much the whole country shut down during those years, and a lot of debt built up during that period. We also, as a council, have to have an approach that is empathetic towards the suffering of residents, and it will be quite easy for us to take a corporate approach and start evictions, but the reality is, when we go through that approach, those same people will present as homeless residents to us. So we have to have a proactive but an empathetic approach in how we get that money back. If officers want to add anything else, we're happy to answer questions from the committee. Thanks, Chen. I have a couple of questions. How are the arrears accounted for, how were they accounted for before this review was done, and how are they being accounted for now? That's one of my questions. Secondly, the priority, it seems to me, is to focus on the debts about to go bad, so the ones just before the statute of limitations or something, I can't remember the technical term, before they've been six years old, and making sure that the residents don't fall into arrears in the first place, again, like you say, taking a compassionate approach. But I guess there's not enough detail, I think, in the report about specifically what those new team members are going to be focused on, and those two, I think, are the priority. And thirdly, third question, is what kind of comms are we doing with tenants about this? What kind of communication are we doing? So, Abdul Razak, our Finance Director, he'll answer the first two questions, and then, Abdul, who's our Service Head for TA, Temporary Accommodation and Procurement, will address the policy arrangements. Thank you, Councillor Kabir. So, good question. How do we account for that? So, we have a policy of providing for the full debt. What does that mean? Basically, if we get into arrears in accounting terms, we put money aside in case we can't recover that debt. So, the policy has been, and this is not something special to TA Hamlets, but it's just a prudent approach to put money aside in case we can't collect. The second question, in terms of prioritising the newest debt, that is always what we try to chase, and that's because we've got access to the current tenants. So, former tenants are quite hard to find and chase, and that's why we make sure that we get the money that we can from them. The majority of this debt relates to benefits. So, one of the things we've done in terms of improving our process and to stop tenants actually getting into debt is, as soon as they are registered, we make sure they complete the necessary forms so we can claim the housing benefits. So, just within the report, if you go to, I haven't got a page number one, but halfway down the report, 3.5, what you will see is in January 2024, there was 81% of households in TA who received housing benefit. However, this has now increased to 89%. So, within less than a year, it's gone up by 8% within that period of time. So, that's the level of kind of increases you're talking about in terms of housing benefit subsidy. And if there's a backdated kind of withdrawal and things like that, then suddenly, I'm sure we've come across residents who are suddenly left with, you know, thousands to pay because the government have suddenly clawed back huge amounts of money saying you didn't qualify or there's been an overpayment. And they're sort of primary areas which would result in debt being accumulated and that liability is immediately shifted onto the resident. About the policy elements. Yeah, just in terms of the engagements. So, since we was audited, we looked at the current issues and we immediately moved the rents team over to revenues and benefits. We benefited from having dedicated housing benefit officers and team leaders that were looking at current claims and existing claims, making sure those proper processes in place, processes that were in place weren't fit for what they were. They weren't reviewed for years. So, that has increased the number of claims received in housing benefits. And also, some of our houses are the most vulnerable groups to engage with. We've managed to get lots of backdated housing benefit. Even today, an office has got a substantial amount of backdated housing benefits. In terms of the engagement that we're doing with residents, the residents are written to quarterly with the rents teams, but we are holding resident forums at least twice a year now. We've got our first one that's happening in February. Next year, it's a bit way away, but it's the planning that's going in. We're getting different organisations there, money advisors. So, it's quite a big resident forum. It's going to happen in the town hall, but we aim to do at least two of those every year. And that is one of the priorities on our delivery plan. So, that is money to make sure that we're doing it. Thank you. Thank you for that. I wanted to just understand the bit about former areas. So, on page 60, on one line it says 11.5, another one 11.2. So, it's around the 11 million mark. Is that like last year's former areas? Can I get some more context around that? And also, when it comes to write-offs, I think it would be good to, and I bet you're doing this anyway, but it's good to make sure they're in segments. So, where someone's tenant has deceased and we've kept on putting the rent on that account. To be honest, that's a computer error, so that should be marked as that. Former tenants, for example, that should be marked as that. Write-offs should be write-offs, like actual write-offs. And if we can have all the different categories, and that would be very good for auditing and very good for us to understand a pattern and a trend here. Housing benefit, I think Councillor Ahmed already started explaining the complexities, but I'm pretty sure it's even more complex than that. There's timeframes for clawbacks for our season there. Otherwise, if I'm not mistaken, we lose out on that amount. So, I guess we probably should put that in a pot and a category, because it means we've got a lack of resources to