Transcript

And thank you very much. Hello and good evening, everyone. Welcome to today's meeting of the Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee, 26 November 2024. My name is Councillor Jamie Coakley. I'm Councillor for St. Mary's Ward and chair of this committee. I'm joined by Councillor Judy Gasser, the cabinet member for the environment, and Paul Chadwick, our Executive Director for Environment and Community Services. Before we start, I'll ask that members of the committee introduce themselves when they first participate in any discussions. Similarly, with officers, introduce themselves when they're called to present their reports. Starting, are there any apologies for absence? Great. 100% are now. So starting with item one on the agenda is the minutes. So firstly, Mr. Chadwick, would you like to come in and make a correction on the minutes of the previous meeting? Am I on? Yes, thank you. Thank you, chair. I am sorry about this, but I think many of you will know, if not all Councillors, most of you will know that I've been in a lengthy exchange with Councillor Graham about the Swarthfield Park report and have had some useful clarification discussions through those exchanges. And I think it's fair to say that I need to apologise to the committee for the fact of our report last time on Swarthfield and our answers to questions at that committee were inadvertently ones that would have misled the committee as to the facts, particularly in respect to the point of start of feasibility work, were at two parts, I think it's at least two parts of the committee report. And in what was said, we suggested that the feasibility work started in response to the petition, whereas in fact, there was earlier concept design work, which you could count as feasibility undertaken before ECS took the prior role on the project, handled then within property services. So I think it's further I should apologise to the committee for that. Thankfully, it was to note only report, no substantive decisions to take, but nevertheless, I think it's very fair that I apologise to the committee from the prior. Thank you, Mr. Chadwick. Again, on the substantive point of the minutes, are there any objections apart from the clarification that Mr. Chadwick has already made to confirming the meeting on the 17th as a correct record? Okay, that's agreed. On to item number two, we have declarations of interest. So do any members have any declarations of either pecuniary, non-registrable or non-registrable interests? Councillor White. I guess I'd better mention that I'm a member of Community Renewable Energy Wandsworth, and they do have business with the council by no financial interest from that concern. Thank you, Councillor White. Any more declarations? Okay. So firstly, as we've received a request for a deputation in relation to agenda item number four, the enable paper, I propose that we reorder the agenda and consider this item first, as the first substantive item of business on the agenda. So is this agreed? No. Chair, may I? Yeah, of course. Would you like to introduce yourself? I did check out, sorry, Tony Belton, Battersea Park Ward, Battersea. I did check out the standing orders to confirm my recollection that it is up to the committee to decide, as you were quite correctly, whether we should take this deputation or not. Now, in many ways, you know, I'm the last person to suggest that we don't. I always believe in listening. But I've got one or two problems with this. There's no item on the agenda about this at all. Certainly in the committee I chair, if there was only evidence from the objectors, I'd be ruled out of order because the decisions taken were not valid. And I find it surprising that we've got a deputation asking for a deputation about one particular case and just one particular case, as far as I can see. It's a bit like me putting forward a petition to the housing committee saying, I can't get someone rehoused in my ward. I want a petition to discuss this. And I don't want the officers to know in advance. So I'm pointing out all sorts of issues of this, unless Mr. Chadwick may be able to prove me wrong. But unless the officer just happens to be here by chance, the officer who made the decision or was responsible for the decision being made that this tree was dangerous is not here to defend the position, as far as I know. And although I suspect we're going to listen because we're nice people and we're going to listen, I think it's an extremely bad precedent that we should not be in the business of having deputations about every case that goes wrong in the council. You can imagine, I mean, the opposition would have a field day. It would be having petitions all day, every day, for 24 hours seven. So I just think it's a very odd position for us to accept this deputation as certainly as a precedent. Now, if the committee decide to go, I'd fine. But I make the point because I don't think we should do that as a precedent.

All right. Thank you for that, Councillor Burton. I believe that some points of the deputation were more general in terms of the relationship with ENABLE and their policies with cutting down trees. So since the request to speak was given at the council, we felt that the most appropriate time to do it would be in the paper in which we're discussing our future relationship with ENABLE, and there are points in that related to biodiversity offices. So I still think it's worth having. Councillor Osborne? Yes, good. Councillor Osborne, who represents Tooting Broadway Ward. Can I propose that we do take the deputation this evening, but that we minute that this is an unusual case, we accept very clearly that it is not setting any kind of precedent, but we hear it all the same. I think that's very appropriate, especially considering the resident is here today with the expectation of delivering a deputation. I think it would be very unfair to then turn them away right now. Councillor Kirk? >> Thank you. Councillor Kirk, I find myself in agreement with Councillor Belton and Osborne. Just to make the point, I'd probably take it now, because the residents are here and out of courtesy, but it is a bit peculiar if we started talking about every tree that gets chopped down, and we understand how upset people get about that, of course we do. But it happens a lot. It's a bit micro and a bit specific, and I take the point there are broader issues, but I still think it's a slightly peculiar thing to be doing. Okay. I think we're quite similar on the sentiment. Councillor Satters? Yes, I think this is less about the tree and more about process. And I think process is something we should discuss here, and I think that the residents have been concerned about process, and that affects all sorts. I mean, there's another tree that's just come down in Roehampton, same thing, process, not the tree itself, just the process. And Councillor Belton? >> I accept what Councillor Kirk is saying. Can I say, I don't actually accept what Councillor Satters is saying about another tree. That makes the case even more, that we should have the officers here who are able to say what the position is, and there should be a paper about it. So I don't accept that reason, but I do accept good intention on the fact that the residents are here, but I thank Councillor Osborne and Councillor Kirk for supporting the fact that we don't accept it as a precedent. Thank you. Yeah, I think that's the sentiment shared by everyone. We don't want to make this a precedent, but I think now we can take a vote. So is the committee, yeah, is the committee agreed to receive the documentation? Great, great. So Ms. Garvey, would you like to come to the table? Hello. Good evening. Thank you very much for your time, and I will stick to the five minutes. I'm joined by Mr. Reynolds, who's also a resident. I've heard what's been said about this being a micro issue. I think we're here because two reasons. One, I think it's really important that this committee recognizes the deep upset that what's happened in Pentlow Street has caused all residents, and also I think a lot of concern about how the complaints that were then raised have been handled by ENABLE and others. But secondly, we're raising this because there are these procedural issues, and it's quite extraordinary. If you walk around West Putney, there are so many trees. I've lived in Putney for 23 years. You walk around Putney now, there are so many trees felt. I have never seen this. Other residents share my concerns that something has gone awry. And there's a third aspect here. It's the financial one. Because in the course of corresponding about what happened, it's become clear that the council is paying an extra fee to Glendale, a third-party contractor, for emergency works, or works that are classified as emergency. And we are paying an additional fee because something is classified as an emergency. And I do think we're here to say, is someone looking at this and whether it really is an emergency, and that expenditure could be avoided? Because I can tell you the figures that I've been given. In 2023, the council spent over 83,000 pounds on emergency fee work. In 2024 to September, as I understand it, we've been told the council spent over 103,000 pounds on emergency work. Now, it could take different forms, but this is the trees in our street, the three that were felled one afternoon as a result of the certification of emergency, a serious risk. One individual certified this. They then called Glendale and then the council incurs this fee, this emergency fee. This is something that is presumably happening on a really wide scale. We don't know how much the fee is per tree, but it's a fee and I think the council should look at it. Just stepping back, on the 30th of March, three trees were felled in our street. Residents came out onto the street, asked to stop, was there a consultation? Why hadn't we been told? The contractors said there was, there had been a consultation that wasn't correct. They were felled following an examination by a tree officer, I think employed by Enable. I'm not here to debate the rights and wrongs of that assessment. I would just say, as a matter of common sense, it doesn't seem right that three trees should be felled in an afternoon and was posed such a risk that residents couldn't be given even 24 hours notice. It just doesn't make sense and therefore, that's the point I want to raise really with the committee because this is really important. Residents should be given an opportunity to question. There may be a tree officer that may have a background in looking at trees, but it doesn't necessarily mean that their assessment is correct and somebody, there should be a second opinion. So to the procedural point, is it right that one individual can unilaterally fell three trees in one afternoon without anybody saying, well, hold on a moment, could we ask the residents, could we tell the councilors, the relevant councilors? None of this is taking place because there is no procedure. The only procedure is, as we've been told by Enable, that if it's certified as a risk by their tree officer, they are able to phone up a third party contractor, incur a fee for the council and that tree is then felled the same day. Now, just on the rights and wrongs of whether these trees should have been felled and caused such a danger, my own personal view as a non-expert is I think that's an extraordinary claim, but I would also add this. There was a fourth tree they tried to fell and one of our residents stood in front of the tree and said it's me or the tree and they moved on. That tree is totally fine and hasn't caused a hazard, you know, so I just think there needs to be a bit of reality here. So anyway, that is what I'm, the pavements were left in a terrible state when we complained about that. Finally, there was tarmac thrown in, put on, so the pavements are still a mess, but I do think somebody needs to look at what's happening with our money and also it's not right that our environment is being decimated because everybody agrees trees are great and good for the environment and the council has promoted your planting a thousand trees a year, but if you are, as I understand it, felling in 2024 to September, an astonishing 546 trees, that makes the claim of a thousand trees a bit shallow in my view. And so this is not a micro issue, this is a much wider issue and so that is why we are here raising it. And I don't know, David, whether you want to say anything about the upset caused in the street. We've already gone over the - oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. If you wanted to really quickly summarise, then that's okay. Address the objection that Mr. Belton made. I think now that the deputation is its own. We're talking about the whole borough, not just our street. Yeah, I think the point is that the entire borough - it's happening in West Putney, it may be happening in other boroughs that you mentioned too, it may be happening there, but somebody needs to look at whether it's an overzealous officer or just further management, but it needs to be at least two people examining to fell a tree and it needs to have - you should have the opportunity to object and that doesn't seem to be built into the procedure. Thank you ever so much. Thank you, Ms. Garvey. Mr. Eadie, would you like to introduce yourself and respond to some of the points based on that deputation? Yes, good evening. I'm Matthew Eadie, I'm the Director of Culture and Leisure. Thank you for your deputation and very clear passion for our green spaces and our trees in the borough. I suppose there is not a wavering at all in the Council's commitment to want to support and not fell trees and deliver trees. A thousand tree commitment in a year is significant. Would we want to see less trees being felled? Absolutely. But we have to also rely on the specialist qualified assessments of officers that determine whether or not a tree is safe that can either cause harm to a member of public or to damage to a property. While I do accept there is potential for better communication and better coordination, I accept that. But we do need to rely on the specialist nature of qualified people to make that judgement. And they wouldn't make this judgement as a snap decision. They are as passionate about trees and the tree scape as anybody. That is their vocation, it's their job. I apologise for any upset it's caused the community, but health and safety needs to be paramount importance of our residents. Having a critical mind as to whether these assessments are correct. Sorry Miss Carver, could we wait for Mr Eadie to finish and then we'll be having questions to you and maybe you could raise further points. Mr Eadie, did you have anything else left to say? I'm finished Chair, thank you. Okay, that was a bit too fast. Do members of the committee have any questions to ask Miss Garvey? Councillor Brooks. Thank you Chair. Hello Miss Garvey. I just have a question in part to Miss Garvey, but perhaps Mr Eadie can also confirm some details. When the tree officer would see a tree and deem it a danger, would it just be, and they say one of the three trees was deemed a danger, is there a risk then that the contractor will come and cut down more than one tree? Or is there a sense that we might be, once a commitment, once a decision has been made to cut down one tree, that there's a sense of while we're here we might as well do more? And that ends up with an incident like on Pentlow Street where you end up losing all the trees on the roads. Is that a risk? I would hope it isn't a risk, but I can confirm those three trees were surveyed and all three showing signs of decay and disease. When they were re-inspected it was the view of the officer at the time that that had deteriorated further and therefore on the grounds of safety they needed to be removed. It's not unusual that trees of the same species in the same location would suffer from the same issues. So hopefully that gives you some assurance that we're working off information of qualified people that make that judgment. Yes, can I first of all thank Ms. Garvey for bringing some issues to this committee, which I think are useful for us to hear actually, about the need for either our officers or our outsourced officers to be more circumspect in their communications with the public and their community relations and so on. All of these things are important and perhaps we fell short on some of this, either us or our contractors or an outsourced organization fell short on that and it's important to note that somebody has raised that with the committee and we ought to be clear about getting that right in future. Can I reinforce the council's support for trees? I personally always argue for more trees every opportunity I get around the borough, but correct something that Ms. Garvey said when she said everybody supports trees and wants more trees. I'm afraid my experience, my experience of dealing with residents and the public is that that is categorically not the case. I would say that the public splits based on an impressionistic sense of dealing with residents, the public splits about 50/50 on trees actually and quite a lot of people are often opposed to trees in the borough and want them cleared away. They don't like them near their houses, they don't want the leaves falling in their front gardens, they're frightened the roots are going to destabilize their property and so on and so on. So actually it is a mixed picture out there when you come to try and argue for trees in the borough and we need to take that into account sometimes a bit as a council. Personally I don't care, I always argue for trees but I know that I'm sometimes facing opposition when I argue for them. But anyway, thank you for the points you've raised this evening. Thank you. I think I was perhaps talking to my audience as in that trees are a good thing and I just also want to underline that in terms of Penthouse Street it was certainly, you know, we had good support. This wasn't, you know, there weren't mixed views that people supported this and were upset. The trees were actually, according to, inspected in 2020 so that's quite a big gap. You've mentioned an earlier inspection. So I'm just saying it was that day, so three, four years later they came in and if you look at the reports it doesn't say a danger to life and limb, it talks about some disease being detected in three trees. So, you know, that's the evidence. Are there any other questions for Ms Garvey? Councillor Kirk. Thank you. Yeah, as I said earlier, I think everyone can sympathise with the sadness it causes. Nobody likes to lose trees in their street. I have a question, it's probably more for Mr Edie given what you've just described, Ms Garvey, but if there were no letter attached, I thought the standard procedure was there's a letter attached to a tree saying this tree is diseased and it's going to be removed. I see them the whole time. So I can appreciate this will have come as an enormous shock and what you just said about it being three years later, that does suggest it wasn't urgent. So it does seem to me that there is a broader point here, I do accept that, that it does look to me like there's been a failure of communication and the very fact you're here and upset about it is telling us something. So I guess my question for Mr Edie is was there some sort of a slip up here and a letter which should have been attached to the trees wasn't? Thanks, Councillor Cook. Just to clarify, I've got a condition survey report in front of me now dated 30th of March 2024, not three years ago, and then offices. That's the day they were felled. Okay. I think it's certainly the end of March. Yeah. And it's listing all the issues. But that's the day they were felled. So the previous one, because I asked a question, I had to go back and forth and say, well, look, this came out of the blue. And I can check my phone afterwards, but it was, I think 2020. So it was three years before, or probably more. So this is my point. It's like, instead of actually looking into this and working out what's gone wrong, we have been faced the residents with, you know, you've got to listen to the experts, we know what we're doing. And actually that's not, if you dig further, that's, that's not right. It's not fair. Because something's gone wrong. And we're paying more money as a, as a council for this sort of emergency work. And that, that's, you know, pretty cool. Yeah. Can we, can we try and keep the question and ask through the chair? Sorry. Just to make sure that it doesn't just become a conversation and it's more formal mystery. Did you want to finish your point? So since I've been involved in this deputation and had the opportunity to look at it in more detail, I do feel there is a weakness in our communication and we can definitely improve that. But my understanding is that when a tree is deemed dangerous, it is, so it is instructed to be resolved as soon as possible. And looking at the issues with these trees, I suspect that was the reason why it was done so quickly. But I accept, and we will go away and make, and look at the communication. Thank you, Mr. Edie. I think, I think we are in agreement that hopefully there can be some improvements to be made to our communication so it becomes less of a surprise to residents when this happens. Unless there are any more questions. Oh, sorry, Councillor White. Thank you. I didn't mention my name earlier on Councillor White to invert Ward. Sorry, Mr. Edie. Can you tell me about the fourth tree? Was there a fourth tree on your list? I can't give you the details of that. I was only advised of that in the pre-meet, but I will look into that because if it's been noted as a condition of concern, then we need to resolve that. That doesn't mean we're going to have another tree felled in our street, but my point is that that was, they tried to fell it and someone had to stand in front. Okay, can we try and keep the questions through the chair? Are there any more questions for Ms. Garvey or for Mr. Edie on this point? Okay, so thank you very much for your deputation. We will be taking your comments into account. Feel free to stay if you want to watch the rest of the meeting, but we also wouldn't blame you if you want to go home and have a cup of tea. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Councillor Boseman. Are we going to discuss the issue now, Mr. Chair? The substantive paper. Well, I meant this particular issue. Because I want to ask Mr. Edie, I also want to say something myself given the context of it. I didn't want to do it in the answer to the question. Okay, yeah, now it's asked and you can ask a question directly to Mr. Edie if you wish. Could you also turn your microphone on? Thank you, Bob. First of all, I don't want to give second place to anyone on their love of trees. Just come and have a look at my photograph album. I've got millions of them all over the place. And I had one cut down in my road outside my door not long ago. I'm still not satisfied with the answer I've got to that. So absolutely, it's purely procedurally that I was actually talking about it. And I think we had evidence about that because Mr. Edie himself said he didn't know anything about it until the pre-meet, so he had no chance. I take it the result of this, we will get a paper, not a very long complicated paper, on the process for trees and getting rid of ones that are damaged or dangerous. Because I can understand all sorts of reasons. If trees are not perfect, given costs nowadays, given all sorts of implications that you cut down whilst you're in the tree, others that might need cutting down a year or two later. So I can see the sense of this. But should we not have a paper, not for tonight, because we don't know the facts, but a paper at a forthcoming meeting? Yeah, I think, or also some of that opinion, I think it would be useful, especially for residents, if there is at least a few days of advance worn and maybe a letter attached to the tree stump. This is something I've raised before. Mr. Edie, would you like to come back in about a potential paper in the future? I'm happy to bring a paper to the Environment Committee. All right. So are there any more questions on this point? It's not a question so much as just to say, I think we could sess out on the website for residents our process for trees. Because in a normal case, if a tree has got to come down and there is time, we put a note on the tree, don't we? Now obviously, in this case, we didn't have that time. It would have really helped some of us who were dragged into this much earlier and took it up as casework if we could have pointed at something, not just a paper that comes to this committee, but something on the website that says, you know, we love trees, but sometimes things go wrong. And we know they go wrong because we had a tree fall in Wesley Avenue recently, and there was no sign on the outside that there was anything wrong with the trees. So I perfectly accept there are times when trees fall, there are times when trees are dangerous, but I would like the public to understand a bit more without us all getting involved. Yeah, I think we'll agree. Ms. Garvey, I know you've raised your hands, but your deputation has finished. But if you do have more points that you want to raise, we've started an email dialogue with you. So if you want to continue that. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Garvey. Okay. So with that deputation, I think we can now turn to the substantive paper itself. So that is paper number 4, which we're taking next, which is the proposed new contract arrangements with Enable Leisure and Culture, paper number 24-359. I believe, Councillor Gasser, you'd like to say a few words on this, and then we turn to Mr. Eady for a bit more context on the paper. Yeah, thank you very much. Good evening, everybody. Just to say I'm very happy to be recommending that we extend the contract with Enable. We've worked very well together in the past, but we do have, we have slightly different ambitions now. This administration's Labour administration, and so the slight tweaks to the contract recognize that that changed ambition. But very keen to be working with our partner again. And just to say it's been a difficult process, the negotiation, I'm going to be honest, and I'm very grateful to all the officers in Enable and in our council. It's been a difficult time and everybody's been very professional. I do understand how hard it's been for everybody. I'm very, very glad that we've reached this agreement. I'm looking forward to us all working together very constructively in the future. I'm looking forward to welcoming some new staff into our council team. You're going to be very, very welcome. We're going to be listening to your views, not just imposing our views on you. We're going to be working together and working with the friends in Enable. So I'm looking forward to a really productive partnership going forward. We've got a really exciting year ahead, borough of culture happening. We've got our wonderful Enable events team. We're really glad we've still got all that going on and welcoming this paper, and I hope the committee will agree to extend the contract. Thank you, Councillor Gasser. Mr. Headey, would you like to come in and say a few words on the paper? Thank you, Chair. Not too much. I think Councillor Cass has covered most of it. So in September, we said that we'd come back to committee after agreeing to work with Enable to look to extend the contract. In the September paper, we set out some of the parameters in which we wanted the contract to move forward with. The discussions with Enable have been constructive. We feel that the resources that are coming back into the council will strengthen the council's resources and resilience to be able to deliver some of our ambitions around biodiversity, around trees management, around delivering our Wandsworth moves together strategy. So I'm pleased to recommend this paper to extend the contract to the committee and happy to take any questions. Thank you, Mr. Headey. Opening the floor now to Councillors if they have any questions. Councillor Cook. Thank you, Chair. Well, I must say I'm disappointed, as I was in September. I have the September paper here with me. It was, in terms of substantive content, barely four or five pages. Very poor for such an important subject. And let's not forget, we had four deputations all expressing, I thought, very valid concerns, and I don't feel we really got much by way of answer. And this paper isn't much better. It's barely any longer. It doesn't really answer any of the questions. I still don't get a sense of why you're doing this. I don't get a sense of what the structure is, what the new organization will look like. There should be a diagram at the very least here. What are the lines of command, particularly the separation between day-to-day things and strategic things, which we talked about a lot in the September paper, but not in any way elaborated. One thing which has emerged but is very, very confusing in this paper is a little bit more of the sort of financial side of things. And I've looked at it several times and others I've shown it to, and we can't make an awful lot of sense of it. So I'd be very grateful for any help. So on page 8, paragraph 19, there's a reference to the revised concession fee offered by enable is $3.7 million per annum. And then paragraph 26, the director of finance comments very clearly say that the forecast income will remain in the region of $2.1 million. So there's an enormous gap there. And what makes anyone think that $3.7 million is remotely realistic, given the challenges which we know that enable have faced, many of those very understandable the last few years abroad. And so I can't see how that adds up. And all of the other cost things which are described, insofar as they are described, about moving people around, changes to the energy contract seem to me that they are just moving people around, nothing more than that. So I can't see how this figure of, I think it's $426,000 is supposed to be a saving there. So my question is, how is that saving going to be achieved? I just can't see it. And why is it this massive discrepancy between the statement in paragraph 19 about the income and then the director of finance comments which are directly contradictory to that? And there's no elaboration. So there's two questions, please. I'll be very perhaps a cabinet member can explain it. I'll be very grateful. Thank you, Councillor Cote. Firstly, on your points about the size of the papers, I wanted to quickly turn to Councillor Osborne, who is chair of the General Purposes Committee, to give a bit of insight on the length of the papers and the reasoning behind that. Yeah, just, of course, just to say that we are engaged in a process with outside consultants, the CFGS, about the need for the council to be more agile and for the council to be better at taking decisions and engaging the public more with the decisions we take. Long papers are not the solution to that. In fact, the longer the paper is, the more difficult that process can become. Daunting tomes from the council are not a step towards better decision making and greater engagement of the public. Clarity is the point, and the need for clarity in the paper is what is called for. And what you have here is a paper with a degree more clarity than the paper that we had before. And it's that that we should be looking for. Not longer papers, but clearer papers. Thank you, Councillor Osborne. I think it's also worth raising that. Even the papers themselves are short, we also do have the options as committee members to get briefings from the officers to go into more substantive items of detail ahead of this. So thank you for that clarification, Councillor Osborne. Mr. Eadie, would you like to come back about the financials? What point would you like to raise? Well, is it a question to council or the spawn? Sorry. Sorry. No, I know. I apologize. Sorry. Thank you. Sorry. It seems like what you've gone into length explaining is what an executive summary is and sort of misunderstanding what representative democracy is. I mean, we're elected to scrutinize decisions on behalf of people so they don't have to spend as much time as all of us do in reading them and understanding them. If you're writing papers in order to try and make them as simple for the public to understand, you're not giving elected representatives the ability to do their jobs properly and therefore serve the people you're trying to simplify things for. Yeah, first of all, a concession to your point. We are, I think, as I said at the last meeting, we are taking a bit of a leap into the dark when we're entering into this relationship with outside consultants. And I don't think anybody is promising to get it absolutely right all the way through right at the very beginning. But nevertheless, there is a need for council documents to be easier for the public to assimilate and greater length is not part of that process. Shorter documents are going to be better for that. And so far in discussion from professionals and others alike, there is no questioning of that. If you're saying that greater clarity needs greater length, I'm not sure that I accept that. I think there are other ways of conveying clarity in a document, infographics and other techniques which are being experimented with around the council, can be introduced over time and might well help with the presentation of shorter documents. This is a document which is longer than the one that we had at the last meeting. It's a document that goes into greater detail. And it's a document which talks about other exploration of relationships with some of the other, shall we call them amenity societies and so on, who are forming the deputations here. My only point here this evening is that short does not mean better. Sorry, longer does not mean better. Short also does not necessarily mean better. But greater clarity, which in a document, is the desirable objective. It's a simple point, and I think one which most people would agree with, including the public who we were trying to draw into this process. That's all. Councillor Dobles. Just a quick point to support, Councillor Osborne. I think you can make a point about clarity, but having a long paper doesn't always mean clarity. And I've seen some very long papers that have absolutely no clarity. So I don't think we should just argue for the papers to be longer for the sake of it. If there's a particular point that you want in the paper, say exactly what that is, rather than just saying, oh, it's a short paper. And if you look at-- we all have worked in companies and things like that. You go to board reports, and they can be a nice, simple short paper. It sets out everything really clearly. So let's just kind of not make it about the length. That was my only quick point. Thank you. And yeah, I also tend to agree with that point, having sat on the committee and feeling a certain sense of doom when I'm particularly busy at my work. Because being a Councillor is a part-time job, and seeing a 350-plus long paper, it makes it harder to get the really key points out, the points of the decision worth scrutinizing. Councillor White. Yeah. I'd like to speak to support Councillor Osborn and Councillor Dolores as well, but add to another point as well. I'm on three committees, and in the four-week period a couple of years ago, I had 1,000 pages to read. And that is only half of what the executive would have to read as well. So I think my point is that too much, too many papers will end up with bad policy, because it's not being scrutinized properly by anyone. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Satters. Yes. I've got nothing against short papers, actually, Councillor Osborn. Some years ago, we also tried to shorten papers, and we managed for a while, and then suddenly they eased out again. And I think that's something, if you do have this ambition, you're going to have to watch that. I don't know how it happens, but they just do. Where I got lost in this paper, and I'll admit it's probably because I haven't been around very much in the last year, is with the staff that are coming into the Council or the new staff that you're taking on, when we talk about ones with moves together. And I really am only concentrating on the Lot 1 and Lot 2, and mostly Lot 2. Will that person be in charge of ones with moves together, and therefore be looking at sport in the round? And how does Access for All work? Because I've spoken to some groups around ones, and they don't seem to be aware of how, what the process is for Access for All. I mean, I think it was 4.85 million you put aside for that. Good sum. And I can trace the criteria, but what I can't trace is how, say, the Roehampton playing fields would get compensated if they were to give 50% places to a number of people. There's always a limit on the number of people who can have those places. So that's where I lost myself in this paper, if that makes any sense. Mr. Edie, would you like to come back on that? So, Chair, if it's okay, I've noted those two down, but the original question from Councillor Cook was around the finance. So I'm going to come back to that, but I'll pass it to Catherine, who is much more expert than I. But I just wanted to re-emphasize, if I may, Chair, that in the September report, we set a framework in which we would make a judgment on an extension proposal. This report pulls the bits, the framework which we decided was make that judgment on in the