Transcript

So good evening everyone and welcome to this evening's session of Overview and Scrutiny Committee. My name is Councillor Asma Aslam and I will be chairing this meeting. Can I remind everyone that this meeting is being filmed for public viewing on the Council's website. Those participating in the meeting will be included in the footage. If there are any technical issues, I will decide if and how the meeting should continue and after taking advice from officers. Members, just a quick reminder to turn your mic on when speaking. As a note, we have Pam Parks observing tonight's meeting. She is one of the government's envoy assistants. So she is just observing. So behave and treat this meeting as usual. Can members declare whether they have any DPIs? No. No DPIs. The minutes of our last meeting will be presented at February's Overview and Scrutiny Meeting for confirmation. The Action Log requests from the Budget Session have been included in the report which was submitted on the 24th of January and we have requested a response by the Executive on the 7th of February. So we will include the response at our next meeting. So our first item this evening will consider and scrutinise leisure insourcing. It is a six-month progress update. Leisure insourcing is a key priority to this Council's administration and encourages our residents to take up as part of managing their health and wellbeing. For this item, I would like to welcome Councillor Kamran Hussain, Cabinet Member for Culture and Recreation, Simon Baxter, Corporate Director of Communities, Johor Ali, Director of Culture. I would like to say that you can take the papers and report as read. Feel free to do your presentation. You've got up to 10 minutes. You don't have to take the 10 minutes. It gives more time for committee members to ask more questions. So thank you all. And Councillor Hussain, I'll start off with you. Thank you, Chair and members. I'm pleased to introduce this report, which provides an overview of the review conducted by BeWell Leisure Services. This review highlights the first six months of operations since the transition from GLL Better Leisure to BeWell. Covering the period from May to October 2024, the report outlines the key challenges, achievements and valuable lessons learned during this significant transition. The report, along with the presentation, we'll hear from the officers shortly, delves into the critical aspects of this journey. It addresses not only the hurdles and contact, but also the success that have shaped the new service. The report covers six core areas that have been central to services development over this period. Examining how we have managed resources effectively to support our goals, looking at strategies aimed at sustainable growth, reviewing how these services have been maintained and improved. Highlighting the work done to support our team through this transition. Reflecting on how services have been received by the community. Sharing insights and lessons that will guide us as we move forward. I encourage you to take note of these insights shared in this report and presentation, as they not only highlight what we have achieved, but also point out opportunities for further improvements and growth. I'll now hand over to our officers who present their findings in more detail. Thank you. Thank you, lead member. Can you all introduce yourself before you start? Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Simon Baxter, Corporal Director. I'm sure the team will introduce themselves. I just want to say that this has been quite an interesting journey for me, because when I came here about this time last year, we were 16 weeks away from insourcing leisure services. And to say it wasn't a challenge would be a lie. It was difficult. We weren't sure of how many people transferred, because GLL don't have to tell us until 24 hours before. And they weren't particularly engaging. And we've done a lot of work about infrastructure and the state of our assets. And it's been an incredible journey, certainly for me, to understand what we've taken on. I know the original report around best value was looking at leisure services and the insourcing. But previously, in January 22, a report was drafted, I think actually in the Winter Cabinet, identifying that there was a need for £23 million investment in the infrastructure of our leisure services. So, knowing that, I think it's a very bold decision to still insource it. And I think we've done incredibly well. I think the administration has grasped it in terms of the capital investment programme, which the team will talk about. But I think we should welcome this opportunity to discuss it with ONS and to be challenged on those things. But I'm incredibly proud of the work we have done so far. As I say, it hasn't been easy. But I think they've done well in the very short term. But that would be for members to decide, I'm sure. Thank you, Simon. Thank you, lead member. Okay. I'm just going to take you through a few slides, but it's just summarising... Oh, sorry. Simon Jones, Head of Leisure Operations. Thank you. Thank you. Are you planning to go through the entire slides? Yes. We're going to take it as read, if that's okay. Okay. Members have not indicated to me. Unless there's new information you'd like to bring to the committee, you're more than welcome to. Okay. So, if I just... Is it okay if I just run through the slides I've got in front of me? Is that okay? Thank you. Yes. So, as the lead member said, we're going to run... Just... I'm going to talk through six key areas, really. One is the finance and resource management for the first six months, which takes us from the 1st of May up until the end of October. The commercial plan for growth, service delivery, HR and staffing, customer and stakeholder feedback, challenges and learning from the first six months. So, in terms of membership and income, when we started in May, we had a brand new leisure management system in place, which was completely different than the system which had been through GLL previously. So, the data which was given to us was all of the members. So, there's a lot of work in terms of building the new leisure management system. When we started, we had 9,380 people, residents, members who transferred across. By October, that figure was 26,888, of which 16,000 has come directly through the Free Swimming Initiative, but it still shows you the growth of the number of people with the new Be Well card in their pockets, which is 26,000 as of October. The gender split in Q1, when we first started the service, was 47% females, and then by quarter two, that was then 71%. So, by October, that had increased from 47 to 71%. Again, it was through the Free Swimming Initiative and the marketing strategy we sat alongside that. So, significant impact in terms of the gender split. In terms of the income, May was £670,000 of income, which was generated in October. The figure was £730,000 for the month, which was a 7% increase. In terms of social value for some of the work which we've been doing, there's lots of health and wellbeing initiatives put in place. But with regards to the Free Swimming Programme itself, we've developed a piece of software which plugs into the leisure management system, which was developed by Sheffield Hallam University. And it's also supported independently by Sport England and various governing bodies. And the report which came back through that piece of software was £224,000 in terms of social value and return on investment from that Free Swimming Initiative. In terms of the public health projects which we've implemented, these are things we were very keen as a service to pilot during the first year. So, it's something which GLL did on a limited basis, but this has given us the opportunity. So, various projects we've introduced as the diabetes pilot project for type 2. We also have a cardio rehab co-location project, which is also up and running in conjunction with BARTs. The Free Swimming Initiative, Youth Justice and Leaving Care Pilot, where we've got 50 young people accessing the facilities, working in partnership with Youth Justice. We also have a leisure programme for learning disabilities. And we have a designated public health manager for B-Well programme, which is driving some of these initiatives forward. So, we've done a lot of work during that initial first six months to build upon. Finance and Resource Management. 24-25, we opened in May, so it was 11 months as opposed to 12 months. The net budget, including the PFI unitary charge for Poplar, was a net budget of 4.378. The forecast currently for end of year is 5.389, which is a net variance of 1.011.308. I'd also like to bring some attention to, we had some significant challenges and one-off pressures during the first year. One of them being the spa at York Hall. When we opened the buildings and we launched, there was significant refurbishment work, which was required for the spa at York Hall. And that's impacted the income this year by 595,000. The business rates, pressure of 514,000. And we incurred costs for, security costs for St. George's, of 125,000. So, the total one-off pressures from this first year is 1.234. Sorry, you've got one more minute if you want to... Okay. Sorry, we've got a commercial plan in place, which covers four key areas. One being the retention and the membership growth, swim school growth, the women's only areas of the service. Service delivery, we've invested and we've successfully secured 2.5 million in terms of new investments into facilities. So, it's new gyms and refurbishment of the programs, which will also bring a return on investment. And we developed a comprehensive commercial health and well-being plans as it takes us towards business as usual. And the target operating model from April 1st. The last point I'd like to reference, if that's okay, is the whole council approach. So, prior to going live and also during the first six months, there was tremendous support from the different departments and services in the council, from HR, public health, procurement, legal, finance, assets. We would meet on a stand-up weekly, and we continue to do so, to drive the project forward. And the last one is, in terms of the main challenges from this, was the 2P and the onboarding of staff. So, that was the data which we'd be given from GLL. We had to work with to get the staff across the line really quickly. The quality of the assets and the technology as well. The challenge of building a brand new leisure management system and bringing a new app into the program. And then, the last point is, the best way to, with the next steps, is the best way to invest in the current leisure assets, focusing on the highest priorities, expansion of the health initiatives and well-being, making a difference to residents. Complete the commercial plan strategy and redesign the service as the target operating model, so it covers the priorities of Tower Hamlets and residents. Thank you. Thank you, Simon. As I have not heard, the director, Johor Ali, so I'm going to start off with the first question for you, and then I'll take it to members. We hear a lot about the social values of Be Well Tower Hamlets. Can you tell me how you're able to achieve those social values, balancing it off with a really good business model? How does that work? So, I think, if you look at the growth in membership, that's what drives any business. Initially, we started off with 9,380. We're up to 26,000. Now, of the 26,000, 16,000 people are from the free swimming program. So, although the free swimming program doesn't give us any money through the tills, the social value calculator that's used by Sheffield Hallam and 4 Global, that shows the impact of people's health and well-being, the bigger, wider impact that we can have. That is one of the values of insourcing compared to if you're a commercial operator, you just look at what money comes through the till. We can look at a holistic approach for our residents and look at what the impact that we make. Just to let members of this panel know, the NHS has an evaluation tool from NIHR. And we have to bid to get this detailed evaluation. The value of that evaluation costs over £100,000. So, we put a bid in to get an evaluation done on the service, an external evaluation. So, we were successful with that bid. We will have an independent evaluation of the social value impact on health and well-being over the next six months. And we'll bring that report back to you. So, we do want to make sure that the impact that we're making isn't just through the tills and monetary value, but it's also the impact to residents. The financial model that was agreed when we were in source was that we will become a profitable business by year four. So, we are on track for that. But on top of that, we're having that impact for local residents. Thank you. And you're right. This is coming back to committee in six months. So, this is one we're going to be reviewing over time. Who wants to go first? Can you put your hands up? Okay. I'm going to take Halima first. James next, please. Do two at a time. So, Halima. Thank you, Chair. Having looked at the report, sorry, I've got terrible handwriting. I can't even read my own handwriting now. It mentions that there was increased recruitment pressures due to staffing remaining with GLL. Have we overcome that pressure? And also, there's something around the female lifeguards. Last, I saw that there was some training that's taken place. Can you confirm that those posts are filled? Because the kind of feedback I've been getting from friends and, you know, family. Should we take another? If it's okay, can we take another one? James? Yeah, mine was on a similar theme. Sorry, I can't find it in the report. I think it's 27.2. 