be able to claw those housing benefit money back. And the other thing was, is there cross sector working here in the council, because I assume this will also work with the council tax team as well, right? Because we could be saving a lot of time and money, especially when it comes to prevention work, which I'd like to hear about actually, what we're doing to prevent people going into that. We passed a motion together across the party about tackling poverty. This is one of the things that we touched on. Do we need more resources? Do we need more officers when it comes to prevention, when it comes to all of this work that we talked about? And how do we benchmark against our councils? Is this about the same kind of trend? So, Abdul Razaq, can you start on the technical aspects of it, and then I'll go into other areas. Thank you, thank you, Councillor Asma. So, in terms of the figures and former tenants, the figures you're seeing there is, we set aside money at the beginning of the year, so in April, we set aside about 11.2 million. And then, to date, we had 11.9 million, so the arrays have increased. However, we've wrote off about 400 of that, because we can't collect. So, in terms of the analysis, you're right, and that work is actually, we're doing that now to kind of categorise them into different categories, then we can prioritise which ones we should really chase. And having the software called Mobisoft, that will help us target, you know, which are the easiest money to basically collect, and we've got the comms going up. And Mobisoft is a system that's been proven across other councils as well, like Lambeth and other areas, so it's a proven system that will enable us to get that efficiency. They've guaranteed us that they will reduce in the first 12 months, about half a million of those arrears, and that's part of the contract that we signed up with them. In terms of cross-working, yes, and like Abul mentioned earlier, you know, that team has come to Rebs and Benz, headed by Chris Boilet, and that efficiency can immediately see that, you know, they've crawled back about 1.3 million, just by coming across and reviewing our processes. So that's working, and the plan going forward is to standardise all our policies in terms of income collection across the council, so we can use that knowledge base in terms of targeting residents. And then the last bit in terms of avoiding tenants going into debt, this is where the processes come in really handy. So it's important, as soon as someone is, you know, assessed as needing housing, they make sure we get the forms and the assessment done at the same time, so we can claim the benefits. Majority of these arrears do relate to benefits, and this is what we're trying to do now, to crawl back as much as we can. Is this a normal amount, like this, where we are now? Is this normal for, like, is a borough like ours, is this normal? Yeah, across all other London boroughs, yes, they're struggling to collect, so we're not, we're doing the benchmarking at the moment, but I know other areas roughly are quite significant, and it's a challenge, yeah. So I just want to say, without giving secrets away from other local authorities, I think, you know, David's done the role in multiple local authorities, and Abdul Razak's also worked in other local authorities as well from the finance section. So, although they're not articulating the figures, a lot of councils are in that kind of shape, and, you know, like Newham, for example, regarding TA, costs of TA, you know, are in potential section 114 territory. It is a really demanding area, particularly on resources and finance. In terms of what we're doing about it, so we've put in just under two million pounds within the housing options and temp accommodation department to recruit 35 more staff, which will work, and I think four managers and 35 staff, which will work across the section, working on prevention, working on faster processing of applications, working on procurement of cheaper properties, better quality properties, in terms of the GLA grant, and, sorry, just for members to note that GLA grant alone won't purchase the properties. We have to, that's a subsidy, the rest of it has to come from the council in order to buy the 200 homes and the direct government money for 37 properties, five of which have to be for Afghan refugees as part of the condition. And again, we also have to prop up that money, and it's really important for us to have one, a good 30-year business plan in order to borrow money against that, and also a sound MTFS. Other, sort of other areas which Abdulrazak has mentioned is around investment in technology. Now, I mean, I came to this committee about two years ago and spoke about some of the kind of obsolete technology that we were operating by, so year on year we've invested in multiple upgrades and sort of new up-to-date systems, some of it's Power BI, you know, AI supported, others are telephony systems, so all across the board we've been investing in infrastructure. And I suppose that investment will pay off in the long run, because it's investing to save, but not only save, but identify gaps in services and opportunities to support people. Thank you to the officers and the councillor. You mentioned, I just want to find out what legal measures are in place by the council itself regarding collecting the bad debts we have, and if you have any time limits on that, and what happens after the time limits and so on, if you could give us some figures on that. Thank you. I think, obviously, as the councillor said, it is difficult, because one of the biggest ways of enforcing is to evict them, to take that away so it stops the debt, but that just puts them in a cycle of chasing. So when it gets to former tenant rears, we can take court action and seek county court judgements, but again, a lot of these people are financially vulnerable anyway, and we're trying to maximise their benefit entitlement, so we minimise that, but what we are starting to see are more working homeless