Transcript
Okay, good evening, everybody. Welcome to this evening's meeting. I'm Councillor Claire
Holland, leader of the council and chair of this meeting. This meeting is being recorded
and is being broadcast live. And the recording of tonight's meeting may also be used for
quality and training purposes. In the event that technical issues require the meeting
to be adjourned, and it cannot be restarted within a few minutes, further updates will
be posted on the council's democracy Twitter account, which is @lbldemocracy. I don't
think we've got any members of the public. We all know where fire exits are at those
ways. Yeah. So we've received one apology from Councillor Jackie Dyer. Jobshare voting
arrangements are set out on the agenda. The Portfolio for Healthier Communities operates
under a jobshare arrangement. The current decision maker for Healthier Communities is
Councillor Tim Windell. The Portfolio for Equalities and Corporate Resources also operates
under a jobshare arrangement. The current decision maker for Equalities and Corporate
Resources is Councillor Fred Cowell. Does any Councillor have a disclosable pecuniary
interest that they have not already declared? Thank you, colleague. Nobody's indicated so
we'll move on. Minutes from the previous meeting. Are the minutes of the meeting held
on the 22nd July 2024 agreed as a correct record of proceedings? Agreed. Thank you very
much. Minutes are confirmed as a correct record. We'll now move on to the next item, which
is quarterly process record for quarter one, 24-25. The performance element of this report
will be introduced by Councillor Amanda Manley-Brown, cabinet members for Equalities and Corporate
Resources. The budget element of this report will then be introduced by Councillor David
Amos, cabinet member for Finance. And so, Councillor Manley-Brown, would you like to
introduce this report? Yes, I'm happy to introduce this report. It comes as a result of a lot
of hard work and investment. I'm quite proud of the achievements that we have achieved
thus far. I would like to thank the Councillor for her work and Councillor Amos to take us
through the rest of the session. Thank you. So I'll just say a few words about the fact
of the financial report. This was an area that I used to cover, both aspects that we
now work together to pull this report together. So colleagues, you have heard me speak a lot
about local government finances here over the past year, in the Chamber and beyond.
After the first quarter of the year that has passed, that's the period that we're reporting
on this evening, we're now able to update on our budget forecast for this financial
year, 2024-25. But based on the latest forecasts and experience in the first quarter, I'm expecting
£34.3 million year-end overspend, all things being equal. And I mean, without taking into
account additional in-year actions, let's say a bit about in a second. So as I've outlined
in the report, this is being overwhelmingly driven by the exceptional demand for temporary
accommodation, TA, the rising cost of delivering that important statutory provision. The income
that we receive for that endeavour is well below, and increasingly so, the level of demand
and cost to the council for the work we do in finding accommodation for those households
that present as homeless to us as a council, and to whom we have a legal duty towards helping
secure suitable accommodation. So lack of supply, as in terms of properties, and what
we're calling a broken market, of increasing the expense of accommodation, is putting pressure
not only on our ability to fund this service, but as a result for all other councils' services
upon which our most vulnerable residents rely. We are not alone, not alone in London, nor
England as a whole. And a broken market of increasing the expense of accommodation is
putting pressure not only on our ability to fund the service, but also providing support
to other services. And Cabinet would have recently seen other councils speak publicly
about the challenges. They also face delivering temporary accommodation. This situation is
particularly stark in London. To give you a flavour of this, £3 million per day spent
by London councils on temporary accommodation. In the last two years, the number of homeless
households supported by the council has increased by 50% to a staggering figure of about 1,500
households this financial year so far. And in February 2024, 1 in 27 households in temporary
accommodation across the whole country, 1 in 27 of those have been housed in our borough
alone, simply unsustainable. The forecasted level of overspend has been compounded by
measures that Tory-enabled governments have failed to act on for over a decade, particularly
around the local housing allowance rates, which have not been updated since 2011, and
which we believe if they were to be, today's spend or rate would be worth about £20 million
to us each financial year. As the council may experience further spending pressures
because of increasing demands such as TA and elsewhere in social care, action must be taken
now, as I've indicated in my introduction, so that current pressures can be contained
as much as possible. Really, nothing is not an option. Now, like in this report of several
such actions being taken in year, the views are ending levels so that we don't hit that
figure that I drew in the introduction. As a council, we believe it's important to manage
our finances prudently and take action where needed, identifying options for new ways of
working to be more efficient, and finding savings and income generation proposals over
the coming years. As I reported in July in our finance report, these will be significant
and the sustainability of local services will face increasing pressures and local governments
financial sustainability will be tested like never before. A new settlement between national
and local government is urgently needed, all the growing risks of the financial sustainability
of councils including Lambeth. The central government must act, merely been listening
since the general election, provide urgent support to address the demand crisis confronting
Lambeth. It's a local government funding system to provide better funding based on meeting
need. Here I would like to commend this performance report, both parts and pay tribute, resilience
of local services, and give thanks to our hard working officers, frontline staff, and
for what continues to be increasingly challenging times. Thank you.