27.2. Okay, so that's two questions. Okay, I'm just going to say, what is the process for hiring them and making sure that they are well qualified, ideally local people, for a long time as well? Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I just introduced myself. I'm Keith Townsend. I'm the Programme Director for Leisure. I joined in April to help the insourcing to go through and support the transition into business as usual. If I may, I'll start with the first question, then Simon will pick up on the second question. The first one was about recruitment pressures. Yes, we did experience recruitment pressures at the beginning of the process. And that's due to how many people choose to transfer from GLL into the council. There is a 30-day period where we'll receive what is called an ELI list. That's an employee liability list of all of the people coming over to us. And that data wasn't quite as robust as we would have liked it to have been, so we had to do a lot of clarity with GLL. And, of course, individuals working for GLL do have a choice to be effectively redeployed within GLL as an organisation. And they have vacancies and services. They operate throughout London. That was a challenge, but we preempted that was going to happen. So we worked with a specialist leisure recruitment company that can provide temporary and agency staff because we knew that would be a backup plan for us. In addition, we met, we had open days with all of the staff who were invited to come and speak to us so that we could encourage them to join the council because we thought that was an opportunity to say, actually, we think this would be a great opportunity for you to minimise that risk. So, actually, on day one, 241 individuals did transfer. So we did manage to manage many of those gaps, but we have that backup plan in place through the specialist leisure agency to help us plug the gaps in the initial few weeks and months when we transferred the service. So that's the first part on the female lifeguards and the other two specific recruitment questions. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we did have an issue. When we first launched, we weren't expecting 16,000 to actually sign up for the free swimming. So in advance, we knew it was going to be popular. So we ran two female-only lifeguard courses, which was run by females and just for the females. As we've grown the service and more numbers, we've had one since, and then we've another one planned for February. So we've got two lifeguard courses happening in February as another one. So we're monitoring that all the time. We are conscious that we need more female lifeguards to come on board. So we're constantly updating that as we go, as we grow the numbers. Thank you. So the next two questions. Yeah, go on. If it's on this question. If it's on this question. So the feedback I've been receiving is that people are obviously being turned away because there's no female lifeguards. They're not also getting their refunds. They have to go through a process. So that's become a challenge for some of our residents. More so, I think, the feedback is also that they're so oversubscribed to some of these sessions that people are not attending. So just some feedback. To support the understanding of the committee. So obviously we know corporate director and your service head. For leisure, Miss Ellie. Director. And so how do your roles work within this room? It's so we're able to understand who's able to best answer our questions. So Simon Jones is the head of service. Keith came in as a specialist program director to help with the insourcing. It's a one-year project to make sure that as we transition, we have the additional capacity to make sure the service is insourced well. And I have the overall long-term day-to-day responsibility to make sure the service is delivered within my division. And when it comes to HR staffing, would that be something that will be joint amongst all of you to work on together? So normally the head of service would look at the staff needs and work with HR colleagues. For the insourcing, we have a specialist HR team supporting us. And so they're helping with the transition. But after March, when that stops, that would be part of business as usual. So if there's any recruitment needs, Simon and the team would identify the gaps. They would then put a business case forward to myself and it would go to reorganisation board and we'll look at how we deliver a service that's fit for the future. Thank you, thank you, that's very clear. So Councillor Natalie and then Councillor Munna, you're next. Thanks Chair, thank you for the presentation. So broadly, I guess, I appreciate the honesty in your presentation because I think it's, as you say, I think there have been some challenges with the financial side and clearly with the recruitment side as well. So I was also, yeah, we appreciate that. I have some concerns from the very beginning of the process. I had some people contacting me and I will just mention them just as, like, individual cases. They have been resolved, but I just want to kind of get your feedback. So one of them was an issue with accessibility. So I had a deaf resident who was only able to contact the team in a way that absolutely wasn't accessible for her. So I just want to understand how you process accessibility contacts going forward. And then the second question is around tech. So one resident actually wasn't able to make the website work and had lots of problems also getting in touch with the team and getting responses from officers. And eventually they've actually moved to the swimming pool and the Olympic pool in Stratford. So they've not gone back to be well. And finally, I just want to mention, so I sit on the corporate parenting board. And as a corporate parent, I'm always looking out for opportunities for our care experienced young people. And I wondered if you've thought at all about creating spaces and apprenticeships and positions for specifically for our care experienced young people. I'm going to let you take this one because there's a few questions there. OK, there's a lot in the accessibility aspect of that. There's a number of elements that we're looking at. One thing we are very keen to do, we now have the contact centre up and running. That's part of the service. That's dedicated so that we can take incoming calls. One clear part of our customer experience plan is to make sure that there is consistent customer experience, irrespective of which way you choose to contact us. We that over the phone, be it digital, which we know there are some challenges with around functionality of the app. It's not exactly been where we wanted it. We've improved some glitches. It's not as quite navigable as we would like it to be. And we have some plans of how we're going to change that. But similarly, the face-to-face experience needs to be really, really positive as well. So we think it's important that we get the consistency right. So we are looking to strengthen that customer service component within the service so we can improve it and be more responsive to it. Recognising there were some challenges at the beginning and we think we have managed those levels down considerably and we are handling them much more effectively. We do need to strengthen that team and we have plans afoot that we are just finalising to make some organisational changes within the service so it meets the needs of our customers now rather than what we inherited. So that's really important and absolutely recognising that digital is not accessible to everybody. To be fair, under GLL, digital was the only way you could very often speak to people and we don't think that's right. So we want to strengthen our front line and the experience you get face-to-face. I would say this is something that's really important to us. So we just recently are commissioning a follow-up disability access audit because there's some physical challenges that we need to still work through. And that I don't think we've quite kept pace with some of the standards that we would like to. So we're looking at opportunities to improve and get in front of that and that audit process is underway. So I think that will help us. But that's not just physical, that's other thing, that's cognitive disability challenges as well. So I think it's something that we've very much identified, both physically and in terms of that customary interface, recognising some vulnerable residents do struggle with digital access. I'm sure Juhu would like to comment on apprenticeships. Yeah, just on apprenticeships. So as we go forward, initially we inherited staff and a structure and we're now looking at the resident first approach and looking at how do we meet the needs. We have the vacancies that we're looking to fill and apprenticeship is one of the routes that we're looking at, not just only for the fitness instructors and the lifeguards. We're also looking at a couple of level six apprenticeships in a senior role in terms of facility management and also business manager roles to give people at the higher end the opportunity to come on board as an apprentice, develop themselves, develop themselves, get qualified and then learn the business and continue their journey. So we're looking at apprenticeships on two levels, the initial entry level of fitness instructors, rec assistants, lifeguards, but also at the higher end. So those 27 full-time roles that we have, many of those roles we're working with WorkPath and other agencies to try and recruit through apprenticeships programs. Yeah, just to, I would really recommend you to make specific roles for care experienced young people, if you can, within, within the recruitment process. Jessar, I forgot to mention in, in my answer about disability. There was a scrutiny review by Health and Adult Social Services Committee around, specifically around disability access in its broadest sense for leisure, of which there is a comprehensive action plan that was produced that's been through due process and we're working through that in the broadest sense. I think I did cover the broad angles, but I forgot to mention the connection with scrutiny, so apologies, Chair. No, great, I'll have a look at that. Thank you. There's six recommendations on there as well, which we're working through as a team, which is quite comprehensive, so I'm happy to share that as well. Thank you, that's really helpful. And on that point, can I just add, the way we promote Be Well is also important to be exclusive in some of the pictures, just be mindful that you are actually promoting those with disability and that helps encourage them to actually want to attend and take up the services. I'm going to take two, come back to two more. So Councillor Manan, I'm sorry, you've been waiting, and then I'll take Councillor Belalute. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I think you very much answered my first question. How close are you to fulfil this vacant, and what would be the, you're thinking of filling those vacant posts? So at least we have a full service running. Secondly is, my colleague mentioned, over-subscribe on air once since we've put a woman's swimming free. We know it's a winter month, but when it comes to summer, we'll be literally queuing up every single centre for an hour and a half, which we've seen it happen before, free swimming. Now we've got free swimming. What are we going to do about it? How are we going to manage this game? Very important. And the third question is, I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask that question or not. I have met with the doctor forum, Tara Hamlet, and coincidentally, when they found out the free swimming pool was given by the mayor, they suggested that can we incorporate that into the physiotherapy. Because the doctor's run of physiotherapy, because the doctor's run of physiotherapy in Marlins Hospital, they were saying they're happy to bring that into the leisure centre of their own course, if it is okay, because that way a lot of disability people are able to do swimming with the feasibility. So, I'm not sure if it's the right place to ask the question or not, but something to consider, because they came up with the ideas from the GPs. So, those are my three questions. So, there's quite a lot there. I'm going to let you take that one. Chair, if I may, can I just answer regarding your question about the over-subscribe. It's the good news, to be honest. It's very popular, and we understand the needs of our residents. So, it's very popular, we listen to the residents, we know there's every single leisure centre, people are waiting to get a space, so what we are doing, we have adjusted the booking method, so only people who have proved their eligibility can book online and increase the spaces, the scheme from January by 100 more sessions per week. Also, there is a huge demand of the women's only session, that's why we are recruiting more lifeguard, women only lifeguard, and from February, we have been a training session, we are about to give some training session and recruiting more lifeguards. And what the councillor James King asked before about the local people, and this is our motto as well, we have requested the officers to drive on the comms as well, to get more local people to involve, and we need the councillor members here, your help as well, to let people know, on February, we are training women only lifeguard, local people are more than welcome. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair, thank you very much. I've got two questions. My first question to you, how have you grown the membership number of the laser centre, and how did you achieve the number one? And my second question is, free swimming for the men, so far as I know, starting from 7am to 9am, because our people are very lazy, no one can go, it's possible for an extension for them until 12 o'clock. Thank you. Thank you. You mean we need to find different ways to encourage everyone to utilise some of the leisure services that are available. Councillor Khan, do you want to come in with your question? Thank you, Chair. It's put on. Sorry. My question is, how are you working with community gyms such as Ability Bowl who support the people with disability and long-term health conditions? Second question, part of this question is, what have you learned from your engagement with them? And my second question is, as previously I was a Chair of Health and Adler Subcommittee, and I visited a few leisure centres to see the disabled people accessibility, and I see some of the leisure centres doesn't have adequate disabled people accessibility. So what have you done about this? I would be very happy if you could answer those questions. Thank you. You've got two sets of questions. If I start and then I'll let colleagues come in. In terms of the free swimming for men, the men sessions are, when you have the free membership card, you can go to any session apart from the women's only. So you're not restricted just to the morning. You can go, the men can go to any open session. The only session they're not allowed to go to is the women's only session. So you have a choice and flexibility to go any time, because obviously the women's sessions are set hours. The majority of the day, they're welcome to attend. Hopefully that will encourage everyone to attend more. Ability Bowl, they were one of our strategic partners. We're working very closely with them. As part of this process, they applied to the Health Equity Fund run by Legal and General. And we provided a letter of support to try and get them some external additional funding so they could do more programs with the council. So we have been supporting them. We've been taking their suggestions on board and they've been helping with the disability action working group that Simon has been leading on to make sure we're making those changes. I think in terms of the membership growth, we know it's from the swimming, but I'll let Simon come in. Yeah, I think the membership point is how we're continuing to grow the membership. Obviously, we've grown the membership significantly in the figures that we showed before, and that's through the free swimming program, and we want to maintain that. But there are a number of initiatives through some of the investment that was referred to in the presentation. So some of the improvements that we're bringing into the facilities predicated alongside, though, that investment very often was an expectation that would increase growth because that would attract members. So for example, we are expecting that the new women's only gym at Poplar will be a really important facility for us, utilising disuse space on the ground floor of the cafe that's been closed for many years. So that's going to create a really good quality facility, and we have a very high level of confidence that that will bring in additional memberships year on year into the facility because that will be a unique new offer. In addition to that program that Simon referred to in the presentation, we're bringing on new health spa and sauna and steam room facilities at Tiller Leisure Centre and also at Poplar Baths as well. So we think that, again, that's an opportunity to encourage more memberships, and we've modelled some modest numbers about how we think that will attract more members with a wider package of services supplementing the work we've done. But I think it's also important that through the new and improved customer services offer that we're bringing on stream now, we want to be proactive in terms of when customers say that they want to leave, always be some customers want to leave, leaving the borough, we want to be actually speaking to those customers to understand why and see if there are opportunities to reduce the level of attrition. Our leaving numbers are relatively low, but the more we retain, the more we actually keep membership up and we can encourage more things to happen. And also further flexibility in what we can offer as the service develops as the investment comes on stream. So there's a number of measures, so we do have confidence driven by the commercial plan that that will help memberships and therefore participation in physical activity. We do have time for another round, so I promise you, you'll get your chance. So on the list now, so Councillor Mohamed, then Councillor Chaudhry, and then I'll do Councillor Lee and Councillor Ahmed, and then Zaid by you too. So everyone's on the list. Great. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation. I think it's to be commended that there's 187% membership growth. I think it's really important. It's fantastic to see. I want to get into it a bit more in terms of that growth. I think in the presentation you've given and in the report, it talks about some of the challenges, so some of the ageing centres. So we need to look at York Hall, for example, as seeing somewhere that's an older asset. With that kind of level of growth, it would be really helpful to understand how we're ensuring the quality of service. So I think you've spoken about we've got a low level of people leaving, which is great to hear. But how do we keep people at our centres in a city which is incredibly competitive for leisure facilities and prices that are much cheaper than the services that we offer? And I think it would be helpful to understand that. Do we do stress testing in terms of the capacity of our centres? Because that level of growth quite quickly, I think, would put strain on any centre or any, you know, set of centres. So understanding if we do that stress testing facilities, but also how we monitor the quality of service. So is it as crude as looking at how many complaints and compliments we get? Or do we do an annual survey, which has a baseline for us? And I think given that we're so new into this service, it's helpful to understand and have that baseline. So when you come back this time next year, we can have a conversation of if it's got better, fantastic. If it hasn't, then the challenge is why hasn't we got better? Mohammed's questions. Okay, there are a number of factors that I'll bring into that. In terms, do we have confidence around and stress testing capacity? Yes, we do think there is capacity within the facilities we've got. That's both using sort of local intelligence from mainly the managers and the staff that we took from GLL. They knew history and they knew operating hours and they knew a huge amount of what capacity. So we do think there is capacity. But I think what is going to be quite important is we need to adapt the offer as time goes on and effectively be savvy about what's going on in the market. So we're developing as part of the commercial plan some changes that we need to make. I think probably more importantly going back to your question is what is our methods of understanding what customers are telling us? Complaints, yes, but that's only one anecdote. It's only one part of the process. We've now got automated feedback that can be used through apps and people can give us real-time information that we can respond to really quickly. We've also actually annual resident survey data of overall perceptions of non-users and users. And that helps us to inform and I think guide where we might want to think about improvements. We have undertaken surveys previously and we're very keen to get that ongoing resident feedback to help tailor and shape the service as we go forward. So all of that in combination I think is a mix of approaches that we're taking to get anecdotal, factual and feedback as it happens. So that we know, help inform how we think we need to enhance the customer offer in centres. That was an area that I don't think we felt that GLL were focusing enough time or capacity in place to enable that customer experience to be really positive. And therefore that welcome, particularly encouraging new customers into the business, I think is really, really important. So a breadth of measures and we're obviously keen to monitor that through our performance metrics as well. Just one follow-up to that. So I think that's really helpful in a competitive answer. I think, I'm hoping there is more sophisticated metrics on understanding of stress testing and managers. Because I think going from 9,000 to 26,000, I've got a 187% increase. I think that's quite anecdotal. So I'm hoping there is other ways that you're capturing that. That's more than just that anecdotal evidence. Yes, I think we have. So I'll bring Simon in to talk about crest accreditation. But that growth in membership was largely around pool space. So we very, very carefully modelled when the free swimming programme was introduced. That was based on capacity that we knew existed if I had 37,700 spaces that we could accommodate. And so we knew exactly what capacity we were able to offer. So that was using data and analysis. And we're very, very closely tracking that data to make sure that we understand how much take-up of those free swimming sessions are. And adapting the programme as we go in terms of times and levels of operation. So that we can mend it and improve it and release further capacity. So we very much are data-driven in year one rather than anecdote. But we do respect knowledge and experience of the services about what they as well. Because I think that gives us a better holistic view of what's happening and what we need to do to change. Do you want to do that? Yeah, I was just going to say, as Keith mentioned, we are data-driven. And we, as a management team, we have a dashboard which we look at. Well, we look at it weekly. So the leisure management system that we've got is really advanced. Technology has really moved on. So that gives us some really strong data. So as a team, we kind of look at trends. In terms of the customer feedback, these things we've introduced which we can get information really quickly. So they can scan or give information to the receptionist. And we can pull that information in and make changes quite quickly as we go. In terms of one of the key differences, when you walked into a GLL facility previously, their model was to push people to the website to have a look at the various membership options. What we are now moving towards is actually coming to the facility, come and have a look round, take a seat. This is the different options for you. We're considering the fact that, particularly with the app and how the app develops, can we communicate in different languages? We've got the ability for the app to do lots of things in terms of push notifications. If it's one of the targeted schemes, we can communicate in slightly different ways. So there's new technologies which we're embracing and pulling all of those things together as a management team to constantly change and update as we go. And React, it's all about reacting as well. And the leisure industry in terms of what people want, it's really important to listen and also benchmark. So we have a, it's called Quest, which is basically, the Quest is independent. And they will come into each site once a year independently, review all of the services they offer, they want to see evidence, and then you get a score essentially. So you can benchmark yourself against other local authorities and kind of wider nationally as well. Thank you. On performance recording, to talk about cleansiness and all that, and what, if you can keep that going for the lifetime of the service, what that means is you're able to capture trends, you're able to capture if it's a problem with a specific site. What you talk about is quite broad standards, then I think we probably need to look at specific ways of doing them. And I know we, as a council, we've done this. I think the residence hub includes these tablets, so