report and provides a position on that, and we're happy with that position. So for me, yes, it's a short report, but it's delivering what we said we would do in September, which is using the framework to make that judgment, and that's what our officers are recommending to the Committee and the Executive based on that, because that's what we agreed in September. Catherine, if it's okay, help me with the finance. Thank you. Catherine Burson, Director of Financial Management. Thanks for the question. If I can hopefully point you to the table at the top of page 10. So the figures that you've quoted as the 2.1 million as being the current concession fee, that's the 2024-25, and that's consistent throughout the paper. The concession fee being offered from 25-26 is the 3.7 million that you mentioned, and that's at the top of the table at the top of page 10. And what's happened is because of those services that are coming back to the Council and the change in the utility charges basis, some of those costs are then being incurred directly by the Council rather than by Enable through the concession contract, bringing you to that figure at the bottom of that table, the 2.5 million. So in a way, we're comparing 2.5 million to the current cost of 2.1 to get the savings mentioned in the paper. So Enable have put forward a bid that is a better position than the current year, and that's a better position for the Council overall. Hopefully that helps. Thank you. Any other questions? Councillor White. Councillor Burson, please. Okay, Councillor Burson. When was it that the whole of the Enable outfit was part of an ordinary in-house part of the Council? When did the staff mutual first get established? '19, sorry, '20? '19, '15, wasn't that? Is that when it became staff mutual? And then when did it become Enable and not a staff mutual? Well, but it's completely independent now, isn't it? Well, yeah, but I mean, because I can remember that these things happened largely for tax reasons. The Council, I can't remember the actual details, but anyway, they're all to do with finance. They weren't particularly to do with the quality of the service. It was all about how can we get things operating more cheaply? And probably, almost certainly, the Manual staff, and particularly the lower skilled clerical staff, took the biggest hits. Almost certainly, they lost to superannuation rights and holiday rights, also things like that, because that's what happened in nearly all the privatisations throughout the years of Tory privatising. You now have a Council with a different view. If we can bring it back in-house again, reasonably effectively, and none of the staff are paying any personal costs, then I think that's quite a good thing, and I'm not afraid to say that. I am, however, interested to have it confirmed that there's no worsening of staff conditions, because there certainly were the other way around. There's no worsening of staff conditions and no losses of employment. Councillor Cook laughs at the old Labour nature of my comments, and I'm proud of them. Go on, carry on. Mr Edie. You'd like to make a point of personal explanation on what? What's been said? I would say I'm not laughing at you, Councillor Belton, I never do that. Respect your view, we just see things differently. As I recall, this was about 2013, I think Mr Chadwick can probably, and it was Staff Mutual, one of the first in the country, and I don't recall there being any demunition of employment or employment rights for those who were part of it, far from it. I think there was, I seem to remember, enormous enthusiasm for the greater independence. So all of those who were asked within ABLE, do you want to do this? I seem to remember it was 99% yes, it would be great, we can operate a little bit more independently, but still serving the Council. And one of the key things was the fact that ABLE would still have access to the local government pension arrangements, and so that didn't change, and it probably wouldn't have happened if that hadn't been the case. So I think that needs to be very clearly understood, it was certainly not a privatisation, as you said. But what Councillor Delton has just said I think is actually very revealing, because we're beginning to get a sense of why you're doing this. And at the last meeting I asked the cabinet member directly, and typically got no response whatsoever, why are you doing this? And I think we just had a pretty big clue, because you don't like things being outside of the Council, you'd rather they were pulled back in again, and that I think is what we're seeing on a piecemeal basis. And if I may just roll on to the length of the paper, I think it's crucially important that these things are articulated, and the key test, however long the paper is, however long it is, the key test is can people understand it? And the vast majority of people say they cannot understand this paper, they can't see what you're doing, they can't see how you're doing it, and I think that's what you need to worry about. Sure, you can get it into the executive summary, you should be able to do that in one page, but this does neither. It doesn't make any sense as an executive summary, it doesn't make any sense as a fuller explanation of what you're doing. Okay, I think we've gone into quite agonising detail about the length of the paper, Councillor Gasser, would you like to come into Councillor Cook's points? Yes, since I've now been named, the reason I wasn't giving you an answer last time was not because I'm doctrinally committed to bringing things in-house, it was because we were in the middle of very, very sensitive negotiations and there were things I did not want to say in public. I did offer you a private briefing, Councillor Mr Chadwick is also always available for a private briefing. There are things I did not want to say in public. When we are talking about any new contract or going out to tender, a consideration is in sourcing and we take the decision that is best for the residents, and in this case a small amount of bringing in-house, but it's not a doctrinaire decision, it's the best to achieve our ambitions for our residents. Thank you. Mr Eadie, do you want to come in? Just wanted to answer Councillor Belton's question, which I think was from memory that the staff that are transferring won't lose any benefits. They will not be any worse off, hopefully they will adopt some of our terms and conditions and pension if they're not already members of the local government pension scheme already, because some of the staff did transfer on that. So I can assure you that they won't be. Thank you. Yeah, Councillor Sutters, you had some questions for Mr Eadie. I've just realised that I haven't answered your questions, I apologise. I got confused by all the discussions around length of the paper, but I do apologise. So the first question I believe, thank you for the reminder Catherine, was that would the transferring sports staff be responsible for delivering the ones who have moved together strategy? Absolutely, we want that to be fully resourced, we're very ambitious about it, and I believe having dedicated staff that help us deliver that ambition, that will work with Enable and all other partners to help us deliver that, will be really helpful in meeting that ambition. In terms of access for all, I don't want to steal the thunder of the fees and charges paper because access for all will start to explain a little bit about how people will be able to access it for different fees and charges within the borough, but the principle is broadly that if you are eligible for access for all as a resident, you will either get free or 50% off services that the council deliver, or partners deliver on its council behalf, and that is evolving and growing, and we have done a survey where we're trying to understand more what residents think are important, but if you don't mind, I would love my colleagues to be able to tell you a little bit more in the fees and charges paper. Thank you Mr Eddy, any other questions? Councillor White. Hi, so staff transferring wouldn't have lost their rights as far as that was concerned, but new staff coming on would not get the same council style pensions for instance, so that would be one way obviously that the contract could be made cheaper and demotivate the people who are working for you and see a lot of people moving off and losing a lot of staff in that way. But anyway, I suppose the option of bringing everything in-house was disgust going on from Councillor Belton's comment, and I presume after this three-year contract is out and things haven't worked out the way we might have expected, then that's a possibility as well. So first of all, we're very happy that we've got an extension with Enable, Councillor, but as the council offers a group, we will always be evaluating the success of services and always evaluating the options that gives the best and most value for money for our residents, and I have no doubt that that will include different options of delivery models in the future, but we're very happy that we've got an extension of the contract with Enable and good continuity of services and we've got a good chance to work and deliver some really good exciting things for our residents. Any other questions? Councillor Jeffries. Thank you, Chair. Councillor James Jeffries for Thamesfield Ward. Just to say that I know sort of Councillor Osborne's point around the paperwork here and the detail, we've gone over that. Just to say though, the point around the leap in the dark, I think was the phrase you used, we are talking about scrutinising a contract with an annual income of sort of two to three million pounds to the council. If I were to be at a company board looking at a similar contract renewal, I would expect to see a bit more detail in those papers than what we've got here. I think one of the points that is missing and that has come through the points raised by Councillor Belton and Councillor White is around the strategy and the long-term vision that this contract renewal sits in with the administration's plans for the medium to longer term. Specifically, it would be helpful to know given that we've had ten staff transfers in the last paper, we've got four transferred in this paper, is that where things now stand or is it possible for there to be further changes before the end of this extended contract term? Councillor Gasser, I believe you wanted to comment. Yeah, I'm just going to comment on the fact that you're saying you're not able to scrutinise well enough. You have the opportunity for a briefing with officers. You haven't taken that up. When I was in opposition, I always took that up and I would harass poor Mr Chadwick for hours to get to the bottom of what was really going on because I know you can't get into every single detail in the committee meeting like this. I suggest you guys take up your opportunity for a briefing and then you'll know what's in our minds because we can't carry it all on here. So just on the specific point that is our strategy to bring in more and more staff? No, not at the moment. There is an option somewhere buried deep in the contract that we can, if we bring in other services, we don't intend to. This is where we hope it lands. We think this will work very well because we will have a more direct line of sight and more control over these specific areas that are very, very important to me and the administration. So it's trees, it's biodiversity and it's sport and leisure. But everything else, you know, we're very happy with ENABLE. They put on the most amazing events. They do very good briefings of all of those things. We don't need to bring anything else in at this moment. It's not about sort of whatever you want to call it in housing by itself. This is where I hope it lands. Thank you. Councillor Jeffries, did you want to come back on that? Yes, thank you, Chair. Just a very quick follow-up question. Ms. Reedy mentioned that there will be an analysis of the potential alternative delivery models at the end of this extended contract. Was that analysis carried out for this contract extension? And would it be possible to see the options that were considered before it was determined that the Council would continue with ENABLE? So the priority was to secure some continuity with ENABLE. In the September report, we set out the framework of which we would, as officers, make a judgment on whether that's value for money and it meets our Council objectives. And the report today, I'm pleased to say, says that between