Transcript

Head down the stairs, out the building, I saw a fox trying to get into the town hall as I arrived, I tell you what, are they cheeky? Not Bridget Fox, oh, too short, very good, ba-boom. Right, we're off to an excellent start, obviously. Please be aware the meeting has been webcast live on the council's website, switch off your microphone when you're speaking, switch it on when you're speaking, I'll stop reading this stuff out. Okay, members of the committee have read the reports on attachments, introductions to the reports be as brief as possible, is usually the main focus will be on members' questions to the reports. Super, for all matters, apologies for absence, none, delighted that Dermot is able to join us this evening. Karen Russell seems to be missing, tut, tut, tut. I'm sure she'll arrive, she's probably speeding back from City Hall or something like that. Therefore, no substitute members, any declarations of interest, more minutes of the previous meeting, we'll sign those as agreed. I won't say there's a matter arising other than that we had advance warning what the Q2 monitoring report was going to look like when it went to the executive on the 20th of November, which showed variances which most members are very familiar with and the reasons, in particular the growth of temperature accommodation. And I think we'll probably discuss that a little bit in a moment. Anyway, let's then sign those as correct records. There we go, verbal financial update, item B1. David? Yeah, so the council's financial position as of today, in terms of the most up-to-date information we've got, remains fairly stable, certainly in terms of a bottom-line type position. This year, this financial year we're in at the moment, we are close to break-even, which, you know, when everything is considered at the bottom line, which is probably as good as it could possibly be, almost in the current climate, with all the pressures and demands and all the rest of it that we face. So I think that is in itself positive. And the capital programme is in reasonable shape, actually, in terms of the objective is to deliver the plans that the capital programme sets out and deliver infrastructure and various other things, which is in that capital programme. And that is also in a fairly good place. In fact, we're probably delivering reasonably well compared to the, you know, other councils and compared to our own record in the past as well. So lots of that's to do with the housing acquisition programme, which is very successful in terms of delivering what we've promised to do in response to grants and that sort of thing. The HRA is also fairly much as it was at the last full monitoring report, which you saw, which was also relatively stable and relatively on track. So in the round, not bad at all, but there are major pressures for us. Those are largely set out in the budget report and are probably familiar, I think, with most members now, notably, of course, TA. And we have this sort of ongoing threat of inflation, which is very much out there in the media and a number of other sort of volatilities, which could play out in geopolitical issues and all the rest of it. So there are plenty of risks, plenty of threats, and there are also, on an ongoing basis, service issues which will continue to arise. But, you know, and again, on a positive note, adults and children are pretty much stable and in a good place, which is in itself sort of relatively unusual within councils and also better than we've been in the last few years, where we have had significant pressures coming through. So in the round, very difficult, great deal of pressures, but generally speaking, stable. And probably, you know, I think probably look at it in the round with all things considered relatively positive. Okay, that's very helpful, Dave. I mean, just for clarity, that's the standard table that goes to the executive. So looking at that, the very bottom line, next general fund, which was negative 4.329 million at Q2, roughly what's that figure looking like for Q3 provisionally? Roughly about the same, slightly different, but there will be some variances. There's some issues with parking, which, again, you know, there's always going to be variances in parking, but there's a few things like that. Not nothing major, not like we've seen in recent times, some recent times, but there's been the odd problem there, which we're just looking into at the moment. And a few other issues, too, but equally some compensating things as well, which are moving in any direction. So roughly, as I say, roughly fairly stable, fairly flat at the bottom line. And, you know, the projection remains that we will not be digging into reserves at the year end. We will be in a, you know, in terms of we won't be overspending at all. We won't need to use reserves in any way, which is a very good position, as I say, in the current climate with all things considered. Okay. Any members' questions on this? All right. So the Q3 budget monitoring is then going to the next executive. No, the one after. Sorry, there's an executive next month, but it's just penciled in, not an actual... Yeah, it will go to that, yeah. So it's a little way off before it becomes public domain, I think, a week or two at least. But, yeah, it will come out in due course. Okay. Let's then turn to the other items on the agenda. Let's go to item B2, which is the principal risk update. And Nazreen and Sara are here to report this. Thank you. So I'll kick off. So this is our mid-year principal risk update. We brought a full update in the summer. So it's actually bringing an update on the highest scoring risks, so those scoring between 15 and 20, and then also those with an increasing forward trend. And I think it's fair to say overall we're probably operating in the same heightened risk environment that we were operating in in July. There's probably a slight increase in pressures around homelessness, but I think it was well articulated in the summer report as well. I think it's worth saying these updates have come from the risk lead. So in terms of questions, Sara and I will sort of do our best to answer. And we've got Dave and Paul supporting as well. And then just an ask from committee to agree for areas for deep dives to come in the coming year. Or maybe, I don't know, select two tonight and then maybe two further via Samina at a later date. I don't know, Sara, anything else to add before we open to questions? Yeah, I think I'll probably just flag as well something that we're very pleased to have commissioned is the councillors, insurers, Zurich, are going to conduct a review of our risk management framework while they've just started. And it's something that we can access via their offer to us anyway, so it's not costing anything. And they'll conduct that review now in Q4, and that will then feed into our risk framework review in Q1. So I think with that, we're open to questions. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. I didn't fully appreciate that you were indeed on page one of your reports suggesting that we identify from the 11 principal risk areas some deep dives. And my apologies for that. Very much in the hands of members whether we do this here and now or whether we do it in three, four weeks' time. Members, Sara? Yeah, we briefly spoke about this earlier in another council meeting earlier today, and I think we wondered if it would be better to have a bit of a discussion by email, and then by, because we've got this additional audit committee meeting, whether it fits the timelines to fit it in in February, like to agree in February. Would that be okay? Yeah, that works. Sara, do you think? Yeah. Good. Okay, thank you very much indeed. Unless members have got something burning, they'll want to... Go ahead, Nick. It's really a question around the new build. It's not on what we've just been discussing. I agree, we park that. I want to understand a little bit more about the new build risk as to exactly what we are measuring with the new build risk. Is it risk of not being able to complete our new build programme, or is it financial risk of going ahead with our new build programme, and the impact that potentially that could have in the short, medium, and long term on the council's financial stability? Because it's, understandably, because this is an update, not absolutely clear what exactly we are measuring with the risk. Because I think a number of members at the moment have a concern about the viability of some of our new build products, just because of the financial pressures in the construction industry at the moment. And the need in any new build project for there to be some private sector involvement, we just cannot afford to do 100% projects on our own. And the volatility in the private sector housing market is something that is of real concern to us as members. But it's about how, what exactly are we measuring when we come up with a score for risk around the new build programme? Sorry, do you want to go? My view was, it was the latter. Do you want to go? Yeah, I mean, the risk itself is formulated in the affordability challenges to actually deliver the programme, the target of 750 affordable homes by December 2027. So that's the risk description, kind of the basis of it. And then it's very much around the affordability, you know, the financial climate. And I think certainly when we talk about it in the