Thank you very much. So I believe that we have the officers in the room, Ryan Devlin,
Katherian Skrabec. I think before you come to the table, unless there was anything you
wanted to add, I was going to call the one person who's in case they wish to speak, unless
you wanted to come to the table first. No. Okay. So we've had one speaker who's indicated
they wish to speak and that's for Scott Ainslie. Would you like to come to the table, Scott?
Hi. Three minutes. So yeah, we'll start the timer when you start speaking, Scott.
Okay. Thank you, Councillor Scott Ainslie. This is an extremely dense report. I've only
got three minutes to speak on this item, so this requires me to be very selective. I think
these reports are unnecessarily complicated and as it stands is an incomplete picture
that gives the impression that Lambeth is trying to control the narrative with good
news stories. If the outcomes framework is to demonstrate progress towards Lambeth 2030,
it needs to show where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. As usual, we need
more openness, accountability, and honesty from this council. These figures are presented
without context, comparison, or targets. The report states that 69% of the indicators are
on target, but the onus is on us as the reader to interrogate each figure and cross reference
them with individual directorate strategy documents to determine what the target actually
are. Some indicators haven't been reported despite data being readily available. The
report states that some of this is due to annual reporting, but this is not the case
for all. For example, the outcome number of sites across Lambeth exceeding the interim
World Health Organization standards for PM20 concentrations and air quality should be available
from the early back end data, but it is excluded here. Why? Concerning figures are presented
completely without context. For example, we see that life expectancy is around 60 years.
The London average, which is not included here, is 80. There's a huge disparity of 20
years, but it's not addressed in the explanation notes or referred to specifically at all.
It is also unclear where the data is coming from. For example, page 16 5.1.4 states that
1.63% of land and highways have unacceptable levels of litter. Now this doesn't reflect
what we hear from residents and it's worrying to see such a low percentage. Appreciating
that this is the first reporting cycle for the outcome framework, can it be considered
that future reports list each outcome separately, showing targets, the historical data points
for each quarter and the London average where available, reference the data source for each
point, provide a reason where data points are targeted available and be published online
in a straightforward and concise format. It's also disappointing to see Lambeth struggling
to address the root of violence. This has been consistently at the highest tolerance
level for nearly a decade. Other concerning figures are the only 51% of residents who
feel confident in climate proofing their home. The 18,000 residents who are about to lose
their winter fuel payments need to be much better supported. Thank you.
Thank you, Scott. I'm going to call the officers so you can sit back now. Thank you very much.
I'll call the officers to the table now and we could take a couple of those points that
I picked up and then I'll open it out to colleagues. Thank you very much. I heard that it's unnecessarily
complicated but he wants more information. I've heard that there's no narrative but he
wants less so I don't agree with that because could you please from an officer point of
view, address whether it's unnecessarily complicated, why there's no context, the specific issue
about the World Health Organization data. I don't know what data indicated. I missed
that but there was one. It might be that Andrew, you can pick that one up. Thank you. On page
16 at 5.1.4, I didn't get the point because 1.63% of London highways are unacceptable
and he said that was unexpectedly low. So, anyway, could you come back on the main points
about it being suggested that it's unnecessarily complicated but wanting more information?
