Transcript

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the cabinet meeting of Wednesday 16 October. Please be advised this meeting will be recorded and posted on the Council's YouTube channel. Can all those speaking ensure you switch on your microphone before addressing the meeting and remember to switch it off when you have finished speaking? When voting can members please raise their hand? Now as you can see I'm speaking with an almost elevated voice. It's because the sound and we've had some technical difficulties. So can I ask everyone to try and speak up in the chamber as much as possible so that everyone is able to hear. Item one, apologies for absence. Councillor Kaira. Thank you Chair, apologies for leaving early. Item two, urgent business. There is no urgent business. Item three, does any member have any personal or financial interest to declare on any item on the agenda? See none. Item four, is cabinet happy to agree the minutes of the last meeting? Item five, asset review initial outcomes. To approve the freehold or long lease hold, disposal of the properties listed in section 4.9 of the report and detailed in appendix one of the report. We'll now open for a briefing from the cabinet member and the officers. Councillor Ramon. Thank you Chair. Just before I start, I should have mentioned earlier, I will occasionally stand up. Can you hear me? Just to mention that I will be occasionally standing up and walking around just because I've got a really bad back so just not to put anyone off and just explain. I'll have to do that occasionally. Just to come back to the item itself. I feel like I'm really loud already. Come back to the asset review. Just to bring to everyone's attention that the asset review has been done in consideration of, so this is our initial outcomes of the asset review and the assets that have been considered for disposal as a part of a wider review that will be ongoing to ensure that we switch our assets and get the best possible returns for disposal of these assets and bearing in mind the kind of the financial and the economical situations that we're in currently, it's very important that we manage our assets to ensure those that... Sorry, I don't know why. I'm having a bit of a brain freeze. The back is kind of tormenting me a bit today but just going back to the asset review, it's very important that to bear in mind our officers and our teams have worked really hard to make sure a thorough list of assets which have been considered for disposal and these have been done through an outside consultant to ensure that we have thoroughly considered the sites and especially the assets before putting them off for disposal and the aim is to kind of create savings but also create future revenues for our midterm financial review and I'll pass it over to the officer to kind of take it on from there. Thank you. Thank you and just a reminder to everyone in the meeting, the mics aren't working as well so for those at the back of the room, that's why I'm asking everyone to speak louder. Thank you. I'll now hand over to officers. Carol, can you hear me? I'm just checking whether you can hear me. Do you want a hearing loop? Do you want a hearing loop? Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Chair and can everybody hear me? Okay and thank you, Councillor Rahman. So this report is the first of what will be several reports that bring forward recommendations which reflect how the council is adapting and changing the way it delivers services as well as optimises the performance of our property assets that we own or make recommendations that dispose of those assets for alternative uses. Our recommendations are in line with the council's agreed property strategy that was adopted in 2019 and is currently being updated and will be considered by cabinet separately. The council has a significant portfolio of property assets, some of which generate an income and some that cost the council money or require extensive investment in order to improve their condition. Holding onto assets that cost the council money or are not performing well or not serving a service use is not something that the council can afford to do. It's essential that the council considers how it can right size the property portfolio to ensure that poorly performing assets are identified and appropriate recommendations are made. Officers have undertaken an initial review of all of the council's assets, applying some key principles. So the first key principle is to maximise revenue from our potential assets and by this I mean charging the market rent for a property we let. Assets identified for disposal will need to be considered to be sold for best consideration reasonably obtainable. Secondly, identifying assets that don't have an adverse impact on service delivery. So by this I mean that officers have considered assets whether they can be repurposed for other uses where it's cost effective to do so before we bring forward recommendations for cabinet to agree a disposal. So an example of this is sites that are repurposed such as former premises houses, premise mismanagers houses that are now being used for temporary accommodation and saving the council money. I can also assure everybody that we have consulted our colleagues in transport in relation to car parks because of which there are three on the list. To look at their usage and we've looked at them at different times on different days of the week and we're continuing to do so. We've also looked at the impact in terms of the displacement potentially whilst they're a small in number in terms of the car park spaces, what impact that might have in the overall area and we're also considering the recommendations in light of the council's transport strategy and the carbon neutral plan. The third principle that we've considered is that making sure that assets that we bring forward don't restrict our future regeneration ambitions. An example of this would be land that the