we should be able to do that quite easily, quite quickly. Thank you. So the next set of questions, Councillor Chowdhury, and then I'll go to Councillor Lee. Thank you, Chair. Good evening. Thank you for the presentation. My question is slightly different. Apart from obviously a free swimming pool provided for the ladies from young age, is there anything else that you are providing for the female to take part in any other activities of leisure? And one more thing. I think one of my colleagues mentioned men who are over 55. If you could provide some data on that. Did you see any data on that? If you could provide that. It's very important, especially to me, and a lot of people I see in sports. And yes, that's it really. And it was nice to see the figures. Extremely helpful. Yeah. Very, very positive indeed. Thank you. We've got two questions here. Amy, do you want to come in? Do you want to take these two while they may prepare? Chair, if I may, just want to answer about the male numbers. We have, from the free swimming, I think 1,727 males have joined. Have they used this? Yeah. And in terms of service provision, obviously the free swimming is the start. We're developing some classes to give confidence because not everyone is confident in using water. So that's another initiative as part of the free swimming offer. And we're developing a crash option so people who have small children have a reason and have people who are trained to look after their children while they take advantage of the offer. Everything can't be free because, at the end of the day, we do need to generate income and we need to get to a position where there are improvements. There is some external funding that's coming to Tower Hamlets. We should have a plan being developed very soon in partnership with the community sector and London Sport. Sport England has chosen Tower Hamlets as one of three boroughs in London for a place-based partnership expansion. So it's Tower Hamlets, Barking and Dagenham and Brent. This will see significant investment that will allow us to offer more programs across the borough in parks, open spaces and leisure centers. So that program is not a council program. It's a partnership approach where we work with the voluntary sector. We have London Sport and the Council. And that will be a way to try and deliver more initiatives over the next three years. So that's something that's just been announced two weeks ago. We're still scoping that out. And as we move forward, we'll bring more programs to you. Want to update us in six months' time? Yeah, I was just going to expand on the women and girls program. So one of the things, we want to be trailblazers, so we want to try new things. We want to really engage and get the feedback. So we ran an event at Tiller Leisure Center, which was for women and girls only. And it was operated by all the staff of women and girls for that particular event. Real big success. The staff who were down there and the team, we used it as an engagement. So that was an opportunity to build on the free swimming, listen, understand. If we're going to build services, it's important that we listen and understand what those services need to be. So we've taken a lot of information from that. And it's very much part of the planning as we move towards the business as usual going forward and the commercial strategy. To follow up, obviously for the men, free swimming is 55. If there's a possibility to make it 50, a lot of people will be grateful. Thank you. It's never going to end and it's just going to be. Right, Councillor Lee. Thank you. I have like five questions, so I'm just trying to decide which one to ask. Probably more than that. I'm going to go with staffing first. So just two quick things. Something in there about agency staff transitioning to casual roles. Can you just tell me what your definition of casual is? And whether that involves any zero hours contracts? And my second question is on what you put under staffing and harmonising. And you've put a lot of points to learn from in there. The thing that stood out to me was early and transparent union engagement. And there's something in the presentation as well about a comms plan. It seems like this didn't go as smoothly as it could have done. Trade union engagement. And we think we know anecdotally there were some issues and you've talked about recruitment matters. And some people who didn't want to come over. So I'm just wondering why that perhaps didn't go as smoothly as it could have done. I think the basic, a basic thing is a comms plan. It's pretty simple. It's pretty basic industrial relations. So I'm just wondering what happened there. And how do we plan to address this going forward? I'll start with engagement at trade unions shall I? Actually that's been really quite a positive impact. We've had a monthly trade union forum with all the three main trade unions to discuss all of the issues. And I have to say they've been working very supportively with us and challenged us at the same time as well around key things that they want to see us do. They've raised issues. They've increased membership which we have facilitated to happen. Because we think that's good employee relations and good trade union relations. So I think I have to say I would comment, you can get a view from obviously the trade unions, that that's been a positive development and a positive relationship as part of the transition with them. And they've managed to raise issues that their members have raised with them from HR issues that hadn't been resolved by GLL that we inherited. And we've systematically worked through those as a series of particular issues that we inherited, which was our responsibility to do so working with trade union colleagues. So I think I would say my position on that has been relatively positive as critical friends. I would describe them and I think they would describe themselves as that as well. Can I just ask them, so why is a learning point to have early and transparent engagement with unions? Surely if that's a learning point it means it didn't happen in the way that you perhaps thought it would. If it was so positive what do we have to learn is my question. Because I'm just reading it off your report. I think it's just a, if I may say so, it's just a reiteration that the earliest possible engagement and we think we did have that. So for example, on the launch day at your call, we invited all of the trade unions to have a stall promote themselves and they did. And they participated on day one of the transition at your call, which was a really, really big celebration, loads of presentations, loads of engagement. So it's just re-emphasising that that earliest possible engagement. We learnt that we think we got that reasonably well right. Whether we got it perfect, I would never say we did. But I think we worked incredibly hard to do that. Can I also add to that Councillor that I met with the branch secretaries last week. One of the things that came up from that was that the previous leisure staff was told don't join the union. And if you do, you could be in trouble. And I was quite clear about that to the branch secretaries. That is not this place. We are not GLL and we encourage union membership and to have open conversations that helps us all. So, you know, we are committed to that. I had another question about the casual element. But I'd also, just to come back, I'd say give yourself more credit in this document then. Because it does come across like there are issues. And if that, sounds good. So, toot your own horn. Give yourself some credit. Sounds good. Thank you, Councillor Lee. For this round, two more. Casual. Casual. Thank you. What we are doing is transitioning. I mentioned that we had that backup plan at the beginning where we used an agency really quickly. What we are doing now as part of the change is we want to transition all staff to be our staff. Be they on permanent full-time or part-time or casual contracts. The leisure operation, be it insourced or be it run by third parties, relies on casual staff because of demands and peaks and troughs in demands. So, we employ, for example, a lot of students from the university who like the opportunities to do casual work. Particularly in the fitness area where they'll run particular classes. But the hours will vary from time to time. We obviously want to absolutely minimize the use of agency staff because they are a premium cost. And so, we are really committed to doing more in-house services. So, we are doing the same into an in-house service operation using casual contracts in order to do that. So, that is the plan because we think that is the right way to do it because we are in control. And then we can work with all of the other parts of the organization that can help us find pathways of local people. And we held a jobs fair right at the beginning of the process, which the lead member was part of and all officers were part of. A council-wide thing to say, there are leisure opportunities, who is interested? It does enable us when we have got a breadth of opportunities going out to market. We can actually go out to local people and say, you are on the list, interested, are you still? This role is becoming available, please sign up. So, that we are keeping the economy of Tower Hamlets involved in that process as well, which is the right thing to do for all sorts of reasons. So, Councillor, you mentioned about zero-hour contract. No, it is not a zero-hour contract. It is better than GLL contract. So, it is going to be, you mentioned the casual is a zero-hour contract. It is not. It is not. It is not. So, sorry, could somebody just confirm that to me? Are they zero-hour contracts or not? No. It is not a zero-hour contract. No. It is not a zero-hour contract. No. Yes. Right. So, last two speakers. Councillor, for the first round. I know you are all eager beaver. First, Councillor Ahmed and then Mr. Ahmed after that. Thank you, Chair. I've got a few short questions. First of all, I just want to find out, it says here, since 1st of May, 70% of the new members are female against the same, 49.2% are, sorry, yeah, are, what is it, yeah, 49.2%. Why is there 70% of the members are female? Is there any decrease in males' attendance or membership? Or is, yes, I know we've got green light women's point of view, but what about the men's showing the quite low passengers? That's one question. Secondly, what is the comparison to the GLL in terms of this figure? Shall I just put them all together, yeah? And then I also want to now, remember, you mentioned before, the meeting was mentioned about the extra staffing. Is extra staffing, is it due to the increase of the users or is just one of the, because we've just taken over from GLL, or it is to do with the increased users? That's, I've got one more question, is all the services, are all the services fully operational within the town, all the sports centres and leisure activities. Namely, I had a complaint of York Hall, there was some issues that the people aren't getting their services reopened or been closed for a while, so is there anything that you could lighten that, please? Thank you. Yeah, what's happening with the offer for men? Thank you, Jack. If I may answer the first question about the increase in women numbers. So, Tawahemblis is one of the deprived borough, and our women's data suggests healthy nucleotides in our pain, women especially, are very high. So, our motto was to promote, promote more women to come and join, do physical activities. So, when GLL was, there was a, there was, they supposed to have a target of 49% of women, but they was 47%. But when we got it, we have managed to get the percentage, not only the target, 49%, we managed to go on quarter two, 71% of female participants, and if you go to quarter three, I think it's 72, 75%. And you said, if the male is going to reduce, no, it's not an introduction of the male services, it's about the increase the women, to get more women to get into activities. Thank you. So, just to explain the numbers, because the base was 9,380, when you have 14,363 more women, that's where the number jumps, but we also increased 1,727 men as well. So, the overall numbers have gone up, but because there's a huge increase in female numbers, that's why that statistic has gone up. And the reason why we're talking about that statistic is one of the key performance indicators that our department reports on. That's why that's specifically been used. But we do monitor overall usage of the service, how many total numbers that we have, where they're from, which parts of the borough. The Gladstone system that we have allows us to really dig deep into ethnicity, postcode, and we're also trying to get more data to see people who are council tax claimants, to see if there's any other things that we can offer. So, there is a piece of work that we're doing with colleagues in resources to try and bring that together. And just the final point on, are all of the services operational? Yes, they are. The exception that you might have heard around, might have been around York Hall Spa, that's closed for refurbishment, and that refurbishment project's due to complete imminently. But that hasn't been available since we transferred. So, we've been doing that refurbishment programme. Maybe that's what you've been made aware of. But that's the main one. Thank you. You had a follow-up? Oh, increasing of staffing. Yes, we're increasing staffing, twofold really, both users and capacity. But actually, the key thing is, actually, one thing we recognised, and one thing we identified when the service transferred in, is actually there were quite a lot of vacancies within the GLL operation, and they've been running at a lower level of service. And that wasn't going to be sustainable, to provide a good quality frontline service offer that met our opening hours and met our requirements. And so, that has largely driven why we think that our frontline staff need to increase. Sorry, just a final question would be, is there any plan of increasing any services in future? Do you think there is a demand that you're likely to address something for future? Do you mean more initiatives within the service? Yes. More projects within the service? Yes. Any plan in the future? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, leisure is fast moving, and things change, and fads change. So, we need to be on top of that. So, certainly, Sean, who's the commercial manager for the service, we developed quite a comprehensive commercial strategy, or commercial plan, which looks at all the different areas where we can bring in revenue. As a team, we've worked with the GMs on site, and we came up with some really creative ideas. And what we want to be able to do, where the business model previously was driven by head office. So, it would be, it was in and around growing memberships, and it was all, you know, this is the posters from head office that you need to put up. And this is, what we want to be able to do is empower those GMs to be creative, understand, go and talk to their communities, go and talk to their customers who are coming through, and empower them to kind of come up with their own skills, because they know what is going to work. So, and what we want to be able to do as a management team is support them. So, absolutely, we want to be creative, we want to try new things, and be trailblazers, such as the Women Takeover, a tiller event. We want to do more of those kind of things. We want to do a similar project for men only, you know, men over 50, potentially. We want to be able to run a whole kind of weekend or a day where we're bringing activities in, and getting the feedback, and again, building services as well for that. So, absolutely, we want to be listening and developing. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, can I just add something? Yes, we are doing something extra as well. We're listening from the residents, and we are doing a pilot in Whitechapel Centre to increase the opening hour for, at this moment is, I think, 10 o'clock, so it's going to be 12 o'clock, and it's going to be coming very soon. Thank you. Your turn, Jen. Finally, thank you. Thank you, Jen. I told you, I saved the best till last. Thank you. They've asked my question. I could really look at it now. Okay, too late now. As a matter, it was, first of all, I'd like to congratulate you for the work of transitioning over from GLL to in-housing the service. So, obviously, expected problems and all that would have arised, and you're dealing with it, which I think you should be commended for it. Taking a step back, just looking at some feedbacks, possibly, and you've mentioned in the report about the app. Now, the app can be used to generate income. Obviously, there's monthly membership subscriptions and all that. There's issues with the app. How much of that issue, of those issues, have impacted income, number one? And you've also mentioned improving the app, and also, at the same time, potential alternative app vendor, which a business case has been prepared for. I mean, that, obviously, seems like it's one or the other. Either you're improving on the current app, or you're looking for another vendor to take over the facility and the technical aspect. That's one question. I've got a couple more, sorry, if you don't mind. I don't usually ask that many questions, so I'm going to lay it all out there. So, the second question would be around more logistical issues around bookings. Some feedback from some of the users are they weren't able to book because it's been pre-booked months in advance. And that seems to be a continuous... Is that the cage or the... Is that the gym or the cage? The courts are court facilities. Yeah. Those are the cages, yeah. Yeah. So, there are problems in terms of bookings. There is, obviously, a timeline where somebody can book through the app. By the time that comes, people are waiting up to 12 o'clock midnight just to book something, apparently, and then it's all gone because they missed out or their network wasn't working properly. So, that's two. Number three would be the refund policy. Obviously, people are getting put off booking something because if they do decide or something happens, plans change. They are unable to get their money back. They have to go through a long process. And I'm sure I've mentioned this before on the thing that, well, you know, this refund has still not been resolved or it's still ongoing. And my final last person, Chair, is I really like the idea that Councillor Munnan proposed about partnering with the NHS perhaps using the facility, especially around... Oh, is that the physio you mentioned? Yes. Yes. Yes. And we could be one of the first councils, possibly, I don't know the stats or I don't know the background, but we could be one of the first councils providing this facility to the local residents, especially when it comes to using NHS facilities. There's a long, long waiting list around physio, years, and if we could be one of the first to actually bridge that gap and ease the pressure from the NHS, that would be absolutely something that I would really, really recommend. That's it. I would... No, no, I'm not asking a question. I'm just adding. I just want to say I'll give a contact, I'll give all the details who have been approaching me. Basically, he's the chair of the, all the doctors' association. So, I'll give all the detail so at least we can move. If you want to, we can move forward and see how good it goes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jai. If I can answer the first question about the service app. So, we always want to give our customer the best experience and every day is a learning. We always try to, day by day, we try to improve our service and app, simplify this app. The issue with the app was included in the agreement with Gladstone, the provider of the ledger management system. The product was new to Gladstone and customer feedback was monitored during the first six months. So, they have made some improvement on the system. But going forward, because this is the new system they have provided and they need some more work on this. But we are looking into collaborating with the third party to implement a new app aligned with our commercial strategy. So, just to add to what the council has said, this app, when you take on a new service, Gladstone as a system is one of the best systems that are out there. And when the procurement was done, we bought their app as well. And they are testing and learning. Now, we found that it is not meeting our needs. So, what we have done is gone back to the industry and said, which is the best apps out in the ledger industry. And we have had some discussions. We have had some testing done with a provider to see if the new app, if we were to go to the new app, will it fulfill our needs. So, we are doing some extensive testing, checking out functionality, different language settings, push notifications. Because the industry suggests if you have a good app that does push notifications, you get 75% response. Whereas if you don't have push notifications, you get 5% response. So, we are looking for an app that will help grow the business as well, as well as being user-friendly. So, the app that we are looking at, hopefully, once the testing is done, within the next few weeks, then we can make a decision to make sure it is fit for purpose. In terms of bookings, you see, the council did a playing pitches strategy in 2017, a 10-year strategy. And the badminton courts that we have in the borough are not enough to meet our demands. Because we are one of the boroughs that has the highest use of badminton anywhere in the country. We have people playing badminton from 7 o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock when the leisure centre is closed. Some people have block bookings. And we want to encourage block bookings because you have stability of income. And it allows people to plan. But we do appreciate there are people out there who just want to turn up and play. They don't want to play all the time. So, it's getting the balance right. We are looking at our facility strategy and looking at how we can increase capacity. So, as part of St George's Leisure Centre, which is being rebuilt, there will be an additional court. That court has the dimensions to allow club-level matches. So, people who want to play in Middlesex League, there's enough runoff areas that they can compete. So, that's one thing that we're doing. And we're always looking at other opportunities at the facilities. And we'll be reviewing our facility plan over the next six to eight months to see how we can increase. One of the big challenges is looking at schools. In a borough like Tower Hamlets, where we've got a lack of space, a lot of schools have sports halls. So, as part of this place-based partnership, we're trying to unlock the facilities that exist in the schools. If we can unlock four or five of the secondary schools, that will help increase the capacity. So, the schools keep the money, but it's pushing some of our customers to say, look, we've got latent demand. Can you offer your services? So, that's something that we're working on to try and help alleviate the issues. I'm not going to say that we're going to be able to increase the court space because the demand is there, because that would be a lie. The reason why people book at 12 o'clock, people can only book seven days in advance. Obviously, as soon as it's midnight, the system opens. And that's just the way the system is set up. We can review that and reduce the time or increase the time. But whatever time we set, everyone will rush at that time to book their slot. So, it's a challenge. On the NHS, as we mentioned, we've done the type 2 diabetes pilot with BARTs. We're doing the cardio rehab. If we can do this physiotherapy with the CCGs. These are things that we want to do. And as part of the NIHR evaluation from Public Health England, these are the things we want to capture. We do want to become a leader. We've got BARTs next door. We think this is a great opportunity to say, this is the impact that you can make by insourcing and having these wider social impact. It's not just about the money. That's the second side of value for money. It's the income that you get, but also these programs. I'll pass on to my colleagues about the refund process. I know that's been an issue. That's been ongoing. Well, I was going to suggest we do on that. If I may, I'd like to take that away. I'd like to investigate that with our operational team just to find out what problems that they are aware of in terms and what we might need to do to strengthen our approach to how we deal with refunds. Because that's not an area, I know you've mentioned it, I think you've mentioned it before. And I thought we'd dealt with it, but clearly there's something still not quite right in the system. So if you don't mind, we'll take that one away and investigate that further. Thank you for that. So I'm going to come around to the committee for another round, but can I please get a question in? So I want to ask my questions now, if that's okay. You've got supplementary? No, no, no. It was one of the... One of the... One of the... Okay, did we lose any money towards... I don't believe we did. But you want to take that away and confirm? I don't know whether we have a way of proving, but we can find out. We know the reasons that people leave the service because they get an opportunity to tell us why do you want to leave the service. And there's a variety of reasons given. I don't recall that being seen as a particular main reason for people ending membership and therefore losing bookings. Can you check? And then you can always... We can double check on that. Thank you so much. We appreciate that. So on my questions, can I just quickly ask the committee a question before I ask officers and councillor? How many of the committee members here are actual users of the Leisure Service Centre at Hamlets? Of course. Okay, so I use... So this is really helpful. Those of you that haven't joined, please do join. I finally found out from the director a couple of days ago that I've been a member for a very long time, but I didn't know that our staff here get 50% off. So I went on the app trying to cancel, as you told me to, so I