people, that are actually, believe it or not, outside the benefit entitlement, so by us processing benefit claims very quickly, we're able to identify those that need to make payments and engage with them much quicker, so they don't get a shock later on when they've got a big lump of arrears that they can't afford to pay. So part of it is driving forward. So there are limited actions. In terms of the statute barred, with any debt, we have six years in which to take recovery action. If we don't do that, we can't take recovery action anymore, so we would then need to write those off. Again, priority has been given in recent years to tackling and chasing debt. Some of the debt management work, which Abdur-Razak and I are working on is to try and stream like that, and actually the work we're doing now on the current mean that less and less debt will get to that point, so we've got this big pile of former tenant arrears debt, which we believe there is quite a bit of its collectible, either through housing benefit or by tracing those debtors and looking after them, but we are focused on making sure that's not getting bigger quicker by stopping those being paid. I was just going to follow up on a point that cancer made earlier around this being a problem across the scene in London. Where I've come from in Haringey, it was probably one of the big free financial issues affecting that authority alongside adult social care and children's social care, very large arrears and underperformance in rent collection compared with the general needs sector, and a lot of similar steps being taken to turn that around, so investment in prevention, being proactive around things like the housing benefit sign-ups that Abdur-Razak referred to earlier, but I do think what's different here in what other cancers, including the one I've come from, didn't have the benefit of was the additional investment. I think the £2 million and the extra 35 officers going in is a really, really significant investment that will help resource and improve the position here where I think some authorities unfortunately don't have the benefit of being able to put that money in, so that's definitely a change that I've seen coming in here. But also I think that compassionate approach around working with tenants and having repayment plans, bite-sized chunks and actually working with them to make it manageable and not overwhelming is really, really important and I'm seeing that approach as well, so just to sort of confirm that this is a massive, I think we all know it's a London-wide issue and it is significant in scale all over and certainly where I've come from recently. Yes, can I just, I've got a few shopkeepers in my ward, can I touch on that? Shopkeepers, the rent has increased, it hasn't increased for many years. This is different. No, can I not? Different rents. Okay, no, not to worry. Happy to discuss with you outside, or corporate directors will look into that. But can I just, one final comment in relation to this, the DWP, Department of Works of Prevention, have said we are doing exemplary work which is above the curve, so just for a noting item around that. Abdi Mohammed, can you be very brief please, Councillor? I will be brief, I think it's important though, so thank you for that. I look forward to seeing whether DWP vote that, that's a very high bar, high praise. I want to delve a bit deeper into the compassionate point, so I completely agree with what you've all said and I think it's important. We're not a private business where we're looking at someone after some vulnerable resident. Is there a criteria where the compassion kind of comes in? Because at some point it's kind of a statute of six years, I think, where you can't chase it any longer. Is there a point where it doesn't become affordable for the council to chase it? So you've talked about 35 officers, you've talked about putting a lot more investment into it. If it's a debt of £500, I mean we should be chasing this debt, but you've got an officer spending 20, 30, 40 hours doing this. Where's the cost benefit analysis, at what point is that, I think is an important first point. And in terms of the compassionate point, so that's kind of the financial question, but the policy question is, is there a policy written down somewhere for the director of the department that talks about what if they're, you know, they've got council or something, or there's like criteria that they've met that we can be a bit more compassionate, or is it kind of on an ad hoc basis? Can you come to your question? There was two questions there, so he's done them. Thank you. So I think it's a really good question and that balance is always in our minds, but I think going back to what was said earlier, that investment in additional officers isn't just in kind of chasing the money, it's also in kind of doing the sort of early intervention piece and trying to sort of talk to people before they fall into arrears, looking at what other support we can do. Can we refer into things like Work Path and other measures to sort of support people and hopefully become more resilient. So I think a lot of that extra investment is at that end, but I think it'd be good if the service can maybe talk about some of the things that they did to kind of strike that balance. I'll pick the first one. So you're right, we need to really analyse our debt and decide which is economical to chase. And one of the reasons why we signed up with this third party, Mobisoft, is to enable us to target those. So they will tell us after analysing that 11 million, they will say this is the most economical to chase and this is what you shouldn't really, you wouldn't be able to collect it so you might as well write off. And we've provided for that so it's not going to have an impact on the council. So I like the way you think and I welcome you to the council, it's good to have that. Because David will confirm every meeting will be around what's the cost benefit analysis of this and how do we calculate that and why do we formulate