Transcript

[inaudible] Don't hear us in the room if you are there. No problem. Brilliant, thank you. I'm not sure where you are. [inaudible] Yeah, I thought there were only a couple of things. Anyone have the council Wi-Fi? Festive one. Festive one or just festive one? Okay, thanks. [inaudible] Good evening and welcome to this evening's overview and scrutiny committee, I'm Councillor Liz Atkins, chair of the committee. This meeting is being recorded and is being broadcast live in the event that technical issues require the meeting to be adjourned and it can't be restarted within a few minutes. Further updates will be posted on the Council's Democracy Twitter account, which is @LBLdemocracy. The council has a duty to protect sensitive personal data and ensure that information is not inadvertently disclosed. Please avoid using full names or any other details that may reveal the identity of others. In terms of housekeeping, fire exits, exit the room and go up the stairs to street level. Toilets, an accessible toilet outside the right side of the room. Apologies, I've had apologies for absence from Councillor Oxley, Councillor Inglis Jones and Councillor Masters and Councillor McGibbon and Councillor Adam are attending a substitute. My thanks to them. Okay, so let's start with introductions. Please can overview and committee members introduce themselves. Good evening, I'm Councillor Adam Neitzel. Good evening, I'm Councillor Annie Gallop, Myatt-Spiel's ward. Good evening, I'm Catherine Nicole Griffiths from Cent Leonard's ward in Streatham. I'm Councillor Ben Curtis from Clapham Commonwealth. Good evening everyone, Deepak Sidey will council at the Herne Hill and Loughborough Junction. I have no pecuniary interest to declare tonight. Okay, so I'm just going to take members of the committee and I'll ask you about the pecuniary interest. What's lower for giving from the department? Councillor Jedram Pethornby, Stockwell West and Loughborough. Okay, can I ask, have any members of the committee have any declarations of interest in relation to any matters before the committee is denied? No, great, thank you very much. And I'll get officers and cabinet members to introduce yourselves when you speak. Okay, so next we move to the minutes of the previous meeting of the committee, which was held on the 23rd of October. No amendments have been received by Democratic Services. Are there any amendments from members of the committee? No, are the minutes agreed? Thank you. No, we do have a public notice question, but the resident who has posted this actually is going to join us a bit later, so I'll take it a little bit later on in the agenda. So we will move on to the first item of core business tonight's meeting, which is the finance planning and medium term finance strategy report. The report, as you know, makes grim reading, bid savings are still needed. Are the proposals set out in the paper the right ones and why deliver the necessary savings and be in the best interest of residents? So I'm going to call first on the cabinet member for finance, Councillor Amos, who will have up to five minutes to introduce you. Yes, so my name is Councillor David Amos, cabinet member for finance, the Councillor for Kennington. So if I could just start by thanking you chair and committee for inviting the team here this evening. So that's very welcome from my part as tonight is a vital part of the whole process of producing a balanced budget and a rolling four year medium term financial strategy, producing the due diligence and the challenge that you'll be bringing this evening. I'd like to welcome Sirina Cook on the evening of her first day as director of finance at the luck of, don't mean to scrutiny me. I'm all welcomed. My colleague, director of finance for Chardas, and I'd just like to take this moment just to thank outgoing Duncan Whitfield in the interim corporate director of finance for I think at least a year, certainly a good time. And has made a massive difference in support for all of us across finance. That's very good to hear. I've heard that from other parts of the organisation. So we wish him well in his next role. So just two points further from me chair. I just want to acknowledge the considerable amount of work that's gone on since we last published the council's position regarding next year financial and service challenges. And that's work thanks to finance colleagues, but officers right across the organisation and the councillors that I've been working to, and of course cabinet colleagues to get us where we are now. I was pleased, is the right word, but we were able to choreograph it so that you are up to date financial report, which we managed to do sort of in the nick of time to go public. We'll have to wait until cabinet, which is next month. We as cabinet will be considering that the paper and proposals. So just to conclude, we're facing, and in real time experiencing, probably our most challenging financial and service pressures in the history of Lambeth. I'm going to go back 11 years, the local councillor, but I think it's been said across the pieces that it's not just in Lambeth. These are extremely challenging financials. We still have a lot of detail in the report. There is more work underway because we still need to find more measures in order to balance the budget for the next financial year, let alone over the rolling four year period. With more work as we run into the publication of the local government settlement, we're expecting the Lambeth Fund, which will give us greater clarity to find your downloads we will be getting for the next financial year. Thank you. OK, we've had three requests to speak. So we'll start with Councillor Scott Ainslie. Yeah, Councillor Scott Ainslie. It's left our finances in dire straits as demand for frontline services we provide has grown. Now, given that some former Lambeth Labour colleagues are now in government, can you tell us if we're likely to get the level of investment that we need? Over the last 10 years, the Greens in opposition have also pointed out where local Labour policies have made the situation worse. The recent auditor's report highlights the lasting impact of the failed Homes for Lambeth - around 100 million and only a handful of council homes to show for it. Hundreds of short life homes sold off to mainly foreign investors, decimating working class communities, generating over 100 million and not one penny spent on council housing, despite the cabinet member for housing at the time, Pete Robbins, saying that they would build more council homes with that money. Had this been a green led council, we'd have genuinely invested in our communities, built more council homes and/or retrofitted as the estates want existing homes to make them warmer, safer and cheaper to run, which would have helped reduce the pressures of temporary accommodation and cost of living pressures. Now, I want to look particularly at the reserves. At the corporate committee last week, I asked why the housing, the HRA reserves had fallen so sharply in just four years. On the 31st of March 2019, we had 46.9 million of reserves. We now have 14 million, estimated to fall to 5 million. And then the year after that, 2026, zero reserves. In August, September in 2024, we paid out 13.5 million to TLT solicitors for legal services. What does the OSCE recommend the cabinet do about that? Corporate committee could not answer that question. Transparency, International Research for Action, Electoral Reform Society, all of them agree that one party councils offer bad value for money. It's said that the Lib Dem conservative Ron Lambeth did leave us with Phoenix House, which shows no sign of rising from the ashes, despite the Greens banging on about sweating assets in the north of the borough for years. There's nothing in this report on Phoenix House that has sat empty, costing millions in security and in depreciation. Why? Time and again, the Greens have seen Labour dismiss their ideas one year and then adopt them the next. You'd be better just kind of accepting our ideas at the time and working with us. So what I want to speak specifically to line 37 in the projected savings, and I want to ask if that's just residential or if it includes commercial as well. And my other question regarding that is, yeah, is it is it residential properties, commercial or both? Now, there's also changes and less legislation that can stop landowners on commercial property. Time is up, Scott. Oh, damn. Can I just make this one point, if I may? So there is changes in legislation to force land occupiers to go to auction to rent out their empty commercial properties on high streets. I don't see anything of this in this report, I don't think. Could you clarify? Thanks. OK, now we move to Susan Matthews, who's the Branch Secretary for Unite. Thank you. I'm online. Oh, you're online. OK, I'm first. Can you tell me what my time is, Chair? You have up to three minutes to speak. Three minutes. Oh, that's not even a second in a motion. Thanks, Chair. Just quick question from the staff side. We see the budget projected savings, but what I haven't seen in the budget projected savings is lessons learned. And what are you going to do in terms of spending review to do with statutory action, which is the statutory service both for adults and children service? I haven't seen anything on that. What are you going to do to monitor savings around that, especially with the homelessness and housing? And again, we haven't seen much in terms of what you're going to do in terms of the improvement, transparent planning in terms of saving and spending review when it comes time for IR35, outside IR35. Agency staff, not so much, but IR35, which is taking a big bulk of the money throughout the council, paying how many? We have 55. We've moved down to 50. We still haven't got clarity and the lack of transparency. How many we still have throughout the council with IR35 to cut down and cut down on costs and savings? Across the council in terms of the collective planning going forward and the projective improvement spending. I hope I'm still in three minutes. I've cut it there. Thanks. Thank you very much. OK. And our third witness is Leon Morris Jones, who's online, I think. It's also a written statement which Leon Morris Jones circulated. OK, we don't seem to have. Leon Morris Jones. OK, so let's now move to members questions. OK, so let's just start off. There are obviously a number of proposals to save money and increase revenue and in the past, savings have not been achieved. For example, as Susan said, things like agency staff, things like temporary accommodation. How can we be sure that these savings will actually deliver what's intended and raise the income that we hope for? I can answer this question. I'm the Acting Director of Finance. So with regards to monitoring the savings proposal. So during the year, what we do do, and it does come to relevant quarterly meetings, we try and determine which stage we are at with each savings proposal. So with regards to the savings proposal, once it is agreed in the new financial year, we will have various discussions with the government and various other communities to make sure that these savings are delivered. We do provide kind of performance on where we are with each proposals. So that will continue to happen to ensure that we are delivering on some of the savings proposals. But in the past, there have been some savings proposals that we haven't achieved. So a good one was in 23/24. There was about 1.6 million, but it was only just for a short period where we couldn't deliver in year, but it was delivered the following year. So it was more of a delay in achieving that particular savings. So as we would expect, we'll be delivering those savings for a year. OK, perhaps I can give one example. I mean, increasing the supply of lower cost, nightly paid temporary accommodation has been an ambition for many years and it hasn't been delivered. So what are you proposing to do to change that? And also perhaps you can also answer why is it that Lambeth has seen a 16% increase in households needing temporary accommodation compared to 8% rise across London? Is it because we have more generous provisions or why is it? Yeah, sorry, Dami Al-Bajaj, Director of Housing Transformation. I also have Clark who's the Assistant Director for Housing Needs online as well. I would just open up by saying it's important for us to all acknowledge that the price of nightly paid accommodation has gone significantly up. I don't think we are the only council that is facing that challenge. In general, as a proportion, we perhaps in Lambeth have a few too many people in nightly paid accommodation, but that's something we're looking to work on to reduce that because that's the most expensive part of temporary accommodation. There's work going to reduce our reliance on that, working right across the whole organisation, including our housing that we've tried as well. I'll be doing something different because this has been an ambition for many years and we haven't actually achieved it. So what are we doing differently, which we haven't been doing in the past, which actually means we shall deliver this cost saving? Yeah, so you'll see in some of the lines we talk about things like a rent sustaining team. We also have a visiting team as well. This is all to do with trying to get people out of temporary accommodation full stop, but also trying to sustain tendencies that they might already have. So we are less reliant on nightly paid accommodation. It's all part of a general package of what we're trying to do to reduce our reliance on that. But we can't overlook the fact that in this area we are perhaps compared to other boroughs using slightly more TA than nightly paid tier that we would ideally like. So there are things that are in place. Do we know the reason for that? Do we know the reason why we have more increase in the number of households needing temporary accommodation compared to other London boroughs? I'm not sure that I would necessarily subscribe to that view. In the report it says that