Transcript

Please be seated. Good evening, everybody. Before the commencement of business, I would like to start the council meeting by calling on my faith leader, Brother Ali Jafri, to say a few words. Good evening, everyone. Let me start by reciting and explaining some verses from the Holy Quran. Bismillah, in the name of God, Allah, which encompasses all of his qualities. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, we praise God, who is the sustainer of all the world. Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim, his general mercy encompasses the whole world. Ar-Rahim, and his special mercy is on those who believe. Maliki Yawm-Ad-Deen, He is the master of the day of judgment. Iyyaaka na'abudu wa iyyaaka nasta'een. We worship you, God, and we seek help only from you, God. Ihdina al-sirat al-mustaqeem. Oh, God, please guide us on the right path. Sirat al-lazina an'amta alayhim. The part of those who got your blessings. Ghaire maqdoob alayhim. Not the part of those who you were not happy with. As we all gather over here, as you all gather over here to make decisions about our community, we pray to God to help us in making wise decisions. We ask God to help us to differentiate between the good and the bad, and the right from the wrong. We ask God's help in teaching us what we don't know. We ask God to help us in helping the disadvantaged, assisting the weak. And in the end, we ask God to send blessings on Muhammad, the holy prophet, and his household. And we ask God to hasten the reappearance of the 12th Imam, who will come to end injustice in the world. Amen. Thank you. Apologies have been received from Councillor Brooks, Cooper, French, and Paul. Are there any other apologies? Madam Mayor, thank you. Yes, I also have apologies from Councillor Gavindia and Councillor Mrs. Angela Graham. Thank you. That's been noted. Item number one. The minutes of the meeting held on 11th December have been circulated. Are there any objections or abstentions to me signing the minutes as a correct record? Thank you. In the absence of any objections or abstentions, I will take that as agreed. Item number two is the Mayor's announcements. Ladies and gentlemen, councillors and esteemed guests, good evening and welcome to this council meeting. Once again, I am honoured to chair this meeting as we gather to debate the important issues that shape the future of our beloved Wandsworth. Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge a significant event on the global stage. Recently, we witnessed a remarkable ceasefire in the Middle East. This ceasefire is not just a pause in conflict. It is a testament to the power of dialogue, cooperation and the human spirit capacity for reconciliation. In a world often divided by differences, the ceasefire serves as a powerful reminder that when we come together, putting aside our differences for the greater good, we can achieve beneficial outcomes. It is a lesson that resonates deeply with us here in Wandsworth. As councillors, we are entrusted with the responsibility to serve our community, to listen to diverse voices and to work collaboratively towards common goals. We, too, can find common ground, even in the face of challenges. Let us draw inspiration from this example and commit ourselves to fostering a spirit of unity and cooperation within our council. By working together, we can address the needs of our residents, improve our services and create a brighter future for all. I am confident that with your dedication and the collective wisdom in this room, we can continue to make Wandsworth a place where everyone feels valued and heard. Thank you for your commitment to our community, and I look forward to a productive and positive meeting. On tonight's agenda, can members please note that a number of supplementary items have been circulated, and these are required to be considered as a matter of urgency. The reasons are set out in full at the top of those items. Members, we are faced with unusual circumstances this evening. By operation of the council procedure rules, our traditions and convention, usually followed, the February meeting has been treated as a special meeting, where the main focus for council has been to consider the item for decision on the HRA and the finance paper, which is for information. We have a situation where, because the meeting has not been marked as a special meeting, there is no agreement between the groups to treat this as a special meeting. I am advised that the February meeting has not been marked as a special meeting consistently, but the tradition and convention has been to treat it as such. As chair of the meeting, I want this meeting to be handled in an orderly fashion, which balances the tradition and convention of the council, and makes sure we can get through all the items on the agenda. We have before us, as in previous years, the HRA paper, which is for decision, and the finance paper for information. We also have two other matters, which are for decision. There is one routine report on member appointments, and additionally, we have two motions on notice as well as a matter of local interest. To ensure an ordinary meeting, I am therefore going to exercise my discretion, understanding order 9B, to vary the order of business. And so, after questions to the leader and cabinet members, we will consider the items for decision from the executive and from the general purposes committee. We will then consider report number 3 from the planning applications committee. This will be followed by report number 2 from the executive. Thereafter, the remaining items will be considered in the order in which they will appear on the published agenda. Please could all speakers keep to time and wind up your speeches when the red light comes on. When the red light comes on, you will have 30 seconds remaining to wind up. This is to allow as many as possible of all councillors to participate. That is the end of my announcements. On item 3, are there any members who have any declaration of disclosable pecuniary interests? Are there registrable interests or non-registrable interests relevant to any matters to be considered at the meeting? We have got a licensing paper going through and I am a member of the London Renters' Union. I do not make any money from that, but I am a member of that tenants' organisation. Thank you. That has been noted. Thank you. Moving on to item number 4. Members, please raise your hand to indicate if you have a petition to hand in. Once I have called your name, please announce the subject title of your petition and who you are presenting it on behalf of. Please then come forward and hand your petition to Mr Kelly. Are there any petitions? Councillor Kornel. Thank you, Madam Mayor. The first of three petitions. Petition to install acoustic cameras on Nine Elms Lane to address the excessive noise from loud vehicles signed by residents in the area. Thank you. Any other petitions? Shall I just take them both? The first, second petition is to save Bradstow's school. It's signed by 1,700 people and members of the school community. As colleagues will have seen, it is the subject of our motion this evening, so we look forward to debating that later. I think it's really important that all councillors in this chamber are properly briefed and aware of this situation and how important it is that it is carefully considered. Would you like to present your third petition? Thank you, Madam Mayor. The third petition I have is a petition to get Wandsworth Council to take action to hold housing associations to account for property management failings, signed predominantly by residents in Nine Elms Ward, but I know it's of very special interest to residents across the borough. Thank you. Each of these petitions will be dealt with in accordance with the Council's petition scheme. Item 5 is leaders' questions. Before we begin questions, may I am... Point of order, Madam Mayor. Point of order. Councillor Sutters. Thank you. Understanding orders 16 and 9A, there is an important motion about the proposed closure of Bradstow's school tonight. It's a vital and unique facility. Members across the chamber know my concern about this provision and my experience. You say this is not an ordinary meeting, or maybe it is an ordinary meeting. At the meetings, we debate motions at the end of the item for decision, and we don't debate the item for decision. However, this evening, there are speakers on reports and the motion on Bradstow's school is not where Standing Order 9A says it should be. It has been put to the end, as you announced earlier. Madam Mayor, we know what that will mean. The debate on Bradstow's school will be timed out when the administration brings down the guillotine. Our standing orders say the Bradstow motion should be taken after items for decision. Please, will you make a ruling to that effect? And will you also explain why you are permitting speakers on items for decision and information, which is not our procedure? Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Councillor Zutters. We've made a ruling, and it's under the Chair's discretion, and we've decided to obviously take this with the most important matters being dealt with first. And so, yes, we will be dealing with the Bradstow's school issue, but it will be dealt with later on in the agenda. Thank you. Madam Mayor, could I ask one more thing? When you say we have made a ruling, who is we? I have made the final decision. I've consulted with the monitoring officer as well, so I have made the ruling as the Chair of the meeting. Thank you. On a point of order, Madam Mayor, you say that you've put the most important items first and the least important items last. How is it that you're saying the motion on Bradstow's school is less important than items for mere information? I don't actually recall saying that, Councillor Graham. I did not say that the school issue is the least priority. Well, in that case, Madam Mayor, will you bring it forward so that it is before the items for information and after the items for decision, as the Standing Order set out is the normal way of doing things? Thank you, Councillor Graham. I've already made my decision and this is the way that I propose to chair this meeting. Thank you. Point of order, Madam Mayor, under Standing Order 23. Really, all colleagues around this chamber know and I know care deeply about the fact that we are elected to represent the residents of this borough and the people in this borough's care. I think that parents and residents would be appalled to see that this meeting is being conducted in this way. However, I do have a proposal that will help us proceed with this meeting in an orderly manner and it's one that will allow the parents and the children of Bradstow's school to be heard whilst also allowing the majority group to effectively have most of their way on the running of this meeting. So I'd like to propose a motion under Standing Order 23 that the motion for Bradstow's school takes precedence over items for information and is considered after the items for decision. That way, the administration will still have its debate on report number one but we will still be able to discuss Bradstow's school in the normal way which I think the vast majority of councillors in this chamber would accept is a vitally important matter for the consideration of the whole council. Thank you, Councillor Corner, for your advice. Understanding Order 9-3, I have made my discretion that this is a way that I will be conducting... No, sorry, Madam Mayor. Sorry, can you see? I am still talking. Councillor Corner was proposing a motion. I second the motion. The motion now has to be put to a vote. Sorry. Councillor Corner was proposing a motion. I think I'm seconding it. It now has to be put to a vote. Could you not see that? I was still talking. No, I did not. Not at all. Let's take it to the vote. All those in favour. Madam Mayor, I'm sorry to do this because I think we're all trying to avoid it but on a genuine point of order there is no way that you can move motions from the floor at random. They'll have Councillor Dickerton standing up tomorrow saying I move a motion that Belton shuts up. You can't have random motions like that and they know it perfectly well. They do it through the proper procedures and they listen to what the Mayor ruled. Councillor Belton, that's precisely what Standing Order 23 says you can do. You can move a motion about which items take precedence. Thank you. So we will be going to the vote. All those in favour. Okay. So, the motion to move Councillor Corners item up the agenda after matters for decision. We are moving, we're going to be making a vote. So, all those in favour. Yes, I've understood that. Please state for, against or abstain. Councillor Akinola. Against. Councillor Ambas. Against. Councillor Annan. Against. Councillor Apps. Against. Councillor Austin. For. Councillor Ayres. Against. Councillor Belton. Against. Councillor 4 Councillor Critchard against Councillor