Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to this meeting of the Executive. Are there any declarations of interest? On the PRS Discretionary License Paper, I'm a member of the London Renters Union. Understood. And I can see everyone's here, so we haven't got any apologies. Lovely to see everyone. So we've got proposals covering housing, finance, and grants this evening. So if we can turn to those matters for our decision. Councillor Deacon, do you want to take us through housing first? Yeah, so the first paper is the Alton Renewal Plan update, which was largely around bringing forward the early improvement plan and also outlined some of the key stages and next steps within the Alton Renewal. There was also a really useful update from officers, particularly regarding the new transport implementations led by my colleague next to me and how successful those have been in terms of community transport, and it was supported unanimously. Happy to agree? Agree. Next paper was Winstead and New York Road update. This was probably the most serious update that we've had at the committee since the gold paper that took place at a closed committee in July and, most importantly, had an outline of actions that the council was going to be taking now that it is taking control of the regeneration on Winstead and New York Road. And that timeline of recommendations was agreed and supported unanimously again by the committee. Agreed. Great. Agreed. Next was the outcome of the consultation on the discretionary licensing paper, which showed that while estate agents and landlords were not supportive of us moving forward to licensing, renters, households, and third sector organizations within the borough were, so we're minded to move ahead with licensing, rolling out first in Tootingbeck, Tooting Broadway, South Ballam and Fursdown. That should be coming live this summer, with the next stage rollout taking place in, we're thinking early autumn for the second stage, which is East Putney and Northcote. And we also discussed the changes from the Labour government that mean that we might be able to roll out licensing beyond 20% of the borough earlier than we had previously thought. So we'll be giving updates to both Cabinet, Committee, and the general public on that in due course. And it was supported unanimously. Great. Agreed. Next was HRA budget set-in, which outlined the spending and capital program of the HRA. This, the kind of main contentious part of the committee was around the 1,000 homes, which is not unusual, and the decision by this authority to make all 1,000 council homes, whereas the opposition still want us to sell some of them. There was also discussion around the, at what point the borrowing is going to start, and we outlined that we were waiting for good rates. But this, so this wasn't a unanimously supported paper like all the others were. Are we happy to agree? Agreed. And this will, I'm sure this will make the centrepiece of Wednesday's full council. Review of fees and charges, nothing particularly major here. 2.2% rise in line with inflation, and that, yeah, that was supported unanimously. Agreed. And then the final paper was a good newspaper, whereby we are getting to reduce heating and hot water account, heating and hot water bills for tenants with community systems by 20% this year. So it was supported unanimously. Excellent. Thanks, Councillor Deekdom. Those were all agreed by the executive. Could we now, Councillor Ireland, have a look at finance papers? Yep. The first paper was about the London Council's borough subscription for 25 to 26, which reconfirms our commitment to work with all the London boroughs to reduce and end violence against women and girls, and also to reduce homelessness across London. The next paper is to do with the Wandsworth Trading Company. This is a small company. It's only got a turnover of £59,000. It's work that was previously carried out by two staff mutuals, and we had an update of the operations and presentation of the counts to 31st of March to those accounts. We... Is that good? Thank you. The next paper is the Wandsworth Annual Procurement Plan. This details the procurement activity in the past 12 months, and also includes a forward plan. We had some... We proposed a few amendments which were agreed, supported unanimously. Agreed. Those are technical papers to transfer the operation of land between the Housing Revenue Account and the General Fund. This is all to do with the planned development of the sites. So that's the Alton Activity Centre, transferred from the Housing Revenue Account to the General Fund. We agree? Agreed. And the second one was appropriation of land at the Farnborough House garages. Again, that was supported unanimously. Thank you. The next paper is an update of the cost of living work. As you will know, we have the largest cost of living support package at £15 million in London. We're very proud of all the work we've done so far. And this paper outlined all the achievements that we've made so far, plus our plans moving forward. And the paper was supported, but with four votes abstaining. Do we agree with the paper? Do we agree with the paper? I agree. The next paper is the General Revenue Budget for... This is the budget for next year, 25-26. I'd say that this is the General Fund Revenue Budget. In the context of local government finance, I think this is a very positive budget. In common with most councils, we're experiencing the impact of government austerity, Brexit, COVID, inflation, and the cost of living crisis all at the same time. We're also experiencing increased demand for our services, and the cost of providing those services has increased. And I would like to thank the finance team, Mrs. Merri and her colleagues, and also my Cabinet colleagues, for fully engaging in the process to set a budget and working hard to identify savings and manage demand while taking mitigating actions which will protect frontline services and minimise the impact on our residents. Thank you all very much, and well done. Thank you. Thank you. The final paper is Budget Variations, and this just relates to some project work that was agreed at the Housing Committee that was to do with the alternate redevelopment. Are we agreed? Agreed. Thank you. Thanks very much, Councillor Ireland. I know, as you say, a huge amount of work goes in this time of year to the budget, so we're very grateful for that. And if we could turn finally to the grants, overview and scrutiny subcommittee, Councillor Akinola. Yes, this is regarding Wandsworth Grant Fund, Round 28. Quite a lot of applications, a lot focusing on reducing health inequalities, which is apt as we move into our Borough of Culture year. Really exciting, actually, and some of the projects that will come out and be delivered across this year from this particular grant. You'll see them. Agreed? Agreed. Just noticing there was a proposed amendment, which seems to have been unanimously supported. Would you like to recommend we take on board the amendment? Yes, there was an amendment for a project to be awarded full amount of funding. I think it's a Putney project, Bags of Taste. Would you like to agree to award a charity the money that they need to deliver their project? Yes. We do. Great. Wonderful. Thanks very, very much for that work, as Councillor Deaconem says. We'll see you at full council this Wednesday. Thanks very much. Good evening. Good evening.