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Reserve Budget Meeting, Overview & Scrutiny Committee - Tuesday, 4th February, 2025 6.30 p.m.
February 4, 2025 View on council website Watch video of meetingTranscript
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to this night's meeting of overview and scrutiny committee. My name is councillor Asma Islam, and I will be chairing this meeting. Can I remind everyone that this meeting is being filmed for public viewing on the council's website. Those participating in the meeting will be included in the footage. If there are any technical issues, I will decide if and how the meeting should continue after taking advice, from officers. Members, should you want to speak, please speak on my direction and ensure that you speak clearly to the microphone. Thomas, are you able to advise us on any apologies sent for this committee? Good evening, Chair. We have a full house. No apologies. Thank you. Thank you very much. Full house. Can members declare whether they have any DPIs? Thank you, Chair. I am a co-optie, and I am a leaseholder of Tower Hamlets Council. I am a Tower Hamlets leaseholder, as per my declarations of interest. For the sake of transparency, are there any committee members who are council tenants? Do you want to declare that? Thank you, Chair. I am Shaheed, co-optie. I am a council tenant. Thank you very much. So, on the 14th of January, the committee reviewed the council's 2025 to 26 budget report, medium-term financial strategy, and fees and charges 2025 to 26. We have submitted our response to the proposals, including recommendations and requests for further information to the Mayor. This evening, we will consider additional information in the budget proposal, which was agreed at Cabinet on January 29th. So, now, I would like to thank Councillor Saeed Ahmed, Cabinet Member for Resources and Costs of Living, and Julie Lorraine, Deputy Chief Executive and Corporate Director for Resources, for joining us. I can see there is a full house of offices as well, so if you speak, please do introduce yourself. So, I am going to give you a chance to provide us with an overview and additional information agreed in the budget proposals at Cabinet on 29th January. You have up to 10 minutes. You don't have to take the 10 minutes. And you can also take it that the committee members have read the report. Thank you both. Thank you, Chair, and good evening to the committee. So, I believe we will take HRA and capital together, if that is right. So, to give a brief overview of the HRA, so over the next four years, there is £513 million of investment in new-build programmes and £187 million in property acquisitions. Over the 30-year of the HRA business plan, there is investment of £1.3 billion in existing stock. The key HRA indicators of financial sustainability are maintained with a minimum reserve level of £10 million with an interest cover ratio of 1.15. Rent increases are set at 2.7%, an average weekly increase of £3.64. 73% of the HRA's income comes from the rents fund, the stock investment and the new-build programmes. Approximately 68%, that is a very important fact here, 68% of the tenants are on housing benefit and will not be impacted directly by the increase of 2.7%. The council will also be investing in new technology to more effectively target repairs and replacements, as well as providing an improved service to residents. That means new roof, new windows, kitchens and bathrooms for our residents. This all comes at an average rent increase, equivalent to maybe a cup of coffee. Nearly 50% of that increase goes towards existing stock and new stock, meaning more homes for our residents and more effective repairs and maintenance to our HRA. Just to touch on the capital. So, in addition to the HRA, there is a £242 million capital programme for 2024-2028 for the general fund. That is the proposal. An overview of significant capital programmes, including the general fund, including key investment, are, within culture we have £56.1 million, largely relating to the new St George's Leisure Centre, but also new investment of £3 million in existing Leisure Centre, a £700,000 for Milan Stadium pitches and half a million on York Hall's spa investments, improvements. School, £44.4 million in basic need expansion, including the New Morbury London Dock School and the Institute of Academic Excellence. £18 million for conditions and improvement. The programme includes new investment of £3 million to ensure the council's school assets remain safe and usable, and £5 million to support the decarbonisation of schools through boiler replacements. £17.8 million for new infrastructure, including Whitechapel Road, improvements and works to the bridges. We have £24.6 million in public grammar improvements, including carriageways, footways, street lighting and also £1 million of investment of traffic schemes relating to Manchester Road, Brabazon Street, Blackwell Way and Wick Lane, all across different parts of the borough. We have £13.8 million in parks, which includes new investment of £900,000 in prefab CAFs and £600,000 to support electric supply points across various sites. We have £12.3 million in waste recycling and fleet, which includes new investment of £2.1 million for flats, food waste services, and £1.3 million for waste vehicle replacements. Lastly, I would like to touch on £8.1 million, which is to do with carbon offsetting. Commitments have been included within the programme to make the borough cleaner and greener with £3.1 million of new investment going towards energy efficiency, renewable energy and food waste treatment. Lastly, I would like to thank my finance team, my 151 officer, for helping us go through this rigorous process and bringing this here, which is an additional piece from the previous meetings that we've had on the budget. And of course, I would like to thank all the officers for attending today and I'll hand over to Julie. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, all I wanted to do, I think we provided the slide deck that we gave as training to everybody. So, all that falls to me is to point out to you what do I think you need to be aware of, where do I think you need assurance as members. If we start with capital, then that would be assurance of the affordability of debt, that the council's not taking unnecessary risk, that we're not being overexposed to debt. We've got our treasury manager here. We operate very prudent measures for treasury at Town Hamlet, so I can give you that assurance and you're welcome to ask any specific questions about that you want to. Key risk associated with capital, timing. So, the worst case scenario is you borrow money, a project slips, you keep it in the bank, get in a lower rate than it costs you to borrow it and don't have the assets that you wanted to build for the benefit of the community. So, slippage is a risk and we do mitigate around that. Other risks, of course, are how prudent have we been in estimations of cost, what processes, governance processes do we have in place around capital and capital release and additional spends. And all those processes are in place and we've seen them work effectively throughout the year. On the HRA, the two things I would draw to your attention specifically, it is a robust HRA, many would envy it, but it's designed to do a really tough job quite quick. It needs to ensure we invest in our existing stock and make sure our residents' homes