Subscribe to updates

You'll receive weekly summaries about Lambeth Council every week.

If you have any requests or comments please let us know at community@opencouncil.network. We can also provide custom updates on particular topics across councils.

Cabinet - Monday 7 October 2024 5.00 pm

October 7, 2024 View on council website Watch video of meeting
AI Generated

Summary

The meeting received two reports: the Quarterly Performance and Budget Report, and the Capital Programme 2024 to 2028. Both were noted, and the Capital Programme was approved for recommendation to the full council meeting.

Quarterly Performance and Budget Report

This report was introduced by Councillor Nanda Manley-Browne. It contained the council's latest performance update against the Lambeth 2030 Borough Plan, and a financial report that showed the council is forecasting a £34.3m overspend, driven largely by rising costs and demand for temporary accommodation.

Councillor Scott Ainslie addressed the Cabinet and made a number of points about the report. He said that the reports were unnecessarily complicated, and that they lacked context, making it hard to assess if the targets that were set were adequate. He also criticised the absence of the London average in figures such as healthy life expectancy, which made it difficult to make a comparison with other boroughs. He concluded by saying that the report lacked transparency and that:

As usual, we need more openness, accountability, and honesty from this council.

Responding to this, officers clarified a number of points. They explained that the healthy life expectancy figure for Lambeth was low because Londoners tend to suffer from long term conditions for longer than the average for the rest of the country. They also said that they would take Councillor Ainslie's recommendations into account when writing future reports.

Councillor Mahamed Hashi then responded to Councillor Ainslie's point about the council's approach to tackling violence. He said that the report showed that Lambeth had seen an 11.3% decrease in violence with injury against a decrease of just 3.9% across London. Knife crime had fallen by 3.9% against a 9.1% increase across London, and hate crime had decreased by 5.1% compared to a 6.5% increase London-wide. He argued that, in this context, it was unfair of Councillor Ainslie to suggest that Lambeth was struggling to address the root of violence.

Councillor Danny Adilypour then spoke about the projected overspend for Temporary Accommodation. He explained that the council had had to place 170 families in TA in the previous week alone. This, he said, was typical, and meant that 4,600 families were now living in TA across Lambeth.

Councillor Adilypour went on to say that the problem had been made worse by both the housing crisis and the cost of living crisis, and that the average nightly cost of TA had risen from £40 to £80 in the previous year. He said that central government had failed to support councils in addressing these challenges, and that the Local Housing Allowance rates had not been updated since 2011. He concluded by saying that:

We have desperate residents facing a housing crisis and a cost of living crisis. We need somewhere to live. We have to do whatever it takes to make sure we can meet that duty towards them.

Councillor Ben Kind then echoed these points, saying that there had also been insufficient funding for placements for children in care, despite a tenfold increase in the number of placements costing over £10,000 per week. He expressed his hope that the new Labour Government would act to address these problems.

Councillor Donatus Anyanwu then praised officers for the work they had done to generate income through the council's leisure services. He said that he appreciated the responsible approach they had taken to managing the capital programme.

Councillor David Amos concluded the discussion by praising officers across the council for the work they had done to manage the budget.

In these straitened times... that has required more work to make sure that what we've decided to spend money on... do reflect our administration's priorities...

Capital Programme 2024-2028

Councillor David Amos then introduced the capital programme report. The report proposed to extend the capital programme to 2028 with an additional £89.485m of investment across a wide range of schemes. The aim of these schemes was to deliver the council's 2030 Borough plan ambitions, improve its financial stability and allow it to continue to provide essential services.

The report noted that since the last capital programme update in 2020, the council had invested over £273m in the borough, including £158m in its housing stock.

Councillor Amos explained that the focus of the new programme was to identify external grant funding, encourage growth in the borough, and make borrowing decisions that would show a return on investment.

Councillor Scott Ainslie asked a number of questions about how decisions were made about the allocation of Section 106 funding. He noted that the Home Builders Federation had recently reported that Lambeth had the fourth highest value of unspent Section 106 funding in the country and the second highest in London, and asked why so little of this money was being invested in the capital programme. He then said that he had been trying unsuccessfully for a year to meet with officers to discuss how Section 106 funds were allocated, and that:

Residents deserve to know that the money from development has been invested fairly in their communities.

Councillor Matthew Bryant then asked a number of questions about the figures in the report. He asked for confirmation that the budget in Appendix 1 covered the period 2024-2028, and asked whether the schemes in Appendix 2 were included in that budget. He also asked for clarification on the 21 million earmarked for 'General Contingencies'. He concluded by asking two further questions: firstly, how many new homes the programme would build; and secondly, how the programme related to the Council's recently announced Corporate Carbon Reduction Plan.

Councillor Holland responded by noting that Streatham ward had benefitted disproportionately from Section 106 funding because it had seen a lot of development in recent years, something that she said she was really pleased to report.

Officers then clarified that Appendix 2 did contain additional schemes that were not included in Appendix 1, and that the general contingency was standard good practice for a council of Lambeth's size, and that it allowed the council to respond to emergencies and unexpected costs.

Councillor Adilypour then answered Councillor Bryant's question about new homes. He said that the council had set a target of 500 new social and affordable homes by 2030. He stressed, however, that this was a minimum target and that it would be reviewed regularly with a view to increasing it whenever we can.

Duncan Whitfield, Lambeth's Interim Corporate Director of Finance, then noted that the Housing Revenue Account had about 32 million per year earmarked for major works, but that this had been set in 2014 and did not reflect the additional burdens that had been placed on the HRA by new regulations. He said that the actual amount of money needed to maintain the housing stock was significantly higher than this. He added that, as a consequence, capital investment in local authority housing had been severely cut back in recent years, in part because central government had failed to adequately fund the borrowing costs incurred by local authorities.

Councillor Tim Windle then confirmed that it was good practice to have a contingency budget.

Councillor Ben Kind then praised the additional investment that the programme proposed for schools and decarbonisation. He said that 31 schools had already benefitted from the installation of heat pumps, LED lighting and other measures and that:

...Lambeth Council obviously is committed to addressing the climate crisis for those buildings under our control and this is helping get there.

He also praised the £2.5m earmarked for tree planting, noting that this compared very favourably to the 2,000 trees that had been planted by the previous administration in the twelve years to 2014. He then asked about the likely impact of inflation on the programme, and whether it would place some of the planned schemes at risk.

Responding to this, Duncan Whitfield said that central government had provided insufficient capital investment for services, meaning that councils had had to make up the shortfall through borrowing. This, he said, had added to the revenue costs of the council, and that:

In terms of the whole scope of capital programs in local authorities which I think are really vital for the health and sustainability of services that we offer there has been nothing by way of explicit funding for those debt costs from Government to help us sustain programs and that's why in many authorities and I guess we're not far away from that at the moment where you see a capital program severely cut back and just can't afford to do it but that's really a commentary about the total long term of Government funding for local authorities rather than capital itself but it's undoubtedly a factor to add to that the inflation like over the last few years and you've got a storm forming if that helps.

The meeting concluded with Councillor Amos praising officers across the council for the work they had done on the programme:

...this program we've got in front of us tonight is the product of a huge amount of work... to make sure that what we've decided to spend money on... do reflect our administration's priorities...