Yeah, absolutely. So, I think he would have said it was quite long because it could have
been quite large. He said we brought the acting framework. There's a cabinet, there's a huge
amount in here. Some of that is data that we present for a context, some of that's about
the performance and the kind of others around the activities that are taking place in a
certain quarter. So there's a lot of information here. We take the use of our portal and our
online presentation data. We can do more to change the way some of that is presented.
One of the learnings that I think we've had through the outcomes framework is that we
traditionally have used a kind of PDF format to have it in. If we can find a way to show
that data more effectively on a quarterly basis, if we can make it more interactive for residents,
I would say that most of these targets do have likely explanations why things aren't
on the target or why it's not in the set. We're certainly very happy to look at any
of the individual points that were raised. I don't know the specifics of what we're going
to be able to do with WHO data, which has to do with air quality. So when I saw you
around the table, can we take that away and write back?
I think Andrew's going to come back on that.
It's not the air quality one, I was going to comment on the life expectancy one.
Oh, right.
So the two figures quoted, the 60% and the 80% are actually different things. The 80%
I think is the life expectancy for London. I suspect that's what it is. The figures we're
quoting in here are healthy life expectancy, which is a different thing. It's not how long
you're going to live, it's how long you're going to live without a long term. We know
that people in London get long term limiting conditions earlier in life, often while they're
still economically active, which has an impact on their work.
So they're not about the same things that we're comparing. Obviously the data is available
to share that easily. It is already online, many places including annual public health
reports. You can make that data available easily. This is annualized data, we don't
get it any more frequently than that. Hopefully that provides an explanation. That might be
such a big difference between the two sets of numbers quoted.
That's very clear, thank you. Was there anything else you wanted to come back on before I turn
to Colleen?
Just that final point, that applies to quite a lot of the indicators where we have to say
if we're having an increase in data, it's often they are annually figures or they must
be outside of our quarterly plan cycles. That's why I'm very happy to look at the individual
what we're doing there, just largely magnetically because of the way that you push data in the
end and how that's aligned with the community.
We know the trajectory is very positive in that in terms of air quality because of the
interventions that we've taken around creating healthier neighbourhoods. I think those were
the points that I wrote down. So colleagues, I'm going to open this up for contributions
now. Councillor Mohamed Hashie and Councillor Danny Dilipour.
Thank you very much. Just to address the last bit that Scott mentioned around the violence.
We're actually down 11.3% in terms of violence of injury in comparison to a London wide reduction
of 3.9%. Knife crime, we're down 3.9% in comparison to a London increase of 9.1%. And hate crime,
we're down 5.1% in comparison to an increase in the hate crime London wide of 6.5%. So
again, I think it's very unfair just to pick and choose a narrative. In the report we said
you find it remains a significant issue because it does, we would love for that to be zero
as opposed to us failing.
Thank you and I think that's a really important point because context which Councillor referred
to is decisive and we operate in a, we don't operate in a vacuum, we operate in a context
of quite complex system and also a national system. So thank you for pointing those figures
out that are there in the report. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Danny Dilipour.
Thank you, Chair. I wanted to talk a bit more about the projected overspend and how that's
really linked to the rising costs in temporary accommodation in the minute because I think
it's really important that we get that and really underline the challenges we're facing
at the minute. Just in the last week, for instance, we've had to house another 170 families
in temporary accommodation. That's not an irregular occurrence. That's kind of the standard
at the minute. Every week, those are the sort of numbers we're looking at, which means at
the moment there's about 4,600 families across land in temporary accommodation and that figure
is only increasing. We all know that the housing crisis in London and across the country has
contributed to this. That's why it's right that the government has focused on getting
new homes built to try and solve that crisis. But at the same time, this problem has been
exacerbated by the cost of living crisis over the last couple of years, which has rapidly
increased the number of people presenting themselves as homeless to us in emergency
circumstances. And at the same time as this increase in demand, costs have been rising
as well. About a year ago, it would have cost us around £40 a night to house families in
temporary accommodation. That has now doubled to about £80 a night. And yet there's been
no further support forthcoming to help bridge that gap we're seeing. So this means that
this year alone, we're looking at an additional £28 million been spent on temporary accommodation.
