Transcript

I'll be chairing tonight's meeting. We're not expecting a fire alarm test, so if the alarm is sounded, please evacuate the building. I'm not going to go through introductions because we all know each other, but when you make your first contribution to the meeting, can you introduce yourselves? We have apologies for absence from Councillor Ozdemir and Councillor Kondoka. Councillor Hayes has kindly agreed to substitute for any declarations of interest at all? No declarations of interest. Can we agree the minutes of the previous meeting? Just a couple of matters from me. Thank you to all of you who attended the meeting with Thames Water last week. Final call for any additional questions. It's important that we record what happened and have an action plan very much with their visit next year in mind. I've had some very helpful contributions from members of the committee. We will be putting together a short bullet point note so that we have a series of asks and actions. If any final comments can be with me by the weekend, that will really help because I'll start the first draft over the weekend. And just a reminder, we have a scrutiny evidence session on Monday starting at 6.30. It's online only, but it will be great to have as many along as you can. It's not a compulsory meeting. It's not a compulsory meeting, but it's part of the scrutiny. Minutes. Can we agree the minutes of the 5th of December? Just a couple of housekeeping matters as far as the timetable for today is concerned. We have no items for calling. In terms of public questions, there will be an opportunity for members of the public to ask questions. What I would ask is that if there are any questions, if at least the bullet point topic can be written down and handed up to Summit, it just helps me to know when to bring it in in the course of the discussion. In terms of running order tonight, we're going to take the budget proposals first. It's probably the most important thing that we do as a committee, scrutinise the budget. We will then, once that has concluded, I anticipate around about 8.30, move on to the annual presentation of the executive member for finance and performance. And just a quick heads up, we've read the presentation, so ideally, no more than 5 minutes, just headlines so that we can focus in on the questions. The presentation, for those watching online, is published, so you will be able to see it. And then, I anticipate around about 9 o'clock, moving on to the corporate performance, community wealth building item. Again, about half an hour for that. The Access Islington Hubs item, that is for information only. I can see there is a question from the gentleman at the back. I will take a question, because I believe it relates to Parkview, and I believe it relates to the minutes of the last meeting. Yeah, so initially, it was just, I've neglected to bring a pen on paper, so I can't hand anything to you. Mainly here, hoping for some feedback about what we've discussed earlier. In terms of Parkview, we're still waiting for costings, we're still waiting to understand what's happening with the Block D site that's no longer being developed. We're still waiting to know when we'll be able to access the community facility. In terms of what we discussed, or got into with yourself from the last meeting, some feedback on the complaints process, and whether you've been able to review the two cases we brought to your attention. So, I will deal with the complaints aspect, and then I will bring in Councillor Ward. It's taken a bit of time to collate all of the material. We, or at least at Parkview TRA and myself, have been in correspondence about that. One of the complaints was, in actual fact, a complaint about a complaint not being answered. That was submitted by Councillor Kaye. And, again, it took a little bit of time for the details of that complaint to be provided to me. I'm working through the various issues that are raised in the complaints, as you will appreciate. I have to manage, what I would call fact manage, exactly what has happened. I'm working towards being able to provide a response at the next meeting, and I'm happy to go and timetable in a short section of that meeting, just to deal with the response there. It may be that, by agreement, we do it by email, rather than formally in the meeting. Councillor Ward, in relation to what I will call the substantive issues. So, in terms of the new build, it's not part of my brief, so I'm the Executive Member for Financial Resources, so I don't have an answer to hand. I know that Stephen Biggs, the Corporate Director, is in the room. I don't know if we can give a response now, or do we want to take Joel's question away? Hi, Joel, again. And we, just for the community's benefit, Joel and I have a number of conversations. So, can I work, can I just catch up, I just need to catch up with Nick, and we'll, I think, the most important thing, we'll coordinate it, and give you a proper response. I think that's the best way forward, and I'm conscious that we do have a busy agenda tonight. So, can we perhaps aim, you know, I like my timetables and deadlines, does 14 days seem reasonable, Stephen, to get something to you by way of an update? Then, can we minute that as an action, and that is what we will do. Thank you. So, I'm going to move on to the Budget Scrutiny. Council Ward, to introduce. Thank you very much, Chair. A very top-level introduction from me, before we kind of go into questions. This is the third Budget I have brought to this Committee, and I don't mind saying this is the most difficult yet. All of the low-hanging fruit is gone, and it's becoming incredibly difficult to balance the Budget. I'm very, very pleased to say that we have balanced the Budget this year, and that we have not used any reserves. Of course, everything that we do is about protecting frontline services, and helping to create a more equal islington. Although we have made some difficult choices, the focus is always on the five missions, and that's why part of this year's Budget, we're making sure that we can ensure people across the borough have a safe place to call home. That's why we're investing £200 million in boosting homelessness support and prevention over the next two years, supporting an inclusive, fair economy, by enabling the delivery of 1,000 apprenticeships and putting 5,000 people into work, creating a greener, healthier borough by continuing to invest in recycling and planting 600 trees in a year, making Islington a more child-friendly place, but providing a seamless offer of support to Scrutiny's children. Something that I've been doing a lot of work on, and something we've talked about a lot at this committee, is empowering people across the borough by helping to provide the right support by ensuring a quicker, more effective response to resident enquiries, and by improving the Council's online service. It's no secret that the cost of living crisis, inflation, and the long-term impact of 14 years of austerity have stressed Council budgets right across the country to the limit. There is a saving which I'm sure the committee will want to talk about. There is a very substantial staffing saving both this year and for the next two years to come. It comes up to £20 million, and that's going to be a significant challenge for the Council, but it's very, very important that we make these hard choices in order to protect frontline services. That's probably quite enough from me, Chair, but happy to take any questions on any aspect of the budget. I know there will be a number of questions. What I expect is for Councillor Ward, you to deal with what I would call the political questions. I know that Dave Podkinson, Corporate Director for Finance, is here, and he can help with any technical and operational matters. Who wants to go first? Ernestas, you've indicated that you wanted to speak. Thank you, Chair. So, I'll probably pick up from the executive meeting and see if I can get a response to this question. So, one of the savings or cuts has been to reduce the general fund subsidy for vacant places in council-managed children's centres with nurseries. Probably should declare an interest. I do have a child who does attend one of our best Islington Children's Centres. So, I think there is a planned cut of just over a million in about three years from now. And my question is, in the risk assessment or the equalities assessment, it states that the proposal to reduce the number of children's centres with nurseries if occupancy levels are not increased could impact on the availability of parental choice. Can our children's centres survive the reduction in subsidy, i.e., would they have to close? Could you bear with us one second, Councillor? We're just going to get the saving that you're talking about. Chair, I'm happy to add, so the exact saving that is being proposed or cut is 1.150 million, which is due to take place in 2027-28. I mean, this, sorry, apologies for the lay, Councillor. I thought you were referring to the other nursery saving, but this particular one is about the falling birth rate, in fact, and that's why we've had to look at this. So, your question is, can you repeat your question? Yes. So, the 1.1 million that's going to be cut from the subsidy that's provided to children's centres, has any viability been done to check whether children's centres can actually sustain this cut? Or just by actually renewing that subsidy means that, independent of the young people numbers, some children's centres would have to close? I mean, there aren't any plans at the moment to close children's centres. I think it's very, very important that we keep a very, very close eye on this. Yes, so there's 19 settings at the moment providing nursery care, of which eight accounts are run, three are maintained in nursery schools, five are school-based nurseries and three are run by the voluntary sector who are receiving funding from the general fund. So, that's obviously a substantial subsidy and what is proposed because of the falling birth rate, basically demand is dropping. So, it makes no sense to continue to provide a subsidy at the level it was at before with a reducing number of people, reducing number of children who want to access it. So, it is, as you say, in three years' time, so there is plenty of time to keep that under review, make sure the levels of, you know, the levels of service are available, are adequate, we can potentially flex that in the future, but it is, it does need some planning, it does need some forward thinking, but the ambition is to make sure that all the settings are viable and there is enough places for children in Islington, but as we say, the birth rate is dropping. And given it's in three years' time, if you want to regularly come back to this at scrutiny, we know we can, we can regularly review this. I suppose the obvious question is, assuming the demographics are, as we expect, with a falling birth rate, how will, use my own word, the typical Canterbury parent be affected by this? Is there any danger that there will be reduced childcare provision? There's certainly a danger of that, but I think, given the cutters in three years' time, I think this is just something we need to constantly review and flex, as Dave says. No, I mean, I think, I'm not an expert in, you know, a process of, let's say, closure or whatever, but there is quite a process to go through and, you know, it would take account of, you know, the need for places, the demand for places and a whole range of other factors. So, I think there would be quite some process which would be followed before you would get to the point where, you know, there wasn't the provision needed for anybody in a particular ward or a particular part of Islington. So, I think, you know, there is, there are robust safeguards around the process. But, as I say, I think if, you know, the birth rate's reducing, you know, demand for places is reducing, obviously there's other services where demand is increasing and we've got to keep that sort of thing under review. So, it's as simple as that, really. Thank you. Yep. So, on page 47, the overall equalities impact assessment, I've got a few discrepancies to raise. So, page 47, so page 48, regarding age, procurement of the reablement service externally to deliver the current output of the in-house service or remodel the reablement service to meet current delivery with reduced staffing levels. And then, on page 49, the same statement is made under socioeconomic. The problem is, the rest of the budget papers do not have that sentence or remodel the reablement service to meet current delivery with reduced staffing levels, which is quite, I mean, that is the sentence that I would prefer to be in the budget. And, because it does affect, that particular part of the budget affects quite a group of older and people of ethnic minority backgrounds. So, that would, that needs to be clarified because that, hopefully, that would be the statement that stays in there. And then, there's another statement that doesn't quite, there's a bit of discrepancy as well, which is that, page 59, there are no new savings on public health, but there actually is a saving on Bright Lives, where we're losing two staffs. So, that needs to be clarified, please. Thank you. Okay, so, if we could take those in turn, Councillor Clark. So, the wording on page 49 says, procurement of the reablement service to deliver the current output of the in-house service or remodel the reablement service to meet current delivery with reduced staffing levels. That's the, that's the sentence you prefer. Yeah. The rest of the budget papers, sorry, the rest of the budget papers, it doesn't have that, that sentence, oh, remodel the reablement service. It just says procurement of the reablement service externally to deliver the current output of the in-house service. Okay, I, I do take your point that that, yeah, on page 49, it's a much more detailed set of options. Again, this is not a saving for this year, this is a saving for, is it, this is a saving for the three years. Yeah. Yeah. So, again, there is, there's time to kind of look at the, look at the options here. I agree with you that the, the statement on page 49 does, gives us kind of a broader picture of what options we have within this saving. And that more detailed statement is what we'll be taking forward. But, yeah, we, we have got some time to think this through. And I'd welcome additional scrutiny on this as, as, as, as, as