corporate management team before coming here, there are discussions around financial resilience, isn't it? It's almost new build financial resilience. So I don't know, Dave and Paul, if there's anything. Be assured, we, members know this stuff really quite, quite. Yeah. Yeah. David was the lead member until very recently. He's still the lead member for finance. We've had numerous discussions about some of the options available to us. But really understanding what are the pressures. I mean, I've read your sentences to imply that probably the worst of construction cost inflation is over. However, it's not finished, but it's not as bad as it was. However, it ain't going down, just like the price of eggs in the USA is not going to go down. Sorry, that was a slightly obscure remark. The point is we've got schemes which are right on viability, in fact, seem to have some element variables in those schemes which make you wonder whether they really are viable at all. Therefore, yeah, I'm sure we will proceed. But the risks attached to them really are very significant. And the risks will fall on the housing capital programme. Because, you know, a scheme that's 4 million not viable now, that could be 6 million not viable next year, it's still going to get built. But it's going to hit the capital programme for an additional 2 million quid. And that's the risk that we're really concerned about. So to come back in, it's making sure that this committee has the right information to assess, in effect, both risks. The risk of not delivering our objective, but equally the risk of, if we do push on, the potential impact that that might have on other aspects of council finance, be it the HRA or be it general fund pressures. And it's just making sure that we are capturing that risk in this committee. It's not for this committee to look at some of the political choices, but it absolutely is to make sure that we understand the risk that a particular decision might have strategically. And then just to add to that, I mean, one of the other risks, which is clear and present, is the risks of the capital programme, generally, particularly in housing, where there's been quite a lot of slippage, and there's an upside to slippage, which is you don't spend the money now, you keep it for next year. And that's particularly the case for where we're able to capitalise some revenue costs. In fact, the overall MTFS is looking a wee bit better on account of having done exactly that. So, if new builds is presenting some additional pressure on capital, and we've got things like far more condition surveys indicating, you know, smaller works, but lots of them, that's another risk presented to the capital programme. And the choice that's then available to the leadership of the council is, if you have got multiple competing claims on a scarce resource, which gives, which doesn't, and if something gives, by how much? So, the ability to be able to quantify what the extent of these risks is, is really, really important. Yeah. Okay. Good. Thanks, everybody. Anything else? Oh, sorry, Alan. Yes, and Alan, thank you very much for your advanced comments, which have been well received. Thank you. Thank you. Jonathan, I'll just add, building on what you said, Chair, and Nick to some extent, just querying on the capital programme, where, under Par 315, rightly, is the risks are remaining as four bullet points. My simple question is, can you, can you define those risks as medium or high, would you say the medium or high risks? I'm looking at the risk? Yes. Yes. I'm looking at the risk. I'm looking at the four. The four may be, you may say they're all medium or they're all high, or are they interchangeable? I think the fact that we've brought it within this paper is high, essentially. And I think that was the thinking coming in, yeah. I think, I mean, we've not gone on to deep dives yet, but it's probably a good idea to probably bring capital and new board together as one deep dive, essentially. The other question, Chair, is on the procurement section, which I can understand the work that will be required once the Act's in place. But my specific question is on the training side, and simply, in terms of the managers receiving training, is risk, a high profile for them, risk management, that is, as part of their performance development? I mean, I'm taking for granted that in their performance management, personal development program, risk management is part of it. Yes, it is. And I'm working with the contract management team, actually, to strengthen the content in terms of risk management, so I'm working on a project right now on that. I think that's helpful, indeed. The other area which I think, it's worthwhile saying, I think this half-yearly report is very helpful. When you do annual reports like this, they are, like, sometimes 18 months, you know, behind the times. So the immediacy here is really very welcome, indeed, thank you. There is one area which has got quite a bit of policy relevance, I have to say, but there's clearly quite a risk to the Council's commitment to achieve net zero by 2030, when we're basically not spending any money on it of any significance to achieve what is meant to be a very, very significant change in the overall energy use of the Council, the carbon exposure, and so forth. You know, one thinks just simply of 25,000 council homes that have still got gas boilers. You know, it's a huge and ambitious project here, but the risk report is indicating that we're kind of not getting anywhere. And we're now slightly over halfway between the date when we declared climate emergency and the date by which we said we'd be net zero. So that's kind of not looking very good. Caroline, don't take notes here, please. What's the mechanism within the Council to sort of just say, yeah, we want to do that, but we're not getting anywhere near it because we haven't got any money to do it? How do we resolve that paradox? Paradox being a sort of polite word here. Well, it's clearly going to be really challenging and, you know, if you look at the broader picture, there's things which look like we hope that will kind of take hold and consumers will buy. So, you know, thinking about retrofits is obviously something that saves money, you know, it's something where the technology is not likely to change particularly or hopefully will, but, you know, it seems something that's pretty robust products. And we need to try and encourage people to get into that. And, you know, that's going to need some, I think that's going to need work by the government to help with consumer propositions and how to finance that as well because of the cost of it. So, in terms of some of the more nascent technology, you know, or things that may be regarded as more nascent, you know, we'll have to see how that goes, I think, and hopefully there will be some acceleration of it in the near term, which will get us towards that. The council is, of course, doing a lot around liveable neighbourhoods and lots of things in the policy areas that are within its control, which I think are moving things in the right direction. And, you know, there is plenty of evidence around parking and, you know, and motor vehicle journeys throughout Islington dropping significantly. And we've seen that in some of the parking revenue problems that we've had. So, I think there are things moving in the right direction and things will continue to take shape. But, without doubt, it seems like the biggest challenge that the world has had to deal with in my lifetime. And we need to do everything we can to be ambitious and press on with it. And it is, of course, reflected down the delivery point. I think my question stands. What's the mechanism to do all of this? I mean, I don't doubt that we're sailing a boat where the rudder is pointing in the correct direction. It's just we don't have any wind to take us to where we want to get to. And there is going to be a point really quite soon when people are going to say, that was just a whole load of hot air, wasn't it? And in particular, what the role of the council will be in decarbonising itself, if you like. Now, the council itself is responsible for about 8% of the borough's total emissions. So, on the one hand, it ought to be achievable, but it is nonetheless an extremely demanding thing to do. Like I say, 25,000 council homes have got gas boilers. So, we need to think of a mechanic within the council that starts to identify how we do sort of genuinely move the dial on all of this. Otherwise, we're going to be saying this is a growing risk year after year after year. And, you know, it's going to be 2030. But we do have a team within the council who focuses on climate and these sort of things. So, I mean, I'd suggest bring them in and do a deep dive. Janet's gone. Haven't we got to decide on the deep dive subjects tonight? Well, Sarah maybe suggested that we have a little bit more cogitation on this and then agree a list when we meet again in about three, four weeks' time where we're principally going to discuss the audit reports. That seems – my fault. I should have looked a bit more closely and realised that we were being invited to do this because I thought I'd read the papers really, really closely. But I didn't read that bit. Anyway, I think that – so, listen, this conversation is helping us indeed think about what those deep dives ought to be. Okay, well, on a positive