And this poses a huge financial challenge for us that we're all aware of. And that's
why we're having to make these difficult decisions on other parts of the council and make these
savings. These costs are excessive, and they're only going in one direction currently. Without
any additional funding being made available, until that happens, we're going to have to
keep making these difficult decisions. So I do hope that with the election of a new
government, we're going to start to see movement in this area. For example, at the minute,
the amount of housing benefit that came back on someone living in temporary accommodation
was still set at 2011 rent levels. And we know that does not reflect the reality of
where we're at today. If that was now updated, if at the true cost of accommodation we're
now facing, our overspend would automatically be reduced by about £20 million. Until we
see these sort of changes, until we see a new approach, after 14 years of government
failure to address this issue, we're going to have to keep making the kind of tough choices
we're talking about tonight. But we have to make them because the bottom line is 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.
But the financial challenges are excessive, so it's important to really underline that
tonight. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Councillor. I don't think there was a question in there, but officers,
there was just more observation. OK, any more questions, comments or observations? Councillor
Vankind. Just want to raise that, like Councillor Dilipour, there's huge pressures on children's
social care at the moment, in particular by the failure to address spiralling costs of
placements for young people in care, and how there was no additional resource from government
in the years when that was spiralling out of control, and no attempt by them to try
and get a lot of McAllister review put in place as an outcome of that review that there
should be greater controls over how profiteering works in those children's placements. I think
the LGA calculated that it increased by the number of placements a week requiring over
£10,000 per placement had grown from only 120 to around about 1200, so 10 times the
amount in just three or four years before COVID to after COVID. And I think that highlights,
as Councillor Dilipour was saying about the pressure on temporary accommodation, the pressure
on children's social care budgets that's there. Partly there's increased demand, but significantly
costs are going up for the placements, and that's what drives that underlying pressure
on the financial viability of those services. And we've just taken steps collectively across
some London councils to highlight this. The Secretary of State obviously hoped that the
Children and Wellbeing Bill that's about to be introduced to Parliament will begin to
address it, in similar sort of vein as Councillor Dilipour was suggesting about temporary accommodation.
Hopefully the new government will be able to support local authorities to do the job
in a way that the last government didn't really care at all.
Okay, thank you very much, Councillor. Any more questions or comments on any of the,
either Councillor Mandy Brown or Amos want to come back?
Officers? Okay, all right. Well, thank you for that. I can then move to the recommendation,
which colleagues you'll find on page 10 of your agenda, and there are two recommendations,
to note the latest performance update against the delivery of the borough plan, and to note
the financial position of the council at the end of quarter one. Are these recommendations
agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your time and input. We'll now move on to
the next item, which is the capital programme 2024 to 2028. And this, I think, is going
to be introduced by Councillor David Amos, cabinet member for finance.
Yes, it is. Thank you, Chair. So tonight I'm now presenting Lambeth Council's capital investment
programme for 2024, 2028. I propose that this recommendation has been endorsed by us, cabinet
members. You've just heard me speak about the council's revenue position, some of the
challenges we're facing, and other colleagues have depended on those points when it comes
to bringing vitally important and much needed local services. On the other side of the ledger,
so to speak, I'm now going to speak about the council's capital investment programmes.