could join again with my ID. Unfortunately, the app, very smartly, doesn't have a cancellation, doesn't allow you to cancel the subscription. So that's something to take away. But my question is, right, so these leisure centres itself, the actual assets, the assets of the council, how are we sweating the assets to make use of the best use for not just the social value, but the business model as well? So when it comes down to the canteen that used to be in the Milan Stadium, we used to have a coffee shop that no longer exists. Can you talk about are we doing work to make sure all the space is utilised? How do we use summer? How do we utilise holiday period in order for us to, yes, increase the money coming in, but also making sure our residents are making the best use of the space that's available? And lastly, on the women's services that you are doing, I'm actually very, very proud to be part of a council that is going far and beyond to make sure that the leisure service does serve the women. I know we're not quite there yet and it's not at perfection, but the fact that we've started this work and that we are going the trajectory that we are, I'm really proud. However, I do want to add this, that investing in women and young girls is important and it's valuable because when you teach a man, you teach one individual. When you teach a woman, you teach a family and it's about the child obesity, it's about mental health, it's about postnatal depression, all of that, including women that suffer from domestic violence. Sometimes these hubs, these community hubs become their place of safety. So investing in this and keeping the work going, I'm sure the committee is going to have some recommendations on that, but I want to make sure that we keep encouraging this, keep working at this and try and work out a lifestyle span of women from all backgrounds. So women that work, it is very difficult to be able to capture that, be able to have caring responsibility and then catch that gym because our gyms close at 10 o'clock and to be able to get an hour and a half at the moment, the timetable doesn't work for working women. I know because I struggle with it and that's why I'm sharing my experience with you. Also women that have caring responsibility, how does childcare support and utilizing the holiday period to make sure that we're utilizing the space and making it easier for women to use the service but use it for the children at the same time. Yes, part of the commercial plan, and I know Jehovah is going to say exactly the same as with Simon as well, the commercial plan that is being developed and is being implemented at the same time is trying to look at many aspects of that, of how we maximize the asset to get a commercial core financial return that then supports us in the work that we can do that. That adds all that social value and all that targeted work we want to do for the reasons we've explained. So just picking out some of those examples that we're looking to develop. We think there is an opportunity to develop the events model, both at your call, that's the home of British boxing and a huge amount of work has been done to expand that program, as well as making use of Marlen Stadium in the close season of the athletics for community events. And we are looking to see how we can develop that across all of the facilities in terms of just basically driving the assets really, really well for hires and more commercial opportunities. As we bring St George's Leisure Centre on stream at the back end of 2027, we think there's some additional commercial opportunities in that, but that's obviously a little bit further away. So we're really keen to develop the fitness offer, we're really keen to develop the swim school offer, and because that drives both a stable commercial return into the service, but it's actually increasing participation levels. And that's embedded into the business plan now, so that we are driving income and driving participation at the same time. Similarly, we're looking at opportunities around the food and beverage offer, because we think there are some. They're not always provide all the returns that we would like, so we want to look carefully at that and do that well, so there's opportunities depending on need. We're looking, as Councillor mentioned, we are looking at the expansion of opening hours to see how that can tap new markets and new demands, particularly focusing initially as a pilot project in Whitechapel area, because we think there could be a demand, and so there's opportunities there. And another part of the investment programme is the additional creche facilities and the creche offer we are developing, which we are hopeful that is in order to support a different and more diverse membership by providing additional support. That in itself isn't designed to generate money, but that's designed to open up opportunities for some that may feel that our leisure offer at the moment isn't accessible to them. So it's just some examples that are embedded in our emerging commercial plan that drives both the commercial offer as well as the service offer and participation, we hope. And just in terms of cancellation, we know there's an issue with the app, and that's why we look at another model. But if you were to go to any of our leisure centres, I am confident that they will be able to help you cancel that membership and get you on a new membership, immediately give you the card. It will take you about 10 to 15 minutes, so hopefully that will be a solution for now. Yeah, thank you. I knew that, but I wanted to talk about the app and just say, thank you. Did you want to come in? Yeah, thank you, Councillor Chair. I think a good example of what's just been said, your call, I think it's this, no, it's next month, February, it's going to be having performances of Wagner. And that's a bit left field for me in terms of, I didn't know too much about it. I'm not saying Wagner is, but, you know, in terms of York Hall, that is a great asset. It's got a stage, and I don't think as an authority, I have to be careful with my words, I suppose, are we smart enough to exploit that enough? And I don't think we are. I think we could have probably community theatre there, you could have cinema days, cinema clubs in the summer holidays. Another example is, we had James in, it was a very big Ben Gourley star, I would be told, last summer in Mile End. So, you know, that was, we need to exploit this a lot more, but we're, all I can say, we're a beginner for journey. You know, this is a six-month school report, and we're doing a lot, a lot to catch up on, but, you know, we need to exploit that a lot more. Thank you. I understand that. We're going to do a quick, rapid round again. So, those that want to speak, put your hands up. Halima, you're going to go first, don't worry. Quick. So, one question each, and answers need to be rapid as well, if that's okay. So, Halima, you go first, and I'll write everyone else's name down. One. One, please. I have to decide now which one, but I guess this is quite important. Co-produced interventions, it's a great initiative. Now, my concern is, could this be a risk in terms of overwhelming the current services that are being provided? You haven't kind of spoken about that. One of my questions. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. That's always going to be a challenge, because as a new service, we want to do things differently. Yes, there's a focus, and we've got a commercial strategy, and we're developing that to bring income in, improve the customer experience, exploring new initiatives and be trailblazers. But there's also another 34-page comprehensive health and wellbeing plan in place. And the challenge is, how do we deliver both of these at the same time? And that is a challenge. And what we want to be able to create as part of Be Well is, and this is talking to the staff, we want to transformational change with the staff and the leaders who are involved and run the centres is to think differently. And actually, that's the challenge for the service. How do we program activities which run alongside each other? So there's a whole piece of work we're doing in terms of staff training to be able to get to that particular point. But we're also, in terms of that, yeah, it's creating those activity pathways, links to the Health and Adult Scrutiny Committee. But one thing we're quite keen to explore is, if you're a paying member, and you're walking into a facility, and you're having a great experience in the gym, and you know that part of your membership is directly going towards those in the community who have got underlying health conditions or with disabilities, targeted programs, running nutrition programs alongside, delivering Be Well out in the community as well. You know, that's quite powerful stuff. And that's kind of what we want to create in terms of the vision for Be Well, and bring the staff along on that journey with us. More rapid. Thank you, though, for the answer. Councillor Amy and then Councillor Chadwick. Thank you. I'm going to cheat. I had two questions, but one, I'm going to ask if I can take it away. I'm going to be really, really quick. I would love to get an update from you guys about St George's, because every time I hear something about St George's, there's a new leisure centre, there's a new cost, and there's new something, and there's something unexpected, and there's a delay. And this is not just in this committee. Every time I read anything about it, there's always something. And I would just love to have a chat, have a more comprehensive update, because you mentioned about the badminton. I just want to know what the plan is looking like now, because every time I feel like I'm not caught up with it, something changes a little bit. But I'm happy to take that away. My question, this bounces exactly off what you've just said, Simon, and your chair, sorry, about comms and appealing to different kind of people who access these services in a different way. You know, a lot of people said to me that they didn't sign up, or they left, because they live in the north of the borough, and they used to be able to go to York Hall, and to London Fields for the Lido, and to the Olympic Park. But they can't do that anymore, because they don't want to pay for two memberships. I don't know why swimming outside in the cold is something people enjoy, but it is. They think it's really cool swimming in Lido. I don't get it at all. But it's kind of like a cool thing to do these days, which is baffling to me. How do we present an offer to people that is as attractive as that kind of thing? What more can we do, in terms of a comms perspective, to talk about what we are doing and what the offer is, to bring people like that back in, or to attract them back? Because I think that was an issue. I think you've hit the nail on the head, actually. You've broadened the offer and added more things and make it a different thing. Councillor Lee, you've redefined rapid. Thank you. We will come back on that. In terms of the attractive offer, I think one thing that the Council took a very early decision on is that it was a whole borough offer at the reduced rate. And so that is an attraction that makes us very, very competitive indeed, compared to other boroughs, which charged a premium. If you were a member of a site, you paid a fee, and we froze that fee for the whole borough. So we're more attractive than, I think, other boroughs. And I think as we develop the offer with the investment program and get the communications right with that, and we have dedicated marketing communications resource, they sit in the communications team as part of the Council's target operating model, but their capacity is dedicated to leisure. So that's been part of the model. So we've got experts that have got feet in both camps, if that makes sense. So I think we've got confidence that we've got capacity built into the future business as usual model, and we've got the expertise, and we've got an offer, and we've got an investment plan that we've hopefully managed to talk to you a little bit about. And once we've got you up to speed, we've got a brand new offer with St George's, which is tens of millions of pounds coming. Thank you. Councillor Chaudhry, quickly. Thank you, Chair. Quickly, about the booking, obviously, the director has said it might go down to 10pm, we are hoping. The booking opens at 12am. At the moment, you can book seven days in advance, and so after midnight, that's when it triggers the seven-day window. So even if you made a change, what I'm saying is that pressure will always be there, because people who want to book will always be ready when that clock changes by the one second to log on. So at the moment we have that. If we get enough demand to say, can we change the time, that is something within the system we can change. So that's something we can look at. If that is a recommendation that comes for you. That's a request, sorry, question, if I may. Sorry, just two minutes. I still play football, as some of you know. We are finding it very hard. We've done a lot of feasibility work, the Council has done, to have two 11-a-side