council has acquired in Charlton riverside which we're not at this point recommending for disposal because of our future region ambitions and finally the fourth principle is making sure that what we bring forward is realistic and deliverable because disposals take time but we know that the finances of the council we need to be able to plan accordingly in terms of understanding what our potential revenue impact will be as well as capital receipt will be and this will help protect services and minimize cuts or changes to services arising from the council's financial pressures. In subject to the agreement today in terms of next steps the timing of each disposal to the when we bring a disposal to the market will be considered in consultation with the leader and the cabinet member. The existing use so in the exact case of a car park for example where the site is being used even if it's limited will remain as the current use until such time as the disposal is completed. I know that Carol from the Charlton society is here today and you're going to make some comments and questions about the Charlton village car park which we'll respond to once you've had the opportunity to speak and I'm happy to take any questions from members if they'd like. Thank you very much for your presentation I will now open for questions from the cabinet. Councillor Cairo please cover indicate. Councillor locale. Thank you chair thank you so much for the reports very detailed and thank you so much for your presentation both views my question would be around you mentioned that you have been working closely with your transport colleagues and can you give a little bit more context around that regarding what kind of work has gone on just to make sure that these items are can can go to the disposal list or something that we can work with. Yeah so so what we do is we when we identify an asset and whether it's performing we look at the metrics of that asset in terms of the financial performance what the costs are such as utilities business rates all of the things that the council might incur what the condition of that asset is and then what potential or current income is it deriving so and then we talk to all of our colleagues to understand what demands are there from property in relation to service need so for example we talk to children's services in your portfolio to understand what school or education need that there might be before we bring something forward for consideration in relation to the car parks as I mentioned the usage has been monitored on different days of the week different times of the day and that will continue to be done but it shows that there is low usage and the cost versus income is why the recommendation has been brought forward because they are have very low usage and therefore very low income and in Charlton villages case for example they've had trouble the colleagues in transport have had trouble enforcing there and the signs have been sprayed out for example and so as a result the councils have to spend money in terms of installing cameras to capture who's using the car park and again it shows despite the vandalism of the signs it's showing that there is very low usage so it's a high cost to have a camera for a very low usage and that there is there is good connectivity in the area in terms of public transport as well as the small number of car parking spaces that if it was fully utilized wouldn't overburden the neighbouring area so that's how we go about it but we're very much working with our colleagues across the council. Councillor locale thank you paper for for that because I just wanted to reiterate I just wanted to reiterate the fact that our transport strategy clearly states that we want to reduce the number of car miles in the borough it's also alludes to the fact that transport is a high emitter of carbon in the borough so in order for us to meet our carbon neutral plan these kind of considerations have taken place and keeping a car park for its own sake is just not tenable in the financial situation that this council finds ourselves I mean I feel it's really important that we use our assets to the best we can in order to try and plug some of these gaps and quite frankly the amount of vandalism that has taken place since we started to try and put some charging in that car park is costing us more than we get back so you know I'm certainly I've looked at all the evidence and I'm really satisfied that it has undergone the appropriate checks. Thank you and I'll come back for comments I have a question myself on obviously the decision put before us today means that we're looking at using our assets better but of some of the assets that we're looking at disposing of let's say for instance from a development perspective if someone was to purchase them at a certain cost is there any opportunity through development where there's an uplift of cost that the council would benefit from that despite the sale? Thanks for the question I think the issue with that is as soon as you fetter the sale of the property by putting in something like a clawback or overage clause which you're suggesting you're going to reduce the likely number of bidders and also the amount of money they're willing to pay so there's a balancing act to be had here I think if the council feels like there is a significant added value to be had out of the property then yes maybe but I think we need to be really careful that we don't fetter disposal because then we cut across best consideration. And just on that last point rather than putting overage at the is does is there a point overage would be considered towards the end post sale or if something else happens? Well as I say only if you did something in the disposal agreement in the first place so if you're effectively conditioning a land disposal then and you're starting to narrow down the amount of money and the interests that you would get so yeah you'd have to consider that at the beginning in the disposal