In all the years since the last major capital programme was agreed by Lambeth Council, the
council has invested over £273 million on a very wide range of projects, right across
the borough, north and west to east, maintaining our school buildings, improvements to our
parks, open spaces and leisure facilities, innovations in providing more services digitally
and investments in roads, public realm to encourage active travel and adaptations to
a changing climate. However, the world today, as we've already heard again, this evening
looks very different from what it did in 2020. Brexit and Covid related trade disruptions,
the impact of the war in Ukraine, levels of inflation not seen in over a generation. As
I've spoken about before, these have all had substantial consequences for the council's
revenue budget. And in equal measure, also our capacity to fund capital projects. In
the wake of Brexit, and the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, we've seen a rise in information
not seen for two years, reaching remind ourselves over 11% two years ago. And in response, the
Bank of England took significant measures in raising the base rate from a historic low
of just labour 0% to well over 5% three years later, following 14 consecutive increases,
all of which affect us as a council. As I said, it has had consequences not just for
this council, but many other organisations, just in local government, with higher construction
materials, labour costs, a decrease in developer contributions, as growth developments in the
prior have either dried up where schemes have been pulled or put on hold, and a significant
increase in borrowing costs. So Lambeth Council's capital investment programme is made up of
funding from development contributions, our own borrowing or for external grants, sometimes
with match funding, which requires us to put into the pot as well as whoever else is supporting
a particular project. We've certainly seen over the last 14 years, central government
grants rarely fully fund the actual costs of projects. Of course, all of this I've said
before has been compounded by 40 years, Tory enabled austerity, underinvestment in public
services, a parasail of conservative governments with alarming leadership instability, including
a chain of chancellors mismanaging the economy. Reflecting this new reality compared to four
years ago, this report outlines an additional 89 million capital investments over the next
four years. The focus on funding capital projects based on identifying external grant funding,
reflecting the administration's priorities, encouraging growth, and the development contributions
it brings to the borough, and prudent borrowing, which can show a return on investment. So
this capital investment programme will maintain existing assets, enhance our youth office
offer, support vulnerable residents, improve our environment, public realm, developing
generating schemes that support the Lambeth 2030 ambitions, tribute towards the Council's
financial stability, and enable the Council to buy the safest, most efficient and high-quality
services possible for our residents. I encourage cabinet to support the recommendation of the
CEO. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councillor. Does any officer want to add anything before
I go on to the speakers who wish to speak? I'm going to go to the speakers next. We have
the key officers here, which is Duncan Whitfield, Shadash, Amaris. So two visiting members indicated
they wish to speak, and that's Councillor Scott Ainslie and Councillor Matthew Bryant.
Would you like to come to the table, Scott and Matthew? Thank you. Thanks very much.
So Scott, you have three minutes, and we'll start the clock when you start speaking. Sure.
Okay, listen, I'll try and keep my points really succinct so that you do pick up on
all of them, because there was a point missing from the last one, which was about the low
level of people that felt that the land and highways have unacceptable levels of litter.
1.63%, the lived experience, don't reflect that where I am. The other thing was about
the winter fuel payments and the 18,000 residents that do not have climate proofing in their
homes, making them warmer this winter, given that they're going to be losing the winter
fuel payments, 18,000 of them. Okay, so on to the capital investment programme. Last
year, the Home Builders Federation report showed that in Lambeth, Lambeth had the fourth
highest value of unspent section 106 funds of 49.9 million. That's the second highest
in London. Only 43 million in section 106 is being used to fund these capital programmes
compared to 132 million in 2020. Why are we investing less section 106 funds? And who
is making the decisions about which projects get funded? Where is the transparency around
that? Of the 20 million in public realm and 13.8 in transport and clean air spending,
how do we know this will be shared equally throughout the borough? I've been trying for
nearly a year to arrange a meeting with senior officers to understand how decisions about
the allocation and distribution of developer contributions are made, but it continually
gets kicked into the long grass. This should not be a difficult question to answer. Residents
deserve to know that the money from development has been invested fairly in their communities.
A member inquiry I raised earlier this year showed that St Leonard's Ward was second last
on the section 106 funding list, with only £18,000 allocated to projects. Meanwhile,
17 out of the 25 wards have over £100,000 of individual projects allocated. This report
doesn't give any detail on where or what projects will receive the £20 million in public realm
or the £13.8 million in transport and clean air funding. How do we know this? This will
be shared around the borough equally, reflecting the need. Just trying to find out the strategy
and the use of developer contributions and capital projects is again unnecessarily complicated.