note, unless somebody else declares war, like the president of the USA, energy costs do seem to be coming down. And that's maybe something that, you know, is now a receding risk. They're not really going to plummet. But, you know, forward contract prices for gas and electricity by, funnily enough, by 2030, the prices are half what they presently are. Now, that's not to say that's what's going to happen. But, you know, the price at which you can forward buy gas and electricity right now is half what the present cost is. And maybe the thing arising out of all this is a recommendation to whoever talks to, you know, the purchasing agency that we use to just be really, really aware of this. They seem to sort of buy forward only kind of two years at a time. And they may – you know, I think there's contract – future contracts, which are way, way cheaper and maybe ought to be exploiting those reduced prices, I thought. Okay. Members – oh, yeah, go on, Caroline. Just say, sorry. Oh, no, no, no, no. Gas. We should discuss net zero for half an hour without ever you talking. But gas is an incredibly risky proposition for the council to be still reliant on. And we should, you know, if we're taking the net zero piece seriously, we should be really serious about trying not to be procuring any more gas into the future. Because we've managed to get rid of all the gas boilers and all the uses of gas. I mean, the acceleration of extreme weather events, you know, the sort of cost of Islington being struck by that kind of rainfall. And also, you know, the sort of risk of runaway fire and extreme heat events is, you know, potentially absolutely devastating for our borough. And so everything that we are doing to reduce our reliance on gas is actually a really sensible, helpful thing that we could be doing in terms of our climate commitment. Although recognizing that it is technically a transition fuel, so yes, technically. Okay. Anything else the members have got to add on this? I'm sure that as us, we are also, I mean, it's very positive that we consider one of the risks, two of the risks in our overall portfolio being the financial resilience of our own residents and the social inequalities. It, well, it may be that social inequalities is one of those things we might want a little bit more of a deep dive. In particular, just to reflect on the fact that we are correctly very, very focused on those inequalities which are Equality Act defined, people that protect characteristics. But there is a broader piece of inequality, which is about basically income and social class, which maybe we're not touching on sufficiently. And anyway, that's also a conversation that we have in the future. Okay. Let's move on. Thanks, both of you, for attending this evening. Thank you very much indeed. I'd like to say it's a lovely evening out there, but it isn't. Are you staying for the... Oh, yeah, of course you are. I beg your pardon. Yes, of course. B3, internal audit report. Thank you. Give us a little, a few introductory remarks. Thank you. Yeah, so this is the 24-25 internal audit interim report, bringing an update on delivery of the 24-25 audit plan. I think before I just explain what the appendices mean, I think it's worth saying that this is quite a key year for internal audit in that we are working towards implementation of the new internal audit standards by the 1st of April. We're quite advanced in terms of our work. I think committee had training in December on what the new standards will mean for committee. And I think for our service, we've been undertaking a self-assessment and also working alongside London audit group, looking at whether we need to make changes to the way we work. It does feel overall like it's a bit sort of a refinement rather than a revolution. It doesn't seem to be like anything, you know, sort of seismic changes that need to be taking place. But I think it's just worth making committee aware that the next time we bring an audit update with the annual report, we will then be working under the new standards, essentially. And then I think sort of going back to the detail of this paper, we've got at Appendix 1 an update on the delivery of the 24-25 plan. And I think sort of Appendix 1 looks pretty much like it usually does at this time of the year, with a lot of work in progress, essentially. I think our co-source partner as well, PwC, back-end all their work, so tend to do most of the work in Q4. And then Appendix 2 summarises the higher priority recommendations from reports we hadn't previously brought to the audit committee. And then Appendix 3 brings an update on follow-up outcomes. So, yeah, I think that's what I had by way of introduction and open to questions. Thank you very much indeed. I wrote myself a little briefing note, which was almost exactly what you said, so that's good. I mean, broadly, the assurance ratings are pretty positive. There's, in Appendix 2, there's three services which you say are subject to high-priority recommendations. One of them are nine recommendations related to the affordable workspace provider. And I was a bit startled to see that, because I thought that was all going swimmingly, although you hear sort of rumbles that this hasn't quite worked out and that hasn't. Can you just give us a little bit more sense, a little colour on that? Thank you. Appendix 2 has three reviews detailed. The first review is the new homes contractor resilience, and that was part of the audit plan. The second two reviews, you can see we've tagged them as additional reviews, so affordable workspace, as well as the new board program payments to contractors. And both of those additional reviews were commissioned by the chief executive, so we did special pieces of work over the summer. In terms of the affordable workspace provider, we were asked to look at a specific provider, essentially, and we were sort of asked to look at how we worked with them, how we managed their debt, how we contract managed them. But in doing that work, we found that we arrived at recommendations related to how they were procured, and how we had started up a relationship with them as well. So we made sort of a wide-ranging recommendations covering those, you know, nine key areas, essentially. I think the recommendations relating to this specific provider, but then also wider recommendations relating to how we may work in this area going forward. But I think, you know, it's worth saying, so we issued the report to the chief exec, and from what we understood, we haven't undertaken a follow-up yet. That's planned for 25, 26, but it's almost a working group and a task group was put together to work on implementation of recommendations. And I think, Paul, you were instrumental in that working group, so I don't know if you want to come in in terms of recommendations and implementation. I can talk about the specific ones, or else, I don't know, what would be useful to them? It's a little tricky, because, strictly speaking, we're going to start talking about a particular company that's under contract to the council, and that's never terribly comfortable. We can either say things bluntly, which are then, you know, live-streamed, or we can just sort of say things in such generality that we're not entirely sure what we're talking about. I mean, look, I'm not going to press this particularly far. It's a strange business, the formal workspace provider market. We're very well aware, over recent years, of actually an inability to get any... You know, it's not a mature market full of providers eager to step forward and say, sure, we'll manage your workspace, look at our 15-year track record, far from it. So, you know, I think we just recognise that there's a number of things, and maybe at some point we might maybe just ask to see the chief executive's report and be more aware ourselves. Nick? It's simply this. The main scrutiny topic for corporate resources and economy scrutiny is very much focusing on affordable workspace procurement. It would be very helpful to that committee that I'm the chair of if we could have a site of that report. I'm less interested in the identity of the company involved than whether there are any matters that, in terms of that piece of scrutiny that we are doing, there are themes that we need to pick up on. So I think that would be really helpful. And it may well be that that is something almost best pursued as part of our scrutiny review than sort of deep diving here. Yeah, into it. Yeah, I completely agree. Good. OK, any other... Yes, go on. So I suppose I'd characterise the report being less about lessons that you could learn from the procurement and more about getting to grips with the internal governance of a new venture, so to speak. So I don't think, in the context of what you're trying to learn around how to shape the affordable workspace programme, that that report would be helpful. I think it was more about how do officers kind of share information with each other and how do we kind of understand how to deal with an organisation that's in trouble that is a key partner and that type of thing. So I'm not sure there'll be... I'd like to see it because we're looking across the piece and any lessons that can be learned are valuable lessons and it's also perhaps a useful check on the information that we are being told and I can take a decision on whether it requires wider circulation of that and perfectly happy