Transcript

Do you have any... Okay, welcome to each and every one of you. Any apologies? Any one at all? Are we all here? Yeah, we're all here. Thank you. Great. The usual messaging about fire alarms, filming the meetings, meetings, stands. Okay, we've got any questions from members of the public? None? No one here? Yeah, Councillor's questions, I understand. We've got three questions from Councillor Shailji Islam on Agenda Item 6.2. Can we deal with them at that stage, 6.2? Okay, we can deal with it at 6.2 then, yeah? You've asked more than your fair share of questions, so I'll see whether I want to ask all three of you or not. Okay, you've been too pushy today, but we'll have a look, we'll have a look. Thank you. Okay, we've done apologies. Any declarations of interest? Anyone? None? Okay, minutes of 16th of October. Are we okay with it? Any questions? Yep. Any announcements, sir? Thank you, Mayor. Just three or four things from me for Cabinet to note. Firstly, I had the pleasure of attending overview and scrutiny committee yesterday to present a proposed way forward in relation to the Best Value Inspection Report. I would remind Cabinet that I have committed to bring a report to Cabinet in its next meeting in relation to Best Value and also to report to full council at every meeting throughout 2025 as we develop and deliver on our co-produced improvement plan. Secondly, just to advise members that it is the Vogue White Ribbon Campaign launches this week and I've noticed that we're all wearing the ribbons. The town will be lit orange and there are a number of internal and external events encouraging people to sign up to the White Ribbon Pledge. Thirdly, nominations for civic awards are now open and the closing date is the 12th of January, so I encourage everyone to make nominations for those heroes in our community. Events this week include on Monday we hold a Young City Makers Award Ceremony in the Grocer's Wing. This afternoon the Deputy Mayor has launched the Bow Youth Centre and on Thursday we host the Children's Education Awards at the Troxy with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor attending. I've just got a following statement to make, please, if that's okay. Monday was White Ribbon Day, ladies and gentlemen, shining a light on the appalling fact that 1 in 12 women are victims of gender-based violence each year. The town hall was lit up orange and we've launched 16 days of campaigning and events against violence against women and girls. I'm sure you will have seen the stalls downstairs and we have white ribbons here for all cabinet members. I encourage everyone to take and wear one and share information on social media to help highlight this important issue. November is Islamophobia Awareness Month and last week the building was also lit up green. Over 100 people attended our conference on tackling Islamophobia and I am the lead member. We were there which was organised in partnership with Council of Mosque, with the Islamic Mosque, Dar al-Rumma and other partners and we had prominent guest speakers. Thank you to each and every one of them and to our officers for helping us to organise the event. Support for elderly residents this winter, as winter sets in and temperature drops, we are prioritising vital support for our elderly residents. We know that the National Labour Government's cuts to winter fuel allowance allow risks forcing 100,000 pensioners across the country below the poverty line. We are stepping in to plug the gap as much as we can as a council and to ensure our elderly residents are not forced to live in freezing temperatures or to choose between heating and eating and to ensure they get the support they need this winter, that we can only do as much as we can afford. We have four new announcements in our package for pensioners. One, thousands of pensioners in Tahemles were due to miss out on winter fuel payments because this life-saving support has been cut by the central government. We are very proud that we have introduced the Tahemles winter fuel payment, making us the only council in the country to withdraw this payment to our pensioners to the tune of £175. Number two, a staggering £17 million worth of pension credit benefit is going unclaimed in Tahemles, which means more than 4,000 households in the borough are missing out on payments, worth on average £3,900 a year. We have launched a new campaign called Credit Where Credit is Due in partnership with community groups to ensure all pensioners in our borough who are eligible to unlock the support they are entitled to. So please go out there, make the application and claim the money that is due to you. Number three, we are again launching our warm hubs at idea stores and libraries, which are safe spaces where residents can drop in and get warm if they are out and about and safe on the cost of heating in their homes. Number four, we passed a motion at full council requesting officers to model the financial and logistical cost of reintroducing the Meals on Wheels scheme and elderly luncheon clubs to help ensure elderly residents have access to healthy hot meals and opportunities to socialise youth centres. I'm proud that we've just opened three new youth centres. Thank you to the officers, Stephen Reddy, the officers and Shafi, the director for Young Tahemles and the lead member. We've opened them in Bigland Green, Christian Street and in the Bromley by Bow Centre today along with our £13.7 million investment in our youth provision to ensure greater opportunities for young people in our borough. Much needed investment. Our youngsters deserve the best and the safe space where they can grow, feel empowered, connect with other young people and build their futures. Also a space where they can do their homework too. So thank you to officers. Reduction in carbon emissions. The council has reduced carbon emissions by 19% in one year, different by the increased energy efficiency in the town hall. Our ongoing work to reduce carbon emissions includes investing £6 million in measures to improve air quality, including building more infrastructures to enhance public spaces and encourage walking and cycling, including planting more trees. Some 1400 trees have already been planted. We are also converting street lighting to LEDs, installing low carbon heating systems, converting our fleet to electric vehicles, the waste fleets and working on a project to place solar panels on council buildings. Well done to the lead member and to the officers. Sports and leisure. We work to create the borough's first ever grass cricket pitch and cricket square has begun at Victoria Park. It will be fantastic to see people from all backgrounds play the highest standard of the sport right here in our borough. £1.5 million of additional funding is also to be invested in leisure facilities in Tower Hamlets as part of the council's commitment to support healthier communities, adding to previous investments of over £4.8 million to upgrade our leisure facilities. And thank you to lead members and officers for successfully insourcing the leisure facilities. Our agenda for tonight. New nursery in Stepney. On our agenda tonight, you will see is the proposal for a new permanent nursery at Stepney Green C primary school, following a successful pilot scheme that has been in since September 2023. I hope this will be approved by cabinet to provide high quality early education for free and four year olds in the local area, building on the school's strong reputation for learning and community engagement. The site would provide 30 places from September 2025 and deliver free school free childcare hours under the government's early years entitlement scheme, enabling parents to access 15 to 30 hours of care each week at no cost. Thank you and look forward to hearing from you later on. That's my announcement. Can I please invite the chair of the open scrutiny, please. Councilor Islam welcome. You have 10 minutes. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you to the committee for the review of the overview and scrutiny committee. I have the privilege of serving as a new chair of the committee. As a committee, I am determined to reflect how we work together as a committee, and with our stakeholders. We must address the need for cultural change and approach key scrutiny issues in a unified constructive and non political manner. I'm determined to ensure the delivery of a scrutiny improvement plan to drive this and lead this committee through a journey of meaningful meaningful change and improvement. This is our effective approach to our work, and I look forward to collaborating with you, Mr Mayor, your cabinet members and officers to enable this change cannot be achieved by just sitting back and leaving it to those at the top, but requires every part of this council to participate. I promise that I would dedicate my time and effort to play my part to our first substantial item on the agenda was the chief executive spotlight. I want to thank Stephen Hosey and the entire CMT members and Councillor Kabir Ahmed for joining us. We also had a very special guest appearance from little Zakaria Ahmed, although he didn't speak you could tell he was definitely approving our work. On a serious note, the main focus of the spotlight was on the findings of the best value inspection. We were pleased to hear the chief executives response to the committee which was a change tone, and had demonstrated more of an understanding and acceptance the council needs to undertake to address the issue identified. We welcome this shift in tone from previous statements released to both staff and the community and consider this necessary to address the issues of trust and culture highlighted in the report. We were also pleased to hear that the response to the findings of this report will be addressed in an improvement plan which will be cooperated, co produced with scrutiny and other council committees. We questioned concerns over executive involvement in property transactions and received reassurance that it will be addressed in the council's corporate response to the report. And in addition to the focus of the best value inspection we also questioned the development of the new housing cabinet subcommittee, how how it will operate, what powers it will have and how it differs from other committees. I'd like to point out that we still need to consider how scrutiny will operate alongside with this committee, and we will be making further representations to you Mr Mayor and officers about how we think scrutiny can engage with it. In line with this there are some pre decision scrutiny questions from members on this paper which have been tabled. Finally, just to note, we did not have an opportunity to discuss the progress of the women's commission, but Mr Halsey promised to update us very soon, and we look forward to considering this at a future meeting. Next we hold a spotlight on the waste improvement program. I'd like to thank Councillor Shafi Ahmed, Simon Baxter, Ashraf Ali and Simon Whitley. As part of our review of budget proposal in January 2024 we identified the subs, the sustainability of the 5 million pounds investment in the waste services as an area to consider in our work program. As such, we scheduled it for consideration twice this year. We are pleased to see a video targeted at our Bengali community to help drive awareness of recycling which has been supported by targeted engagement with the community. We would like to note that further work is required to engage our Somali community and other hard to reach communities. We also questioned the data behind the development of the advert and requested a further breakdown of expenditure for communication, partnership and consultation. We questioned whether Council would reach its target for recycling rates of 23%. We also discussed how improvements will be measured, how the Council will engage RSLs to ensure they are improving recycling. The feedback process to allow residents' voices to be heard and what the key risk of this one-off source of funding coming to an end will be and what the services are doing to ensure the sustainability of improvements. Ahead of the next update to overview and scrutiny committee on this matter in March 2025, we have requested further information on signposting for mis-collection, mechanism for residents reporting and more clarity on how money is being spent with detailed budget breakdown. Overall, the committee felt that there were many positive signs of improvement and look forward to our March spotlight of the service. Up next, we considered the draft scrutiny executive protocol. This applies to all members of scrutiny committees and all members of the cabinet. The protocol aims to assist an open and transparent culture as it sets clear expectations on the working relationship between scrutiny and executive members. We feel more work is required to reflect some of the issues in the best value inspection report and we will look to agree a final version at our next meeting. I hope the mayor and cabinet will engage in the protocol as it will help to deliver the cultural changes needed to improve the council's scrutiny function. Finally, we have submitted pre-decision scrutiny questions on four cabinet reports as tabled. Thank you and I look forward to working with you over the coming months. Thank you, councillor. Can I just comment on the scrutiny questions? Answers have been tabled. Other than one question, question four, the answer will follow. I need to reflect on it. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Let's move on. That's done. Let's go on to the agenda item, please. The first one is 6.1. Young Time, let's program update. Councillor Mayum. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. As you've already mentioned, we've just launched a youth centre at Bromley by Bow. It was our 16th. So today is just an update in terms of Young Time, that's where we are and how many we have delivered. So I would like to call upon the director of Young Time to present the report. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Deputy Mayor. As was explained earlier, significant investment in youth services which we are massively excited about. And some of the recent events, the opening of new provision have been hugely successful. I'll hand over to Shafi now, but just to place on record, huge thank you to Shafi since he's joined us. He's brought huge expertise and provided excellent leadership to the service and we're really going from strength to strength. So hand over to you. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Mayor. You have the full report in the pack. I'll just provide a summary of the main sections of the report. The Young Time's transformation program has been delivering at pace with some of the following achievements. The first one is redesign of the Young Time staffing model. In September, 2023, the Young People Service or Youth Service underwent a full service restructure to become Young Time tablets. The restructure concluded in June, 2024, with staff members moving into their new permanent roles, and they're no longer being an interim model in place as posts are now created within the staffing establishment. Throughout the summer of 2024, there was a recruitment drive to advertise and appoint to management roles within the service structure, of which 13 out of 16 management posts are now filled by permanent members of staff. In September, 2024, we held a recruitment open day to promote all the new roles that are coming out in the next few months. Over 200 people attended and expressed their interest in applying for roles and further information about job opportunities. Overall, 26% of all Young Time's permanent roles have been filled as we speak. That's 54 roles out of 207. We plan to fill the remaining posts by March 2025, and hopefully most of those roles will start working in terms of processes and checks and everything. Hopefully they'll start working by April or May. In terms of under safe spaces in each ward, I'm delighted to say that we've increased safe spaces, youth space provision over the last 12 months to 16 operational sites across the borough. And we plan to have a mixed economy of mainly local authority, direct Young Time Hamlets provision in 15 wards, and we hope to commission to the third sector, up to five or six wards. As you've heard, we've just opened Bromley-Vieau Youth Centre today. It's a really successful launch, and a further two in the past three weeks. We're scheduled to open additional three sites between December and March, and any remaining sites will open before summer 2025. So our target is to reach 15 sites in 15 wards, direct delivery, and five wards commissioned. In 2023, the service secured an additional $455,000 in grant funding for the Youth Investment Fund. This funding has contributed to the Young Time's refurbishment programme to refresh a range of safe spaces in selected wards in the borough. Operational delivery, all of the Young Time Hamlet services, universal safe spaces, targeted youth support, integrated detached work, youth sports and adventure learning, and youth participation are all operational, not at full capacity, some of them, and some of them are at full capacity. We delivered a great Summer of Fund programme with over 1,000 free activities, and delivered a range of activities throughout National Youth Work Week in November. To ensure the services are delivering a safe and sustainable model, a full review of each area is underway, around processes, policies, KPIs, performance information, as well as quality assurance. The service continues to recruit into vacant permanent posts, and will be delivering the whole offer at full capacity by May 2025. In terms of communications and engagement, the corporate communications team has been working with staff and children to develop the new Young Time Hamlet website. The website went live in August 2024 and is fully up and running, with over 5,000 visits to date. It's probably a bit more than that as we speak. Through consultation and listening to how young people want to stay in touch with Young Time Hamlets, we have invested in our social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. Earlier this year we launched our TikTok channel, which has over 3,000 followers, over 13,000 likes, and over 1.5 million views, which demonstrates the real success of our social media reach. Young Time Hamlets' strategy is in draft form and is in the process of being reviewed by different governance groups within the service, as well as stakeholders, and will be presented to cabinet in March 2025. As part of our continuous learning, we will be engaging in an independent evaluator to review the value added of the new Young Time Hamlets model, which will take place hopefully in September 2025. Just a few additional current priorities. We're working to develop a quality assurance framework, so all services are delivered at a consistent standard, best practice, and a national quality assurance framework, underpinned by a theory of change and our own customized outcomes framework. We're also working on a workforce development plan for 2025-26, as we have a large workforce that will need training in various areas. We're also developing the comms plan for 2025-26, and also working to plan delivery of our IT and software infrastructure for the service in the coming year. In conclusion, this is a comprehensive update on the progress made so far in rolling out the transformation and the delivery of the Young Time Hamlets service. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Mayor. First of all, thanks to the lead member, thanks to Steve and yourself for delivering this. It's a big task, it's a huge task to deliver on one of the Mayor's biggest manifesto pledges, to bring up a service which sort of wasn't in existence. And obviously, where you have brought it so far, I think it's a great job, we have 16 sites operating. But I just wanted to understand a couple of things for myself. One being, we've got the remaining sites which you're saying will be delivered by May 25. How do you feel that's coming along within your timeline for delivering the whole project? And also another bit on digital platforms. So I know you've got TikTok and other channels you're working on. I just wanted to understand where are we with, for example, YouTube and all the other digital platforms. Are we sort of looking at how we can also generate income from that, because obviously the more followers you have, the more viewing you have, there's also another mean of income coming through. With young people involved in that, I think there's a good platform and a good audience available already. Sure. In terms of rollout, so direct delivery as it stands today, from Young to Hamlets, we're delivering in 10 youth centres, so 10 sites including Bromley by Bow today. We plan to open another three between now and say March, that's 13 hopefully. Any remaining one or two because we want to directly deliver in 15 wards. So 13 by March and then there'll be two left. By summer, we hope to roll that and it's all progressing very well. The three that we've planned are in Blackburn, Cubittown, Poplar and Bethnalwynn East. They're simply waiting for checks, health and safety, insurance and things like that. Once we get the agreements, we'll be rolling out at speed. And then there'll be just two more wards left. The remaining five wards, where we're not delivering directly, we will commission to the third sector. Your second question was about social media. We've only had probably about six months or eight months of social media input in terms of a dedicated comms officer. We are working on the 25/26 plan now for social media comms engagement. We'll definitely look at things like income generation, if the sites grow the way the platforms grow the way they are at the moment. We can definitely look at YouTube and other channels as well. Great, thank you. Can I bring Wahid in? Can I bring Talerin? Wahid. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you to the lead member, Steve, Shafi. I think it's fantastic that we're delivering on another really important manifesto pledge by the Mayor. My question is on the other side of social media. I know social media is very important in terms of engaging with young people. Investing a huge amount of money in the youth service, like we have, in terms of we want these youth centres to be buzzing with young people to have come in and engage and actually get something positive out of it. What strategy do we have in terms of those young people who are less likely to use social media, who are less likely to engage through those mediums? What strategy do we have in terms of engaging those young people, do we have in place going forward? Thank you. Thank you for your question, Councillor. The strategy is multiple, it's not just relying on social media, definitely. Once our detached team is up and running, once we recruit all the workers in the detached team, there will be 24 youth workers out reach and detached. So we'll use that service to promote our services in the local estates. The youth centres themselves, all of them have partnerships or are working towards partnerships with schools, community centres, local sports groups. So it's not about just opening the centre and then social media, no, partnership work, working with other groups to bring in groups into the youth centres, outreach, detached work, door knocking, leafletting, traditional methods as well as digital promotion. Thank you. Sorry, Deputy Mayor, do you want to come in? Then I'll bring Thalo in. In terms of Councillor Said's question, I just wanted to add, in terms of digital, we are in a very good position, I think we're ahead of the game and we get the YouTube, we can look into that. But just to share an example, TikTok, recently we had 1.5 million views, so this is something amazing, so I think we're on it and we're working on it and we are willing to improve further. Thank you. Councillor Thaller. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Being a beneficiary of the youth services growing up and later delivering youth services, I know first hand the value of such service, which is probably the single most policy that I'm interested and excited about, as well as obviously everything else. Because I understand the value first hand and I want to thank officers and lead member and colleagues, the Mayor and everyone that's been involved in rolling this out. So my two comments would be, you've completed 26% of the recruitment and I know you are looking at local recruitment, please the remaining 74%, if you can please focus on local employment for many reasons, the fact that there is a need locally for employment, but also they understand the community better than most. Obviously we look for skill and we look for experience, but when we can prioritise local employment, it's something that I'm sure the service will promote. And secondly, you talked about independent evaluating 3.6.2, it's something that I'll be quite keen to see because obviously I can speak from experience about the value in the service, but when it's been independently assured and there's been some kind of inspection or review of it, I think it will provide assurance to a wider network of stakeholders to say that this is more than value for money, this is impacting people's lives, young people's lives in a tremendous way. And I look forward to the report that comes out. Thank you. Councillor Shafi please then Councillor Campbell. Thank you Mr Mayor, good evening all. Yes, it was very ambitious to say that we have, it's a congratulation moment that we have 16 youth centres open today as of date. This is a tremendous achievement and tremendous vision by the Mayor himself in your manifesto that you pledged in 2022 and this is a testimony to say that we have reached that area and by 2025 we hope to have all of those youth centres open. I was fortunate enough to be at the opening of my wards youth centre opening which is on the Christian Street Hub. We had a great turnout, a great set of staff which was so engaging, which was so fresh to see that they were really, it was taken by them to heart I would say. And I felt really encouraged and the future of the youth service looks very bright and I want to just make sure that this long may this continue. In your report 3.4.2 is to ensure that we have a sustainable model and a process with policies and KPIs and data. I'm sure this is underway, I mean going forward as members, how would we know, when would we like to see that data and that footfall that is working to go forward, that's what I'd like to say, thank you. So in terms of data we have a current set of data that is produced. It's very limited, which was from the past, some KPIs around contacts, participants, recorded outcomes, accredited outcomes. What we want to do is replace that and improve that once we have our IT software in place, database system in place and our outcomes framework in place. We will be measuring much more granular in depth in terms of using the national youth agency outcomes framework. So we measure individual progress, young people coming in, there's a number of measurements, outputs, outcomes, short term and long term and hopefully that will all produce a data dashboard in terms of impact, outputs and outcomes. So we'll have a comprehensive dashboard hopefully by the middle of next year that will visually display the impact that we're having, not just quantity but qualitative as well. Thank you. If we could just move quickly please, we've got such a huge agenda today. Councillor Campbell. Thank you Mr Mayor. It's not a question, it's just a small comment. Firstly I want to thank you, the lead members, Steve and Shafi for delivering one of our top manifesto pledges. Investing in youth is a great investment you can put it in and I think this was ignored by the last few years by closing this down. I want to thank you Mr Mayor for your dedication and put this on your manifesto pledges to invest back into society. If you invest in the youth, they will reinvest back in your society but not only they will reinvest back in the future. I think currently it will reduce pressure on other departments like ASB and staff and this will help so many in our community. As my colleague Shafi said, last couple of weeks back me and Councillor Shafi we attended one of the new youth centres opening in our Whitechapel ward and we were happy to see how many young people came in, mothers, fathers came in and there was supporting of this. There was praising this initiative saying this will help the kids and children to go into the wrong path. Thank you Mr Mayor. Thank you very much. Councillor Mustak then I will move on. Thank you Mr Mayor. My question is related to special educational needs of young people. Are we adequately engaging with those youth and providing the necessary services and support to meet their unique needs? Thank you. We do that in two main ways. At the moment we commission a specialist service for young people with SA&D, the Tower Project which provides a specialist service for young people borough wide. All of our youth centres as far as possible where the buildings allow trying to make accessible to people with disabilities. We are going to dedicate some evenings or some sessions in the four quadrants for user groups with disabilities as well. Thank you. I am grateful to each and every one of you. Can I say thank you for the work that you have done so far. We need to get those youth provisions up and running as soon as possible. Just make comments and one question please. Absolutely there should be no price when it comes to young people. Young people need the best infrastructure and the foundation in life to help them and support them to be successful adults. It is so important. This money I believe is well spent, well overdue. The cut by the previous administration to its bone, the youth service, was unacceptable. Putting in additional, just about 30 million pounds, additional money per year I think would be well spent. But what we are looking for is to, yes youngsters should play, play hard but also they need to work hard. When we had youth service last time youngsters not only played, engaged in recreational activities but also we worked in partnership with the schools, with the parents, with the other communities, the volunteer sector and faith sector to ensure the youngsters were focused on attainment at that age. Focused on educational achievement. Can you make sure that focus is please proficient is so important. We can't take our eyes off that. If a youngster is successful and does well in life, especially in education or vocational studies, at least they take responsibility for their own lives and they help their siblings and other members of the community. That's very important. So providing a quiet space to do the homework they want to do so or just to reflect is so important. Can you make sure of that? Can I also request that we work closely with the schools. It's so important. The schools thereby have a buy-in and if they want to send someone, a teacher or someone to come and mentor those children, work with those children, help them with their homework, we accommodate that. Especially when we have such a densely populated borough, we've got a huge waiting list, we've got a huge overcrowding in the borough. I come across in my surgeries twice a week, parents, kids also come with their parents saying they don't have a space to do their homework. If they want to come, do their homework, we must accommodate them. So make sure the layout is appropriate please, it's important. Can I also request that performance is monitored, the money is not wasted. Please, youth workers, the equipments, the youth workers are there, mentoring, working with youngsters, mentoring them. The equipment is working and it's there, available, it's very important, the play equipments. But the centres are working, available and operational to its full capacity please. It's so important. There's no use just having them open, a lot of respect. They've got to be used. I know you're doing the social media stuff, that traditional form of engagement trying to entice the youngsters in is so important. So I will say outreach work you mentioned, very important, visiting the community centres, the faith groups, the schools and reaching out to the parents is important. You know, leafletting, dropping leaflets in surrounding areas, letting the parents know it's a safe area, it's a play area. Come with your children, drop them off their younger ones, the older ones that's fine. But come and have a look what we're doing so we have the confidence of the parents, it's so important. So we want to please make sure that it's happening. A good communication strategy, you've got provision for a communications officer and can also speak with our officers, the mainstream communication officers and the mayor's office how we can support and work with you and the youth service to make sure it's been utilised to its full capacity, that's very important. A workforce can reflect the community and the local workforce is so important. Like one or two others here, I'm also, you know, we're beneficiaries of the youth service. It was local youth workers who knew the streets, knew the housing states, sometimes knew our parents and our parents were able to entrust us into their hands, who helped us with our upbringing, gave us a safe space, guided us, mentored us. So local youth service is so important. Please, yep. So we've got to make sure that that happens and a workforce will reflect the community. Those are the points I'm going to make, comments, general comments, but the question is have we recruited all the staff or are we, when will we get to that position? Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. And those suggestions are taken, well taken, definitely. Just to give you a quick example of working with schools, Columbia Road as well as Bigland Green Youth Centre which we opened two weeks ago. It is through the partnerships with the schools that the parents are sending their kids there. With the other centres as well, they're working with schools to bring groups in. So there's already good partnership and we're developing further partnership with schools. We've also made one of the priorities in some of the centres, as you said, to have quiet space for homework and other things. So that's all in there. In terms of your question about the workforce, so the new structure had 207 roles of those we've filled 54 already, so that's 26%. The large bulk is in Universal Youth Services which will go out to advert around middle of December and hopefully recruitment will start January, February. So that will probably be around 60%, 70% of the workforce. The rest, the target is May and then April, May 2025. Thank you. And recruiting those staff is essential to deliver the youth service to its capacity and to utilise the space fully. So that's very important. Thank you for that. Also, when we designed that cabinet paper, we provisioned in people coming in at very entry level that have an opportunity to become qualified youth workers and we had that system before. Can you make sure that is also up and running as soon as possible? So we want people from all levels of expertise and skills and with no skills but have the motivation, the commitment, the passion to come in and become a qualified youth worker eventually. We're not going to get all of them to be qualified youth workers, employ them. There aren't many around but we want that skilling up mechanism which we provision money in to be up and running as soon as possible. Can I have a paper on that as soon as possible to understand what it's going to be? Sure. We've got the workforce development budget as well as a plan to do that. As you know, there aren't that many qualified youth workers anyway. We will struggle with qualified youth worker recruiting them. So as part of the plan is to offer level 2, level 3 training whilst they're in the service. We'll have to balance it out because obviously we can't recruit all unqualified youth workers either. That's a safeguarding issue. It's a process issue. But that's definitely in our minds as well as a local workforce. Definitely we're promoting that however best we can. I understand that but the point is there aren't many qualified youth workers out there who will have to go for a reasonable cohort of unqualified youth workers but having that training mechanism, skilling up mechanism, partnering with a good university or good college in order to give them the skills to become qualified in due course is very important. So there are no other comments or questions. Just quick suggestions. Thank you. Social media campaign is very important and of course great numbers of people have been engaged but not necessarily, lead member says a million people have been engaged on the social media campaigns, maybe watch these live but not necessarily everybody is in tower hungry residence because that way the algorithm works. So my suggestion maybe is already in place. I think social media have a postcode targeted campaign. Are we doing that or if we're not doing that can I suggest that we do that please. Thank you. Is that okay? Thank you once again. Let's keep up the good work. Thank you for the update and hopefully we're on track to get it all up and running in due course. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Can we agree and note the report please? Yes. Okay. Can we move on to agenda item 6.2? Councillor Chirag, if Chirag is away you want to come I'll take one question from you. You've got three. Give us your best shot. I'll give him a weaker response and we should be in agreement then. Thank you. Mayor, I've already given you my three questions. Maybe you can decide which one you want to answer. You can't say that I'm being unfair. I think the good one is the KPI one. The three questions are related in the same report. I could have done it all in one just to clarify. You've got answers for all three of them. Your KPI one is fair enough, it's a good one. End of the day how we measure ourself in performance. Kobi you want to come in? Thank you for your questions by the way. Thank you. So let's introduce the report then you can come and respond to that then we go on to the questions. Thank you. Thank you Mayor. I just wanted to make a few comments before the lead cabinet member and the corporate director give you further detail. I just wanted to make it clear that I've spent the last 18 months or so talking to the Executive Mayor about the priority and aspiration to ensure that everybody that lives in the borough has a safe, warm, accessible home in which they can raise their families. And I have spent the last 18 months looking at, establishing, investigating the way in which we can resource that aspiration. On the 4th of October this year I took a decision in consultation with the Mayor to self-refer the Council's housing management function to the Regulator. And there is an update today, we've had a conversation today with the Regulator that the corporate director will refer to shortly. I think the feedback from the Regulator endorses our decision to self-refer. I think the proposal to establish a housing cabinet subcommittee is validated by the response that we've received, and I'd like to take a moment actually because it's one of those areas where there's been an awful lot of joint working, partnership working to get us to this stage. Certainly, and thank you Mayor for your agreement to the establishing of a subcommittee which I think will give adequate focus for the improvement journey we're about to begin. Thank you, thank you Steve. Kabir, the lead member, can I say to the Councillor, she has always asked a question about the key performance indicators. Mayor, can I formally ask my... Yeah, yeah, go on. Yeah, so thank you. Yeah, for the record, so thank you Mayor, so I've presented three questions on Report 6.2, they're all interlinked. I could have done them all together, but just for clarity I separated them, but you're happy to answer whichever one you feel you're comfortable with. I had seen the table paper on tenants' voice, tenants' reference, and I would have had a further question on what is the proposal recruiting these 12 residents on the Board of Tenants' Voice. Kabir, can you just, thank you Councillor, can you just answer the question on the KPIs please, that's the question I'm taking. Okay, thank you. Thank you Councillor Islam. As agreed, KPIs already are included, specific measures around emergency and non-emergency repairs attended to on time, appointments made/kept, additions including the full end-to-end repair completion time, conduct satisfaction surveys after repairs are completed and additional reporting around dampen mould. In terms of call performance, measures monitor wait times, call length, call abandonment rates and individual performance of staff. Just to highlight the infrastructure changes that we've put in place means that we can do end-to-end monitoring in terms of service delivery and how efficient our staff are operating. Thank you. Thank you very much and the other questions are noted and return response will be given to you. Okay, can we move on to the paper please. Kabir, do you want to say anything on the self-referral please. So, further to the Chief Executive's introduction, this report, Mr Mayor, confirms the self-referral to the RSH, recommends the establishment of the housing management, cabinet housing management subcommittee. The self-referral is a positive step in line with a lot of other London boroughs. It is in the spirit of being transparent and collaborative with the RSH. It includes our RSH improvement action plan following work streams, governance, data and asset management, which includes repairs on dampen mould and complaints that we've received. Also includes governance structures underneath the subcommittee to deliver this plan and improve performance across all areas. Focus on safety and quality, transparency, influence and accountability standards. These are the standards that peers such as Hackney, Newham, Southwark, etc have been given a C3 grading and in the case of Newham they were given a C4 grading. Now, the best grading available is C1 and only one local authority in the country to date has a C1 grading and that's Barnsley. Everybody else, particularly all around London, are predominantly around C3 and Newham is C4 in terms of its grading. It's around issues of repairs, dampen mould, another key aspect alongside using data and insight from complaints to create a culture where we learn from complaints and listen to act on residents' feedback. Essentially, Mr Mayor, there are a set of conditions that are recommended which started off with the Chief Executive's referral on the 4th of October. I believe we've had communication today. David's here, he can update on that communication. I believe it was welcomed that our self-referral and it was again, I reiterate in good spirit, sorry, Karen and Una are here as well in supporting and if there are any specific questions around outside of the table paper, please feel free to ask us the relevant questions. Please request the corporate director just to go through the response please on the paper. Thank you Mr Mayor and thank you to the Chief Executive and the cabinet member for the introduction. So as the Chief Executive set out, he and I today met with the regulator of social housing for a meeting about the next steps on our self-referral. For that reason we're tabling a briefing which you can digest. Obviously, apologies we couldn't circulate it earlier because the meeting only took place today. As the Chief Executive has set out, the regulator did thank the council for the self-awareness and transparency that we've showed in self-referring and noted that is always the way that they want to hear from councils. They want to hear from councils who self-refer and who show that awareness around where our issues are. They also noted that the self-referral we provided was a very good level of detail and they were pleased by the way that we'd engaged in the level of detail that we had provided to them. They also set out that actually they have a number of options available to them at this stage but as we were already in their programme to be inspected, because all local authorities will be inspected by the regulator of social housing, as we were already in their programme to be inspected in January, they feel that rather than issuing a judgement at this stage, it would be better to come in and take a holistic view based on a proper inspection in that way and that is what is now going to happen. The inspection will cover all four of the consumer standards as the cabinet member has referred to, so safety and quality, transparency, influence and accountability and neighbourhood and community standard alongside the economic standard for rent setting. The inspection process will run in the first quarter of next year, so between January and March, although it has essentially begun with today's meeting and we will do some pre-work in the lead up to Christmas, sharing of documents and so forth. The key stage of the self-referral and the inspection will be field work which will take place in February but there will also be more detailed information shared at the start of January. The Chief Executive and I welcomed this approach from the regulator, we welcomed the fact that we are now going to have a full inspection and we can really lift the lid and look at all of our performance across housing services and how we can improve, so it was a positive meeting and we are looking forward to engaging with the regulator. Thank you, grateful to you. Let me take some comments from colleagues now. Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I welcome the CEO, he said that we self-referred ourselves and also the recommendation on the report, I welcome this. My comment goes around Comms' strategy because we know there will be uncertainty amongst residents and the residents of Tohamless Homes and also the wider public, so there will be a lot of misleading information that they are scaremongering, so I think it is very important that we have a good, solid strategy communicating with residents and the wider public. Thank you. Can I just add on to that, can I just say, just to echo what the Deputy Mayor has said, obviously I think it is a good thing that we self-referred, we want to be open and transparent and it is a service that we inherited. We weren't responsible for the ALMO for seven years, we came in and it was our commitment, manifesto commitment, there will be a referendum or consultation and we will bring it in-house, we will put it in-house and it does need a proper independent health check. It needs that health check, we know some of the weaknesses, we know it already, residents have been talking to us, certainly in and around health and safety issues, David, we need to make sure that our residents are fully on board and where they are concerned, that we address those concerns as quickly as possible. Certainly Latham House is a good example, residents did come to our surgeries, came to lead members and to officers and we have heard them, we have put in a container service, an additional security service in-house and we have allocated some £60 million in a cabinet paper in order to get on with the health and safety work on that building as soon as possible. Similarly we have also agreed another £140 million to carry out regulatory work, some basic decent homes work and other work on housing stakes which is well overdue because of the serious lack of investment over the last 10 years, the last decent homes work that was carried out in a housing stroke when I was the Mayor last time, hardly any work has been done since then. So health and safety is paramount, good communication strategy is so important and if there are any buildings that are any issues of that nature, health and safety nature, I know we are aware we must get on with it as quickly as possible. You know, I think last week there was a BBC programme where a, it was Waltham Forest, Waltham Forest or Havering, housed in a state where basically some of the buildings are falling apart, cladding has been taken away, you can see the outside from the inside of the building, you know, so rightfully so the media