point. Thank you. Right we will now invite Carol who also has a we'll now invite Carol Keener from the Charlton Society to speak for two minutes as we have received a request please could you receive turn on your microphone and then we'll go from there. Right can you hear me now yeah oh that's good thank you thank you for allowing me to speak and first of all I just wanted to say that I understand the problems that the council are facing and hopefully what I'm going to say might suggest some ways that we can help with this problem rather rather than cause an additional problem however saying that the the report you've received states that the two car parks are not very well used and as a result don't generate very much revenue however that isn't quite the case there are two car parks one to the left of Torrance Close which is behind some residential property that certainly is not well used but the one that is adjacent to the assembly rooms is used fully and in particular is used by users of the assembly rooms looking looking after the needs of people with learning difficulties who actually require special transport to get to and from the venue. At the weekend the rooms are fully utilized by a variety of organizations and not only are the car parts used despite them having been designed to make them very difficult to access and that the adjacent roads are full as well. We believe that in fact we're not sure in fact whether the land is the council's at the moment because it is part of the overall property of the Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust and as such is under the auspices of themselves and is part of a collection of grade listed buildings. The rooms themselves are grade two listed, Charlton House is grade one listed, St Luke's Church is grade two listed and the village as a whole is a conservation area. It also doesn't recognize that the village as a whole has been listed as at risk by Heritage England since 2017 and was updated in 2020. The village is beset by traffic particularly at commuting times and as it is one of the few direct routes to the A2 and access into central London and one of the big problems for the village which the Charlton Society has been trying to combat for a number of years is that shops in the village don't use the service roads for their deliveries they park in the high street and we have been trying to persuade them to use service roads leaving the high street as a completely free thoroughfare. If you remove this the assembly rooms are part and parcel of the Heritage Trust's financial plans for making the Charlton House viable. Round up because of your meeting your time so if you just finish on that last sentence and then we go from there. Okay just like I was on my last point anyway but which is that what needs to be done is seen see the village Charlton House the assembly rooms the car park as a whole personally I think that with Charlton Village is recognized as an urban village and is a good a tourist draw as Greenwich Town and we should be looking at that. Thank you very much. Thank you for your contributions. I will now open for comments and obviously once we everyone's made their comments and we can round up and let our directors also come in for comments. Any comments at all? Councillor Cousins, Councillor Carra and Councillor Laudeville. Thank you chair I think it's important to thank Carol for coming in we don't often get visitors to cabinet so it was refreshing and thank you for your presentation. I do believe that in the report there is a caveat about potential limitations although a site has been identified I do think that it's so if those I mean officers will speak for themselves but perhaps they will have to take into account what you're saying about listed buildings status and the whole historic Charlton look but one of the things I just wanted to say is that for me I think it is important that we look at the better use that we can get out of certain assets my only concern would be that as necessary we are liaising with local people everything won't be done on mass but when you're looking at a certain thing that the local counts the ward councillors and the local groups that it will impact are definitely consulted so although it's a plan at this stage we're just agreeing to that we don't necessarily know how each and every single item will finally pan out lovely thank you. Thank you Councillor Cousins. Councillor Cairo. Thank you chair I welcome this report because I understand how difficult we are financially as a local council and the difficulties that we have to go through to find savings I know some of the stuff in there might not be you know everybody's cup of tea but we are facing challenges in children's services you know to find care places and the costs for our young people I know can for a lot of us finding difficulties in their services and that's why we have to make tough decisions to protect frontline services and this is some of the stuff that we're going to do and there's probably more coming to our next budget rounds that we have to do there is not an easy decision but I welcome this report and I welcome the decision chair. Thank you very much Councillor L'Oreal. Thank you thank you very much and um following Councillor Cairo's in the same vein I wanted to speak to the item as well specifically because I had a few residents that had written to me in regards to this decision and I guess I wanted to provide my response um ultimately it's not the position that we want to be in but it's the reality I think of the situation that we're in we're seeing councils failing and filing for bankruptcy all over the UK and that is not the position that we want to be in at the last budget we're making cuts in the region of 33 million pounds and we've got more that will be coming so in light of the economic realities that we've inherited these are the decisions that we have to make um and I think for exactly as Councillor Cairo has said