are safe and warm and pleasant places to live in. And at the same time, we know we haven't got enough homes for residents and that they're not to a good enough standard, so it needs to build houses. There are two things to draw to your attention contained in the HRA paper that are new and it's important you're aware of. One relates to a proposal that new build properties. We take advantage of our ability to charge a 5% premium on the rent. We have provided details in the slide deck on the corresponding savings you could expect as a tenant from a home that's new build, because they're much more energy efficient. But it is important that I stress that. And the second area to draw to your attention is that this year we propose to take advantage of the fact that we now have THH in-house. We have a very well-resourced housing section and corporate director, so what we want to do is bring the management of our temporary accommodation under the professional team with David. And for that, we need to appropriate, move the assets from the general fund into the HRA. And so you are seeing a proposal to move the assets from the general fund to the HRA has no impact on tenants, has no impact on the tenant rent. It's built into the HRA business plan and it does mean that the standards of housing management and the ability for the team to have flexibility around moving from short-haul tenancies to secure tenancies, should they wish to, there's a lot more flexibility. So they would be the two key differences I would highlight to you in the HRA. Thanks. Thank you. David, did you want to add anything? I think just to sort of confirm what Julie said, the HRA business plan puts us in a very strong position, both to invest in our existing homes, but also fulfil our commitments around building new homes. And also maintaining and improving the standard of service that residents are receiving, particularly around our improvement plan that we've put in place as part of our self-referral to the housing regulators. So I think, you know, I've got three at the moment. So do you want to kick off, Abdi? Great. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Lead Member. And thank you, officers, for that. I want to touch briefly on, for my first question, we'll do hopefully another round, but come to the capital programme, the fact, Julie, that it's from 24 to 28. Is that a pretty standard thing to be doing it in a four-year basis, midway through a term of office? So if we're to see the same changes or something upheaval, for example, that we had in 22, coming in 26 as, you know, the lead finance officer in this programme, and if you could talk a bit more to that about how we mitigate some of those, because that's, I suppose, outside of the political kind of thing, but I think we need assurances that there's strong governance there. If there was to be changes in 26, that actually this could have just been swept away, and if it was, what are the ramifications? So, essentially, between now and in any local authority, there is always a conflict between an accountant wanting long-term sustainability and political tenure. It happens in every council. From a professional perspective, it's important I look ahead and ensure across that period that the available resources are affordable to the level I'm stating. The different position of the different projects at any point in time will determine whether the current administration or any different administration makes changes to what is being delivered. Sometimes there can be a cost to canceling something, sometimes there can be a cost to accelerating it, but for me, this is about an affordability of an ambitious capital investment in the borough. So, that affordability will change with any administrative changes, what could change, even under the current administration, it's important that we have flexibility in looking, if something happens and we don't know about it yet, to turn some dows off, turn more on, fast-track some projects. But it's essentially the stage at which they've been delivered to, in front of any changes that would determine the ability of the current or new administration to make changes to the programme. What would it be if the fact the capital was there? Does that help? Yes, just to follow up. It does help, I suppose. It's just, it's an interesting time to be doing. 24 to 20, I think, is right in the middle of two terms. So, it's just kind of the assurances. And I think you've given that, and it's helpful to understand that, and I appreciate, we sometimes make your lives a bit harder. But it's just helpful to understand, because this could be particularly in two upheaval, kind of, you know, tumultuous times, shall we say. Perhaps I can give you another example that's a bit more significant. You're right, this programme goes across a medium-term period, which is what I'm required to do. The HRA goes across a 30-year period. There could be several changes of administration in that. We review the HRA annually. We review the MTFS annually. So, the time to make changes to your MTFS is at an annual budget setting base a year, and then you look into the future. The extent to which that commitment has been made is part of that governance process on capital where it's drawn down. So, like I say, a 30-year business plan, councillor, lots of potential political changes. So, I think that's a really fair point, a really helpful point, but I think the distinction between the HRA and the capital, we could be midway through building something, and obviously the HRA is slightly different. So, I take your point, but I think it's apples and oranges, not apple and apple, but I think it's a fair point. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. So, this is a question for the Cabinet member, and it's regarding, in the HRA, the, let me find the report, council-built homes, which is obviously a positive, but the schemes that have been identified, Bancroft, Whitford, Albert Jacobs House, H8, and the Caliche Estate, these are all planned and indeed funded over two and a half, many years ago, and for many other things, was halted, paused. So, my question is, why is that member, not the officers? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor, for your question. I think, first of all, since I've been in the office and we've seen these processes from 2022, Caliche Estate was one that kept coming up. But, I mean, the Director for Housing can explain better, but there was never a proper plan in place of what was actually deliverable. There was a lot of unfinished work around that programme, and that sort of went back and forth in many areas to sort of iron out exactly what is required for that area, in terms of number of additional homes and how that programme is going to get delivered and exactly the costing of it. Because, I think, originally, when things were drawn up, there was a big gap and costing have changed. And, as we know, with the inflation going up, there was a lot of need to revise and review this programme. So, I think we've come to a point now where we have built this in, and I'm hoping that we can see this sort of pull through completely to the end of this programme. But, like I say, it's mainly due to inflationary pressures and changes in scope, which we had to bring this again into the capital programme and actually see it through in a way that it can get delivered. Thank you. Professor King, did you have a supplementary? I mean, it just