time goes on. And then you said, can you remind me of your, of, of, of your second one, Councillor Clark? Sorry, it's about public health. Yeah. Where, um, it says there are no, uh, no new savings on public health, page 59. But we, you know, the rest of the budget papers has a saving on Bright Lives, which is part of public health. I think, I think that's a very fair point, Councillor Clark. Um, I would also agree that Bright Lives is a, a, a, a public health issue. And, uh, so that's just wrong. Um, this is a, a draft set of budget papers. I suggest we get that amended. Thank you. Councillor Hayes. Thank you very much. So, on, um, the appendix D1, which is the HRA, medium-term financial strategy, uh, tenants' rents, uh, appear to drop in 2025-26, uh, although otherwise there is a, as you would expect, uh, an expected increase. Could you just outline the reason for that? And also, the leaseholder major works charges for 2025-26 are expected to be the same as the current year budget. Given that construction costs are going up, um, is it simply that the expenditure, uh, would be managed down to ensure that that's stay big in that level? Thank you. So, I'm just looking at appendix D1, uh, Councillor. Um, your first question was about, uh, the rents in 2025-26? Yeah, thank you. So, I think. Thank you. Um, so, if I could, uh, just come in. So, I think, um, on the, uh, so just take your second one first, leaseholder major works. I think that is never necessarily a flat profile anyway. It will, it will generally kind of maybe be relatively flat across the years, but there's no, it's not like, for example, um, other services which are very much a service which will go up with inflation. It can be much more lumpy than that, so it's not really unusual for the, to, the profile not to be, um, going up as you might expect by a percentage of maybe links to inflation. So, there's nothing unusual about that. The rent, um, situation, there is, uh, a change in rent, and again, this is also subject to a very, uh, detailed model, uh, which has, takes into account things like, uh, potential, um, uh, changes to, you know, refurbishments of, um, different blocks, you know, and, and all sorts of things which can impact on rent, including, obviously, changes to rent levels, potentially bad debts and things like that. So, I can get you a more detailed breakdown, but, um, we have looked at that, and that is definitely correct. There is a slight down, downwards, uh, downward drop in rent before it will, it will continue to recover the year after and carry on going up. Thank you, Chair. I'm, I just want to take, I'm just going to, I don't want to drill down just yet into the specifics. It was more around just how resilient our, our budget is. So, I was starting to see that our neighbouring borough, Haringey, have applied to the council for, um, some exceptional, yeah, some exceptional financial supports. Um, and reading the comments from the leader, and I'll just pull out a few lines, you know, she could have been talking about Islington, um, she talked about ever-growing demands, increased population. rising costs, more than a decade of government austerity, and, and so, I just wanted to, and it's one of the things I think we need to keep an eye on as a committee, and I've often asked and said, you know, where a lot of local authorities are going to the government to ask for financial support. And there was a comment that was in the budget papers last year, as a member of, uh, I'd say a long, slightly long-serving member of this committee, and I remember looking forward to this year, and he said it is going to be the, probably the hardest budget that we've had to set, um, in recent years. And so, I just want to know how resilient we are, and how resilient this budget is, um, because I would have once, you know, um, I think it's something I've spoken about before, we, we, we're facing a lot of challenges, and, you know, in pandemics, it could be climate emergencies, we've got, you know, and other things. I just want to know how resilient we are, because I don't, I just want to, I want to have confidence, um, on record, that this, that we won't be in a position where we have to go, and, necessarily, or unnecessarily, with a begging bowl to the council, to the government, and so I just wanted to know, how confident are you, Councillor Ward, and it's a question for you, that this is a resilient budget, that, and that we can still deliver those frontline services, and that we don't have to make, maybe, more substantial cuts, and, um, further down the line. So, in a nutshell, Councillor Ibrahim, this is a resilient budget, but it's a difficult budget. I'm not going to pretend it's not a difficult budget, um, and you only have to look at the scale of the savings, and I've already pointed to the, the staff saving, 5 million this year, 20 million over, over three years, to show how, uh, how difficult this budget is. Um, that said, um, I would, uh, I would refer to, uh, our external auditors comments, who, uh, came to, uh, audit committee, uh, two weeks ago, and, uh, that was very telling. Um, the reality is, we've been making, uh, quite substantial cuts for over a decade now. We've had to. There's no, there's been no, uh, alternative. Um, the external auditors comments were quite telling, though, um, and, uh, his, what he said to the committee was, you are making, you know, you are making quite substantial savings. Um, I, he, he would have concerns about that. The reason he didn't have so many concerns about that is because we have been doing that successfully for a decade. For a decade, we've been doing challenging budgets, making challenging savings, and coming out the other end, uh, quite successfully. Um, so, I would be, I am, I'm, I'm always incredibly concerned about this budget, but I would be a lot more concerned if, uh, we didn't have, uh, just a lot, a decade of experience of, uh, just consistent scrutiny, consistent monitoring of all of these savings. Something that this committee has, uh, a big kind of, a big, a big part in. And, uh, the other, the other thing I'd point to is, you know, children, children and adults are actually looking quite healthy now. That wasn't always the case. Uh, a big part of that is what this committee did, you know, month, month, month, month out, um, monitoring it. I had, uh, and I then had several meetings with, uh, the, who was then the chair of this committee, Councillor Williamson and, uh, relevant exec members about how we addressed that. That has been addressed. There are so many challenges, uh, to be addressed in this budget, but we have got long experience of successfully making savings. Uh, Appendix C, uh, shows all of our reserve balances. Our reserve balances, uh, are very, very healthy. And, uh, so, yeah, I'll just go back to what I said. It's, it's resilient, but it's difficult. We are certainly not in the position where we have to, uh, apply for, uh, exceptional funding from the government. Um, I know Haringey have been very, very open about that. Um, I would be, uh, incredibly concerned if we, uh, if we, if we, if we had to go down that road. It would probably involve, uh, capitalization. It might even involve selling of assets. And, uh, we are, I think I can say with absolute confidence, we are nowhere near that point, uh, Councillor Ibrahim. Um, we have got a very, very experienced Section 151 officer here. Um, it's his job to sign off the budget, and he has been doing that, uh, for many years here. So it's only fair to turn to Dave now to expand my answer. Um, yeah, not, not too much to add in a way, but I think the, uh, just to make the point that the external auditors have absolutely no motivation whatsoever to give us any kind of false positive, um, assurance, if you like. And the fact that they did give us assurance about our financial standing is, is quite strong. It's something that as members you can take quite significant, um, comfort from, I guess, if you like. I think that is something that's quite, quite, uh, quite reassuring, that piece of, that piece of assurance, if you like. Um, in terms of my sign off, which I have to do on a statutory basis, that is reflected in the budget report, which went to executive, and the final version of that will be, um, obviously going to full council. It might change slightly as we go, possibly, but probably not very much. But, I mean, that, that does talk about what is ultimately a relatively resilient position, certainly more resilient than other council, other councils who are really in difficult places. Uh, but there is an aggregate of risk, and so many things in our financial position are going in the wrong direction. You know, you know, you know, where we talk about demand, inflation, interest rates, um, TA, um, you know, temporary accommodation demand in particular at the moment. Um, so there's things of real difficulty, but there's equally things of, um, great, uh, to, to celebrate in a way. So, you know, adults and children are, at the moment, close to kind of breaking even, uh, in this current financial year. And that's, that's a good, really good thing, and not necessarily where we've been in the last few years, and definitely not where a whole load of other councils are. So, there's, there's great things to celebrate about it, but also some challenge, real challenges. So, it's very interesting you mentioned temporary accommodation, because I think my, I had, well, that was going to be my next question. There's two very quick questions. I think of this budget, um, and I understand some of it is around making, save it, making cuts. What, what, what is causing you the, the, the most concern of this budget that we need to keep a closer eye on? And secondly, it would be interesting to understand the iterations of this budget. So, um, I'm assuming that, obviously, thinking goes on, um, in months prior to this, and then you get the local government settlement at the end of December. And so, I want to know how, you know, when that local government settlement comes in, how does that shift your thinking? And, you know, do you then pull back from some of those cuts, and some of those savings, and reinvest it back into frontline services? And it would be interesting to understand how we're prioritising frontline services on our residents. Um, so those are two quick questions. What's causing you the most concern in this budget? And secondly, can you just give us a bit of understanding of how, the, the iterations of this budget? Because what I would like to see is that we are prioritising, if we're getting a bigger windfall from government than, than, than we planned. I think we need to be reinvesting that back into frontline services for our residents. I think that's probably a question for both of us again, Chair. I will, um, if you're asking what keeps me up at night, Constance Ibrahim, um, temporary accommodation is up there. Definitely temporary accommodation is up there. Um, we're in a much better place than, uh, lots of other boroughs. But that's only because of the good work of the council, um, particularly our acquisition programme, where I think we've now bought over 300, over 300 properties in the borough. Um, it just makes, with the help of the mayor, um, it just makes so much sense. Because, uh, if it's an X-right to buy property, it's on our estate, it's in borough. We manage the estate anyway. Um, so it just makes so much sense to, uh, buy properties on our estates. Um, we, I think we've got one of the largest, uh, acquisition programmes in the country. Um, the government very much trusts us on this, and trusts us with their government grant on this. Um, long may that continue. Um, but this temporary accommodation, uh, I suspect this issue will not go away, uh, anytime soon. Uh, it's linked to the second thing that keeps me up at night, which is interest rates. And one of the reasons why we have a temporary accommodation issue is because, uh, interest rates means that lots of landlords are, uh, leaving the market. When landlords are leaving the market, that necessarily is what will often cause, uh, an eviction. Um, and, uh, that's the temporary accommodation problem. Um, as well, as well as that, I know that, uh, the end of no-fault evictions are coming, and there seems to be a bit of arms risk to getting it to get there before no-fault evictions ends, which is, which is awful. But we've got to be prepared for that in our temporary accommodation numbers. So that's, if I was to point to one single thing, it would be temporary accommodation. But, uh, the, uh, the kind of, the, the broad horizon aspect of that is, uh, interest rates, and that goes, uh, to the heart of, uh, my next worry, which is the, the long-term sustainability of the housing revenue account. Um, the Southern Council, um, along with their partner councils right across London and across the country have done a really big piece on the future of, uh, council housing. And, uh, one of their big points is that, uh, HOAs across London and across the country are just undercapitalized, and that's gonna, it's gonna be very, very difficult in the future. This community, this committee has already, uh, discussed before about how, how difficult, uh, new build is, and just the twin evils of interest rates and, uh, inflation. And we've got huge challenges in the HOA. It's not just new build. That's one of them. But, uh, we've also got fire safety and all the new rules around fire safety, all the new, uh, dampened mold and the retrofit that requires. And, of course, our net zero carbon targets. That's an awful lot to be getting on with in the HOA. I think we're doing incredibly well, thanks to good stewardship, but that's what, that's what weighs me for the, for the future. In terms of the, uh, your second question is about the settlement. Um, the settlement, how do I put this? It was very much business as usual. Well, certainly, and there, uh, wasn't, uh, wasn't any nice surprises in the, in the settlement for us. I always say that it's like, we, we, we, we, we wait for the 19th of December. It's always, it's almost like waiting for Santa Claus. Um, but, uh, for the last few years, Santa's given us a lump of coal. And, uh, there was certainly, I mean, although, uh, the, this, this year, it was kind of business as usual. There was no, there wasn't any particular, uh, drop on our funding. It was, there wasn't anything extra in there. I, I, I will, I do very much welcome the announcement of