Lambeth has seen a 16% increase in households needing temporary accommodation compared to an 8% rise across London. Yeah, so I'll wait to bring Alex into specific numbers, but I've never been of a view that we're particularly in that view that our numbers are high, but I think our issue is more to do with getting people out of TA rather than perhaps what's been going on through the front door, but Alex will speak to more of the details. Alex has got his hand up so you can comment on that. Hi, my name is Alex Clark. I'm the Assistant Director for Housing Needs. And just to expand on Dami's point, when we look at Lambeth's performance in terms of homelessness over the last five to 10 years compared to the rest of London, where Lambeth has been performed less well than other councils is in relation to moving households out of temporary accommodation. Our previous allocations policy did not give households in temporary accommodation sufficient priority to move out of temporary accommodation. And obviously we've changed that. That was signed off earlier this year and that has made a big impact in the number of households that are leaving temporary accommodation. And similarly, we are taking to Cabinet next week a decision to enable us to discharge our duty with an offer of private rented accommodation. At the moment, Lambeth is, I believe, the only London council that doesn't have that policy in place, which again, hinders our ability to move people out of temporary accommodation. And in terms of what's in the MTFS around finding temporary accommodation at a lower cost, our intention is to procure leased accommodation as opposed to nightly paid accommodation. We're looking for accommodation on long term leases over five years. So that will give us more security in future about what our costs to provide in temporary accommodation will be. And that is why Lambeth is being particularly hit by the rises in the nightly paid accommodation, because such a high proportion of our current temporary accommodation portfolio is nightly paid. And so that is why over the coming years, but certainly the next 12 months particularly, we're looking to procure as much leased accommodation as we can to reduce our reliance on the nightly paid accommodation, which is so expensive. OK, thanks very much. Who would like to come in? Just a quick follow up on that. I didn't have understood why we've got so much more, such a higher proportion relative to other boroughs of paid accommodation. So the reason that we've got such a high percentage in nightly paid accommodation is because historically Lambeth has not been proactively looking to procure leased accommodation and we've not been proactively looking to move households out of temporary accommodation. And they're two things that we're actively trying to address at present and over the next four years. OK, so I've got Annie, Nicole, Ben, is that it? OK, so Annie first? Yeah, I was just going to ask about the procurement of leased accommodation. Where's the scope of the area that you will be looking to go to? I'll come back on that. Do you want me to come back on that? Sorry. So I'm Ruth Hutt, Acting Corporate Director for Housing and Adult Social Care. So we're currently working with, we've got a team now who's basically really focused on looking at where we can get from the leased accommodation. So the reality is that that is not going to be in Lambeth, it's going to be outside of Lambeth. And we're very aware of some of the challenges of that for our residents, but at the moment, we've got several different companies that we're talking to, but we've got nothing that's yet confirmed that's coming through on that. So at the moment, it will purely be speculation. But actually, those conversations are ongoing and they are things we'll do. We're also working with other London boroughs and speaking to other London boroughs. So just to be clear on the nightly paid issue, it's not a Lambeth issue. The whole of London is experiencing similar issues around nightly paid high cost accommodation and the demand for it has increased across London, which is driving the cost. So we are certainly not unique in that regard. The pathway bit for us is really important. So it's stopping people coming in, trying to find cheap alternatives that they do come into TA and then moving them on out of TA as quickly as we can. So it's a whole pathway that we need to look at. But there's been a real focus on the nightly paid because that's been a part of the market, very hard to control. And those costs are escalating. And we're also seeing people now who are, because of the 21 evictions, there's a sort of turnover that's accelerated probably in the short term, which is also impacting, I think, some of that turnover for people. And London is not affordable for many people, even on a reasonable wage. Thank you. Nicole? Thank you, Chair. Do you want me to stick to temporary accommodation or go back to it? Well, if you've got an issue related to that. Yes, I have. And so I'm very, very concerned that the requirement is not being met to 7.2, which is the 16% of households not claiming housing benefits, will experience increased rates of costs just fortunately affecting women. Many of the families who are going to be affected are not going to be able to afford market rents, which is why they're in council for accommodation. So I'm very worried that those changes will increase financial hardship and push more families into the property, especially this talk about housing benefits. In my experience, and I've got this all wrong, housing benefits when it comes to private sector rents, the chances are that it will not meet 100% of that rent. So if you're asking families to go into the private rental sector with the understanding that their rent will be paid by housing benefits, I don't understand how you've worked that out because, for example, I'll give myself as an example, my monthly rent is 18. Last year, I had a period of time where I claimed universal credit. I was working. This is the work here is considered work. The LHP was taken into consideration as the housing benefit part of my rent. So the LHP is capped, of course, at about just under £1300 a month. So therefore, also I got half a room, which is considered a spare room. So therefore, I lost another £300 because of that. So all I received to go towards my very expensive private sector rental was a £1000. Now, surely most families we're talking about here that we're going to move into the private sector are going to be in the same situation. So how are they going to suddenly be able to meet that shortfall? I'm worried that this idea is going to actually create far more problems than it's going to solve. I've got more questions to ask, but I just really like your response to that, please. OK, anyone pick that up? Alex, someone needs to pick that one up. Yeah, I'm happy to come in on that. So in terms of when we're offering private rented accommodation to a household, we would be offering an accommodation where the rent is set at the local housing allowance rate or below. So the full cost of the rent would be met by benefits. And the majority of people that are in temporary accommodation are receiving part benefit so that they are in some form of work and receiving benefits to top up that rent. So I think it's really important that to be clear that no offer of private rented accommodation can be made unless we're satisfied that it is affordable for that family. So we would carry out a thorough income and expenditure assessment before offering private rented accommodation to anybody. But the rent would always be set a maximum of the LHA rate. It would never be above that. Where are these places going to be? Because if these places that were only twelve hundred pounds a month existed in Lambeth, I'd definitely be living outside Lambeth. So where are they going to be? Are you asking all these hundreds of families to uproot to where? Please explain. So we've got a placement policy in place which sets out a criteria by which we can ensure that the most vulnerable households offered accommodation in Lambeth. And if households don't have those vulnerabilities. So, for example, you know, if the children are not known to children social care, if the family are not working, if the children aren't doing exams, et cetera, et cetera, then we would look to offer people accommodation further away from Lambeth. So I obviously can't say that every private rented offer will be within Lambeth. We do make every effort to make sure that people are kept as close to Lambeth as possible. But the reality is that people will be offered accommodation outside of Lambeth and some households will be offered accommodation outside of London. But again, I think it's important to stress that this is what's happening. This is not a kind of Lambeth decision. This is what's happening across London and across the country in response to the homelessness crisis. And I think it's important to understand that temporary accommodation is not a good outcome for anybody and actually moving people into sustainable, affordable private rented accommodation where they're able to settle is the best outcome for everybody. I just want to find out how far behind other local authorities are we in starting the policy of discharging our statutory housing duty if people don't accept private rented accommodation. How many years have other local authorities have been doing and why are we so far behind in bringing that policy and speaking to other local authorities, how well has that been working? And on the fact that I just want to ask, are we putting people who have been decanted for various reasons into nightly basis accommodations, as well as that is one of the reasons that's pushing up costs. So I can answer that the local authorities have had the ability to discharge into the private rented sector since the introduction of the Localism Act in 2012. So we're about 12 years behind other London councils. I think if you look at some of the London councils that have been working the most successfully in this area, local authorities like Brent, Camden, Waltham Forest, it's no coincidence that their temporary accommodation numbers have not increased as much as other London councils. So we're probably around about 10 years behind other London councils, which again is the reason why our temporary accommodation number is so high compared to other local authorities, because we've not been exhausting every effort to get people out of temporary accommodation. Can I come back? Why are we working with other local authorities in reducing their costs, are there places where we can give other people instead of nightly accommodation a temporary accommodation, or have we been so slow to do that? I think that's for Alex to answer, to be honest, I think, you know, in a way that's been a Lambeth policy which has recently changed as part of the change in update of our allocations policy. But I don't think that's probably for Alex to answer as an officer. I think to be fair, it's worth recognising the rents are very high and a lot of our residents that come into TA do have significant vulnerabilities and affordable private rented sector rents are not that easy to come by, as they've already been remarked upon. So there is a probably a very sound rationale why we might want to enable people to find affordable and social housing as well in Lambeth, which will be entirely appropriate for some people. But the reality is there's a massive shortage of that. So enabling people to live somewhere that is a more permanent solution to them is better. And we know we've got people who've been in TA for many, many years, way longer than they or we ever expected them to be. So there has to be a sort of shift in policy that references that. Yeah, I just want to touch upon kind of value for money. And I just wondered whether or not any work had been done on how Lambeth compares on nightly rates in contrast with other central London boroughs. Obviously there's going to be differences in price between outer and inner. But how Lambeth compares on nightly rates. On the nightly, hey I mean Alex could come in again, but all London boroughs are competing for the same accommodation. So we don't have a monopoly on accommodation because that happens to be in Lambeth. You know, we'll have Westminster trying to get access to that accommodation and Newham and other boroughs. So it's literally driven by those market forces. That's what drives those rates up. So if we discharge somebody from TA, accounting could use that property tomorrow potentially. And because there's such high demand, quite often those landlords will ask for an uplift on that because they can generally get it. So that's why we're looking at entry into these longer leads to try and manage those costs so we understand what our financial exposure is and then we're not at the mercy of the market in that regard. So that's sort of part of the strategy that we're bringing in place now. But they don't see Lambeth coming in charges, well I hope they don't, double the rate. It's an issue across all London authorities and London authorities and directors of housing have worked together to try and work out some of the ways to manage those costs and manage them down. The one thing I will say about Lambeth is we have very, very small numbers of people in sort of bed and breakfast type accommodation and we try and minimise that as far as possible, particularly for families. And I'll say in Lambeth we've done that pretty successfully relative to some other London landlords as well. I don't know if Alex does anything else you want to add on that? No, just to say that, as Ruth has said, this is not a Lambeth issue, this is across London. And obviously I'm in regular contact with councils across London and this is what's driving overspends across the capital. So what Lambeth are paying is not any difference to what other councils are also facing. And I guess it's not really a Lambeth council thing, but are you seeing, you know, I see it in my ward particularly, you see properties