pitches in Tower Hamlet. Anything that we do football-wise, tournaments, one-day tournaments or whatever, we have to go to our neighbours. So it's a special request if the feasibility work could be done and find a space somewhere in Tower Hamlet, because that will generate a lot of money for us as well. We are giving our money to the neighbouring boroughs. We'll be grateful. Thank you. I think you can take that away as a suggestion. Is that okay? Yeah, that's fine. But just to say, it has been done. We're the most densely populated borough in England. There isn't space to have two 11-a-side pitches anywhere in the borough. Separate to be where I manage parks and open spaces. We just don't have that space, unfortunately. There might be space for two 9-a-side. We'll come back to you if that is available. But definitely, there's no space for two 11-a-side. Thank you. Councillor Pan? My question again, when I was the Chair for Health and Adels, I have visited a lot of leisure centres with my colleagues, Amelie, also. And we find out that those leisure centres are on their knees under GLL. They need to be repaired. Some of the structural problems of those leisure centres need to be repaired. I want to update. I know you guys have a leisure centre which is on their knees. So can you give us and the members an update on that repair issues and structural issues? How far have you gone and how much left to be done? Thank you very much. Thank you. Very good question. I assume you'd also want to take the privilege of giving us an update here now, but also bring it back in six months, because I understand we're halfway through the work plan. Thank you, Councillor. So we are aware of the situation some of the centres needed upgraded. So we are investing three, we have already approved 3.7 million pound approved to do the upgrade works. Also, yeah, also 3.2 million additional bills submitted to the officers working closely with the finance team to get this approved. So we are working on this. Do you want to add something, Keith? Yeah, when we took a report to Cabinet earlier on in the year. This is a matter of public record. So that gave an estimate of the 10-year asset investment requirement of being in the order of 27 million pounds. Which is not unexpected with a portfolio of the size of this leisure offer. So that, to me, from my experience of working in London boroughs over the last 20 years, is a pretty normal asset investment requirement. But it's, nevertheless, a big number. So, as the lead members explained, money is in the budget now. We're looking to finalise some additional investment for the assets. And this is the basic things. These are the assets. It's like the boiler repairs and the replacement of heating systems and lighting and electrical systems. They're not the fun things, but they're the foundations on which the facilities operate. That give us, therefore, the confidence to invest in improving the facilities at the same time. So, both of those are running in parallel, but we have to be mindful of the cost. But some of the investments that we're bringing forward do, as I mentioned before, give us a return. Because we're confident that will help us to grow the income sustainably by increasing memberships, by improving the standards of the facility. So, we do recognise we're on a 10-year journey. And we're just about to start nearly the second year of that journey. And some really good work is being done. And part of that is to also look at a whole range of opportunities and options for us, alongside the investment for St George's, which will update councils on in due course. So, I think it's a positive story. It's an early journey, a lot of positive investment, but a long journey to go on. Yeah. And a site like your call isn't simple and straightforward. It's got complexities. Councillor Mohamed, and then Councillor King, I'm coming to you after. Great. Thank you, Chair. With my scrutiny member for community safety, it'd be great if you could come back in six months with more information on what more you can do. I see the youth justice partnership and I think it's fantastic. And on top of what Councillor Milan is saying about partnerships, actually, we've got services or the assets across the borough. And we've got multiple people from all backgrounds coming in day in, day out. What more can we do to get other services? So, you know, there's something about social workers. Is there a mental health training? Is there, you know, there's a fantastic Ask for Angela scheme that's rolled out by the Metropolitan Police in clubs and bars. But actually, do we, what are we doing to be safe spaces and safe spots? Because we have a real breadth and depth of people that come in. So, maybe we can take that offline. But just, I really do want assurances around the budgets and the money. There's a million pound overspend. And that's, aside from the 27 million pound of investment, it's been happening over 10 years. But we've only budgeted 10 million pounds for it. So, just assurances from the officers that actually, when it comes back in six months, there's a lot more information there. Because I think it's, there's not tons here. There's, gives us a flavour of it. And I'm sure there's a lot more that sits beneath this. But your assurances is that there's something that's top of your priority. And that's how you're going to come back to us on. Thank you. So, that's it. That's a yes. Thank you. That was really rapid. Councillor King? Thank you. As it came back in-house. So, just get an explanation of why that was and sort of what further work you've done to make sure and reassure your service going forward. I don't know exactly how the mistake made, was made, but there was an error. There was an error. There was an error in an assumption that was made around business rates, about business rate relief, as I understand it. And that had not been, that didn't go through the proper process at the time, as I understand it. And so, therefore, that was miscalculated. So, I think it was largely an error. But I don't know exactly how it came about, those exchanges between colleagues that were here at the time. So, I can't give a further explanation, but it was an incorrect assumption that it should have gone through better due diligence and through better organizational governance. And had that happened, that wouldn't be the position we would have been in. Would it be okay if you can give some clarity to the committee in a written note before the six months? Is that possible to do? I can endeavour to try and get to the bottom working with colleagues in business rates and finance as best I can. Thank you. To provide the explanation. That's appreciated. That's appreciated. Councilman? So, just to add to that. Yeah. So, although we know that issue was there, we have now worked with colleagues in finance to look at how to rectify that situation going forward. So, we are working with colleagues in finance to look at a growth bid to try and ensure we correct that position. So, we're working closely with colleagues to rectify that. So, next year when we build the budgets, that issue, this stays as a one-off issue and not a persistent issue. So, we are getting a lot of support from colleagues to rectify that issue. Councilman? Thank you, Chair. I just want to illustrate on, under the GLL, the hygiene wasn't the standard. We all knew that. Since we took over, I know there's something that our colleagues just mentioned, but cleanness is very important. So, I just want to get an update report on how much we have improved since we took over GLL. And this is my second supplementary question, which has been asked in the past, in the scrutiny, that when the women sessions are running, swimming or gym, purely women, that we had a tendency that a cleaner was, male cleaners was cleaning at the same time, which wasn't acceptable. Under the previous year, that we were expecting an answer to come back. That's about four or five months ago. So, if you could come back, answer to that, please. Okay, we will chase it. Do you want to come back on the cleanliness? Yes. On this. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Cleanliness is absolute necessity. This is top priority. And the problem was, when in May, the service came in-house, we have a corporate contract with Wettens, but their approach was unsuitable for our facilities. And we received a number of customer complaints, one from you as well, and I've explained the situation. But we get this feedback, and we're working to mitigate these circumstances. We have conducted an immediate deep cleaning across all the sites. We bought in AYS and Tychois Cleaning Services to support operations temporarily. And we are in the process of developing an in-house model of service team, and we are integrating 16 part-time cleaners in our team, so we can do better cleanliness. I hope to answer this question. And just on the issue, at Maylen, there was a young man whose mother also works, and she's a lifeguard, and he's the one who ran through a couple of times to speak to his mother. And I've spoken to the staff member to explain, when there is a women-only session, it's a women-only session. I know, even if you need to speak to your mum, you need to wait. So that issue has been picked up. We have spoken to the young person, and the memo has gone out. Thank you for that. So, last question. Jay Dachman? Yes. You're going to hate me for this. Thank you, Jay. Yeah. Just going back to the booking system, I just did a life case study right now. And just from the top of my head, bookings, especially block bookings, they seem to be quite, they take up a lot of, between just the hours of nine o'clock to midday, there's seems to be about 80 to 70 to 80 percent block bookings already made. And they're not consistent in terms of, if you say they had done for long periods, you know, six months or three months period. It doesn't look like there's a consistency. So, is there a discretionary, leisure centre manager's discretionary to book for somebody in far in advance? Or, and if there is, how is that fair? It's something for you to take back, not for you to answer. But that's, yeah, that's. So, he's saying you can come back and answer, is that right? Yeah, we'll take, absolutely take that on board. But just to say, we have a lot of schools in the borough that don't have playground spaces. And a lot of the times, you will notice in the daytime, they go and use our leisure centres to run their PE classes. That is one of the pressures, but we'll go back and look at it more and come back to you. Thank you. As chair, I have to be fair. Everyone asks more than one question, but in a very clever way. So, Halima, I'm going to let you come back because you're the only one that listened to me. Thank you, chair. I really appreciate it. It's around the spa facilities. So, I was one of the users and what I've done previously is bought vouchers in advance. I never got to use them. And for the life of me, I've been trying to contact. And obviously, it's now evidence that it's been closed for a while. I don't know how to go about, I mean, it's probably expired now. What does one do? I'm sure I'm not the only one. There might be hundreds of other people out there. Yeah, just a bit of advice. That's my experience, this is. Do you want to answer? Do you have the answer at all? We're happy for you to hear. If I can pick up outside of the meeting, because we've got the launch coming in a couple of weeks, so it would be an ideal time for you to come down, have a look at facilities, and we can solve that particular issue. But I'll ask the team as well to understand previous vouchers and what that is. So, I'll contact you outside. Thank you very much. So, I'm going to bring this agenda to a close. Clearly, we can see you're passionate about leisure. We're passionate about leisure. We're looking forward to having you back in six months when you can share some performance data with us and some great initiatives that are coming up. And there's a few things that we've picked up in the committee for further information. We'll put that. Officers will put that together in one communication. Hopefully, you can report that back. But thank you very much. And thank you, Councillor, for coming. Thank you. Thank you, Chair and members. Thank you. Chair, in point of order. That was a very meaty, long item. We have, like, two minutes. One minute break. One minute break. Thank you. Okay, we've had a short adjournment. Thank you, everyone, for bearing with us. Just to conclude the last agenda on leisure services. Are we all happy with any further discussion or recommendations? I suggest we move on if you're okay with that. Perfect. Thank you. So, our next item of this evening is the Scrooge Net Executive Protocol. The version reflects members' comments from last session and feedbacks. We've previously discussed this in November. This version has been circulated ahead of publishing to members for any further comments. And I understand we have not received any further comments. My suggestion is that we go ahead with this now, but keep it under annual review to see its effectiveness and whether it