multi-year settlements, because, uh, that will, even if we don't get an extra, single extra penny, multi-year settlements will be so much easier just to plan everything, plan, plan, plan all of our services. Um, and, uh, in terms of, uh, one thing I'd point, I'd point to particularly in the settlement is, uh, the recovery grant, which was designed to kind of address the fact that local authorities have been, uh, underfunded for, uh, many, many years. Uh, sadly, Islington got, got just 1.7 million of recovery grants. Um, I think Camden got zero, uh, Haringey got 5.4 million, um, Hackney got 9.7 million. Um, so there's definitely kind of a, a lobbying point for us here. And I've already spoken to, uh, Emily Thornby, MP's officer, uh, about this, but sadly, Constantly, Ibrahim, yeah, the settlement was business as usual. Um, Dave, do you want to go on? Um, the only point to add to that, I think, is around the settlement. And the, there is a sort of, um, if you take, um, if you assume that a decent portion of our funding will be allocated based on deprivation, um, because that's the kind of, you know, that's the kind of nature of our services. Um, and you also think that, uh, the funding formulas and the way in which funding is allocated to the government will be, will be reviewed and changed in a not too far distant future as part of a government funding review. I think it's very important that we continue to make the case that, um, although, um, against some indicators, the financial position of households in Islington can look quite favourable against a national position, until you bring in to that calculation the cost of housing, which, which takes, can take, can skew indicators from a relatively favourable position relative to other areas of the country to something which is anything but favourable and puts Islington and the boroughs right at the bottom because of the cost of simply putting a roof over people's head. And I think it's really important we continue to make, uh, that case of the government as funding, local government funding is reviewed, is the point I would make. I'm going to bring Councillor Chowdhury in a moment, but I want to, um, ask about what I would describe as the headline, um, saving. Uh, the, uh, the centrepiece of this budget, certainly in terms of numbers, is the reduction in the workforce budgets across the council. And it's described as, as a result of vacancy and agency management. This committee has long, uh, wanted to see a reduction in the number of agency staff and a move towards permanent members of, um, staff. Is it realistic that we are going to make these savings purely through vacancy management, i.e. not filling vacant positions and by reducing agency, um, staff? And if we can't make the savings that we hope to do in 25-26 through, um, those steps, is there a plan B? The shorter answer is yes, we can do it. And it's something that this committee has discussed many, many times. Um, it's something that, uh, I've discussed with the chief executive and the section 151 officer many, many times. But, um, it's, it's, it's no coincidence that this has been a, a big concern of this committee, the number, the number, the number of agency staff. Um, the reason the savings has been done, uh, like this over three years is because, yeah, this is, this is, this is a, this is a big, big project. And, uh, uh, it's not gonna, it's not gonna happen overnight. But, uh, we are confident that, uh, it can be done through, uh, vacancy and, uh, agency management. If the, if the question is, can I guarantee no compulsory redundancies, then, no, I would, I would never, never, never make any guarantee like that. Um, but, uh, uh, what, uh, what the, the piece of work is about, uh, vacancy management and, uh, agency management. Um, and as this committee has discussed many, many times, um, we do have an issue here. That's why in a previous budget, um, as you'll know, uh, members signed off the, uh, the challenge panel, which was to, uh, every, every, every, every single directorate needs to, uh, pass all of their agency appointments through the challenge panel. Um, and justify why they need to make an agency appointment and, uh, why, uh, why that person can't be, um, a permanent member of staff. And, uh, also why we passed on the previous budget the agency levy of, uh, 4%, did it? Yeah. Yeah, 4%, um, because we were, we were already looking to tackle this problem. I do accept this is ambitious and this takes us one step forward, but it has to be. Um, because here in CREZ in 2025, we're still talking about agency workers. That shouldn't be the case anymore. So this really is, this really is a case of grab this by the roots. Dave, do you want to add anything? Uh, just to sort of confirm, it is a major management team focus. There's no doubt about it. Um, and, you know, it's been talked about, um, extensively about how we're going to go about it, what that means, the HR mechanisms, which will help us make it happen. And I can confirm, um, as Councilor Ward says, that the workforce controls panel is, is well established. It meets weekly. Um, I've been sharing it for the last, um, few months. And it is, we are going through, you know, various types of hiring, some detail and, and sort of rejecting quite a few of them as well. There's also another control as well, which is every single new, um, appointment is corporate director approved now as well. So it places corporate directors very much in, in the sort of, uh, in the position of, of control over, over what's happening within their directorates. Um, so there are, it is a big focus. A lot is going on. We'll obviously, over three years, we obviously have to make gains in productivity and things like that to really make it, to make it work. But, um, we'll keep it under review, but certainly work is well underway for 25, 26. And, Chair, just one final thing. Um, given how ambitious this is, I would welcome regular check-ins at scrutiny. Before I go to Councillor Chowdhury, I know that Councillor Staff and Councillor Hyde have indicated they want to speak. Is it on this particular topic or is it on a different aspect of the budget? Or linked, because I'd like to have a, a theme, uh, running through, if we can. Yeah. Yes. Um, can we just agree now on what it looks like to keep an eye on this? Thanks. In which case, Councillor Chowdhury. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Uh, just, uh, we just discussed that, um, uh, our children's birth is going down. That's why it's easy for cutting that service for the children's service, but the question is, I'm in my committee and we know the older people that are going up in this linkedin population, yeah? Uh, and our service going down, just for one example here, uh, uh, now, we have a moment, but now redesigning, when I was first year, yeah, it was first, uh, uh, we are told this is a fantastic service, in-house service, now we are cutting service. And I, as everyone knows, I work for the older people, you can't believe that older people's service going down, down, down, there is no proper assessment for the, uh, people, people, some people waiting for months and months for, to do the bed back treatment, some people, no social worker, uh, visited to, uh, some people's place. This, this kind of thing happening, yeah, in my, uh, even, uh, one of my colleague told me, one of the social worker asked him, do you know how to do, uh, uh, uh, work with the OT to take that item from the OT service, this kind of service in the social service, but my question is, there's no good news from our central government, yeah, and, and it is a true thing, the adult social service budget going up, is going, you can't reduce it, because, uh, because, uh, population going up, their demand going up, yeah, and thank you that you are trying to minim, minimising, uh, budget, but, uh, other way, that means, our older people, uh, service going to go down, what action you will take, this message, not yourself, this is not only using, I, I understood that all over the London, this is a problem, how you can, uh, work collaboratively, then take this message to the, our, um, secretary of state, that this is not acceptable, our older people should not get this kind of service, and what, how you can assure us that next five years, you're not going to cut any service for the older people. Thanks, Councillor. Um, I will go back to what we talked about earlier, and what Councillor Clark talked about, um, on the re-ablement service, I mean, I agree with you, we do have a really, really excellent in-house re-ablement service, this is not about the quality of the service, this is about, as you say, given the times we're in, this is about, can we do it differently, can we apply, uh, economies of scale, to, uh, do, do, do this differently, or re-remodel it, in order to, uh, make a saving, while still providing an excellent service. Now, that's very complicated, that's why this is, this is not for this year, that's why this is for, uh, year, year three. Um, but, uh, the, the reason why, um, our, you know, our, our, actually, our adults budget is, as, as, as David said, why it's in a very, very healthy, healthy state, is that we have, uh, looked very closely at this over the last three years. I mean, you, you, you, you were also involved, Constance of Chowdhury, in the meetings we had with the previous, uh, chair of, uh, this committee, and the, uh, corporate director of, of adult social care, just to see, to see, to see, to see if we could keep a, a very, very close eye on that budget. But, yeah, again, the three-evening service is just about keeping a close eye on what we spend. In terms of your lobbying point, we will, yes, we, we will be, uh, lobbying the government, myself, um, and, and a leader, and, uh, with the help of our public affairs team, and our local MP, about, uh, adult social care, and how there needs to be, frankly, a national solution to, uh, the, uh, adult social care time bomb. Absolutely. Absolutely. We'll continue to lobby on that point, and we welcome your help. Thank you. Um, I just wanted to pick up a broad point on how the, um, savings proposal speaks to the, kind of, equality document, and particularly, I was looking at the one on, under resources, previously agreed, simplify and replace manual processes through automating administrative processes, which, uh, this year is 0.539, next year is 1.270, and then that's not picked up at all, well, a different point about a printer is picked up in the equality section, and I think, I was just thinking through, how are we really ensuring an award like, a, just, could you say a bit more about what that saving is, because I can't recall it, we just previously agreed, so I feel not so bad about not knowing entirely what that involves, but just, whenever something's moving to more automated, more digitized, and it kind of speaks, I know, some of the slides on your report later, I'm just, in a ward like Cali, there's a massive issue with digital exclusion, and I'm always thinking, well, have we assessed, actually, how that might impact on particular residents with an equality lens, because we don't want people to not be able to access, now, it may be entirely internal and irrelevant, I don't know, but could you tell me a bit more about it, so I can work out why it then doesn't appear, like, in the equality's impact stuff. So, my understanding of this is an entirely internal thing, this is about automating more processes in-house, so, because you've got, I mean, let's be blunt about this, we've made progress, but we're still way behind, there's still loads of stuff at this council that are literally done by someone counting things out and doing those manual processes, and, firstly, we want to be really efficient, and, secondly, we want to provide kind of fulfilling careers, and then, kind of, you know, doing those, often doing those kind of manual processes actually isn't a fulfilling career option, there's much better use of that staff member's time. So, as I understand it, this is an entirely internal thing, this is just about better use of own resources. Have I got that right, Dave? And, yeah, that's definitely right. So, the, I mean, the equality's impact assessment is obviously, the intention is that if any of the budget proposals have an impact, that from an equality's point of view, members, it's not to say we can't make budget proposals that do have an impact, but members need to be fully aware of that. So, there is a process for every single saving, but for something which is clearly totally relevant to that broader picture in terms of it's a totally internal process, it won't find its way into the budget report, otherwise the budget report would be, like, even bigger and longer, and it would ultimately just be a waste of paper, in the form of a better word. So, that's kind of how it works. So, it's more the relevant things that could or do have an impact, which should include in the budget report. I do take your point generally, though, about whether any of our savings have an impact on digital exclusion, and that's why, if you look at the Resident Experience work, and a number of members here are involved in the Resident Experience members working group, the idea there is we do get as many of our services online as possible, get as many people like me, who don't want to talk to anybody, kind of doing it on my phone, and doing those kind of very, very kind of process-based things, like venue council tax online. But the idea behind that is that we do, that gives us a lot more resource to work with people face-to-face, where there is a particular vulnerability or a particularly complex problem. Hence, our work on the access hubs, which you know Councillor Chapman is presenting on next time. So, I think it's a bit counterintuitive, but the way I'll always say on this is, the more things we get online, the more resource we have for more vulnerable people who can solve the problem online. Absolutely. And just as a kind of supplementary, in an organisation of this size, then, one might think that a total saving of just a shy of 2 million is actually quite modest. If we're looking at our systems and improving them through automisation, AI, and I just wonder about whether we, are there plans to develop a work stream around, you know, fit all of the internal systems, be as tight as possible, so that we're not spending money, as you've just said, you know, on things you don't need to, and our residents