Transcript

Transcript

Transcript

about the UN Scrutiny Committee meeting. Can everyone online, which is for Malcolm McLean, can you hear me? I can hear you now, thank you, Chair. Okay, thank you. This evening meeting is being held at Newham Town Hall. Members are able to join us physically. At this location, they're able to join us remotely. However, they will not be able to vote and their attendance will not be officially recorded, although their virtual attendance is noted in the minutes. With regards to the meeting etiquette, please, can I ask members who indicate they wish to speak by raising their hands and remotely raise your physical, your virtual hand. Please, can I ask officers and members who are speaking for the first time to give their name and their role in the organization. Concerning the order of the agenda, I plan to take the agenda items in the following order. Item one to five, then we move to item seven, eight, six, nine, 10, 11, 12, and 13. Is that agreed? Great. Oh, we're doing nine earlier, just because. In the order that I've mentioned, it's the time comes to the master. Is that agreed? Yeah. Right. This meeting of the London Borough of Newham Overview and Scrutiny Committee is now called to order. Welcome to everyone present. The Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting this evening will be scrutinizing agenda items concerning the recent publication of the findings of the regulator of social housing, the building affair in Newham quarterly performance for quarter one, and the draft report on the meeting Newham future needs. That is, I tell you, referring to Council Master, so we will be taking back items. Before I go further, I would introduce the members of this committee, starting with myself. I'm Councilor Anthony McCollum, Chair of Overview and Scrutiny Committee and member for Royal Albert. I move around to my left. Council Member Mirza Bolingboard. Councilor Susan Masters, Eastam South Ward and Chair of Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny. Councilor Terry Paul Stratford-Ward and Vice Chair of the Audit Board and Chair of the Crime, Environment and Transport Scrutiny Commission. Councilor Carlyn Lee-Parkway, member of this committee. Councilor Joshua Garth, you're a member of the Scrutiny Board. Councilor Mr. Hudson Bolingboard, Chair of the Budget Scrutiny, ETA Working Party. Thank you, Councilor for your support and care of Children and Education and CLRPS for your support. Councilor Beach, Chair of Kennten North. Thank you all. I do recognize the Mayor and the Chief Executive. When you're speaking for the first time, introduce yourself for the benefit of the press and the viewing public. We do have a full agenda this evening, so I ask if there's any introductory comment to keep it to under two minutes. Apologies for absence. Are there any apologies for absence? I receive apologies from Paul Leslie and Councilor Blossom Young. Are there any other apologies? No, the clerk will note that there's no other apologies for absence. Declaration of interest. Are there any members wishing to declare an interest? No, the clerk will note that no member wishing to declare an interest. No member wishing to declare an interest. Minutes. The minutes of the last meeting on the 4th of October are not available this evening. I would be available for our next meeting in December. Is that noted? That is noted. And the scrutiny work program. Can I ask members to note that item? Chair, there was a matter arising from the last meeting which referred to the conduct of these meetings in the budget working party process. Can you speak up for me, Councilor Paul? Chair, there was a resolution to debate how we conduct the budget working party going forward, whether these meetings are live stream. That's still on the table, and I want you to come to determination on that, Chair. We have come to determination on that, and that would be officially tabled at the next meeting. We have spoken about that. It should have along its way on this agenda, but for reasons I would go into later. Thank you, Chair. It's not here, but it's not off the table. Yeah. Item seven, I am proposing 90 minutes for this item. Each member would be given approximately 10 minutes to question the executive and any other witness present on this particular item. I would go first by setting the context and set of scrutiny. The witnesses for this item, I'm told it's the mayor and Roxana Fias. Councilor Ami-Vurde, Councilor Charlie McLean, Abby, the Chief Executive, Paul, and David Patfield. Are they all present? Yeah. Yes. And you introduce yourself at the appropriate time. Please, and members of the viewing public. This is the first scrutiny of the executive since the report of the regulator of social housing was released on 16th October. And I will give context from scrutiny perspective. From the evidence and assurance provided by the council during the inspection in May of this year, the regulator of social housing has concluded that they are serious failings the council's delivery of the consumer standard and that Newham Council must make mental changes but improved outcomes are delivered, especially in relation to safety and quality standards, transparency, influence, and accountability standards. The regulator has therefore awarded Newham Council AC-4 grading. This is the lowest grading in the newly introduced consumer standards. Scrutiny is disappointed with this outcome and equally disappointed that the executive was not open and transparent with us about the inspection and its outcome. Even when it had opportunity as scrutiny as recently as September, 2024, during an agenda item on building safety. However, what is most worrying is that despite this council's willingness and assurance to address these serious failings, the regulator has said that they have not yet seen evidence to sufficiently assure them of Newham Council's ability to put matters right. This is despite the two months the executive has had to persuade the regulator of its ability to address these issues. Some highlighted failings are over 40% of council own had not had an electric condition test for more than 11 years. Over 9,000 overdrew fire safety, remedial action, and lack of sufficient assurance that we are effectively mitigating fire risk, safety risk for all homes affected in the meantime. The lack of evidence to show we are meeting relevant regulations for smoke and carbon monoxide alarm. Stock condition information is not held on the majority of our homes, and over 20% of homes are not decent. 5,400 open repairs of which 49% were outside of target dates at the time of the inspection. Limited evidence, but the council provide a range of relevant and accessible information for tenants about landlord services. Lack of meaningful opportunities for tenants to influence and scrutinize the council strategy, policy, and services. And finally, the lack of transparency with tenants about the health and safety issues identified. I would end it at this point because I am aware that my colleagues want to come in, but what is pressing and concerning for me is even with our willingness and assurance that we are going to fix this, the regulators who are the expert is saying that they are not persuaded, they are not convinced, that's worrying for us on the scrutiny benches. And so between myself and my colleague, we would be teasing out the effectiveness, the capability, et cetera, of this council to deliver and fix this. Thank you. Before I go over to members, I will then hand over to the mayor and councilor Verdi and the chief exec, I'm not sure in what order you would do it. I know, in fact, I have spoken to the chief exec, I know at one point she wanted to come in. So would you come in first, chief exec or the mayor? It's over to you in what order you are coming now before I hand it over to members. Okay, so we now hand the floor to the chief exec. You come back to the mayor, okay. Mayor Fiyas. So it's yours. Thank you very much for your introductory remarks. Looking forward to the engagement with members of school today, questions that likely they will want to be pursuing against the regulatory judgment, which as per statements I've made publicly, on behalf of the executive, we accept wholeheartedly, we will get to the bottom of what it is that we need to turn around and turn around we will, and I'm looking forward to the questions. And really, for those members of the public that will be watching this meeting of overarching scrutiny, particularly those members of the public that are our tenants in our council homes, I am sorry that the council has not been of the high performance in this area that we expect for all of our residents across all aspects of our services. I think it's important to note that we have been open and transparent with the regulator and with members at all times, from the point of which we were notified that the regulator was going to be coming in to inspect new housing services as part of the first tranche, bearing in mind that the new regime and regulator came into force in February of this year, and the fact that the housing services, in any case, was subject to an improvement plan instigated by the executive for a period ahead of that. The report makes really stark reading, that is no doubt, and I am confident with the leadership in place in the housing services area, and with Abby and Paul Kitson leading on the officer front alongside the enhanced governance and the independent rigor of the enhanced governance, we will be responding appropriately, adequately, rapidly to the requirements of the regulator, and I'm looking forward to the frequency of meetings that will be scheduled, looking forward to the frequency of updates that will be provided to our tenants and important valued stakeholders, including councillors, local MPs, and trade unionists, as well as looking forward to engaging with residents to embark on the co-designed process of enhancing in a material way. We can re-run the series of our housing services so it meets, at the appropriate point, the consumer standards. Thank you. Abby? As the mayor said, we are extremely disappointed with the results of the regulation connection. I am not hearing, it's either me or the room. Yeah, thanks. I'll just add that. We're disappointed with the regulator, and especially with everything we have to do with the regulation. I just need to make scrutiny aware that we have committed to other investigations in relation to the matters that have come out of the regulatory report, and those will begin soon, as we've discussed with the scrutiny and the cabinet and all the committees, and they will have their own tentative examinations, and we will come back at the appropriate point on those matters. It may mean that at some individual point, we may not be able to respond to them in this meeting, but we will come back at equal. Thank you. Okay, over to members. But just before I go, because Consul McLean is here, and I know she has some trade union issues, I would ask Consul McLean the question related to why she has been called. Now, Consul McLean, can you hear me? I can, Chair, yeah. Right, you're the top member for a residence experience. I am, yeah. And you would agree that our residence is going to be very peeved, that this report, as it's saying, that they haven't been solved very well, because a C4 rating is not a positive rating, not a good one. In your role, how are you working with the wider executive to make certain that our residents, their concerns are addressed and that we take into account their views on this? Have you any plans? Thank you for your question, Chair. Yeah, I'll be working closely with my cabinet colleagues with regard to this matter. Obviously, I am, as you said, the cabinet member for resident engagement, resident experience. Previously, not all aspects of resident engagement come under my direct control, but with regards to resident experience, there's a clear expectation that all sections of the council should treat all residents with respect, should do what they're supposed to do first time, getting things right first time, to save people having to complain, et cetera. They should expect that they should receive the service that they're entitled to. So I will work closely with my colleagues to ensure that that happens going forward and that the standards that we expect of all areas of the council to be upheld. So the standards of good first-class resident experience. Thank you. Since the publication of the report, have you met with your colleagues regarding your specific portfolio and what was agreed? I haven't met with them as of yet. I think that there are other aspects of the report that are more pressing. I know that obviously the experience of residency is important, but safety, et cetera, would come first in my view. So I will be meeting with my colleagues, but I haven't done so as of yet, no, sure. Do you have any plans in your diary to meet them with them? I don't have any plans in my diary as of yet. No, I don't believe so, no. Okay, if I may, through you, I'm wondering if you could also address in part some of those resident experience questions that you're posing to Councilor Charlene McLean. Okay, but I will be coming right now, it's Councilor McLean, I'm posing the question to, I'll be coming to a conference party later. And the reason that I'm posing the question to Councilor McLean is because resident engagement, resident experience is our portfolio and our residency, whether they are council tenants or new residents, and she has a duty of care and she has to, she's responsible for all residents, all other residents. And that is why, and this section of our residents, I've just had a report that is saying that this council and that is not serving them very well. And that is why I am concerned and want to know, I'm hearing, I'll give way to you in a minute, I am concerned that we should be reaching out to those members and actively engaging and we should have been drawing up plans by now and that's what I'm trying to tease out. And so that's why, if you just think about that Councilor McLean, Mayor. And thank you very much. It was precisely for those reasons that I was asking if you could kindly allow for Councilor Amaburdi to provide some context and explanation as to the dependency between the Cabinet membership for resident experience and engagement that resides within Charlie McLean and resident experience as it pertains to the housing services and specifically the issues that have emerged in response to the C4 judgment by the regulator as it relates to consumer standards and resident experience because there's a relationship that's also distinct and he will be able to explain why. No disrespect to you Councilor Amaburdi, I'm going to come back to you. So Councilor McLean, do you have a role? Because you're on the floor right now, do you have a role in this? What do you mean do I have a role going forward? Or is this- Yes, because the Mayor is saying that there is a distinction, there is a divide. Do you have a role and if you do, what is it? So that members of the public and this committee would understand. If I may, just to clarify, I said there was a distinction, I said there was a dependency, I didn't say there was a divide. It's a word that I would use and it's not a word that I did use and I think it's really important in the interests of accuracy that I'm able to advise you, that's not what I said. I stand corrected. Okay, so the last question for me because members need to come in. What do you see your role as, Councilor McLean? I see my role in supporting my cabinet colleagues to ensure that all residents have a good experience with whatever interaction they have with Newham Council. Thank you. I am, you will have a time, Councilor Boardy. No problem. No more than one minute or so if you can do it because other members need to come in. Yeah. In line with what the mayor says or if you want to go off and say whatever you want to say. No, thank you, Chair. I think one of the key things is I've picked up obviously looking at the regulation report and its satisfaction, accountability, transparency. That confidence piece is one of the key things that needs to be presented. I mapped out some things earlier today in terms of how you look at Council Blossom Young's role in terms of tenant experience. It's one of the key things that is being looked at. And same again, in terms of resident engagement, in terms of the connected partnerships that need to be created. Some best practice that I've seen from officer role that I do as cabinet member for community safety and crime is some of the things that can be benchmarked. So I looked at some of the things that can be done quite swiftly, quite quickly in terms of how we build that trust and confidence with residents. Because when you look at the report, it is damning. It's unfortunate what's happened to residents. But how do we build that trust and confidence? There's some really, really good practice that actually happens in resident engagement that's already been mapped out. And I think that's where housing services should be getting to. So I think what I could probably do is that at some point later on, map out for you a bit more guidance of how we kind of presented it. But I think there's some really, really good relationship work that can be picked up really quickly to build that trust and confidence with residents. And obviously I'll be working quite closely with Charlene McLean in that role. And obviously with Blossom as well at that same time. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. And now I am going over to members. And Councillor Charter, the floor is yours for 10 minutes. Thank you, Chair. I'll keep an eye on the clock. Not a very good start, this, is it? I have to admit, I mean, cabinet members not knowing what's going on gets granted. I think there's real issues here. Firstly, this is about housing, but I would ask the chief executive, could we also have a list of other regulatory inspections that the council's going through? Because I want to be really sure that as a committee, we're not distracted by this when something else in the council's falling apart. So a list of other regulatory inspections will be very useful, thank you. Now turning to this whole issue about who's responsible. And I think for me, my question will be around transparency and accountability, first to Paul Pitson, then to the elected members. So first to you, Paul. And I appreciate that you've kind of inherited this phone to some extent, so I think that's important to put in context. But there was a history, wasn't there? Before, if these standards didn't come out of nowhere, we knew as a council they were coming, why were we so unprepared? So Paul Pitson, corporate director for inclusive economy, housing, and culture. And it's a good question, Councillor Charter. So what I would, so I arrived at the council in Acre, of course, this was in around about May. I had a couple of briefings actually before I joined from the team because we knew the inspection team were going to arrive. My reflection would be, Councillor Charter, that you're correct. The, while the standards are new and the regime is newly applied, the core essence of the standards required are what you'd expect from a fully functioning, high-performing housing service. So certainly the narrative that we didn't know what the questions were going to be isn't a valid one. My interpretation is that actually quite a lot was being done to address some serious failings. But my very simple diagnosis just wasn't happening quick enough and it wasn't coordinated enough. And some of the underlying causes which will come out throughout diagnostic work across the coming weeks and months weren't addressed, which were making improvement just impossible. So that would be my very, very simple shorthand during my time. And that's helpful. I'll turn now to pages six and seven of your report. If you've got the bundles, page 24 and 25. Yeah. So which page six? Page six and page seven of your report. Three, 4.4, 4.5, yep. So certainly first, what the regulator has said on page six is slightly in contradiction to what you've then said in 4.6. So for example, the regulator said, limited mechanisms to ensure information about tenants remains up-to-date, limited evidence of how we tailor services for tenants. Now, first question on that, are we in breach of our equality duty? Have we failed residents on the equality duty because we're not attaining to needs? That's one point. But if you look over the page, under 4.6, you've stated, it is also recognized compliance and positive performance across a number of areas, including taking into account the needs of tenants and prospective tenants. So I'm a little bit confused. On the one hand, the regulator's saying one thing, but it appears in your report, you're saying actually we're not that bad. So which is it? So on the, thank you for the questions. If on the failed equality duty, I can't answer that, but we can come back with an answer to you. I don't think we have, but I can understand why you've asked the questions. You don't know enough about the residents, then how do you know that you're taking into account their needs and have we failed something? So we'll come back to you on that one. I think I might look to David to chip in if he can. There is something here about the range of different ways that we should engage with tenants and residents, ranging from knowing who they are and what their precise needs are to then involving them at the very formation of new policies and ideas. So there are quite a broad range of different ways that we should engage residents according to the consumer standards. So I think we can be okay on some of them and not okay on some of the other tenancy-facing interactions, if that makes sense. But you see the contradiction. I can see the point you're making. I can't answer. A bit of clarity on that, I think, would be of help as well. In a similar way as well, under the neighbourhood and community, recognising that the regulator said actually that wasn't too bad, I think it falls into the other standards. It says potential under-reporting of hate crime incidents. And then 4.64 says, working in partnership to deter and tackle anti-social behaviour and hate incidences. So I think, I mean, Councillor Verdi, we're fortunate this evening that you've got both book photos. Yeah, yeah. But if we look at tonight's performance report as well, under your portfolio, what four out of the five indicators are red, right? So we have an issue here of the council under-performing across all ranges. That's also impacting on housing, but it's also seeking out from housing. Is that fair? Yeah, sorry. I'll ask Councillor Verdi. To a degree, you could say, I need to just double-check those. Sorry? I need to just double-check the ones that you're referring to are red. Okay. So, but you will take on board the point that the regulator has said hate crime incidences are not being addressed in the way they need to be. Yeah, that's something I... In the states. Yeah. And then your performance report for your other directorate is also recognising hate crime as a problem. Yeah, and we've just done a recent review on obviously hate crime as well, to give us some really good map and indication of how we improve that. And I think that's what I'll be fitting into in terms of how one of the things that we picked up, obviously with how hate crime is reported and working in partnership with the police of how it's done. So one of the key things I looked at was how do we get this under reporting level to get a place where it should be? So I think for me, yes, it's interconnected in terms of what we're seeing, how people report on it, because there's a bit of a trust and confidence issue about how it's being done. Excuse me. How, if you didn't get it right in the community safety director, are you going to get it right in housing? Because from that recent review that we've done and survey that took place, it gave us indication of what we were doing. One of the key things that we looked at was we had a platform that we were using, which wasn't the right mechanism for it. One of the indicators that told us from the survey was that the most effective way that people want to report and should be reported is from the police. That's what it told us. Okay. So it's that indication of the survey that we got back was really insightful of how residents feel comfortable with the appropriate mechanisms. So where we were getting it wrong, because we were taking a lot of the hate crime incidents ourselves, where that wouldn't be the appropriate method. So that's what the survey has kind of given up. And I think that will feed into when it comes to housing services, because I think that was one of the areas that we picked up on. You see again, the contradiction. Yeah, yeah, I understand. See one thing in one place at a time. Yeah, I understand that, yeah. And that brings me on to the other point as well. This whole episode, it feels like the consumer standards have emerged and we've gone, oh gosh, we haven't done that. But surely, surely any professional organization shouldn't have a needed consumer standards to tell them they were failing. You know, it's absolutely, and I think we need to be very careful that we're not hiding behind this regulator's report because of poor performance. And I would also say this as well. You said in the action plan going forward that the rebranding We Are Housing is gonna be used. Are we seriously gonna say We Are Housing where we've had the worst report ever? I mean, are we not gaslighting residents? Is that really a sensible phrase for us to say with confidence that we are housing? Am I able to respond to that? First of all, yeah. It isn't acceptable. It's a proposition. It's not being finalized. There will be a process as part of enhanced governance that will work on that alongside the co-design process involving residents and how we present our treatment. Once that is finalized, following conversations with the regulator. Thank you. You're right. We are housing is a pitch. Chair, I've got two more minutes left, so I'm gonna- Yes, you do. Thank you. So my final question is around the governance of all of this. And I'm sure in other areas, there will be a dive into what went wrong and what didn't go wrong. Unfortunately, the cabinet member that you may have assigned corporate responsibility isn't here this evening. What's your contingency plan? So you're right, the cabinet member that I've appointed to have a direct line of sight on the progress against the regulator report and the improvement plan isn't here, she's unwell. There is a tight working relationship between Councilor Amherst-Burdey and Councilor Brossom-Young. Once we've got clarity and the improvement plan that's constructed in conformity with what the regulator wants, has been developed and advanced and that will have the author of Councilor Amherst-Burdey, Brossom-Young and senior officers as part of the new- Sorry, that doesn't answer my question. That doesn't answer my question. In terms of the contingency, in case the enhanced structure and governance will allow for contingency. So the tight working between Brossom and Amherst will allow for that contingency for roll-ins. So I will be providing oversights with regards to what's coming out from the engagement with the regulator, my role as the mayor through the mayor's strategic oversight that I will be receiving, reports as will the independent chair of the improvement and performance working board, which is part of our governance arrangements. And I'll be working closely with Blossom and with Amherst and with Charlene in connecting the resident engagement stuff. In terms of governance, we're not changing much. We're just changing the names around. No, we are enhancing them. And the governance system in place actually is robust because it is surfacing things as per the matters that are being discussed at scrutiny at audit committee and at the executive. So it wasn't previously robust. Okay. It has been robust. I would argue that it has been robust, but not enough for this report as to how, Chair. It's been robust. And I think it has demonstrated in the context of the regulators that we knew ourselves and we had prepared ourselves for not a great outcome under the new regime. Refer ourselves in time. That's something that should have happened. Which in my insight, failing the governance. Not necessarily, because it could also be indicative of something else, which is subject to as per requests that I've made to the chief executive, I know other members both in the scrutiny space and in the internal audit space. Okay. I'm going to allow the chief executive just to come in because I see you've had your hands up, but I'm concerned the time is up. Yes. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify some bits of governance because I might have seen where we are in terms of the fact that yesterday, I'm concerned where we were in terms of the state governance. So there's been governance that's been going in place, which has strengthened around the pre-op, which seems to have required some of the shared property. Are you concerned with the state governance? You would have your time, so you can... Can I say, and this is the councilor Verdi. Councilor Verdi, councilor Chalice said that four out of the five indicators regarding your area are red. You said that you would have to check on that, but I can, I've checked it, page 40. Okay, now... I met report on the 15th of October and she's referring to that page. Given that we are doing performance later on. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yes, okay. I just want to draw back to your attention. Yeah, that's fine. Thank you. Councilor Garfield. Thanks, Chair. My first question is for Minister Yaz. When precisely did you first become aware of the scale of safety compliance features in Ireland? So there had been processes of reporting and if you're referring specifically to the regulator's inspection at the point as it's been described in this report when there was a meeting between scene practices and the regulator in August with regards to the direction we see for... Do you know anything for that reason? Can I just ask you to clarify your specific question because I'm understanding how, and I'm saying this through the Chair, at what point did and was I aware of the emerging outcome of the regulator's inspection of housing services? That's a bad point of question. And if I can just finish. I'm just at the major committee. And as I said, as it relates to that specific regulatory regime inspection, it was in August following a meeting that the senior officers, including the chief executive and Paul Kitson had with the regulator, as set out in the report submitted to committee tonight, prior to that and taking into account the points made earlier relating to the introduction of the new regulatory regime. Can I interrupt you, Mayor? I can sense this from the member, but you're not answering the question that is actually asked. I am answering. I just have a particular style and way of answering and I haven't concluded. Okay, can I just bring this to order? Can I just bring this to order? Now, Councillor Garfield, just for the avoidance of doubt, can you put your question again and then we take it from there. Councillor Garfield. I didn't ask when you became aware of the direction of the report. I asked, when did you first become aware of the scale of safety compliance failures in our housing site, not the report, but when were you first aware of the scale of those failures? So I was aware of the scale of the failures following the meeting of the housing inspector in August. And prior to that, as part of the governance arrangements introduced following the election in May 2020, that accountability model, there were regular meetings relating to performance as it relates to all service areas, including housing services and the requirements around good payers' safety that came to meetings monthly first by myself and then the corporate director, sorry, interim chief executive, and that would have presented data and information as it relates to all those matters in housing services. We'll be on for a little while, and we won't get through to getting objected. Okay, if I may, I'm sorry, Chair, this is a really important point. I've been asked important specific questions and I'm responding to them appropriately as I feel that they are appropriate and, you know. Okay, can I say, because each member has a limited time, 10 minutes is not a lot in the scheme of things. And if a member asks a question and the answer's been given, that member has a right to say, okay, the answer's been given, they're the one asking the question. However, if the answer's not given, to speed up the process, the member and through me can intervene to say it's not going in the way. Because we need to get through this as quickly as possible. And members are here to seek answers. Yeah, Chair, that's not the point that I'm making. I'm just advising you that I have answered the question because there was a pointed remark or comment since I hadn't answered the question. And I believe that I have. Yeah, and I know, Mayor, that you have your own style in delivery and answering questions, so I take that. I make allowances for that also. Okay, yes, Josh. Thank you. Given that you weren't there until August, could you explain to scrutiny why these issues weren't identified through the Cabinet Accountability Model Meetings? Why was it not until the report was to be published that it became evident that these issues existed? Per the response to your specific previous question, was I aware of the scale of the issues as surfaced in the regulator's report? No, I wasn't until the regulator presented its emerging findings in the middle of August. And I refer to my answer to the previous question. We were presented with data and stats in the Cabinet Accountability Model as it relates to all of these areas or in-housing services. And so we're aware of forms as it relates to safety measures and all that information can be readily provided because we have records in fact. Thanks. Okay. This is the second, well, it may not be the second, but it's the second big report that's come to the attention of scrutiny this year into major issues in the Council, first being the corporate peer challenge that was conducted last year, which I'm gonna refer back to. In the review, it warned that your administration had, and I quote, no such an old prioritization. I would ask, how do you respond to the suggestion that this directly led to the catastrophic safety failures identified by the housing regulator? I don't believe it did. And the prioritization reference in the LGA