that have deals with local authorities. Are you seeing these providers of accommodation, often of which own chains and a number of properties kind of playing other local authorities against each other? Are you seeing evidence of price gouging in that respect? I mean, you know, say, for example, somebody comes out of a Lambeth property. Is there a bidding for that specific space? And if so, is there kind of anything that can be done to stop that? So that's something that is being discussed across London, across housing directors and heads of service. I think the reality is at the moment the accommodation providers, unfortunately, hold all the cards. They can essentially name their price, confident that if Lambeth won't pay it, then Southwark will or Wandsworth will. I think all councils are trying to push back and negotiate the best possible price. But the reality is that providers to an extent are able to set prices. And obviously the alternative for us would be that we'd have to place a family into hotel accommodation. And like Ruth has already mentioned, I'm very proud of the fact that Lambeth's use of commercial hotels is very low compared to other London councils. It's something that we've been very successful at avoiding the use of commercial hotels. Whereas other councils with comparative numbers in temporary accommodation have often got hundreds of families living in commercial hotels for months at a time. So it's a very challenging market. We obviously do everything we can to negotiate the best possible price and to try and push down the price of those providers. But obviously, you know, it's supply and demand. We're not in the best bargaining position. OK, Gondu to both now. Thank you. So just going back to the negotiations around longer leases. And I'm wondering, I mean, you mentioned that nothing's been through yet. So what's the kind of assumption or prediction in terms of when we would start the savings from that exercise? And I get kind of linked to that on temporary accommodation and if I may, more broadly on the savings proposals. I'm just wondering, I hear that there'll be this quarterly review, but what level of confidence do we have in the savings proposals going into that? So we have planned enough lead time so those savings will be done in the next financial year where I'd say we have a high level of confidence in terms of our ability to deliver them, partly because we are basically stealing best practice from other boroughs and looking at what they've done, what they've managed to achieve. So our numbers are predicated on what's already happening and being done elsewhere, which I think helps our confidence. And there are other sort of structural things we're doing around, including the sort of additional support for retained tenancies, which hopefully start to reduce that pipeline pressure as well, which will hopefully enable us to manage that better. So I think we, although we've seen this year on year increase in TA, it's still going up, but it's not going up quite as steeply and fastening to level. So hopefully that gives us some small, maybe not so much as we'd like, but it's not going to be one single thing. It will be everything that we're doing together that will get us to the outcome. There's no one single thing here that's going to make a difference. We've got to do all of these things together, I think. If I may, that's just another question around confidence, which is a lot of what we're facing now in TA, but also in other statutory services is demand led pressure. And I see in the report that there's some assumptions that have been built in around demand growth. What level of confidence do we have around those assumptions as well? Obviously part of what got us here was demand outstripping even our assumptions about future demand. We'll come back on that in a few of our works as an application to housing. So I think we're in a pretty significant rhythm now with regard to how we do our service and financial forecasting. And just in terms of the monitoring, the organisation will be leading on an only role. China and others is internally the monitoring is far more frequent than that which goes to Canada. So this management board that brings corporate directors together on a weekly basis. And as you'd expect to know for our regularly, increasingly monitoring, we'll actually have some practice based on budget forecasts and the phase written out of spending. In the quarter one heading for something like a 35 million pound over set by the year end. So in the couple of years I've been involved as a cabinet, I've certainly seen the council do far more in trying to forecast demand. I don't know if we were sitting here four or five years ago, whether we would have said anyone would have forecast 4,700 households being in temporary accommodation in Lambeth alone. And of course, we can't be absolutely sure with that forecasting, but it's built in now to the MPFS process for each of what I call the service lines. When we're directly providing service to our residents, the managers, the leaders are basing their budget forecasts on what they think is going to happen in terms of activity. So it's not just candidate plan, those being spent, but the activity and if not the volume of activity in something like TA, it's the nature of a broken market that's affecting our costs. And they're working out given these many of these are statutory services, what we can and can't do. That's why the pressure on non statutory services will become so increasingly significant as we go through the next period. Thank you. Deepak? Thank you, Chair. And thank you to cabinet member and officers for the report and for being in the room here tonight. I was very encouraged to see the section on the equalities impact assessment. So I just wanted to underscore the importance of that work to make sure that any of the proposals do not have an unacceptable impact on affected characteristics. And I think my question, perhaps two of my questions might have been covered by Councillor McGibbon. It was in relation to firstly the overspending on TA and what lessons have been learned from that in relation to forecasting the future financial years, given the scale of unprecedented demand to make sure that next year's budget is is closer to actual as well as, and Councillor Amos you've touched on it, the popularity of the monitoring. So the acting director mentioned, firstly, monitoring. And I wondered, given the urgency and the pressing need for savings, whether a more intense frequency of monitoring is required on a formal basis, potentially monthly, because it's absolutely often that these savings are delivered as expected. So anything you wanted to add there would be would be very welcomed. Maybe to introduce a new question. It's not the first year where the council has to make a degree of savings. What lessons have the team learned from previous years in terms of what is required to effectively and kindly deliver on savings? Maybe your three top learnings will be quite curious to hear from that. And lastly, just relation to reserves. If you could just perhaps provide some assurance, just in terms of the level, in terms of percentage terms, that's based on the current modeling, not falling below the minimum. But from my perspective, many of these savings I think authorities up and down the country want to make, but it's fundamentally because of the starvation of resources by local authorities subjected by central government, as well as the very poor inheritance by the previous government. So I want to again thank the member and the team for the work that they're doing. Additional comments? I'll try to mention about reserves, because all your points are completely salient, but that's absolutely spot on. In terms of lessons learned, I'll give you my three. Number one is the successful program, the delivered program is one that's been through sufficient due diligence. So in the last minute, it's been put through its paces. That's really what we've been doing. We started the MTFS period this year, kind of gave ourselves a week off, the last one, and then got back. And I say the kind of collective we got back stuck in, you've got to get up early, do the due diligence, put those measures through their paces. Do it honestly, first obviously. So there's real rigour and what you see when the report, when it's a financial report, that's the ultimate threshold. Number one is the due diligence. Secondly is the joint venture. I'm a cabinet member, but I'm not the operational lead in the department, great team of corporate directors and other directors. But it's a joint venture, I think, between us as politicians and the others within the team. I think that venture's about summer. The joint venture between the officers working out. But that's a double act, I think, as we've put. OK, so you're working very well. And there's additional detail and this comes to the EIA, so there's a huge amount of detail on each of these savings. That includes having an honest expression of what the impact could be, the negative impact. So the EIA panel can do its job in assessing whether full integration has been possible. OK, I want to dive. Sorry, OK. Yeah, thank you, Councillor Amos. In regards to reserves level, I think the SIPFAR recommendation is around 8 to 10% of net budget. And at Lambeth we have a gross budget of about $800 million, slightly more. A net budget of about $400 million. So around 8 to 10% is around $30 million. And that $30 million is unallocated reserves for a rainy day. And as you know, in Q1 we have been reporting an overspend. And so we've got the levels of reserves that could help us during this rainy period. OK, I'm going to dive in. In terms of the proposals, number 51 refers to general contract efficiencies. What does that mean exactly? Are you talking about seeking to reduce the cost of all contracts overall? Or is it going to be a focus on contracts where performance is poor? What efficiencies are we talking about? In terms of the table, it's number 51. On the residence and enabling services. Yeah, so I think it's more about looking at the scope of the contracts and understand the specifications and whether we can get services cheaper. But in terms of the details, I need to go back to the services to give you a bit further details upon what that scope of the contract review will look like. OK, check and I'll just follow up with that. On line 49, there's also a line that says processes automation, use of resources. I don't mean basically anything. So would it be possible when you look at the general contact efficiencies for £600,000, some of the £250,000 from processes automation, could that be? Because lines 49. OK. OK, I'm going to just dive in with another question. Why have legal's disrepair changed? Sure, point of order, please. I had my hand up for quite some time, no chair. Witnesses don't get to ask questions. If members choose to take those questions forward, it's up for members. So I'm really grateful for your contribution. But you don't actually ask cabinet members or officers questions directly. So I'll be going to members. Thank you. So I'll continue with my question. Why have legal disrepair claims escalated in recent years, presumably at great cost? And why has the disrepair arbitration scheme been paused? Because surely that would help reduce legal claims too. What are we doing to reduce legal disrepair claims? So the arbitration scheme has been suspended because it wasn't effective, basically it wasn't working. So it's time to pause and see if we can change it to a better or whatever. You mean it wasn't working because people weren't going to it? Yeah, it wasn't. So the desired outcome of it was to stop people going to legal disrepair companies, which hopefully would save us a ton of money and that would get a better outcome. That wasn't what we were seeing. So that's why it was paused. The disrepair situation is, again, it's not a one single thing, but it's a combination of things. So there's a sort of legacy of Covid where there was a period where repairs weren't done in a timely way. And then that created a backlog. I don't think that was just a legacy of Covid. We have ageing housing stock more broadly. We know, but repairs have been pretty atrocious for many years. They are improving, but I don't think we can use Covid as an excuse. So one of the specific issues around the disrepair that we're seeing is the way that there are companies that are going out and encouraging our tenants to go through a very legal disrepair process, which generates money for those lawyers as well as generates compensation for our tenants as well. But that is contributing to some of those legal disrepair costs. But there is certainly a huge amount of repair that we've tried to address through changing the contracts. So the contracts were changed this year. So we will hopefully get ahead of that going forward. But we've got a backlog that's coming through our system and that's what we're seeing coming through at the moment. And it will be it's not going to go away overnight. Some of the cases that are coming through now are a couple of years old. So that will have to come through the system before we start. I mean, certainly from my experience, I would say, apart from sorting out the repairs themselves, is having much better communication with residents and working with residents, not ignoring them, which is what happens often for years. So we need to build much greater trust with residents who don't feel they have to go through the court process. If I could just add to that, just on that, it's worth just mentioning to the committee that disrepair and the progress against disrepair is reported very regularly. There is also a report to the housing improvement board that the cabinet member and the leader sits on to ensure that we're making the progress that we need to with regards to disrepair. We've very recently split the caseload with regards to incoming and already cases that we've got that's made the throughput a lot faster. I will just add that the delay with the corps