it's about safeguarding and protecting vital services and for me these lettings and sales will all help bring in the investment that we need to either plug that budget gap and prevent us from having to make further cuts in services that um that residents hold dear and so I see this as as you know the sad reality that we're in but it is the right decision to be making thank you thank you very much Councillor a lot of our um just before make my comments wanted to ask officers if they wanted to come in to address some of the points uh carol made at all yeah thanks um yeah firstly thank you very much for addressing the the uh cabinet um carol and I know you've taken a long interest in charlton and charlton riverside so uh your local knowledge is really appreciated I think the important thing for cabinet to remember is this is not a change of use planning application this is about the disposal of two land assets now the purchaser or would-be purchaser might choose to use it for car parks if it's viable or they might choose to redevelop and then it would be into the planning system where the points you raise about the listed buildings and the adjacency would be material considerations as part of that planning determination and I think to clarify the car parks are in the demise of the council and they're not in the demise of the royal Greenwich heritage trust which the red line demise relates to the building only not the car park and I thank you for raising the issue about transport transport and particularly service deliveries in the village I've witnessed that myself um and um thanks to council account her colleagues um they're picking that up in terms of enforcement because uh torrents close um and fletchling road will remain open as service roads and should be used as service roads so the council will try and manage that situation um through traffic enforcement thank you thank you very much um it's fair to say that um on balance the decision before us seems a sensible one in light of uh our current financial position but actually one thing we need to consider is how we effectively manage our estate and I believe officers have spoken today about the update to the asset management strategy which will inform decisions um that come forward one thing that I guess I want to emphasize is the need for us to really develop a case around meanwhile use and how we use assets uh in in the meantime to make sure that we can support our our communities um in the wider point I presume that strategy will be able to inform future decisions look we don't want to be in a position of selling uh selling selling the silver almost or can I say like that but I think on balance the decision between today is about we're putting 23 sites recommended to be let 11 to be sold so there's a real balance there of saying actually where we see value in letting our assets we will do that where we see value in selling certain assets we will do that and where we see value in holding onto assets and using them to deliver for housing children's services we will do that so I'm grateful for the work that your department has done coordinating with all council departments to make sure there's an effective use of our asset management strategy and as well as our assets do members have any other further questions before I close this area um are members happy to agree to the decisions as outlined in section 1.1 to 1.5 of the report thank you very much we'll now move on to item six which is the annual housing compliance reports first of all we note the apologies of the cabinet member as I know she's unwell so this is to note the performance with regard to the big six housing safety compliance areas to note the update regarding damper mold to note the update regarding damper mold within the council odd homes and to note the summary of activity to ensure compliance with the requirements of the social housing ombudsman and the regulator of the social of social housing um we'll now move on to a briefing from officers but the cabinet member has circulated some words to share cabinet will be aware that right that we rightly reported ourselves to the social housing regular in may 2022 for breaches of some safety compliance requirements we have been working closely with the regulator ever since I am pleased that the report shows very significant improvements in our performance around safety messages matters c4.5 for the detail officers will shortly explain our work in a bit more detail and I'd like to thank these officers and their teams for the extraordinary work in this area this work helps us deliver our mission that people in Greenwich have access to a safe and secure home the report before you now is part of our governance arrangements and assurance which includes an annual report to cabinets although not formally part of what we report to the regulator on we have added our response to damper mold to this work and the reports we have put in additional capacity and now have a team of seven responding to reports of damper mold helping us speed up our initial response to mold and follow-up work on root causes of damp finally we have agreed into this report our work on complying with new stricture building safety regulations especially for our 67 high-rise blocks I'll now hand over to officers to open with their presentation thank you chair and I'll speak up hopefully everyone can hear me as you said through the words of the cabinet member this is the pinnacle of the assurance regime that you as a cabinet set up now nearly four years ago and that regime requires an annual housing safety and compliance report to be considered by cabinet and the regime as a whole is giving assurance to yourselves to the full council to residents and also to other third parties such as the regulator for social housing that are the buildings that we look after the homes that we look after for residents are managed in a safe way and we are in compliance or moving towards full compliance with