corporate peer challenge is being addressed as per the action plan, which you all have been pretty to as all members and is in the public domain. And there's a journey towards presenting the conclusion of that, which ties in with the work that we're doing as it relates to budget setting and the response to the MTFS financial challenge that the Council is facing. So, yep. Okay. Given that they're being addressed, as you've just said, how many portfolios do you currently hold? I hold a reasonable level of portfolios in my role as the Mayor of Durham. And I work in a collegiate fashion with all of my cabinet members as part of our drive towards a one council approach. And that is also being transformed or accelerated through the transformation of the organization. But I'm satisfied with the range of responsibilities that I hold as the Mayor. For the purpose of the minutes, it should reflect that a number was not given in answer to that question, which brings me on to another point in the peer review. The peer review found that your portfolio responsibilities were, and I quote, neither sustainable nor desirable. Don't you think this is exactly why critical safety issues weren't properly monitored at cabinet level? So, I refute the suggestion that you... Actually, I reject the statement that you've just made, but by virtue... No, I reject the statement and the inferences that you've just made by referencing a section of the local government repair challenge, which in sum, by virtue of the responsibilities that I hold, that presents a safety risk. And I think you're trying to make an inference that in light of the housing regulated judgment, it's a consequence of a range of portfolios that a member holds, and I refute that, because I don't feel and I don't believe that that is a sound or evidence, empirically evidence, position to hold. I think it's a factuous argument to make. Do you refute the actual quotes in the peer review that I just read out, just for clarity? But I'm curious whether it's my question and my inference, so you've alleged that it's refuted, or the quotes in the review, which was that your portfolio responsibilities were neither sustainable nor desirable. So I made it clear in my response to your previous question that I refute your inferences in reference to a statement that you articulated from the LGA report, and the LGA report is being addressed through the action plan which you have full access to. Josh, your time is up. I'll give you one extra minute because of the interruption before, but you have exhausted that one minute also. Thank you, Chair. The regulator noted that fundamental changes are required, but the draft improvement programmes in Appendix 3 appears to focus on operational fixes rather than addressing the systemic governance failures that led to the situation which of course would lead you to refer to Councillor Chatterjee's questions. How can we be confident that the underlying causes of these failures are being addressed? And a second part to my question, Chair, Your time is up, Councillor. I'm about to finish my one-minute check. You accepted the previous cabinet member's resignation. Are they the only person responsible for the governance failures? So, Chair, sorry, I would really welcome a simple presentation of the first part of that question because I found it slightly confusing. So could it be repeated, please? So what we're doing is, because I'm so conscious of time, because the question has been put out a long time for it to be answered. So, Councillor Garfield, can you just put it again? Chair, I will simplify the question only if the answer is equally simplified. Because that's been lead led to- No, okay, that's not a fair comment. Which one? That's not a fair comment. So can you put a simplified question, please? Thanks. Yes. Appendix 3, it's a two-part question on Appendix 3. How can we be confident, and it's a political question, how can we be confident that the underlying causes of those failures are being addressed? And 2, you accepted the previous cabinet member's resignation, are they the only person politically responsible for failure of governance? So in answer to the first part, I would say, yes, you can be confident in the enhanced governance arrangements, and as the chief executive has said, that has been finalized following the second housing regulator, and that will be circulated to all members as part of our transparency thing. And in answer to your second question, there is, and has been a request on my part for a thorough examination of what happened, including information that was provided to the previous cabinet member, myself, and that's a similar question that's been asked by other members in different spaces, and I will wait for the conclusion of that review. Okay, so that's it between with Josh and I. Chief Executive. Thank you, Chair. Unfortunately, we're just... For some reason, I'm not hearing you, I'm sorry. Speak louder, Abby. No, you've got to shout. Sorry. I'm hearty, Mrs. Gandhi, are you either? What I was saying is the first part of the question was not just a political one, it was also an office question, because it's in relation to the initial program of works. I've just got to clarify something. They said, do you want the full action plan? And we need to remind them not to cry at the end of the day. There is a program of work which is underway about form and function, and I recommend that you come back at some point. We are putting together a resourceful action plan that was acquired by the regulator. We met with them yesterday to talk about how we can help us to get a comprehensive plan not just on an underlying issue, to formulate our full plan. So this is works that are being done, this is an explanation, so we have a form of action plan that's been related and the regulator was asked yesterday with our progress on having plans to get them to get a comprehensive plan. So I just wanted to clarify something to you. Okay, no, I can't come back. The time is, okay, yes, okay. Okay, just for clarity, yesterday we met in our monthly catch-up. The issue of the portfolio came up and you have said that, I think it's next week or sometime that you will be addressing that. Not addressing, providing you an update. Yes, next week. It's been addressed. Okay, so is there a specific time that you have in mind next week? As I said next week, I can't give you exact hour or day. Yeah, yep. Just thought I asked the question. Now, thank you. And Councillor Mazur, tell me. My question is to the mayor, when will you be published the total cost for the improvement plan? So thank you very much for the question. I am going to invite officer Polley, Paul and Abby, but also David to in part answer that. So as has been described, there's been two meetings of the red lid of social housing. Yesterday's meeting went through the council's proposal around how it will develop and what kind of frame the improvement plan. They're satisfied with that process. That will very much inform the thinking around what needs to be prioritised in terms of improvement areas in 40 to what came out from the inspection. And that will also need to form budget considerations and what will need to be drawn down from the HRA account. But I'm going to pass over to Paul and David Hadfield if that's okay with the chair. Is that okay, Chair? Yeah, I'll be brief, obviously. So cabinet considered a revised HRA business plan, I think a fortnight ago, which included in its forecast expenditure, items related to revenue and capital and around 64 million pounds was identified in that business plan for capital works across the next five years. That includes obviously the repairs backlog that was a feature of the spectrum report and a capital element towards building safety as well. The HRA business plan will be revised at regular points across the next five years. I mean, it's revised pretty regularly. So as priorities shift and change, then the apportionment of capital can be changed within the HRA business plan. So there are funds to implement the findings of the C4 judgment within the HRA business plan. My understanding is you published the report before the inspections taken place, that you located the funds for 64 million pounds. That was before the regulators reports come out. Do you have actual, the funds required for the work they asked for in the specifically in the reports? So do you have any plans or what? So short answer is yes, because the work was required to be undertaken was understood prior to and during the inspection and certainly prior to the publication of the judgment. So that was able to be costed because forecast estimates included in the HRA business plan. Okay, thank you. My question to me, is there any mechanism or plan we have if, you know, if the residents making any plans for compensation or claiming any compensation, you know, outcome of the report? I'm gonna refer you to Abby and Paul and we'll ask about if that's okay. Who's the chair, is that okay? So the answer to the question is, it's unknown at this time. We're just still exploring about whether there are avenues for compensation from individuals in relation to the judgment. Just to make it clear, in relation to, Thank you. Councillor Gough will already ask the question, but it's, you know, I understand we had resignations, but is there any political responsibility, you know, of the failures we had in the housing? Anybody else is responsible politically? So. What is just a big portion of the assignment? So there is a review underway that will arrive at conclusions and I will defer to the chief executive with regards to some aspects of those, because I want to be clear and have assurance and arrive at clarity as to the information provided to the cabinet member and to the cabinet and myself and to senior officers as it relates to issues of performance and safety. I am also alert that the legislation surrounding the regulatory regime that was introduced requires the identification within the organisation of a responsible person and also a health and safety lead. Neither of those two can be in the context of the leader and cabinet model, the leader or in an executive mayoral model, the mayor. The responsible person can't be a member of cabinet, the health and safety lead can, but can also be an officer. And I am seeking the aid of the cabinet that a paper comes to cabinet and that's likely to come in December with regards to clarifying that. And I've also asked questions as to where it was determined who occupies the role of the responsible officer and the health and safety lead, because I understand that the session. Am I just interjecting? I think constantly you're asking about political. Because there's not a lot of time, given the new model that we're trying this evening, I have to say it's garbage timing of the members. And so the members asking about the political responsibility, I think mayor, you're asking about opposite of the responsible person, which is a new answer differently to what the member asked, I think. Yeah. If I misunderstood, but in summary, every single cabinet member portfolio lead is accountable for their area of service and that is understood. Chief executive, Gabby. Again, we're not hearing. Sorry, no. What a projection. Sorry. No, I mean, you sit there, so maybe there's better for you. Sorry, is that better? Yes. I'm chatting. Just, I don't know, for some reason, normally we can hear and because of the recording picking it up, okay. Okay. So what I've been advised is if we actually just sit closer to the microphone, because if we come at you now, which we should be able to at least microphone should be able to pick you up. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, is that one there? There's one there, isn't it? Yeah. Yes, okay. Thank you. So I know now, if I can't hear you now, then it'd have to be my hearing. No, I guess I just wanted to respond to, obviously I can't respond to all of it, but part of what Councilor Mercer with Popsking is that one thing that we can't, I don't know what's going on with my voice today. I'm speaking as loud as I can. One thing that we cannot come away from in this meeting is clearly, as identified, is an organizational failure and we are going to investigate to understand how we got here. Thank you. Councilor Mercer. Yeah, the last question. As we got a unique governance model here, directly elected mayor of the system and the cabinet, I just wanted to clarify who are the cabinet lead are the only people who are responsible if any failure comes or anybody else? We have a cabinet accountability model. Ultimately, I hold cabinet members' account ultimately, the people of new importance account at an election. And sorry, if I may just include, and this in part builds on the question, or the comment that the chief executive provided. I appreciate that there's going to be lots of people that are trying to pursue and explore kind of like a smoking gun. Everyone wants answers. Everyone wants clarity. I've been absolutely resolutely focused and very, very clear from the outset. The people of this borough deserve the best in terms of a council that has to demonstrate the respect and dignity that our residents afford. There was a failure. Everyone accepts that in regards to what the housing regulator has said. And there is an examination underway. Both myself, the chief executive, Paul Kitts and Anna, councillor, and indeed former cabinet member recognize the scale of the failure. And I think the fact that he offered his resignation is a testament to his recognition of the scale of failure. And we will get to the bottom of what happened. But also it's really important that we look forward because we've got to assure, which we will, our tenants that we will get this right. As we did do with children's services, which were ranked inadequate in 2019, as we did and as we will, as it became evident that the special educational and disability service was inadequate. And we're looking forward to, you know, an update on the back of everything we're doing soon. So I trust that provides some assurance or some comfort, but that's the response that I can give you that week. Time, okay. Thank you very much. Councilor Masters, your 10 minute stop. Okay. So from the report, and this might be a slip, it says that we knew back in September, 2022, what the metrics would be for the inspection. So how were the directorates held to account in terms of their preparations? Did we have a peer review? Did we have any dashboards in place? How did they sort of feedback how they were sort of pairing to meet the expectations of the regulator? Thanks. Okay, tell me, because I appreciate both, because you've given a reference to 2020, neither Abby or Paul Kitson or David were here. And as part of the cabinet accountability model in place, there was James Partis, and through the chair, can I invite James Partis just to provide an overview on that? Yeah, James. Please. So I'm James Partis, Assistant Chief Executive and Chief Transformation Officer. Cabinet accountability model brought on a sort of regular basis, frankly, to portfolio meetings, updates on current performance of the service, which our current course framework focuses primarily on resident satisfaction, and the satisfaction and sort of right first time measurement to give up for players. But it also brought together current information relating to risk management in portfolios. And it was through that mechanism, regular conversations and updates on the sort of overall position of risk around things like building safety were discussed. More granular information was held at a directorate level and within the housing management team and within kind of more direct conversations between the housing, the director of housing at the time and the portfolio holder, I'm confident there would have been a number of quite detailed conversations about, you know, very low level, but quite important levels of information around building safety. And that's sort of the framework, the hierarchy of the course it works. But were those metrics actually modeled on the metrics of the inspection? So the 2022 framework predated the inspection framework being announced by government. However, as Paul Kitson alluded to earlier, those standards have always been an expectation of landlords, you know, having a grip on building safety, since the current development requirements, for example, having a grip on residence and tenant satisfaction have always been expected performance standards for housing services. So those reporting arrangements would have picked up information relating to all of those indicators, even if they were not formally recognized by the kind of titles and standards set up by the inspectionist because of the predating. So a short answer, yes. Okay, I'm gonna sort of jump onto another area now. In the report, it talks about this finding that we have currently 5,400 open repairs. So I'm just interested whether this came down on particular areas of the borough or particular issues that were particularly over-reported in this problem, because I remember that there was a major overhaul of the service a couple of years back that was meant to address this. So I'm just interested in whether anyone's got any ideas why this hasn't worked, but equally, whether they were certain areas that were particularly problematic in particular parts. I'm the backfield interim director of housing. So