did have an impact on what we were doing. That wasn't the whole thing, obviously, but it definitely did have an impact. So I just wanted to give some assurance that that's something that is high on the agenda for officers as well as members. OK, another round. We've got Ben, Cole, Verity. OK, I'll go with those three first. OK, Ben? It's probably fair to say it's the first government in a while that's been, at least in its rhetoric, keen to sort out the mess that local authorities are in. And I don't think anybody on the committee is under the impression that this is specifically a Lambeth issue. This is happening to local authorities up and down the country. So my question is, the representations are being made both at a kind of civil service level and a political level to tell the minister responsible and the civil servants the pressures that we face. Because obviously the pressures that Lambeth face are extreme, to do with housing and temporary accommodation. And London seems to be getting, London and other urban regions seem to be getting the brunt of this failure and we haven't turned into a Birmingham or a Woking. But anything's possible. And I just wonder what kind of conversations are being had now that as the political will of the council is the same as the government in Whitehall. That quantifying specifically the great dawning since July is the point of the place that you described. It's realistic. It basically wasn't going to solve everything overnight. Your observation tempting that would be given the pressures that we face here and elsewhere. So we've now got a government, a local government, a lot of people in government, a local government background. And certainly the connections we've had today both on a political and a professional basis, that we've got a government that's acknowledging the problems that we're facing and they're not exclusive to Lambeth. And so we as a council, and I say that as politicians and all their officers, through separate lines of communication, connection, see the opportunity for us to make just the sort of case that you referred to. And I think we're in a strong position as a council with our leader, Councillor Holland, being chair of London Councils that brings all the 32 plus the city together. I know the officer colleagues through their trade and finance networks. So working out the best way to get the intervention is to have certainly a series of lines to watch in time for capital and colours in many cases. So I don't know precisely the volume of all that, but I'm constantly hearing that that's how we are operating, which is part about making the case for Lambeth, but also making the case for London, making the case for the most vulnerable. Making the case that properly funded local government with longer term settlements was part of our position. We're not just on our own ambitions, but frankly, we are proud of the elected government. Nicole? Thank you. I wanted to ask something similar, so I'm glad I asked that question. I have to say, because I've got a couple of questions, it's actually just about the temporary accommodation then move on to the other side. So first of all, I just wanted to ask about the role of the new move on team, who we're going to see over the next couple of weeks, and whether or not they will have funds available to them to help them move into the private renting sector. So when you move into the private renting sector, you need to have, you need to be able to put down a deposit and pay a person's most rent in advance. Is there going to be that provision made available to offer to people? That's one question. Also, I have no idea as a Councillor how I would explain these changes to a resident who comes to me, who's been told that by the council that they're going to have to move under this change. So it would be really great, we don't have to do this now, but to actually receive a little briefing on how we explain these changes to the residents who are inevitably going to come to us, very worried about any changes that they might have to face. I'd be grateful for that. And then just so the MTFC courses does make for very, very, very grim reading. I'm really concerned that any services that we lose now are never going to return. And that we're expecting the central government settlement, of course, but it's never going to actually be sufficient to make up for any shortfall now. Because the inflation, interest rates, continual rise in the cost of living, et cetera, et cetera. So once these have gone, they've gone. So we have to be very, very sure that these services that we cut can actually be, not actually, really impact the most vulnerable members of the land of the population. I'm concerned about particular cuts in funding to children's services and the elderly, who are, you know, these are particularly difficult to swallow. We know that every pound spent on children, we know that we will treat the yours for the future. And that looking after our elderly through provisions such as drop-in centres, and if we lose one, we don't want any, we decrease learnings and they increase well-being. I'm really, really concerned about some of these cuts. And just to go back to the risk practice, so there's no, so we've not been, even though there's several risks mentioned from savings, we don't actually, no risk reports being provided. So that is something that I would really like to see. Just on the TA issues, so there is support for people if they're moving out of TA, so if they need deposits, that sort of support. And as Alex has already said, that sort of financial assessment, they can afford what they're moving on to. In a way, if you're in TA, you probably won't notice a massive difference at the moment. So it should, the support that you get from the team will hopefully help people through that process. But there's not a big mail shot saying, you know, everyone needs to leave TA, it's not going to work like that. People will be assessed on an individual basis. So I think I take your point about communicating more broadly to members. So we'll take that back and we'll do some comms so that we can say what this means and maybe more importantly, what it doesn't mean, so that we don't phrase anxieties unnecessarily. Just on the elderly bit, and I think you picked up on the day services one, just to be really clear, the way that our day services work currently, so that they cover a number of different groups, so people with physical disability, people with learning disability and older people. And they are all based on assessed care needs already. So once we assess somebody through social care as having assessed needs, then we have a duty to meet those needs. So those people will still have those care needs met. They may be met in a slightly different way or a different sort of configuration of services, but we have a legal duty to ensure those care needs are met. And that doesn't change, that's legislation, so that protects them. And I guess part of this process is to understand where those vulnerabilities are, making sure that we have necessary mitigations in place to ensure that we minimize those impacts. OK, and Verity? Yeah, so it's linked to risk, I suppose, but in a slightly different way. David, you talked about the sort of enhanced spending controls that we have, there's a quick reference in the report to work that's already happening, trying to press down on costs, lots of recommissioning in here, some in quite vital services. And we've also seen as well a very strong message across the council that this is a priority now, we need to reduce costs and save money. My question is really, what are we doing to assess and manage risks at a kind of individual case level in how we're sort of balancing this message? So particularly I think about our frontline staff, it's obviously like we are creating a kind of message and culture to a degree of like pressing down on costs as much as possible. How do we make sure that we're at the same time supporting and empowering people to spend money where, you know, where it's really needed as well and sort of manage our responsibilities and ensure that kind of safety. The questions around how do we, on the one hand, aspire staff to come up with as many ideas and work on how to reduce our costs in the meantime, keep all our vital services going and have a level of detail. Be safe, exactly. Statutory is the sort of catchall phrase that's born. We're interested in all our services being safe and efficient with the money and meeting the needs of whatever the customer needs. Yeah. And so I think some of the work that we've done across directorates rather than just within them is understanding what are the things that contribute to preventing people, situation deteriorating, making sure that as far as we can, we maintain and value those sorts of services. Who are the other partners that we can work with to do that? Because not everything has to be delivered by the council. There are other organisations that provide for and do it very well, actually. Some of which we fund, some of which we don't fund. So making sure that we've got really good signposting and understanding what else is there to remind people. And our offices are obviously very close to many of our residents, so they're experiencing first hand or seeing first hand what our residents experience. So understanding how we use that as part of our engagement to inform what we're doing. I mean, what we don't want to do is do things that then create demand further down the line, because that's not in any of our interests. It's all in the interests of our residents. So I think trying to make sure that we've got a real focus on prevention and how we manage demand by preventing escalation of need is really critical to some of that work that we're doing already. And that's sort of baked into the ongoing work of the management team, as well as the sort of board management team. I suppose that the example that I'm thinking about when I ask that is children services and placements, which can just so quickly become a massive, you know, if you take on a new responsibility, there's an enormous cost associated with those placements, then in that situation, how do we make sure that a decision on a placement is driven by considerations around kind of need and safety and that we've built enough back into TFS to be able to kind of withstand those sorts of individual shocks. Do you see what I mean? So I'm just thinking about the person making that decision, what's driving that and how do we make sure we are balanced in that? So the way we tend to do that at the moment for the high risk social, I don't know, I think it's essential, but certainly in adults, we have panels where those decisions are made, they're reviewed by directors. And if we come, if we get, I mean, again, it's needs based. So if you need a placement somewhere or you need to keep somebody safe and that is what they'll get to keep them safe. But we will also look at are there other alternatives we haven't explored? Is there another way of delivering this to keep it safe? But absolutely, that safety is part of that conversation and the director level part of the overview is so that we don't just assume that's always the best option, so that we're actually making sure it's not just the easiest option or the cheapest option, it's the best option for the person in your seat. I think, Jeff, that's a bit more, even more reassurance that there are certain no-go zones for what I call the enhanced spending goals. Sort of automatic no, we might consider a yes. I think much of social care is in that sort of no-go zone. We're also still hoping that our managers, if they can think of ways to do things that they will, I think they're not quite the sort of default way we have, which does put much more pressure then on all those other directors. If you think 60% of our spend is social care, like that, then you've got GA's, it's not our biggest lies left to think about. That's where this is definitely one lamb of stuff, so coming together wherever you are in the organisation, you know, the work is through acknowledging the certain areas, as you had your question, stated in your question, but we don't want the default system to make a wrong decision, even though it might save, might save some money, but probably wouldn't anyway. OK, I'm going to dive in again. We have a statement from one resident that Streatham Action is not representative of local people. How do we ensure that organisations, the council funds do genuinely represent local people and promote their interests and are not those of a local minority? Actually, you can probably do a three year degree if you need to follow. I don't know what the aggregate position is. I'm involved with the Social Value Fund, about 1.5 million over the last four years. I mean, presumably we have, when we fund local organisations, presumably we have some kind of criteria and presumably we also monitor what those organisations do. In a kind of general way. And of course, the difficulty is, is that, you know, you'll have certain residents who feel they're being represented by an organisation, have other people who won't feel represented by that organisation. But actually it's important that we're actually funding an organisation that they should be representative of local opinion, but also should be working to help deliver our plan outcomes. So what do we do? You know, why don't I just set up a kind of Liz Atkins care fund and you can come and fund it. But I might just be looking off my dog or something. How do we actually make sure that the organisations we fund, especially small local community organisations, are ones which we should be funding, particularly in these these dire times? So I can respond, I guess, on some of the specifics. I guess Lambdas is a very diverse borough, so there's no organisation that's going to represent views and all residents. That's the reality. And we do offer, I mean, sometimes it's through grants programmes, sometimes we commission PCS organisations to do work for us. Particularly because they're