need us out there. In a nutshell, yes, a huge amount of work has gone into this. There's a bit more about this in my presentation as well, but, yeah, we want to squeeze every last drop out of this, because bottom line is, if we're doing manual processes that can be done online, then that's not efficient, and, frankly, everything we spend on a manual process, which could be done online, that could be done by AI or whatever, is money that we're not spending on frontline services. So, couldn't agree more. Yeah, thank you. I just want to thank Councillor Hyde, because it leads quite nicely back into looking at the EQIA on this. I just want to say I really appreciate the work that has gone in. I know it's really difficult to juggle when you're looking at savings and also protecting frontline services. What you've just mentioned earlier as well, just about obviously we have high levels of deprivation, welfare needs, particularly in the borough. I mean, hopefully that will improve in terms of access to support that people can get from national government. One of my slight concerns with the EQ and equalities assessment was around our IMAX team and the welfare provision, and particularly around, in mitigation, you've basically said we aim to avoid savings that will impact directly on delivery of welfare advice provision. We look to maximise the benefits of funding the Council provides for welfare advice to ensure it's focused on reducing poverty and equality. It looks like that kind of review is also looking at staff redundancies from that team, but also looking at kind of where the income and funding streams are going to come from within there. I was wondering if you could just shed a bit more light on that and also just give us some insurances that residents won't be unduly impacted, particularly because in the equalities assessment, it looks like it hits on age, on disability, and on socioeconomic issues. So could you just give us a bit of reassurance that the IMAX team, which we're all very proud of, will continue to deliver the work that it does so well, and that residents won't be unduly impacted by this, and that if any, as Council Clerk said, remodelling that takes place is going to be focused in the right area to deliver both the savings but also funding in a very efficient way and manner for the best of our residents. Thank you. I think that is a very, very good point. I mean, there's two sides to this. We have to make hard choices. We have to live within our means, but we want to do that in a way which protects and enhances the services rather than cut services, and that's why this saving is our review, and our review is about, you know, is there any duplication in the system? We work with quite a number of really brilliant partners on this. We also have our IMAX team in-house, and it's about whether we can save money by looking at Israeli duplication. Are there more things that our existing IMAX team can do in-house? I would welcome, because this is for the following year, and I would really welcome kind of member input into that review so that we avoid any of the kind of pitfalls that the Councillor staff has outlined. But, yeah, I didn't commit to this to make this kind of saving, but I would much rather do this kind of sensibly and kind of make a sensible saving based on a review, based on what can our IMAX team do more, can we kind of, you know, do... Can we have one team doing more things rather than several teams doing a small thing? I would much rather have that than a commissioner coming in and saying, you know what, your IMAX team is not statutory, so it's gone. So it's really difficult, but I'd welcome member input into that. The corporate director is here. Do you want to add to that, sir, Stephen? Evening, Councillor staff. I mean, I would just echo everything that Councillor Ward has said you'll see. Later on in the agenda, we will talk about the, frankly, marvellous performance of IMAX. I think you all know me well enough to know that we absolutely need to protect it. And as Councillor Ward has said and as you have observed, we think there is an opportunity for efficiencies around the way that we manage effectively. We provide money advice internally and we commission external money advice providers. We have things like sort of rotating referrals to those two organisations. So we think that we can make that more efficient. And ultimately, that's about spending our money wisely to ultimately support our most vulnerable residents. So yes, I think would be my short answer to your question. Thank you. And the final question, Councillor Nanda. Thank you. Just wondering, can you tell us anything about when preparing a medium-term financial strategy, what proposals you considered for income generation beyond the proposed rise in council tax and what you're thinking was, were there any areas that you rolled out in a stable way? I think it's something that we have to consider more and more. I know that there is a particular initiative in the housing team where we're kind of looking if we can sell that expertise to other local authorities and other organisations. I think in future, we're going to have to think about a lot more of that. We do have substantial expertise in the council. Are there other ways that we can sell that expertise to other organisations? I know that Stephen Biggs, as Corporate Director for Community Wealth Building, is doing a full review of our assets and just making sure that we're making best use of that asset. I think in the future, those two things, making best use of what we have here is going to be all important. We have huge expertise here and we also have huge property assets around the borough. We need to make sure that both those things are being used in the best way to protect frontline services for our residents. So I think it's a question that will have to be asked again and again in the coming years. Councillor Amanda, Dave, do you want to add to that? Well, yeah, I mean, income is obviously a significant topic. I mean, what we haven't done here is what some councils have done, which is kind of invest heavily through borrowing in assets to try and generate income. And some of them have done that successfully. Some councils and some of them haven't. All of them have taken risk in the process of doing it. So we haven't gone down that kind of route. So I think it's really about our fees and charges, which are very substantial, you know, tens of millions of pounds of income, which, you know, needs to be monitored very carefully, as we know from work at this committee. But also maybe thinking about some of the opportunities we might have, whether that's from property that we already own or things very much in the borough, or whether there are any kind of options around commercial income linked to what are very busy streets and, you know, in areas where there's a lot of retail and things like that. So we are looking at all those things, for sure. It's not as easy as you could imagine to make a big dent in what is a big budget. What's been very successful in the past is making better use of underground power parks on estates, which are very, very underutilised, and seeing if they can be commercially rented, which puts money back into the HRA. I think we're going to have to look at a lot more things like that in the future. Just as a follow-up, in particular, what I'm interested in is if you think there's any scope to do anything more on expanding the size of our capital tax or business rate space or the planning side. Is that something you look at all? Limited is what I would say. We are the most densely populated borough in the country, so it's something which should be kept consistently under review. It's a very salient point that across London, the construction industry has, in some cases, grown to a halt, and that's directly related to interest rates. And that goes to the heart of your point about increased council tax base. But what I would say is that there are far fewer opportunities to go down that strategy here in Islington where we're the densest borough in the country compared to the heart of London boroughs. Do you have a few more points? We have actually done reasonably well, although slowly and over time, on business rates and increased business rates. So we're actually well above our baseline level for business rates. We're ahead. So that is quite good, actually, over the course of time. Although we have had appeals against business rates and things like that, we should drag it back a little bit. And as Council Ward says, the dense nature of Islington make it difficult. And the councils that have done really well are the ones who are, for example, on a motorway corridor, and they've been able to, you know, encourage planning permission for large logistics centres and things like that for, you know, large online companies and so on, and in those situations, very, very large additional business rates receipts in particular or possibly housing developments have been, have helped those councils enormously, but obviously those opportunities are not available to us in the same way. Okay. We're now going to move on to the broader aspects of your directorate, the resources and finance directorate. As I've said, we've seen the presentation. Can you just do a high-level introduction, brief highlights, and brief indication of the challenges? Absolutely, Chair. Can I apologise in advance? During the course of today, and certainly in the course of this meeting, my throat's got worse and worse, so I just, if I start coughing, please bear with me. So, you'll have my annual report in your pack. As the exec member for Finance and Performance, the vast majority of my responsibilities fall within the resources directorate. Some of it, particularly resident experience, falls within the communities directorate, but we've done something on everything in resources and something on resident experience as well. Resources covers a plethora of different services that you'll be familiar with. So, you've all got the slides. We've lined them out as key achievements, key challenges, and next steps. I'm not going to read everything out in the slide, as the chair says, but I am just going to take you through what I call my headlines, if that's okay. So, starting with human resources, well, the first thing to say is I'm really, really proud of our PPMA Award for Best Employer, Trade Union, and Employee Partnership. I think that's just a testimony to the really good work that's done here in Islington, and particularly our relationship with our union colleagues. In terms of what I want to do next, you'll see in next steps, one of the big challenges is integrating our health and safety team with our human resources team. Again, that's really, really important too. Oh, thank you, Sandy. Can we bring something to every meeting, Joe, please? And also, very, very part of the work that's being done with work experience placements by the human resources department, especially around SEN adults and care experience, young people and adults. So, again, that's something which is ongoing. That's our next challenge. Moving on to digital services, I'm going to say MyIslington, MyIslington, MyIslington. Not to say... So, I'm very, very proud of that, but there's also an awful long way to go, Chair. We do have council tax onto MyIslington, ASB, Street Waste, but as we've talked about before, there's an awful long way to go, and I know that several members here were involved in actually stress testing some of our MyIslington services. So, the more things that we can get onto MyIslington, the easier it will be for residents to access those routine services. But it needs to be done properly, and it needs to be all part of one system. And as we've seen ourselves, that's not always the case. And for me, that is the big challenge in digital services, is making sure that we get that right. The other thing I'll point out is the digital apprenticeships that are happening in digital services, which I think is a very, very good step forward. And you'll see, I mean, digital services cover such a plethora of things. There's three slides in digital services. You can read it at your leisure and ask any questions you have on this. But I know that the issue of FOI compliance has come up with this committee before. And I'm pleased to say that compliance has improved. And now we're regularly exceeding 90% on FOI compliance. But that's something to keep a regular look at, which I know this committee has been doing. Democratic services. I mean, I'll just say two words, member inquiries. That has been the biggest challenge in democratic services. Chair, I know this is something you've been directly involved in, in making sure this service is up to scratch. I'm going to be blunt and say, as I've said before this committee, up to now, it often hasn't been up to scratch. Both the software and the actual answers that we're getting back simply haven't been. But I know that a lot of members have been involved in how we make that service better. I know that new kind of service maps have been produced, which I can shortly send around to members. And I'm confident that progress has been made and that we can make some more progress on that. Also great that phase one of the scrutiny review has been completed. And I know that phase two is about to start. And that's going to look at ways of working, customer practice and organisational culture. Legal services. So it's great that we've got more in-house advocacy. Firstly, I think it's really, really important that we make best use of our own in-house service where possible. And firstly, in the interest of efficiency and saving money. But also because we should be providing good careers for our staff as well. And if people get the chance to do in-house advocacy, that's a really good thing. A number of members have been involved in the Constitutional Review as part of the audit committee. And I think that's been really successful to date. One thing I will say is I am still waiting for the promised restructure of legal services, which I know a number of members have spoken to me about that. And that needs to be an absolute priority for 2025. And I would welcome any additional scrutiny from this particular committee. Right. Question. Electoral services. How many elections have electoral services dealt with this year? Put your hand on it. Who knows? Five. Five. So, electoral services have dealt with the mayoral and assembly