this. So thank you for that question. I think what's important also to understand here is we've already set aside 18.8 million for that. So every time we're getting income coming back in, we are sort of propping that up on the other side and money that the council can spend because it's coming in. In terms of those who are doing the exercises, in terms of chasing up and looking at different avenues and options, that's all being costed to see what return will be provided with that. Because for every recruitment process there has to be a business case available for it. So we didn't just recruit people for the sake of just propping it up. So the 35 members of staff are spread across that department and we're also, we've got an interim director now specifically to address that. But that will then become a permanent director post because it's such a big issue. And it reminds me of the right to buy in the council. When it first came in, the council was just overloaded. There is one more item left and it's already run out of time. It was such a wonderful question. I've not had answers to my second question. No, take his number and call him. That's probably scrutiny that, but okay. So you've kind of roughly answered the question about the first bit, but the second question is what's the policies, they've written down something, a tangible idea. So are we chasing somebody who's got cancer, who can't afford to pay and falls into a ventilator, so we're more compassionate there. So what is the criteria to be compassionate? So we would look at each case individually. So we would try to get them to engage with us and talk to them and understand. And one of the things about bringing it into the benefits service is those benefit officers have knowledge of the wider benefits. So can identify and do regularly identify opportunities for those residents to claim further financial support. Or we'll signpost them to appropriate debt management support, so step change and alike, who can act on independently and look at their whole financial position. So we would look at it in that way. But again, we will always look to get a sustainable arrangement. So certainly on former tenant areas, it doesn't matter if it takes them ten years to pay it back because it's still putting money back in the coffin. So if they can afford five pound a week, we'll do that. The issue we have with current is we need them not to be building up arrears, so we try to work with them. And income maximisation for a lot of those people is really key and can bring a lot more money into their households, which enable them to beat those debts. Come up to the next question. Do not confuse me with the chair, please. So thank you, chair. So I was going to really touch upon what Councillor Abdi actually mentioned. So my question is kind of mute now. So it was basically around the use of technology and software and obviously putting in more resources. So that's a good thing and I think at the same time it's a bit late as well. At the same time, in hindsight, we could always do things better. And my question was mostly going to be around compassion and there are examples I've heard from councillors as well here around. It's really hard to measure, depending on what the story is. So I do appreciate that the council is investing in more resources, especially technology, coming from that background. So it does help. So I commend the council for doing that. But obviously more work needs to be done. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Councillor Ahmed, can you take the question from Councillor Ahmed Durkhan, then you can answer them both together. Councillor Ahmed Durkhan, please. Thank you, chair. It's been a long time. I haven't asked any questions tonight. Our colleagues are asking what are the questions and it wasn't necessary for me, because as we know, the winners always go beyond their time limits. So I will be brief. Because, chair, I'm holding a challenge session on rent areas. So these two questions will help me immensely. So the first question is that the report mentioned that a reduction of 1.3 million in outstanding debts from the current tenants. Can you provide me details of the strategic implemented that lead to this significant decrease? The second question is, for most tenants, the area is 11.9 million. What specific challenges are being faced in collecting these debts and what measures are you taking to address this challenge? These are the two actions. Thank you very much. Can you answer this very briefly, please? Alright, so just to clarify the question, the first question by Councillor Khan is around the collection of the 1.3 million from the 8.8 million. And the second question is around the circa 11.9 million and what measures we're taking in order to get that revenue back. So I think we've already explained kind of the processes that we're implementing, which is a mixture of getting more staff in to go over these. Bringing technology in to identify, also speaking to residents and advising them and trying to get them to get the maximum out of the benefits that they can claim. As well as other support, putting them in contact with debt management organisations so they can balance their books better. And ultimately, what I would say to everyone who is in this room is if anybody does approach you in surgeries and stuff like that, suddenly housing benefits have been taken away, they can't afford to pay the rent and on a monthly basis until this is reviewed, it's clocking up. Debt is to speak to the landlord and try to come to some kind of an arrangement, particularly if it's old debt so that you're constantly not getting red letters. So even if it's paying £5 a week, whatever you can afford on top of your rent, when you can afford it, if you come to these kind of arrangements, then the council can agree with you and not pursue legal action and so on and so forth, which adds to mental health and pressures around having debt. Thank you. I'm going to move on now. I'm not going to take any more questions