in contact with a particular group, so they might be in contact with Portuguese speaking people or a particular group where we need to work. And there's a very sound rationale for why we might go to those groups. Generally, we do a due diligence on those. We do some due diligence on those organisations, but because some of the very small PCS organisations, sometimes that's challenging because they are just by their nature small. But they may be speaking and reaching a group that otherwise are quite hard for us to engage in directly as a council. So I think the answer to the question is, how do we, each organisation, represent everyone's interests? I'm not sure you can. I think the point is that we triangulate and make sure that the work we do contributes to our understanding and that it's in line with generally where we're trying to go and what we're trying to achieve. I guess most of my experience of that probably has been through public health and where we funded small public health. And we're very, very targeted at communities that otherwise aren't represented or don't necessarily come directly and work with us as a council organisation. So using third parties to do that is a much more effective way of doing it. I don't know if that sort of helps. Is it related to this point? Just on your point about due diligence, the very small hyper local organisations, I think that's one area where ward councillors have it particularly. OK, I'll declack then. Thanks Chair. On rows 37 and 38 of the savings proposals, there's mention of the end of the premium and the second end of the premium. I wanted to ask whether the income, whether the council is going as far as it can in relation to income generation on these two points, even the powers that are being driven by central government. And my second question, and you mentioned one of the most my question on some of the learnings from previous work that's been done in relation to realising savings. You mentioned that the detail is important of the proposals. And I wondered to what extent it would be possible to liaise with other local authorities who are presumably going through similar exercises and what sorts of learning has been generated from that to lead to superior work that you're doing here. And lastly, just on the topic of contract management and effective contract management, it would be great to hear a little bit more in terms of the savings that have been identified through this exercise. And the opportunities as well through the specific lengths of contract management and maximizing both the potential savings and the opportunities that that brings. Very large contracts with the likes of Circo. It would be good to hear a little bit more on the topic of contract management and this piece of work. Thank you. Yeah, so line 38 and 38. There's a change in law regarding empty homes and changing. And we have maxed out, so we have made sure that we recognise that and build that into our council backspace. So it brings us as much info as possible, so that's reflected in our empty office. That's from year one by 26. In terms of learning, it's definitely built into the date of the process I prefer to, which is kind of from the summer for the directors coming up with measures working with their respective cabinet members. I can recall very distinctly, particularly measures that relate to raising fees, changing the way we organise local services, whether they're stature or otherwise. So the first question cabinet members are asking, has it already been raised? Well, what happens elsewhere in London? How do we then compare with the PAC, particularly if it's around fees and the changing service? So I'm pretty sure it may not be readily available for all 60 of the measures in front of you this evening. But pretty much most of them are just nodding here. In touch with your counterparts, and actually when we come together, we want to know how do we compare, where does this put us in terms of comparable cost, and if someone's done it first, how did they get on their list? I know we did that one a bit before this. So it's difficult to generalise about contract management, certainly in area, but I think we can always do much more on how much better a force of procurement comes to in my portfolio in terms of looking ahead. When we want to consider where relevant in-house option upstream, not to wait for the last minute. We have contract management, I think it's a budget discipline to make sure that contracts are managed well. We will live within the budget they've got having this outsourcing. And then we need the MTFS process. The corporate is coming up with saying, actually, I think we can save some money on this contract, but for a break, it's coming to a pivot time. Which then becomes a savings measure. So it needs to be measurable and that needs to be monitored. And that exercise has been done. So do you know which contracts are coming up for? I think we could do that better. And that's certainly in this week with offices in terms of now that we've got a very clear view of the next sort of three years. Spent 700 million over the next 18 months in business, I got the numbers right. But I think we can hear it approach to contract management. We pay 300,000 employees a year. We don't want to look at everything. It's not at a macro level, look at everything all of the time, do it at a micro level. But let's pick up the contracts that either local councils have raised concerns about or offices. And have a sort of program on that delivery efficiency, particularly the lives of contracts coming up for review. So what are we doing to maximise the financial when we have a couple of organisations like Circos clearly performing badly. What are we doing to penalise them financially or end their contracts early? To ensure we maximise savings? They're directly managers. I can't take that question away. OK, but I just think that what we should be doing and later we'll have someone talking about poor prawns of Circos, is that we should be ensuring that if if contractors are letting others stand, they should be penalised financially. We should be prioritising that and increasing those financial penalties for performance and ensure that, you know, the contracts we do commission offer best value. I agree with that. And those principles are enshrined in the procurement process. You've got to get it right, right up the specification, the first contract you then agree whether you've got people and systems in place to be able to monitor performance. And would you agree that certainly we haven't been very good at actually contract management? We've allowed too much poor performance. I don't see it quite in binary terms. You can definitely, a large contract organisation spends a billion pounds a year. We can definitely do better when it comes to contract delivery. The Council for 11 years, you've seen, as you've seen, we see non-performance on the front line, and that's one of our big, my big motivations. The Council to get involved and do the operational side of it, to feed that back into the system. They need to be robust to be able to pick up that data. And if it triggers penalties, then those penalties need to be triggered. And, you know, my partners and partners as well. I mean, you know, partners as well. For example, Thames Water, you know, in terms of making sure that we actually charge them for, you know, using council land, using council roads and actually make sure that we secure the, you know, some kind of financial penalty from them, which we can then use to spend on services to benefit our residents. OK, fine. OK, so I've got Nicole next. Yeah, I'm just going to pick up on this, one of the things in your book about the cost of agency self-consultants being so high and that there's an issue in recruiting skilled staff. If you could talk a little bit more about this, that would be really helpful. Also, there's something that says that the finance team are going to be offering services to third parties. Would you explain what that means? Can I also go back to the HRA reserves, which are going to drop to zero in the next few years? Could we talk a bit more about the risk of that? I just wanted to ask as well about bringing money in. So rents that come in from housing and commercial leaseholds and rents and so on. Are there arrears there? Is there anything more that can be done to ensure that all of the money that is due to the council does come in on time and can be relied on? So do we start with the agency one? So within social care particularly, we really struggle to get social workers, children's social care, more so than actually adult social care. But it's an issue for both. And because we have statutory responsibilities, we basically have to ensure that we have social workers available that can deliver those statutory duties. So we are relying to some extent on agency for that. We are doing everything we can to reduce our reliance on agency, including trying to get people on to contracts when they can't work with us. They like working with us, trying to advise them to come in. If Andrew was here, he could talk chapter and verse about all the work they are trying to do to retain social workers to the borough to support them really well. So that if they train to as well, we retain them. But the reality is, it's a market they can go anywhere they like. And, you know, it's a lot of work. And Lambeth, you know, we have really high needs in Lambeth. So it's probably not the easiest place. There's probably easier places to work if you work in children's social care, let's put it that way. So it's a real job to make sure that we really support them, keep them here. And lots of people choose to work agency for lots of other reasons as well. So I guess that's part of the story. But there are other areas, including some areas in housing where you need very high skills, where if somebody leaves and you haven't managed to recruit, you have a gap. And therefore, that is sometimes plugged with agency whilst we do that recruitment. So examples in housing may be around fire safety. We absolutely have to have those things in place. They're an absolute priority for us. So whilst we go out to recruit, we may have to fill those posts with agencies to start to cover that period. But we're aware that our dependency on agency is not good for our residents. And so there is an awful lot. And a lot of people do get, we call it absolved, which sounds terrible, but if they have worked with us for a period of time, we encourage them to come and work with us. And, you know, it's a good package to work in local government. And once they've tested it out and they decide they like being in Lambeth, we have a great team. And many of them will make the decision to stay here. But there's an app called Chan and Turnover, which is challenging to manage in London and linked to many of the other issues they're talking about including the cost of accommodation. So I think just on the HRA reserves thing, I think that's probably a separate discussion. I think I accept that it's here in the paper. There is an issue around HRA and there's a lot of work going on at the moment. And there will be in later in the early in the new year, there will be a standard sort of red sitting papers and stuff that will go to their normal governance. But I think suffice to say there are challenges around the HRA and the sorts of measures that we put in place for the General Fund, around recruitment, around real diligence, around how we're spending money and what we're spending on have all applied equally to the HRA in the way that they have to the General Fund. Just like many other directors, so looking for ways of being able to increase income, one thing that it has, it's all really successfully doing is selling its counter fraud service to Croydon. And so that's a really good shared function where it's helped us raise income. So what we want to do is expand that to other councils. And to be specific, we have actually got one particular shared function that we are working with a neighbouring council to be able to sell our internal audit function. And that's what you will be seeing in the sales proposal. So it's actually selling our support function to other councils to be able to raise income for Croydon and help plug the MTFS gap that we've been talking about. OK, we'll leave it there and try to summarise the recommendations. So dive in if you want additions or any amendments. So start off with keep OTSC informed of performance against savings and income generation targets every six months, and if not met, what is being done to mitigate their shortfall. Ensure that the impact of opposed savings and increase in charges on the most vulnerable residents are assessed and monitored. Ensure that they are kept safe through service provision. And those struggling to afford household essentials such as food and heating are supported financially. Call on the council to continue to lobby government on the need for more resources in multi-year settlements for London Local Authorities and Lambeth Council. On the proposal to align temporary accommodation rental charges with 100% of the local housing allowance, provide those households not covered by housing benefit. So to provide those households not covered by housing benefit with support if struggling financially. To update OSC on the progress in reducing the cost of nightly paid temporary accommodation and securing East accommodation and in supplying alternative provision for homes residents. To keep the housing scrutiny subcommittee informed, progress made to support temporary accommodation clients into stable accommodation, to prevent the breakdown of tendencies and reduce evictions. And to brief councillors on these changes and how best to communicate these to residents. To ensure that more is done to reduce the need for legal disrepair claims by improving the response from housing repairs and working with residents more closely to keep cases out of the court process. Ensure that contract savings are achieved by prioritising and increasing financial