ENABLE and the Council, we have agreed to meet that framework that we set out in the September report, which means that this is our preferred option. The Council will always do, you know, options, appraisals, and things like that. But the primary objective here was to secure a great service, have some continuity, but strengthen the Council's position. Thank you. I think Councillor Kirk had a question, and then Councillor Osbourne, Councillor Onan. It was a question and a reaction to Councillor Cassell's comments, which is good to hear. Thank you. I did think carefully about taking up the offer of a private briefing, but, you know, I thought it would have been the wrong thing to do because I felt at the last meeting that you were using that as an alternative to the public scrutiny and not answering questions that I was asking, saying I will talk to you privately about it. I don't think that's right. I think it's incredibly important that things are aired in this public meeting. It is the whole point. And another example of that, I have to say, I'm sorry, I think it's exactly what it is. I've got a note here. It's sort of fun enough from one of the people who came as a deputation last time around. It's been sent to all sorts of people. I know you've seen it because it's addressed to you. And it's asking the note, they clearly don't particularly understand the paper. They're saying have we understood this correctly, which is precisely the point I was making earlier. They're saying would you share this note here with the committee? And it was sent yesterday and it hasn't been. I just think it's this openness. It's really, really important that you're able to articulate what you're doing and that you can do it here. That's what this is all about. Yeah, I mean, the mechanism for sharing it with the committee was Mr. Wernam agreed with the man that was sending it that he would share it with all of you. That was the clerk's. Well, I mean, that doesn't seem to have happened. Okay, well, I haven't. I only got it indirectly. I only got it from John. Well, he didn't seem to get it. Okay, well, okay. That was the agreement with the resident. There was that he would circulate the whole committee and we understood that he had because our side certainly got it. So we can look into that. That was, that was Mr. Wernam arranged that. But I'm just on the fact of private briefings or not. I mean, you must understand we were in very, very difficult negotiations. There were things I didn't want to say. Well, if you could have met me and I could have reassured you. And just to add, looking at the email now, I was sent yesterday at 4.53 and it was, it was to everyone. You're included in that. Maybe your internet was down. Councillor Osborne. Yes. But just by way of introduction, I thank Councillor Jeffries for his point about our leap in the dark. It was a general point I was making and I think you understood that. But Councillor Jeffries makes a good point that a contract with one of our outsourced operations must have proper scrutiny and must have detail and clarity and its discussions. Absolutely right. But that detail and clarity can be enhanced if the opposition choose to take direct private briefings from the officer team. I was the opposition speaker on this committee for five years and I took those private briefings at every single opportunity. And the reason I did it was not to have a discussion which the public did not see, but rather to have information which would improve and enhance the questioning that I brought to this committee when scrutiny was taking place. And I strongly urge the opposition in future to take those briefings, get those briefings, because it means this kind of discussion will get to the heart of the matter more quickly, more efficiently than it is doing at the moment. You're suggesting all the way through this discussion that you're not quite getting enough and all the rest of it. Well, you would be if you were to take those private briefings and you'd be able to ask a different sort of question in the meeting and you'd be drawing much more on what was going on. It enhances the scrutiny. It doesn't impair it if you have those briefings. Was that the point that you wanted to write? Yeah, for your next one. Okay, so Councillor Anan. Hello, my name is Councillor Anan from Battersea Park Road. I wanted to say something to Councillor Geoffrey. In my first year of being a Councillor, I was on about five committees and I was having all those big, big papers and I couldn't read and English is my fourth language. I've got dyslexia. I don't understand. It takes me a long time to read to understand. So shortening the papers for us now, I think is the best. At least it gets straight forward to the point you're able to, everything has been summarized for us. So please bear with some of us. It's good for us. And also to the officers, Mr. Marchi, I don't know your setting. Forgive me for that. One question I want to ask you regarding the officers that are going to be brought back in house. I know most of their families are watching now. Are they going to be permanent or is going to be on contract basis? Because we don't want anybody losing their job along the way. They're saying, oh, you're not doing well, dah, dah, dah. Yeah. Thank you. Yes, I can confirm that they will transfer on the same terms and conditions and as permanent members of staff, unless they're already fixed term already. But we are very ambitious around delivering our biodiversity, trees and sport leisure, physical activity plans and strategies. So I want more people that are permanent to be able to deliver that, you know, and this is bringing really good, real lived experience of Wandsworth into the council so we can work more collaboratively with other services internally and deliver on those ambitions. I don't know, chair, if you wanted me to answer the amenity question that Councillor Cook raised or that they didn't understand the process of how it's going to work. Yeah. Yeah. So we've met with the amenity groups a couple of times since the last committee. And from my perspective, I think we've had very valuable and helpful conversations. The reason we haven't landed how it's necessarily going to work at this stage is we were in a period of standstill with the grounds maintenance contractor so we couldn't engage them and involve them in conversations of how the new ways of working will happen. We need to wait for this committee and the executive to understand what if officers will transfer and resetting the relationship with enable. And I'm a huge believer in co production and involving people in the decision making and making the system and a process that works. So once we've settled all these decisions and we have a full understanding of what the resources that we can pull at, we will work together with the amenity groups with all the different organizations that share our ambition to develop a ways of working that is co produced that we will continuously want to improve and evaluate to make sure it delivers the best for our residents. So there is a little bit of vagueness at the moment, but until all that everything falls into place, it's difficult to, you know, really have those engaging conversations. Thank you. And I'm sure that's been the case in previous contract negotiations as well. Counselors. You haven't spoken to the very Hampton playing fields trust. They contacted me about this paper yesterday. A little bit upset that they haven't been brought in at all, given that they're trying extremely hard with those fields to get usage up. That's one thing I would like to think that you take the time to do so. I can only apologize if they feel that they've been excluded. That's certainly not the intention. My understanding is we have a borough wide green spaces forum, and if they're not part of that, then they should be. But I will happily engage with them in the future planning for what our ways of working will look like in the future. They're a bit of an anomaly. They don't attend the green spaces forum, which I do know quite a lot about because I started it. But they're out on a limb and they were just a little bit push out that they haven't heard anything. I can put you in touch. Please connect me because Roehampton is a priority area for us as well. So yes, please connect me and I'll move that forward. Councilor books. Thank you, chair. So I think a big issue in the paper is the difficulty that enable have of meeting the contracted concession fee that they tell us they're going to pay and then they fall short. Why do they find it so difficult? And are there ways that the council inadvertently sometimes makes it harder for them to make the income that they need to make, say, by having them cancel events in parks or I don't know, but what do we know why they fall short? And is it the council's fault at all that why they might fall short? That's a difficult one to answer on behalf of a neighbor. You'd have to ask them that themselves. But there's a commitment for us to work with them. It's in our interest that they do well and they have a great services. They've assured us and we've had very scrutinized their accounts to make sure they've been very unable, been very open and transparent. They are confident they can deliver this. We have tried to take barriers out of their way. So the risk on energy tariff, we're transferring that to the council. That's a big reason why they've been unable to hit their concession fee. But also the market's changing a little bit now. It's a bit better. So yes, we still have a cost of living crisis, but also now we've got access for all, which will help supplement and it will encourage people. We've had over 50,000 visits to our facilities of people that probably wouldn't have visited in the past. And enable will get income from that now, which they wouldn't have done because they wouldn't have visited. So I think it's going to be a combination and a partnership with enable and everyone else to try and make sure that we do have the participation that translates into income. And as I said, we have tried to take barriers out of the way by things like the utility tariff. And that's why that's in here. That's our way of trying to help follow up. If I may, it seems like an odd way of working to agree a 3.7 million pound concession fee in the contract negotiation and then to immediately say, well, we're not going to get that. Why would it be the practice to say, which is what's in the director of finances comments? Why wouldn't we question the proposed concession fee being too high in advance rather than accept in a contract than immediately allow them to pay a lower fee? If I can help clarify that, that's, that's not what we're saying. We are saying enable pay is 3.7 million. That's what they have bid under the contract. And that is what the contract will say. Those other elements are parts of the contract that instead of being part of the concession free in terms of what enable pay instead, the council is going to pay those utilities directly. So in order to have a comparable figure against the 2.1 million, that's why that's table is set out in that way to get to the bottom figure of 2.5 enable will give us or that is what the contractual payment is. 3.7 million. Any other questions for officers? Counselor, do you mind? I've been trying to make a point about a further point about counsel unknowns question, if that's okay, which is that, uh, thank you for the question. And, um, Mr. Reidy answered it about the specifics of the actual terms, conditions of transfer. I recognize your point that, you know, these people's lives are affected their families around them, myself, Mr. Reidy made points of meeting those affected staff, those incoming staff, some of whom, of course, have never worked for council before. And we made some very much wider points about the commitment of the council as a great employer to staff development, to training, to ensuring that their careers are productive. And, you know, and I think I think it's fair to say there was good response to that. They recognized that. And we, you know, we intend to follow through those promises. Any other question? Counselor Kirk. Thank you. I don't accept being able to understand the paper should depend on receiving private briefings. I think a paper should stand on its own merits, and anyone should be able to read it and get it. And that clearly hasn't happened. Can I ask a specific question? Page seven. Uh, there's a table counsel's requirements on the left hand