begs the question, really. I mean, the building of new homes is such a vital thing that the Council needs to do. And, from this administration, we've received so many mixed messages. The re-announcing funding for these houses is just surprising, I feel, that the capital funding could have been... Professor King, can I ask that, I get your point, but can I ask that you tie this in with a question for the HRA now? So, how, what assurance would you... They're actually, yeah, will be coming to fruition as soon as possible. Yeah, so, can I just add on the back of that? So, when this is not just for home building, but across the Council, when the assurances that he requires, it's like how, I guess it comes back to Councillor Mohammed's point about resilience in making sure it doesn't matter what the election cycle looks like, that we're able to still have that long-term sustainability of home building. And I think there's a political question there, and I think you kind of covered the ambition there, but from the Office's point of view, if you can cover those three points, that would be great. Yeah, so, I think, thank you, Chair. I think that, you know, any Council delivering major estate regeneration like that in this particular estate will have had a challenging time over the last 2.5 years in terms of getting viability to stack up and getting schemes into deliverable position, and in every case, including ones that I've worked on and other councils, we need to revise budgets and make sure they're fit for purpose in the world that we live today, where a number of factors have moved on and changed. But just to give reassurance on the particular example of the cliché estate that the cabinet, the lead member referred to in its answer, we have made a lot of progress towards delivering that scheme, including appointing a development partner recently, a cabinet, to do this pre-contract services agreement work to move us forward and then allow us to basically get on site and start delivering that scheme. We've obviously been through things like the resident ballot as well, and we have really progressed through a lot of work during that period of time that you've referred to. So we haven't stood still, and we are in a position now where having appointed a development partner we will be able to really motor on with the next stage of work. And I've got Sadiqa and Yasmin here who are leading our house building programme, who can add to that if you want. You said obviously we appreciate the pressures, especially around inflation and viability, that puts house building under pressure. But are you aware of other councils in London who basically cancelled and scrapped their house building HRA portion of the capital programme? A little bit more to help with articulating this. It's also about having clarity about the programmes and the schemes. So different schemes are in different stages of the pipeline, and so that clarity obviously isn't always clear for councillors, and the concerning part is when it's at the peak of the pipeline, and then it gets cancelled, there's a lot of resource. Like I said, office's time, money gets spent, and there's not a clear rationale behind why some have been cancelled, some have been redesigned and come back. I think there's, in the past, that's been a little bit of, needed a little bit more clarity, I think. So I think that's where, am I right? Yeah. Can I just, from a financial perspective, which are indicators that you should all be able to rely on, what should you expect to see in order to be able to hand-maintain oversight of progress? One is delivery against plan of schemes, and the second key one would be sight of any abortive costs. So schemes that start, and sometimes, councillor, ground works are done, and it's quite a legitimate reason that there are abortive costs, but they would be the two elements that will enable you to continue to have oversight. I think the housing scrutiny, I don't know whether that, is a forum that looks at development, build, but certainly abortive costs of schemes should be something that's quite visible to all members. Well, I suppose just to say, I am definitely aware of a lot of London councils that have had to review their programmes. They may have had to abort schemes for the reason Julie's outlined. They may have to amend or change the scope of a scheme to make it affordable. And so, and I don't think you'll find a council in London that hasn't been doing that. I can't really speak to all of the history here, but I think there's a programme there where we can get into more granular detail. Thank you, David. This is the right place to bring it up, but I think where you want to dig in deeper, then that will be the right committee, you're right. Natalie, you're next. Yeah, I guess the fundamental anxiety about the question that Councillor King raised for me is that the viability of this budget rests on the deliverability. And so if there's a concern about a scheme that was looked at two years ago that hasn't been delivered, how can we have assurance as a committee that it is deliverable? And I guess, obviously, there are things that we don't know, like how long is a piece of string, but yeah, like I guess it's what stage of the pipeline are we at at the moment? There's just one question, but the second question is, okay, we'll maybe answer that one and I can come back in another round. I think, let me just add this from the executive point of view. I think setting the budget is obviously a responsibility of the executive and then with the right processes and coming for the right scrutiny process with the support of the officers. But delivery is also something that has to be achievable, realistic, and I think this is what we've gone through a rigorous process to understand that whatever we're putting in this budget has to be achievable and it comes through from the buying of the corporate directors of the departments that know what needs to come through and that includes HRA and the capital programme. So I think the delivery of the specifics would rely on the departments and the corporate directors are all on deck to make sure that we see it through. That's from the executive. I think I would also add there is something quite visible for you all. So your quarterly financial report shows you capital spend, it gives you delivery, it shows you the proportion of that capital that's been spent against what should have been spent. So there are lines of sight. What I don't think, what I think we could do better, I could do better, is ensure that those dots are joined for you. You don't have to go and look in the different places for them. And I think that we could and should house building is development of new homes and the improvement to existing homes is something every single councillor holds dear. I think for you to be able to monitor progress on those as a KPI is something we'll look at in our financial reporting and see if we can work with them. Thank you, Chair. So my question is around building and fire safety remedial works. Obviously there's so much going on in the sector at the minute. How will that impact the budget? Are there any sort of immediate risks as such that's been identified? Can I just come back? Because I think your question might have also been relevant to our existing stock as well and our investment in our existing stock. So just to reassure that everything that the team have asked for in terms of resources to do all of our compliance testing and action that's required in terms of remedials has been built into this plan. So everything that we asked our colleagues and resources to put into the plan in order to fulfil that programme has been put in which includes the kind of fire risk assessments that we do but also all the works that come out of the back of that in terms of remedial actions and the catch-up programme that we're doing as part of our regulatory referral. But then we've tried to work out OK, what does this new enhanced regulatory regime look like on an ongoing basis? Because we're not just going to do it once it's something that's recurring. And we have built that into the plan but obviously we will every year that we update the plan we will look at whether those assistance are still fit for purpose and whether it's affordable. And what we've always said when we work together on this is that the safety of residence is the first priority. So that's the first thing that we have to meet before we do anything else because clearly... Can I come to Bodhubai because I know you haven't spoken. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Saeed and the officers. My question, I think some parts of it has been answered already. Obviously, Tehran Homes has come in-house it's been over a year. A lot of residents come to us with my surgeries or mould and damp issues. What are your plans to eradicate that problem? Because it's been ongoing for some time. Obviously, the stock has just come in-house so it'd be nice to hear an update from the lead member and the officers. Thank you. Lead member's not here but should we... Housing. Sorry. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Councillor. I'm Gillam Hussain, Acting Director of Neighbourhoods and Customer Services. So we're not going to eliminate damp and mould because it's always... It's a challenge but it's about how we manage it and how we support our residents as part of that. We've got an ambitious programme in terms of capital investment and particularly looking at component replacements you know, windows and other things where we know that helps better manage insulation within the property. We've got K&T Heating who do our gas servicing and as part of that annual gas servicing checks they will be also looking for damp and mould within property so that gives us early warning. We're looking at a number of technology-based solutions as well that allows us the opportunity to intervene and in addition to that what we've also done is that we're training all our housing officers in accordance to the HHSRS that's the Housing Health and Safety Rating System standard so when they're undertaking their standard routine visits or tenancy health checks they're able to look at the environment and understand risks and come back and raise those repairs with our colleagues internally. Obviously we're working very closely with colleagues in the lettings division as well so clearly we're overcrowding and other challenges mean that the property will not we cannot necessarily manage damp and mould within that sort of scenario it's to look at how can we try and resolve that issue through the lettings process so that there's a sort of a sustainable solution to the problem. Okay. Councillor Amy. Thank you Chair. I wanted to ask about the flexible use of capital receipts and it's just on the obviously more money more of this fund is being put into a redundancy scheme and look whilst I understand the justification for the scheme I think some of the wording in here about how this is actually protecting frontline services I think as time has gone on I think unfortunately as councillors who support residents every day we can see that this redundancy scheme is actually having an impact on frontline services because we're losing good solid officers with institutional knowledge of this council because of this redundancy scheme and I just want to know whether you really believe that putting a pretty solid amount of money into this again and as I understand it this is only the statutory part this isn't the additional part of redundancy is that best value for our residents because I can tell you that as councillors we actually are seeing an impact of this scheme on our residents so from a financial planning perspective that doesn't mean that we're going to use the money it simply means that it's been provided for centrally should we choose to the council has a policy of no compulsory redundancy there is a voluntary scheme in place the governance around that voluntary scheme councillor is never about a person it's about the post and I do have huge sympathy that often the person and it's voluntary so the person is required to go particularly in early retirement or flexible retirement they could probably go anyway and sometimes this scheme retains their services for longer but the fact that that's in there does not mean that the council is planning to spend that much on making people redundant it simply means that if as part of their transformation proposals staff volunteer that the burden of funding those redundancies does not fall to individual services we provide for it centrally it does not mean it's going to be spent so there isn't a list that sits behind that of which post that equates to we've just made provision for it yeah so I understand that and I understand of course what you're saying there isn't a list and it isn't about people at spec posts but this is quite a lot it is a lot of money like it is quite a lot of money and I think my point is when you're allocating this money is that genuinely you believe regardless of whether you're going to spend every single penny of it or not you think putting that money into this scheme is best value for residents I do because the criteria for accepting a redundancy is based on a required payback period within the MTFS life so that means if we were to spend all of that three million in year one the rules say that it would have to generate 1.3 million a year savings and repay it and those savings would go on year after year after year so you spend your redundancy payment once the saving you make against it continues year after year after year and that's why the way in which we set our rules for does a redundancy meet the criteria is around that payback period that's how we demonstrate value for money can I just add one more point here just to sort of compliment what Julie said I think it would be a risk for as a lead member to see that we don't have a substantial amount put aside to meet that requirement if we do need so so I think it's important that we have a robust plan in place and also we would like to retain our staff of course with the knowledge and everything that our staff we value that the services staff do but at the end of the day if someone wants an early redundancy a voluntary redundancy we can't tie them down forcefully so I think there has to be the option that staff know that if they do want something and they've got an option to explore and at the same time there's enough funds for them to take out from there because we know the packages include pensions and all of that so but this because am I right in thinking we might not need all of that right so you've calculated at the highest amount in case we need it as a safety net that's exactly what we do and I think in the document on the actual strategy there's a graph in there that shows that savings over time is only if you spend the money