penalties for performance, ending contracts and ensuring that contracts commissioned offer best value. So ending contracts are underperforming and ensuring that contracts commissioned offer best value. Provide OSC with more information on lines 49 and 51 and their implications in relation to savings on contract efficiencies and automation processes. Ensure that local community organisations funded by the council promote the interests of local people and contribute to the delivery of land-based borrowed plan outcomes. If not, their council funding should be reviewed and if necessary withdrawn. Ensure that we continue to maintain a prudent level of reserves within 8 to 10% of net budget. Ensure that we do what we can to maximise income through the empty property premium and the second home council tax premium. I think that's all I had. Anything else I've missed? Just a risk report and a service report attached. So to provide the committee with a risk report on the key risks raised. Just after the meeting, it would be helpful to get clarity on that stat that's in the report you raised at the beginning, which may be a mistake, but just be good to get clarity. Where it says that Lambeth saw a 16% increase in households needing temporary completion compared to 8% across London. That does feel significant and perhaps it's clear a bit, just good to know. Yeah, no, absolutely to know. So to provide the committee with clarity on those figures you got. Paragraph 2.2. Very much. Okay, so. Did you mention the importance of the equality of that assessment? Oh, no, sorry, I didn't. And in fact, that is going to, I think, David, tell me if I'm wrong, I think EIA is looking at this report next couple of days. Okay, so yes, so to take note of the recommendations of the EIA panel and to make sure that those conclusions are included in the consideration of the financial report. Chair, point of order, you've missed the transparency bit in terms of staff. So the item is now closed. We're now moving on to the public notice question. Thank you very much. Point of order, summarising recommendation and the first question that the trade union put, I didn't hear you mention it in your summary, Chair. You may have raised issues. If members take the issues up, then they are included in the recommendations. If they're not taken up by members, they are not included in the recommendations. Can you advise, Chair, if it's going to be take up in terms of the transparency, is are we going to reduce the number of IR35 and the agency staff in terms of saving, please, Chair? Thanks. As I said, we ask for clarity on savings. If members don't take up your points, then they're not included in the recommendations. But thanks for your contribution. Okay, so now we move on to the public notice question. Okay, the question. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thanks so much. Thank you for all coming to overview and scrutiny and welcome obviously to a new member. I hope it was not too comforting for you. Thanks very much. We appreciate it. And thanks to a lot of people online and to the witnesses. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Okay, so the public notice question meeting from Jessie Scarfe relates to street cleaning in Wipsey Hill. Is it online? You have the opportunity to ask a supplementary question to council officers for response. Are you there? Okay, you can ask a supplementary question, which will be responded to. Hi, can people hear me and see me? Yes. Okay. Yes, my name is Jessie Scarfe. I'm a resident in Gypsy Hill. I asked a public notice question, which you can all see the details in the meeting papers. So my understanding is I get to ask the question again and follow up on the bit. You have the opportunity to ask a supplementary question following on the response from officers. Okay, so I'm threading the needle here. The supplementary question is the bit of the question which was not responded to at all in the response, which was why have Lambeth not followed through on their promise when moving to fortnightly black bin collection to conduct street cleaning twice a week? Okay, so Doug Terry, are you going to respond to that? Yes, certainly. Okay, so the street cleansing regime works as follows. So every road should receive a litter pick after the refuse collection has taken place on the day of collection or the following day depending on the time the collection takes place. A second litter pick is provided where needed by a mobile crew that drives around approximately three days later, checking for sweepers bags, any dumps that were out. And if they if they see large accumulations of litter, then they should stop and sweep those up. To kind of verify that the borough is being maintained a high standard we send out our monitoring officers who undertake a few hundred inspections on a on a monthly basis across the borough. And we also bring in an independent assessor to take a snapshot of the borough. And let us know what kind of standard, we are achieving. Overall, the standard of cleansing is around target. It's around 90-93% satisfactory. But I do accept that there may be pockets that probably need a closer eye that we could we could look at moving forward. Thank you, Doug. Thanks very much. That concludes the item, the public notice question. Thanks, Jesse. Thanks, Doug. Thank you. Thank you. OK, so now let's move on to the third item called business for tonight's meeting, which is 49 Brixton Station Road, 6 Canterbury present, which is deed of variation to the contract with the development partner. This item is an update on the negotiations in London Square on the 49 Brixton Road Canterbury Crescent site, made necessary by current economic conditions. We will first hear from the deputy leader housing investment, the New Homes, Councillor De Paul, who have up to five minutes to introduce the report. Yes, so the 49 Brixton Station Road and 9 Canterbury site is part of our New Homes programme, which, as you know from previous meetings, is driven by our commitment to the council to deliver more affordable homes and at pace. We have a housing waiting list of over 40,000, and as we've already discussed early this evening, over 4,700 households in expensive temporary accommodation, which is the biggest driver of the council's general fund overspend. Over the last few years, we've also seen high inflation and interest rates causing build costs to soar and delays to delivery of homes across London, with a number of boroughs cancelling or suspending schemes as a result of this. Delivering affordable homes quickly is one of the biggest priorities the council has in order to reduce our TA costs and also provide suitable, long term and stable, affordable and social housing for the residents that need it most. So these sites at 49 Brixton Station Road currently comprise the Pop Brixton site, an off street car parking area, a waste compound, an international house. All together, this site is in desperate need of development to bring forward better uses for the community. Together, they've long had the potential to accommodate a major mixed use regeneration scheme, as we identified in the 2021 Local Plan, and this will include the delivery of new homes, affordable workspace, infrastructure to support Brixton Street markets, and improvements to the wider public realm and surrounding streets in the area. So as a brief background, we had previously awarded London Square as the development partner for this project, and we entered a development agreement in 2022. That year was possibly the worst time to enter a development agreement since the year since we've seen increasing economic challenges around inflation, interest rates and construction costs. And since the contract award, these have posed excessive challenges to the future of the scheme. We've therefore been in intense negotiations with our development partner to push as much as possible to still deliver our political objectives from this project, while also making sure we have involved development that can come forwards. Officers have been keeping me updated throughout these discussions, and I'm confident we've got the best deal we can as a council that ensures this scheme can still go ahead, and that will enable delivery without any further delay, to make sure we can reduce the pressures on our housing waiting lists and on temporary accommodation. This has been a fact to make some compromises that obviously rather we haven't had to make, and the viability challenges mean we've had to reduce the minimum requirements from 50% affordable housing to at least 40%. But we were confident from having discussions elsewhere, that we would not receive a better offer from elsewhere in the market, were we to go out to re-procure. So my recommendation is that we do proceed with this rather than delay any further, and with that I hand over to officers on the technical detail, and I have to take comments and questions from members tonight. Thank you. OK, I think what we'll do is take questions and officers can respond to it. OK, so I'll start off and that is, what external commercial advice was obtained on the development of this site and need to change the council's approach? How confident are we that it's sound? Sure, as I say Chair, I'm confident we have had those full discussions and that we have reached that position. In terms of the detail of that, I'm happy to hand over to the officers to discuss a bit the process that's led us to this point and this decision. Thank you Councillor Dooliport, thank you Chair. So I'd like to say we're fairly confident. Just to introduce myself, I'm Nabil Khan, Corporate Director of Climate and Inclusive Growth. I've got my team here with me as well who can follow up with some of the detail. We've had two sets of advisors, we've got commercial advisors, Everson Young, and we've got legal advisors, Trowers, and throughout this process we've been keeping them cited on negotiations and they've been advising us on everything from market changes to centre checking information that's been sent to us to actually testing what the developers modelling has shown. So we've been keeping them close and we've been getting that external advice throughout the process. Okay, so if the economic situation changed then we would presumably continue to get further advice. Yes. Okay, who would like to come in? Nicole? I'm unsure about how popular the scheme is locally to find the results of the consultation, but I just wanted to make a few suggestions actually just to ensure that the local population get additional benefits and will maybe support this. So first of all, a guaranteed percentage of homes at the social rent that respond to local need, so I guarantee that that's going to happen, include in contracts that London Square offer targeted workspace and grants to local young entrepreneurs who want to set up their own businesses. In addition to what's already being offered, that homes are offered to local people first and to resist gentrification of the area and actually just keep it, you know, keep Brixton Brixton and ensure that the current traders and businesses will be able to relocate locally at no extra cost to them. And also just a question about the waste compound, what's going to happen to that for local businesses while the development is taking place? And I just wanted to ask as well, are rents for the relocated businesses who are currently in International House and Potbricks, are they going to be higher or are they still going to be able to get these lower rents that they've been able to trade under? Yeah, I've got more questions as well but I'll leave those for you. Would you like to respond to that? I think I'll let Officer Staff and then our committee if needed. Thank you, Councillor. I'll bring in Jen here and Matt. Jen, would you mind just introducing yourself to committee and then respond to those questions? Thank you. Good evening to the committee. My name is Jennifer Angus. I'm a senior development manager in the neighbourhood regeneration team and the lead for this project. So yeah, very, very happy to hear your suggestions Nicole. I think in terms of the first point you made about the guarantee of social rent homes that address local needs, I think we feel confident that this scheme will respond really well to that. It will provide a significant number of social rent homes. That's part of our minimum requirements and certainly in terms of the local needs point, we know that the unit size mix that's proposed responds really well to the demands on the temporary accommodation waiting list, for example. So yeah, I think we feel confident about that point. You mentioned targeted workspace as well. And I think that that's absolutely part of what we'd like to see coming forward in this scheme, and we will work hard with our development partner, London Square, and also the local business community to develop that workspace and make sure it does respond to local needs. And we can certainly have a think about the grant point. The homes, there is a local lettings policy that needs to be followed, so we are expecting that these homes will be offered up to local people and certainly in respect of their social rent homes. We have a nominations agreement as part of that, so we will be the ones that are deciding, or the council will be deciding who goes into those homes. You mentioned the current traders and businesses at the sites, and you've asked if they will be able to relocate into the scheme at no extra cost. I don't think that is something that can be guaranteed in this scheme. I think it's very likely that the BUILD program will mean that all tenants will need to be located. They'll need to find new accommodation when the leases come to an end, and the BUILD program will be for a considerable period of time. So we are absolutely there to support those existing tenants and finding new space. That's part of the commitments that we are making as the council to support and work in partnership with London Square, and they are also making commitments equally on their side. And likewise, our operators at Port