Crivelli 4 Councillor Davis вед councillor De La Sogez for Councillor Dickerdom against Councillor Dobre against Councillor Fraser against Councillor Gasser against Councillor Goshenne 4 Councillor Graham 4 Councillor Grimston 4 Councillor Hamilton 4 Councillor Hedges 9 Councillor Henderson against councillor Hogg councillor Humphreys councillor Ireland against councillor Jeffries for councillor Justin for councillor Lawless councillor Lee councillor Locker for councillor Marshall against councillor Maycross against councillor McLeod against councillor Osborne councillor Owens for councillor Pridham for councillor Richard Jones for councillor Rigby councillor Stock councillor Sutters for councillor Sweet councillor Tiller against councillor Varandaraj councillor White against councillor Worrell against councillor Yates against no abstentions the motion is lost the vote is lost so 21-4 30 against and zero abstentions the motion is lost thank you Madam Mayor a point of order understanding order 16 Before item 5 is leaders questions Madam Mayor a point of order understanding order 16 Carry on councillor Adam Thank you Madam Mayor I'll make this very brief but over the last 18 months the Labour group have repeatedly either abused the rules to stop us raising matters on behalf of residents or they've changed the rules to take away our democratic rights tonight they have burnt the rule book to stop us debating a serious issue about Bradstow school now we've tried to compromise councillor corner put forward a perfectly sensible compromise that the administration can have its debate and we can have its debate too I'll wrap up very quickly Madam Mayor there are limits we've tried to engage we've tried to compromise but the reflexive attitude of Labour is always just to shout us down this is a sham meeting Councillor Richard Jones what is the point of order it's this the residents who sent us here tonight Madam Mayor did not send us here for this with deep regret I'm afraid we can't participate further in tonight's meeting councillors before you leave do you not think the other the other things on the agenda of not of importance there's a HRA report there's a rent report are these not important to the residents of Wandsworth Madam Mayor could I please call an adjournment of the council for a few minutes so 10 minutes we'll have a 10 minute adjournment break thank you members good evening and welcome back to the meeting it seems tonight is a special meeting this this meeting is quarret we have business that we must conclude for the benefit of our residents we will start with leaders questions as the minority group are not here we will take questions from the majority groups from the majority groups they appear in the as they appear in the agenda thank you so we're going to item 5 which is the leaders questions and we're going to question number 3 excuse me Madam Mayor I'll be asking on behalf of Councillor Paul thank you so question number 3 to the leader I thank the councillor for that question I'm proud of this administration's commitment to sound financial management we've delivered the lowest council tax in the country alongside having the lowest debt of any in the London council and some of the highest reserves in London how do we do this well our innovative better services partnership saves around 20 million a year the new change program will deliver efficiencies of up to nine million pounds per year and due to our smart investment decisions we will earn 33 million pounds income this year alone we've removed those unfair restrictions on developer contributions in nine elms so tens of millions of pounds can now be spent all across the borough in all our communities Councillor Ireland and officers and the finance team keep an excellent grip on our council finances and the cabinet meets each week to discuss and make decisions on these important issues and because of these smart financial decisions and because of these smart financial decisions we've reversed years of chronic underinvestment to deliver better services sound financial management is at the heart of everything we do because it enables the top class services that our residents rightly expect Thank you Councillor Warrall Supplemental question yes As a Shard Spring Queenstown councillor it's actually really good to see the number of initiatives that are improving the quality of life for the residents in my ward and across the borough itself I was wondering though please could you outline what the council will be doing to continue to ensure equity of access across the borough for our programs which are very beneficial to our residents Sorry I thank Councillor Warrall for that question and for his excellent work representing Shaftesbury and Queenstown Wandsworth is a fantastic place to live work and do business and we are determined to make it even better We have the biggest cost of living fund in London We're a dedicated borough of sanctuary for refugees and we've set up an ambitious access for all program Through access for all we're making sure that everyone in the borough has the opportunity to take part in the fantastic you know life chances that are created here in Wandsworth I hope you saw the story of how free access for all gym membership transformed the life of Joan We made a great video of it on the website through free access for all membership to Latchmere Leisure Centre We could rehabilitate after Covid It was a fantastic story and that's just one of 50,000 free gym and swim sessions that have happened around the borough so far It's lovely to see children and families enjoying access to the fireworks at Battersea Park They get to go to London Zoo, they get to watch the panto here in the town hall and trips of course to our fantastic Lido And many of them having those experiences for the first time in their life We really are broadening horizons here and next month we're introducing even more access for all offers to make this the best concessionary scheme in Britain I'll just say a few more words about finance the subject of this meeting so council borrowing and just to say in line with almost every organization We will borrow to create long-term assets our ambitious housing program homes for Wandsworth will deliver 1,000 new homes for council rent We will own and manage these new homes and local residents and their sons and daughters will get priority and the cost of borrowing for housing repays itself through rental income Our housing revenue account business plan shows our investment in council housing is affordable And the case work we all receive as councillors tells us the investment in decent housing is crucial And we will of course save money on the very expensive temporary accommodation placements we have by building more homes So we remain totally committed to delivering genuinely affordable homes for local people And we will always keep sound financial management at the heart of everything we do Thank you Is there a second supplementary question? Question number five Councillor Fraser Thank you Question number five to the leader I'd like to thank Councillor Fraser for the question As part of our decade of renewal we are doubling investment in our roads and pavements That's a 100 million 10-year commitment And I'm delighted that it will improve not just roadways and carriageways You'll see signs and lines And also I'll come back to this street name signs as well We're resurfacing and reconstructing footways and carriageways all across the borough Twice as many as we used to do That of course includes bus lanes and cycle lanes That will maintain and improve safety and access for all road and pavement users I'll just quickly recap some of the examples You'll know Elmfield Road In Ballum Footway reconstruction there Ballum Park Road Footway reconstruction works to improve the conditions Garrett Lane I think it's much better than it has been There's still work to do there though And Mitchum Road as well From Rookstone Road to the borough boundary So we're very proud to see this decade of investment coming through And as I said I'd love to talk more about street signs Yes so supplementary on that point Could you tell me about what we are doing to refresh street signs and nameplates across Wandsworth Yes because this is one of my favourite subjects You know everyone should have pride in their neighbourhood Pride in their street And when you see that your street sign is just a bit tatty or broken It sends a signal So hopefully everyone has received one of these through their door They've seen the videos out there We've relaunched Wandsworth as a listening council But one that has a seven rings seven days guarantee So phone us and we will pick up A member of staff will pick up and try and help you within seven rings And if you report graffiti or a dangerous pothole or a broken street sign We will fix it within seven days And this has already been happening around the borough And we're really proud of this pledge It is about changing the culture of the council And I was going to encourage every councillor to pick up their merchandise This is the new branding hopefully you've seen This is a visual reminder that we're going to be a more open creative council We're moving forward into a new cooperative era So these will be available in the members rooms for the councillors present at the meeting Councillor Grimston Thank you By the way on the point of order am I right in thinking that I have a right to a supplementary On every question that comes up this evening I don't intend to exercise that right But can I just say I do like some of the big messages here And there's a sense of excitement about them which I think does work well However would the leader agree that there is a danger That if things like the seven day graffiti pledge are being presented When as I sent to him I reported some graffiti in my ward at the end of December One of which was on a British Telecom box outside one of our social housing estates And certainly this weekend that graffiti was still there It's eight months since there was an agreement that a cycle shed in my ward Should be moved because it was dangerous for an entry That cycle shed is still there Is there a danger that if these big picture things which I say are rather attractive Are not matched with an attention to detail Then a sense of cynicism will come up where people will ask it's a great idea But what I'm seeing on the ground doesn't support it Councillor Largo Absolutely As usual Councillor Grimston gets to the heart of it You know good customer services isn't going to hit the spot unless you have the follow-up behind If you're actually providing the services So I am aware of the issues raised We are chasing it now But I'd say that's exactly what we want to know about You know we are well into the 90% within three days to clear off graffiti I mean sometimes it's on private land Sometimes we can't get access But we want people to say to us You didn't pick up the phone in Seven Rings This department isn't doing it You know you haven't cleared the graffiti off in this part of the borough And we will invest And we will get there And you know I want to be clear We believe transparency and accountability Drives higher performance So we will put on the website every week What percentage of phone calls were answered in Seven Rings What percentage of potholes and graffiti and street signs were done And also publish monthly action plans Of how we're going to get to 100% You know we are absolutely determined This will drive change within the council And we've had brilliant conversations with residents about it already Who've raised similar questions You know we're not expecting this to shift perceptions overnight But we are going to shift the culture of the council It will be a listening council that is obsessed with the needs of local people As I say we've had positive feedback And the other element I'd emphasise Which sorry I probably missed earlier Is all residents now get two free bulky waste collections So each of those two collections can be four items So if you've got a washing machine Or a mattress or something else You can put that outside So not only are we keeping and expanding The monthly mega skips They've helped to drive fly tipping down 16% We're going to guarantee Keeping those weekly bin collections And we're bringing in two free bulky waste collections For everyone else And of course all of this without adding a penny To your council tax Thank you Question 7 Councillor White Councillor 7 to the cabinet member for housing To the leader Sorry Sorry he's not leader is he No to the leader sorry Sorry Sorry Councillor Hawke Thank you very much Councillor White raises an important point I know he's campaigned on this for a long time More than a third of the borough's stock is privately rented And while the vast majority of landlords do a good job We know there is that minority of rogue landlords That we have to really crack down on So he knows we're bringing in landlord