we looked at this by trade. Council's obviously got the RMS service, which is quite a large direct organization, does most of the responsive repairs. Within that, an awful lot of them are carpentry jobs. It's a significant backlog there. We're still working on that. And at the moment, we're looking at actually taking some of that backlog and outsourcing some of that work to make sure that that's clearly on some of them. And did that relate, was that uniform across the borough or were there particular boards that were affected? It's not specifically the area related. It will be just a spread across the borough. It's not one particular area. It's unmapped it, would you? And where did this... I'm not going to be mapping on it, Doug, but the general where repairs are spread. And in terms of where this carpentry fitted in? That's a question. I'm just trying to understand where carpentry sort of comes into that. I mean, as someone who's been a councillor for the last 10 years, I can't say carpentry's ever come out, which is not to say that it doesn't. I'm just interested in where that fits into our residents' sort of experiences of housing. So carpentry's probably, you'll probably come across it as a member with sensing problems. So where you get that, I mean, that's where it comes into it. It's where you get it. So where you get that, I mean, that's where it comes into it is. Okay, so you're saying that the bulk of this 5,400 is fencing problems? No, not the bulk of it is it. And then just talk about the range of carpentry jobs that there might be. Yeah, so there's a range of carpentry work that within the 5,000, carpentry is one of the most prevalent outstanding art. Then we've got two or three other areas, roofing, those sort of areas where we've got more orders, where that's the bulk of the orders that come through. Straightforward sort of plumbing, electrical, the day-to-day grind, the big ones that are more up-to-date, the less complex works, the smaller jobs are done. But then you've got the wider, as wide it works, but just take a little longer. And that's where you see the backlog. And what's the root of the problem? Is it just that the shortage of carpenters? This problem is resource issues, but I'm never one to blame on the resources. There's plenty of issues there to deal with. And my final question is, I wasn't aware of this Mayor's Strategic Oversight Board, so I'm just interested in knowing the form it takes and how it operates and its role. So it's part of the internal governance arrangements that were brought in following the Local Government Association Peer Challenge, and it's part of our action plan. I think it has come to overview recently before a PowerPoint presentation, and it just situates it in the governance arrangements or architecture within the council now. And as per the earlier comment, following yesterday's meeting with the regulator, there's been an enhancement as it relates to housing services and judgment. But is it an oversight of the Mayor, or is it the Mayor having wider oversight over governance because just knowing the content of the peer review? So it's a direct response to the LGA Corporate Peer Challenge review, as I said, as part of the action plan. So in summary, it's a heightened accountability for cabinet members because similarly the LGA Peer Challenge report did reference too much going off to the Mayor and the Chief Executive because of the lack of stepping into their accountability space on part of corporate directors and cabinet members. So it's part of a process whereby that's pushed back. In any given month, there is a meeting of cabinet members with their relevant corporate directors and officers. Then there is a series of one-on-ones with the cabinet member and the Mayor, and then there are issues of organization-wide governance and performance delivery matters that come to the Mayor's Strategic Oversight Board, which are informed by another aspect of the governance architecture that's in place, which cuts across a number of working boards led by different corporate directors. So one is performance and transformation, which is chaired by a independent member or individual, Rob Whiteman. Okay, Abby, I'm going to ask, because I'm very aware my time is up. Can you give me an organogram outside of the meeting, please? Yes. I can better answer that. Can I just answer just really briefly? So I shared with open scrutiny chairs earlier on this year, I do not remember when to forgive me around the refreshed governance that we have, both the governance and how it feeds in. So I'll recirculate that. I will also recirculate here. No, not recirculate, because I haven't had it yet. The governance that was presented yesterday, the regulator was satisfied with so that you can see it in terms of the housing stuff. Brilliant. Okay, Esme. Thank you. And you know, you've done better than anyone else in sticking to the time. Thank you, Council Masters. So can I ask based on what Council Masters just alluded to? We knew the regulators were coming. We have known, I have an idea of what they're likely to be looking for. And so they didn't just land on our doorstep in May and carry out this. We're repaid, and did we take any remedial action or make any attempts to fix stuff? And the reason I'm asking that question is because they summarized and they said they don't think we have the ability to fix it. So if people are going wrong and we realize they're going wrong, we should have been putting steps in place to remedy it, to say to the regulators, look, it's wrong, but here we are. We have got these resources and these steps in place and we're going to fix it. Obviously you want to come in. I do, because I just want to correct one thing and then I want to respond and then I'll pass on. So regulator, when they arrived in May, had seen a number of improvement plans and I'm just reflecting what the discussions that they had with me when they gave us our feedback, what they were not convinced about, that the plans that were in place at that time were robust enough, were able to deliver what they expected in relation to their regulator requirements. What they haven't said is that they're not convinced that the council cannot do it. If they thought that we couldn't, then we would have had enforcement action. And I think we just need to aggregate the two. If we do end up having enforcement, which I'm absolutely adamant that we will not be going towards, doing everything we can as an authority, then that is to say that they're not convinced that we can do anything. So I think it's just in terms of form and function. So the issue was around the robustness of our plans and the ability to deliver those plans that had been presented to them at the time. Yes, thank you. So before, I just want to get this, I am willing to stand corrected if I can interpret this wrongly on page 11 of our report. It says here, although London Bar of Newham has indicated the willingness to address these serious failings, we have not yet seen evidence sufficiently assure us of its ability to put matters right. Those are the plans that they're talking about and not what they feel like saying. Could you say that again, sorry? I said, yes, those are the plans that they're talking about, the ones that they had seen in May. So, yes, correct. Okay, so I must move on now and it's now to come to the shore. Thank you, Chair. My question is on resident engagement and experience. Therefore, I would like the council member clean to answer my questions. She's gone. No, she's still online. She's there, okay. Okay, that's great. The social housing white paper was published by the government in 2020 and it was developed in response to the Grenfell Tower fire. There was a new charter for social housing and after the new charter for social housing was developed, there were a set of measures to allow tenants to assess the performance of their landlord, which is housing. How often were these assessments conducted and what was your involvement in those assessments, Councillor McLean? That's my first question. And the other one is, if you were involved in finding out the residents' engagement and their experience were to be poor and unsatisfactory, why was it brought to the Housing Scrutiny Commission? And as a member of East Ham South, we have four blocks of council houses. Why weren't the local councillors informed of the findings? And my next question is going to be to the mayor and I will let you answer those. Councillor McLean. Brilliant, thank you very much for your question, Councillor Shah. Just to make it clear, so although I am the cabinet member for resident engagement and resident experience, I don't cover all of the resident engagement across the council. So the directorate that I'm responsible for with regards to resident engagement is resident engagement participation. So housing have their own separate resident engagement, resident involvement teams and that I didn't have oversight of. So the specifics of your question, I don't have the answer for that because I'm not actually directly responsible for that. Yeah. Yes, so if I could come in. The measures that were introduced after the white paper were the tenant satisfaction measures and those are the ones that James alluded to earlier on when he was talking about performance measures. So that's an annual assessment. So the first year that that was done was 2023-24. So the results of that were submitted to the regulator and they are available on our website. After Christmas, when we were starting the field, we started the field work for the 2024-25 assessment, which will then be in April. So my question is to the mayor now, how often do you have one-to-ones with your cabinet members, in this case, specifically housing, just to find out what was going on? I think Josh obviously asked the question, when did you find out? How often do you do? So- Cabinet members and your director. So I'll refer to some aspects of the response to a previous question. And as the chief executive has said, there has been circulation of the government's arrangements and you'll note in that document, the frequency of meetings that I have with cabinet members, they have always been once a month as part of the cabinet accountability model, which has changed in response to the LGA corporate pair challenge. And even before then, in their previous iteration, they would be monthly and they would include corporate directors and those would be co-chaired by myself and the then interim chief executive. And there would also be data with regards to performance and other relevant information as built up reflecting the forward pan areas for discussion. Okay, thank you. I'm going to ask when you found out how bad our housing services were and when did you find out? Because I know Josh asked you that question. And my next question is to Amo Verdi. I know you've just taken over your cabinet book. When our law was introduced, which is to investigate and solve hazards in residence homes, we did a set timeframe from the date of reporting as the new cabinet member, have you gone through all the residence complaints and found out that they've been answered in a timely frame as it is required? And the other question is, do we know there's any cases that a WAPS law has not been complied with tenants complaints and therefore we might be legally challenged in certain cases? Are there any outstanding cases? I wouldn't go too directly, but also I do know well aware of AO's law because when it came in, I had a case that was on this. So I'm well versed of it and also the seriousness of it. So the due diligence for me is obviously fundamentally important in terms of this improvement that needs to be taking place. If I can, Chair, I can invite David off to give you any further details on it, but I think one of the things is part of the consideration of AO's law and what's happened in that case is fundamentally important in part of the improvement plan. Yeah. Before you come in, Dave, one of the questions that the member have asked, I don't think she, member have asked whether you have gone to the complaints. I'm appreciative that you may not be able to go to other team complaints, I suppose. So to put it simpler, if you have overs... Have I had the oversight? The number of complaints. At this moment in time? At this moment in time? Yes. Right now? No. Okay. David. If I could just explain, sorry, AO's law would be much discussed and all the systems already shaping our systems and processes, however, those timelines have not formally commenced as of yet. We don't have a commencement date. However, we are working to have those processes in place so we'll be able to do that turnaround. It's still going to be a long journey, timelines are quite demanding. It's going to be tough to do it, but that is going to be a key part of our replacement. Sally. Okay. My final question is, In May, when the regulators came, did we have an opportunity to say, look, we've got it wrong and we need time to correct it? Did we have a chance to own up and say, admit our mistakes and therefore we wouldn't have been given a C4 and a C3 because it's very embarrassing to hear when it says we've got the worst ever assessment in the country? Did we have that opportunity to say that? Can I respond, Chair? Yeah, so obviously as part of the inspection we would have shared all of our data, outstanding work, we would have been really obviously open and transparent with them, but that for telling them that information during inspection wouldn't have been a self-referral, so it wouldn't have been seen as some kind of voluntary offer of this is the situation, but we should also be clear that although in the report they are critical of the council for not referring, self-referring, I don't think you can simply equate if we'd self-referred we would have got a C3 rather than a C4, I think there's some risk in just assuming it would that be that direct relationship, but certainly at the time of the inspection it would be too late to self-refer, we would just be saying this is how we work in these are our improvement plans, this is what we're doing, at that point the regulator would make a judgment about our situation, the pace at which we're moving, the capability and so on, which is all reflected in the judgment. Thank you, and Reem, I'll come through to Lee Parkway. Thank you, Chair, I've got quite a few questions, I just want to touch the comments you just made a moment ago, Paul, you said we didn't self-refer, my understanding is we did self-refer back in April 2024, and would you not agree moving forward to respond to our residents, the director knew the failures in April 2024, hence the self-referral, even though this evening we've heard it took four months for the Mayor to understand and be told that we was in the situation we was in, we did self-refer, self-referred on one item, so we self-referred on the number of out-of-date electrical tests, and we did that pretty much at the same point that the inspection was announced around about the sort of April mark, self-refer on the other failures of compliance. Okay, thank you, so I guess Chair, just as we go through the documents that we've received this evening, one of the things that I'm keenly aware of is this is we're looking at backdated information, so we're looking at a report that came in October that was done in May that is old news for intents and purposes, I appreciate not all of it has been done, and I also appreciate that the council have tried to sum up the issues with some of the work that we see in, for instance, Appendix 3. However, we are where we are, and this is a public meeting and we are one council, whether we're scrutiny, whether we're the executive, whether we're officers, we're one council, so I want to address the issues as a one council approach. So I heard earlier, and I don't expect the answers to all be answered right this second, I would like to maybe just get my questions out, I heard earlier that we talked about 64 million pounds being put aside in the last few weeks to get us to where we need to get to in regards to some of the works that need to be done, that will bring us to where we need to be, but what about how are we going to fund the ongoing costs of our housing stock going forward when we know where we are? It's a very difficult situation financially, and I do appreciate there is money put aside in certain different pots for housing, so, but I want to understand, have we been thinking about that? In Appendix 3, it's great to see all the actions, but I guess the thing that I'm really struggling with, as a social landlord, we put on, how do I put what I'm saying, we put a lot of pressure on our private sector landlords about their state of their accommodation that many of our residents are living in, but yet our own house isn't in order, and that actually, what we are providing our residents, can actually, what it sounds to me when reading this document, is actually putting their lives at risk. I wonder how it is we can wash our face in that. Now, let's think about this from a perspective of a resident who is actually sitting in the audience, watching this on Facebook, or whatever it is that it goes on, and they're going to question what it is that we're saying, according to what it is that we've been doing. I note that the Appendix 3, and Abi, you spoke to, there is, that's a draft, but there is a media document that was