Brixton and Threespace have commitments themselves under the service level agreements that we have with them to support tenants to think about their future moves. You asked about the waste compound. Yes, we will need to find a space for that to go, and locations are currently under review, so I'm not able to say that we haven't located one as yet, but we will be working on that, so that's something we can keep you updated on. And then finally, you asked about rents in respect of will the current tenants be able to benefit from rents at the same levels that they have been enjoying at International House in Port Brixton. And I think it's important to say that there are a range of rents being paid at these sites. It's not all discounted space, some of it is at more or less full market rent, so those organisations that are paying those higher levels of rent will be able to find space on similar terms. But I think those paying less, they are likely to need to pay more than they are currently. Some organisations are actually benefiting from close to Threespace, which is unusual. And I think we've always been clear that these were temporary projects. They were intended to provide a launch pad for organisations to test ideas, to find routes towards financial self-sufficiency. Again, I mentioned that the commitments of the operators of the temporary projects and one thing that Threespace, that the operator of International House has committed to, is setting up a rent deposit scheme. And that was always geared towards organisations being ready to make the move on to space when the project came to a close. It is not possible to guarantee that they'll be able to enjoy the same levels of rent, unfortunately. But I think we've done a lot in providing this basis on a temporary basis on the terms that have been provided and we'll make that commitment to support and organisations to move on in the future. Just on that last point, because it's a really major development and it will go on for quite a long time. And of course, at the moment, Brixton is a big part of the Brixton night time economy. So the businesses and so on, are we going to lose all of that or will they be relocated to another site so that the whole culture around Brixton isn't lost and the night time economy isn't impacted? Certainly there will be the opportunity for organisations to come back to the scheme if that's something that fits with their business plan. But as you've mentioned, there will be a gap in the period of time. So I would imagine a lot of organisations will want to find new permanent accommodation. If I could just come in there, Chair, and just say we're very cognisant of Brixton's night time economy and the importance of that, not only for Lambeth, but actually regionally for the London economy. So that is very much front and centre of our minds. And of course, there are other things going on in the Brixton economy at the moment as well, which could potentially impact it. So we are taking all of this into account during our planning process, but completely take on board Councillor Griffith's point around the need to ensure that that is front and centre of our mind when we're thinking about those businesses in POP and International House are going to be impacted. OK, Beth? Yeah, I just wanted to bring up the point about the 50% affordable housing dropping to 40%. I just wonder, that sounds too much like a pessimist. I mean, it says at least 40%. Is that situation now kind of stable and for the better term, kind of ring fence? And how can we be sure that that figure is not going to drop in two or three years if the situation gets worse? Should I come back on that point first? So I think the key thing to say is, as part of the development agreement and the deed of variation that we're proposing here, that figure will be locked in. But there is still planning to go. So I think we do need to be clear that the next stage of this process, they will have to go to the local planning authority, submit their plans. What we're hoping and what we fully expect is a similar process to what we saw on Summer Layton Road, which you will recall recently, we went out to market, we asked for a minimum. And then through this competitive process, we actually saw an uplift in the percentage that we were seeking, which was very, very good news. But just to be absolutely clear, this process here is the development agreement part, so it's locking in these numbers. The next stage will be the developer will come back and seek planning permission. And on your wider point, Councillor Curtis, I think it's fair to say the London market at the moment is still very fragile. I mean, I was just looking at the latest GLA monitoring report from this month, and there's only been, I've lost the numbers, but there's only been 800 or so affordable home starts this year, this financial year. And that's across London, by the way, not just Lambert. So it is very fragile still, the market, and there is still a lot of subsidy that's required. So we are still working in an ever evolving macroeconomic environment. Thanks, I'm just asked, how are we involving the local community in discussions about this development? Are we going to re-consult the 20 local residents who helped shape the original proposals? I'm happy to take that. Let me bring Jen in. OK, so yes, absolutely. The residents who took part in the engagement workshops will be part of future engagement and consultation work that's proposed. So the development agreement has required London Square to sign up to an extensive engagement and partnership strategy. And within that, there are those commitments to them delivering activities. For example, looking at the co-design of the public realm with local residents. And it goes beyond that as well, would be expected targeted engagement with local groups. So, for example, market traders, local residents and young people as well. So there's quite a lot of commitments made by London Square and they will roll out through the process. So at this point in time, we're making contact as officers with stakeholders who have been involved in the past and we're making them aware of the changes and the opportunities that are going to be available to them to get involved in the future. And then early next year, London Square will take over and start delivering that programme of work. OK, thank you. Verity? I mean, just reading the report and talking to the officers before about it, my impression about the situation is that the council is a bit in a rock and a hard place. It's presumably extremely expensive to go out and re tender now for this, but equally will have cost the council a lot of money to go through this renegotiation process. So I guess I'd be interested to know if there's an estimate of just how much this process of renegotiating will have cost the council, either this one or in general. And if there are any possibilities to recoup that from a development partner that's bringing forward a renegotiation. And then secondly, what are the sort of disincentives or penalties that we have within the development agreements? And, you know, are there opportunities to strengthen those? Because obviously there's just costs either way. And just going back to the previous comment, things are still very fragile in the London economy. Who knows if we're going to be here again in two or three years time? Before we move to the answer, I think slightly we're going to run over nine o'clock. So can we suspend standing orders for up to 9.30? Hopefully we won't need that time. Thank you very much. Who's going to respond to Councillor Givens? Let me start with the first and I'll bring Matthew in, who's our finance expert on this. So, on the first question, Councillor, I think that was one of our key early questions. We tried to identify, was it actually worth us potentially re-procuring? And that was not an option, I should just say that was off the table. Councillor Dilipour was very clear that we wanted best possible value out of this. And naturally, one of the options we had to look at was actually do we need to go out and re-procure? There was also a potential procurement risk that we had to satisfy ourselves that we weren't going to violate in the case of a renegotiation. So that's where that commercial advice and that legal advice I referred to earlier was very, very helpful actually, because it allowed us to satisfy that. In terms of going out to re-procure, we were told we were looking at potentially a couple of years and there's no guarantee that we'd get a better public benefits package than what's currently on the table at the moment. So I think that goes back to the wider, fragile, macroeconomic point I was making. There was no guarantee that we would get that. All it would mean was that we would delay potentially another couple of years further, inhibiting our ability to meet our target of 500 new homes by the end of 2030. So that was very much a judgement call that we had to make fairly on in this renegotiation process. But let me hand over to Matthew in terms of your second question. Matthew. Hi. So in terms of the cost of renegotiation, we think it'd be just over £100,000. We've probably spent half of that already because we've been working with Avsion to go line by line through the cost plans shown to us by developers. So that work's already happened and the work to follow will be with the lawyers to finish off redrafting the relevant bits of the development agreement. So that cost is not certain because we've not instructed it yet, but I think it would take the total cost about £100,000. We will get most of that back if we sign the revised agreement. We've got a £250,000 contribution that we get on signing the revised agreement from the developer. So we will get that back. If we run the process again, there's two factors. It would cost us somewhere between 300 and £500,000. Not quite sure how much because it costs about £500,000 to the first one, but we wouldn't have to do everything again because some bits we could kind of copy from before. But it would be a lot more expensive than renegotiating. The other factor, which is financial as well, is that that would delay the process of getting new homes by sort of about 18 months. And as you can see from the early discussion, the benefits of having 70 to 80 social entities on temporary accommodation would save the council about a million pounds in the meantime. Can I just clarify the £250,000 that you mentioned, is that a contribution from the developer written into this renegotiation agreement? Yeah, the day they sign the agreement, I can send them an invite for £250,000 to contribute towards the cost renegotiation. OK, great. Thank you. OK, Deepak, then Annie. Thanks, Chair, and thanks to the current member and officers for the report. Just to continue the conversation we've just been having around the fact that a full, completely new procurement process could take a couple of years. It could cost between three hundred to five hundred thousand pounds. Was there any option to do a streamlined procurement process, for example, just reaching out to the development partners that had initially expressed interest back in 2021 or thereabouts? Was that middle way a possibility at all? And then I completely understand the point that you're making around the macroeconomic position. But some of the economic factors that you mentioned are associated with the previous government. If you look at interest rates, for example, they're lower under the new government. The new government is much more attentive of inflationary considerations. So can you spell out a little bit more into the ongoing commercial advice that you are receiving and the mechanisms in which that could be deployed in any new agreement, any revised agreement with the development partner? And then I'm sure this is in the report. But when do you expect the development to start? Because the longer it's left, the more uncertainty there is. And again, the economic situation could change again. So, yeah, what is that timeline for it starting so that it can move forward with some degree of certainty? Can I start on that? Yeah, please do. Thank you, Councillor Soddwell. On the procurement point, I think ultimately it comes down to a political judgment call that I made based on the conversations with officers who talked to me through what the market was saying. And also the reality that since the last procurement exercise, we have had the challenges with inflation, interest rate and the extra obligations of the Building Safety Act. So I wasn't satisfied that any procurement process to be able to deliver was even the same as last time. That's not better than last time. And based on the assurances from officers about the conversation with the wider market, I do think the negotiation we've made with the current partner is the best we're going to get. And there's no evidence I've seen that would sway us. If I saw strong evidence that we're procuring, even the streamlined version would deliver us a better outcome. Absolutely I would consider doing it. But based on what I know, based on the challenges since the previous exercise, I really don't think we are going to get any better than this. And that really feeds into your next question about the timelines, because part of the reason I made that decision is not wanting to slow things down any further, because this is part of the New Homes Programme. And in terms of, I can't give you the exact start date, but I want this to be completed by the end of the decade to meet that 2030 target of at least 500. So that really factored into the decision I made as well to decide that we're not going to be procured and instead finish this negotiation with the current partner and make sure we deliver the best outcomes. Officers, do you want to add any further detail on those discussions as you see fit, please? Yeah, thank you, Councillor Lippard. The only thing I would add is, Councillor Satterwell, I don't disagree with your assessment of the current government's more favourable position on this compared to the