if there are any commercially sensitive matters for them to be redacted because I understand that there can be real sensitivities commercially and the last thing that we as a committee or I as a committee chair would want to do is put the council at any financial risk. But it is equally important if we are conducting a scrutiny, if we're talking about making sure that everybody is talking to each other, if there is information or evidence that may be relevant to that scrutiny, we ought to see it. Thank you very much indeed, Nick. I mean, you know, we're having to read between the lines a little bit here. If what you're sort of fessing up to is that there's bits of the council that are not properly talking to each other, I mean, who ever heard of that? That never happens. But it's very believable. So there are very definitely lessons to be learned there. And we understand the context. This is an unusual thing for a local authority. Well, it's not traditional meat and two veg for a local authority, but it's really vital to one of our five missions. So it matters. Okay. Good. Members got any other questions or comments on the... What about report? Internal audit? The interim report? No? Good. Okay. Thank you very much indeed. Thanks for coming. Okay. Let's move on to the council tax-based forecast on the collection. Tax-based forecast for the upcoming year and the collection forecast for the year that is just coming to an end. Who's leading on this? Paul? Oh, Matt. Yes. Ah, there we go. Or are you both going to do it? You're going to take a word each? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. No, far from it being dry. It's the foundational basis on which we raise a large amount of our money. Go to a North American city and talk tax-based. They'll say, yeah, let's spend the next week talking about tax-based. It's vital. It's also an opportunity for us to not discuss the Lloyd Square levy, which in previous years has always been a lot of fun. Just one of those charming sort of anomalies in our system. Every year people say, I must sort out Lloyd Square. It just seems silly. Never get sorted out. Never will do. Okay. Members got any questions on this? No? It's all ticketed. Yes, Alan. Thank you, Chair. So, two general sort of pedantic questions to Paul. One you may not know the answer to. You are adjusting for the collection rate to be consistent from previous years, if I remember, at 97%. But this is not criticism. You never seem to be achieving it. It always seems to be about 94%, which I can understand. Do you know the cost difference or the loss difference between that percentage? Even I know the answer to this. Or how much is it costing the council by not achieving 97%? Yes. So, what I would say is that the in-year is about 94%, but over the life of the debt, which is what counts, it's about 97% and we generally achieve that. It's 1% of council taxes, broadly £1.2 million. So, working it backwards from that, you get the quantum. And my other quick point was on discounts. I think I raised this last year, perhaps. Are you confident that those who receive discount are due to discount? So, I am. I've had the scars of when we've tried to check discount and people are still eligible and we send out a text to lots of residents and lots of residents complain that we're constantly chasing them for the same information. So, it is something that we've been a bit over keen in terms of rechecking. So, it feels like we've got the right balance now in terms of proper stewardship over making sure only eligible people were getting discounts and then supporting residents through not harassing them too often. People remember the community charge, so-called poll tax, the collection rate in the year and the eventual collection rate was a staggering gap. It's just, you know, when people were refusing to pay the poll tax, it was like 80-something percent. In fact, we never actually made much more than about 90-something. But, yeah, it's significant. In fact, it's the difference between that 94 and 97. If you start to see it move, that tells you that people are getting into arrears or people refusing to pay or they're going, you know, they're going personally bankrupt or things like that. So, it's actually, it's an important gap to keep an eye on. Okay. Any other questions, observations? No doubt. Let's agree that report and approve the tax base calculation. Okay. Let's get on to the draft budget report. So, this being the audit committee, not the NICS committee, we're going to concentrate on the things which are genuinely risk elements within the budget rather than have a discussion about why are we making a saving on this and not a growth item on that, which will probably take NICS committee, you know, 15 hours on Thursday evening, no doubt. Yeah, at least 24. So, I think, well, listen, draw our attention to those elements where, you know, there's significant risk for us to reflect on and then we might tell you where we think there are significant risks. Okay, so if I start, so the first thing to say is that the budget is proposing, well, proposing a balanced budget which doesn't use any reserves to support it. So, that is, first of all, a fantastic thing to start off with. In terms of the reserve balances, there is forecast at Appendix C, which shows a reducing level of reserves. However, that is within what we, what Dave, as Section 151 officer, deems to be a safe level and the usage is not about supporting the budget. It is about delivering things which provide an ongoing benefit to the council, so transformation programmes that the specific reserve around projects was earmarked for things like the resident experience programme for various other programmes, which will give service improvements and cost efficiencies to the council, so they are appropriate usages of the reserves. And we do have alternative funding strategies available for those, but the funding strategy, I think, most appropriate is the use of reserves. The other thing that we do, which a lot of local authorities don't do, is then the balance sheet analysis, and this does help draw out where some of our risks are. So, it talks, 1.3 on Appendix F, it talks through the key points around, we have been able to build back our reserves to a level we still benchmark lower than other inner London boroughs and some outer London boroughs. They are not high by any means, but we have had a stable period where we haven't eaten into those reserves. So, good track record and a plan and an MTFS which protects reserves, strengthened our financial sustainability through those. Borrowing is another area where we do have a big capital programme. We talked about new build. That is a big area of housing acquisitions as well, being, you know, huge areas of expenditure which require lots and lots of borrowing. And the important thing is setting aside the money to pay for that borrowing. So, our MTFS does do that. The cost of borrowing through PWLB is, I don't know if it's quite an all-time high in living memory. Matt has minute-by-minute updates on PWLB rates, so you can talk a lot more fluently about that. But the cost of borrowing today is a lot more than it has been over the last few months, given the spike. We don't have risky investment properties. We don't make loans to companies. So, we don't have the risk profile that a lot of local authorities are really struggling with now. If I had to point out, the thing that I take as being the biggest risk item in the budget package is going to be about delivery of the savings. So, we have had a good track record of delivery of those. There are a couple of fairly chunky cross-cutting savings, and I think the success of next year's budget is going to hang on that. Plus, also, I couldn't have a cameo talking about the budget without stressing that temporary accommodation is the thing that we need to keep our eye on with those savings. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much indeed for just focusing on reserves and their projection, and the other main risk being the deliverability of savings. Let's just maybe take these in turn. So, Appendix C, my favourite table because it's the one that you can actually read on the screen, but actually the most important. There's a number of reserve categories here where there's really quite a significant depletion projected over the MTFS period. In fact, the total of EMR reserves drops from 101, which was the position that March of 24, from 101 and a bit down to 68 and a bit. And the principal items there seem to be the budget risk category, the core funding reserve, and then the very rapid depletion of corporate projects and systems reserve. Why are those things happening? So, the first thing to say is that our reserves over recent years have been artificially inflated post-COVID, so we still had the unwinding of the – we had the loss on the collection fund, which then had three years to unwind. So, I think the starting point is the final point of that unwinding. The corporate projects and systems, so that includes really big projects that we earmarked as funding strategies from reserves around resident experience. The non-recent child abuse, I believe, was in there, the support payment scheme, apologies, was in there. The other elements around – so, there's a bit of a mechanism around the budget risk and the kind of core financing element, where the ebbs and flows of