licensing Which will drive up standards across the board And drive out those rogue landlords I hope we will hear more later from Councillor Dekodem Who I know has a bigger raft of plans But one of the great things about licensing scheme Is it enables you to employ more enforcement officers To have more eyes and ears out there Another strand of being the listening council Is we only know what's going on if people tell us You know we've created Hello at Wandsworth Like an email address Because I didn't know until we started this project That Wandsworth Council didn't have a central email address Where you could just email it So I bumped into a guy called Trevor At one of my community drop-ins And he's a neighbourhood watch coordinator He does a great job But he showed me the piece of paper Where he had 15 different council officers And their phone numbers and their email addresses And the ones who'd left and passed away and so on That's crazy You should just need one phone number One email address You know we'll do the triage afterwards And just to say that this is just the first step In the listening council You know later this year I mean most of you are on whatsapp Most of you have whatsapp But we're not only creating a panel Of several hundred residents Who will whatsapp us their experiences You know drop us voice notes Take pictures of potholes Or damp and mould whatever it is But we're going to make it That you can contact the council through whatsapp You know you can just be on the bus Send us an issue And we'll get in touch with it So I want to be clear That having a phone line that's answered Having an email that's answered Is just the start of this customer services revolution And we know that our many renters in the borough Face more and different types of issues Than other residents And we want them to know that this council Is on their side And it will be there to support them Second supplementary Could I ask the leader Whether good landlords And we have many good landlords in the borough Have anything to fear From landlord licensing I don't think so I think it's a good project We've seen it work elsewhere You need a licence to drive You need a licence to fish It really is a big responsibility Being a landlord One that the vast majority of landlords Take very seriously And I know landlords that are very irritated That the reputation they get From some of the cowboys out there So you know All responsible landlords Want to drive up standards We want all of our people To be in good quality housing So I actually think You'll see us working in partnership With good landlords I would hope that they would welcome the scheme And we'll be able to work together well Thank you Is there a second supplementary question? Okay Question number nine Councillor Warhol Question nine to the leader Thank you very much I've already had the opportunity To touch a little bit On our listening council relaunch But I would just come back to this Seven rings, seven days guarantee Do please spread this to your residents You know We want them to reach out to us When they have a problem And we will make sure The council responds to it We've talked about the Two free bulky waste collections And I just bring it back To this idea of a change of culture Within the council You know This administration has changed And we've changed the council And it's going to be one That truly listens And involves residents In everything we do The democracy review Will improve participation Of residents The key thing is It has to be residents That are the heart of decision making It's not a few bully boys It's not a few people Who just want to shout down Other people We are going to listen To the people of Wandsworth And we now have The digital technology To be able to reach out to people We've opened up The people's town hall To the voluntary sector Had a fantastic tour today Of one wing of the town hall Downstairs Where there's new desks There's three massive meeting rooms Please spread the word To the voluntary sector That space is now At their disposal We want to welcome Creative people in Particularly during our year Of borough of culture We'd love to have More of our valued charity And voluntary sector partners In the town hall with us We've run more Community drop-in events I've held Leader question and answer sessions I think in I think we've only got One or two wards to go We'll have covered Every ward in the borough So far this year I'll cover every ward In the borough again next year Really enjoy interacting With residents And we've really Really improved Our partnership working Not just with the voluntary sector But with great local businesses Such as Apple And I guess just a final point On culture change Which is We are coming into our year As borough of culture Credit Councillor Akinola For her excellent work there And that will enable people To connect better Communities to come together We will showcase Wandsworth We'll celebrate its culture And innovation And we can take our place On the London stage And on the national stage So I hope everyone Has their invite I hope you can make it On February the 26th For the launch At Battersea Arts Centre 25th? What she said February the 25th For our launch At Battersea Arts Centre Fantastic opportunity For us all to come together And celebrate everything That Wandsworth has to offer Thank you Thank you Councillor Orell Yes supplementary Thank you Initiatives such as Seven Rings Only work If residents Actually know about it And actually are aware Of the developments Within the council I wonder if the leader Could explain What is being done To actually highlight The changes That are going through The council at the moment Our rebranding For example Our pledges And how will the council Ensure that this Information is just Not a one-off provision But actually residents Continue to find The information out Throughout the year Yeah that's a great question So as I say Hopefully This weekend 100,000 of those Leaflets that I just Held up Have been going out Through doors Across Wandsworth Final thing on WhatsApp The council now Has a WhatsApp broadcast Channel that More than 700 people Are part of And on that Every day You've seen Councillor Yates In a cherry picker Putting up a sign Or you've seen Councillor Akinola Clearing off some graffiti Or you know Councillor Gasser Replacing a bin And so on So we're getting out there We're making it clear The cabinet members Are out there We're at street level We're listening to people I think It was about 70,000 people Have watched the launch video On YouTube now Obviously If you're on If you like this sort of thing It's on Instagram And Twitter And so on as well But we are Absolutely out there Selling this You'll have seen Council's website Has been rebranded Signs on estates Have changed Hopefully you've seen The signage around The town hall Has changed I'm doing an event For all staff tomorrow But I've visited The customer contact centre And other departments And it's just lovely And it's just lovely To see the attitude People are like You know You haven't repainted My office for eight years You know Having They've got very smart What are they Kind of like Fuchsia t-shirts You know Their working environment Has got better Morale has increased So yeah Hopefully The council Will now look And feel different And we are trying To drive that Positive culture change As well Second supplementary Thank you The seven rings Is clearly A very attractive And positive move In the world Where many people Just get fed up With the phone Because they get Put into a menu Which very often Then kicks them out At the end of the process Nonetheless I'm sure the leader Has the experience That I have very often Of a sense That they can get Through to the council But then it's not clear Who in the council Actually owns The relationship With the individual And sometimes They get pushed From one department To another At what point In the process After the seven rings Have been answered Does a named Council officer Become the contact For that resident If it's a more Complex issue Than just Reporting a pothole Or whatever But if it's a more Complex issue For that individual Are we confident Or is the leader Confident That we have A structure in place Whereby the individual Will then know Very clearly Who is looking after The case on their behalf And that we are Monitoring that the Individual is getting Back to that resident On a regular basis To make sure That they know What the council Is doing in response To that issue Thanks again I think that's a great point And these It's a shame The opposition Is left Because I think These are the Sort of discussions That are positive And important And tease out Key issues So I mean Being very clear Our initial investment Is in the front line Customer service We've unified The technology We're training up Staff We're employing New staff It's fantastic To see them Arriving from Google And John Lewis And you know Bringing in culture From outside But plainly That doesn't Double or treble The number of people Doing occupational Therapy assessments It doesn't double The amount Of available Council housing So as I say We know Good customer service You know Doesn't solve All your organisation's Problems Sorry But we did know You know Listening to people From the events We do From focus groups We've run That simply Not picking up The telephone Was like a real Issue with the council You know When I I was at the Onesworth Older people's forum But when I do Public meetings I say Hold up your hand If the council's Kept you on hold For more than Half an hour And half the people Put up their hands So that's Completely unacceptable So that's what We want to cut out Now of course There'll need to be A series of rolling Service redesigns Beneath that To make sure We are using Digital technology So for instance The vast majority Of all the people Who book bulky Waste collections Just go online And book it in the form And no one Would ever think In their daily life Of phoning up Netflix Or phoning up Uber Or anything else Because they just have Such seamless Digital experiences That it would You know Who wants to spend Time on the phone So just to be clear These are initial steps To make sure our Phones and our Email works But then of course We will be working On channel shift As well To make sure Everyone who wants To can be served Seamlessly digitally And we can reserve The really valuable Time of our Frontline professionals For those more Complicated cases That need more Application of time Thank you That is now The end Of leaders questions Sorry We move on To cabinet questions Cabinet members Questions now We have 25 minutes Oh sorry 23 minutes Let's move on To questions Jefferies No no no Sorry Question 13 Question 13 Yes Thank you very much Councillor Mayorkas Yeah I'm very proud Of the progress That we're making On the walking And cycling strategy And I know you had A great deal Of input to that As our Active travel Champion And we agreed it In November 2022 And it goes up to 2030 So you've asked About the investment That we're making In this financial Year to help Implement the strategy And this financial Year we're Implement We're spending Roughly or our Commitment is 6.254 million And some highlights Of what We're using That money for Well we've got Over 700,000 Pounds going For cycle parking To continue Our rollout Of bike hangers Which are in Very high demand Across the borough And generally Fill up straight away When we adopted The walking And cycling strategy Back in November 2022 There were just 65 bike hangers But now there's 229 And then we've got Over 200,000 Pounds going into Pedestrian crossings To deliver Nine new zebra crossings And new or improved Signalised crossings In Tooting and Putney And we've got Significant levels Of funding For ambitious Cycling schemes And our town centre Improvement schemes To help pedestrians So those are the schemes On Burnwood Lane Queenstown Road Tooting town centre And Old York Road And we're also We also are funding The continuation Of our school streets Programme So that's our Investment this Financial year And then of course Over the Implementation period Of the strategy We're investing Far more than that So for the six Full financial years For which we already Have funds allocated We have committed Over £40 million Of investment To improve Walking and cycling In the borough So we've achieved To build on the progress That's been made Yes thank you for that Good question Well we're very pleased That we now have 31 schools That now benefit From a school street So we've achieved Our target of 50% Of primary schools In the borough Operating a school street But of course We want to go Much further than that And thank you Councillor Mayorkas For your recent Excellent suggestion At the last transport Committee That officers write To each ward To all the councillors In each ward To let them know Which schools In their ward Have a school street And let them know Why the other