has taken interest, the residents are very worried in that local authority. It's not all over the borough but across one or two of the states, we don't want to be in that unfortunate situation, our residents come first, so communication strategy, health and safety watch is so important please here and can I also say please, whatever you do can you please kindly keep me and the member in the loop as you have to date, it's very important to us. Thank you. Thank you Deputy Mayor for your question and Mayor for your comments, as you've highlighted, we have been putting in a lot of investment, particularly around health and safety, fire regulations and covering multiple areas of resident needs. In terms of emergencies, there's a number of buildings that have been identified through surveys carried out, which includes Johnson House in my ward as you mentioned, Latham House and more recently we've had Randall House where we're having to carry out emergency works to remove ACM cladding that was signed off back in 2018 that had ACM cladding removed. But more recent surveys found that there's still amounts of ACM cladding remaining in certain areas around the balconies and other areas of the building. We take a very proactive approach, the department takes a very proactive approach in addressing such challenges. These involve immediate setting up of waking watch, letting residents know as soon as we find out, holding meetings with residents and continued newsletters and information to residents. Because primarily it is their safety that we're all concerned about and they're concerned about their own safety as well. In terms of the capital programme, as I said, the focus is around the building safety, fire regulations and the big six that the housing regulators are looking at. David can come in with more detail and we've also got Karen who can support in relation to the policy elements of things. Thank you. Just to add to what's been said, we have already begun our communication strategy with residents because when we self referred we made it very transparent and open that that's what we had done and we did tell residents about this through our various communication strategy. But following on from today's meeting with the regulator and the eminent inspection, we will communicate this to residents and we will provide the update around our action plan and our progress against this. Karen, did you want to say what sort of channels we're using around the communication strategy and what plans we've got? Thank you David. So in terms of the comms strategy, while David has said that there will be a quarter four inspection, which starts in January with a visit in February, the actual work started today. So we already had a common strategy for the self-referrer so we'll be working with comms colleagues just to use those same channels that we used the last time. So that was using the TRAs as a main focus for residents and also the residents newsletter and also the tenants for you. So we'll be getting those out to tenants as well as other stakeholders as well. I think what's really important as well is to set up in those communications that since we did the self-referrer that we've actually made some significant improvements in some areas and we reported those to the regulators. So for example, we have no more outstanding fire risk assessments. We're 100% complete on fire risk assessments and that our compliance position on lift inspections has improved from 59% to 96% and that our compliance position on Legionnaire inspections has gone up from 83 to 88% and we've already commenced reviews of our ASP service and a repair service. So as David alluded to in terms of communicating to residents about the inspection, we also need to be reassuring them that we've already started on that journey of improvement and we'll start that tomorrow with the comms. Great, thank you. Thank you, Karen. Councillor Kipriya, then Councillor Thala. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Rendall House is in my ward and a lot of time residents are raising concern about their health and safety. Do you have any specific timeline to resolve this cladding issue? So just to update on that, we've appointed the contractor. The contractor should be on site and work has already started. There are some sort of permission issues that we need to negotiate with TfL because of the railway line. In terms of access to the areas that we have direct access to, that work is immediate and the other, we're waiting permission from TfL in order to sort of have access to those areas so that we can take it off. It's predominantly around the balconies that are on Rendall House. So we will keep you updated on that. Thank you. Councillor Thala. Mr. Mayor, it's not in relation to 6.2, it's in relation to item 6.3. We'll come to that. I'll deal with it when we come to it. Let's deal with this first. Thank you. Can I, if there are no other comments, can I just say, self-referral was very important. But I've been talking to David and having currently known from your previous role, and Steve knows, they are, look, the stock that we inherited from the other note, homeless homes, some of the stock is in a very poor condition, you know, inside in particular. You know, there are some flats or homes that they are seriously mould ridden, mould infestation and condensation, serious problems. And we know that it's affecting where, especially when people are living in a very overcrowded household, on top you get a premises which is seriously mould infested. It exacerbates someone's health problems, if you ask Matt to give out lungs problems. And unfortunately, we're not attending to remedying the problems quickly enough, David. We're getting situations where it's exacerbating and causing the people's health issues, serious health issues. Or we're going in and doing the work repeatedly, we go in, spring and summer, it's okay, come winter, it's the same cycle families are going in. We've got to have a strategy where either families are relocated and those premises are condemned. Condemned, and if they're not condemned, the work is done in such a way, not just airbrushing it, the work doesn't come back again. And on too many occasions where the workers have gone in, just done some minor work, and come winter comes back again. One, we're wasting money, two, you want to live in those properties, I want to live in those properties. Why should we expect our residents to live in that condition? I need a strategy, David, how we're going to deal with, end of the day, before we complain down low. Now, five, six months, we are responsible for it, one year now, we'll be one year, we are responsible. And I haven't seen a quicker action policy to deal with condensation and deal with mould-ridden properties. It's not fair on those tenants that live in that condition, it's driving some people absolutely insane, literally insane. Steve, we need a strategy, I'm sure the inspector is going to pick it up, I'm sure residents are going to complain. I'm saying an open air, but we want to be ahead of the game, we're not ahead of the game, we're going to deal with that. David, I've said it to you and I'm saying it in open form now, a repair service that we inherited is absolutely rubbish. It's not your fault, you've just come in, David, I'm sure you have been inherited that, it's absolutely rubbish. Where tenants sometimes can't get through, can't get through to report to repair, and if they do eventually get through, when they are promised a visit will be made and the visit is not made, it's on the second, third, fourth occasion when someone will attend, will attend, promise X, Y and Z, then they don't come back to do the work. Or when they do the work, most of the time it's shoddy work, or they leave behind unfinished work. That kind of repair service cannot continue forever. I want to report from external legal experts to how we can performance manage the contract with the repair company and how, if we need to breach it, how can we come out of it, because it cannot continue in this state, it is continuing. Too many occasions our residents are telling us it's happening with the RSLs, we're not responsible for that, we can only put pressure on them, but we are responsible for our stock and our repair service, it's not working. Okay, Steve, you and I, David, we need a note, we need a legal, because we can't continue in the current state, we're continuing. A lot of money has been spent, has been contracted out, it's not working, if we need to break the contract, we need to break the contract, unless you give us a better reason we shouldn't. The current state cannot continue repair service, and I've said to you, David, previously, and asked you, that you know other authorities, and we had it here before, there will be independent checks on whether the work has been carried out. There isn't this now, as far as I know, there isn't this now, and we just rely on the goodwill of the contractor to say they've done the work. And the residents, you know, some of them can't speak English, or they don't have the means to communicate with us, well, when they do try to communicate with us, our telephone service is not working, our call centre is not working, to pick up those problems. Sometimes, you know, people become very frustrated, angry, upset, and they take it on us, as politicians, on our surgeries. We're the face of this council, why should we take the brunt of residents' anger when officers are paid to do a job? So I'm requesting you to look into that, please, I need a report on that, as soon as possible. And I want to thank you, that we must have the cover in place, I know you worked on that for winter, each winter, you know, especially after Christmas, we get serious burst pipes, we get heating going down, etc. And there are, during nights when we have to go out, members of officers to be and hold the hands of the residents, where we will, there have been occasions where we have supplied water out of our own pockets. Yeah, Shafiq in particular from the mayor's office, one of my advisors, paid for water from our own pockets and from his pockets, because officers weren't available, David. So we need to make sure we have the adequate cover, please, and there's a lead, rotating lead director on duty to liaise with us, available, if something like that happens, otherwise we'll have to phone you during the night, so Steve, we phoned during nights at one in the morning, or Paul Patterson, two in the morning, to help us, and Lalo should be available. So I want to, for the record, I want to say that, if that's okay. Okay, Steve, okay, yeah, thank you. Please. Sorry, Mayor, it's just been brought to my attention that some members of the cabinet might have interest to declare in items on tonight's cabinet agenda, perhaps for being leaseholders or tenants of properties in the council's housing stock. I think those declarations, those interests probably relate to this item, 6.2, and the next one, so I think it's, the next one is the leaseholder engagement strategy, so I think it's probably timely for them to allow those members to do that now. You're not exempt, you don't have to lease a room, but you need to declare that you are a leaseholder or tenant, okay? Councillor, why you're a leaseholder, aren't you? Yeah? Yeah? Mustak, you're okay? You're a leaseholder, but you're not a council leaseholder, you're a tenant association. Okay, please. So I'd like to declare that I'm a leaseholder for the former town of the home stock. Anyone else? I'd like to declare that as well, please. Yeah. Shafiq, how many leaseholders do you have? Just one official, just one. Thank you, man. The leaseholder, thank you. The leaseholder, aren't you, Councillor? Not council. Not council, yeah? Okay, that's fine. Sayid? No? Yeah, okay. But you're a tenant of someone else, okay. And I just live on the street, that's why I live. Okay, is that okay? Is that done? I just confirmed that was Councillors Apu, Chaudhary, Cameron, Hussain, Shafiq, Ahmed, and Abdul were here that are all council leaseholders. And presumably those declarations are 6.2, 6.3. Is that okay? Thank you, grateful. If we're happy with the paper, can we please agree the recommendations? And thank the officers, Steve, David, Karen, Gulam, and the lead member for the work. And you, madam, for the work you have put into this paper. Thank you, grateful to you. Thank you very much. Let's move on. Okay, 6.3. Approval of the council's tenant and leaseholder engagement strategy. Thank you, Mayor. Following insourcing and the introduction of the new consumer standards, we needed to refresh our engagement offer to residents. Transparency, influence, and accountability. Listening to residents, providing a range of opportunities to be involved. But also acting on existing feedback, e.g. complaints, transaction surveys, feedback, and TSMs. We have established tenant's voice, but engagement has to go further. We co-designed the strategy with residents in workshop throughout 2023. We undertook a multichannel engagement in the summer of '24. 