on this item. Thank you. I'm supposed to finish 8.30. It's already nine. Chair, I think when I'm here, you love to entertain me for as long as possible, so I'm used to it. Our final item for tonight is an update on the Youth Justice Fund. I'd like to welcome Stephen Reddy, Government Director for Children's Services, to present this item. He will have five minutes. I mean five minutes, not a second more. Thank you, Chair. I've got Susanna, who's the Director and the Head of Service, Kelly, who will do this really quickly in less than five minutes. Susanna and Kelly, you know it's five minutes. Five minutes, please. Thank you. I'm also happy to represent if you want me to talk, but I'll stay quiet so you can expediate the process. Thank you very much for having us. I appreciate you've read the papers. Just give the context. The Youth Justice Strategy is something we have to provide the central government through the YJB on a yearly basis. We provided a two-year document last year, so this year is our 12-month update. It reflects on all the process we've made, including peer reviews, and highlights our four key priority areas, which are child first, so ensuring that the child is at the centre of everything we do in the intervention, preventing adultification, which hopefully impacts positively on disproportionate outcomes for children, consistently good practice, our health offer for our children with the Youth Justice Service, and specifically our post-16 E2E offer, which we know we have a problem with in comparison to our under-16 children. These four key strategic priorities were developed with our board, our staff, and most importantly the children and families we work with. So I won't go through the key highlights and the key achievements for the last 12 months, of which we're very proud that we have achieved quite a lot, but we do appreciate we've still got quite a way to go. Our most recent achievement was that we achieved a Youth Justice SEND award through the Association of Yacht Managers, in which we got a quality lead with Child First Accommodation, as well as having quite a fair bit of our practice, specifically our work with girls, and our quality assurance process is recognised as national good practice by the Youth Justice Board. Looking at our key indicators, because I was listening for the KPIs and I do appreciate that reoffending wasn't questioned, so I'm assuming you're going to question me, which is what I'm here for. So we're measured on three key performance indicators, again, which we have to report to the Youth Justice Board on a quarterly basis. We're really proud of our first-time entrants, we've reduced that by over 40% in the last 24 months, which is actually something that I don't think has been achieved, and I can say that with my professional hat on, my professional reputation hasn't been achieved by anyone else in England and Wales. So we are now not only under the London average, but consistently under the England and Wales average, which, considering we are Tower Hamlets, we are East London, people would think that we would be higher up than we should be, which is a huge achievement. That leads me on to our reoffending. What happens is, and this is, even for people that have been working in Youth Justice for a number of years, the reoffending measure is quite a complicated one to understand, so I'm glad that I have this opportunity to speak to you. If you do have your slide, please would you go to this slide here, which has the reoffending rate, because it does explain it. Sorry, this one here. Our reoffending rate has gone up, it's now 35.8%, where the national and the London averages are a little bit under at 32.5. If you look at the box underneath, previously, those children that were first-time entrants, when we had a bigger number of children that were first-time entrants, we therefore had a bigger cohort of children that could then reoffend, because you have to become a first-time entrant before you can then reoffend. So historically, between July 19 and June 2020, we had 153 children in that cohort and 39 of them reoffended. In our most recent cohort, which is July 21 to June 22, that initial cohort reduced from 153 to 95 children, and the number of children that reoffended still reduced from 39 to 34. It's not a huge reduction, but it is a reduction, so I am taking a very firm opinion that maths is making my performance look worse than it is, which I know, I appreciate you probably haven't heard that ever as a reason and narrative, but that is the one I'm standing by, as actually when, and again, as much as the data is important when we look at the individual number of children we are talking about, these are small numbers, and that's why sometimes when we do incredibly well in one area, it has had a bit of a knock-on effect in another. Despite that, we are still working in our reoffending, the children that reoffend the most. We have used, we've introduced Medspace, we've recently, literally this week, introduced Power BI to look at our data, which allows us a live tracker. The problem with the reoffending tracker, the reoffending rate is that it's two years back, because you have to look, you have to give time for police processes to go through, for court processes to go through, and for that child to have a fair enough chance at being found guilty or not guilty through the legal system. So it's not about what we are doing to improve it for two years ago, it's about what we're doing now to tackle those children individually on a one-to-one. We're increasing our speech and language provision, we've increased our number of reparation projects in the community, we almost won the ward last year for it, which is a huge achievement, there are lots of positive things going on, we're currently running a take and drive away intervention with the fire service this week actually, we're doing lots of innovative, positive engagement processes to support our children to make better choices. Any questions? Sorry, just before that, can I take the