schools Don't have a school street And to suggest That they might want To help With contacting Those schools And there's a big In a good response From both the minority party And our councillors To that initiative I'm really pleased That councillors Have got back in touch Offering to contact schools Making suggestions Now of course It's the case That not all schools Are in a location That is suitable For a school street Some of them are On very busy main roads So at those schools They are being assessed For additional Safety measures And officers are Working with those schools On those Now of course We need all the School streets That we already have To work well So we are working Continuously with all The schools that have School streets To for example Put in extra signage Or ANPR Where that's needed To ensure That each school street Works well And I should just add That there are some schools Where actually The schools themselves Their heads don't feel That they want a school street They don't think It's necessary And of course This is a voluntary initiative And has to be worked on In partnership With our schools Councillor Labs Second supplementary I would like to thank Councillor Mayorkas And Councillor Yates For their excellent initiative Encouraging local councillors To contact schools About school streets I've been in touch With a number of mine And St Mary's Have come back to say It is something That they would consider What are the next steps I should take To get them on that road To having a really safe Wonderful entrance Which will allow children To arrive safely At school Without traffic fumes So thank you Councillor Upps So yes Of course We'll be very happy To look at that And you should get in touch With our dedicated officer Who looks after Our school streets And explain the feedback You've had And then I'm sure They'll be very happy To follow up with the school Thank you Question 15 Thank you Chair Question 15 To the Cabinet Member for Environment Yes thank you Well for anybody watching It looks like this is A rather boring question About the grounds Maintenance contract But it is not It is a really good example Of how you can use procurement To really help fulfil All our The things we believe in In our manifesto pledges So we went out For procurement For the grounds Maintenance of our parks And you know That's very important In itself You've got to Mow the lawns You've got to Keep the hedges Tidy all of that You've got to Empty the bins But whilst we were Doing that Also we could specify All sorts of things We're going to use Vehicles running on Hydrogenated vegetable oil We're going to keep Our electric vehicles We're going to make sure The contractor pays A real living wage You know all of these Things that we Fundamentally believe in We can make happen Through our procurement On top of that Actually as it turned out We went out to Tender for three Different contracts At the same time So it was grounds Maintenance in our parks Ground maintenance In our estates And actually Richmond Had a similar one So because actually All three went to The same contractor We've got economies Of scale as well So we're also saving Money for our residents So actually just A really good example Of what you can do When you procure wisely Thank you supplementary Thank you for the answer I was also wondering If similarly to The benefits That you just highlighted Have there been Any new contracts Recently that will Also be contributing Especially to our Manifesto pledges On the London living Wage as well as Sustainability Yes absolutely I mean since we've Come into administration Every single contract Has had the real Living wage in And also we look At terms and conditions And the number so far I have is 234 contracts Which have the real Living wage in Which is really quite Something and as We renew each one Or not as we go To tender each time We will specify that We look at terms And conditions We're also Placing a lot of Emphasis on social Value now So one very key Point in social Value is Sustainability So that's there In every single Contract now Yeah the terms And conditions Employment for local People Apprenticeships for Local people Procuring locally Everything that we Believe in We can make happen Through our contracting Thank you Is there a second Supplementary question Moving on to Question number 17 Yes question 17 To the cabinet Member for children Please Thank you Councillor Davies As the cabinet Member of children Perhaps it's appropriate That I just Quickly Address The opposition Concern in relation To Bradstow School And just to be Really clear For anybody And councillors In the room That are watching The position Is that we Currently are Consulting on a Possible closure Of Bradstow School A special needs School In broad Stairs In Kent And I just Want to be Really clear That no Decision Has been Taken In relation To that We currently Are in the Pre-consultation Informal stage Of that Discussion Where we are Listening to Residents Or stakeholders A paper Went to Committee To discuss This proposal Back in December Members of Children's Committee Had a good Discussion At that point About this Proposal And that then Came through And was reported To committee Before Christmas A petition Has been Presented Tonight And a Paper Is going To come Back to Children's Committee Next week On Tuesday For a Further Discussion About where We are With the School But I Can update All members Of the Council That we Continue To explore With the School All options Available To try And make The school Financially Viable Going forward And to Preserve Its future Including Working With Academy Trust To explore Possible Academisation That really Does sit With the Governing Board But we're Also working With the School To look At reducing Costs But we Really need To put The needs Of children At the Heart of That discussion And I'm Not willing To compromise In terms Of their Needs Being met And making Sure that They have Sufficient Support Bearing In mind Their Vulnerabilities And complexities So I will Continue to Update Children's Committee On this Proposal And along The consultation And we Are working Incredibly Hard Alongside The school Parents And listening To all Stakeholders To move Forward And hopefully If possible Protect the Future Of the School To answer Councillor Davies Question In relation To our Free Baby Box Scheme It really Is a Unique Initiative In Wandsworth That we're Incredibly Proud of And it's Demonstrating Our commitment To supporting Young families And ensuring That each And every Child In Wandsworth Has the Very best Start In life So our Current Scheme Extends To first Time Parents Under the Age Of 21 And those That are Care experienced And we Provide in The box Some Essential Items For their Newborn Children At a Very special Moment For them So the Box Itself Promotes Sleeping Practices Attachment And interaction Between parents And their Children The box Includes Practical Items Digital Thermometers Nail Clippers Toothbrushes Spoons Bath Mittens And toys And the box Itself Is in fact Made out Of sturdy Cardboard So it Can in fact Double As a Safe Sleeping Place Complete With a Mattress And cotton Sheets If that Is something That the Families Need There's also Leaflets And booklets With valuable Information Inside So that Parents Can engage With their Children And support Them Particularly On how To handle Emergencies Thinking About Public Health Agenda And how To support Healthy Early Development But what We're particularly Proud of In terms Of asking Which really Makes it Stand out From many Others Is that Any recipient Of our Baby box Also is given Wrap around Support From one Of our Family Head connectors That's a Brand new Role That we've Introduced So they Support The parent From pregnancy All the way Through to The baby's First birthday And these Connectors Particularly Focused on Outreach Work Offering Cycle Social Support Linking Parents With local Resources And activities And also Enhancing the Child development And educational Development Of children Who receive The box Councillor Davies Thank you Very much Last month The children's Laureate Frank Cottrell Boyce He called On the Government To increase Access to Books To improve Long term Life chances So particularly After austerity The pandemic And Brexit He noted That not only Shared region Was good For educational Attainment But also Effective Promoting Good bonding Good attachment And good Mental health And create A joyous Situation Where parents And carers Can give The best Starting Life To our Children So I'd Like to Ask Two little Questions Really Does the Cabinet Member Agree That our Baby boxes Have these Shared Ames But also Does it Promote Joined up Thinking With the Different Partners And service Providers In this Borough Thank you Thank you Councillor Davies For that Question Absolutely I agree With what The children's Laureate Says And I Think There's A lot Of Shared Aims In Our Scheme So Early Years Are Really Important For Children's Life Chances I Think That Is Very Much Agreed And I Think That's Why Early Years Is A Priority For This Council And We Now Know Also A Priority For This New Labour Government So We're Really Proud That Our Baby Box Scheme Is The First Of Its Kind In London And We've Introduced It Here In Wandsworth Because We Recognize That The First Thousand And One Days In A Baby's Life Are Absolutely Absolutely Critical Period That Really Do Set The Foundations For Their Emotional And Physical Well Being All The Way Through Into Their Ad Or Hut So Our Baby Box Team Really Aims To Support Parents With Those Issues Of Bonding And Attachment Through The First Steps In Their Family's Life So As I Said Some Of The Books And Toys Really Can Promote Positive Bonding There Can Be Books In There To Help Families Read Together To Sing Together As Well As The Essentials That I Mentioned Earlier And I Think One Of The Nice Quotes That We Received From Farnie Who's One Of The Young Parents Who's Already Received A Box Is She Said That This Box Is Complete With Everything That I Need So As I Say We're Really Proud Of Our Unique Offer That Really Enables All Children To Have The Best Support In Life And The Role Of The Family Hub Connectors As Well Supporting Families To Signpost Activities Into Their Community I Think That Will Also Support That Bonding And Attachment But I Think Councillor Davies You Also Highlight Another Aspect Of The Scheme That Is Really Important And That Is Our Work With Our Partners Both Family Nurse Partnership Supporting Families Not Just Within Our Council Services But Those Other Partners To Get The Support They Need As Young Parents But Also We Are Really Proud To Partnering With Little Village A Local Charity To Provide Some Clothes And Other Bundles Of Support For Families Working In Partnership With Them Which I Think Is Really Great And I Think As A Consequence Of The Recent Coverage Of Our Scheme We Had Further Partners Come Forward With Groups Interested In Knitting Mittens And Things Like That For Children As Well So We Will Be Taking Every Opportunity We Can To Expand The Box And The Opportunities That Are In It For New Families Councillor Grimston Thank You Madam Mayor Second Supplementary On The First Part Of The Cabinet Members Answer There And I Recognize The Very Peculiar Situation We In Tonight That It Is Very Difficult To Know How To We Can Actually Find Space In The Agenda And The Standing Orders To Refer To To The Decision Going On In Kent I When I Had The Education Brief I Got Very Fond Of Bradstead But Equivalently I Was Aware Of The Enormous Challenges Of Trying To Manage A School That Was 80 Miles Was Filling A Gap In The Provision And That Hasn't Changed But I Think What I Want To Just Suggest Is That There Been A Number Of Comments Over The Last Two Years Or So From The Council Leadership About The Shameful Record Of The Previous Administration In Closing Schools Could I Just Ask The Cabinet Member Now With A Bit Of Experience Around This Of Recognizing That Actually It Sometimes I Don't Know Whether It Is The Case Here Or Not Sometimes It Is The Right Decision We Could Not Have The Pattern Of Special School Education That We Have In This Borough Now Had We Not Taken Very Difficult Decision To Decisions Are Difficult They Take Their To On Decision Makers And I I'm Sure The Council Is Finding That And Maybe We Can Recognize That These Issues Are Not A Matter Of Good And Evil But Sometimes They Are A Matter Of Different Approaches To Improving The Quality Of Education For Our Most Needy Youngsters Thank You Councillor Grimston For That Question And I Can Tell That He Is Great To Meet The Dedicated Leadership Team Great To See Children Learning There Great To Hear Directly From Parents Of Their Experiences At All But I Did Also See A Plaque With Councillor Grimston Name On Which Opened One Of The Wings Of The School So I Can See That It Is Personal To Him And His Journey And Experience Within The Council But He Is Right That The School Has