the consumer standards that are set out in the report so quite an important moment for you to consider as a cabinet I'm going to draw attention just to four things just to focus cabinets in firstly as your introduction from the cabinet member sets out chair we are working through the regulatory notice that was issued to us just over two years ago and we have made significant progress around the concerns raised in that regulatory notice we have monthly meetings with the regulator of social housing and they benchmark and check in on that progress on that monthly basis and as the report sets out we have made considerable progress to discharge all those concerns we haven't finished yet and in particular we're working through our final electrical safety certification and also our fire risk assessment actions and the report goes into that detail and happy to answer questions but that's that's significant and progress being made the new consumer standards obviously go beyond building safety and there are four particular areas which are referenced in section 4.30 of the report where we know that we need to make more progress and we have action plans and work streams around those four areas our stock condition data of the vulnerability of our residents and data we have around the vulnerability of our residents the work we do around anti-social behavior and and formulate it formalizing the significant work that already happens around tenant engagement and and resident involvement so that will be work that you will all be hearing about over the next over the next six months thirdly the report just draws to attention the new regime of the building safety regulator which is sits alongside but different to to the to the consumer standards and the significant work that we're doing to ensure compliance with the building safety act and and particularly focusing on our high-rise buildings but not exclusively and I'm pleased to be able to say that we are so far meeting all the deadlines that the new victory regime requires of us and that is about to step up as we start to submit building safety cases for for our highest risk buildings and then lastly the report references and makes a makes a link to our 10 satisfaction measures the TSMs that are the statutory measures that are reported on an annual basis and those will be because they're submitted by every landlord they will obviously be fully benchmarkable when those benchmarks are published we expect in in the autumn and so quite imminently so I hope that gives quite a rounded picture and very happy to take questions through myself or my colleague thank you very much for your presentation we'll now move to questions and comments uh councillor cousins uh thank you chair um first of all I think I need to say a great congrats a big congratulations a great congratulations a big congratulations on this piece of work I think it was um it's I suppose it goes to the culture of the organization a bit that we were brave enough to do the self-referral and that was how your tenure as as leader started chair and I think that I can remember it was a bit of a we we you know we you know we felt a little bit inside but it had to be done and I I think it's another culture about this particular cabinet we are bold when we need to and brave enough to take these important decisions and follow through so it's great to see the outcome and the progress made what I did want to ask though just the well not just me but I think it as it's in the tabulation on page number four of the item six page number four as the as it said at the bottom of that page you've got the tabulation there for the actions and progress made I'm just noticing for the electrical one just if you can say a little bit more about the dip in the second year in march 2023 with the electrical communal electrical works where the certification went down from thirty one point eight percent to seventeen point seventeen point four percent I'm assuming it's possibly certificates expiring but it just rather than guessing it's just for you to please explain that thank you just before I bring officers in it's on the section on current performance are there any other questions because I'm going to take it around council a lot of our thank you very much and in a similar vein a huge recognition I think to the officers on their work on this I think in this current climate it's really reassuring I think to see that this kind of that a the safe self-referral but also the work that's been done to make sure our residents are safe and the question would be just I'd really I very much welcome the damper mold team it's something that's really important to our residents and I think is comes up consistently and if you could just speak a little bit about how that team's helped with those wait times because I think that and that improvement around performance because I think that's something that was really really key and just lastly a question for me before I bring in council locale on on this again I almost remember my first conversation with the chief exec on having to self-refer ourselves to the regulator on day one of my leadership so I'm happy to be able to see the update in terms of where we are now because it's a huge improvement on the big six well done to you and your team I guess the question is how are we ensuring that we continuously communicate with residents on where we are on this and secondly in the context of where we are and where we need to get to even further do we envision using part of our capital budgets to be able to do that is there any additional resources the council will need to accelerate some of the works to make sure that we're compliant as can be with the regulator then we'll go back for council the class question I'll just go to officers for a response thank you very much chair so just to answer those questions in order I think the were the communal blocks reduced for two reasons one when we first report ourselves to regulators