if you don't spend the money nobody gets made redundant you don't make the saving and I get the political will to keep the staff and the expertise and everything else how does that then play out as far because it's it's a council we're a massive employer how do we then make sure that other corporate directors are service heads that there is an understanding that we are still trying to retain staff and not lose staff that we you know when you lose staff you're losing that expertise that's correct councillor and the process the governance arrangement that sits around this is the request comes from an individual to their manager the request comes from an individual to their manager the manager it actually goes into a central HR thing the manager supports it or not regardless of whether that manager supports it or not that staff member's request together with the manager's recommendations the rules around you've got to be able to sacrifice the post and I don't this sounds light hearted it's not meant to I can't tell you how difficult it is to persuade a manager to give up a post and often we see more no's than yes's we see that around flexible retirement so I don't see a pressure anywhere for more staff exiting than we've made provision for it's the opposite managers do consider it carefully and I'm sure that we can set out for the committee what that process is on a flow chart so that you can see it really isn't somebody in a darkened room saying all these people can go it's very controlled okay thank you for that I don't want to claim to be a HR expert so I'm seeking this clarification I understand the process but what are the safeguarding measures in place to make sure that our staff aren't feeling pressurised or in an environment that pushes them to make decisions that maybe they wouldn't have otherwise I don't have the full details I'm just talking about an incident that took place in the council very scary two weeks ago when I think about all of that and I think about our staff and the council as a whole can you talk to me about safeguards I understand the policy but on top of that there must be safeguards in place so one of the safeguards is that the individual's request goes into HR it's a direct box it's not something that you go through your manager the most issues we get counter and safeguarding is usually the other way round my manager says no because they don't like me or it's not been fair so HR are involved what we can do is ask them they're not here today is ask for some assurance to be given to the HR committee I think that's next week around this question if you'd find that helpful when those experts are in the room is that okay I think he might want that assurance as well thank you I'm going to come back to the board councillors now who wants to go first east or west west has it thank you councillor Mohammed and chair I have a maybe seems a slightly nerdy accounting question the home energy advice programme it seems like it's a general fund cost and I'm concerned that will the auditors have questions about why it's being funded through a programme it's one of the carbon offset fund and most of the carbon offset funds they are I think they're clearly capital but this one is seems to be general fund is there any are we opening ourselves up to any risk on that particular one no because the definition of capital is an item that has a life of longer than a year so it's a tangible asset that deteriorates over time and this is home energy advice so it's a service it's not it's not a tangible asset we can we have reviewed and asan in particular is my reliable right hand person on what are the rules associated with this funding are we sure we're meeting them so we would check very carefully councillor that expenditure was allowed we wouldn't put ourselves in a position where that was challengeable but to the best of my knowledge the grant isn't a totally limited to capital b if an item isn't a capital item it has to be a revenue charge there's no other way of doing it supplementary okay thank you well can I bring in councillor Ahmed and then I'll come back because he hasn't spoken at all thank you thank you chair my question is on repair service how are you actually prioritizing the repair service because council is responsible for housing issues as well the homeless and everything but above all the people who are already living in the accommodation we have a severe problem as a councillor of children mentioned a little bit is damp and dampness and other things but I'm going to address further you know into more severe repairs that some I mean in some cases in my ward one tenant has like for past eight months tracing a roof repair to take place there have been so many contractors coming in and out so how do you address that issue because they're also taking if somebody comes if you send somebody wrong person to a wrong repair service it costs council money that's one thing how you addressing those issues and another question is people are living in their current accommodation do you have a are you within your budget do you have a cap that you can't go beyond that or the repair service is open to without any capping thank you so just on the first question I think the strongest response in terms of trying to invest in this issue is around the planned investment programme so the large amount of capital that's built into the 30 year plan the lead member mentioned around investing in a existing stock should hopefully address some of the significant failings that generate repairs so I know that many members here will have had complaints over the winter about things like common boiler systems going down and it's a recurring problem that's happened over a number of years and so the route to addressing that is to invest in replacing those systems once and for all and actually putting in systems which are more resilient and that is built into the very significant investment that we talked about so that's one part of it and we will be running a significant procurement exercise this year to bring in contractors to do that work so that I think is an important aspect of it having said all of that we're not going to fix everything overnight and it will take time and there will always be the need for responsive repairs so members will probably have heard me talk about in other forums our end to end review of our repair service which is looking at every aspect of it including how we triage calls through the call centre the Gulan managers to make sure that we're actually getting the issue diagnosed correctly at the outset so that we don't send the wrong contractor or we don't attend and then have to visit a second and third time which happens too often at the moment and I know that's a common cause of complaint as well we're also looking to the use of technology as well so that we can learn more about our stock ahead of the problem occurring and we get flags on the system before the issue fails and that is through the use of smart technology so that we're getting the data in live time rather than when something falls over so there's a lot of work that we have to do in this space to improve the current position we know it's one of the main drivers of dissatisfaction it should be said that probably 90% of complaints go to plan and repairs go to plan and we get good feedback about the experience residents have but that's on the more simple end of the scale when it's more complicated things like