side, current position. So, uh, on the second line down, the council wishes to exercise greater control and visibility on activity delivered through the contract, through the use of its assets. Can I have a specific example where the council feels it needs greater control and visibility? Mr. Edie, would you like to come in on that? I am very exercised, obviously, about environmental matters, and I would like our biodiversity strategy to be a lot stronger and to cover not just not just the commons and the parks at every area of green space and blue space across the across the borough and to include things like monitoring EDNA and things like the planning conditions and how planning can affect biodiversity. I want a much a much wider, more encompassing biodiversity strategy and a biodiversity action plan year on year. So it's that line of sight that I want to have close to me so that I can see what's going on and offices to deliver on that. And I think we could say something similar like that with sports development as well with this with our new strategy. We want to have that absolutely close to us. Mr. Edie, would you like to start there? So Councilor Casa gave two examples there, but I suppose there's an ambition here to work more closely and make sure that we're not things aren't falling through the gaps or there's no duplication in areas and things like that. And at the moment, I think it's fair to say that the communication and the transfer of information could be improved. We've got commitment on both sides of the Council and enabled to do that, being able to see what's coming in the pipeline and opportunity, you know, for example, where, you know, we might be bidding for the same funding or other, you know, it's just having much more greater transparency of the plans and the ambitions and make sure they are lying to our ours as well. So this is helpful. I think both parties welcome it. And it also the board won't just be about this contract. It's about are there other opportunities that enable as a partner, we can realize through other commissioned areas or working with the VCS and things like that. So it will expand the horizons. It will strengthen the relationship and the opportunities as well. Thank you, Mr. Edie. Are there any other questions? Okay, so this paper is for decision by the executive. Does the committee agree to support the recommendations in paragraph 2 of the report? You're allowed to take a vote on it. Okay. So, yeah, that's four against. That was four. So what's the actual four against? Six, four, and four against. Six, four, and four against. All right. Thank you. Okay. That is paper four done. So now we go into the revised order, which is paper three. So that is the this has been touched on previously in the minutes. It's about the feasibility study and the position for Pocket Park and Spoffield Road. Councilor Brooks wanted to introduce this item and speak on it. So Councilor Brooks. Thank you, Chair. First I want to start by thanking Mr. Chadwick for the clarifications at the start of the meeting. We appreciate that. I would say that I know there's been some back and forth between yourself and Councilor Graham, which I'm not been on all of the emails. I know you were speaking up until last night or yesterday afternoon. Could you just, if possible, could you update me on what the latest or I can just speak to? Yeah. Sorry. Sorry if you haven't seen all the exchanges. I think you will have seen it. Councilor Graham's email just ahead of publication deadline. The last exchange was from ITA. He essentially, I think, clearing off his last point, which was about a precise question about who was involved prior to ECS's involvement in the feasibility work. What role had Councillors had in the period of informal discussions? I guess I call it in the property services period. And I went back to him and clarified that, yes, he asked a specific question about Cabinet members or ward Councillors or both. I went back and made it very clear that there were no ward Councillors' involvement, but there were Cabinet members' involvement in that. I named the Councillors as being Councillor Gasser and Councillor Hogg, who's the lead for property. Thank you very much. I think that probably then starts the question, which I think holds the bulk of the discussion. When the feasibility studies were completed prior to February 2024, when, this is a question to Councillor Gasser, when did you tell, or did you tell the ward Councillors or the Member of Parliament for Tooting that the feasibility studies had been complete and the project was going ahead? It wasn't actually me because it wasn't in my portfolio at that time, but there would have been discussions, I guess, in that period. I can't tell you exactly when there would have been discussions. Of course, politicians talk to each other, don't they? You talk to your guys. Of course, I can't tell you exactly when. He asked the question because, given the discussions did happen, it would then make the fact that the paper we then got at committee, which misled Ms Shearer and led her to make the inadvertently false statement, people signing off the paper must have known, if those discussions had happened, that the paper wasn't right. That's more a question of me. I absolutely would assure you as a committee, and I cleaned it up for you, Councillor, that it was an inadvertent mistake. I explained the rationale for that to Councillor Graham. I'm happy to repeat that rationale now if you wish, but it absolutely was an inadvertent mistake, both in terms of how the report was written and in terms of how the officer or the committee talked about the feasibility. This was a matter of oversight of what had gone on before ECS's, sorry, Environment Committee Service officer's involvement, full involvement, and what happened afterwards. It was a lack of communication. I've probably explained it clumsily, a little clumsily along the way, but that's what it was. I don't think we're going to get much else out of the conversation if people don't want to discuss what conversations happened that would have led to a petition being launched after the feasibility studies have been completed, but that's plainly what happens, right? I'm not quite sure I see the point of this discussion at all, actually. We've agreed, you didn't, I mean, you didn't agree, but we have agreed to create a beautiful new park for residents in that area where they didn't have one. What's not to like about that? It's a really good project. I think you're just causing trouble for no reason. No, I don't think that's true. The issue isn't whether the park happens, which we all support happening. The issue is whether information was shared from cabinet members to campaigning councillors and members of parliament, which they were then able to exploit, knowing the project was already going to go ahead, acting as though the petition would then be the reason for the project to go ahead. But aren't your councillors in Putney doing something similar? They're campaigning for improvements to Putney Leisure Centre when that money's already been agreed. I don't know. I don't think that money's, I don't know if that money's been agreed already. Yes, in finance. The plan would be, that plan would be contingent on us being successful in the 2026 election, as far as I'm concerned. No, we have agreed money for Putney Leisure Centre already, and yet your colleagues are campaigning for improvements to Putney Leisure Centre. So it's a bit disingenuous, isn't it? Well, I think it must be just a different planned project, ultimately. I don't think so. It wouldn't be the same project. No, I don't think so. I feel I was wrong getting into semantics of how politicians in the area try and do petitions, try and collect data, political campaigning. This doesn't seem relevant to the work of the committee. Councillor Wright, do you want to come in? Just quickly, I mean, how many people sign the petition? Surely that's the main thing here. I mean, it seems to be an extraordinarily popular local park, I think, and a great use of that space. That seems to be the general feeling of local people, and it builds on success in other parts of the borough. For instance, in Councillor Osborne's ward as well, where we've got a very popular park there. I don't see where this is going, really. Does anyone have any more points on this? Yeah, okay. Does the committee agree to note this item? Yeah. Okay. The item's noted. Thank you. So then we come on to agenda item number five. That is the revision of charges for the environment overview and scrutiny committee. That's paper number 24-360. I think Mr. Moylan wants to comment on that. Sorry, Councillor Gasser. I'm going to start just to introduce this paper because, you know, we're very proud of our charging structure at the moment, so we've had to put up basic charges by 2.2% in line with inflation for people that can afford to pay, but this is an opportunity for us to really roll out the access for all offer, so people that are in our access for all universe, if you want to call it that, people on means tested benefit, children on free school meals, they will get a very much reduced offer, free and off peak times or half price in peak times to all of the services that we have to offer, and we're starting at looking at how we can also roll that out in other areas as well in, let's say, bereavement services, registration services, bulky waste collections, all that sort of thing. We're looking into how we can really make sure that all our residents can access everything that One's Worth has got to offer, and just on top, just the only place where you might find that charges have gone up a little bit more than inflation is where we think businesses can afford to pay just a little bit more to help with the costs for everybody else. Thank you, Councillor Gasser. Mr Morden, did you want to add any further points before we open up to questions? I think actually Councillor Gasser has done a very, very good point in outlining the report, and so I'd be very happy to answer questions as well, Ms O'Connor as well. Thank you. Yeah, opening the floor to questions. Moves the papers agreed. Councillor Kirk. I do have a question. Very grateful to Councillor Gasser for the elaboration of your thinking behind this. The Chancellor would be proud of you. Basically, club of businesses if you think you can get away with it. It's in paragraph nine, and then quite astonishingly, and I know you sometimes get some funny anomalies in these papers, but this one doesn't seem to be one of those, where the build and de-build costs at the British Genius site, this is paragraph 18, page 19, in Battersea Park are going up by an astonishing 185%. So that's doubling and doubling again, and from memory, they're pretty chunky already. So, I mean, what work has been done to understand that businesses can cope with this? That's an absolutely eye-popping increase, and it's surely going to cause problems. So that's going to damage the events and programme, the events income and all that sort of. Has this been thought through? So could you clarify where you've got 185% from? 184.6 is on page 53, appendix C, and is also referenced in page 19, paragraph 18, where it coily refers to the charge for build and down days is proposed to increase significantly. We can say that again, due to the need to cover additional expenses that occur from supplies, constructions, and utilities. I mean, how are they going to cope with that? Any business that I'm aware of, 185%. That's crippling. Well, first of all, these are the maximum possible, doesn't mean they have to charge that much, and I would assume that each business comes in and negotiates, but I'd defer to financial colleagues. Mr Morgan, do you want to come in on that? So thank you. I suppose by way of a context as to how we present charges. So we will work with, in this instance, Enable to discuss with them their cost pressures and also their specific needs for charges. So this has been developed in conjunction with Enable, and it's in response to a very specific area, as has been mentioned, where there is a significant element of financial pressure involved in the delivery of this service. I think people who are more familiar with the nature of this will know that it is an incredibly popular site with high demand for businesses to operate this sort of substantial event. So I don't believe we would expect to see a particular impact on the overall cost of the, or rather an overall decline in the overall demand for this