the collection fund are smoothed out through the reserve. So, if we have a bumpy year of the collection fund, obviously, there's a lot of extra money that comes into the system. We might have then a corresponding deficit in the collection fund. And rather than having to make urgent cuts for next year and then put them back the year after, we smooth things out through the reserve. So, that is a big element of the – particularly around the – the kind of core funding and budget risk items. The other one – and apologies when I talk about risks, I did remiss to say – around school balances. So, school balances are a particular risk to the council and not just to the schools. So, if a school was in significant deficit and closed, the impact of that on the local authority is that the local authority has to meet that deficit. And then the risk being that the bigger that deficit, the bigger the pressure on the general fund. Indeed. Yes. My notes, I mentioned to myself, school balances. I mean, this is the first time ever – I remember a lot – you know, in 40 years that I've been looking at these numbers. I've never, ever seen schools balances heading towards zero. You know, even in bad years, even in the 1990s, the aggregate schools balances was typically 20, 25 million. Schools would, you know, be squiddling away money here and there, rainy day, projects, et cetera, et cetera. Nobody was ever in deficit. And, you know, there was money there. In fact, there always used to be a great row in full council about if the council's in terrible condition, why isn't it rating school balances? To which the answer was, it's illegal. But, you know, it was observable, significant – you know, this is the 1990s. 25 million quid was worth a bit more than it is nowadays. To be down at zero is pretty startling. What is to be done? Well, if the answer is don't know, that's fair enough. Well, I mean, you know, a lot's changed in the 1990s, including the school's funding formula, which fundamentally changed from one which was kind of gave great big block payments to any school which existed to one which was based on pupil numbers. So that was one big change. And then linked to that, we have a, you know, a declining number of pupils. So if you have pupil funding based on per-pupil amounts and you've got a lot less pupils, then, you know, you inevitably have a problem and schools have a big sort of fixed cost base of staff and premises and all the rest of it. And in the end, you know, you – you know, the sort of closing schools and all the rest of it with all that means for particular communities, particular neighbourhoods, and all the rest of it is very, very challenging. And that's the place we're in, not just in Islington, but across much of London and other parts of the country as well. So the only answer is to have the right number of schools with the right number of places for the number of pupils we have. But that is a declining figure. Dave, Dave, I think we understand all of that. But there is a risk that at some point in the near future, a school which unexpectedly goes into deficit because of some untoward event or whatever is declined a deficit plan because there's just nothing left in school reserves to cover it, even if they promise to pay back next year. That's quite a serious risk. Well, I think the kind of the backstop you get to is the general fund and the council. Sorry, I apologise. But, yes, that's where you end up in the end. And that is obviously something we can ill afford and is quite a painful kind of option. But that's where you end up. I mean, I've always said myself that the biggest risk of all this is not necessarily financial or that is major. It's the risk that schools with little money deliver much better, much worse education for children. And that's the thing I sort of would focus on. Although I'm assured by John Abbey that, you know, those outcomes are still holding up well despite the financial situation becoming fairly dire. So it is very difficult. The work that's been done on the schools of the state is stretching out the problem, if you like. So, you know, rather than a steep, the problem getting bigger quickly, it's getting bigger, a much shorter gradient, and that is good. But the overall position is difficult and will take time to resolve and ultimately will hurt the general... It's one of the things that, if you look at the council, the aggregate risk of the council, it's one of the things that adds to that which we need to keep our mind on. But it's by far, you know, it's not the biggest by any stretch of the imagination. Thank you. Yeah, so just to point out that we do actually cover this in some detail, part of the AGS mid-year, because it's one of our big risks. So we do have the data there in terms of the numbers of schools. So it's gone from 15 to 16 to 17 over the 18-month period. So it is declining. And I believe that... I can't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but the total deficit, I think, when I last looked, was around 3-point-something million. So the schools were in deficit. We're in deficit by that amount, which was ultimately what would, you know, the council would be picking up unless that turns around, if that was to be the end. Because although the aggregate balance is zero, that doesn't probably capture the full level of the risk as well as looking at purely the ones that are in deficit and what the value of that is. So just to say that data is there. But there is also a difficult sort of... I'll call it politics. It's very micro-politics, which is that some schools have got surpluses. They are sitting on positive balances. Other schools are sitting on deficits, and they will have deficit reduction plans agreed, which they may or may not be meeting. The problem is you might reach a point where, in aggregate, we're still positive, but that's because school B, which is in deficit, is effectively borrowing from school A, which is in surplus, which creates quite a conflict between schools, particularly if they're fishing in the same pond for school students. So this is potentially quite an incendiary risk in the near future. Nick? And is there also the risk of, let's say, school A, which is in a healthy financial position, saying, well, I don't want to be subsidising other schools. We'll fly the nest. We'll go for academy status. And it's that risk of schools academising, and effectively, the whole Islantan network of schools breaking down that worries me. Because that has been the pattern. When school closures have been contemplated, the natural reaction of governing bodies is, how can we survive? In what guise can we survive? I suppose the question is, is there an existential threat, as you see it, to the current Islington schools model? All the different schools have got their own balance. Some are negative, some are positive, and they add up to a net figure, if that makes sense. But there is an option where you could, as a council, go to schools' forum and suggest that schools who have got, let's call them healthy balances, give some of them up to support schools with less healthy balances. And that has been mentioned. As far as I can tell, there's absolutely no appetite whatsoever for that kind of conversation. So I think, I don't think that's on the agenda at the moment, unless anybody tells me differently. So that would be the scenario where schools would, who had healthy balances, say you would have that incendiary conversation, if you see what I mean. But because the net position of all the schools is negative, that's where the council ends up sort of effectively bailing out the net position. If council, as schools, I think we've already mentioned this, but if schools become academies and they have a deficit, then the council ends up funding that deficit, which is, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no. If, if, so if, if a council, so if, yeah, if a school is in a negative deficit and they become an academy, they, they leave to be an academy, if you like, without that deficit and that becomes our problem and that is a fundamental risk of it in terms of the way that's the same for all councils, all schools. So that is, that is a risk for sure. In terms of the way it, it works. I mean, I'll, by all means, I'll go and get the, you know, the relevant things, but I mean, that. Do you know what, let's double check on that. Because. Yeah, we will do, yeah. But that is, that is definitely. There is a school that is moving towards academy staff, joining an existing multi-academy trust, which has a substantial deficit. Yeah, so, so you've got, you've got. I thought, I thought if they join an academy trust, the debt goes with them. I was sure that was, I was sure that was. Well, let's double check this to be sure, but I'm pretty sure. Double check, please double check. I mean, I get some of these things awfully wrong. Farida knows, I misread their eggs and all sorts of things. That can be sometimes something that can be negotiated with the multi-academy trust, I believe. So, but we will double check that. The school that I have in mind actually does believe that they have to take the debt with them. Oh. I haven't? Well, I haven't. All right, go on. I think it depends on if they've got a sponsor. So if they have a sponsor, I think they take it with them. And if they don't have a sponsor, it's a convert or it's a convert. Because they don't have