the example you gave the roof leak or the communal boiler system it does take us several visits often to get to the root of the problem and those are the ones that generate the very substantial complaints understandably from residents and so that's about the long term investment but also getting the process working better so we diagnose the problem earlier at the outset do you have a supplementary no thank you councilman you haven't spoken thank you chair to the lead member just want to look at the report can you tell me for rainy day contingency plan for 25 26 how much it is what it is for rainy day money put aside also my second question is for school uniform I'm looking at secondary school year seven is specifically certain group going to get it or is it that year seven and other people who also year eight nine and ten so specifically clarification on that please because you did mention that uniform will be given to primary school and secondary school so is it the whole of the primary school or secondary school or is specifically certain group going to get it thank you thank you for your question so I think that takes us back to the MTFS question not specific to HRA and capital but I think I could just answer the question very quickly we have an inbuilt revenue contingency of five million pounds just to support the ongoing cost that we have already accounted for this is a buffer we have built in just in case as a contingency and in terms of the school uniforms that's a brand new initiative that's being introduced from this year's budget and that's to help students who are starting secondary schools and starting primary schools so it's the starting support that we're giving to the students and of course the families but obviously this is something we can explore going forward and see how it goes how well things are taken up and there's always room for improvement and see how things go that's just an initiative that's been introduced brand new pioneering initiative like the winter food payments we are continuing our trailblazing trend so can I just clarify that so one of the primary schools children who are going to receptions they're going to get it and transformation from primary to secondary school so any kids who are already in the secondary school they're going to miss out just for you can answer it I can see you're very eager to answer this one but just for noting we sent around a briefing we've been asking corporate director he's been very helpful providing all the information today because Councillor Ahmed is here with Rasmah and he really wants to answer the question I'll let it go but can we concentrate on the HRA in the capital please like I say so this is part of the MTFS not the HRA but again this is for new starters starting year seven and for starting reception so it isn't for future years but I think this is something that going forward can be explored and cost it as we explore this new initiative the take going forward can and continue and Thank you, Chair. Just a follow-up to what Councillor Lee and Councillor Islam were talking about. And in terms of, I appreciate the point about you do finance your accountants, you prepare for the worst and hope it doesn't get there, but you budget for the worst. So in terms of the capital programme, when you do budget for the worst, it doesn't quite get to the extreme. What happens with that money? Because this is a four-year programme. So I'll use the exact example, I suppose, of, say we don't build the Academy of Excellence, but there was money allocated to rebuilding some of George Green's access bits. So is there plans that we turn other bits of money that haven't been used into other areas, or do we just put that back into the general fund? That was actually my question, but it would be helpful to get information about the money essentially that's not spent. My actual question is to Julie around the capital programme. Point 4.16 and 4.18, which looks like the leisure insourcing. It's a helpful report, it tells us what the process is. So you allocate, you find out how much money you've got, and then you take bids, and then people, if they're successful, will go into building into the bid or the programme. In terms of the leisure insourcing, it talks about there's an extra 3 million, there's an extra 3 million a year over 10 years, or an extra 3 million for that 10 years. My follow-up question is exactly to that, because we benefited from having the leisure source contracts come in last week, and they told us that ultimately there's 27 million that's needed over 10 years. But this report talks about 3 million that's allocated over... Question, and an actual question, yeah? Yes. Thank you. But the first one was about HIF, and then while you're working out the housing one. So the first question, what happens to the cheque, what happens if we've made provision in a capital programme, and the scheme either doesn't go ahead, or it does go ahead and it costs less, where's the change? And the answer is that every single scheme goes through a capital governance process. So if a scheme were to be stopped or reported, then the balances would go back into the council's ability to fund other schemes. A N alternative scheme coming forward would be separately costed. You couldn't just say, well, we're going to use that and move it over there without that governance process that went with it. So, and nor is it just lost, so it doesn't just sit there unused, particularly because one of the things we're keen about, and I recall you did ask a question specifically about that scheme. So from our perspective, when we review capital, we don't just review what else do you want to spend, it also incorporates what aren't we going to spend. And that's what brings the update to our capital position. Every quarter when you get your financial report, council, it will include ins and outs into that capital programme. It's not just forgotten. So that's helpful, I think, but just, these are tough decisions, because I have no doubt you get, the bids that you get outweigh the amount of money you probably have. But I suppose what we don't see behind this is the formula, the pro-forma, that document that people have to fill in, and the likelihood of that being achieved, this programme. You're just, you're doing the accounting parts of funding it appropriately, but there is a whole bit of work where it might be rag-rated, and this is unlikely to be delivered, for example, because of external factors. And I used the academy example, because it's on, it's the gift of the government to, to approve that. And that's something, so I suppose it's, it's all interlinked, and I think that's the point I'm trying to make. But it's my substantive point that I was more interested in. And again, Abdul Razak, we have a capital programme. We have an internal officer-based one, as well as one that involves members and cabinet and the mayor. But Abdul Razak is the lead finance officer on that. Do you want to just provide some reassurance, Abdul, around that process? Thanks, Julie. Hi, my name is Abdul Razak Asim, Director of Finance. So, Councillor, I think when the bids come through, there's different elements to that. So, there's a funding source. So, if it's funded by grants or external income, that gets prioritisation. I think the limiting factor for us is how much. And I think your question on that 3 million, that's 1 million per annum for life cycle costs for the entire