elections, which also was the first ever manual point for the mayoral and assembly elections. So, not just an election, but a completely different system. And anyone who was there at that point that day saw the Islington team leading on this new system. So, there was that. There was a snap parliamentary election, which we also dealt with. And there were three council by-elections as well. I have to say, I'm not just saying this. I don't say this lightly, but one of the best communication campaigns that was ever done by this council was the voter ID comms, you know, with the trifles that go around kind of lampposts. You couldn't move in this borough without seeing a big sign saying, you need to have IT to vote. So, I just want to say a huge thanks to the electoral services team for that really, really brilliant campaign. I think it made a substantial difference, but it's something that we've got to constantly monitor because we know that there are identification black holes in our borough. Even now, and I'm sure everyone from every party will kind of, when they do their door knock-in book, they'll notice that there are still people who don't have ID. So, in terms of revenue services, again, the big thing I'd highlight is getting our council tax onto the new system, onto Myers-Linkedon. The more people that we have using that system, again, the more resources that we save for frontline services. And I think that particular aspect of Myers-Linkedon, from what I can see, has worked particularly well, although I'm open for any member to contradict me on that if they have used that service. Sorry, excuse me, Chair. We've spent a lot of time talking about finance already, so I won't dwell too much, but just to say that the budget is a huge challenge. I've already talked about interest rates, the long-term stability of the HOA, and temporary accommodation. Those are my big three things that keep me up at night. I'll stress again that adults and children are in a very, very good place, and that's thanks in no small part to the good work of this committee and the members who are involved in it. In terms of internal audit, the new principal risk profile is the big kind of highlight there. And given what we've talked about tonight, given what we've talked about about resilience and risk and sustainability, internal audit is, again, and external audit, and just good governance is, if we are to kind of meet the challenge of the substantial savings that we're doing, then good governance is more important than ever. Finally, moving on to the rest of the experience and complaints. Again, this is something that several members of the committee have taken a close interest in, and I want to thank you for that. I'm going to be completely blunt and say that complaints historically, our service hasn't been good enough. We've been through what we were through with the Ombudsman, and although there have been improvements and there is a big improvement plan, there is still enough and lot to do on that. And you will notice on the, sorry, both me a second here. Yeah, there's a new, there's a new complaints board has been brought in, and we've also just appointed a new person who's going to manage complaints, members' enquiries and the contact centre consolidation. That's someone on an in-house fixed-term contract, and I really welcome that. That person has got their work cut out. I want to meet them on their first day when they start. There's an awful lot done on complaints, but an awful lot more to do. And I've put my hands up at this committee before and said that contact centre consolidation has not been going as fast as it should have been, and that person has a job of work to do on contact centre consolidation as well. So, that's kind of a whistle-stop tour of key achievements, key challenges and next steps. Chair, happy to take any question on any aspect of the presentation. Okay, I have indications from Councillor Chowdhury, Councillor William, Councillor... Jacob Hart-Armstrong and Councillor Hayes. And we'll take him in that order. Thank you, Chair. Just have some questions regarding the service, like when people are asking any service from the adult social care, yeah, online, yeah, they never get any reply from, because this is auto service, they're supposed to get a reply from the auto service that we receive your complaint or your service request or anything, but nothing has happened. People don't know. I guess, for example, someone raised a safeguarding concern. Yes, they fill the form, send it back, but nothing they receive other hand that it's received will come back to you within certain days. Yeah, this is my first question. Second question, yes, thank you, you praise about the legal team, in-house legal team. But my question is, like if you don't have the answer, how much money we spend for the costing hiring QC, Parastar and other from outside to provide Islington service or case, like any case or anything, last year, how much we spend and why? And if you don't have this one in your spend, would you be able to email us for explanation why and why we had the expensive lawyer, expensive year for what case? Thank you. Thanks very much, Councillor Chaudhary. I'm going to confess, I'm not particularly familiar with the online offer for adult social care. Perhaps it's something that we could look at as part of our resident experience working group. I think that would be a very, very good thing to do. If someone's filling in a safeguarding form and not getting a response, that's incredibly serious. And I'm incredibly worried about that. So can we take a note of that for the minutes? And I think we need to get a response on that from the corporate director of adult social care. Because if someone's not getting a response to a safeguarding form, then yeah, that's incredibly serious. So thanks for pointing that out, Councillor Chaudhary. In terms of what we spend on external legal advice, I don't have that figure at the hand. I'd be very, very happy to provide the committee with that. I did have that figure. Sorry, I can't remember the exact figure, but it was centralised. So the budgets for it were distributed around the organisation. Those were centralised and various controls brought in to bring better control and spend less. And we are indeed spending less. I can't remember the total amount we spend, but I'm pretty sure the figure that we're saving from previous year was around £200,000. So we have to significantly cut it down. But we'll get you some more information about that, Councillor Chaudhary. You can email us how much we spent in the last three years. In the last three years, how much we spent for the legal expense for the outside, like on the hiring, QC, and other and which team in the white. Very, very happy to get you an answer on that, Councillor Chaudhary. As you say in my presentation, we are focusing on making sure we do as much advocacy as possible in-house, so that work is ongoing. And just on that, before I turn to the Councillor, of course, and full disclosure here, I am a barrister myself. There will be some times where there are specialist advocacy services required and it would be unrealistic for us as a council to have in-house people to cover certain types of cases. I think there is maybe a distinction between advocacy services and sometimes getting second opinions and getting council in to gold plate advice, when in actual fact we have got the capacity in-house to deal with it. and I think in any answer it would be helpful perhaps to focus on that because, maybe fairly, maybe unfairly, there is concern that at times we are going out to council when in actual fact we have got all the answers in-house. I think that is absolutely fair, Chair, and as a practising solicitor I would do advocacy myself every single day but if a client came through the door and it was going to be a three-month fraud trial I was not doing that myself. That is how it works in the council too. We should be able to do a lot of routine stuff, as you say, in-house ourselves but there will be specialist work that we have to use external council for. Catherine. Thank you very much, Chair. My questions are around the resident experience and complaints. I'll start off with I was really interested in this complaints board and why we are relaunching the complaints board. I would love to hear it about because we have these new terms of reference and often I think as someone who is on this committee through the peer of the ombudsman it was, I think, one of the things that we were able to set up I'm also slightly concerned around the daily reports of open cases that are shared with CMT and again, I don't want to reduce the workload of two corporate directors who are here but is that the right level that we should be at? I want it to go to goodness, someone is able to actually action that so I don't know if it's a service head so I don't know if that's something that you're able to comment on. I like the idea of it going to what I'm reading is that open cases go directly to Victoria which sounds lovely when you mention it but is that the right level that we should be going at? So it says here CMT and I want it to go and potentially maybe it can also be shared and direct for it so maybe you can give us a bit more information on that and then the final question is aside from let's talk Islington is there a way for us to talk to our residents what is that mechanism that we are able to hear back from I don't want it to be we're not getting as many complaints so by influence our residents are happy is there a way that we're having that dialogue with our residents to be like actually what is your experience and I don't know if there's in retail often they have these mystery shoppers I just want to know what tools we have to really get a pulse of how our residents are experiencing our services and so yeah it broadly covers the resident experience and complaints as an overview thank you thanks thanks councillor so I'm going to be very very open about this complaints simply weren't up to scratch and there's still an awful lot of work to do we were blindsided when the Ombudsman came in we weren't close enough to this and we didn't know that the problem about delays had developed as much as it had and I think the complaints board has gone through several iterations because the previous system simply wasn't working I'm really glad that we now do have this new programme manager to honour this route and branch review of complaints and member inquiries and we're also going to look at contact centre consolidation as well this needs a programme director working on it full time I'm pleased that the new person is going to be in-house on a fixed term contract but the bottom line is there's still a long way to go to get this right hence the different iterations of this in terms of complaints going to CMT every stage 2 complaint does go to a director not necessarily a corporate director but I think every stage 2 complaint does go to a service director I do feel at the moment that's the right level and I think it will continue to be the right level until I can confidently say that we have substantially improved the system in terms of feedback from residents so since we got in the new contact centre system we do have a star rating system that people can provide feedback after calls that has been very successful I do have the figures to hand right now but those of you who are on the resident experience members working group will have got the figures about that actually most people do report back is that their experience was good or better and happy to get that information to the committee and I think you are right can we capture that data for our complaint service quick follow up so one of the things I wanted to ask what are the ways given that we messed up so badly what are the ways that we are are captured I know you've done it before I myself have previously expressed having been on hold for about 50 minutes so I'm wondering are we asking the call centre managers to listen in on occasional call I just want to understand and have is it mystery shopping are we getting actual service directors and others to call up and see the experience from the lens of our own residents yeah that's happening regularly there are managers listening in the calls regularly and that's all part of the resident experience programme in terms of the experience people have of the contact centre itself it's got a lot better and all the figures bear that out about call waiting times the number of calls that are dropped and just the volume of calls is down I want to effectively replicate for that for our complaint service the biggest measure of that for me is if complaint levels go down and an awful lot of these things should never have been a complaint in the first place and my experience of going through things is that a lot of these things could just be solved by someone just calling the resident and resolving it and that's kind of and then but as it becomes more and more dug in it just gets further and further and I think it's something that we need to keep an eye on I would if what I've done previously members have actually got involved in mystery shopping as well and I'm happy to bring that back if that's something I'd be interested in The best way of course to deal with complaints is to stop them happening in the first place and just picking up on something that Councillor Ibrahim asked about where complaints go to is there any review board that actually looks at the root cause of complaints so does a director have to report on a six monthly or annual basis these are the themes of the complaints that I've been getting in my particular directorate with a view to there being a cross cutting approach to trying to stop complaints happening in the first place I think up to a point is the answer at the minute chair I know it does happen in the resources directorate I suspect it's not uniform across the council but I agree with you I think that should be part and parcel of the complaints board and the complaints review that we're doing and I'm happy to report back on that next time thank you Ernie thank you chair so my question is on revenues and technical services I do believe we have to build trust in technology and we have to build confidence in our residents to be able to use it as well so one of the key challenges that has been mentioned here is the small outages or errors can impact on the productivity