sponsors anymore because all the multi-academy trusts exist. They've gobbled up 80% of England's secondary schools already. So, you know, the likes of Harris coming forward and being the sponsor, that's no longer the game. I think we're really worth checking this for a number of reasons, yeah? Okay. Right, let's move on. Other comments or questions on this? Yes, Alan. Sorry, just an observation. If we're relying on... I know this is not our way for the general audit cropping up from a management perspective as being limited on no assurance. Now, I don't know if the two tie together, but one may benefit the other. I don't know, but it seems to me that these are continual problems that may affect the financials. I don't know. But if we're looking at reserves overall, to end on a positive note, the budget risk reserve that you mentioned, Chair, is the only one in the list that is decreasing. Now, I can't comment as to whether the forecast is right or wrong, because forecast is just a forecast, but we should take some positives from that. I'd like to think we do. Budget risk reserve, appendix C, second line down. Second line down? Second line down, budget risk reserve. Is that not reducing, though? It's reducing. Yes, which is a positive. No, no, it means we've got less reserve. Does it not? I mean, it flattens out after this year, pretty much. So it means that it will be 16... So in March 26th, it's forecast to be 16.9 million of balance. It means we don't need to budget as much for the risk element. We can use less reserve. Oh, I see what you mean. I see what you mean. So just clarify for us, what does that budget risk line do, that 4 million drop, for example, between last year and this year? That's the money that you throw in to get the bottom line, the net figure, down to nearly zero, isn't it? That's right. That means you're not having to raid that in order to beef this up. And in an ideal world, you wouldn't have that reserve at all because you wouldn't be drawing down from the other account. Yeah? Yeah. So, I mean, we're not... Just an apologies for focusing on the web, but I suppose we're not raiding anything to fund anything that is a recurrent expenditure. The only uses of reserves are for genuine one-off pieces or to manage a particular problem. So that 4 million, I'm pretty sure, is a transfer into general fund balances and the future bits are just things which are less about managing the risks and more about helping deliver kind of longer-term benefits to the organisation. So I can get the specific... what those specific drawdowns are. But for our complete clarity, and I've got to tell you, the way in which the balance sheet of this council is managed is one of the things that a lot of us members don't really understand. So let's try and understand it here. That is the item that when we overspend in year, we then drop that into the overall budget to get from directorate's overspend down to net zero, correct? Yes, it's one of them, exactly. So there's some capitalisation, there's some contingencies, and there's that. Right. So our expectation in the coming years is that we're not having to draw on that. But experience tells us that we might have to. Well, overall, we have not used reserves for overspends. We've not had to over the last couple of years. We've lived within our means with using contingencies. COVID year being an exception to that. Go on, Nick, yes. On this topic. So we're absolutely clear on this. There is a difference between a contingency and a reserve. The contingency plumbed into the budget. So effectively, just plucking a figure out, we budget that there may be a 5 million overspend. We can't predict where that's going to be, but that finds its way into the budget. So we've got that little bit of headroom. Reserves, very different. And we've not been dipping into our reserves at all for the last two years in respect of our general fund. So if I could have a quick follow-up on that. As has already been mentioned, some of the cross-cutting savings, in particular headcount reductions, they're ambitious. And there is a risk that we won't be able to make the progress that perhaps we hope for in reducing headcount. And that just stands to reason that it's an ambitious programme and we might not hit the mark. If we don't, presumably, that is precisely the sort of overspend that would be covered by the contingency in the budget. But of course, we also have other pressures coming into our account that we are seeing quarter by quarter. The obvious question is how confident are we with this budget that we won't have to dip into our reserves, that the contingency that we've got in our budget is actually going to cover the type of overspends that might occur, bearing in mind we maybe don't have so much confidence about some of our headline savings that we've had in previous years. So I would say that there is less resilience in this budget than previous budgets and that is a general symptom of the local authority sector at the moment. and I think there is a, compared to other authorities, a more healthy general contingency to the order of 5 million once various things have been taken account of. So we think we have 5 million headroom in the budget for things that come out of the woodwork. And things that have come out of the woodwork this year include temporary accommodation to a huge degree. The pay award was slightly higher than we expected and there are some savings that haven't been delivered. And you will generally always have a mixture of things like that. So next year we have 5 million towards those issues. So in prior years we've had a lot more volatility in things, say, energy costs. So we've had a separate energy contingency of 3 million or so where we've had risks of that volatility. Those risks have died down but these other risks, particularly savings and temporary accommodation for next year, have grown and what they will end up at is unknown at this stage. The mechanisms that we will go through is trying to avoid even using contingency and managing within our budgets and if savings can be over-delivered or if people can via budgets that they can manage within to limit the risk of it hitting reserves then great. The other mechanisms are obviously going through scrutiny and various other areas where the position will be properly discussed and the tyres kicked in terms of is there any more that we can do to manage within that. I think we've got to remember that a budget is just an exercise, a big exercise, at one point in time. It is produced by finance but not necessarily put together entirely by finance. It's put together by finance receiving individual directorates' budgets. I'm talking generally now and adding all those up coming up with a figure. So if Paul was saying there's a contingency of 5 million that might be right, it might be 6 million, it might be 3 million but I'm sure finance has diligently gone through and tested each individual budget area before putting these numbers together. But at the end of the day if we were to do this exercise tomorrow it may change. But I think there's resilience there and there's an element of sensitivity. And taking Paul's point about what we don't know, it's one of these Donald Romford things, we don't know what we don't know but I think we've got to have some assurance and I'm sure there's plenty of assurance coming through from what I'm reading in terms of all the executive meetings that these figures have been adequately tested. But they do rely on finance and any organisation being able to receive information that is fairly concrete as it stands from all the individual directorates. And if Paul and his team have done that work diligently to test all of those numbers then I think that's what we've got to accept. I don't doubt that at all. But our role is to be a backstop to that as well and test even further. Just in that spirit, last on reserves. So Appendix D1 has got the HRA reserves. Those seem to be growing by on average about 13 million each year over the MTFS period. What are the assumptions behind that growth? So I suppose within the HRA we look at the long term investment in the assets through maintenance, etc. So the reserves for the HRA can fluctuate. They don't represent the same thing as they do on the general fund where I suppose generally more is better. Actually what this represents is we could spend those reserves doing work or we could borrow and sustain the reserves for later on in the 30 year business plan when actually we really need that level of investment later on in that plan. So I would suggest that we take a little bit with a pinch of salt the HRA balances albeit some HRAs across London are really, really struggling because they don't have balances much above zero whereas ours quite rightly you pointed out are going up but it is only a temporary thing which buys us longer into that 30 year plan to help fund for future maintenance basically. Okay that's really helpful this is the point in each year when I mention Andy Hull who was the lead member for finance one of Dermud's predecessors who was really hard lying on this he said times are tough but we need to be squiddling reserves away and generally everybody agreed and if he hadn't done that we'd be in a very much tougher spot today both the general fund and the HRA. Okay let's just move just very briefly onto the pay policy statement which is one of