opportunity to thank our corporate director, our director and Kelly, who've worked extremely hard in delivering this service. Thank you. Do you remember, any questions? Oh my God, do I like you? I really like you. One minute. Thank you for bringing this to this committee. As a person who's recently had my child being attacked by other youths in school, I've received a service from the Youth Justice Service in Ta Hamlet that's given me hope and I really appreciate and would like to personally thank you for the support you've given my son as well as the offending children, because I understand they're still kids and they need help and support, so thank you very much, that's all I wanted to say, thank you. I'm grateful for that, that's really kind of you and thank you for sharing your personal experience in this space, because what is also very important for us is that we work with the victims as well, because they're as equal to us and they're as important to us as our children, so as much as we speak a lot about our children, actually we're really working on our victim offer to make sure that the victims of harm also get the right outcome and the right resolution to support them moving forward. And that's what we're judged by as well, by HMIP when they come and inspect us, our victim offer. Councilor Asma Islam, can you be very brief please? I'll tell you brief, but you always don't listen. I just wanted to echo, every time anything to do with youth justice comes to an end, I always make a point to say that the support workers that work in the team are outstanding, and one of the things I wanted to touch on is the conviction for young people and the amount of time that they're assigned with the support officer is kind of aligned, and actually sometimes in order to get the reoffending number, stopping from reoffending, we want to make sure that, because they actually do end up building a really good relationship and trust, and I know funding is obviously restrictive here for local governments, how can we make sure that we're able to pull money from every way in order to make sure that those bonds aren't broken for a little bit longer in order to give the best start and best support going forward. The other thing I was just going to touch on was the strategy is really good, but it doesn't really touch on how it will complement with the youth service, because before the launch of the new youth service was all about how the youth service was going to really help children make good decisions and make the right decisions, and I've not always thought that was a corrective narrative, because we want to empower children, not always say that, you know, have positive narratives and not have negative narratives, but how is this, and the youth service programme, the young town, how is all of this going to combine together in order for it to be a real wholesome package from the council. Thank you, so in relation to the first point, we make a real clear effort that any child that has come to us stays with the same youth justice officer, we know children don't like change, if they have a trusted adult they want to maintain... Yes and no, what we do is that we don't exit children on a cliff edge, so we don't just say, right on Friday your order ends, bye, and the same way we don't do that when we're transferring children to probation, or young adults as they are then, young people as they are then, to probation, so we make sure it's as supportive as possible, and if it takes us a bit longer, it takes us a bit longer, it's not something we're ever going to be forced to move on. We also keep young people, so if they've turned 18 but only have, say, three, four months left of their court intervention, we won't transfer them to probation, because we know children get, young people get lost when they turn 18 and they move to probation, and that can have a real detrimental impact on them. In relation to the youth service, it's trying to build that, as they're trying to develop, and as they're trying to be sustainable, and do a huge piece of work by going, by increasing quite rapidly, what we're trying to do. So I actually have a meeting with the Director of Youth the first week of November, to talk specifically what we talk about is prevention and diversion, so our diversion offer is very, very strong in diverting children away from that formal criminal justice route, but we still work with them, because we have the skills to make sure that they learn from their mistakes. But that, to build up that prevention offer, so we currently have funding from Ministry of Justice for our turnaround program, which has been working incredible, incredibly. We only have that till March next year, so again, it's trying to make sure that all those processes, and all that learning we've got, and all that positive outcome, we don't lose, just because, like you said, that's part of the discussions we're going to be having. And half the children are open to children's social care, and we all sit under myself, and so we've done loads of work that we work really, really closely, with social workers, with early help workers, with exploitation workers, so an order might end, but actually you might continue to have the support of a social worker, or an early help worker, or your exploitation worker as well. And again, when you look at our children that have re-offended, we did a big deep dive a couple of months ago to last five years' worth of children that have re-offended. Sixty percent experienced domestic violence, so actually the fact that it's one of our key strategic priorities within supporting families, makes it important that we're all focused on tackling these things, and 58 percent of them experience violence outside the home. So again, the fact that we're connected with the exploitation service, under supporting families, means that those children that have those real, real significant needs, and have experienced that real significant trauma, we have the access to the experts in the field to support them. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I want to echo my colleagues' comments, it's really great to see the work, but also I've seen a little bit, I've kind of touched a little bit on it in the corporate parenting board, which has been really great to see. So actually on that, so I have a couple of questions, how closely do you work with foster carers, as part of your work, and there's a high proportion of re-offenders experiencing exclusion or managed moves in schools, so I wonder what work you're doing with schools to reduce that instability in the education system, and I guess why, I don't know if I've really got an answer on why actually the first time entrants across London but also within Tower Hamlets are so low, is there a general trend, is there work that we're doing? That last one first, actually first time entrants across England and Wales, the whole of England and Wales are going up, so crime across if you look at it over decades has peaks and troughs, and so we reached an all time low last year, but nationally it's on the increase youth crime, so we're very conscious about that and we're trying to use, we've built up really strong relationships with all our partners, especially the police, to make sure that children that have committed very low level offending, shouldn't have their life chances impacted because at 14 they stole something they shouldn't have done, or they did some graffiti on a train, we know these are things they shouldn't have done, but actually should that impact you not being allowed to go to college not accepting you, or having to disclose that when you want to go for a job, it's about is it in the public interest, a lot of the time it's not, but we can still, what we don't do in our youth justice service is we don't say right until you are convicted officially that's when you'll get all the support, that's when you'll get speech and language, we offer that to any child that we're working with, so it's very very open and again it works for us, it's working. In relation to foster carers we work with any parent or carer, so we, for every child and family we work with there are self assessments for the child, and there are parent and carer assessments, so even if the child is in supported accommodation for example, 16, 17, we ask the social worker to fill it in, actually you are the corporate parent, could you fill this in for this child, because it is really important to get that reflective, what that person feels should be done, because that child is a trusted adult, so we try and work with foster carers as much as possible if that child is living there. For our children, our children are on that slightly older age group, we don't get to do a huge amount of work with foster carers, so our children are 16, 17, 18, so it kind of impacts that. In relation to our education data, and correct me if I'm wrong, exclusions for our reoffending cohort, yeah, so we are doing lots of things, as you can see one of our strategic priorities is at post 16 education, because our children are the old, the children we're talking about are the older cohort, 14, 15, upwards, we know that manage moves and exclusions have, they have, it has a huge negative impact, so we've got, on our Youth Justice Executive Board we have the head of virtual schools, who's absolutely brilliant, not only taking this at a local level, but taking it to national level, and he's taking it to Ministry of Justice in regards to youth custody as well, to make sure that even when children are in custody they're still getting their education support. So we're tackling that, and what we've introduced now is a monthly, what we call a monthly NEET meeting, where we, where myself, the head of virtual schools and our staff, go through the children one at a time, actually what is going on with this child. And that's the kind of level of attention we're giving it, because it is such a protective factor and it is so important. I'll be very brief, and I've got two quick questions, very, very brief. Just to say I think this is my favourite report, so thank you for that. In terms of, so strategic priorities, priority number two to consistently good practice, what area of practice do you think you've got a particular concern about? I still haven't quite grasped, I haven't looked at this report several times, I think it's quite high level, but how is that reflected in terms of the training you give your staff, and in terms of external orders I think is, just any thoughts around that? And I've always wondered why kids who go through Youth Justice aren't given priority around SEND and being, you know, EHCPs and actually a bit more of a join up there, so I'd welcome your thoughts on that. That was super quick. Okay, so EHCPs, we do have that, we have an SLA with educational psychology service, so we can speed those up. We also have our own speech and language, we also have our own Youth Justice schools now, and I've forgotten someone in the team, so they're listening, my apologies, it's quite late. But we have a multidisciplinary team meeting every two weeks for our health partners that we have within service, to look at those and to push those forward. As I said, our relationship with the virtual schools is very, very strong as well, which allows us to try and push. We know it's a problem across the borough, so it's not that our children, so my argument always is, yes it would be brilliant if all my children could have up to date EHCPs, but what we need to do is we need to go further up river, and so, because if it takes you till 16, 17 to get, to finally understand why you've never understood school because you've got speech and language needs, or to finally understand why you've never been able to sit still because you've got ADHD, we're doing something wrong because it needs to be identified at 5, 6, 7, 8. Because again, that would then help me bring my FTEs down even further, which I would love. So again, it's about, sometimes when it comes to us, it's a bit like putting the fingers in