Faced And Does Face Enormous Challenges And Those Really Are Financially Driven The School Is Currently Experiencing A 1.2 Million Pound Deficit That Is Partly Driven By Some Local Authorities Not Being Willing To Pay The Fees That Are Needed In Order To Support The Children There Including Kent County Council Who Currently Have Unpaid Fees Of 1.2 Million And He Mentions Kent County Council And The Discussions That Have Been Ongoing For Quite Some Time Since 2021 About Transfer Of The School To Them Because As He Says The School Is Quite A Significant Distant From Wandsworth And Myself And Those Members Of Children's Committee Who Went Did Have An Early Morning In Order To Be To Get There And I Know Officers Have Done That In To To To Support The School Within Our Family But Those Conversations Have Been Ongoing For Quite Some Time And It Was Really Disappointing That In October Of Last Year Kent County Council Decided Not To Take The School Into Their Family Of Schools Citing A Number Of Reasons Including That Opened About Them Reconsidering Their Decision It Is Quite Clear From The Leader Of Kent County Council Response To Us That They Have No Interest In Moving Forward And Have Said That In Fact They Are Actively Working On Transition For Their Pupils That Are There Ready For The End Of The Academic Year Because As Many Members May Know They Have The Majority Of Pupils At The School They Three Wandsworth Children Attending The School So As I Said No Decision Has Been Made Councillor Grimston Is Quite Right To Recognize That But This Proposal Does Come From A Very Difficult Decision Really Being The Financial Viability Of The School And Our Ability In That Context To Meet The Needs Of Some Of The Most Vulnerable Children Particularly Bearing In Mind The Disproportionate Nature Of That Will Hit Wandsworth Tax Payers Sadly With The Current Situation And The Deficit That The School Currently Holds Thank You Councillor Stop For The Update And Information On Bread Store School Thank You Moving On To Question Number 19 Councillor Attila Yes Thank You Madam Mayor Question Number 19 To The Cabinet Member For Housing Yeah It's A Really Important Question And It's One That We've Gone Away And Looked At Hard At From The Last Meeting We Had Where We Were Asked About The Impact Of Rent Arrears On Our Tenants Cost Of Living Crisis Has Seen An Increase In Rent Arrears But When You Delve Into The Detail Of The People Who Are Impacted The Actual Clearance Rate On Arrears Is We're In A Healthy Position So We Managed To Collect About 98% Of Our Rental Account And Those Who Are Falling Into Hardship That Category Of Tenants We Have A Huge Wrap Around Service So That Service Is Designed To Try And Pick Up When Rent Arrears Are Moving From What Can Be Understood As An Understandable Delay In Payment We Talked Previously About The Roll Over To Universal Credit Having An Impact On Some Of Those Numbers But When We Pick Up On Acute Arrear Which Is When We Think Actually This Person Is Behind We Can Move In And Start To Offer Affordable Repayment Plans Offer Debt Advice We're Also Hosting In Person Workshops Which Has Wrap Around Services So We Have Someone From Work Match We Have People From The Housing Team We Have People From The Finance Team To Try And Make Sure That We Can Protect Tenants Give People Up to Date Benefit Advice If They're Not Claiming Benefit That Could Help Them In Their Areas So For Our Areas Is A Really Important Thing The Overall Volume Of Has Fallen Lower Than It Has For The Last Two Years Since The Mini Budget Rental Increases This Year Are Going To Be Only At CPI Plus One Which Is 2.7 Percent That's Much Lower Than We Have Previously Had Whenever We Do A Rent Increase We Have To Bear In Mind The Impact On Those On Arrears So We Are Focused Very Heavily To Protect Those Tenants That Has To Be Very Serious Circumstances Where We Think That The Person Isn't Really Using The Wraparound Support That We're Offering So We Try And Make Sure That We Have A Very Caring Approach To Making Sure That People Can Maintain Their Tenancy Because Maintaining A Tenancy Is Really The Most Important Thing To Us As The Council Thank You Councillor Grimston Thank You As The Cabinet Member Is Happy With The Wording Of Some Of The Letters That Go Out In These Circumstances Because While It May Well Be The Case That Eviction Is Very Rare The Very First Letter That A Tenant Or Leaseholder Gets Very Often Threatens Precisely That They're In Danger Of Losing Their Home There's An Example Recently In My Ward A Lovely Couple She Would She Had A Little Garden That She Tended For Them I Mean Just Sold To The Earth And They Paid Their Rent On Time For All Of The More Than 20 Years Where They'd Been In The Flat Service Charge Sorry She Passed Away A Couple Of Years Ago The Council Failed To Transfer The Tenancy Into The Husband's Name It Was A Service Charge And This Gentleman Then Received A Letter From The Council Telling Him That Because He Was In Arrears He Couldn't Pay Monthly And If He Didn't Pay The Whole Lot Up Straight Away Several Thousand Pounds He'd Be Evicted And It Was The Council's Mistake And Understandably This Caused A Huge Amount Of Concern And Worry To Someone Who Quite Frankly Did Not Deserve That Concern And Worry Is Someone Who Always Paid Their Dues On Time And I Think The Harshness Of Some Of The Letters Is Something That Needs To Be Looked At Because Very Often People Who Maybe Aren't Particularly Au fait With These Situations Can I Think End Up Being Really Very Scared By These Situations And That In Itself Is A Very Significant Detriment To Their Quality Of Life Committee With Me Who Have Received Those Threatening Letters When They Haven't Really Done Anything Wrong But It's Just Been A Delayment Because Of Some Administrational Problem And It Does Scare People We Have To Get The Balance Right The Fact That We Do Have Quite A Good And Successful Collection Rate Is Because We Are Thorough In Making Sure That Way That The System Works We Raised This At Committee We We Discussed It At Committee We Raised It With Officers I Am Happy To Go Away And Relook At How We Can Make Sure That What Are Basically Automatic Messages That Are A Bit Blind In Terms Of People Circumstances They Are Just Being Fired Out In Order To Try And You Know Re Collect Those Rents How We Can Build In Some Of The Compassion Because The Compassion Is Certainly There In Terms Of The Wraparound Service That The Council Offers But You're Right That Some Of The Administrational Kind Of Automatic Messages That Arrive Are Quite Serious And Heavy And So I'm Willing To Go Away And Look At This And I Made That Point Clear At Committee As Well Thank You It Is Sorry The Time For Cabinet Question Is Now Finished We Now Turn To Report Number One Items For Decision I Move Reception Of That Report And After We Have Heard From The Speakers We'll Ask The Council Whether They Approved Their Recommendations Councillor White Speaker Thank You Madam Mayor The Former Bank Of England Chief Andy Haldane States The West Capitalist Model Needs A Fundamental Rethink And The Impact On This Council And The Social Fabric As Wealth Travelled Upwards Inequalities Widened And Generational And Class Injustices Became The Norm This Ruling Group Have Reset The Finances Resources Of This Council Refocusing On Its Civic Duties And Services For Wandsworth People The Old Order Overly Rewards The Wealthy And Well Connected With Private Investment Often Failing To Fill The Spaces Left By Public Sector Cuts From Homelessness Private Rents Council Home Builds Housing Maintenance And Council Estate Regenerations This Philosophy Has Let Wandsworth People Down Our General Fund Is Being Overused To Purchase Emergency Housing To Ameliate Housing Market Failure As London Homeless Numbers Rise Threatening Many Council's Budgets Deliberately Regulated Private Renting Market Has Led To Excessive Rents A Land Or Flight To Airbnb With Housing Benefit Being Allowed To Dwindle Our New Government Move Quickly They Will Stop No Fault And Unfair Evictions Extend Decent Homes And Ombudsman Legislation To The Private Sector And Rent And End Rent Bidding Wars And Giving Private Tenants Rights To Challenge Unfair Rent Rises This Council Has Acted Too And After Years Of Campaigning On This Side Of The Chamber Could Have Been On That Side Of The Chamber Landlord Licensing In Between 30 And 40 New Officers Will Come To Fursdown South Ballum Tooting Beck And Broadway Wards To Ensure Standards In The Local Private Renting Market Will Rise And Some Of The Appalling Landlord Abuses In These Wards Will End As Will Fear Of Revenge Evictions As Decent Conditions Are A Licence Requirement And Not Contestable As Our Private Rented Sector Expands This Council Has New Freedoms To Apply Licensing Where They See Fit North Co East And West Putney Are Next And More Wards Could Follow HMO Licensing Is Expanding Across All Wards Too Private Renting Decency Sustainability Stability And Affordability Will Be Our Watchwords While Also Supplying Generally Affordable Homes Relieving This Malfunctioning Market Whether A Property Is A Home Or A Hotel Needs Clarity And Housing Benefit Uprating Would Also Help Our 1000 Council Rent Homes Will Assist Wandsworth Residents But So Will The News That Taylor Wimpey Will Join Red Row In Walking Away From Its Responsibility To Deliver Regenerations Skewed Heavily Towards Private Sale Homes Master Planned By The Previous Administration Leaving A Newly Confident Council To Manage And Deliver Estate Renewals And Many More Council Homes In Rowhampton And Clapham Junction For The Benefit Of Wandsworth Residents Who Otherwise Would Find Renting Impossible Many Of The Regeneration Private Sale Homes Would Have Been Bought By Landlords Renting Back To The Council Or Private Households At Rates Free Or More Times That Of Council Rent Instead With More Council Rent Homes We Will Receive Rent And Save Colossal Sums Not Spending On Emergency And Temporary Accommodation Making Good Financial Sense With 50 Years Borrowing Terms Rather Than The Previous Administration's 20 Year Terms That Risk Cries Of Viability And Cutting Affordable Home Numbers As Occurs Far Too Often In Private Developments So This Council Is Seeking To Amend The Local Plan For Private Developer Bills So That 50% Of Homes In The Developments Of Over 10 Homes Will Be Affordable With 70% Of Those Being Council Rent Hopefully We'll See Many Of The Other 30% Offered At Local Average Wage Defined London Living Rent Or The Mayor's Capped Rents Model Smaller Developments Will Provide Cash For Further Social Rent Builds Our Investment In Hiring New Estate Managers The First For 20 Years Prioritises Reversing Years Of Estate Maintenance Neglect Reducing Private Profit Led Outsourcing Would Help Too Years Of Public Investment Has Led To A London Wide Estimated 8 Billion Repair Bill Exercibated By Effective Rent Repairs And Caps Undermining Housing Revenue Accounts I Agree With Andy Haldane And And The We Have To Redefine The Way The People Of Wandsworth Are Being Governed And They Agree With Us And Ushered In A New Era Of Housing Investment And Regulation A Fair Not Lassé Fair Regime Thank You Council Of Ataraj Thank You Madam Mayor This Is My First Time Speaking On A Housing Motion And I Was Really Looking Forward To It It Is Really Disappointing That The Opposition Walked Out As We Debating Important Decisions But On We Go So I Hope Everyone Is Having A Great Start To 2025 January For Me Started With An Invitation From The Prime Minister To Visit Downing Street To Celebrate Taipongal And Tamil Heritage Month During The Prime Minister's Address To Us He Reaffirmed This New Labour Government's Commitment To Building New Homes And Driving Economic Growth Fixing Fixing Fixing The Deep Is Inequality Inequality In Housing Sector Is Going To Take Resources A Skilled Workforce Investment And Long Term Planning Which Is What This Labour Administration In Wandsworth Has Been Doing Since We Came Into Power This Administration Will Deliver 1,000 Homes In The Homes For Wandsworth Program At Social Rent And I Am Proud That One Of The Development Sites Will Be In The Ward That I Represent In Wondall The Athaldine And Garrett Lane Development Is On The Way To Delivering 113 New Homes It Is Important That We Put In Place Supporting Infrastructure And New Developments So It Is Fantastic That A New Three Storey Health Center And Pharmacy Will Be Built As Well As Bicycle Parking Residential Car Parking Refuge Storage Commercial Units And Outdoor Amity Spaces Local Authorities Are Under Pressure To Set Budgets That Maintain A Balanced Housing Revenue Account With Recovering From High Inflation And To Tackle The Chronic Housing Shortage Whilst Maintaining The Viability Of The HRA Business Plan Conditions We Have Put Residents Needs And Our Responsibilities As A Council To Serve Our Residents At The Center Of All Decision Making In My Ward The Residents Of The Henry Prince Estate Felt They Were Neglected By The Previous Administration