social housing we knew we had issues and we did a thorough audit of what we actually had and what we actually knew so where before we might have thought it was 31 when you go through each one of those certificates checked it's correct checked it's signed correctly and ensured you have a full and compliance certificate we would have found actually for some of those certificates we didn't have so it was a root and branch review and not just on communal box but on domestic blocks as well we had people literally going through every single eicr that we have to make sure it was a correct and thorough and thoroughly filled out eicr to make sure we had the right number and that's how we end up with 7000 on domestic so and also some of them would have gone out of time within that period as well so that that would be in the drop but it was that that real thoroughness that we went through to make sure when we say something it's actually true and just give members assurance that now actually every single one of our blocks has had any icr there's outstanding actions that need to be done so we can have a compliant eicr but every one of our blocks where required has had an electrician go in do a test understand what works need to be done and we're working through those works at the moment so that's i think really important to say we're not 100 yet but we know what needs to be done we know what the issues are and we're working through that process so i think that's positive damper mold i think is a is quite a success story for for the authority and we've been um there's a regular members repairs group that counts as lottery chairs every few months where we go and explain what we're doing in the repair service and we've been updating that group regularly to see what we've been doing in damper mold there's been a myriad of activities we've done such as looking at the end-to-end process speaking of residents about what they want redesigning the service implementing in the contact center a new triage system so we can identify vulnerable residents right at the start and there has been more resource and a new team in damper mold what we've seen there is and it's variable depending on the time of year depending on how many um you know damper mold crews has had that month but we've seen a reduction from say people waiting months for somebody to come around and address the damper mold to people waiting days or weeks at most for somebody to do that and especially where we have vulnerable residents i think the last reporting i saw we were getting around there within around three days three working days to residents to see what the problem is clear the damper mold if needed and look at the underlying issues within five days so we can raise uh raise repairs and tackle the issue so the council with this investment and and it's not been cheap it's had a real investment in this area and it's really seen an improvement for residents in in those turnaround times so i think that's a real a real positive um regarding uh communications uh chair we are um when we first reported regulator of social housing uh we did a big communications piece with all residents let us know if you have any issues let us know there's any priorities let us know if there's anything you're worried about and actually we didn't get that much engagement back from residents on that which was was interesting we thought we'd open it open a floodgate and and we'd have lots of complaints lots of inquiries but actually was very very little we've continued to keep those um communication channels open for residents we've continued to to advertise and things like um talk housing every every um quarter and put updates in about um uh where we are with compliance and probably key to note as well that on building safety cases we'll be going out on our high-rise buildings we'll be going out to residents very soon to talk to them about what you want to know about your building how do you want us to communicate what's the most useful way that we can communicate with you so we can get these really key messages across so you know if there is unfortunately a fire in your block you know exactly what to do you know what's keeping you safe and you know how to how to behave in those situations and we can tell you how we're keeping you safe in those situations so a lot more communications work uh to do and to come and i forgot oh sorry on the financial part i i think it's probably um uh really key to say that um we have spent considerable amounts of money in correcting um the uh the issues that we had and i think there's areas such as fire safety where it it's it's not been a lack of funding it's not been like a capital investment uh that has caused us not to be as as quick as we want closing some of those actions the industry as a whole is in a very difficult place and it's not just about throwing money at the problem um we are one of many many councils many many housing associations that require these resources for fire safety for electrical safety etc and we are uh sometimes in a bidding war with other other organizations to try and try and get these resources in so at the moment it's live conversations and we do have considerable capital fund and revenue fund um been spent on um on compliance issues but it's not necessarily somewhere where we need more money it's a difficult marketplace that we're that we're working in which is um the situation thank you chancellor locale thank you um i think that last point is something i wanted to just um tweak out a little bit more because i just wanted to understand whether you're having to divert staff from the day-to-day um repairs and so on to do some of this compliance work because this is very important i mean i've absolutely no doubt and given the um speed i'd say at which you've worked um and the great results that we're seeing um it must have taken a lot of um resource um for that so i i just wondered if um whilst we're really doing well here