So I would like to have more transparency, openness and accountability, but greater accountability
around the allocation of developer funds. Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Matthew Bryant, you've got three minutes. We'll start
at the top when you start. Thank you, Chair. Obviously, you know the constraints that the
Council is operating under in this programme, particularly the large increase in interest
rates since the previous capital programme was prepared. Obviously, that has a major
impact on this one. Also, it's difficult really looking at this because this programme only
provides half the picture because it obviously doesn't include any capital that's funded
as part of the Housing and Revenue Capital programme. That's obviously a vital part of
the Council's activity, funding vital schemes to modernise and decarbonise the Council's
housing stock. So it's slightly difficult here to really looking at half of the picture.
I've got sort of three questions. We're a bit unclear from the report, but these are
two questions for cabinet members. On the actual presentation data, I'm assuming that
the budget figure that we've got in Appendix 1 relates to the period 2024 to 2028. That's
what the whole programme is talking about. But then we're also talking Appendix 2s or
additional schemes that have been identified there. And my question on that is, are these
new schemes in Appendix 2 included in the figures in Appendix 1 or are they in addition
to those? And then thirdly, I don't see in Appendix 1, we have got 21 million share there
for general contingency. That just seems to be quite a large number sum in relation to
the total programme. And is there a reason for that? And then I have two questions for
cabinet members, which was first of all, it's good to see this programme includes almost
8 million pounds for the new home programme. But can you confirm how many new homes will
be built under this programme in the next four years? My second question is to Councillor
Chalmers, not here I notice, but somebody else may be able to answer it. Obviously,
we noted that with much fanfare, the Council published its new corporate carbon reduction
plan two weeks ago, 27 September. Could Councillor Chaudry or somebody else confirm how this
is reflected in the spending plans that are set out in Appendix 1? Thank you. Thanks,
Councillor. I should say so for the record, actually, Councillor Chaudry gave her apologies
some weeks ago, and so has formally given the apologies for this meeting. So around,
I don't know who's going to take this, whether it's Duncan or Rob, but around our policy
that we do have about a distribution of section 106 and still, and we certainly have that
policy. And if I remember from the table of those walls that had developments, Streatham
disproportionately benefit, actually, from the allocation of funds, which I'm really
pleased to report for Streatham residents. But I'll come to you on that. And then there
was some questions around the data and the appendices from Councillor Matthew Bryant.
But what I should do, sorry, it's my bad, I should bring up Amaris and is it just Amaris
to the table? I can't see. So Councillors, thank you very much for your contribution.
If you don't mind stepping down so the officer can come up. I think that's all four of them,
wasn't it? Thank you. I'm going to go to the officers first. So who wants to answer about
section 106 and still? Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just in terms of service, you can't be Haitian
and speak to the chair, sorry. Yeah. So in terms of the clarification that Councillor
Anthony was asking for Chair on spending of section 106. So we do publish annually the
infrastructure funding statement. And that sets out very clearly how we are brewing from
developer contributions is being spent across the borough. You're correct in that still
is is is spent according to need. And obviously we have our priorities set out for the borough
plan and elsewhere, which determines where we spend money and committed towards infrastructure.
And your Roman Chair and colleagues as well, there was a paper brought to Cabinet, I think
about a couple of years ago, where Cabinet agreed that SIL could be spent power wide
dependent on where that need was forming. So it doesn't automatically follow that SIL
will follow where development takes place. However, I think there's an important point
here about section 106. And you'll know this, Chair, from what the development we've seen
in the north of the borough, with section 106, it is there to mitigate the local impacts
of development. So there is going to be more section 106 that's spent where that development
is forming, which is obviously why we're seeing more section 106 spent in areas like Foxhall
and Waterloo. But you're correct that SIL is spread more widely in terms of the spending
of that. But in terms of where this is set out, it is set out in the annual infrastructure
stage. Thank you very much. I think that actually addresses that. And then there was the presentation
of data, and the figure in Appendix 1 confirmation that was 24 to 28. And if you could do it
through the Chair. And Appendix 2, there was a question around that, was that a new figure?
And the general contingency in Appendix 1. So I'm going to refer the data in the report
to Jadash, Pete and Amres. In terms of the contingency, I would just like to add, in
financial times, like the ones we're facing at the moment for a council of our scale and
complexity, we have so much uncertainty, there is almost an essential nature to be carrying
contingency through your capital budget. You don't know what is going to happen in the
next six weeks, let alone the next six months or a year about where you will need capital.