Especially With Repairs Many Households Suffered With Severe Molds Specifically Residents Living On The Top Floor With Damp Seeping In From Leaks In The Roof This Administration Reacted Swiftly Repairing The Roofs As A New Priority Given By The Severe Health Implications Mold Can Have Our Estates Are Ignored And This Has Changed Councillor Paul And I Have Helped Get The Residents Association Back Up And Running At The Henry Prince The RA Raised The Conditions Of The Club Room As A Blocker To Uniting Its Community One Year On The Refablishment Of The Club Room Is Under Way Which Is Being Funded By The UK Shared Propriety Fund Grant We Are Also In The Application Process For A Grant From The Football Foundation To Upgrade The Football Pitch On The Estate This Council Is Committed To Estate Improvements By Growing Our Workforce We Have Hired New Estate Managers For The First Time In 20 Years To Clear The Backlog In The Council Which Is Evident By The Tenants Conference Attendee Numbers Growing Every Year With The Highest Attendance Ever This Year We Want To Empower Our Tenants So That They Have Control Of Their Living Conditions Well I Was Going To Say We Can All Agree From Both Sides Of The Chamber That Living In Wandsworth Is A Great Place To Live Put Down Your Roots And Be Proud To Call This Burrow Your Home But It Is No Longer Home For Many Of My Friends Who I Grew Up And Went To School With In Burntwood They Have Moved Out Of Wandsworth Because They Can't Afford To Buy Or Rent A Decent Home Here Or They Live At Home With Their Parents Like Me We Are The Generation That Is Locked Out Of Home Ownership And In The Borough We Have Some Great Landlords There But Unfortunately Some Of The Homes Are Not Maintained To A High Standard Many Renters Tell Me Of Some Of The Appalling Conditions They Are Forced To Live In With Cold Cold Damp Disrepair And Rent Increases So I Am Pleased My Neighbours And Friends Will Benefit From The Licensing Of All Landlords In Tooting Beck I Will Watch My Neighbourhood Improve Under Wandsworth Labour With Higher Standards Including Reaching Our Environment And Sustainability Targets With A Limited Number Of Council Homes In Wandsworth Revising Our Local Plan We'll See Even More Council Homes Built Thereby Reducing Our Waiting List And Homelessness Numbers We Need To Get Our Children Out Of Temporary Accommodation And Into Safe And Secure Homes My Generation And Ordinary This Council's Investment Is A Crucial Step Towards Resolving It Labour's Vision To Build More Begins Right Here And I Am Proud To Play My Part In Making That Happen In Wandsworth Thank You Thank You Council Of Arthraj Council Adikadim So I Actually Hadn't Written A Speech I Hadn't Written A Speech Because I Genuinely Wanted To Respond To The Comments And The Points Made By The Opposition Because I Think That Democracy Is Important This Is A Special Meeting In Which We Discuss The Housing Budget The Housing Finance And Financial Matters In General And That Is A Really Important Meeting It's One That For My Entire Almost A Decade Of Being A Council Has Been A Meeting That Is Held On This Date It Is A Usual Precedent And So For There To Be A Calculated Stunt On What Is A Serious Issue But For There To Be A Calculated Stunt Which Is Basically Designed For An Easy And Quick Social Media Video And A Bit Of Press When We Are Discussing Something As Serious As The Finance And The Policies Around Housing In This Borough I'm Actually Quite I'm Quite Angry I'm Quite Angry About It So If You Know If You're Watching At Home I Just Want To Say Every Tenant In Our Borough Who's Ever Had An Issue With Repairs With Their Rent With Issues Around Resident Democracy We're Trying To Set A Tenants Association Every Leaseholder That Cares About Major Works And The Maintenance Of Their Blocks Every Renter In Our Borough The 36% Of Our Residents Who Are Going To Benefit From The Licensing Scheme That We Going To Pass Tonight Every Homeowner That Cares About The Condition Of Their Housing About What Is Being Built In Their Neighborhood About The Possible HMOs That Are Popping Up That Wanda Tories Decided To Walk Out And Say That You Don't Matter That Your Budgets Don't Matter That The Policies That We Are Passing Tonight Were Less Important Than A Political Stunt Where They Could Walk Out I Their Chance To See A Proper Debate About Housing Policy In Wandsworth Wandsworth Tories Need To Get Real Because This Is Something That Affects Everyone In Wandsworth I Don't Know Anyone Who Is Not Affected By The Housing Crisis Is Not Affected By Policies That We Are Trying To Do Tonight And Is Disrespectful To All The People That Vote In Local Elections That All The People Suffered From These Problems For Them To Pull Political Stunts Like This So I Don't Really Have Anything To Add Other Than That I I I'm Ashamed I've Been A Counselor For Quite A Long Time I Came In Good Faith I Didn't Have A Speech Written I Genuinely Wanted To Engage With The Opposition Because I Care About Housing I Care About Getting Housing Right In Wandsworth That Is What I Was Elected To Do And This Just Makes A Mocker Of It So I'm Very Proud Of My Colleagues For Keeping Going Tonight I'm Very Proud Of Us As A Team Who Generally Want To Deliver For Our Residents And I Hope The Proper Discussion Thank You Councillor Dickedem And I Also I Am Quite Upset About Tonight Situation Moving On Paragraph One Housing Revenue Account Budget And Rent Setting Paper Number 25 To 13 Other Recommendations Other Recommendations A To K Approved The Motion Is Moved Paragraph On The Point Of Order Madam Mayor Sorry About This But On Point Of Order The Council Has To Have A Recorded Vote On The Annual Budget I Know But I Had A Sneaking Memory That We Had To Have One On This Item As Well Because Of The District Audit Reports 20 30 Years Ago And I Think I Thought I Stand To Be Corrected By The Chief Executive But I Just Wondered Whether We Had To Have A Recorded If This Is Supported By Five People We Can Take A Vote It's Not Mandatory So Unless You Would Like To Propose That Council Abelton Moving On To Paragraph Two Amendments To The Standing Order Of The Council Paper Number 25 Dash 38 So Councillor Osborne Thank You Thank You Madam Mayor So The Two Changes To The Standing Orders That Are On Your Papers Tonight Are Part Of A Series A Program Of Changes That Have Been Going On For Two Or Three Full Council Meetings And They Are Part Of A Program Driven By The General Purposes Committee Which I Chair And They Are Designed To Bring In A Modernisation Of The Council Which Means That The Council Would Be A Service Better For The People Of Wandsworth If I Isolate Three Key Objectives In That Program They Would Be Greater Public Participation In The Work Of The Council In All Its Levels Number Two Would Be A Cross Cutting Approach To Analysis And Scrutiny Across The Different Directorates And Breaking Down The Barriers Between Directorates So That Our Scrutiny Is Improved And And Three A Propensity For More Vision And Strategic Level Decision Making At Full Council And In Committee And I I I Have To Say All Of Those Things Have Potential To Deal With For Example Some Of The Points Raised About The Public Engaging By Phone With The Council That We Were Talking About Earlier As Raised By Councillor Grimston In One Of His Numerous Supplementary Questions This Evening Eloquently So And If You're Looking At Stop Notices What We Are Proposing Or Can Propose What We Have The Potential To Drive Forward Is A Much More Effective Way Of Interrogating Planning Decisions Than Any Stop Notice That Comes Up Once On Average Once A Decade Which Is What Is Going On At The Moment And Indeed The Rather Formal Process Of Questioning The Administration Here In A Full Council Meeting While It Must Be Done Can Be Added To And Supplemented Much More Effectively By Better Scrutiny In Select Committee Style Committees For Example Overview Scrutiny Committees Across The Council So We Are Moving Forward In I Think The Right Direction The Criticism As I Understand It From Last Night's Actually Rather Good Natured General Purposes Committee Meeting Last Night From The Minority Party Is That We Are Taking A Series Of Cynical Decisions In The Changes That We Are Making I Would Phrase It Differently I Say We Are Experimenting And We Are Tentative And That Means We Are Tending To Be Reactive Rather Than Proactive Which I Would Very Much Prefer But There's A Bigger Criticism Actually A Bigger Criticism Of What We're Doing We're Too Slow We're Too Piecemeal And We Have Yet To Come Up With A Coherent Program Of Work For That Series Of Changes That We Want To Bring In It's Self Criticism If You Like On My Part And I Undertake To All Sides In This Council To Put Those Three Elements Right As We Go Forward With This Program And So I Commend To You The Changes That Are Currently Proposed In The Standing Orders This Evening Thank You Council Council Apps Madam Mayor I Wondered If I Catch Your Eye Oh Councillor Grimston Sorry Thank You Madam Mayor If Only It Can't Be A Lot Of Fun For You I Suspect Talking Amongst Yourself And I Feel It Encumbered Me As The Modern Leader Of The Opposition As The Opposition To Contribute A Bit And I Would Actually Start By Commending Rex's Attitude To A Lot Of This I Think That The There Has Been General Agreements I Think He's Absolutely Right In Where I Think We've Just Lost Touch As A Council With What We're Trying To Do Out There I Think We've Been Obsessed With Looking Inwards Traditionally The Wandsworth Culture Has Not Been One Of Going Out And Finding Out What's Going On In The Sector And Indeed I Would Strongly Urge After Nearly Three Years In Control That Leading Members Of The Council Maybe Might Start Looking At Acting As Member Peers And Going Out Into Other Authorities As Peers To Suggest Have That Discussion I Know It Happens On A Number Of Forums But I Know As Having Had Several Years Of Peer Experience That There's An Enormous Amount Of Learning For The Peer As Well As For The Authority Being Peered At If I Can Put It In That Way I Was Very Enthusiastic About The Whole Change Therefore If We Could Get To A Move Where We Started Looking At The Future Not Just At The Immediate Presence Certainly In My Day In The Top Team The Leaders Group Would Just Look At The Papers That Were About To Come To Committee The Committees Would Just Look At The Papers That Were In Front Of Them The Council Would Talk About The Papers That Had Just Been To That The Scrutiny Committees Were All Focused On An Officer Led Agenda Which Basically Didn't Wake Up Call To Us As To How We Were Losing Contact With What Was Going On Out There Nonetheless I Have To Say I I I Extremely Worried I Was Very Worried By The Last Council Meeting I I Kind Of The Equivalent Of The European Champions League Final In Terms Of Work I Don't Know If It's Apocryphal Or Not But One Council Was Reported On The Steps Of The Town Hall On His Way To Spend A Bit Of Time At Her Majesty's Pleasure The Same With The Benefit Of Hindsight I Should Declared The Gift Of A Farm House So It Was There But Reflection Neil Kinnock Speech In That Great 1985 Party Conference And The Labour Group Said Oh He's Calling Us Maggots And Martin Said I'm Not But But It Was Clear He Was Bright Enough He Knew That's The Way It Would Be Taken And In The Discussions We're Having He Said I Find Myself Behaving This Way And I Just Can't Help Myself And This Was Someone Enormously Something About The Current Culture Which Makes It Very Difficult For Us To Behave Well And Frankly Unless We Find A Way Through That Then It's Going To Be Very Difficult To Put Flesh On To The Bones Of Whatever Changes To The Constitution We Make For The Benefit Of Our Residence Which Is Why We're All Here I Have Been Concerned At How Many Of The Changes Have Group Or Another I Can Kind Of Understand Although I I'm Still Here I Don't Approve Of Groups Walking Out Of Council In Any Circumstances Really But Nonetheless There Is Something In There About A Sense That If Awkward Decisions Are Being Taken The Standing Orders Get Changed On A Kind Of Ad Hoc Basis To Prevent That Happening And I Just Ask That Maybe The Majority Group Might Reflect On That Because We Have A Big Job To Do All Of Local Government Does Always We Do We're The Ones Who Have More Effect On People's Lives Than Any Member Of Parliament Anyone Out There We Have Direct Positive Effect On People's Lives And If We're Not Getting It Right In Here We Sink Into That Thing Where Our Job Is To Make Life Worse For People Inside The Town Hall Rather Than Making Life Better For People Outside The Town Hall Thank You Councillor Grimston Councillor Apps Thank You I've Got A Few Quotes For You Tonight Their Role Is Unclear And Their Value Questionable Secondly No Prospect Of Providing Any Robust Or In Depth Scrutiny And About This Council Like A Sixth Form Debating School A Panto Too Adversarial And About The System It's Flat Out Due To The Complexity And Volume Well Honestly When I Wrote Down These Words That