presented yesterday through the, to the regulators, which they're happy with, but when will we see that document, and what is the time frame of the completion of all the documents, and what is the time frame of completion of all the works within the action plan, the framework, the draft programme, whatever it is you want to call it, what's the time for that? Can I just clarify the last bit, forgive me, so what I've said is that Appendix 3, the initial programme of work, yesterday, what we presented to the regulator, which I'll share with scrutiny, was how we plan to get to the fuller plan, and the diagnostics that were required, based on what Councillor Garfield was asking, in terms of how are we going to be sure, and it's that deeper piece, and scrutiny, the timeline, in terms of when that fuller document will be ready. Thank you for that. I want to understand where we are today, so 9,000 overdue fire safety issues, 8,000, sorry 9,000 overdue, 8,000 were overdue by 12 months, where is the number? I've asked that one already. Ammar, you spoke about the resident experience, and this is not to sound disrespectful, but what I heard you saying sounded very blue sky thinking, and that's great, but do not think that actually we're in a position now, we need to go back to basics, and actually be talking to our residents in a way in which they can communicate, and actually building those relationships that we have torn down, because in one hand, we're saying we're the best with this, with that, and the other, and the other hand, we're getting documents that actually say, you're not actually what it is that you're saying you are, so is there a need to maybe take a step back, stop talking blue start sky, and start talking in the language that our residents understand? Abby, you spoke about, but sorry, I had a question with you, are we at a place now looking at this document, where we know who all of our residents are, and where they are, and if actually they are our residents, are they our tenants, and I appreciate that might not be for you, you might want to pass over to Paul, and also 5.3 in the document, I noted that there was a piece around residents were sent out communications regarding the judgement, and I wondered, what's been the feedback from residents regarding that, has there been, what's come back in that conversation, we're here not to lay blame at, from my perspective, we're not here to lay blame at certain people's doors, we are one council, and we all have to wash our face in this, my thing is, how are we going to get better, my last question, and this is for you Mayor Roxana, what tangible steps are the administration going to take going forward to restore trust in the council for our residents? That's all my questions, Chair. Thank you. Now, I appreciate that's a lot of questions more than most. I didn't want to get stopped and I can't answer. I understand. The member, I really appreciate that some of it might not be able to answer now, especially the question relating to where are we, in terms of those figures, Paul, those figures, Paul, you may not have that information now, and given the time constraint, can I suggest that detailed answers be provided, but we still have some time, and the questions that can be answered now, and I'm going to tell you when we cut off, yes. If I may, I want to start off with the first question relating to, it's, you know, the one count, we're all one council, day in, day out, week in, week out, certainly since I've become a councillor, the the range and scale of upset and grievance our council tenants have had and still have with regards to the respect they feel they're afforded by housing services has been consistently poor. I've made no bones about, and I've said it publicly, when I was a councillor between 2014 and 18 and since, since I've become the mayor, hence people at the heart of everything that we do, and I feel utterly, utterly let down by an organisation in certain respects that just hasn't conformed to the requirement because it's not rocket science, frankly, and yes, you're absolutely right, we cannot hold to account the private rented sector and be really dogged about rogue landlords when in the same breath we're not performing to a high standard that we want for our residents. That is going to change, it has to change. There is no alternative and I've made that really clear. I do want to also say that the housing regulator set out the scale of failure and inadequacy and I was not aware of that until I read that report but there was a diligence in interrogating based on the information that was provided which also requires us to triangulate information that we're seeing for ourselves through either casework directly or what members are picking up and those questions were being raised again and again and of course post Grenfell everyone was horrified some years ago with regards to what happened to those that community and those individuals from those families no one wants that. So we will remedy it, we'll remedy it at pace. There is going to be a requirement on top of that 64 million pounds that will have to be discussed in the context of the budget requirement and once the improvement plan is finalised which will take some time and if through the chair for other officer colleagues to add. Yes and Abby? Sorry can I respond to the bit about residents because I think it's important that residents probably hear from me. So the reality is the inspection has been really clear that we fell short especially around engaging our residents and we could have done more. Part of the improvement is engaging with residents to understand what's really going on for them and not just those residents that we speak to and see all the time. That is the bit that we need to reconcile in the next couple of weeks and we've also said to the regulator that we'll go back to them on how do we get beyond the people that we speak to all the time and that's going to have to me because it's the reality of where we are and once we have been clear on that we'll come back here. I think it will be a number of different ways including and including using our widen resident engagement at pieces libraries all of these places where our residents co-exist we're going to have to do something meaningful. In the document that you will get that I've now shared with us which will circulate to all of you at the end of the meeting we are proposing to have a formal resident engagement subgroup as part of the work so that they are steering and guiding us so they're actually part of the work and the improvement journey it's not just a side bit that we turn up and present they're there as part of scrutiny. How many people that consist of? This is what we're going to work in terms of but that will come back to scrutiny. Thank you so that's it in terms can I ask that consulates ask a number of questions to different people I trust that you've all taken notes and will respond through the scrutiny office. Thank you. Thank you chair. On the back of the questions from my members are failure of governance and governance and oversight so my questions are going to be there will be on that my questions are to the mayor and the chief executive. Can everyone be concise please because I've got quite a lot to get through. You're new to your role what went wrong with your previous post holders oversight of defunction? I think that I step in right are you asking him to speak on behalf of his the previous post holder? I'm asking he's taken on the new role obviously he's looked across the landscape and seeing what's wrong he gave a commitment chair to fix it nothing intrigued to what he has seen what he's fixing. Okay you can answer to what he's seen but he cannot answer in terms of the previous. Something went wrong chair so I'm asking for the cabinet member to tell us what went wrong. I think it's fundamentally what's been presented in terms of regular what they've shown I think that indicates what went wrong I think for me yeah there's core foundations that should have been set in place I think it's what I look at in terms of some of the things that have been presented here they are things that should have been right. I'm asking you so you've come in and you've seen gaps in what your previous incumbent household is. I'm not sure if they're gaps I think it's about how do we get to best practice is that quality is that performance it's fundamental things that are playing there's multifaceted approach to that because I think to myself you know like I said a previous whether it was a previous predecessor before me I've had two weeks to step in and have a look at and diagnose what I feel but which which is these core things that are presented wrong then the things right in front of us okay thank you these are the things that have actually gone wrong and obviously there's there's core things behind that which obviously have model facets in terms of whether there's performance quality is it I must move on yeah I'm not going to get a better answer but thank you Paul in September the housing scrutiny when we talked about fire safety there was less than 10 fire safety checks done out of approximately 1600 a previous meeting from housing at the audit committee on tenancy audits the data would prove to be misleading do you see a pattern here in your service and how would you provide assurance at the executive director going forward yeah thank you councillor Paul so we've um we've said because members fellow members have raised this concern previously over the past few weeks we said that we'll revisit all of the information provided to scrutiny in the past and check it against the information that we have to hand now I guess some of that will form some of the investigations or the exploration work that sir the chief executive starts with but you would concur there is a pattern of data having to be second guest second checked represented I think it's always important to second yes isn't it data yes I remember the conversation about the text data for example I'm councillor Paul you have to give him a chance to answer yes is a good word chair thank you chair and I think I've got my answer thank you um 35 000 pounds was spent in your service on mentoring and coaching in preparation for the regulator can you outline what was included at 35 000 and in bearing in mind the c4 was it value for money can I provide a written response to you following that I can you give us a very brief response for the public and then you can write to us in full so the council chose to contract with services of a consultancy firm called Altair to understand the mechanics the nuances of the new regime in order to inform our response our preparation for it that's probably as far as I could say okay but you will say spending 35 000 pounds in preparation for a regulatory inspection well we've got the lowest in the country wasn't value wasn't the value for money purchase on the face of it just for the residents listening here tonight I'll come to you see why you would say that yes to understand the nature of the work provided okay did receive any value for it whether it might have achieved some cost savings in our work it's helpful the last meeting of the audit committee raised this point um back to councillor mercer's question 64 million pounds was presented in the hi business plan for the publication of report I know the quite the answers to my question to my member can you outline pacifically what is right for the social regulator and what is not for the social regulator it's not clearing the report I'll just leave it as that right break that down please thank you if you would like said I just explained the reason obviously that I made a quick response earlier so for example clearing up the backlog of repairs would have been costed into animal business planning the compliance work the eight nine thousand action be again in our work plan therefore costed and back to your question if I can I think it'd be useful after the meeting if we share again the hra business plan because actually relatively short outlines the balance between the rental income and what we're choosing to spend that on residents but you can understand why I'm using my time to clarify my colleagues questions all right thank you um just going to the mayor you said you became aware of the scale of the challenge in housing in august 2023 however 24 sorry however you have a cabinet and individual accountability mechanisms what went wrong with your oversight of the housing function so just again to clarify I understood the scale of the issues of failure in the housing services when it was brought to my attention the emerging findings of regulations of housing and in response to your second question or second question I don't believe that if I've understood the question right what has failed accountability is that your question yeah because also you've also said in your answer to councillor garfield you meet once a month with your cabinet colleagues for oversight of the housing member so in your one-to-ones you must have discussed the state of the housing situation and in your cabinet accountability model you must have discussed the state of the housing model so you must have been aware of the state of the housing you must have been so I am aware and was aware and as I said in response not just councillor garfield question but other questions um number one the scale of the failures I've set out in the regulator of social housing report that was formally and finally published on the 16th of october under the auspices of can I interrupt if I may just please finish because I keep on getting interrupted again because okay what I the directions I give earlier and I must follow choose on those directions and try to answer okay directions I give for me the directions I give earlier is that if the member asks a question and they feel that the question has not been sufficiently answered or is not going off tangent that member is allowed to politely interrupt through me to get the responded to come back and answer that's what the member has done and I have to respect my original direction so can you put the question again here and I would say there has been a failure mayor of your oversight and governance of a your cabinet member and be the housing function because you can't possibly say you meet every month of your housing person and the only time you're aware of it in august it begs the question what were you discussing with your member so I would say for clarity and better t that there is a failure in your oversight and your governance of the cabinet member who's no longer in post and of the housing function that lived out there you also said the data and facts presented to you in cabinet there's an investigation into them my question is do you think the data presented to you was misleading or factually incorrect why the investigation right so in answer to your first question no I don't think there was a failure and is a failure in my mayor's oversight of habit members and habit member in housing services and just again to clarify the specific question that was originally asked to me as I understood it was the scale of failures when and was I aware and I answered correctly I was aware at the point at which the regulator of social housing advised of its emerging findings that it didn't formally produce or publish sorry chair I haven't finished and they published them on the 16th of October in response to the second question I said that I have requested a review of the information provided to the cabinet member myself and other members of cabinet senior officers in a similar vein as I understand it that other members are either in scrutiny or audit and I have set this out in an email that I sent to all members a couple of weeks a couple of Fridays ago that this is happening and I'm looking forward to receiving the outcome of that review stroke investigation stroke whatever term you want to use but I have been very clear that I want clarity and assurance about the information provided to my cabinet member myself cabinet and senior officer thank you so in the interest of time I must move on Terry um three minutes have been taken so hopefully you add them on at the end um I will I will say for you chair the mayor has confirmed herself there was a personal lack of accountability in governance mayor the report speaks to itself you can't say to us tonight you meet once a month with your cabinet member then cabinet mechanism forum and then the only time you know how bad the housing function is is in August of this year it's almost unbelievable that's the record stand but there is there there is personal accountability here chair and hopefully the mayor will understand my question just so I can move on chair if I will move on chair I've been interrupted or the no not too many people talking been interrupted chair no okay I'm speaking now okay so you're coming to interrupt me right now the mayor responded and now comes the poor that was going to respond and is that question is it in response to what concept was saying it's just to clarify to you chair I'm very clear about what I said a bit of a record that is being screened and the words as expressed suggesting what I may have said is inaccurate I'm really clear about what I said and I'm happy to provide in writing again in a reiteration of what I said in response to the two-part question that was asked and I don't