So it would be unwise not to hold back some quite significant sums for things like emergency
work, regeneration projects, acquisition opportunities, and so on and so forth. So for a council of
this size, the level of contingency that we're holding is not in any ways out of sync with
what we would normally expect. I would also add to Rob's commentary around still in Section
106, again for a council of our size, having significant balances held back, waiting for
the right project to allocate those sums against is entirely normal and appropriate. And I'm
sorry we're in the top six, I'm not sure where we were in the ranking, but that doesn't appear
to be unusual to me at all in a council of the scales of members.
Thank you, that's very helpful.
I think that covers the easy questions. Over to Jadash, Pete and the rest of the more difficult
data questions, which I think would be straightforward as well.
As far as the data collection, I understand it's whether Appendix 2 is an additional period.
It is additional.
Okay, thank you, that's straightforward.
Then I think there was question marks from Councillor Bryant about the figure in Appendix
1, confirmation it was the budget figure for 24/28.
I assume they're referring to the 21 million.
I don't know, I didn't have it open in front of me, he didn't give me a page reference.
If it's referring to the 21 million, it's exactly what Dunks responded to, it's basically
contingency for inflation and unforeseen costs that might happen. As we know, capital with
inflation and unforeseen costs could delay the schemes, the project, so we could withhold
a large amount. In the grand scheme of things, you could argue it's not so significant, but
there's 21 million reported there as contingency in case we need to utilise, in case we need
to allocate the certain schemes of the projects.
Thank you very much.
There was, I don't know who wishes to take this, but a question about how many new homes.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you.
No, it's an important point raised by Councillor Bryant because it is important that we've
got this expenditure secured in the capital programme because it highlights our ambition
as an authority to tackle the housing crisis and get new homes built as quickly as possible
and as many built as possible with the resources available to us.
So the current target that we have is to have a minimum of 500 social and affordable housing
units delivered by 2030. However, I really want to stress that is the floor of ambition,
not the ceiling, and the idea is that we'll review that on a regular basis. Whenever we
can increase that target based on improved economic circumstances, we will do so, but
as I've said, that minimum target is 500. Thank you.
Thanks very much. Okay, do you want to come back, Duncan?
Can I just reinforce Danny's point in response to that question as well? I mean, within the
HRA, which works through HM self-financing regulations, we have about something in the
region of 32 million pounds a year, which is earmarked major works. It's called depreciation
and that is capital investment from the HRA to maintain our stock. That's a figure that
was established around about 2014 when self-financing was introduced. It does not include any provision
for any of the new burdens that come through regulation, fire safety, any kind of new ombudsman
related activity that other councils are required to deliver. So I would make the point there
that there's significant capital investment going into our housing stock, but not at the
level that our stock requires to continue to make it decent over time.
Okay, thank you very much. I'm going to open it out then. Yeah, Councillor Tim Windle.
Can I just come back on the contingency? Can I just clarify that that's a normal good practice
to have that contingency around things like optimism bias, inflation adjustment and all
that kind of things being not unusual in having a contingency like that?
The easy answer is yes and I think every scheme should have a contingency and this is the
contingency that we put forward in the capital programme.
It's Councillor Ben Kind.
I wanted to draw attention to the extra money going in to support schools and decarbonisation.
We've already seen some 31 schools in Lambeth benefit things like heat pumps and LED lighting
and so on in order to improve the situation that they face with another five having been
successfully for that. I think it's something we should be proud of as a borough given the
challenges that schools face, but also the sense that Lambeth Council obviously is committed
to addressing the climate crisis for those buildings under our control and this is helping
get there. I think it's also worthwhile pointing out the millions of pounds, two and a half
million pounds I think it is, Councillor Amos, for tree planting that's in there.