previous. What I would say, though, is in my experience, development industry or development sector, I should say, is usually the first to be impacted by interest rates changes. And it's usually the last out of the woods. So I think there is going to be a long tail of some of those interest rate changes. And we're still seeing that. And as I mentioned earlier, those low numbers of affordable home starts this year. I'll further evidence of that to give you another background statistic. Back in 2016/17, 4% of all new build completions in London required some form of subsidy. So this is GLA affordable homes grant. Last year in 2022/23, the latest year that we've got data for, 77% of all new home build starts required affordable home grants. So that just goes to show you just the severity of the impact the market has had on the delivery of affordable homes. So I think the deal that we've got on the table and the substantial number of new affordable homes you're going to see through it is a very, very good deal considering current market conditions. On the procurement point, I think I would just second what Councillor Lippard said. The other thing to add there is that we can't actually engage the market while under a DA, which of course we would have been as part of this. So that would have been a huge risk for us there. And then just on the timeline, if we're delivering this, if the council is delivering this by 2030, when will the actual on the ground staff start? We've got a year in mind. Officers, do you want to talk a bit in terms of the plan, in terms of the design and planning application and rough start dates as much as you can be specific on that? I don't need a huge amount of detail, I'm just asking just to kind of see where the economic climate might be when it starts. Yeah, happy to take that. So we'd be expecting a planning application late next year and then expecting a start on sites in early 2027. And then as Councillor Lippard mentioned, looking for the practical completion of the site by 2030. Thank you. So still plenty of opportunity for things to change over the initiation phase of that up until 2027. Yeah, I think what I would say here, I mean, regeneration programmes, we deal in 15, 20 year life cycles, so this is not unusual in that term. It's also a mixed use scheme, so it's slightly different to a pure ready scheme or a pure commercial scheme, so that adds in another layer of complexity. But I think the key thing for us is the development agreement locks in some of the benefits that we're going to get for Lambeth residents. But then the planning permission, which is going to come further down the line, will also further lock in through the section 106 agreements, the additional benefits that we're going to get. So there are mechanisms in place for us to, as much as possible, mitigate those wider economic or regulatory changes that we've been subjected to in the last couple of years. OK, thank you. Annie? Yeah, I just wanted to get a bit more information or have a bit more detail about how these new flats accommodations will match in with the needs of people in temporary accommodation. And how many, what's the maximum amount of bedrooms you might be getting in some of these properties? And also, can I ask who's going to be managing the affordable and social rents? OK, let me bring in Jen. Sure. OK, so Councillor Gallup, the size is, in terms of the social rent homes, we're expecting a mix of one, two and three beds. And the largest proportion would be two beds, followed by three beds and then one beds. And that complies with local plan requirements, but it also really responds to the temporary accommodation waiting list as well. The two beds are the area that, by far and away, the area of biggest needs. And I understand that that's just on the basis of the current stock that we've got in terms of temporary accommodation. And there are families and studios and one bed homes that would actually be better off in two beds. So I think that there's a good match there. And in terms of who will manage the future accommodation, it will be a registered provider that London Square enter into a contract with. And we will enter into a nominations agreement with that registered provider in order to identify the individuals and families that will move into the properties in the future. So they'll be managed by that registered provider and that registered provider will need to be one that we have confidence in and is doing good work in the borough and London. OK, thank you. OK, I'm going to ask another question. What are we doing to ensure that black, Asian and ethnic minorities and marginalised communities benefit from this development, for example, in relation to things like apprenticeships and other work opportunities? I think it's a really important question. So one aspect is on the affordable workspace and making sure that it is workspace that's used by organisations to benefit the local community, but also that reflect the local community. So when that workspace is allocated, the scoring system that will be used on that will heavily weight it in favour of those organisations that do benefit the community and that diversity aspect. It's really important that we do see those kind of direct developments for the community and specific groups that live in the area that you'd expect to see. So that's hard at that point on the affordable workspace and maybe on the apprenticeship side of things could move in more detail as well. I'm happy to comment on this one as well. So, yeah, the employment and skills package is really important within this scheme and the groups that you've mentioned that they are our priority groups. So they will, when it comes to the apprenticeships, the work experience opportunities, the going into schools, all of these things that will be part of the package that will benefit the different groups that represent the community in Brixton. So that's a key part of what's being committed to. And I think in terms of the engagement work as well, we really recognise it's important to make sure that as wide a group of people are involved in these engagement activities and to really make sure that London Square go the extra mile in that respect. So we'll be pushing them to do really targeted engagement that benefits black, Asian and multi-ethnic groups within Brixton and the wider borough. Thank you very much. Any further questions? One last question from Nicole. Just to follow up on this, I was really pleased to hear from the cabinet member in relation to the workspaces. But in a scenario, if the developer turns around and says, actually, the economic situation doesn't allow for that good intention. In that scenario, how would the council response, given the importance, as you've said, about representing the diversity of the local community and ensuring that they benefit from these workspaces? Well, the aspects of it, the affordable workspace would be a non-negotiable that's written into development agreements. So they couldn't back away from that and be serious about this from doing so. That's why it's really important that we kind of have this conversation about the changes we needed to make, because these changes will be locked in. As I said, we'll never develop an agreement now on these compromises we've made to try and make sure of the barber scheme. We now have a very clear way forwards, both on affordable social housing, on the affordable workspace and the benefits that, as I say, the developer is bound into delivering that at that point. So we can be as confident as we can be that it will happen because they'll be contractually and legally obliged to do so. Thank you. Sorry, council for this. OK, Nicole. Similar question. It was what if at any point London Square turn around and go, no, we're not doing this or no, we don't agree to this. I mean, is there any danger of that at this point? Is there any risk that they're actually going to walk away from the negotiation? I mean, what I'd say is the impression I've been given is that London Square do still want to develop the scheme. There's never been a conversation about we've had enough of this, it's too difficult. It's always been about how can we work with you to make sure we still deliver that. So I'm as confident as I can be at that stage that it's the case at a political level and equally, as I say, we've got the development agreement that comes with certain obligations. So maybe officers, you can give a few more experiences, both on those conversations with London Square and how it is locked in the way that we don't see any backsliding in the years ahead as well. Yeah, thank you, Councillor Liverpool. I think just on the Affordable Workspace point, I just make the point as well that it is planning policy as well. Councillor Sadawal, we have got an Affordable Workspace policy. So again, going back to the planning point, it's helpful. It's in the DA, but also when it comes to planning, our planning policy will also apply on the Affordable Workspace point. And we can negotiate very specific terms in terms of what we want to see there as well. So that's another helpful lever for us to have. Just on the question of London Square. So what I would say about London Square is we've been renegotiating this for just over a year, actually. And if they weren't committed, they would not be renegotiated because there has been some sunk cost on their part that they've had to absorb. So that in itself, I mean, remember, they are a commercial operator. That in itself tells you that they are still interested in this. The only thing I would say about London Square is that they have one of the few developers we're seeing across London who are picking up their activity. Most developers are either scaling back their investment plans or indeed just just land banking at the moment. But London Square, one of the few developers you can see across London from their activity that they're actually picking up. So they have got they have got investment behind them. And that's not an unimportant point. So one of the things that we were keen to test as part of as part of the as part of these changes was how deliverable are these new proposals? And actually, can it be brought forward at a reasonable time to Council developers point to meet our ambitions for 2030? And we're satisfied that actually, given that they've got the investment behind them, given that they've they've managed to get that board approval from that, from their perspective, they can actually get on site and deliver against these. So that's that's not that's not an unimportant point for us to consider as part of this data variation negotiation. OK, thank you. One final question. OK. Given that there's a renegotiation taking place, is there an opportunity here to ensure greater long term sustainability and carbon reduction through design? So, for example, you know, can this be exploited in any way through the negotiation? So, for example, can we build to EPC A++ rather than C or B or any other measures that could be incorporated in this design? Should I come back to that quickly, Chair? Yeah, quickly and then we'll wrap this up. Sustainability, our approach to sustainability developments proposed sustainability credentials have been have been part of the negotiation process as part of this. We have been touching on that. Just to reassure Councillor Griffin. OK, I'm going to wrap this up now. Thank you very much, Councillor Dillyport and officers for responding to our questions and for the report. So in terms of recommendations, jump in if you want additions or changes. Calls on the council to make every effort to maximise the number of affordable homes delivered on this site, the benefit of local residents and ensure that the level of affordable homes does not fall below 40%. Ensure that we again engage a variety of local residents in the development of these proposals and monitor the process and resident satisfaction with it. Ensure that local people, especially black, Asian and ethnic minorities and marginalised communities benefit from this development through entrepreneurial opportunities, apprenticeships and job opportunities and through access to the workspace provided. Add to that, just the possibility of them offering additional grants to particularly young entrepreneurs, particularly within the groups that you've mentioned. It's like really, really targeting. So talk about entrepreneurial opportunities, including grants to marginalised groups. To young entrepreneurs. The potential impact of high rents on businesses, especially those that are struggling, but providing a valuable service to residents, for example, in the night time economy to ensure that if necessary support is provided to enable them to survive and thrive. Finally, ensure that safeguards are put in place to ensure that changes are not needed to secure the development of this site. Anything else I've missed out? Any additions? Any changes? You obviously see jobs. Can you talk about profiting from any negotiations around sustainability? I think the point was covered. OK, fine. Thanks very much. Although present now, we finally move on to the work programme. Thanks, thanks a lot. Are there any additions or comments on the current programme? And of course, at any time, add to the work programme by emailing me and Roger. OK. So is the current work programme accepted? Let me just update you. It's happening in January and March. In January we're looking at employment skills and training for disadvantaged groups and the key guarantees on estate renewal. And in March, we're looking at the review of libraries, review of lander support for cultural and performing arts and also the night time economy strategy. OK, so hopefully that will take place. So can we agree the recommendations report for you? Fine. And that concludes the business this evening. So thanks everyone for attending. It goes online. The next overview and scrutiny committee will take place on the 21st of January. Good night. And if it's not too early, happy Christmas. Right, thanks very much. Thank you so much. [BLANK_AUDIO]