service as a result of this. Thank you for that. Any other questions? Well, if I may just come back. I mean, I'm not reassured by that at all. I mean, what we've just seen on a national scale, if you can push things too far, and look what's happened with employer's national insurance. It's completely backfired, and I would have thought this is obviously a different thing, but it's absolutely astonishing the potential level of increase there, and there will come a point where businesses will just say, well, sorry, we can't do that, or they pass it on, so people will end up paying more in other ways. Yeah, great. I think I'm not convinced. I think that looks alarming. I believe, Mr. Morin, you said that this was done in partnership with Enable, this proposed increase. Yes, that's correct. So they manage and run the site, and they're therefore very familiar with their client base. And so they have proposed this on the expectation that this is a deliverable cost increase. Councillor Belton. Well, I was at an event on Friday. I possibly might not be the only one on Friday, and the people who were at that event, including the business concerned, they didn't seem to know, most of us, what austerity was. If you compare their standard of living, their style of living, their expenditure, you can include me in this. I'll happily include myself with most of the residents sitting, living on one or two of the council estates within a half mile. Well, there's just no comparison at all. And I'm just a little bored with this argument about hitting business. Business has been doing a great campaign job in the last week or two to absolutely make us all terrified. I can say the biggest problem in this country is inequality. Oh, I don't know whether that's the biggest. People are making sweeping demands. It must be one of the biggest problems in this country. And most business people I know in this area are doing all right. There are a few that are not. I accept that. But compared with the generality and compared with the vast majority of people with lower than average incomes, they're doing all reasonably OK. And I think we should stop fussing about them. I don't think they are really fussing about themselves, judging by the amount of money they're prepared to spend at these events and the kind of flash events they're prepared to go to all over the world and the increased pay that all the senior executives have. And I know that's not every business and there's little businesses, et cetera, et cetera. But don't cry too much for the people who hire the genius sight of a Friday evening and go there and go to the Battersea Police Ball, which I happily admit that I did. And lots of people are there with lots of money. Thank you, Councillor Bats. Mr. Chair, if I could just make a comment. I'm sure we can double check that enable feel they can sustain this. What I would, however, do is compare the cost of the 184.6% increase, that line, which is the cost of build up and take down days for corporate retail and public events, for structure based events, compare that with lower down the cost of build up and take down days for corporate retail and public events that are in the open air. And you'll see that the current charge for that is 8,080. So very much higher than the current charge for the former, which is 2,040. So I kind of more see this as enabled with my colleagues attempting to draw the two closer together and kind of more pointing out that there's a strange kind of difference there which needs to be corrected. Yeah, it does seem like more of like a realignment than an intentional increase. Councillor Osborne. The way to see this is a set of priorities. I think every year, regularly, we have to revise the charges. And the top priority for this administration, when we're revising charges, are the people who are struggling to afford it. And we have a concessionary access for all policy priority number one. Priority number two is the bulk of our residents who come to pay charges, and we are making sure that those residents are faced with charges which are less than inflation. Priority number two. And profit making organisations come after those. Those are the three categories. We have no shame whatsoever in arguing for that ranking in order of priority as an administration. Thank you, Councillor Osborne. Any other questions or points? All right, so this paper is also for decision by the executive. Does the committee support the recommendations in paragraph three of the report? Okay, yeah, that's against. So 6-4 against. So it is carried. Next we go to paper number six, revenue budget monitoring quarter two, 2024/25. Paper number 24-361. I believe Mr Moreland would like to introduce this also. Yes, thank you, Chair. And I didn't introduce myself on the previous item, so Alex Moreland, Head of Finance and Performance within Environment and Community Services. So this is the second iteration of our quarterly updates to this committee. So we previously took the paper in the last cycle for quarter one, so this represents the revenue forecast as at quarter two for the current financial year. There is not much in the way of significant deviation. We are maintaining a similar level of overspend that we expected in quarter one. We have a slight improvement in overall income associated with the leisure sector and then a slight improvement in our overall waste cost of disposal in particular associated with the ongoing food disposal. There is also a reduction in the overachievement of income associated with the sort of penalties and ongoing licenses for digging up the roads, in particular utilities such as Thames Water have reduced the overall volume of work, so we've curtailed the income that we expected from that source down. But again, very happy to answer any questions anyone may have. Thank you, Mr Moreland. Are there any questions? Councillor Kirk. Thank you. Yeah, on paragraph 11, page 103, could we just have a little bit more about what's caused that underspend, 342,000, the WRWA? Chair, is that okay if I answer that? Sure, yeah. Natasha Epstein, Director of Waste and Street Cleansing. So the new services that we've rolled out, the food waste service and the new trucks have seen huge increases, not just in food waste capture but actually recycling capture. And so the disposal savings that we built into the paper where we agreed the extension have already been taken, but these are savings on top of that in terms of disposal. We've also had some energy rebate that's contributed to that saving. Thank you for that. Are there any other questions? Councillor Weiss, is that a hand? It wasn't. Since I got my hand up anyway, I was just wondering about, I know this is a finance paper really, but the waste and recycling, have we been reported since the splitting of the food waste and the general household waste? Have we had reports of cleaner street scene because foxes aren't really getting our general waste anymore and they can't get in into the caddies now? I suspect that one's for me as well. So obviously if people are using the caddies then yes, I know some people have had caddies knocked over. I personally have to keep a brick on mine to stop the foxes from getting to it. So it does help, but at the moment we're doing some participation survey to see how many people are using it. We're currently doing a door knocking campaign to all people that have received the caddies to check that everything's okay, encourage more people to use the service. So yes, where people are using it, other places, not necessarily as much as we would like, but still work in progress. Thank you for that. Councillor Brooks. Thank you very much. In the last two quarters we've had an overspend on street cleaning of over £300,000. Why is that happening? What's going wrong to cause the need for extra street cleaning? It's me again. So obviously our town centres are generally busier than they were before, but actually it's the rapid response, so fly tipping bags out on streets. So we've been working with the contractor to make sure that things that are genuinely rapid responses are being charged as rapid response. So we're increasing contract management with them. So we have reduced that cost in the current quarter, so we're expecting that to come back in line. Could it not be due to the fivefold increase in missed collections that we're told about in the KPIs? That might be a question for the next paper on the KPIs, but did you want to... Can I just suggest that this has been a reasonably long-standing issue with the contract in that we would have a higher volume of rapid response elements. So I think going back to the inception of the contract, it has largely been kind of an ongoing issue. So it's very good actually that this has been addressed by the work that Ms Epstein and Auntie were undertaking. Are there any other questions to officers? Okay, so does the committee know the report for information? Agreed. So our last paper is paper number seven. This is the mid-year 2024-25 performance reports, paper number 24-362. Ms. O'Connor, do you want to introduce the paper? Happy to. This is the standard report that this committee receives twice a year. So you're receiving it at this point to give you an update against the key performance indicators at the end of quarter two. So those are the indicators within the remit of this committee that you agreed in June. You also receive a six-month update against the actions in the corporate plan, which again fall within the remit of this committee and which are actions which you agreed back in June as well. I'm happy to take any questions on the format of the report and with colleagues on any areas of performance and action updates. Thank you, Ms. O'Connor. Are there any questions to officers? Councillor Brooks. Thank you very much. I've got a question about the circuit contract updates on page 114 about the food waste program that we've been rolling out. In the paper, it says that 894 tons of foods have been diverted from the old stream into the new stream. After 72,000 low-rise households have had their calories delivered. Now, it seems fair to me that the low-rise households would be the sort of lowest hanging fruit for the people most likely to take up participation in the food waste scheme. But given the low participation rates in the scheme so far and that figure of 894 not looking like it's on track at all to ever reach the 7,800 tons that the paper in September said would produce the 725,000 pounds cost benefit to the council, surely we're looking at a black hole of hundreds of thousands of pounds from that 725,000 projected benefit if the participation rates never turn around. Is that right or have I got that wrong? So it's not a black hole. Yes, we would like to have more food waste and that is why we're doing the door knocking campaign. I think we struggled a little bit because we rolled out a service change in a pre-election period. Obviously there was a general election so we didn't go as hard on comms as we would have liked to have done. But because everything was in progress we couldn't change that start date. So we're sort of chasing our tails a little bit around that. Generally it is a new service and some people fully embrace it and some people don't. So it does take a bit of coaxing to get people on board. I think the 7,800 was based on our capture rate in Richmond and obviously household size in Wandsworth is different. People are still struggling to buy food that is expensive so we probably won't get to 7,800. I think we're aiming to get to five. But also the added benefit that we hadn't forecast was the extra recycling and actually the extra recycling we've captured is in similar and equal to the amount of volume of food waste we've captured. Thank you Miss Epstein. Are there any other questions? Councillor Cook. So another reason why the Prime Minister should have waited till November to call the election wouldn't have messed up our food waste collection. On page 113 about halfway down conduct a tender exercise to procure a new leisure management contractor end of October. So they've been received. Any update that we could... I can't find, I'm scrolling through, I haven't got page 113 and mine goes page five, page six of 15. So it's about seven of 15. But in terms, I could give you an update on the leisure procurement for sure. We've had the bidders have submitted their initial bids, they're being evaluated by the team and they've been moderated. The next step is to move to short listing and then we will enter into