215 respondents. The feedback was largely supportive and positive. And proposed feedback was positive of the proposed strategy. 86% of respondents found it easy to understand. 78% found it accessible. Essentially, Mr. Mayor, I'll cut it short and what we're looking for is recommendations for the mayor and cabinet to approve the council's tenant and leaseholder engagement strategy, appendix 1. To note the equalities assessment, equalities impact assessment, appendix 3. And the specific equalities considerations set out in paragraph 4.1. And lastly, to note the actions of the regulatory assurance action plan, appendix 4, which support the delivery of this strategy. Thank you. We've got officers. We've got Karen, Leslie, David. Please, anyone, do you want to add anything to what was said? It's a good paper. Thank you, Mayor. So just to pick up on the point that Councillor Ahmed said, that this is number 2 in our improvement plan. And by agreeing tonight, you'll have ticked off the second item in our regulatory assurance improvement action plan. It is a regulatory requirement to have mechanisms whereby tenants can influence decisions and hold the council to account. And this strategy does that. Councillor Ahmed talked about the engagement event that Leslie's team led in the summer. Where 78% of those engaged agreed that the mechanisms that we set out were accessible. And did offer a chance to influence. I draw your attention to the penultimate page of the summary which sets out a ladder of engagement. Which is a very good summary of the different levels of engagement that residents can have. There is a forward that's being done by the lead member. It's not in the copy that's in your pack. But it's just waiting to go into the final version. Thank you. David, sir, is there anything you want to add? No, I think it's all been covered. But this is just a really positive step, particularly with the upcoming engagement with the regulator. But also to give residents various ways to engage with the service and shaping everything that we do. Thank you. There's nothing else burning. Can we, it's straightforward. It's a good thing. Can we agree with this? Note the recommendations, please. Is that okay? Good recommendations. Done. Thank you. It's your day today, Mr. Kirby Ahmed. Okay. Don't stop working. Continue. Thank you, Mayor. So the next item on the agenda is for the approval of the Council's new homeless and rough sleeping strategy. 2024 to 2029. And the delivery plan. Approval of this strategy is needed to ensure that the Council is compliant with its statutory duty to conduct a review of the nature and the extent of homelessness in the borough every five years and to develop a strategy setting out. The strategy refresh included a desktop exercise using data published by MHCLG, the Housing Options Service, the Census 2021 data and a variety of other sources and is a snapshot in time. The review is pinpointed a number of areas of focus for the Council to focus on. A statutory consultation on the strategy agreed on emerging priorities. The priorities in the strategy are, number one, working with people earlier to prevent them from becoming homeless and to reduce the use of temporary accommodation. Provide good quality accommodation for people who are at risk of or where they become homeless. Number three, to improve customer service and individual experience. Number four, making sure that people have access to the right support services. Number five, to prevent rough sleeping but where it does occur, it's rare, brief and doesn't happen again. And lastly, number six, to boost staff resilience and wellbeing. Alongside the priorities of delivery plan with targets, for example, the percentage increase in preventions. Julie Lorraine, our Deputy Chief Executive, has been overseeing this portfolio. She's here to answer questions and Karen is also here, who's supported in preparing these documents. So, Julie, would you like to add a few words, please? I will literally say for you to go on and on. I won't go on and on. Not you, not you, Julie. You're free to speak. I'm having a joke. I'll be even brief. I just wanted to say, you know, the report comes out in my name and that's because at the moment I have the pleasure of operationally looking after the service. But Karen's new role, strategy and policy across housing, has been of absolute benefit in this case. We could not have done this without her, all credit to her. So I just wanted to say I know you don't see the operational team here and that's a shame, but Karen has done all the work that's in front of you and I wanted to thank her. You and I also want to thank Karen, the team and lead member. I've had the benefit of briefings and involvement with you in the evolution of this paper, the development of this paper, so thank you. Anyone in here, it's a good paper, something we certainly should support, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would also like to thank Karen as well, echo what our colleagues have said. Grateful, grateful. If there's anything burning, if you want to comment, otherwise it's a good, good paper, I think we should, we must support it. And can I also say, like the previous paper, George, you are here, we need to have a forward for this one too, so you can get that draft and get it to us and we will get it over to you. It's on page 364, it says forward for mayor to be provided, so if you can. Is it okay? Great, good, good, it's been signed up, great. So can we agree? The recommendations, yep. Thank you and grateful, Karen and the team. Okay, let's move on to another good one. Combatting drugs, partnerships, substance misuse strategies, 6.5. Please, Tala. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So this strategy is in line with the government from harm to hope strategy, where we focus on three key pillars. One is around prevention, the other around effective treatment and the third one being around enforcement and tackling supply. So I did sort of communicate to colleagues that I just didn't want this to be another strategy that sits on the council website and is devoid of any partnership work. So it's contained all of that stuff and just to quickly highlight some of the stuff that's included. So we'll be recommissioning as part of the prevention work a new one-stop shop for children aged 5 to 19, costing nearly two million pound. This will be supplemented by the nearly 14 million pound investment in youth services, which we heard about earlier on today. In terms of treatment and recovery, we've significantly improved our treatment numbers since I took the role and latest data shows more than 2,000 people are in treatment. The 1.4 million pound commitment by the mayor for a new culturally sensitive centre, as well as the redesign of how we spend more than 10 million pound on treatment and recovery will help people get off drugs and alcohol significantly. And I just wanted to remind everyone in this room that according to government research, every one pound we spend on effective treatment, we save four pounds in reduced demand in health, prison, law enforcement and emergency services. So for us that could be saving nearly 40 million pound in reduced demand and more importantly many lives. And finally we rely on our police and other criminal justice colleagues to tackle the drug supply chain and reducing reoffending. So Q2 figures, so according to Q1 figures, there have been arrests of over 500 drug traffickers. So there has been a lot of good work coming out of it and in developing this strategy and we hope the workstream attached, the action plan attached to this strategy will yield better results moving forward. Thank you. Is there anything you want to add, officer? No, thank you. Sorry, no, I had nothing to add to that. Thanks, yeah, it was just to highlight why this is such an important issue for Tower Hamlets. We did a needs assessment to underpin the strategy. Tower Hamlets has the highest number of people in treatment in London. We have significant issues. We have a complex system which we are looking to address. And we also, there is a real challenge around prevention, particularly in the context of new threats around new substances coming in. So this is a really important strategy and what's going to be really important is about how we work in partnership. Also, as Councillor Tullo was saying, we need this strategy to have impact. So we have a set of metrics that we will be monitoring around to hold ourselves accountable to the delivery of this strategy. Thanks. Thank you. Anyone? Again, it's a good strategy. Covid, please feel free. So, as you know, this is an area I'm quite passionate about. I do my day job in this area. So, yeah, I think it's a very well written strategy and I think some of the key areas in terms of moving forward is considering things like Bovidol and sort of awareness around nitric oxide as well as nitosines and fentanyl. A lot of overdoses are happening around the country and prevention of that. I know services do give out these strips to test the purity of the drugs people end up using. I think the best is prevention and I think one of the key areas here are the free strands and so I welcome the report. Thank you. Anyone? Thank you, Mr Mayor. It's an impressive piece of work and thank you our lead member and officers as well. But my question is, a major issue of this forum has been seeing is that drug users are getting older and older and now have more complex health needs from decades of use. Do you have any specialist provision to support this growing group of elderly users? Do you want to come in or Shuman? Thank you. So the service that we commissioned, the reset service, will be looking at the needs of ages. The risks are more complex, which is actually why some of the measures we have around recovery, like the Culturally Sensitive Recovery Service, our recovery services are particularly important because we need to look at the whole individual and the needs that they have around housing, welfare and actually adult social care. So those are very much part of our treatment offer. Thank you. There is nothing burning from N1. Can we say it's a good strategy, building on the foundation that already exists in the Council. Let's agree with this. Okay, going forward. Thank you. Agreed. Can we move on to our two scrutiny challenge sessions papers, 6.6 and 6.7. I'm going to take both of them together, if that's okay. Is that okay? The colleagues want to come. So, one on child health to weight scrutiny challenge session, and one on responding to health and adult scrutiny subcommittee recommendations on empowering disabled residents, accessible sports and fitness initiatives. Do you want to say anything? Lead members, do you want to say the first one? You want to add to what's already here? No, I just want to thank the school team members, especially Councillor Budhu Chaudhary, who is the Chair for the work on this. I think this is quite important. As we know, the obesity is quite high in town. I just want to thank everyone who contributed to all this strategy. Officers, please, anyone want to add on the first one? Just a bit of context. So, this is a really good scrutiny review that was published in May of this year. There were eight recommendations that came out of it relating to food, physical activity, culture, inequalities, around children with special educational needs. So, there's eight recommendations. We have taken those recommendations and we put them into our broader child healthy health, those eight recommendations. Thank you. To us, already there. Okay, that's that. Can I go on to the one come to the same, the next one? I just recognise the importance to support these disabled people and I think we need to add to that. Thank you. Do you want to add, Shuman, to that paper? No? Okay. Please, yeah. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think it's just a good example of where ONS are actually helping the authority to shape policy. This is a good example where it's about people with physical disabilities having equal access to leisure and sports facilities. I think that's another good piece of work by ONS. Thank you. Good, good. Shafi? On the recommendation, the first one, 6.6, page 723, recommendation 3, which we ensure children are engaged in food production and growing. 12 primary schools have expressed a need of support, specifically around food growing and growing up. Our climate team, as lead member for climate and emergency, are currently working on various food waste initiatives that produce compost that is then utilised for food growing. There are multiple benefits with running schemes like this, reducing carbon emissions as well as promoting healthy eating. We would like maybe the recommendation to also add that into that to maybe engage with the climate team and see if we can make sure that this recommendation is in line with also the climate lead, Abdul Khan, who can also assist you going forward in making those choices. I think it's a really good idea and I'm happy to take that action away and explore it. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Anyone else? Can I just ask one question? Do any of the actions in both reports require any additional financial commitment from us as a council? On the child healthy weight one, no additional financial commitment. Or on the other paper? No. Great. Can we note and can we agree and can we thank members of the ONS in the challenge session and officers for helping out with the action plans? Thank you very much. Agreed. Yep, both of them agreed. Yep, so 6.6, 6.7 is done. OK, can we move on to 6.8, plan for school places, 24/25 review and recommendations. Steve. Thank you, Mr Mayor. This is the annual report that goes through our work to plan school places effectively. You'll see there's lots of detailed appendices which look at the different age groups and also special schools and send and how we're addressing that. I won't go into detail, as I said, it's something we do every year. The only highlights I would flag because you will have seen from what's happening in other boroughs in terms of a fall in birth rate and we're seeing schools close in neighbouring boroughs that we're working really hard with our school leaders in terms of our school organisation group to ensure we're addressing that and also addressing the challenge around making sure we have enough special school places and just want to thank all our officers in education and in schools that are working with us on that. Thank you. Member. It's a good strategy and I think we're on the right track but there are some things that we need to be upfront about, especially the birth rate, but the strategy that comes out, so yeah, thank you. Thank you very much, grateful to you. Anyone? Please, Shafi. Thank you, Mr Mayor. As a Governor on a governing board in a local school, we had our meeting yesterday where we discussed the numbers lacking in primary schools but we must also bear in mind that the SEND provision is increasing in Tower Hamlets and I'm sure you as the Mayor of this borough are looking to make ways and making sure that we are working in front line to make sure that these services are not in any way undermined. We need to make sure that SEND provision is kept in our priorities and going forward, this is one of the things that we need to concentrate on. Thank you. Member. Great, thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else? If not, it's an annual paper that comes to us, it's important we get to see, understand. So can we agree and note the recommendations, please? Is that okay? Okay, great. Good. Okay, another important nursery I referenced. Mayyum, you want to come in? Yes, thank you. I'm pleased to present the proposal to permanently establish a three-place, thirty-place nursery at Stepney Green Court. Just the key points, our pilot nursery has been a success with the twelve children currently enrolled. The consultation showed strong support from parents and the local community. The school is outstanding by Oxford, so it ensures high quality early education. It also meets the local needs. The nursery addresses the demand for full-time childcare in the area. And it's also, the most important thing, Mr Mayyum, is cost neutral, so it's not costing us anything. So I would like to recommend this report. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm just looking at the, it's a good paper by the way, thank you, where we'll get opportunities to increase places for youngsters at an early age, give them a good starting life. It's so important. I see that it's cost neutral, £122,000 reference to the Chief Finance Officer's bid. It will be covered by early yes, which is good. Okay, anyone else? Said, your youngster here, what do you think of this? I think it's good because we understand the need of placements for children, especially. Although we need to make sure that the take-up is good, we want to make sure that the reports that we've seen previously, there was a bit of a reduction in that category of age, sort of coming into admissions. So we're going to sort of keep promoting that and making sure that, you know, in the key areas, we've got that sort of promotion and people coming and joining our nurseries. Thank you very much. Councillor Tala, anything, or Waheed, young people, come on. We're going to make some comments, it's important. It's important papers. You've got a youngster. Yeah, I'll bring it to you. Waheed, any comments at all? You okay? Shafi? Thank you, Mr Mayor. Since nobody's there, I'll take up the offer. Thank you. As a father of a child going to a nursery, it's important that this kind of provision is available in local schools because there are many private provisions in the borough and they are taking up the offer of the government funding scheme. So I think coming from the council perspective and approving this tonight shows our commitment to early learning and making sure that we deliver in the best possible way. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else? Any comments? No? Okay. Good. I mean, the recommendation is quite clear. I think it's something that we should welcome and agree the recommendation. Is that okay? Yeah, absolutely. So if you can make a note of that, please. A common strategy around this is important. Okay, thank you. Can we agree this report? Okay, I see that Councillor Kabir Ahmad has just popped out on his paper. Yeah, why don't you just come and drag him in, please, yeah? Kabir, he's come and popped out, yeah? Tell him to speak a little and more action. Okay, please, yeah? Do you want to take 6.11 while you're waiting? Yeah, let's take, okay, whilst we're waiting, let's take 6.11, okay? Please, Said. Thank you, Mayor. So this is something that is sort of business as usual that we normally do. And it's just this paper seeking the continuation of the business rates pooling with seven other authorities. We're just taking the, sorry, we're just taking the business rate one as you are outside. Go on. Sorry, Said, go on. So this is the continuation of business rates pooling with seven other authorities and it gives us a benefit of doing that. So we have gained eight million pounds by the end of the financial year by doing so. And so, yeah, this is just for us to continue with this, otherwise we lose out, basically. So it's a good thing. Thank you. Julie, Madam. I agree with everything the Councillor said. One slight difference I just want to draw to your attention, Mayor, is the recommendations in here add a second one. They ask for a delegated authority to myself in consultation with you and the cabinet member to agree pooling membership for future years. This allows us, Mayor, to build into our financial modelling the assumptions around the business rate pooling. So I just wanted to highlight that that was a second ask that we were making of you. Thank you. Greatful to you. Greatful to you. Again, it's something it just makes sense to do. It's important. We benefit as a Council by doing this. Any comments from anyone, please? Yeah? You okay? I think let's continue it. Good. We agree the recommendation, yeah? Thank you. Can we now go back to 6.10, the neighbourhood planning determination on the road neighbourhood forum application. Sorry, Mayor, I was just going to ask for it to be deferred to the next cabinet meeting. There's a bit of information that I'm awaiting, which is within the report. So could we have it deferred? Okay. Sri, is there anything you want to say, please, yeah? So the request from the lead member to defer this item to the next cabinet to seek a bit more clarification. Are you okay with that, comfortable with that? Any time constraints, please? Yes, in accordance to the legislation, we need to make a decision within 13 weeks of the consultation period, and that ends this week. Yeah, today is the last day. What are the implications if we don't make the decision today to defer it to the next cabinet? What does it mean? That will be down to the forum to take any action. So if they wanted to raise this with the Secretary of State, they could do so. Otherwise, we could speak to the forum and explain that we will hear it at the next cabinet, which, at the top of my head, I don't know when that is, but there may be one in December that we could go to. Yes, there is one. Can I please request, lead member, if you can, please speak to the officers. Whatever clarification we need, we have to resolve it as soon as possible and get this dealt with either way as soon as possible. I know there was an issue about the representation on the wider membership, and I think that's been dealt with, to be fair to them. There may be one or two other issues. I am sure they would want to continue engaging with us, because, in principle, we agree with this. It's, however, making sure that their membership and their management reflects the community. That's what we want to do in this day and age. And if there's anything further, that was one of my concerns, which I raised with officers. And also, Councillor Thall raised this in other forums. But management committee, I don't know what other information you require, lead member, but can we deal with it as soon as possible? Please do. Can I just ask a question in relation to the time scale for dealing with this? I assume the 13 week, do you say 13 weeks time scale has to be, has to result in a decision being made. I assume, therefore, the decision could be to take further information, take a little while longer. That can be a decision. I just want to understand whether or not the decision is a yes or a no, as per the recommendations, or whether a decision to defer is a decision. As long as a time scale is established that brings the matter to a conclusion. The reason I'm saying that is I would not, and I know the Mayor knows this, I'm not prepared to put the council at risk as a result of, I don't know necessarily what the issue might be. But I do think we need some advice about that now. I mean, it's a decision to defer, that's what we're doing, so we can engage further with the forum, with a view to resolving any outstanding issues. One outstanding issue I have, and I'll be open about this, I think, although I respect their attempt and their willingness to action a membership which reflects