the documents in the budget pack there's a couple of things here one is firstly there appears to be an emerging gap between what are reportable chief officer posts in other words required by the localism act to be reported which is 31 and the number of people employed by the authority who are chief officers in other words they're on CO grades which is another 51 and that seems to be getting to a point where we may not be entirely compliant with the localism act Eric Pickles Eric Pickles basically thought the local government was too full of chief officers all being paid vast amounts of money and he'd make local government declare each year how many he had well if the Pickles doctrine is still kind of around we're only declaring 31 when we've actually got 82 and that does seem to be like we're tiptoeing into slightly tricky tricky territory I think it would just be helpful if we had at some point in the near future a bit of legal thinking about this whether we are generally compliant with the localism act but there's another issue which is less about audit and risk but we are becoming a very top heavy organisation because we used to have about one chief officer for about 100 and something regular staff it's now one per 59 so that appears to be a sort of you know an increase in the numbers of posts which members have not really noticed when you ask back over the last three, four, five years to leading members did you notice that there was a sharp increase in the number of CEO graded posts and the answer generally is no individual executive portfolio holders will say oh yes that's right we created that post and that post but taken together the whole snapshot is one of really significant increase in these graded posts which is something we need to either address through the 10% headcount reduction review or some other mechanism I'll just leave that there because we mentioned it a little bit earlier the third the second thing is a relatively minor thing but the pay policy statement always used to have a safeguard about honor area payments which was that the chair of this committee would be consulted by the chief executive for any honor area being made to CEO graded posts and that disappeared from the pay policy statement this time last year I think there's a mood amongst members that we'd like to see that reinstated and bearing in mind there was a slight reshuffle of the committees so that the employment and appointments committee is no longer a subcommittee of this committee but a committee in its own right that maybe that backstop rests rightly with the chair of the employment and appointments committee appreciate that that may create a teeny anomaly elsewhere in the constitution but that can be rectified through the constitution working group which we are all members of we're enjoying it massively I have to say it's a good night out so I would propose that the sort of form of words that I've said which is that honorary payments to chief officers must be agreed by the chief executive in consultation with the chair of the employment and appointments committee and that if necessary put that in square brackets saying a small anomaly has to also be rectified in the constitution which will happen in due course I think members would agree with that yeah yeah good okay we're done oh yes go ahead sorry I was going to just on your previous point about chief officer posts I just wanted to support the raising of that in this forum because I think it does present a number of different risks for us potentially going forward across a whole suite of things and particularly for us as elected members and when we look at the budget inquest committee and going through so I do I just want to say I really agree that is a point well made and quite where it goes from here I'm not sure but for me there is risk in that and so it is worth raising at this committee it isn't just a matter for that other kind of scrutiny function thanks thank you good members any other comments or questions no thanks okay let's move on then to B6 another mid-year statement which is very welcome the annual government statement whose item is this I'm sure I've got a note which tells me that's Matt Matt lucky all you take us through this we've got a couple of observations so yes this is the first mid-year review of the annual government statement so it's never been done before obviously it's an evolution of the AGS that was created with some recommendations from this committee for 22-23 so this is the first iteration of the mid-year review and what we wanted to do is obviously concentrate on our governance risks and make sure they were brought back at a more regular interval than annually so that we could look at them and see how we're progressing over the year so this is 16 major risks that we've identified and we've flagged as part of the annual governance statement and there's an additional five risks that were captured as external audit recommendations of the external audit recommendations three have been fully implemented two in progress whilst of the governance issues they tend to be far more complex and ongoing but I don't think any of these fully implemented so they're all work in progress at the moment although there's been a lot of work done as you can see by the detail a lot of them will be familiar we've already touched upon most of them in some form or another through the either the internal audit update the principal risk review and of course we touched on a few just now in the budget report so yeah there's a lot in here it's very detailed we've included where we were at March and the update to November which is when this mid-year review was compiled so I'm happy to take any questions on any specific parts rather than go through them more in detail as to the committee's leisure good thank you very much indeed just tell us what not being fully compliant with the local government transparency code means how significant that is the local government transparency code is obviously very vast there's a lot of things you've got to do including the localism including the pay policy statement is one of the requirements of the transparency code which we have obviously put in the budget report papers there's another things around spend so every spend over £500 needs to be published but the area of concern around this is around contracts so there is currently an internal audit scheduled for Q1 of this year so imminently about to start which is going to review our compliance with this so I think we're just it's around making sure that we're compliant on a consistent basis so internal audit have been flagged to look at this check to see if there's any weaknesses where we might need to improve anything that's getting missed through the system because obviously there's vast amount of things we deal with and we're not certain we're fully compliant which is why this review is being undertaken the internal audit kicked off today and I attended the kick-off meeting just to make sure it was going in the right direction good and was it good right sorry Sarah go ahead I just was going to ask for a bit more and one of the number 15 equal pay claims says work in progress no legal claims known to date and in other settings that I'm in in my life people make I imagine that this is something that every workplace let alone an employer of this size will be kind of faced with so I just wondered if you could say a bit more about that and whether we think there just won't be any claims forthcoming or whether that is a potential future risk thanks so it's it's an ongoing risk definitely which is why it's still on the list and it's it's an amber it's not resolved so we're not aware of any but there is a review ongoing into this and it's been commissioned to dig into whether there's any risks or not to us so none have been found of yet but the review is still ongoing it's April 25 is when we expect it to be concluded so that will probably tell us a bit more about are there any lingering risks or not but we're not aware of any at the moment look forward to reading it good okay if we're happy with that we've got some recommendations that the council's reporting this is the first time progress update reports progress against the work plan section 3 paragraph 3.7 318 3.9 summarize the contents of appendix 1 happy with that right noted good let's then move on to what I what I will call the Caledonian injunction ward item remembering that 60% of this committee represent junctional Caledonian ward have I got my numbers right yes I have we're joined by Georgia Kinsella from the electoral registration service thank you very welcome indeed pleased to pleased to have you I'm sorry this is a report that should be just be nodded through without your attendance even being required but some there are a couple of little little addendums to all of this which you can also help us through with yeah yeah thank you so I'll just briefly present the findings and the recommendations from the review of the polling districts and polling places in Nislington so the review is carried out as part of our statutory obligation under the electoral registration and administration at 2013 so just to make sure and ensure that the voting arrangements remain suitable accessible and efficient for all voters in the borough so although the law requires a review of the parliamentary polling districts and polling places