Were Taken From A Few Years Back Actually When The Comments Were First Made By Experts And By Councillors Themselves I Wasn't Expecting The Sight That We Have Today In This Chamber But It It's Very Important That All Councillors In This Council Can Contribute Their Full Talent To Making This Place A Better Place For Our Residents I'm Not Going To Go Through All Of The Details I Was Going To Tell You Tonight Because I Was Hoping For A Lively Debate But What I Would Say Is Firstly Thank You To My Colleagues For Their Comments But It Is Right That This Council Has Been Too Adversarial But We Do Have A Chance To Free Up Committees To Free Up Overview Scrutiny Committees To Take Independent And Robust Inquiries And Scrutiny And That Is Something That Should Be Welcomed By All Of Us Albeit It Means That Our Cabinet Will Be Subject To Deeper And Better Scrutiny Which Will Keep Them On Their Toes So What Is Broken Well Councillors Officers And Experts Have Agreed It Is Too Officer Led There Is No Capacity For Emerging Issues Coming Through Which Councillor Grimstone Is Often Reflected On That There Is No Real Pre Scrutiny Because It Too Close To Decisions It Is Too Adversarial So There Are A Few Things That We Can Do Which Will Help To Make Mechanistic Changes To Help Set Us Free One Is Break The Automatic Link Between Pre Scrutiny And Executive It Means That Councillors Don't Have A Choice In How To Scrutinise They Can't Decide On Those Issues That They Look At That It It Always Means Because It's So Close To Decision Making That So Much Of It Will Be Posturing Rather Than Putting Forward Those Recommendations To The Executive That Can Help Them To Shape Decisions We Do Have Call In Procedures Many Councillors Even Forget This But We Drastically Need To Modernise Them So That They Are Fit For Purpose So That Councillors Can Bring In Decisions That They Feel Need Looked At Again And We Need To Set A Key Decision Threshold In Common With The Vast Majority Of Councillors But We Want To Go Much Beyond That As My Colleague Councillor Has Said We Want To See Greater And Authentic Public Involvement In Our Decision Making We Want To See Better Cross Cutting Scrutiny And Also Some Remarks That Were Made In A Meeting With The Opposition Whip And With Councillor Grimston And Myself Where We Were Chewing Over How We Could Improve Party Relations We Need To Use Training And Peer Support To Help Improve Us In Our Roles And Culture Is Something We Are All Responsible For And I Would Urge You To Support These Proposals Thank You Are The Recommendations Approved Agreed The Next Matter Is From The Planning Applications Committee Report Number Three Councillor Belton As We Do Not Have A Proposer And Seconder For The Motion Seeking Amendments Related To The Stop Notices These Will Be Treated As Abandoned The Stop Notices Will No Longer Have Effect The Decisions Of The Planning Applications Committee On The Matters Therefore Take Effect I Will Nevertheless Invite You To Move Reception Of Report Number Three Paragraphs One To Four On Page Eighty Five For Information Given That Would You Like To Move It Yes Madam Mayor I Would Love To Move The Reception Of The Report Of Planning Applications Committee Paragraphs One To Four And I Will Say If You Don't Mind Madam Mayor Because I Think The Public Is As Far As Some Might Be Watching At Home Will Be Concerned About One Set Of Applications Three Of Them About The Ashburton Estate Where There Were Stop Notices Put Down And As You Say Those Stop Notices Have Fall To Give A Very Brief Idea Sorry Councillor Belton Can I Just Request You To Stop For One Moment I Just Need To Read Something Out Quickly Thank You Given That The Item Is On Our Agenda Members Of The Public Will Want To Hear Members Views I Would Therefore Ask If Any Members Wish To Speak And I Seek The View Of Council Whether They Agree To This Yeah Councillor Belton Carry On Please Thank You Thank You Madam Mayor I Was Saying That The Minority Party Had Put Forward Three What We Used To Call Stop Notices Something Was Said About It Has Never Been Done Before Actually I Bothered To Bring Out The Minutes I Know No One Ever Looks At Them But I Bothered To Bring Out The Minutes From The Members Library To Prove That I Actually Was Responsible For Moving The Last Stop Notices Of This Kind And The Last Date I Can Find Was 1996 So It Dates It A Little Bit But I Thought It Was Just Worth Saying That The Minority Party Would Have Appealed Or Were Moving Against These Three Applications For Three Main Reasons I Think It's Fair To Say One Was About Consultation The Other Two Were About Things Like Physical Massing Of The Estate And Density Of The State And Car Parking Facilities I Want to Spend A Moment Or Two Speaking On The Latter But I Like To Invite Councillor Dickerton To Say Something About The Consultation Side Councillor Dickerton So I Just Think To Be Respectful To Those Who Have Come And Spent Their Time Coming To The Council To Hear This And Also Anyone At Home Because The Swap Gnosis Have Been Called In We Are Not Going To Have The Full And Frank Discussion I Don't Know What Was Going To Be Brought Up By The Opposition So Reach Out Email Me I Have Always Been Willing To Go And Meet On The Estate To Do Walk Around To Discuss Any Concerns People Have With These Planning Applications I Also Watched Online The Planning Application Debate That Took Place I Thought Because I Was The Applicant It Wouldn't Be Right For Me To Attend That One In Person But I Watched It Closely And I Have To Clarify For The Record And I Really Wanted To Do It While They Were Here Because I Thought That Was Important I Don't Like Speaking When Someone Is Around But They Did Asking Me About To Meet Asking Me About The Ashburton From Councillor Sutters At All I Have Never Received Any Correspondence The Only Discussion I Ever Had Was 30 Seconds Walking Out Of The Chamber In The Parking Lot After One Of The Six Performative Debates We Had In This Chamber So It Has Always Been Totally Politically Driven It Hasn't Been About Really Engaging With Me It Not True So If Councillors Want To Speak To Me About Plans They Know My Email Address They Know I Will To Meet Council Austin In This Chamber Asked Me Will I Meet With Him In Residence Never Followed Up Never Sent An Email Never Reached Out So I Am Always Available To Discuss This Issue On The Consultations I Have Regrets Of Course We Sent Out A Letter That Happened To Coincide With A Postal Strike That Really Made People Feel Anxious It Felt Like We Were Forcing Something Through That We Were Hiding Things We Tried To Make Up With That By Doing As Many We Went Beyond The Statutory Guidance We Had Numerous Consultations There Was A Debate Because Consultation Wasn't A Referendum On The Schemes We Arrived With The Plan To Build Some Housing And Like We Do With All Our Thousand Home Sites And The Principle Is To Try And Get Residents To Engage And Shape That Process So We Come Up With A Compromised Solution That Meets Some Of The Needs Of The Estate But Also Some Of What We You Know Kind Of They Are Not Really Consultants And Such Because They Are In House Council Led Service So Their Job Is To Go And Work On Estates And Work With Residents To Find Localized Improvements And Link Up The Estate Management Side Alongside Our Development Arm But I Haven't Had Any Real Serious Engagement From Opposition Counselors I Am Always Willing To Meet With Either Residents I Just Think That Has To Put On The Record Before We Go To The Technical Aspects I Am The Applicant So I Don't Want To Speak Too Much About The Technical Aspects But This Is A Scheme That Is Designed To Help Residents Who Live On Ashburton A Door Is Always Open To Have Conversations With People And If I May Madam Mayor On The On The Issue Of The Application Itself Can I Say That We All Know That The Government Both Governments Both The Previous Conservative Government And The Present Government Are Setting Very Demanding Housing Targets Of All London Boroughs We Know Worse Or No Stronger Than Any Other Borough We All Have Very Strong Demands On Our Capabilities And As A Consequence Of That There Have Been Eight Planning Applications In The Last Few Years About The Intensification Of Development On Council Estates And Funny Thing About These Eight Is They All Have Three People In Common I Was On The Committee On Every One Of Those Occasions Councillor Humphreys Was On The Committee On Every One Of Those Occasions And Councillor Govindia Who Was The Leader For The First Five And On The Committee For The Last Three And The Five Very Briefly Randall Close Gideon Road Patmore Lytton Road And Platts Were All Came Up Under The Conservative Party Which To Do It Justice Was Building Properties On Council Estates And All Five Of Those Applications Amounting To 234 Units Were Approved By The Planning Applications Committee By Both Sides On The Planning Applications Committee And They Probably Involved The Two Largest Randall Close And Patmore And Certainly The Two Most Deprived Estates Of The Ones Affected And Probably The Largest And Most Crowded But We Supported Their Move To Build Properties For Those People In Need In This Borough Absolutely In Accordance With Our Beliefs And Absolutely Correctly The Last Three Applications And They All We're Going To Have To Wrap Up On This Topic I'm So Sorry About This You Had Your Speech Before Councillor Diggard That Was That Was Merely To Move It That Was Merely To Move It Let Me Just Finish It Won't Be Long The Three Applications That Have Happened Since The Change In The General Election Have All Been Opposed And They've All Been Opposed By The Same Cynical Opportunistic Rather Less Polite Words A Party That Has Chosen To Ignore The Needs Of The People Of Wandsworth I Am Really Sad About It Because I Thought Particularly Humphreys And Govindia I Know Lots Of My Friends Accuse Me Of Idiocy On This I Actually Thought They Had Some Better Purposes In Mind But They Cynically Went From Supporting Applications Under Their Control Under Tory Control And Going Against Them When It Was Labour And The People Who Have Suffered Are The Very People That Council Dickerton Has Been Talking About The People On The Waiting List The People Who Desperately Need Housing In This Borough And I Certainly Absolutely Do not Suggest For One Moment That The Council Should Require The Planning Applications Committee To Reconsider What Were Excellent Decisions Thank You Thank You Councillor Belton We Now Turn To Executive Report Number Two Councillors We Have Speakers On This Paper Two Councillor Critchard Thank You Very Much Madam Mayor Many Years Ago Not Quite When The World Was Young But Well Before Everyone Had Mobile Phones So In A Meeting Like This You Would Have To Listen To Me I Went On A British Gas Management Training Course One Of The Exercises Involved Running A Company Starting With A Certain Amount Of Capital For Projects The Finance Director Who Isn't Actually Here Tonight But She Was The Second Most Important Role In The Team And Initially I Couldn't Understand Why But By The End Of The Session I Realised That Sound Financial Management And Excellent Budget Control Are Crucial To The Success Of Any Commercial Venture And That Rule Applies To Us In The Public Sector As Well We Are Responsible For Spending Tax Payers Money Wisely And Prudently This Council Provides Services 2,000 Residents Living In 100,000 Homes On 440 Kilometres Of Streets Wandsworth Generates Some Income Which Is Used To Support The Services We Provide We Also Receive Grants From Government This Year We Received A Very Welcome 13.5 Million Pounds Extra Unfortunately This Is Not Enough To Cover Our Increased Costs This Year's Budget Of 283 Million Has Increased By 15 Million Over Last Year This Increase Is Not Because This Labour Administration Is Profligate Far From It But We Have A Duty To Look After Our Vulnerable Residents For The Adults And Health Team The Number Of People Needing Care Is Increasing Their Needs Are More Complex And The Cost Of Care Is Becoming More Expensive For Children's Services Post Covid More Children Have Special Education Needs And Therefore Need Extra Help With Their Learning In Housing We Have Duty To Provide Housing For Those Made Homeless These Costs Are To These Costs Are We Can Build Local Homes For Local People Demand And Cost Pressures Dictate Two Approaches To Managing The Budget This Council Is Committed To Developing New Initiatives To Support Residents But New Initiatives Need Funding And Our Teams Have Been Looking At Changes To Working Practices To Reduce Costs For Example The Children's Team Have Developed A Flatter Management Structure To Increase Efficiency The Procurement Teams Have Made Big Savings In Big Contracts Such As Sexual Health And Leisure The Finance Team Have Collected Extra Premiums On Council Tax For Second Homes Our Council Officer Team Deserve Our Thanks For Their Efforts In Saving Money Which They Are Doing In Parallel With Their Work On New Projects And Here's Just A Small Taster