of the services so what kind resilience do we have in place to make sure that that is minimised or if there are any issues that they are solved as quickly as possible and communicated to residents I think that's a very good question no outages have been reported to me recently if you do have examples do please bring those straight to me because you're absolutely right there's nothing worse than you're trying to get a simple transactional thing done than there's an outage I know that our digital team have been working really hard to get the Maya's LinkedIn right and council tax is now part of Maya's LinkedIn I think that is a very resilient service but if you've got specific examples of when something's happened please do bring them to me Thank you Chair one of my points was going to be that issue of how much work is done looking at what is driving the high volume of complaints and how could that be reduced because there will always be things that go wrong occasionally but if we're consistently experiencing high demand obviously it would be ideal for residents and hopefully more cost effective to reduce that so it would be great if that data could come back and if any of that learning could come back my other question was about digital and just how we ensure I know that in some service areas there's quite a lot of evidence that an enhanced digital provision doesn't actually reduce the people who needed face to face or telephone support it means that you're reaching a different cohort and I appreciate we have invested quite heavily in things like the hubs in order to try and ensure that residents are not lost through that process and of course as tech has become relatively cheaper and more people of all age groups are confident in using services but what mechanisms have we got in place to review whether people are genuinely channel shifting or whether we're just losing contact with some residents who might be underserved I think that's a very good point Pastor Clark and it's not it's something that we are doing as part of the resident experience program but it's not that I've got in front of me now what I would say that it's it's a it is about channel shift up to a point but again it's about to me it's a channel shift for people like me I I don't ever want to talk to anybody I want to do everything on my phone and I suspect there are other members in the room who also just want to do everything on their phone and don't want to talk to anybody we're not we're not even there yet like we're not even at a point where I can access all council services online if if I want to and that's and that's someone like me and so I think genuinely that the channel shift is a good piece of work because there's just so many transactional services that you just can't do online with the council and that's not good enough and in terms of more complex problems and particularly more complex problems involving vulnerable people I would never attempt to make them part of kind of the digital channel because you just can't and I think the the contact center is much improved with better staff training better software and just kind of very very simple things like you've got this call whispering thing where the operator knows that the call is going to be about parking or it's going to be about housing or whatever it's going to be and stuff like that has really improved the contact center experience but what I would say is that this project has never been about kind of channel shift of more complex issues for vulnerable people onto digital I would never seek to do that I don't think the council should ever seek to do that it's actually the heart of it is making sure that transactional stuff for people like me can be done online so that we have that extra resource to provide that proper service for someone with a complex issue and may have multiple needs or a vulnerability and that's it's not even going to be a choice in the future we just we have to make best use of our resources and if we're going to make best use of our resources we need to get people like me online so finally just a bit of a steer from this committee with regard to the various reviews that are taking place scrutiny review and the constitution review really about the role of the public in the process certainly the culture since I've been a councillor and councillor in 2014 has been to encourage the public to play a role in scrutiny and part of that is being able to come to full council and ask questions and ask questions in their own words and for members of the public to be able to express their views freely at council meetings as far as the constitution review is concerned that's been very much the spirit in which a cross party group of councillors and I've been part of that have approached the review and the clear steer from this committee is that we do not want to see any diminishing of that that members of the public should be able to come of course within the proper legal framework to full council meetings and ask questions in their own words just a little bit of a steer from us with regard to the their ongoing pieces of work I imagine we will not see the final fruits probably until next year's full council possibly even later than that I'm going to move on not just to save council awards voice it's been quite a marathon session for him but I'd like to thank you and thank Dave Hodgkin for all of the hard work that you have put in this year and for your prudent stewardship of the council's finances that means we're in a very very very different position from some of our fellow London local authorities thank you very very much chair and I think probably speak for me and Dave when we we both find this committee just really really constructive and really beneficial and the the real kind of proof of that is you know two years ago this committee raised that children's and adults you know needs looking at in terms of the finances and that work was done and now we're in a really good place so massive thanks to yourself and everyone who is on the committee and also has been on the committee in previous years thank you and we'll move on to the next item on the agenda the corporate performance a community wealth building and council and again we've all had the opportunity to read through the papers I think we've got a presentation coming up just a few slides usual rules if we can keep it to about five minutes good evening everybody yeah it'll be less than less than five minutes plenty of time for questions and sorry you'll probably have to crane your necks on that side but I just thought you've been it's quite a lot of performance stuff in the pack so I thought I'd try and separate wood from trees really so I'll start and then council will add as well I'm sure so just the first slide stuff you'll be pretty familiar with but the areas you're talking about cover three main service areas so Caroline Wilson's area who many of you know around job skills community financial resilience including IMAX culture and procurement and then planning and development one bullet point with a very big service run by Karen Sullivan who you all know and then our new homes and corporate landlord service run by Steve Kaplan who I know a number of you know so that's the service areas that this performance relates to and then on the right hand side we've got as we'll talk about this in the pack there's a broad range of both delivery plan objectives and broader performance targets and there's just a snapshot of some of those on the right hand side just to give you a sense of the sort of the landscape and some of the stuff that we look after and measure so if we can go to the next slide please just a quick summary there which I'm really happy to go into whatever detail I think we're doing well would be the summary so on the left hand side you know some hugely important outcomes for our residents around getting them into good quality jobs we're very pleased to say we've already exceeded our four-year target and we won't stop there and we'll carry on moving on we've touched on IMAX already as you can see we've put over three million quid back into people's pockets we put about going on for twelve and a half million pounds over the last couple of years and that's recurring by the way as well every single year and these are you know transformational sums for a number of our residents and again more to do there our local economist team working in town centres you know engaging with a huge number of our businesses you can see just over a thousand engagements in the first half of this year adult community learning many of you'll be familiar with run by Keele we've fundamentally changed the focus of that towards things like basic literacies supporting residents on that path from skills into employment and you can see we've you know really pleasingly we've doubled the number of people enrolling in that that took a big COVID hit and it's taken some time to rebuild that but really pleasing outcomes the affordable workspace programme continues to move forward and most importantly you know it's delivering a range of social value as well as providing affordable spaces for our businesses to grow and then equally our planning application service which I would humbly suggest is one of the best in the country continues to meet all its stats you know in a really difficult area there's more work to do on the right hand side and I'm really happy to you know pick up any of your sort of queries or challenges you know whilst we're doing I think a really good job around employment a number of the national schemes are stopping now and so you know we need to assess the impact but you'll probably be aware I'm very happy to pick up questions on what's called connect to work which you'll probably be familiar is the latest scheme announced by the government which we will be running locally so old programs start start new programs start so we will carry on working with residents and really focusing on those who face the most significant barriers to employment we've made great progress in getting a lot of residents into trouble there's still a lot of faith we need to support you can see at the bottom there some more work to do around some of our targets around making sure that our council suppliers do their bit in terms of helping residents get into local work we're not quite there on that target that's partly because we need to herd some of our cats i.e. our suppliers to do their part and we've also employed a dedicated officer to help do that work and more work around London Living Wage we've had great success as you can see from the numbers there we deliberately set ourselves a high target we're hopeful we get there but that that is challenging for a lot of employers at the moment who are frankly struggling to stay afloat at the moment so it's a difficult balance but yeah we're working very closely with local businesses to make sure that as many local residents possible are paid the London Living Wage so Samina we could move on please looking into next year we're going to broaden our range of measures to make sure it covers all of the services in particular for our corporate landlord service many of you will be aware we or executive approved the new strategic asset management plan a week or so ago which is a really important step forward and that included some commitments to measuring some of those things there which going back to some of the earlier questions you know make sure we get all of the income in that we should be doing that our commercial portfolio really helps us do deliver the good stuff for the council and clearly as it says there make sure that all of our assets are safe and compliant and all those things you would expect you'll I'm sure all be aware of the Islington Anker Institution Network which is doing a brilliant job collectively with partners like our local universities our football club some of our NHS partners to really increase the gain so if we all work together around local employment local procurement and working around our net zero carbon targets we can you know do more as a more as a collective and we want to keep making sure that that delivers tangible outcomes and I've touched on connect to work and some of the other employment schemes that we will bring into operation later on this year next slide which I think is the last one you'll be pleased to know and then you'll be aware we measure performance really from two aspects one are the list of performance indicators and then you'll be aware of the broader corporate delivery plan that we agreed on this year which which has got about 35 of the big ticket stuff that we're doing across the organization we've got quite a decent chunk within our part of the world and we are in summary on track on all of those both in community wealth building and also the homes program which obviously links to the safe place for our mission but at the moment we're on track but still a lot more to do so I'll stop there community but hopefully that gives you a sense of our wider world and between 70 and I we're very happy to answer any questions thank you thank you just my main question is like not cushion I just underline say thank you to IMEX team by because from my personal to one of the team really efficient and I give one example yeah I refer one of the resident here she about didn't get the pension credit 30 years more than 30 years she didn't know that she's entitled for pension credit I refer within next day especially Alex very good and take the action and she now getting pension credit pension she doesn't know that she's entitled for pension credit and this is thing our IMEX team is doing and I would like to say thank you on behalf of everyone how they're doing for work and we need a strong team thank you yeah on a similar note I was reassured by council awards response to councillor staff about the IMEX and the review and because a similar category I think is bright lives I'm on the health committee so I hear about the work that helping people get off alcohol get off cigarettes and drugs so I just wanted to and in your on page 122 of your report you say the cost avoided by the success of this service is estimated to be over 18 million pounds per annum which is like a huge benefit from this service but we still I would like to just ask is it in a similar category as IMEX that is in review and that it's not a definite cut that the two staff that is in the budget yeah thanks councillor Clark yeah I mean just repeating what I said earlier on absolutely not we need to grow that service we'll find every way that we can do that and see it's not actually the biggest deal in the world but it does a brilliant job and thanks councillor for your support because we know that a number of entitlements are ludicrously complicated and pension credit is one a number of disability benefits and it is almost impossible sometimes to understand so we actually need to invest in working with our residents to help them navigate through that and it's really pleasing to do it I know Councillor Hayes may want to comment has been involved in some work I think which you will be aware of and indeed is one of our delivery plan targets around setting the next our next sort of challenge around and we're going to call it ending poverty in Islington because I think you all know me I'm a natural optimist but we've got to be bold and you know as councillor Hayes will know despite all the good work of the IMAX-T this is for ISEP and other partners there is something in the order of £150 million of unclaimed benefits across our resident base £150 million so we've still got a lot to go at and you know the good news councillor Clark is that we know that the IMAX model works and it's proven so rest assured I will be doing everything I can to make sure that we not only stay invested in that but look at ways of growing it because the return is significant. I was actually told about bright lives. Hopefully that was a good answer to your question. I can't... It was but not about bright lives. Anyway I can't... Apologies I can't comment. See I'm passionate about it but anyway sorry I can't... I can't... I can't comment on bright lives so I think we come there early on so I'm sure we'll get a response. But anyway you've got an answer on my max as well. So there we are. It comes under the report on empowering people. It comes under empowering people on this report on page... 113 yeah. 112. 