and is effectively a review of all elections that will take place in Nislington so our last full review was in 2021 but we've had a couple of sort of ad hoc smaller reviews in the meantime to fix some issues that we've had with some of our existing places and we so the feedback that we received during the consultation period and the kind of general consensus was that there weren't any issues with the current arrangements that we have and the majority were happy with what we have in place in the moment so I won't go through all of the comments as they're listed in the report there was a suggestion from yourself Councillor Burgess about to move some of the residents from the junction ward from the current polling place to Caxton house so those particularly in the Miranda estate and that as set out in the report obviously because they are in a separate ward unfortunately we couldn't take this recommendation into consideration as those changes were made following on from the local boundary commission for England review which was in 2022 so all of the other current polling places kind of meet accessibility requirements and none were highlighted as needing improvement or to be changed apart from the one issue that was raised within the Caledonia ward by yourself Council of Combrie so as we agreed with the recommendations we're happy with them and they will be implemented for the next elections so the proposal was kind of in relation to the SCAB polling district which is in the Caledonian ward and it was put forward that the that district has a lower voter turnout due to the unusual geography of that polling district so to address this it was proposed that SCAB be split into two polling districts by creating a new polling district boundary which runs mainly along Bingfield street and will add a fourth polling district which is unusual but not unheard of but it's kind of justified by aiming to improve voter participation in the ward so we it was proposed that we could use the York quake community centre or the Lewis Carroll library and we've used York quake community centre previously and but we had some issues in the past with accessibility so we we visited the Lewis Carroll library in November and this entirely suitable for polling so it's a council owned building and it's got level access throughout with all of the needed facilities and it's actually also closed already to the public on Thursdays which is the usual day for polling so it's got no effect on local community use so with that being said we're going to propose that the Lewis Carroll library be the designated polling place for the new district SCAD so we're also proposing that all other polling districts and polling places in Islington remain unchanged but there was a further recommendation from Councillor Convery that was suggesting instead of having the boundary line go through the middle of some houses on Caledonian Road and we would take a section of that road and keep it within SCAB which again we saw no issue with and we will make that amendment on the maps and publish that with the final report and as also was uh pointed out to us that there was some uh discrepancies on the figures on the table the electorates um which again we'll make sure that they're amended and the uh final final figures will be put into the report as correct at the time of when we publish that uh so all of these changes will be implemented in time for the next uh scheduled local council elections in 2026 but if any by-elections are called beforehand um and obviously we'll continue to monitor and review um our polling districts um that's it for me i'm happy to take any questions thank you very much indeed georgia that's really helpful um sarah not a question just a comment to say thank you for recognizing the extraordinary geography of caledonia ward the 2022 boundary review has given us an extraordinarily long thin ward which i think does make this slightly unusual arrangement because it would take you a very long time to go from one end to the water to the other and we really did notice from the turnout figures from the last um the last few elections have been impacted so just thank you for your work on this and for allowing this slightly unusual arrangement i do think it is warranted in this case thanks yes let me echo that but janet you wanted to you want to i do thank you chair and thank you georgia and i know that that what i'm going to say is going to make no difference whatsoever but i am so frustrated with this so in my time as councillor the boundaries have changed twice and i understand that obviously it's because of change of demographics but it started in the south starts in the south of islington and works up so by the time it gets to the north of islington it's it's it's bonkers basically i can't think of a better way of putting it you know it goes like that any of you who canvassed up there recently will will have oh yes yes stranger you have yes quite and so the last change of the boundaries brought the miranda estate into junction ward now the miranda estate always voted at catston house which you can see from the miranda estate you know it's just down there in the states there and the polling stations there but no they can't vote there they have to now traipse over across the and it's it's it's it's it's not convenient and we know nationally that people are voting less and less or rather less and less people are voting and it's a real problem so if we want people to vote putting polling stations which are inconvenient for them isn't a way to encourage them and i say i'm just i'm just venting frustration i know it can't be changed well very fair janet i mean i think all members are are increasingly conscious that the 20 the 2022 boundary revision did was was not not as clever as it could have been um and well it's a it's a long story this but we we end up with a number of anomalies which perhaps should be thought of a little bit more closely and you're absolutely right that the process of reviewing those boundaries involved political parties and others making suggestions to the local government boundary review commission um and then some other people chucking in a few amendments at the very last minute which created lots and lots of curiosities in in the eventual um the eventual geography uh frustratingly so in many cases now it's worth saying that i don't think we should we should encourage our other colleagues to to go around spotting anomalies or georgia and her team will have no end of submissions you know um uh seven eight months from now but but i think i mean seriously the the the the we we we we need to look a little bit more closely at some of these anomalies which are accelerating um voter abstention ism which is a really serious problem it's a serious reputational risk for a local authority if uh the majority of people living in uh our borough aren't voting in the elections that's been the case for a long time but it's dropping and the more obstacles that we create to people voting uh the worse it gets so well thank you for that i and i i completely sympathize with such as the miranda estate having indeed visited it once or twice in the last uh couple of months yeah it seems seems bonkers oh there's caxton house oh your polling station is over there yeah very very weird okay right well let's uh let's note that and uh well actually i think we approve it don't we yes yes that's a good thing georgia thank you very much indeed to you and your team and thank you for coming along this evening good okay let's then move on to our final item which is b8 local audit reform strategy it's an information report in front of members and the government's proposal to create a new local audit office agency it's not quite creating recreating the audit commission but it's you know it's it's starting to tiptoe into that uh territory we already meet and exceed to the government's suggested minimum standards for audit ray um we've responded to the consultation broadly supporting it but we did disagree with them on the suggestion that guess what the audit committee should be an independent member that would be terrible wouldn't it no serious points i mean you know this is part of the accountability as well as the oversight arrangements and independent members being much valued probably going a little bit too far to uh take the chairmanship or the chairing of the audit committee uh away from elected members certainly that's um that was the express view of majority of members and uh in this regard i think that's what we said to them isn't it yes good okay uh any questions comments on that from anybody no good watch this space we'll see what the government um comes back with there's a very interesting report produced by our former auditors interestingly on um sort of ideal standards for a lot of our audit committees and i gave it a read the other day and again i was very not surprised but you know agreeably pleased to see that we are you know we're above minimum standards all over the place you know we seem to run a pretty pretty tight chip so that's good excellent uh i think that's the end of our agenda for this evening there being no further business i declare this meeting closed our next scheduled meet no our next meeting is scheduled for the 24th of march but we have we have 18th of february as well yes yeah so see you there thank you very much everybody all right