Of The New Work From This Labour Administration Since 2022 Family Hubs To Bring Together Children's Services In One Place To Enable Early Help Repurposing Broadwater School To Enable More Children With Send To Have Local School Places New Food Waste Arrangements So Wandsworth Complies With The Law While Saving Money Extra Staff And Investment In Services For Women And Girls Experiencing Violence If Any Of You Have Noticed My Purple Ribbon I'm Wearing It To Remember One Young Woman Who Died Following A Violent Attack Just Before Christmas There There Is Still So Much More To Do To Protect Our Women And Girls All These Changes Show That This Labour Council Takes Its Financial Obligations Seriously In Parallel With Our Obligations To Our Residents We Are Constantly Looking For Ways To Become More Efficient And Develop New Ideas To Offer Even Better Services Therefore I Commend This Budget To This Council To Enable The Labour Administration To Continue Its Excellent Work For All Our Residents In Wandsworth Thank You Councillor Grichard Councillor Ireland Thank You Madam Mayor Local Government Is Real Terms Than It Was In 2010 11 The Coalition Government Made Substantial And Disproportionate Cuts To Local Authority Grant Funding From 2010 Onwards In Wandsworth We Suffered Cuts Over 100 Million Pounds In Cash Terms That Is Over 150 Million Pounds In Real Terms While At The Same Time Picking Up The Bill For Extra Responsibilities From Unfunded Government Policies Additional Central Government Grant Funding COVID Has Been Eroded By High Levels Of Inflation Demand For Acute Statutory Services In Particular Adults And Children Social Care Homelessness And Special Educational Needs And Disabilities Provision Continues To Grow And Now Accounts For 72 Percent Of Our Spend But The Market Is Broken Private Providers Are Exploiting Rising Demand To Make Excessively High Profits I Am Proud Of This Administration's Commitment To Financial Management While We Deliver An Even Better Wandsworth We Have The Lowest Council Tax In This Country We Have Healthy Reserves And Zero External Debt On The General Fund Our Innovative Better Services Partnership Saves Us 20 Million Pounds A Year The Change Program Will Deliver Efficiencies Of Up To 9 Million Pounds And Due To Our Smart Investment Decisions We Will Earn 33 Million Pounds In Interest In This Year Alone Now We Believe In Investing In Our Residents And In Our Borough And This Is An Investment Budget Overturning Years Of Decline Under The Previous Administration We Are Delivering A Thousand Council Homes Because We Believe Our Residents Should Have A Secure And Decent Home This Means Building Homes Not Investment Opportunities We Are Now Spending An Unsustainable 60 Million Pounds A Year On Temporary Accommodation A Legacy Of The Previous Administration's Record Of Selling 24 Council 24 Thousand Council Homes The Homes For Wandsworth Programme Will Transform The Lives Of A Thousand Families Reduce Waiting Lists And Will Help Cut The Bill For Temporary Accommodation We Believe That For Many Of Our Residents The Cost Of Living Crisis Is Far From Over And We Are Pounds Now Using Data From The Low Income Family Tracker To Target Support Where It Most Needed Campaigns And Outreach Work Have Resulted In Eligible Wandsworth Residents Benefiting By More Than Three Million Pounds And Schools Will Receive An Extra Half A Million Pounds In Disadvantaged And Pupil Premium Funding The Cost Of Living Project Supports Voluntary Sector Partners Including Citizens Advice Wandsworth To Workload So Far The Public Value Of Homelessness Preventions And Income Gained For Residents Is Worth Over 1.1 Million Pounds Now We Have An Ambitious Access For All Program Because We Believe The Cost Should Not Be A Barrier To Residents Sharing All The Good Things Wandsworth Has To Offer So Far 50,000 Low Income Residents Have Used Our Leisure Centres And Swimming Pools Free Of Charge We Believe That Residents Should Be Proud Of Their Neighbourhoods We Will Continue With Weekly Waste And Recycling Collections Offer Two Free Bulk Waste Collections For Each Household And Expand The Popular Free Mega Skip Days Across The Borough Through Our Decade Of Renewal Program We Are Investing 10 Million Pounds Each Year In Our Roads And Pavements So They Are Safe For All Are Thrilled With Their New Attractive Spacious Council Homes In Beaumont Road And I Look Forward To Welcoming Them To Our Residents Association Much Needed Investment On Estates Including New Community Facilities And Refurbishment Of Parks And Play Spaces On The Ackroydon East Estate New Footpaths On The Argyle Lymphsfield Estate And After Over A Decade Since I First Requested This And Long Before I Became A Counselor Two New Pedestrian Crossings In Augustus Road And Prince's Way Are Just Being Installed Making This Dangerous Junction Safe For Children To Walk To School I Am Proud To Present A Positive Budget Which Supports Local Businesses And Invest In Our Borough And Our Residents I Would Like Mrs Mary Is Not Here But Her Colleagues Are I Would Like To Thank Officers For This Process I Would Also Like To Thank My Cabinet Colleagues Who Have Worked With Officers Identifying Efficiencies To Manage Demand While Protecting Frontline Services And Minimizing The Impact Of Our Residents Please Support This Budget Thank You Thank You Councillor Ireland I Move Reception Of The Report Can Paragraphs One Two Three And Paragraph Four In Supplementary Paper Be Received For Information Thank You Item Ten Is From The General Purposes Committee Report Number Four The Report From This Meeting Has Been Considered Under Report Number One Items For Decision Item Eleven Is The Proposed Amendments To Committee Memberships And Outside Bodies Paper Number Twenty Five Dash Thirty Approved Thank You So The Next Matter Is Of Local And Topical Interest As We Do Not Have A Speaker On This Item From The Minority Party We Will Treat The Matter As We Drawn The Motion On The Consultation On The Closure Of Brad School Will Be Taken Next As We Do Not Have A Proposal Second To This Motion It Will Be Treated As Abandoned Madam Mayor I Would Like To Make A Point Of Personal Explanation Under 16 A I Understand This Matter Was On The Agenda And A Motion Had Been Brought By The Opposition And I Am Disappointed That The Opposition Have Left The Room This Evening And Decided Not To Debate The Issue But A Motion Was Put Forward And I Would Like The Opportunity To Address It And From A Personal Perspective I Think The Comment Was Made By A Counselor Earlier That I Didn't Care About The Issue Or We Don't Care About The Issue Of Bradstow School And I Would Like Do You Want To Say Anything Else Or Is That It I I Sorry So I Would Like To Update Members Are On Firstly My Visit To Bradstow School And For Them In Kent And For Them Welcoming Me There Earlier Last Month It Was An Absolute Privilege As I Said Earlier To Meet The Dedicated Leadership Team And The Staff Team And To See Pupils Engaging With Their Learning Across The School I Was Also Lucky Enough To Speak To Some Parents Sorry Councillor Stock You You Mention It's A Point Of Person Explanation Yes I Think The Point Was Made That I Didn't Care About Bradstow School And Therefore I Want To Update All Members Of The Council About What I Have Done And What The Council Is Doing On The Issue Okay Thank You That's Been Noted So Bradstow School In Broadstairs Despite Being Over 70 Miles Away Was Inherited By Wandsworth Following The Abolition Of Ilya And I Do Pay Tribute To The School's Work To Provide High Quality Education For Children With Complex Needs And Vulnerabilities Wandsworth Is One Of Ten Local Authorities Who Currently Use The School As The School Is In Kent 13 Of The 32 Children On The School's Role Are Kent Children And By August Only Three Wandsworth Children Will Attend The School Unfortunately The Opposition Motion Which They Brought Forward And Perhaps I Think Referred To Earlier Did Include Some Misunderstandings They Reference The Social Care Market And That Demonstrates Their Lack Of Understanding About Bradstow Provision So I Want The Opportunity To Correct That Bradstow Is A Community Special School With A 38 Week Residential Provision Not A Social Care Residential Care Home And Ones With Children Currently Placed At The School Are Not Children Looked After For Who We Are Corporate Parents I Was Also Concerned By The Conservative Group's Attempt To Talk About This Administration's Dependency On The Private Sector The Previous Conservative Government Did Nothing To Tackle This Social Care Market That Market Is Broken And I Am Very Pleased That The Labour Government Is Taking Decisive Action With The New Children's Wellbeing And School Bill To Fix That Broken Market And End Excessive Profiteering Our Ambition Here In Warnsworth To Make It Clear Is For Every Child With Special Educational Need To Have Their Needs Children Locally Keeping Them Educated And Cared For As Close To Their Family And Community Wherever Possible 41 Million Has Been Invested To Meet The Needs Of Children With Special Educational Needs By Expanding Local Maintained Provision And Special Schools In Warnsworth This Has Created Over 271 Places And We Look Forward To Opening The Purpose Built Expansion Of Paddock Special School In September This Year Our Partnership Work In This Area Has Meant That We Saw Less Placements In Independent Specialist Schools Provision In The Borough So Concern Has Been Raised About Local Authorities Being Desperate To Have Residential Provision And I Am Unclear About What The Evidence Is For That The Number Of Children In Warnsworth Residential School Placements Has Fallen From Over 50 70 Years Ago To 18 Now Thank You Sorry Councillor Stock I Do Need To Stop You There This Motion Has Been Withdrawn And We Will Be Moving On Thank You Madam Mayor Perhaps Would You Allow The Council To Adjourn For A Couple Of Minutes To Allow If The Opposition Did Want To Come Back Into The Room To Debate This Issue We Can Adjourn The Council We Can Wait For Them To Come Back We Are Well Before The Guillotine It's Not That Adjourn The Motion There Is No Motion And Nobody Is Coming Back I Don't Know I Want To Give The Opposition The Opportunity To Come Back And Debate The Motion We're All Here We're Ready To Debate It They Brought A Random Motion To Start The Mayor There Is No Motion So The Opposition To Come Back Into The Room To Demate The Motion Agreed I'm Going To Let The Monitoring Officer Answer This Question Part So Councillors We Don't Have A Proposer Or A Seconder In The Chamber The Members Of The Minority Party Have Not Been Present For The Bulk Of This Meeting Adjourning For A Short Period Of Time Is Not Going To Change That So We Don't Have A Motion That Is Open For Debate Councillor Stock Asked To On A Point Of Personal Explanation Which Madam Mayor Indulge For A Short Time But Attendant To A Speech There Is No Provision For Speeches On A Motion That Is Not Before This Chamber Point Of Information We Can Bring Adjournment Motions To The Council Though Can We Bring A Point Of Local Interest Motion It's Not On Notice I'm Sorry Council Dickardham As A Point Of Information Could We Just Wait And See Whether They Come Back In To Sit For This Motion For Two Minutes If You Want To Agree To An Agenda For Two Minutes So Members It pains me to say this but when we came to the agenda item there was no mover and there was no seconder and therefore there is no motion before before Council it is therefore treated as abandoned waiting for a period of time would therefore not comply with the standing orders for notice thank you next is meant to be the motion on the government's plan to punish low council tax we don't have a proposer or seconder to this motion it will be treated as withdrawn madam mayor just as an interesting point of order if items are on the agenda are they in the possession of the council as it were so can I move the motion on discussion about council tax and I might withdraw it if I am sufficiently persuaded that it was a good motion just a matter of interest so council Belton there is provision in the council procedure rules if you have been requested by another member to move a motion and second it but there is no provision for you to withdraw it when it's been moved so we could if we wanted to move a motion on Bradstow all this if you have been asked you have not thank you councillors that concludes the business of the meeting for this evening councillors I want to thank each and every one of you for your cooperation at tonight's meeting I thank you for your service to the residents of Wandsworth often these chambers face difficult and upsetting matters but we should always remember why we are sitting here and the importance of these meetings tonight I feel very sad that the minority party has let its residents down and decided to leave the full council meeting I hope and pray that they will engage with the council for the sake of democracy wish you all the best and have a good evening thank you