Ten years ago I remember the previous leader of the council reporting how in the 12 years
up to 2014 Lambeth Council had planted just 2,000 trees. She'd highlighted we planted
nearly that just in the last winter season alone this time around, so some great investment
there in terms of being able to support our 2030 goals. But the question that I wanted
to ask was similar to Councillor Windu's about the contingency. Given so many of the projects
in here relate to either buildings or physical improvements to buildings and so on, what
kind of increases there's been in the cost of materials in the construction sector and
sorts of adjacent businesses in recent years because my understanding was that the war
in Ukraine, post-COVID period, had impacted that quite significantly and whether it's
not just prudent as Councillor Windu was suggesting, but quite a bit more serious than that given
the pressure that will be there just from the cost of materials alone and therefore
whether or not you know we wouldn't want to see that resource earmarked because it would
obviously put the potential for the schemes that have been put in here, put them at risk
not just from increased costs but the deliverability of some of those schemes perhaps.
Yeah so one of you it's Shadash or Duncan.
I don't have it in hand to be able to quote those rates now but it's definitely something
we can take and then report back.
Yeah and about the principle of it though I think what you're saying about not earmuffed.
In the context of schools, well I mean I was across the board I think it's given increased
costs maybe one thing but then does the additional does that then not just put the projects being
identified at even greater risk, it's not just whether or not the cost is there but
if you can't even afford to do the bits of doing it because the materials are inflation.
I think the commentary is through the previous Government over a number of administrations
we have seen firstly less earmarked capital investment in services that we provide, schools
probably being the best example of that and we have inadvertently taken on inheritance
of trying to find provision for that.
Which obviously has a revenue cost through a period of austerity when we have to pay
debt financing for borrowing that's not really needed to take out.
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.
Thank you any other questions or comments?
It's a thought, again thank you nation for the work and the programs we have in the library
which is absolutely fantastic but also the progress we're making in improving our services
and additional capital work being done to generate incomes within our legal services
is absolutely crucial what Ben was talking about is not only about inflation we're also
within our leisure equipments we know the Brexit effect on that where it takes months
to get those equipments and then before it increases the cost so that's the thing that
we know the capital programs within those areas are responsible and I appreciate it.
Thank you very much Councillor.
Any other comments that anyone wants to make?
Any closing comments anyone wants to make Councillor Eccleston?
I can't see any of the hands up so go for it.
There are my opening remarks although I have said it at other occasions the program we've
got in front of us tonight is the product of a huge amount of work right across the
council when I say not just by the finance department it's going to be fine if it's just
the finance department but there's probably causation here where we're spending less than
we'd like to spend that has required more work to make sure that what we've decided
to spend money on including having money put aside to deal with the uncertainty for the
next six weeks let alone six months or years so I just really wanted to gather that up
this evening chair that's absolutely the finance department who worked a really detailed way
obviously with corporate directors with us as cabinet members and with quite a few layers
into the organisation to make sure that the estimates that have been here are likely to
be accurate as will be the case that the benefits we get from it that the priorities that we
the difficult decisions that have been taken from before the summer through the summer
and after the summer do reflect our administration's priorities our statutory requirements are
not static and areas where we know that we can invest to generate income pay for that
capital but also to contribute to the provision of vital services so I just really wanted
to flag that up I know that's everyone around this table knows that but that on the record
to thank everyone who's been involved in that process thank you that's a really really important
point and we always never forget to say it so thank you for staying on our behalf and
thank you to all the officers for your incredible hard work in really difficult and challenging
times so yeah we're very grateful because we that work enables us to have the information
and equips us to target our resources and to the ambitions that we've set out very boldly
in our borough plan so thank you very much so I'm going to come to the recommendations
and colleagues you'll find them on page 100 your agenda and it's to note the capital programme
position and indicative funding and to approve the capital investment schemes as summarised
therein no oh sorry yes you're quite right that's what we're recommending to put to council
sorry so what we're recommending is that we send those recommendations to council so the
recommendations that are going to go to council to improve the capital programme to improve
the capital investment schemes and to delegate amendments thereafter so we're now making
the decision to put that to council thank you very much so is that is that all agreed
colleagues really brilliant thank you and that concludes this evening's business the
next cabinet meeting is scheduled to take place on Monday November good night everyone