accept that there has been a personal failure because the question or the charge is that I have not been sufficient in my personal oversight of holding cabinet members to account and then the second question that was asked was whether in the second by the question me I have to move on in the interest of time my time is being investigated thank you chair thank you and you have the last question chair I I literally blocked it three and a half minutes have been taken on my time in long answers chair chair like I will recreate that the residents are watching the report is there the mayor has said she meets on a regular basis with a housing member and the only time the mayor knew how bad it was was in April I mean in August I think the record speaks for itself just for the chief executive um can you clarify um the can you said you're changing the you've changed the cabinet accountability model right so so chief executive can you write can you can you tell us why you changed it what was wrong with the old model right what was wrong with it you might want to write to us but for the camera tell people what was wrong with the model and also in answer to councillor Garfield's question the mayor gave a very elusive answer about the peer review look at the peer review action it did specifically say about the mayor's um portfolio responsibilities I checked on the website as the mayor was speaking the mayor has seven portfolios plus the mayoral portfolio also has four deputies who have 14 portfolios amongst themselves I mean seven portfolios amongst themselves so the actual fact the mayor sits on top seven portfolios can you confirm um we don't comply with the action plan from the peer review which we are in breach of chief executive what happens to us because it appears the mayor didn't actually she how can I put it implied I forget the form of word it was quite long but she it didn't feel to me we are complying with the peer review action plan for the mayor to rescind herself of the number of 14 portfolios would you like me to take them one by one we don't have the time for the one by one I guess you would have to take the most important one and we have to pass I'm going to do them both because I think that they're both within the peer review so the LGAP review yes the action plan stated in terms of portfolio reductions we need to also remember and I think the monitoring officer isn't here and I'll get her to write it to you there's also statutory legislation that we have in terms of mayoral responsibilities and how many how many cabinet members the mayor should or should not have and I think we need to also remember that in context there is no sanction from the LGA for us not to comply but there is something in terms of us being able to be a good and effective organization for us to deliver on the improvement plan within the LGA action plan and then I'm going to pick up on the governance bit and then you can come back to me on questions if that's okay because I think it's really important to me to be clear so one of the things that was mentioned and it does go back to the LGA action plan also was around governance and strengthening how we're looking at things including the corporate governance and the review refresh of that and ensuring that the cabinet oversight and governance is working as it should do so that is what that review was it was to put back into place and strengthen corporate governance and oversight of matters and that launched in April and also to ensure that cabinet members and their corporate directors had the space to engage around core issues performance etc in terms of their phone portfolio and then also for that to be escalated up to the mayor and my chief executive the peer review specifically said the mayor sits on 14 portfolios are you saying that we're not going to comply with with a move reshuffle of that area as chief executive because with my search executive it has been an issue about oversight and governance of the housing function by the mayor and cabinet i'm intrigued to find out that we are seen to be sidestepping the action plan which did allude to um council barbara better formal words than what i can remember but can you see the link i'm making here so can i respond because i think this is the last response are we moving on that's fine um i'm going to respond to that point i think let's be really mindful that it's not my role as a chief executive to set out the mayor's portfolios so we've got that that's very very clear yeah didn't say that there was 14 portfolios under them i've counted them talk about i know but that's you counting which isn't sorry there was a comment from them but i just think i'm i have not intervened as much as i have uh in this segment please okay um please we need to move on constable can you allow the chief exec to answer no more interruption unless it's pressing accuracy or wherever wisdom check exact fine fine thank you i know that this is an important topic and it's a heightened one especially around the safety and what's going on for our residents so on this occasion i will take some of the pushback i think it's important that the councils are able to do that in this space so the lga did stipulate in terms of breadth they didn't say the number i think you need to allow the mayor and her cabinet to determine what the portfolios are and for them to respond to that the lga action plan has not gone away it is part of something that we've committed to as a council and we continue to deliver on the aspects that we need to as an organization in relation to governance i think we need to it goes back to what i said at the beginning there are still some significant unknowns there are still some really really significant unknowns and i don't think it would be fair if i sat here in front of residents publicly and said that we knew everything there were some failures we accept that where how what is the thing that we need to determine and understand and i'm not going to hide it i will bring it back and everyone will see thank you thanks i'm concerned i do apologize i just remember that you have other responsibilities and if i'd remember before i would have brought you in much earlier i do apologize for that comes back soon i'm going to have to deal with very upset father but i'm not trying to be so quick before you come in um council hudson he has other responsibilities can i just say what i need to say please do we need to move standing orders um not yet not yet yeah council hudson my first question is about the timing of the hra business plan review i know from the lga review there was a target date of the 31st of october and the lga and your hra was reviewed in the october cabinet um there are grave concerns i'll only try to give an answer about the level of funding within the l i mean the hra business plan to deal with all the outstanding issues related this report in fact the chief executive has said there are further things that you may need to do which may not have been included so my question is um when will the when will we have a fully plan for all these works and when will it be presented in a new hra business plan um i would have conferred personally that the hra business plan was agreed after this report because we would have given members more confidence that that um these works have been fully funded if you could answer that and then i've got a follow-up question about the priorities within the hra business plan yeah i was just coming at the hra business plan there's an awful lot of things that are going to influence the business plan they're going to change over time so since the latest situation the business plan has been prepared there's a number of significant ones so probably the most significant one is the rent five-year rent settlement in the budget that's going to have a very big impact the government's now consulting on a 10-year rent settlement which would also have a very big impact on it we are in the process of commissioning a new three-year stock condition survey so in each branch of that comes in that is going to shape the 30-year capital program effectively so at various stages we're going to need to reiterate that plan with regards to the 65 million within the next five years that's been set aside for capital works in relation to health and safety watch um that again will evolve over time at the moment that is an estimated amount of what we need to do that as we tailor those packages of works costs will become clearer to us and again we'll be able to iterate that business plan so at regular intervals we will report that back to members either in the shaping of the program or in the new iteration um and again it's about part of doing a within the hra business i suppose if you're a conflict within the hra business plan including your boxes and maintaining what exists in stock i know that the major recommendation in the hra business plan the acquisition of 125 new loans but there are no recommendations or any mentioning of the major repairs and carried out under the hra um under the inspector's report i come out with an anecdote in the previous life i used to work for housing association and i always noted that the chair and chief exec always had photos of themselves next to new buildings i never seen a photo of a chief exec or the chair of a housing association next to the electrician installed in the consumer unit which is effectively a new news box there always seems to be a preference for building new stuff rather than maintaining your existing stock so what is the political quality because what strikes me as the political quality in the hra business plan if 125 new units there's no mention within any of the key recommendations about the existing stock and making sure our happiness are happy about that i suppose i spoke to the officers and it's a personal question too well about the priorities should i respond in a non-political way yes and then i'll come and i'll come back on that before before we do that um i suggest brevity with a book okay i think um you need to leave i'll stay for the end of this bit and then okay thank you yes so you're right so there's only a certain amount of income available in a business plan and that's the function of the rent that can come in and any other grants you can pull in from the outside world and that's a pertinent point i think for us to understand the relationship between social housing stock the condition of it the poor investment over the years and the need for the government to invest in housing stock across the country so you're right councillor there is a sliding dial as it were between the amount that you invest in your current stock and the amount you invest in in new stock and um actually in the hr business plan that went to cabinet there was already a slight reordering and a reprioritization within the new stock and that reprioritization was to focus less on building more homes and actually acquiring them because it represented better value for money for example as those issues that um david padfield reflected on their status the council has the opportunities between new stock provision and investing in current stock to make those choices as we go across the next five to ten years can i just like every other council i might add thank you can i just add one thing that it would be remiss of us to ignore it that yes it's very important for us to do the remedial work which we're committed to but we also do need new homes too because we also have a number of people in temporary accommodation um it's not that either of those are wrong they're both our priorities councillor if i if i may because i mean obviously officers uh rightly are responding to technical points we've made we've requested a political response i would echo both are equally important as i said and i refer you to a response to councillor parkway with regards to the observations and scale of the lack of investment lack of investment in our council stock for considerable periods of time and that needed to be remedied um we've got in plans if that's not sufficiently coming out in the narrative of the report there is a need for us to respond to the crisis in housing in our borough with a growing waiting list and growing temporary accommodation i always do that through a number of means including building our own homes as well as acquisitions but we equally through use of the hra um also respond to the lost land and remedial works that are required in the existing stock they're equally important narrative clearly isn't surfacing but i don't also want to lose the point that for kittson has made we're going to need to make some top political choices in the coming months and in the coming years ahead um now i'm looking at the performance report in march 2022 and and the performance report is on housing with this and it is red red red now in your one-to-one and your communications with cabinet members on performance reports where areas are not actually the normal token if any so again so again to reiterate in response to my understanding specific question relating to at what point did you recognize the scale of failure as presented in the housing regulating report it is accurate and correct in that august 2024 point at no point have i said that i have not been alert to the improvement requirements in the housing services as it relates to repayments and there are documents of the records yes going back as far as 2022 and probably before but i'd have to go back through the organization's log because we have put in place notwithstanding its evolution in response to the lga corporate pair challenge with regards to how many portfolios i hold and it would be quite useful to people to do some benchmarking with other directly elected mayors um the accountability is robust the one-to-one meetings that i have directly with cabinet members happen in that has been the case but that's not in the absence and in the void there it is it's part of a architecture of governance that exists in the chair the time um is tonight trusted yes can i be the the chief executive rightly came is there are you finished all right as you know i i am brief yeah yeah and once upon one minute chair the chief executive rightly pushed back at me about the remit about the peer review i like to read from the period and why it is important i asked that question to you it said on leadership of decision making the best councils have strong working relationships with clarity on roles and responsibilities between the political and managerial leadership the peer team did not find this in newham the peer team were concerned of the breadth of the mayor's portfolio responsibilities which was felt to be neither sustainable nor desirable i've just heard the mayor say we should be benchmarking other local authorities for you chair we should not be concerned about other local authorities we should be concerned about this authority and the level of governance and accountability on this authority chair and i think that that comment from the peer review substantiates the point i and my other colleagues have been making today about the failure of governance and governance and accountability it's inconceivable that only in august this year the mayor was fully aware of the state of housing and if that and i i didn't intend to open this up again but i think given the the range of charges being erroneously those are my words made in respect to a respectful response to those questions relating to the regulator of social housing which is the focus of tonight let me reiterate again the scale of possible housing services as reported in the regulator's judgment was understood by me in august i repeat again and i think for the fifth time i was aware of insufficient performance insufficient meeting of performance targets and the improvements required in housing services for a long period preceding that that is reflective of a robust governance arrangement there is no question that the governance arrangement has been weak since may 2018 it's been very transparent very very robust and in quite sharp contrast to what happened three and we are responding to the lga action plan sorry the lga peer review there is an action plan and as i communicated to you chair early this week and as you asked me earlier this evening there will be clarification and i do think benchmarking is important but on a whole number of fronts and that doesn't mean by virtue of suggesting benchmarking with regards to portfolio so i'm actually to run up a ignoring of what the lga corporate pair challenge report has said and i think chair if i may just by way of conclusion given the focus of this evening is recognizing regulator report and rightly issues of transparency with governance accountability those questions i believe have been answered fully and transparently yeah um chief exec sorry i i just wanted to just add one additional brief point and it kind of goes to what councillor paul is is is is is alluding to or asking i think the reality is is even the housing services themselves were not as clear in terms of the breadth of what was found by the regulator there is still and i'm going to reiterate it again there's still some work to do to figure out how did no one realize no the extent and the breadth of how we got here and that process will be held by myself and the other two statutory offices so okay so um no i have to move on now we have to be disciplined please agree to