needs updating. So, with this in mind, are we happy to agree and sign off the proposed scrutiny executive protocol? Yes, Councillor Lee has a question as well. I just have just a comment on the section about the way that the executive can, how the executive sort of commits to working with us. And I'm concerned about, I would like to strengthen the part about providing reports on time. And that's, yeah, that's the only thing I'd like to. Yes, that's a good point. But I will say it is part of the ongoing improvements for Scrooge Net. So, we have two other levers here. We have the LGA review for, with that coming back and the improvement plan that we've already got in place that's ongoing. And the best value inspection report and the, hopefully, the improvements that will come from that. As you understand, we have consultations that are coming up for this committee about how we improve. And I'll definitely make sure that it's part of that as well. So, that should give you some assurance. Is it okay to add it? I'm not sure if we've got time anymore to add it in. I mean, we can. Just on the papers being on time. Yeah, just we can strengthen that wording. Can I, so can you propose it and I'll get some. Sure. So, Chair, I'd like to propose that we add some additional strengthened wording to the draft Scrooge Executive Protocol to highlight the need for the executive to provide papers on time, not just to this committee, but also to Cabinet where we do pre-decision Scrooge. Yeah, Chair, I'll second that because when I was the Chair of the Children and Education Committee, we had a lot of issues with that. So, it's nice to hear that there are things moving in the right direction. Yes, thank you. I'll second that. Thank you. Perfect. Can I ask the committee to agree? Sorry. Just on the 6.2, which talks about supporting scrutiny lead. It's not for now. I think it's when we come back to our next annual discussion about this. But I think it's better, it's helpful in future to break down what that support looks like and the capacity that kind of, I think there's a wider conversation to be had about capacity and the support we receive. But I appreciate it's pretty far on in the process. So, it's just for noting on the record to bring it back at the next opportunity. That is definitely on the horizon. And as Chair, I second your comments to have more clarity about the support for the committee as a whole and what that looks like for subcommittees and ONS lead members as well. And that's something we work towards together and we'll have some more clarity and bring that back. So, can I ask that we agree the additional line comments on strengthening wording around timing of papers for committees? Yes. Yes. Perfect. So, is that okay? I was just going to say, I think, and it's fine to agree, I'm just going to say that it would just be good to see, to have like a track change, just to see what's actually been added in since our, I know you've probably got that somewhere. Just since our recommendations, just so it's more, and that we can keep track of it better if we do an annual review. Okay. And you send a version of this report with track changes but in a different colour so members can see that with clarity. Is that okay? Can we move on? Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, this report was agreed offline. It was submitted to the mayor for response to our recommendations and information requests on Friday 24 January. For transparency we have included it in our agenda pack this evening. Do members have any additional comments they wish to make? I can provide additional feedback as part of my item on the cabinet agenda tomorrow. Is there any other comments or are we happy to move on? If there is no additional comments, are members happy for Thomas to formally note that this report has been agreed? Perfect, thank you. I have been informed that there are two additional elements for HRA and capital of budget that was included at the meeting on the 14th of January this year. I propose we agree to meet on the 4th of February, which is an additional budget meeting to discuss this. Are you happy to second that, Vice-Chair? Yes, Vice-Chair, thank you, yes. Does the committee agree to having this additional meeting? Yes. Thank you very much. So our next item is the Scouting Report on Flood Risk Management, which is chaired by Councillor Natalie. This is a positive Scouting Report, which has some strong recommendations. Councillor, can I ask you to introduce the report briefly, and then we'll take any comments from members. Great, thank you, Chair. So thank you everyone to the committee who engaged in this investigation. I initiated the project after the borough experienced some flooding in Fish Island in 2024, and I undertook an investigation with officers. I took two site visits and also engaged the support of an external expert. We held a session in December, and the committee, I thought, yeah, really thank you so much for the questions that you put, and we had a chance to ask the officers about what they're doing. And through my investigation, I am really confident that we are mostly meeting our obligations as a statutory flood risk authority. Our engineers, the highways officers, they're all doing a really excellent job to protect our residents from flooding. And I also thank officers of Leftnow, but just really thank Simon Baxter, Ashraf, Ali, and his team, Moynal and Thomas, for their work in the area. They're all doing a really good job, and for their openness in the project. However, I did identify some gaps in our response, especially after the flooding event last year. So I felt that there was a need to make some recommendations, and I hope that the committee can agree the recommendations this evening. Shall I go over the recommendations? I think we can take it. Briefly, take it as read. Okay. Yeah, thank you. So, Ben, can I take the opportunity to thank you for all your work on this? And if any members have any questions on this report, or are you happy to agree? Yeah. Thank you. One question from Councillor Mohammed. Yeah, I'm going to echo the chair, just saying thank you for this. I think it's really helpful and important. Throughout your challenge session of this, can you maybe speak briefly to how you've engaged local residents? So, you used the example of Fish Island in my ward. I'd just be really helpful to understand how you've made sure residents' voices goes throughout all of this. Obviously, it's important to hear from stakeholders and from officers, but the people we absent are the residents. It would be helpful to understand that. Thank you, Councillor. I think that's a really important challenge. So, at the visit at Fish Island, we actually went to some of the properties that were flooded, and managed to speak to some people who experienced the flooding. And that was really important to hear from them. I take the challenge that we haven't actually included some of their evidence in the report. So, maybe I'll think about that as the report is, as we take the action plan forward. But, yeah, I accept it. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. So, moving on. We've all received written scooting lead updates. Please do continue to provide these. It's really helpful and really provides that transparency on all the hard work that you're doing. And I know this committee is very, very busy. Does any member wish to say anything that's burning on your section of work? And you might want to use this opportunity to quickly promote the other spotlights that we have going on. So, Councillor Mohamed first. So, exactly that. I really do encourage the committee to come along on the 17th of February to the challenge session here on tackling hate crime and what more we as a council with our stakeholders can do to tackle all forms of hate crime. And I think it would be fantastic to see residents can see a real good turnout from councillors across the political spectrum. So, I please do encourage you to come along. Thank you. Councillor Mertini. Yeah. So, just in addition to what's in my scrutiny lead update, I also, along with the other scrutiny leads, met with the senior officers in my portfolios to discuss the budget. So, that wasn't noted in there, but I did do that. Thank you for that. Any other updates? No? Thank you very much. Okay. Yeah? What's coming up? Yeah. So, the schooling leads update, we visited the school today, I think Columbia Road, to test the food, and we did it, we saw how we did four schools now. We've got one coming up on Thursday, which is London Park, and there may be one or two. And also, there's an open session on, I think, 7th or 9th of February. I'm not sure which state it is. We've got 80 parents who put interest to come in to the town hall and talk about it. So, that would be one of the highlights to see, hear their view. Thank you very much, Councillor. And please do promote when the parents come in, and if we're available, we will attend. Moving on. Do any members have any pre-decision screening questions they would like to raise at Cabinet in relation to the other Cabinet agenda items? We've not received anything. Yes, Amy. So, we're going to take a look at the next couple of months. And that will conclude on that. So that's the highlight on my side of the screen. Thank you very much, Councillor. And please do promote when the parents come in, and if we're available, we will attend. Moving on. Do any members have any pre-decision screening questions they would like to raise at Cabinet in relation to the other Cabinet agenda items? We've not received anything. Yes, Amy. Yes. thank you sorry um revised adult social care charging policies on the agenda um there's something that we actually raised in this committee last time that i think unfortunately i'd have to describe describe it as we got quite a flippant answer back but there's actually um the legal advice um in these documents for the cabinet is actually quite substantial on that matter which is about we asked the question about well what if people move here to access free home care and the answer we got was well have you tried moving here it's really difficult which is a really narrow view of how people live in the borough and i would just like to ask further questions on this because there's actually a huge chunk of the league i can send something in writing if you prefer but there's actually quite a chunky bit of legal advice about what ordinary residence means and i just think it's disappointing that we asked it in this in this committee who got a flippant answer and actually it's quite clear that there is an issue around this that there's had to be such a chunky paragraph in the legal advice so i just appreciate we actually could get a verbal answer on that matter that isn't have you tried moving here which is not appropriate in my view yeah thank you very much councillor lee um it's a question i asked and actually you're right about that um can we take this up and um when perhaps also when i have my one-to-one with um the director for this service we raise this um especially because this council um has had this issue in the past when home care was free so we might want to bring that up again can you cancel if it's okay can i come to come back to you on this with some more clarity okay so moving on we'll now move to any forthcoming decisions within the cabinet agenda do members wish to raise anything on this is there anything which members uh which to be added to the committee's work plan or is subject to pre-decision scrutiny nope okay perfect finally is there any other urgent business to discuss yes um uh chair i mentioned last last time you met about the days the scrutiny is held on tuesday now but it was previously on monday has there been any sort of communication or any sort of uh progress and uh changing the days to when the mayor comes in uh what can do you know has it been in progress on that so this relates back to what i said earlier about some of the changes that we want to see in the improvement plan this is something that i have definitely raised with the chief exec with my one-to-one and we decided that it's best to wait for the envoys who are here now and we've got consultation we've got co-designing processes for us all about what the improvements look like and as part of that obviously committee members are going to have an opportunity to talk about timing so this committee used to meet on monday we changed it for a tuesday in order to allow the mayor to come and attend ons um he has his surgeries on monday however he doesn't attend all committee um committees so what we might what you might all suggest is that we move back to a monday only only do it on a tuesday when the mayor is to attend um i know steve you and i have discussed some of the changes and that's part of the process so we'll both work together and come back to you and as part of the consultation period it's definitely something that there's room for all of us to work together in order to make some of those changes to make it easier for you anything else thank you everyone for all your hard work and your contributions today and hopefully see you at the next meeting bye