the community, but I think the management committee also needs to reflect the community. In this day and age we need to be an inclusive borough, inclusive forums, so any other forums that needs our assent as a local authority, I want to encourage them to reflect on that. So we're not saying no to this, in principle we agree with this, but I just want to give officers, request officers to engage with the forum, to have another look at the management committee, and whether that's a possibility, there should be a possibility to have a management committee that brings on people of all walks of life and all background, that's what I'm requesting. Absolutely, and if they can make that decision as soon as possible, we can, I can, as the Mayor exude to Mayor, also, on the back of that, make decisions. Is that okay, League Member? That's fine. Mayor, I don't have the regulations in front of me, so I can't say with certainty, but we'll take that back as a decision at this cabinet. And we'll come back to you if need be, and we'll engage with the forum. I am grateful for that, I just think we need to be really clear from a legal perspective, and it would be helpful to get some advice, either not now, because this is something that's just come up, and be really clear, this is not a moment for the Council to put itself at risk in this respect, it's not. And so, I would request, in terms of the decision-making process, an answer to my office tomorrow, please. And then, Mayor, I will advise you in accordance. Sure, no problem. Thank you. Is that okay? Thank you very much. So, we'll just defer this for further discussion with the forum, but in the meantime, certainly Steve has a different role. So do I. But as a elected member, we're here to look out for the interests of the whole Council. Okay, thank you. Just to make a recommendation, if there's a desire to resolve this sooner as possible, is it worth you agreeing a delegation, perhaps to the corporate director, in consultation with yourself, to respond to the consultation once these issues are resolved? This might prevent the need to wait until December Cabinet, it's just an idea. That's fine, in conjunction with the mayor and the lead member. Okay, that's fine. It's okay, so we delegate it to decision-making, the corporate director of housing and regeneration, once the information has been clarified, to make a decision either way, in consultation with the mayor and the lead member. Is that okay? Thank you. Great, thank you. Great, can we move on to now Agenda Item 7.1, which I referred to earlier on. Are you here before us? What have you got? Sorry? Oh, did I leave you behind? Oh, for God, I'm so sorry. Oh, okay, sorry. Okay. Yeah, sorry about that, I left this behind. Yeah, 6.12, excellent paper, Supplementary Agenda 1, Be Well Leisure Capital Proposals. Okay, Kamrol. Thank you, Mr Mayor. This report proposes eight capital project proposals to invest in the Be Well Leisure facilities, following the insourcing of the service on 1 May 2024. The value of this investment, if approved, would be $1.5 million. In September 2024, the Mayor and Cabinet approved $1.16 million capital funding to invest in Milan Leisure Centre, 3G outdoor spot pitches and York Hall Spa. This is in addition to the $3.7 million approved to invest in essential systems, including boilers, heating and ventilation, and pool pump systems. These projects will generate an estimated $0.9 million of income over the three years, if approved. This project will all be completed by the end of December 2025. Pass it on to Simon to give more light on it. Thank you. Please. Yeah, thank you, Mr Mayor. I mean, this is a continuation of the programme. We insourced leisure on the 1st of May. There's a lot of positive things already happening. You've invested quite a considerable sum in St George's moving forward, and this is further work to improve the offer to our residents and visitors and those who use our sports centres. And Keith and the team can give you a form of detailed information into the work, if you so wish. But it's a good report. Thank you. Yes, thank you, Mr Mayor. I think the lead member has explained in summary really what the eight project proposals in front of you are. In appendix 1, there is further detail of each individual cost item and what the investment would provide, plus the identified outcomes that we've assessed for each one of the projects, including, where appropriate, in the interests of best value, the income that's estimated to be generated over three years. And that's where the estimated figure of $906,000 comes from. And then in appendix 2, there is a detailed feasibility of each one of those projects in even further detail, explaining the timeline of each individual project. But as the lead member has mentioned, the aspiration of this project is have it all delivered within the calendar year of 2025, so all the projects are delivered by next December, and sooner where it's appropriate and opportunities arise to do so. And that's itemised for each individual project on the schedule in front of you this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you. Isn't Andreas here? No one's from Comms here, Steve. Comms. Comms. Ah, you're here. Thank you. Because we have a number of very important items. The Comms on each one of them is so important. People need to know that we're doing this as a council. The nursery, this in particular, okay, can I have, can you please make sure I have a Comms strategy, in consultation with the corporate Comms and the mayor's office, need to know how we're going to let people know, one, to minimise the disruption, but two, the investments going in, how it's going to benefit the residents. I need to see that as soon as possible, please, before you go out to procurement. Okay, please, Jawad. Mr Mayor, there is a draft press release ready. We'll make sure it's shared with your team, just so you've got oversight before it goes up. But that's been prepared, and we'll share that with your office. Great. If you could share that with Georgiou, please. And Mayum and Steve, can you, on the nursery, can you do the same thing, please, yeah? Go on, Mayum. Mr Mayor, before it goes to Comms, I remember I requested, and you've also agreed, for Tilla, Sona and Spire, it's not included in the report, on the bids. Okay. Isn't that included? It's not, I can't see it. Okay, you want to talk to us, please, yeah? In the project proposals that we've brought through to MAB originally for internal engagement, the proposals that we've developed here, the two facilities that we've recommended in terms of the Sona and Spire facilities are the refurbishment of the existing facility at Mile End and the expansion of that, and that's in the schedule in front of you. And the second is bringing back the existing facility that was closed at Whitechapel, which was part of the, which was closed ahead of COVID, and has never reopened subsequently. So those are the two value for money proposals that we've brought forward. We didn't develop, or we didn't understand we'd develop any further proposals for new or additional facilities, but of course we can go away and look at that in addition to this schedule, if that was required. Can I say, we, in other forums, we clearly, when we spoke about your call, when we spoke about Whitechapel, we spoke about Mile End Sports Centre and we spoke about Popular Barts and Tilla. So, sorry, I've not had a chance to see the updating paper. Are you saying Popular Barts and Tilla is not in this paper, in this paper? In this paper we haven't included those because that would require a complete realignment of the existing facilities. There's no facilities to improve or develop upon within those particular leisure centres. Okay, okay. Can I please, because we need to cover the whole of the borough, whole of the borough, and we as members, we strongly feel that Popular Barts needs a similar investment when it comes to sauna and spa facility, and Tilla certainly, there's nothing on the island too. Those two facilities covers the island, where we have a large population. Can I request Steve, under my delegated powers, to delegate to you, in consultation with me and the lead member, to bring an urgent paper and to sign off for expansion in similar facilities in Tilla and Popular Barts, please? Thank you, Mayor. I'll liaise with the Deputy Chief Executive and bring it forward as soon as is possible. Please, but whatever happens must be done before the next cabinet meeting. Okay? Is that okay, Keith? Understood, and it will be. Thank you, Mayor. Please, yeah, thank you. It's okay, give it to me. Okay, thank you. That's done. Any comments, any further comments? I think it's a good investment. We brought the leisure services in-house. We got to make sure we provide the quality equipments, the space, and the facilities, so our residents can enjoy the facilities, especially the women and the elders. It's so important. So, yes, I think we should agree with the recommendation in here. And, sorry? Yeah, yeah, with the amendment that we want to agree similar schemes. We want the proposals to be brought forward and agreed by the Chief Executive, in consultation with us, before the next cabinet meeting, so we can announce it in cabinet. Is that okay? On Tilla and Popular Barts, and I will need your support, Madam. Julia Lorraine, please. I just had two comments. The first was, I think I'm right, that the reason this is coming forward, outside of the budget process and the standard capital budget process, capital governance process, is because of the need for timeliness and delivery, and your wish to go to procurement. And because we've now allocated procurement specialists, I look forward to seeing delivery with this, with no slippage, because it has come out of the cycle. The second question, when we looked at this, and I remember the discussion, it did include a conversation around the two, that the Mayor and Councillor Mayen were talking about. I just want to ask a direct question. The numbers haven't changed, but two have come out. Is that because the cost of the others have gone up? Sorry, I'm not sure I quite followed the question about two of coming out. So, in the conversation that we had, the conversation, and I was there, I remember it distinctly, it was a big conversation around Whitechapel and timeliness and plans. I remember those leisure centres being mentioned. And they're actually included at the top of the report. So, at the top of the report, you can see, in section 3.1, it refers to Tilla Leisure Centre Island Dogs. That isn't included in the costs in the table, but it was a conversation. So, I'm asking a direct question. When we saw this at the last meeting, were the numbers including that development at Tilla? Those proposals weren't in the previous version at all. So, the reference to Tilla is in reference to a pop-up creche facility as part of three pop-up creche facilities. So, there was never a proposal for a sauna and spa additional new facility. So, there is 75K in for Tilla? Yes, there was never a proposal that we put before MAB for consultation. I was just checking my sanity because I could read it and I remember the conversation. The investment for Tilla was around the pop-up creche facility on the lower ground floor. So, that's not changed at all. So, there has been no project removed or changed at any part of the project. That's fine. Thank you, Julia. I'm grateful to you. That's fine. But, we're chief executive and both the deputy chief executive understand and you now understand. And we can't see it before we want to see spa and sauna facilities in Tilla and at Poplar Park Police. So, can you please work that out and let's get it agreed as soon as possible. Is that okay? Thank you. Thank you. Grateful to you. Thank you very much. Let's move on. Okay, done. Now we've got Latham House and the other one. No, we're not done yet. We've got 7-2. We've got 7-1. It's done. Yeah, thank you. We agreed it before. Okay, if there's no other business, I think we're done. Thank you and grateful to everyone. Thank you. Thank you very much. [BLANK_AUDIO]