a period of competitive negotiation that will hopefully conclude around that from memory about the beginning of February and then we will allow them to make their best and final offer at that stage. And then in about Easter time we will do the evaluation again and we will bring in a report for to committee in June for approval and then the executive supplicants of that as the new contract would start on the 1st of October 2025 giving us just over three months to mobilize which is industry what they would request. But we are very happy with the competitive nature of the bids that we've been that we've been that we have received. Councillor Cope. Thank you, so another question directly underneath that review and adopt a new events policy. How does that relate to what we've been talking about with enable and indeed the charges paper? So my understanding is the events policy hasn't been reviewed for a significant period of time. Enable as our events provider have a obligation to undertake a review of that and based on industry trends and an analysis of and aligning to our ambition around bar of culture and things like that it's timely that we review that it will provide opportunities for more hopefully sensible community events people to enjoy our parks and open spaces but also there's an opportunity to generate an income as part of that as well. Any other questions? Sorry thank you chair. Just looking at page 118 the KPI at the bottom of the page reports about non-collection of domestic waste per hundred thousand bins collected. The value there is really way off the target and it does say noting number of caveats and explanations that the council and the contractor recognize this is well in excess of target and could I ask the cabinet member whether therefore she still holds the view that she expressed at the July 4 council meeting that it's not smelling of a big problem for me it's going really well so far. I think I've said several times since that I'm not remotely complacent and I know that for each person that gets their collection missed it is incredibly annoying and of course it is but just looking at the percentage and I'm not at all happy with that figure and there's been some very robust conversations with CERCO as you can imagine but just in the scheme of things it's 0.29 percent which I know for each and every person that that covers it's really really annoying and we've got to put it right but in the scheme of things it's not a huge amount. Councillor Osborne. Yeah can I home in on the same item that Councillor Jeffrey's raised about missed collections. Can I ask if we've got this problem with missed collections what are we doing about this? Are we homing in on repeated cases of missed collections and so on? I'll answer that one so just for a bit of context that yes this is high but this is not unusual for a big service change as we've completed so not only as we said the food waste but new vehicles new in cab technology that in itself was a huge change from very paper-based where we didn't have a lot of detail about collection points to digitalizing that so yes this is high we also as standard in the waste industry provide a 12-week grace period for KPIs to reflect that and so it so that is high as we said so the work that we've been doing is we regularly meet with CERCO and throughout that service change we were meeting daily weekly to discuss the problems that were going on to put in solutions and some of those solutions that we've put in was an additional recycling round because the volumes we were collecting were so high that had an immediate improvement on reducing missed collections because the vehicle was struggling to complete because there was so much material there so as we've gone through the process and we've continued to improve things as you touched on we're focused on repeat missed collections because people are sort of tolerated tolerable if it's repeat missed once but when it's twice in a row or three times in a four-week period then people start to get very cross so focused on that work to make sure that crews are learning where those often bespoke collection points are and that's part of the challenge that and that data is then saved in white space for that continuity so if that regular loader isn't on that round that information is shared with whoever's working on it so it's that sort of detailed work has been needed to get missed collections down and we're still focused on we've now got specific supervisors focused on specific services so that helps them target particular crews and and we know that some crews are not as good as others so there are so the focus is on those difficult crews that are not delivering just as that context we took on about 35 new staff and a number to to deliver the new services a number of them came from a removal company that had gone out of business and with what we've found over times they're definitely not quite got the right mindset of being a waste collector it's not quite the same so some of those are no longer with us and so that sort of challenge of taking on new staff has has come through as well thank you miss abstain counselor kirk um thank you we we are we're now five months in by my reckoning which is a very long time for a new service to bed down the last the last time we had a massive change 2012 i think it was uh it certainly did not take five months to settle down um i i personally have had loads of missed collections in the last few weeks i'm beginning to wonder if i'm i'm being picked on but i know that i'm not because i can see these statistics um all that what has occurred to me is are the crews are they settled in in the same round week in week out or are they themselves changing because things seem to go at different times insofar as i can tell so from a sort of mid-october the crews have been much more settled and and they've got their own rounds last couple of weeks we've had some problems with high levels of sickness and so that's probably contributed to the last couple of weeks so the data in here is up to the end of quarter two so only until september so um obviously lots of holiday over the summer didn't help as well so now it is a much more settled service aside of this sickness little peak um so october and november have seen a decrease so you'll expect to see quarter three considerably lower thank you uh counselor books thank you just a simple question about the um the figures in the missed collections uh number is it possible to get a raw number in that because um with um that measure isn't isn't quite isn't too digestible agree so we track exactly how many missed collections by service um on the food waste that is down to about 30 per day and but that's still 30 people that have had to report a missed collection um so but that's where that's where we focus our attention yeah i don't know council hospital so is it fair to say that with missed collections all systems from time to time things go a bit wrong we've identified this as something that's going wrong we've focused on it we're dealing with it and you can't really ask much more of people than that it's not really a question it's not really a question it's it's a point of view i guess we'll we'll we continually work on it um so putting in solutions getting down to the detail why was that collection missed and making sure it doesn't get missed again so but there will always be some missed collections sometimes they're genuine sometimes they're not sometimes people forgot to put their things out and they report it as a missed collection so there are always missed collections and we will never get away from that but yeah we we will get it down to the target thank you mr and it'll be interesting to see how this number changes um in the next round council chair please thank you it's just a quick question um about the kpi around um percentage of reportable monitoring locations on the air quality objectives page 120 and you will have to forgive me it's only my second appearance at this committee so i don't know if there is a regular air quality report that comes to the committee but it'd be helpful just to understand when that might be because we've obviously had um some really significant traffic problems in putney putney high street in particular as well as putney bridge road where um i understand that a new monitor has been put in place so it'd be really helpful to have sort of like a progress report on that um if that's not already in the pipeline yeah i think uh yeah this morning you want to come on uh thank you um so the air quality services managed through the regulatory services partnership um as part of setting the targets we would set them to be very ambitious so these are represent a 100 achieving of those targets even though as you said that it's very difficult for a borrower with our sort of constituent transport to to achieve that um i would say that the articulate or particulate matter in the kpi above has has been has has been achieved um and we haven't increased the target or rather decreased the target um as part of the latest air quality monitoring service uh for nitrogen dioxide represents a more challenging target in terms of the regular updates the um the air quality the council's air quality and performance and uh statistics is all incorporated excuse me as part of a status report that we're required to submit every calendar year so we will be in the position where we will have excuse me generated a new report based on the 2024 um information and i'm sure that that can either be brought uh or circulated to to committee for information upon its publication unfortunately i don't know when uh kind of the the lead time after the completion of the uh year that that is produced thank you mr i second your point that it's important to be ambition ambition business on this it wouldn't be very ambitious the council's to say we're happy with only a few areas having dangerous levels of air quality we want it to be eliminated all across the borough so i think that is a very good point to make uh any other questions council about just to remark i mean i have the benefits of being around for quite a long time the air quality in london is absolutely incomparably better than it was when i was a kid i mean a foggy day in london town's kind of stories it just doesn't happen uh the battercy smell of a way back just doesn't exist anymore and not too long ago i was in a small town winchester i think and i thought the air was terrible compared with london and that of course is partly to do with ulez and we know who was opposing ulez so i'm glad to see that they're converted and and believe that air quality is really important thank you councilor burks thank you um a question about the um e-bike um a comment in the corporate plan and actions um it says that the council removed 65 e-bikes this year fine um but the problem is so big that um the council can't be expected to solve this problem on its own right so and i understand that there is an mou in place with some some or all of the companies in question i was hoping someone could tell me what the what levers that those mous give the council if any to try and have the uh e-bike companies solve the problem of pavement blocking etc for us thank you uh and i think it'd also be useful for the benefit of the audience to clarify what an mou is as well yeah i'm afraid we haven't got the right office for that this is more aimed at obstruction of the pavement and uh e-bike issues themselves uh pertaining to the transport committee where we always have mr david tisley i'm sure you know uh attending to answer that those kinds of questions i'm very happy to relay that question to him though i'm sure we can answer counselor cook thank you i've got an acronym to to beat that one i've just noticed actually it's directly underneath continue to improve christmas tree collection which shouldn't be too difficult um underneath that is work with wrwa to prepare jmwms and even with my involvement wrwa i haven't a clue what that is can somebody enlighten me please joint municipal waste management strategy joint municipal waste management strategy to elaborate on what that is and i think wrwa is western riverside waste authority as well just for the benefit of the audience um are there any more questions for officers okay so does the committee agree to note the report agree well that concludes the business for tonight's committee so thank you Thank you everyone for your attendance, thank you officers for your reports, and we will see you in a few months.