duration. So, the MTFS is 3 years, so we set the budget for 3 years. But that would be a rolling programme to make sure the schemes are, I mean, the leisure centres. Just one follow-up to that, because I'm not necessarily sure to answer my question. So, really helpfully, last ONS meeting, which was last week, we had a presentation by officers who were leading on this leisure. And it was identified that there's a 1 million pound spend on the capital, so over 10 years, 10 million pounds. But there's a gap, and the work that's needed is 27 million over 10 years. So, I suppose it's understanding, but you've allocated three minutes. It's just, when projects are taken forward, it's understanding where the gap is and how that's going to be funded. And the reassurance is that you're not necessarily just doing a partial job. Not that you would, but of course. But it's understanding that doesn't quite make up to 27 million. Can I come up with a supplementary point about this? The scrutiny meeting said that there's an operational risk by 26, 27 without this funding. So, will this operational risk be gone away with this new funding that's coming? I'll respond partly to that, councillor, because I wasn't at that meeting. But the 27 million is based on a stock condition survey, so we don't have to... Yeah, 9 and 10, 1 million for this. So, I was going to... Sorry, I called it. Yeah, no worries. So, that's what I meant. The 27 million is to do every single thing. We don't have to do everything to kind of explain the prioritisation of things. Thank you. Joe O'Reilly, Director for Culture and Leisure. So, the stock condition survey that was done shows the life cycle of the building, and some of the buildings have 10, 15, 20, 30 years to go. So, the 27 million of that, the priority works that were identified were 3.8 million this financial year, which has been budgeted and works are going on. There was 3.2 million pounds worth of work for next year, which has already been approved. On top of that, finance colleagues have allocated a million pounds every year until the building gets demolished and rebuilt, or until the end of the life cycle of the building. So, currently, there's sufficient budgets to manage the main boilers, tanks, water heaters, and all of those things. If next year we see that something's likely to fail, we would come back into the capital bidding cycle to say, we've now been alerted to a risk from new surveys, can we have some more money? So, currently, the position is based on the information that we have. But if new information were to arise, and we have a ceiling that might potentially collapse, we would come back and say, actually, we need more money. And that would then go back into the ask, an assessment would be done, and then the process would inform us how we can draw that money down. Do you mind, and again, just to clarify, because a lot of capital stuff, I mean, it's just like a dark heart, isn't it? But essentially, if we know from the stock condition survey that during the remaining life of this building, 30 years or 50 years, you will need to spend 27 million, what we would never do is put 27 million aside today and leave it doing nothing, because it might be 10 or 15 of those years before the roof needs replaced. So, that's why we do it the way we do it, and that's exactly the right thing to do. What are the priorities, what needs to be done within this cycle? But we do make a provision each year. So, you would never, if you bought a house and you've got a stock condition survey, somebody could probably say to you, over the next 20 years, you're probably going to spend 100,000 on this. You wouldn't put... No, it's okay. We can always ask for further information. Thank you. But that was helpful. Thank you. Can I ask a question, which is around the rent increase? I understand, can we put in place or is in place regarding those that don't quite meet, that aren't on benefits, just above that 50,000, because if you're looking at a council, it's okay, and that doesn't really just push them off, especially those that are single parents. The other question I had was, completely understand the works that needs to be done for the stock and the house building plans and all the ambitious plans in place that the rent increase is going to enable this council to do. But if you're a resident who lives here and, you know, the councillor talked about new bathrooms and having works done, which is much needed in some of the old stocks, but realistically, they're not going to be rolled out like that, one, and it's going to take time to go estate by estate. We know how major work plans go, and sometimes there might be delays due to things that aren't in our control. If you're a family who's now seen this rent increase and have seen the council tax increase, and we're saying, okay, but they might think, okay, but I'll have work done, I'll have my mould and ZAMP dealt with at home, I'll have a new bathroom. How do we make sure that the communication of this council is balanced in a way that is realistic for those residents that we don't put their expectations? How can I apply for this? Am I eligible for this? Like, it's just making sure that we've got the expectations at the right point. Yeah, I mean, I'll ask, good, I'm to come in, because one of the things that we have within housing is the financial inclusion team, which does a lot of work with tenants, particularly those that are in danger of falling into arrears so that we get in early and try pathways into other services that might be able to help. And I think those tend to be some of the people that you're talking about, the sort of just about managing that aren't on benefits but are struggling more broadly. I mean, of course, it's worth saying that a lot of the other things that the council's doing will help those families mitigate the issues like school uniforms, for instance, because that can reduce the costs. But in terms of housing, we will definitely work with families that might fall into rent, but also fall into arrears, but also we will look to make sure that families that are eligible for benefits but perhaps not accessing them all or getting that advice because often people don't realise that they are eligible for benefits and that's one of the things that we can do to help them. But it also helps us in the end because it increases our sort of rent recovery. And actually, we do have quite our rent recovery percentage when you compare us to other landlords. So, Gulen, is there anything you want to add? No, I think, I mean, we did cover some of this, David, when we did the presentation to Harking Scrutory Subcommittee on how we manage the income service. I think you've referenced some of the strong partnership working that we've got with a lot of the third sector organisations there as well, both through the rents team but also through some of the work the community partnership service delivers. Also, we absolutely look at income maximisation and it's generally a supportive process that we try and support residents. It's in the single digits. So, we have very few evictions, if at all any, because of the fact that rents have not been paid and usually there are other overlying circumstances involved, which is why we would have had a possession order. And certainly, as part of this round of communication as well, you know, we were looking at the rents letter to make sure it's absolutely clear. I mean, as an example for this