are we doing it at the expense of our day-to-day um work the other question i wanted to ask is around the stock condition survey um when was the last one that was done how have we used that information to support some of the work that you're doing now um and are we at the point where we need to be doing another one particularly as the regulations are changing um thank you thank you very much and just my final question in addition to that obviously we have a notice a live notice at the moment where do we envision conversations are with the regulator about finally being a position whereby uh we're having the conversation about having dealt with the actions the notice is withdrawn and when do we envision getting to a place where we can be in that position and lastly in light of current legislation and changes councilor locale touched on this uh briefly i understand this report will also be going to scrutiny to be scrutinized it might be worth thinking about um how we brief members about the assurance framework and the things that they need to be looking out for thank you um thank you both so day-to-day staff generally haven't been um used uh for these works a lot of these works are specialist works uh and therefore for example fire safety works you have to be an accredited organization to be able to do fire safety work so we've contracted most of that work out because it takes a lot of uh it takes a lot to become accredited through fire safety works and whereby we've had our electrical program we had three contractors coming to the borough to help us to do that realistically to get through we've done around 12 000 electrical installation condition reports over 18 months we never could have achieved that with our own staff members however we have used our staff members in certain areas where we've seen for example the the communal blocks where we've been a bit slow on that program we've used our own staff members to do some of the icrs on there so generally none of this has been at the expense of day-to-day repairs work it's generally been services contracts out because you need that that specialism um stock condition surveys last major stock condition survey was 2017 it was done by um savills uh back then uh and we've got that data and we used a lot of that data design the new capital program that um cabinet signed off a few years ago now i think it was um that's not to say that we're not always updating that information our own surveyors have been going out and and day in day out kind of when they capture information that's been fed into the system as well and we're taking a new approach whereby within our capital program as we are validating our capital program so you say that block needs kitchen and bathrooms done as our as survey as our consultants our surveyors going in to validate that work they're also updating stock condition data at the same time so we're basically using a visit for two reasons validating the capital program that needs to be done and whether it needs to be done but also capturing stock condition data as well and there's a big piece of work at the moment we're doing to capture all the stock condition data we've got understand what we know about the energy performance of our stock eps of our stock and also feeding repairs dates to start to give us a holistic view of which are our worst performing properties which are our properties in the in the worst repair and therefore can we point the capital program at those first and fix the worst first moving forward but that's in a backdrop of you know difficult financial situation for the for the entirety of council so a lot of a lot of things that need to be done there sorry um on the notice chair i it's very i've said this before it's very difficult to say the regulator of social housing will decide when they'll read to lift the notice we found out uh in conversation with them the other day they were clear that actually what happens is when we believe we are ready to lift the notice the chief executive writes him a letter to say we believe we have met the requirements of the notice and we would like you to consider removing that notice it feels like and i'd rather not be held to this in a sense but it feels like we should be there in the next three to six months of writing that letter um however we've got to see how how that plays out and at the moment to give members some as part of the assurance framework in the third part of the assurance framework is that we ask for external we're going to have external audits done and we'll have an external audit completed at the moment by savills to come and assess our service to make sure that everything we're representing to ourselves to the regulator to members is validated externally and if that if that um audit comes back positively then i think it's a really strong way that we can be saying to the regulator you've seen continued improvement from ourselves we've had this validated externally and therefore we think it's time that we should be looking to lift this rate to notice but once again it's not within our gift to be able to say when that is thank you very much for your questions and can i just make one amendment to the report on page 53 where it gives the diagram of the assurance process just changing housing deliveries and housing strategy yep thank you very much now colleagues i recognize that many of you in the room would have seen this report before for some of you you would have seen it um at the housing strategy board where we had the opportunity to pour in more detail over it and this also that this is also going to scrutiny as well at some point to be further scrutinized by our critical friends so we invite all of you to attend that meeting where you can and contribute where possible because obviously it's important that our assure much for framework is taken seriously to make sure we protect and safeguard our residents um we'll now move uh did one comment just sorry i'll just bring in