113 yeah. Yeah the documents you've been given are a mixture of the specific reports on community welfare and then you've got the corporate report. So you're absolutely right but that covers our whole world and as you know I like to have the answers to most questions but I can't answer that. But perhaps chair we can... Yeah but just to assist everybody the focus tonight is on the Community Wealth Building Directorate. There are of course other committees that scrutinise particular aspects of performance and we've got effectively a rotation whereby those directorates for whom this is the overview committee in turn come and present a snapshot of their figures through the year. So don't worry everything will be picked up by one of our scrutiny committees just not tonight. I'm going to take Councillor Jackson next simply because he's not asked the question so far. Then over to you. Thank you chair. Just wanted to kind of own you a lot more around the apprenticeships. Obviously at this point I'm not sure if it's just we're early in the data point. Wanted to know the number of apprenticeships that have sort of moved into some either permanent role either in the council. I would like to know if we have some idea of numbers of what that look like and which of the directorate is the ones that have actually taken that on more. And maybe you can elaborate a little bit around what we can do because it is one thing for someone to come to us as an apprenticeship in our program what happens next so we're able to track what actually happened especially the one that is in-house. Then my second question it's around we have a lot of life science projects that are that's happening in the bar. And I'm wondering do we have any clear program to identify how we actually support our residents to access those opportunities that's going to be camped in in this thing. and has there been anything nationally in the new government positioning around growth that kind of creates an opportunity for us especially as a community wealth team to bring real value in for the opportunities for people in this little especially young people. So I think taking it back to front on life sciences is so as you know we lead on an eight borough partnership with many other boroughs thinking about life sciences mostly CLF boroughs which are central London boroughs and then also Hammersmith and Fulham which have kind of a white city and the big life sciences cluster out there. We also sit on the board of the knowledge quarter which is I think it's the largest kind of cluster of the knowledge economy in Europe based around the British library the Crick kind of up to Caledonian ward York way. So I think we're kind of well placed across those meetings it's incredible how much square footage of lab space is being developed in London I think recent reports have said it's the only commercial space which is still there's still room for growth in London so the needs for commercial space are met at every level across every sector except lab space so every development is trying to be lab space or trying to convert to lab space or lab spaces in the pipeline so I think part of that is the only thing is how do we get our residents ready to kind of be part of that pipeline two parts where I think first is getting people at a young age which is the kind of piece of work we're doing now which is demystifying the routes into life sciences because you know it's one thing knowing that there are different roles within life sciences that you can do but I think as I was challenged before by another committee member we don't just want our residents to be security guards and cleaners in lab spaces it's also understanding that you don't need to have a PhD to also work in a lab be a lab technician also you can work through apprenticeships or through not having a degree so I think demystifying those routes in working and letting our young people know what those routes in are providing apprenticeships through things like the lift program which we already do and then the other part is when we're seeing through things like the London growth plan you'll see that life sciences is kind of front and centre and so it's a knowledge course of which we're a part is front and centre of the London growth plan and being part of that growth and I think one of the things we were pushing for consistently when it came to the London growth plan was equitable growth growth which includes our working class residents young people and making sure we have lines in there which is yes we want more life sciences we want more lab space but it's not good enough to have those lab space and it be filled by workers coming across from abroad getting high pay jobs and those who live in the states nearby lab spaces that get those opportunities so it's been front and centre the conversation about growth happening right now the London growth plan is about to be launched and our kind of main feedback over and over again has been when it comes to life sciences when it comes to the creative industries it has to be about quality and making sure that those from the job market are the first to get those opportunities and the second part just about your apprenticeships so I think maybe you don't know because actually this was before I came to this committee but one of things I instituted on the KPIs was having that tracker of how long people are in their apprentices apprenticeships for because one thing is to get someone into apprenticeship if they leave after a week my number still goes up but it doesn't allow me to scrutinize how effective it was so you can see in there in CWB I think it's seven and eight we have are they still in those roles after 13 weeks and 26 weeks and I think that's the real measure not just by how many apprenticeships we have but are they still in those roles which I think we should be judging my work and the work of this council and I think from that you can see we're pretty effective at making sure people stay in those roles that high quality people want to do then they're not just dropping out straight away when it comes to the internal work we've worked a lot with Judy Foy and the HR team to make sure we're in the right place when it comes to new roles directors have to scrutinize and come back to us and say why they're not apprenticeships so apprenticeships are always the first point of call across all corporate directorships and understanding that apprenticeships there are some teams where I think it comes naturally to apprenticeships like in green space where there's this idea that apprenticeships have to be low level jobs or physical jobs and actually it's kind of changing that thinking internally that lots of jobs across all pay bands can be apprenticeships it's also a way of allowing people to progress internally so they're not just in these kind of dead-end roles with no progression internally in the council but also allow for by being an apprenticeship there is a route for you to kind of progress in the organisation I think that's been instituted and we're starting to see that now I think there are figures in the report that I think they come annually so I think there's also maybe we need to have some Judy Foy here as well actually it's managed more by HR and internal apprenticeships but it's something we've kind of embedded throughout the council thank you chair so do you have it wouldn't be a lot it was just now that that we've got the team here I was actually going to go a little bit towards the planning part of questionnaire and I think that falls under yourself the planning session falls under your so question is based on all the scrutiny topics and conversation that has gone on knowing where our new build positions are and hearing the national conversation around planning and you know do you is there something that your team is already looking at how that might apply to us in Eastlington or shift our position do we are we having that conversation knowing that there is a general position to make sure that planning is a lot more smoother easier so that we can get things building just wondering if that's something you're already looking at or thinking about yes is the short answer so as you may be aware the first round of consultation around what's called the national planning policy framework which is the thing was initiated last autumn we sent a very thorough response back to that both directly and through London councils as well I can be I can't think what the word is but we have rest assured we're getting a myriad of consultations also worth saying in London as well because the thing called the London local plan and colleagues will be aware there's effectively a hierarchy of local plans are one and then the thing called the London plan is being updated which is quite a mammoth exercise through this calendar year so we're also responding to consultation around the London local plan and I know very close to your heart and colleagues around the table is the issue of new housing supply and frankly the thorn issue of housing supply targets and how those are realistically applied in London and again we're very actively involved locally and with the GLA to and nationally to make sure that we set ourselves a reasonable and a tough target but frankly don't get a target that's completely undeliverable so in broad terms absolutely we're engaged and Karen and Skiba and co spend a good chunk of their time responding to a whole array of consultations and rest assured we are trying to make these links in case throughout that we have a question on each one of the missions so if I can start with the community wealth building so first and foremost absolutely brilliant to know that we smashed the 5,000 target of getting residents into paid work and we know that is one of the best ways to get residents out of poverty so I just really hope that we're not going to get our foot off the push bike pedal and know that the context is quite difficult especially with the situation with injuries so what we're going to make sure that we sustain the pace that we'll be getting people into paid work and that leads the London living wage for the community wealth building piece I think it's a really interesting question because we're at quite a pivotal time when it comes to employment policy the national government is devolving a lot of employment to us through connect to work and we're being one of the few times we're being well funded to achieve those goals and we're also being ambitious we're A delivering ourselves B we're also applying to be a trailblazer nationally for the rollout of employment support for children or care leavers or care experienced young people I should say and we'll be doing that along with all the CLF boroughs which are all the central London boroughs so I think we're putting ourselves on the forefront when it comes to implementing the devolution of employment policy and taking the lead nationally as you'd expect from Council in terms of getting to the root of the question the next four years I think something we've been talking about a lot internally is whether or not just having one large employment number is kind of a good metric for judging our success so I think one of the things we talk about a lot within the employment service is this awful term called cream and park didn't invent it but what it means you kind of cream off the people that easiest to get into employment and then park those who are challenging often those who have neurodivergency English to the second language etc etc and you understand it and you have schemes like Ingeus which are very good at getting people directly into work who have good CVs no gaps lots of employment experience and then park the kind of people who are very distant from the workplace leaving it to us to pick up the pieces so I think there's a big discussion to have internally which I appreciate all your views about maybe moving away from one big number instead of having KPI's around like our big kind of targeting like okay the percentage of working class people be any people and into what sectors whilst I always wonder internally how effective is that because if I get a middle class person with a very good degree from one well paying job to another paying job you know amazing but at the same time how valuable is that compared to getting someone of caring experience young people who's been out of education most of their life into an apprenticeship into stable employment and I think how do we reflect that so I think that's