the dams, because sometimes the harm's already been caused, but we're trying to work with them and make sure that's happened. Again, which is why we don't prevent children from accessing services within the Youth Justice, depending on where they are in their criminal justice journey, for want of a better phrase. In relation to consistently good practice, we believe very strongly that we can't do wonderful things unless our foundations are strongly built. So unless everyone knows, and everyone knows the right way to record a certain thing on a certain, you know, for a certain intervention, we can't, that then feeds the data. If everyone's recording it slightly differently, the data goes wrong. So it's even, it goes from that level all the way up. Some of the wonderful things we're trying to do now, and I will get into the things, because I know you asked for what needs to be improved, so I'm not blindsiding you, but we're trying to do a huge thing at the minute with supporting families, and actually they're a bit further ahead than us, about making sure that we write out, for example, case notes to the children. So actually, dear so and so, I saw you today, I was a bit worried because you seemed quite down, so we went for a walk and we had a discussion, rather than I saw so and so did walk, spoke about, because if that child ever wants to access their records, that's how they're reading it, but also so it's, it puts the member of staff in a more trauma-informed mind, makes them more aware of the child's lived experience and how it might be experiencing for them. For us, our practice is consistently getting better. If you asked me one thing, I would say, I would put a finger on and go, still a bit worried about that, I think we're still a bit, I am still a bit worried about contingency planning, which is, because I think we are so risk-aware, that a lot of our contingency plans are, if it all goes wrong, this is what we're going to do, and so when I look at them, I go, what happens if it goes right? What will the changes in risk be if things are improving? And again, so it's about that balance and about making sure that we don't ignore victims, we're making sure the victim's voice is heard throughout everything, that risk is contained, that we're not going overly risk or underly risk, so yeah, they would be my two main things. And we have a regular quality assurance board, which I chair, and we welcome external scrutiny, so we've had regular peer reviews each year, we've had external look at us, in fact we have audits done outside as well, just to check that we're where we need to be and to help challenges. Sorry, can I just finish it here, because I'm just going to take your picture with Mark, then I'm going to conclude. Very briefly, I think we've got lots of reassurance already, so feel free to ask this very briefly, but obviously two years ago we had HMIP peer review, which found inadequacies in leadership and the strategic side of things, and obviously your report today is very much outcome focused, which obviously we welcome, we're very pleased to see improvement in outcomes, and you've fleshed out in some of your answers the way in which you're getting to those outcomes and what you want to improve, but if you could get some reflection on the way in which the new strategy that came in last year has sort of informed things to really drive improvement, get that reassurance that the leadership and the planning stuff, all those plans and all those wonderful things to put in place are really reflecting the difference. So I think our report, sorry, our HMIP inspection happened in April 22, the first strategic plan was 22, that was very much an immediate response to the poor outcome we had in HMIP. What we've done is we've completely redesigned the governance, we've redesigned it for the first two years, and then we've, following the fact that we feel we've moved from improvement to delivery of the service, we've now redesigned that governance as well, the staff are much more involved in all aspects of it with strong plans, but yes. Thank you very much. Thank you for attending, and thank you Councilor Ahmed for staying hold on, thank you for avoiding me. Thank you very much. Finally, is there any other urgent business to discuss? I hope no. Yes, you know what happened last OAC meeting, I mentioned regarding about the maternity service, and only the officer who looked me up emailed everyone, only respond to the Alima Islam, oh sorry, Alima Islam, and also, Asma, sorry, Asma Islam also. You know, I will be leading to the scooting review, focusing on the maternity service and support for the mother. I am looking to hold two evidence gathering sessions, I want to ask particularly my female OAC colleagues, who will have more insight on this particular subject, if they can support me on this issue. We are still shaping the scope of this, and so that is the opportunity to feed it all. The data will be a finalized scope, but we are looking at one November session, and one February or March session. I need your support for our project. Thank you. I think they will help you, Councilor, thank you very much. So, the next OAC meeting will be on the 26th of November. I would like to remind members that we have a scooting session on the annual residence survey next Monday, is it? Yes. How many scooting? Chair. And, sorry, always at the end of the meeting, he has to say something, always. Last meeting, I remind you to make sure you have enough item on the agenda to finish on time. I remind you again this time as well, when the office is there, because if you are going to be 6.30 to 8.30, don't run into too long, otherwise change the agenda from 6.30 to 9.30. I ask everybody to be brave, brave, brave. I appreciate that. Officer, can you make a note on that, please, as well? Thank you very much, it's a very varied point. Officer, can you make a note on that, as well? I want that to be noted in a minute. Thank you. So, if there are no other reasons to discuss, I'll call this meeting to close.