this model we've tried it now so in terms of what the chief exec and the last set of comments that we have had um i think the chief exec um put um submit um correctly as i understood it yes i am mayor from the perspective of the scooter mayors um in terms of the the model that we have um what members are saying um as using councillor paul's words it's inconceivable however what you're saying is that you understand that you knew that there were improvements requirements but you didn't know the extent the full extent of those until um august 10th of august or day about when you had that meeting with the regulators and they outlined the full extent of the problem and i suppose that is what abby says succinctly just now but even the department itself didn't fully understand and if they didn't understand i take it that they could not have told you so just to clarify i had only regulators because in line with the accountability in the governance model we have i trust the judgment of my chief exec and the corporate director to have those meetings and i'm trusting them to import back to me so you knew what you knew in august and just to be clear to clear again and i'm really sorry i'm having to reiterate this because and i appreciate the point and the word that you've used from your perspective or the perspective of scrutiny members a scale of the inadequacy as discovered by the regulator i was not aware until the regulator told us and i think it's very apt that you hold on to the comments that abby made with regards to what was being provided and that there is under the auspices of the statutory officers a review underway which i have requested and i know that other members in different spaces have been requested including this space and that will come back to us and then we will be able to understand better what happened and who knew what when yeah thank you okay so um colleagues um thank you i know this um we give it a um the time it's been here it went over over 100 minutes i think i missed something oh i think it read my mind chair i am i didn't expect it to take so long but at least i think all the members here have an opportunity to ask question and dive into various area of the report thank you to the executive for um responding um to members question on this and i know this is not going to be the last of you coming to us in respect of this report yeah yeah in respect of this report so thank you all and so what scrutiny is asked to do we ask um to consider and note the council's response to the regulators of social housing regulatory judgment have we noted that yeah the question is we are asked to note the council's response have we noted the council's response with reservations chair i think we have a reservation is that the view of all the majority can have a show of hands wait wait i was going to suggest chair on the back of council tell us comments that our notation for the purposes of the minutes is specifically with respect to the our notation for the purposes of the minutes is specifically with dissatisfaction and concern following the answers tonight is that agreed agreed okay also we haven't got the documents and we need the full document chair which the chief executive was going to give us the full version of the improvement plan to their response to carlingly yes thank you there is no full improvement plan as yet it will come and work in progress eliminated there's a governance enhanced governance that the chief executive said will be circulated to scrutiny and that will also be circulated to all members in any case chair we may also for the minutes chief executive did was refer to a document that was finalized today and of course we can only ask questions based on the documentation presented to us we tonight did not have access to equal documentation okay can we have that document yeah sorry could i i think the chief executive was referring to um a new governance framework yes to guide the work which was agreed today not the improvement plan in this entirety so yes because i don't understand with respect that we can't make reference to the document that we have yeah understood chair for you can we have some clarity on the timetable of when the improvement plan will be actually given because there seem to be some um lack of clarification of when the plan is going to be we need to move on when would the improvement plan be ready paul so we'll respond in writing to your question thank you or five questions and we'll provide a detail of how we're going to work with the regulator to pull together an improvement plan and at the same time in parallel get on with the mitigations that are required to get on with uh and to be able to judge whether they are happy with our improvement plan and for you please can we respond by next week this time okay thank you okay thank you all for your attendance i now move on to item eight building a fair in the room quarterly promise report i can say okay okay is that agreed that we do item six okay item six item six okay thank you very much um i'm going to give a brief summary of the um well it's strictly meeting which is taking place on the 13th of october um it was the second of the two speaking meetings and for the first part it is looking at the the presented cuts presented to the last cabinet now there were a number of questions about those product reductions um the first question was um looking at the list of product reductions is this complete and accurate um the example that that raised concerns issue of trade union facility time which was presented as a cut and now has been um reversed the second issue was about slippage in the program um in the three-year program we're looking at 175 million pounds with the cuts we're talking about 100 million pounds with the cuts in the first year historically over the past six years there's been a slippage of around about 20 percent in terms of non-performance in reducing the budget and it's likely there'll be a recommendation that the scale of the cut given the level of slippage that takes place the third issue of the issue about income generation um there's a large number of income generation the largest might be the 20 increase in fees i'm generating five million pounds in its first year um there's an assumption that consumer or residence behavior will not change and it is highly likely that if the target is five million the actual amount of income that's going to be generated it's going to be a lot less than five million as any as an example and that's about the whole issue about income generation there were concerns about the presentation of eq ias and the timeliness of eq ias on the issue of of um of the budget cuts an example of which was the 43 000 pounds in the rat service and when on further inquiry um people who live and own their properties or pay a mortgage you don't have to take anything for direct service but for people who live in rented accommodation they're effectively paying for the rents not only are they paying for council tax but they're paying for the rent service out of their rents the rat service out of their rents and there's something that strikes me as being inequitable that if you are a council tenant you're paying for the rat service but if you own your own property the council is proposing that you shouldn't pay um for the rat service the other issue was um looking at the scale of the cuts not all the cuts are equal so we looked at some of the um the proposed costs within cyps where there'll be reduction in social workers which will have a a a disproportionate effect upon residents as compared to cuts in the enrichment service also as another example about failure in income trust um generation it was the removal of the council tax reduction scheme which could lead and most probably will lead to people not paying their taxes and therefore not um getting all your payments and that's a brief summary of the cuts it's not it's not complete um i'd like to thank the officers for actually coming in during our turn um yeah um for that and can i say that the officers were really really helpful we've got we've got a quite a number of very very interesting answers on that um the next issue that we looked at was the period six accounts and on the period six accounts do a number of questions on temporary accommodation there was a short debate about the rules about the 90-minute rule and concerns so can i just interrupt you to most than in order yes um i second yeah there were concerns about the 90-minute rule um in in essence um um during the the budget working party and deliberations about temporary accommodation and the 90-minute rule the information that members of the budget working party were given wasn't strictly accurate about the 90-minute rule but let's leave these there um there were concerns about um i don't have anyone said for that what is wrong i'm sorry my phone is new monthly variance of one million pounds and we are requesting that um adult services come back with more information about a one million pound overspend um in the month um and we were told that in the period seven review there'd be greater detail which would be given so that you were so that you could inquire um more about the level of overspend that was it briefly uh again i would like to thank the officers who came in during the half term and the illuminating answers the officers made were not under the bbi of member briefing um any member um who's not a party to this um in-year process wishes that comes out in any question i need to say that the next meeting is on the 20th of november thank you for that okay any member who's not a part of this wish to ask on to the answer any question yeah um thanks for the overview at this point in the year what would you say your level of confidence is accountability to do the job to the actual situation of dying in terms of the confidence for this year i think there's absolutely no hope whatsoever of clawing back the overspend and that the reserves will fall to a dangerous level at the end of this fiscal year um the officers offered a very very useful table which showed what the level of reserve useful reserves at the end of the year which will be 106 million and we're looking at the overspending between 50 million which means the level of useful reserves at the end of this fiscal year will be at a dangerous level a very very dangerous and do you think the gravity of that is understood by the executive um i would say no actually um okay i'm right i'm executive mayor do you want to respond yeah i would i'm looking forward to reading it um so welcome the written report um noted the verbal update um appreciate the perspective and look forward in fully engaging once i've read the detail and with the vdis of cabinet members which i very much appreciate in particular the last item that we were discussing because there's slight divergence of opinion on the one hand there isn't enough on the other hand there is enough etc etc um but yeah no welcome thank you and i do appreciate the in-year budget uh scrutiny that is taking place and i think it's a very fruitful contribution to the um ongoing sort of governance arrangements in this council so thank you very much councillor hudson and all members of the um working group thank you thank you councillor Excellent, excellent. And the case report reminds me that one of the other recommendations, more cross-working, there is not too much silo work in the big council, which is unfortunate. And if I may, just in response to that, I wholeheartedly agree that's been a perennial issue in the council for six years since I've been the mayor and it's been a frustrating cultural and organisational practice, no doubt, for years and years and years. And it's going to take a while to smash and break through, but I'm confident and hopeful that the transformation programme that's going to drive towards the new model, operating model, will very much accelerate that, but totally concur. Jo, may I just come in on that? And I won't give you the point because it's too late in the evening, but I don't think now's the time to be thinking back, joined up, working across the council, because as we've seen this evening, the impact of one failing directorate can have on other departments is vulnerable. So I would just air it on the side of caution. The principle is to be applauded, but we're nowhere near being confident in the information that's presented. Thank you. We must move on. Thank you. Last two. Okay, yes, I do understand your responsibilities apart from this place. Item eight, we must move. Tony, with respect to the chair, I literally just need to sign off my report and it's really important. Can we do that? And then you've got all the time in the world. I mean, literally, it's two minutes. With respect to the member, your report is going to be taken because I did mention it. Let's do item eight. But what we'd have to do, colleagues, we have extended standing orders. We don't, we can only go until 10 o'clock. Exactly. But support from the members to do item nine first. Support from the committee. Literally five minutes. Five minutes is too long. Two minutes. Okay. Thank you. Two minutes. See, there's great respect for health and adult social care in the chamber. Okay. From Sir Masters. Right. Meeting Newham's future needs. So in 2022, Newham joined eight other boroughs in a new North East London integrated care system. And this report was inspired by a slide in the new integrated care systems pack relating to the challenge in Newham of an anticipated 110,000 increase in population between 2020 and 2040, which would be the largest proportionate growth occurring among over 60s who tend to use health and care services more. The reports result of an investigation lasting over a year, focusing on plans to mitigate the impact of this across different areas of health and care, notably emergency, urgent and elective care with the hospital front and centre care for those aging, living for disability or long-term condition, everyday care in the community and mental health. So the challenges the report covers include a serious shortfall in beds, a lack of capacity for borough level and primary care leadership, a lack of investment in capital infrastructure, prevention and the voluntary and community and faith sector, and a lack of clarity around how health and care models will be integrated in terms of what this will look like for residents here. Is there any, is there any question to the member? Yes. And these have to be quick brief. I'm not going to ask a question, I just want to commend you. I appreciate you asking us for this really, really important piece of work. Okay. Okay, two points. I've mentioned the councillor masters where we've mentioned CVS, if you could just spell it out. Yeah, that's fine. And more colleagues around the performance data. I hope what councillor masters put to bed once and for all, this claim that we are a young borough because we have a population under 65. It still keeps creeping up in documents. Yeah. And I think you need to be accurate. So I hope it helps us to actually put that to bed once and for all. Thank you. Can we note councillor masters report? Yes. Thank you. To my bigger indulgence, and we have three quick items to dispense of and then we come back to it. So the next item is appointments. I know councillor Shaw wants an appointment to our commission. So we agree to those two appointments to the children and young people scrutiny commission. Yes, chair. And their appointment would be back dated. Yes. Yeah, I have a vacancy in my commission. We agreed tonight to make the nomination outside of the meeting so we don't delay the appointment to the committee chair. Okay. And at the last meeting, we appointed Sabia, but then that has to be rescinded. But by the next meeting, our three months quarantine would be finished. Can't we just appoint her tonight then? No, we can't because it's three months. We come at the point in advance so we can appoint in December. It's not her portfolio. Chair, she wasn't a cabinet member. She was a deputy cabinet member. The rule doesn't apply to her chair. We will apply to the executive member, anybody that saw from the executive. Okay, we must move. But she's going to be done in December. It's applies to anyone who saw from the executive. Okay. So the appointment. Okay. Can I take control of this meeting? So the two appointments have been made to the education and the children and young people committee. That's done. I'm going to support. I know that you have appointments to be made and we will do that in December. And can I move on now with the forward plan? Is there any item in the forward plan that we need to bring up at this meeting? Yeah, right. Item 12, could me choose update. Can I ask for us to defer that? I would circulate to colleagues my notes of my meeting with the mayor and I met with the chair of audit yesterday. I will get those notes circulated to members. Is that an acceptable position? I have a question on that. Will that be to the whole of the OU committee? Yes, it will go to all of you. The date of our next meeting is the third of December. Is that noted? Okay. So now that we've dispensed of all of that, the only item left is item eight. The good thing is at 10 o'clock, wherever we are at 10 o'clock, we have to stop. Item eight is the bill to appear in your performance report. Mayor, one minute only. I'm going to suggest in the interests