This meeting was to include a presentation of the Council’s proposed budget for 2025-2026 and its action plan in response to the Local Government Association’s (LGA) Corporate Peer Challenge. The Committee was also scheduled to discuss its work programme for the remainder of the municipal year.

Local Council Tax Support Scheme 2025-2026

The Committee was scheduled to receive a report on the Council’s proposed Local Council Tax Support Scheme for working age people for 2025-2026. The report describes the Council’s existing scheme, which was implemented in April 2024, as unaffordable. It states that the estimated costs of this scheme in 2025-2026 would be £20.61 million.

The report states that the existing scheme is means tested and provides support of up to 85% of a resident’s Council Tax liability based on their income, capital and household composition. Non-dependant adults living in a household are expected to make a contribution to the Council Tax bill, according to a sliding scale.

The report includes details of a consultation on a proposed new income-banded scheme that is estimated to cost £18.29 million in 2025-2026. Under this scheme, the maximum level of support would remain at 85%, but would only be available to households that included at least one person with limited capability for work and/or a child aged five or under. Other eligible households would be able to receive a maximum of 57% support.

The report highlights that moving to this new scheme would reduce the average weekly Council Tax Support for a working age household by £4.93. It also estimates that 4,285 working age households would see their support reduced by more than £5 per week, and 35 would no longer receive any support.

The report states that there is a discretionary fund of £750,000 to provide additional support to those experiencing financial hardship. The report suggests that this hardship fund would be used to mitigate the impact of any changes to the scheme. It also describes the Council’s Employment, Business and Skills Service, and its Fair Deals Jobs Programme, as providing residents with support to find work and increase their income.

Corporate Peer Challenge Action Plan

The Committee was scheduled to receive a report on the Council’s action plan in response to the LGA’s Corporate Peer Challenge, which took place in June 2024.

The peer team’s report made a number of recommendations, many of which were relevant to the Council’s finances, and its ability to deliver the ambitions set out in its corporate plan, Mission Waltham Forest.

The action plan groups the recommendations into four themes:

1. Investing in our people so they can deliver on our ambitions
2. Strengthening partnerships to maximise our impact around shared challenges
3. Building a strong culture of assurance and measuring impact
4. Setting up Mission Waltham Forest for success

Within each theme, the action plan sets out the actions the Council is planning to take to address each recommendation. The action plan assigns each action a timescale of short, medium, or long term, and lists the Strategic Director who will be responsible for it. The action plan also lists a number of measures of success for each recommendation.

In relation to finances, the action plan includes:

• Putting in place a Benefits Realisation Tracker for the Transformation Programme
• Implementing quarterly assurance-focussed Senior Leadership Team meetings
• Reviewing and refreshing service plans to ensure that they include proposals for delivering Mission Waltham Forest, tackling inequality, delivering core services, and meeting statutory responsibilities
• Developing a delivery plan for Mission Waltham Forest
• Publishing and adopting a financial management strategy
• Redesigning the monthly budget monitor
• Working with CIPFA to develop a strategy to enhance financial management capability within the Council
• Developing business cases for investment in social infrastructure

In terms of partnership working, the action plan includes:

• Sharing findings and recommendations from the Corporate Peer Challenge, and other recent inspections, through strategic partnership governance
• Developing a Partnership Improvement Plan
• Creating regular opportunities for the Council’s leadership to connect and engage with education settings
• Hosting a workshop to review and make recommendations for implementing improvements to local safeguarding arrangements
• Setting up a Strategic Education Board
• Strengthening partnership arrangements to support the system in meeting statutory duties and achieving inclusion
• Supporting the voluntary and community sector into a more strategic commissioning role with the Council

In relation to assurance and measuring impact, the action plan includes:

• Implementing a benefits realisation model to apply to the Transformation Programme
• Implementing a Corporate Performance Monitoring Report dashboard
• Regularly reviewing the Corporate Performance Monitoring Report dashboard to ensure it is relevant, and that it supports monitoring, reporting, assurance, and data-led decision making
• Engaging with services and members to identify gaps in the list of core metrics, tackle data challenges, and develop KPIs
• Continuing to set targets and timescales for performance monitoring, and developing drill-through data
• Establishing a framework for monitoring the MTFS savings proposals and Transformation Programme
• Redesigning the Council’s monthly budget monitor
• Working with CIPFA to develop a strategy to enhance financial management capability within the Council

Finally, in relation to setting up Mission Waltham Forest for success, the action plan includes:

• Ensuring that refreshed service plans outline how every service in the Council will contribute to creating a truly inclusive organisation
• Delivering a revised, outcome-focussed communications plan for Mission Waltham Forest
• Developing a comprehensive understanding of opportunities to make best use of assets to provide the voluntary and community sector with buildings that are sustainable and fit for purpose
• Facilitating the establishment of an independent body that is best suited to serve as a voice and support vehicle for Waltham Forest’s voluntary and community sector
• Supporting the voluntary and community sector into a more strategic commissioning role with the Council

The Scrutiny Report

The Committee was scheduled to receive a report (The Scrutiny Report) on its previous activities, and its work programme for the remainder of the municipal year.

The report includes an action tracker that lists the actions requested by the Committee at its last meeting. These actions include:

• Exploring the possibility of a task and finish group to investigate Adult Social Care spending, best practice from other boroughs, and develop a recovery plan.
• Requesting that services provide more granularity around variations in budgets when budget shortfalls are more than £500,000.
• Requesting an explanation around the fluctuation in council tax collection, and the reasons behind a 1.5% shortfall in business rate collection.
• Requesting that services provide details on when the Audited Accounts for 2022 and 2023 will be published, and the reasons for any delays.
• Requesting that services provide the reasons behind the licensing budget shortfall, particularly whether it's due to insufficient landlords or a lack of staff capacity to handle licensing cases.

The report also provides an update on the Committee’s Forward Plan. The report states that the Committee had previously made a number of suggestions for additions to the Forward Plan, including:

• Sixty Bricks
• Joint Ventures
• Waltham Forest Services updates
• Consultancy Spend
• Directorate spending
• Auditing accounts process
• HRA for Housing
• Budget overspends
• SEND Costs
• Income from enforcement activities
• Children’s and Adult’s budgets

The report notes that a task and finish group had previously been suggested to look into Adult Social Care spending. It states that, while this would need to be scoped and approved by the Scrutiny Coordinating Committee, the Committee could hold sessions to discuss the current situation. These sessions would provide members with an opportunity to feed into scoping exercises and wider committee work.

The report lists the following key decisions that are scheduled to be made by the Council’s Cabinet that are relevant to the Committee:

• Financial Monitoring Report – December 2024
• Council Tax Support Scheme 2025/26 – December 2024
• Evolve Norse – Mid-year Company Performance Report 2024/25 – January 2025
• Waltham Forest Services Annual Business Plan for 2024/25 and performance review 2023/24 – January 2025
• Capital Investment Strategy 2024/25 – 2034/35 – February 2025

The report ends by reminding the Committee of the prioritisation tool that the Chair uses when deciding whether to add prospective items to the Forward Plan:

• Public interest
• Ability to change
• Performance
• Extent
• Resource
• Statutory responsibility