councilor cal for one comment i'm really sorry why don't you talk so just to pick up those two issues so firstly we designed a new triage system in our call center so when people call up about damper mold it takes people through a list of questions which identify certain do you have a child under three do you have any disabilities so it asks a raft of questions which can help identify vulnerabilities that was designed with residents it's been piloted for about three or four months now and we continue this learning loop of is it working what's it teaching us speaking to both residents and also speaking to the service delivering those repairs was it identifying vulnerability correctly what were we seeing when we went to those homes so there's a feedback loop on that so it's a it's a triage at the front end that we are continuing to learn from but it is it does seem to be identifying those vulnerable residents and they are they are gonna get a quick service um on the second point yes we have information from adult social care and we're tying into the systems they have to to talk about our high-rise blocks and what we know but also part of the communications piece that i spoke about is we'll be writing to all residents in those blocks and saying let us know if you have a disability door knocking uh open days etc trying to really get an understanding of who lives in those blocks we knew this three years ago has anything changed really understanding because we want to make sure that absolutely that where there's vulnerability we've identified it we've taken that into consideration and as part of the building safety cases that we have to submit we know this we've taken into account and we've mitigated any risk because of that so lots of work coming up on on that councilor thank you right um are members happy to agree to the decisions as outlined in section 1.1 to 1.6 of the report thank you very much and this will go to scrutiny next item seven contracts and standing orders exemptions variations from the 1st of january 2024 to the 30th of june 2024 to note the summary of waivers and variations for contracts and standing orders i'll now hand over to the cabinet member for financial resources and social value to open and present the reports thank you so much chair this report is presented to cabinet to set out a list of contracts that have either been procured as single tenders which are the waivers or modified which are the variations during the period that the leader mentioned july last year to june now whilst a competitive process is preferred to establish a contract in most scenarios there are also a number of valid reasons why contracts may be awarded without undergoing a formal competitive process and this is allowed within rpg governance and provided for under current legislation a variation may be just a simple extension to a contract or it may be as a result of increasing or decreasing the services or the supplies that will be provided and the report sets out the details of each waiver or variation according to dates reasons and the financial impact cabinet may wish to note one significant item which was the direct award of contract to elite landscapes limited for 10 425 000 for the woolwich public realm works which includes powers street and beresford square this was as a result of insolvency of the original prime contractor where elite was actually a key subcontractor working on the site and although the award itself is for considerable value the 10 and a half million this has actually just been increased in the budget to completion by less than one percent and i'd like to thank all the officers in dress that actually brought about this happy resolution to a very unhappy situation and this now enables the works to be completed to timescale in accordance with the grant funding conditions for this marvelous project and share with your forbearance i'd like to commend this report for noting by the cabinet thank you thank you thank you very much um i'm not convinced we need an officer report because i thought that was sufficient and also thank you for drawing out the points or one of the more substantial figures in the report and giving us the narrative to understand the reasons and the decisions for why it's at that point i don't see any indication of questions or comments but i presume this report is also going to scrutiny as well at some point or some stage to be further scrutinized so there'll be the opportunity to further pour over this and i know we've had the opportunity to look at this report before as well um our members happy to agree the decisions as outlined in section one point oh oh yep comments um i just wanted to echo councilor highland's comments on the contract that was awarded for the town centre works um you know as cabinet member for business i think it was absolutely essential that we didn't um you know we all know that those works are causing some disruption and you can't do works of that kind without some disruption but the fact that we've been able to um make sure that the appointing of the new contractor keeps the project to time is pretty essential for those businesses and to our residents that use the town centre that have had to kind of put up with the disruptions one will appreciate that disruptions being worthwhile thank you very much uh councilor smith and i think a point well made especially where we're seeing lots of contractors getting bust around the country and their where they're delivering construction projects so again thanks to the team for their effort and work and councilor ramen and councilor smith for your joint work on this as well we're all collectively grateful i will now move to answer the question are members happy to agree the decisions as outlined in section 1.1 thank you very much that concludes the meeting and takes us right up onto the hour from when we started where we were delayed with technical difficulty difficulties thank you for everyone for your time