of the guillotine, let's just go straight to questions. And I know that there was a question raised with regards to four red ragged elements in the crime community safety. There can be some clarification in regards to that as well. Okay. Any question? Rita, then I would come in and then I see Councillor Lee Parkway and Shaw. Thank you, Chair. Okay. So overall, we're still where we were previously in terms of not really having much movement across many of the things. So I think one of the issues that we think is that the under-inclusive economy, the one we really seem to be exceeding is around a business that's been accredited with an under-living wage. I will put it respectfully that actually that's not within our control. Businesses can get up and do that themselves. I think it's a bit cheeky us claiming credit for that. So for Newham, we've discussed previously resident experience doesn't seem to, despite all the potentials that this is still in a sorry state it was when I first became councillor. And I just don't understand why we're not making any progress on this. I think it's noticeable that the peer review, there was some slippage of some of the milestones there. And I think overall we need, I think we need to be absolutely clear that actually how, after the regulators report, how our offices propose for us to have confidence in the data that's put before us, is as you said, the auditors in the reports that are put in front of us are at a very, very low end. And I actually don't trust anything that's put in front of me now. And I make no apologies for that because that's my role as a member of scrutiny. And I've really been encouraged to know that there's hope in the future, then my final couple of years on this council, that there will be a report that I can see. I actually say I note with pleasure rather than saying constantly reservations. Let me take that first. You're absolutely right. In the free market that we have, businesses are absolutely able to sign up to become London Living Wage employers, but very few do. I personally think there is an important role for the council to play as part of its placed leadership in galvanising commitments on large, medium, small businesses to sign up to the London Living Wage. Now separate to that, in the context of the current climate, whether or not resource should be directed to that is a related matter. And I think that's going to be a live question, not least in light of some of the autumn statement elements that have come to bear with as it relates to national insurance and living wage commitments. So, yeah, appreciate the perspective and the view and respectfully agree, disagree, agree, if one can do that. And I'm also looking forward to a future point, hopefully within the next month, where you welcome with enthusiasm a quarterly performance. And I mean that in all seriousness, and I do welcome the rigor, especially that you apply. I take on board the cost deficit point that you've made. I'm under no illusions how far that has spread. And it also has been a driver as to why I've requested an examination and probing and assurance around information that we were provided for the housing services. And there will be redoubling of efforts on part of the organisation corporately. We've got that quality assurance and the rigor of evidence and data gathering and how that's presented. Personally, I think we're a long way to go with the quality of reports that I see. Could we have that as a topic for a future meeting where we at least share with us what you're meant for their plan to gain some confidence amongst us? I mean, if I may, I'd be happy. Obviously, it's for you to determine as members. I would also welcome scrutiny's input in the required improvement process as it relates to quality of reports. The basic issue is we don't have a serious research, policy, high-end function. We've hollowed it out, and there's a lot of workforce development required in this space. And I know on other matters that we've discussed tonight and previous meetings, you know, there are sharp comments and remarks as to how much, you know, a cabinet member knew or I know or whether or not I'm near enough or far too far away. Please do not underestimate the diligence that I apply to things that come across my desk and the amount of time that I spend reviewing and sending back feedback. There is at least some quality that I'm happy with, and it may not be great, but I know that that's an improvement area. I don't know if there's anything else that you want to just draw out in response. I trust that helps. In the interest of time. Actually, okay, all right. I did say that I would go next. And this is to you, James. What confidence, you know, I looked at this report on page 43, and I was about to read it before I introduced this item, and then thinking looking at it, I cannot have sufficient confidence in it. And it says here, this is the first Millennium report for 2024-25 covering April to June period and represent the executive continued commitment to transparency and good governance in our presentation of information concerning Council's performance with members, residents, and local partners. And the reason I stopped from reading that before, I want to put this question given the regulators report to say that we are not transparent and we are not sharing information. And there are other areas where you have to, that is just the housing aspect of it, but there are other areas within the Council that we are supposed to be transparent and sharing information. But what confidence should I get in this document that you've presented to us? As a general position, I do believe the report, that this report and successive quarterly performance reports that have come to this committee haven't in any way attempted to mislead or hide information about performance. And you'll see that by the significant number of reiterated items that we are reporting. So as an overall position, I do think the report doesn't pull any punches in terms of presenting factual information about performance. Now the broader question is it measuring the right things, which I think is a valid challenge to put forward, particularly at moments where an external inspector has highlighted issues that may not have been presented in a very easy to access way in previous reports. And I think that is a very valid challenge to put to this report. And I think it's one we should, any corporate head of performance should always remain open minded about that. I do think we are obviously reviewing the corporate plan as a key priority. It was recommended by the LGA. We're doing that in a twin tracks way of the budget process, because you need to make sure your corporate plan is funded, but also it's taking advantage of opportunities to prioritize things that can be spent. At the same time, I do think there are some framework where we aren't measuring the right things. So for example, housing building safety clearly is a corporate priority on the back of the housing regulator and what they've found. It doesn't feature in our strategic measures, it features in a service level measure that you may not receive many reports on. That's an important conversation to have about that particular indicator. And I think there are other areas in the report where that sort of conversation is absolutely a valid one to start and to offer challenge. So, and James, you would understand my skepticism when we in overview and housing commission accept data and reports, performance data in good faith, we receive and noted them in good faith, only to be told by an external that there's serious failures there. So with that in mind, I'm looking at this, although yes, you noted that there's some reds which I've noted, but would we have to wait until an external come to say that there's serious failures in some of the areas that you're reporting on? It's valid challenge. One of the positive things around the governance framework that Abhi referenced in the previous item, it has been the introduction of independent oversight and assurance and challenge on what the council is doing. So Rob Whiteman is the independent chair of that transformation and improvement board that Abhi mentioned. There are other independent members that have been appointed to lead on specific themes as well. And I do think the council should take this opportunity to learn from that experience to regularly see challenge on both performance and budget. And that is valid. On data, I'm as concerned about any issues around data accuracy as Paul was when he was presenting his plan for resolving some of the reporting issues. And if, for example, there were some inaccuracies or misrepresentations of data in that particular indicator, that would cause me some concern about the rigor of other parts of the framework, because we do rely upon what services report to us. We rely upon a level of sort of transparency from teams that are reporting to us. And if there are issues around that, that does represent a serious concern. So until that is concluded, just as the mayor in her response to the previous question, it's hard to say whether there are some more significant data issues. But if there are, we will take them very, very seriously as part of the next phase. And if I may just add, I mean, look, we began to introduce independent external expertise coming in to just check and verify from 2018. And that was just such a countercultural experience for an organization that wasn't used to be improved. And it's been really challenging. There's been lots of pushback. There are a number of instances in the last six years where an external regulatory regime has come in and said, actually, it's not in accordance to what and how we're interpreting your data. You know, the Ofsted inspection, I was told, don't worry, Mayor, it's going to be requires improvement. I wasn't even told at that point in March 2019, it's been in requires improvement, children's services for some 15 years. You know, the send service area, don't worry, Mayor, that's all going to be sorted. Then we got the written statement of action in March 2022. And yes, we've had a turnaround in terms of getting through EHCP plans, but we've got an uptick again, because quality of them haven't been in conformity to a regulator. So there are deeply entrenched practice issues that we are putting a spotlight on, revealing, bringing to the surface, and then having to correct. And, you know, this is going to be another learning lesson. I very much hope this is going to be the last of significant, you know, big reveal of a failure, but I can't give you 100% assurance. I won't be able to give anyone that here tonight or audit committee. And I don't think the chief executive or any corporate director could, but we have got an appetite and a willingness to get it right. And we need everyone involved in that. That's the reason why we welcome internal audit, well, audit committee. And that's the reason why we welcome scrutiny. Right. Thank you. Next is Carlene, then Lafminy, Terry, then Susan. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to make, I appreciate that the cabinet members are not here this evening, but maybe it's an opportunity to take that. I would agree with what Councillor Chadler said in response, but this is not exciting. It's not telling us you expect to see more things sitting static and going, being in the red is not really what we want to be seeing. It doesn't show that we're actually doing anything meaningful with taxpayers' money. However, I did note that, and I'm concerned about this, and Mayor, you know why I'm concerned about this. Permanent exclusions have gone back up, but it doesn't tell me anything. It doesn't give me any granular detail. It doesn't give me any assurances that we're dealing with this and we're not going to allow this to take place. And I'm really concerned with that. And so I, you know, it's not a question for you necessarily, James, but it is a question for the cabinet member responsible and how we're going to change that. I note that EHCPs have fallen, and you just, you actually alluded to it just a moment ago, Mayor, in regards to they've gone up in relation to how long they're taking to be done. And they're not, only three within 20-week guidance. It's not good enough. And I'm trying to work out the numbers here, and I'm sure there's one missing. So I'm like, well, there's one little person out there that doesn't have an EHCP, hasn't even been accounted for. And those things concerning, just quickly, Rox, if you don't mind. Something really discombobulated me earlier about something that the cabinet member for crime and housing said. And he said, we're not using the right systems. We're not using the right platform, he said, in regards to hate crime. And we shouldn't be recording the information, it should be the police. But I sat in the room when we talked about the importance around hate crime and manifesto promises in the 2022 manifesto. I'm a little bit concerned about that statement. What are we saying? That we're not gonna, you're not meeting the promise? Or, you know, maybe it's the turn of language. But I was just really concerned that actually, and if we think about the platform in which is being used, it's a platform that was made for a specific reason, because a young man was killed in the hands of hate crime. I mean, what I would say, okay, let me take those comments, questions, first order. In regards to that Amma's statement, what I understood him to be saying, and absolutely, this should be probed in the relevant scrutiny, because the purpose of the Court of Performance report will give you an overview. And you can ask questions, and we will provide generality in terms of what's driving that. And then you probe in the relevant scrutiny as it relates to that specific portfolio area, etc, etc. A piece of research has been done with a university partner as to our position around hate crime reporting, why is at the level it is given the scale and the character of our borrower and our diverse communities. And from that research, it's pointed to some platform is not sufficient. And it's also pointed to an absence, or a lack of awareness or the inability please to amplify the police reporting systems as well. That's what I understood him to do, but I don't know the detail. And if scrutiny officers can just pick that up as an action, we can get a response in writing. In regards to your previous question, it was just something relating to the exclusion. Similarly, we will get some information and again, probe that. And just overall, I will take back and discuss with James, is there a report format presentation issue that we need to now revisit, given that this seems to be a recurring theme in the overview and scrutiny meetings that I've been attending relating to the performance quality performance report, it clearly isn't working for a set of readers. And let's take that. I would welcome some thought around that. Thank you. Can I say that Paul Leslie, who I gave an apology for early, it's been online all along. So can you note what Paul Leslie has been in attendance? And we have Rakhmini. I don't think we get through everyone because Rakhmini is the next person. So 42% of the safety is being done within 20 weeks. So that means there are a lot of other issues. And it must be happening under education. That's quite concerning. And the same commitment in between states are really investing 1.2 million percent education. This is to have extra caseworkers to do the efficiency piece from 11 to 20. So that means there'll be 20 caseworkers, but there will be only 500 times a year. That sounds a lot of caseworkers. Just to do 500 VNC, please, if you don't fill it out. So I'd just like to know about that. We don't have to answer that now because in the interest of time. So the next person to just ask the question, our team is going to move it and we get a written response. Terry. Just to quickly bring the point together. I think there's a difference in measure. We measure process and I think we should be measuring outcomes. We'll focus on outcomes and measures which are more meaningful for residents. There is a hierarchy of data. Not all data is the same. A way forward might be to use a balanced scorecard approach. I think if we do that rather than what we see, I think a lot of the answers will be, a lot of the questions will be resolved. We just have a screed of data. It's not meaningful. There's a narrative on the story. Balanced scorecard could help. So I share Karleen's concern about the increase in exclusions and also that the lack of breakdown of that data, considering you have the black boys and the poorer scrutiny that's still ongoing. Without having any analysis of who people are and what their ethnicities are, I find that deeply concerning. Secondly though, I'm just wondering, now we're into November, James, do we have any feedback on why East Ham residents are shown up to be consistently less happy? I mean, we could answer that and we've tried to. We might get some answers now. George. Bear in mind that when we aren't known as meaty chair, I was going to ask a couple of questions about both culture change and some of the items identified from the peer review that would have been met by the 13th of October but are yet to be met. And I want to know to what extent do you think the culture has changed? Oh, okay. All right then. Keep on talking.