the internal conversation I think when we come up to the next four years I think we'll hopefully see a bit of a change but yes we still want to deliver the immediate things that will still come with connect to work but I think internally we're having that big of a conversation quickly to add to that the other challenge we have is in work poverty so we have too many residents in jobs but frankly not very good jobs so a lot of the work which we already do and Council Bellbroke at this point we may want to sort of iterate our approach just to make sure we're focusing on both those who are unemployed and as colleagues will know we've got a very low decline rate of unemployment but that absolutely hides not only people in jobs but jobs that given the cost of housing and everything else we know about creates a huge cost of living problem so yes there's a load of things that we need to do to build on because we've had great success but we're not going to stop here thank you and my quick follow-up is on a safe place to call home so as a teacher I mark quite a few examples where I've given a grade of zero or a score of zero but at least there was some really good work that was done but just didn't quite meet the threshold but there was something to mark so I'm a bit concerned that if we go to the last page for the indicators there is quite a few gaps there is no data that's been entered and it's quite hard to make a judgment where there's nothing that's presented so I'm specifically referring to the 2024 and 2025 quarter two indicators for the number of homes for social rent granted planning permission and the number of new council homes started on site it's currently blank if you're good to know so in the period so this is for Q2 we've certainly completed some homes I'm not quite sure why it's blank or go and check there have been no consensus schemes during that period so that's three months but going back to the headline numbers there which I'm happy to share more detail we have been regularly completing homes over the last few months we've got about another three or four schemes to finish off in this calendar year and we'll have hit that target of 154 in this year and we have three planning applications submitted for the provincial budget centre for the South Benmonton scheme and for the Vorley Road scheme which will be coming to community which collectively deliver about 170 homes if they're consented so I think that's a factor of the periods and the way that we construct those but rest assured councillor we are absolutely on it both in terms of completing and getting new homes in the pipeline I'm going to take councillor Hayes councillor Pandor and then we will draw things to a close so councillor Hayes thank you very much and you correctly anticipated that I might have mentioned the 150 million figure for unclaimed benefits which is staggering and that's money as you have rightly said that people are entitled to that they are not getting and those will be people who are already facing the biggest barriers with cost of living or amongst the biggest barriers so brilliant to see that the IMAX team has exceeded targets and I especially wanted to welcome the proactive approach that's been taken on pension credit and attendance allowance because as I think Councillor Chairman said often people don't even know that it exists let alone that they could get it and I've certainly filled in attendance allowance forms and it's a lengthy task and it's hard for people so I think that's fantastic and my question around that was really bearing in mind the conversation we had earlier about the review is are we able to track how much we know that all of that money will be spent in the local economy because none of those people have offshore hedge funds that will all boost and if we could get 12 million is ambitious target over two years but I mean if we doubled it there would still be a loss of untrained income but that money would be supporting our local businesses and our local economy as well as improving the quality of life for people and hopefully achieving health benefits but some of that money will come directly back to the council because that would be people who then can pay their rent or the council tax or whatever are we able how difficult would it be to track how much of that money comes directly back because I think in any review you would want to go well if it cost us tax but 70% of that we get back then that's a relevant factor to be considered in looking at investment in the service and my other question related to the affordable workspace and again some really great data about the impact that's having but bearing in mind the comment that council bell Bradford's just made about the one area that there is kind of growth potential for is life sciences does that mean we need to review and again I think it's been brilliant Islington's policy of seeking affordable workspace through planning applications has clearly been very very successful does that need a review in the light of the changing market for types of workspace yes we could I think track that and as you said councillor Hayes yeah inevitably a number of people with sporting for example will be in social housing in the council's own stock as well so some of that will in a good way will be circular we can do that but I think again I suppose I just make the point about the gearing because you think about IMAX costs something in the order of four or five hundred thousand a year it generates twelve million pounds it's a bargain to use a technical phrase which is why we want to scale it so I suppose if there is a never say never but I think I just really want to be really clear about you know if there's a nervousness about it rest assured I and you know my fellows are soon to be crystal clear about that that benefit and that the business case if you like for investing so if that if there's a sort of underlying nervousness there shouldn't be could I just flag I don't require an out answer I'm conscious of the time but I'm very conscious that our voluntary sector partners that we fund also achieve very high levels of return for that investment and sometimes reach communities who for all sorts of reasons would not approach the council or would not be happy to talk to the council so I just I just think the overall level of benefit is huge and we should take that into account thank you I mean very quick I know we've got to move on but I should just point colleagues to the excitingly entitled DP11 but our long-term approach to poverty as I tell you're on so you know we're absolutely you know we're good at this but need to get better for all the reasons we talked about so watch this space but there will be you know a pretty significant both strategy and policy announcement later on the year about how we carry on moving on to strength and we will absolutely be doing that together and we'll welcome a whole bunch of reviews but I think maybe if I can ask everyone to watch the space but rest assured that will hopefully you know needs to be designed to carry on doing the job that we've started I'm very brief you chair just on the full workspace so you've read our minds council Hayes because we're just about to finish our review of our full workspace with an eye and kind of what we do next and I think part of that is that's stated by two things especially what you said to change in market conditions there's no point us having like a tenth co-working space and the co-working space industry is saturated we already run them ourselves and lots of our by nature of the policy lots of our spaces kind of in very similar locations I think part two is about the pipeline so I think roughly our current kind of square meterage of for the workspace is about 2,500 meters we've got a development that's the 99 city road is going to give us 3,000 square meters of office space in one place so entirety of our larger than the entirety of our entire for the workspace portfolio will be delivered on one side and we've got like five more in the pipeline so I think that's part of the review is understanding if we're going to have a huge amount more space they can't all be co-working spaces we have to be think of new ways of using them they've got to be dirty maker spaces lab spaces kind of working more collaboratively with other occupiers in the building so we've got that report coming I have to speak about it more once it's finished but I think in the next like month or so and we've already done one so one previously pretty bloody note Garrett Street which was an old brewery site which was diverting into a makerspace so to council at their brother's point we're diversifying the portfolio and we'll carry on between second thank you for your report it's very detailed I just want to go back to what councillor Jackson was saying about our apprenticeships so like what councillor Hayes was saying there's obviously communities that sometimes they can't reach and they don't trust the council services so that's why our BCS organisations are so important as I was reading the report obviously we know that our youth provision is going to go down which obviously is quite upsetting because these are our future but what I'm concerned about is are we reaching that what are we what is our outreach programme to get people that wouldn't normally come to us within our apprenticeships is there outreach programme going on I know we say hard to reach communities but they're not really that hard to reach we need to actually just be in the community so what work is effectively being done so that young people know about these apprenticeships because I've been speaking to lots of residents and they don't know anything about it so how can I how do I know about it so I can tell them I think the first thing to say is apprenticeships are just for young people and I think that's one of the big things we want to dispel it's people of all ages it's different grades and like I said a route for progression I think if you kind of look at CW5 and then ABCDE underneath that a piece of work I think actually you are I'm not sure if you are in ENR I can't remember from the top of my head but in ENR we had one of the things we did was a piece of work of City University where we just had one number of BAME residents supported into work and we did a piece of research with them working out okay who were the kind of those key communities that we need to speak to because it's one thing saying we support our BAME community but if we're reaching our Turkish and Kurdish community but not reaching our Bangladeshi community that's not reflected in numbers and you can't scrutinise that to back that research we now have these KPIs put in there which shows and obviously we've only had it for a year so we need to kind of build up that data but broken down by African, Caribbean, Turkish, Kurdish, Bangladeshi and other black populations and I think that speaks to that point is understanding that we needed to do more that it's easy sometimes to fall back in the communities you already have those links into or we have a VCS organisation that's well placed to kind of advertise those services I think through that I was starting to unpick that in some communities we're forming better and in others we're not while still meeting our target for getting people into employment in terms of young people we obviously have the youth employment centres one based on the Andover one at the West Library and I think actually part of that is again the outreach work which we do through across kind of a host of different teams we're also kind of putting more engaging events into sectors where people want to work like creative industries gaming life sciences things like that yeah thanks Councillor Pander I mean given time I'll just give you one example and you're absolutely right I completely agree we need to go out and there are a number of our communities that face whether it's supremacists skills acquisition getting jobs face more barriers and others so we need to actively deal with that yeah a good example and a very recent and successful one is working with our local Somali community particularly on the Andover and colleagues may or might not know we created a number of internships and that was absolutely brilliant and in many cases those in those cases young people help them get more work ready more apprenticeship ready as well with as everybody will know here a community that's you know faced too many tragedies over the last few years so that's a great practical example about how we've gone out to this day brought those young people into our organisation they spent some time with us and absolutely we know because they've told them that they've built up confidence built up their ability to go off and get an apprenticeship get a job that perhaps they haven't before so that's really I think a really good example of what we're trying to do to sort of answer your really good challenge about us going out it's all fantastic but I was just thinking maybe you could print a leaflet or something as well because there is people out there that don't actually use any services and if I have a couple of leaflets that I can give them to people and say that okay so I'm just looking at something simple like that because there is a lot of people that do not interact and I'm just concerned about those people just a simple leaflet okay well thank you both for coming in tonight and all the work that you've been doing as a directorate it's a new directorate still in a fairly embryonic phase but I think we're all very encouraged by the progress that is being made and I imagine we'll see you at our next meeting as we continue the scrutiny that next meeting will be on the 11th of March formally any items that anybody wants to raise around the forward plan the review tracker any verbal updates from committee chairs at all I don't see any so we will therefore conclude our meeting tonight just on the yes just to follow up on my previous point again I think it would be useful if there aren't any gaps in the data that we have presented so that we can actually ask questions on the data stands to reason where there is data we should have it sometimes the answer is there ain't no data so it can't be there but I think that point has been very properly made and we'll be taken on board and that brings an end to the meeting tonight thank you all for your contributions thank you thank you thank you welcome to the thank you thank you