year, where we've had the highest spike as opposed to what's coming from, you know, we had the seven points rent increase. And with the 53 weeks, one of which isn't covered by Universal Credit, we've done a lot of messaging with residents as well in terms of directly communicating, making sure every opportunity we've had, every touchpoint we've had, we've reinforced the importance of approaching us directly if they've got any concerns around paying rent. And equally, our repairs colleagues are more and more aware of things like particularly how that interfaces with damp and mould, you know, if residents are struggling to pay bills, they're not there in heating their homes, looking to do with SwitchE and some of the other technologies we're onboarding, RentSense and RepairSense, that will give us more opportunity to pre-emptively intervene. The rent increase now is not something you're going to see straight away. It's not something that we don't see in our system for at least a year and a bit. So I guess, I think you answered a little bit, but where's the preventative work? Where's the comms? Where's, how are we going to, because we already have a massive piece of work that needs to be done with debt collection. So in terms of that, so obviously as part of the rent notification letters, we will be working with residents to make sure that they understand. So we usually plan that period where we do the proactive engagement, particularly with residents that we know might have some particular challenges around that and where they need to particularly interface with the universal credit to make sure that they are fully sort of aware of the process. I think technology plays a big role. So rent assessment, which is one of those technologies we're looking to introduce, it helps us understand trends and do the early intervention. So when it notices any changes in patterns and behaviours of payments, it sort of flags up for us and then we're able to proactively engage and say, what's changed for you? So those early conversations are certainly happening. Certainly as part of our policy, we've got equally our housing officers, as part of their tenancy health check processes, they also look at things like rents, arrears, are there any concerns? So it's not just the income team themselves that are working in isolation. We're also triangulating data with colleagues in benefits and ensuring that we know where appropriate we're getting the DHB applications in. And what we do, certainly on a monthly basis, we also report on how much income we've tried to maximise for residents. I guess we don't want all residents to think that we're able to have an overnight solution for this. Yeah. I think it is a good point. And whilst we've presented a positive view of what this plan does for us in terms of giving us the firepower we need, I don't think we should pretend for a minute that there are no challenges in the housing sector to invest. Every single council and landlord in the country is having to make difficult decisions and we can't do it all at once just from an affordability point of view. So I think you are right. And, you know, let's not forget that we had a decade of rent freezes which basically meant that the housing sector has been under-invested and we can't undo that in a year. We can't undo it in two years. We can't undo it in five years. We are living with that legacy. So I think your point about managing expectations... Thank you. One more question. Can I just add a quick point to that? So on top of what we have with the Council Tax Cost of Living Relief Fund, we've got the Tackling Poverty Team and the Resident Support Scheme. So where we have residents who are struggling, there's also that support is always there. But on top of that, like you say, you acknowledge that the slight rent increase and the return for that is great. It's great in terms of new homes and repairs to the existing stock that we have. Although it may not happen overnight, like you mentioned, but we will request the team to expedite that process and get those new bathrooms and kitchens in a timely manner. But the increase in Council Tax, which reflects the MTFS, obviously the slight percentage increase that we'll see in 2.99% of Council Tax increase, the return for that is, we know what our residents will get. We know the long list that we've mentioned several times from free school meals to free uniform to EMA. We're not discussing that today. But we're very well versed, thank you. That's fine, councillor, because you touched on Council Tax increase. I just wanted to mention what we get in return is a great amount of return in this time round with the adult social care, £7 million investment for free home care as well. Thank you. Clever. One more question. Zayda. Thank you, Chair. There's no question in what I'm going to say, so just a statement. I'm sure you're aware of the rising water bill that's just been planned across the country, I suppose. So this rent increase couldn't come at a bad time, especially for what Council Aisman mentioned around the demographic that don't qualify for anything. And you mentioned about programmes available, but those programmes actually, when they do fall into that category, what about those who are right at the edge and are at risk? Do they qualify for support, especially at cost around increase in water, electricity, gas and so forth? And we're still in the cost of living crisis. That hasn't gone away. So support is my question. What support is available for them? Thank you. Thank you for your question. I think that comes from, again, the resident support that we have through our Tackling Poverty team. Anyone that's sort of financially struggling could reach out to that team and there would be an assessment carried out and then financial support is given up to those families. That doesn't mean that they need to be on benefit. It depends on their income in and outgoing, their rent and, like you say, the bills. If there is a point where any resident feels like it's becoming a very big burden, the Council is there to support them. But on top of that, like we mentioned, we as a Council, as services that we're providing in many areas is going to help every resident in every household, especially with children, to make sure that their costs are covered in many ways from like a cost of free school meal that we know goes to hundreds of pounds, free uniform and the list goes on. There's plenty of existing support that we've introduced, but in additional support, the Council is here to support them as well. It's a good point, but even though it's not on capital and HR, I think the point was made, and we can bring that back another day, because you've got lots of investment. It's just that balance of, if you think about the household income and their outgoings, if you take 150 pounds out of a school uniform for one, just to give you an example, it could be they're spending 400 pounds and that could be lots of several things, energy bills, all of that. It's about how that family works and how the outgoings are, and maybe we have a wider conversation about tackling poverty and what more we can do as far as promoting benefits that aren't claimed and support from the, there might be support that Council offers that they're not taking up, so it's about looking at the whole land that we have. Just on that point, Chair, I mean, if we don't take the investments now to improve windows and bathrooms and kitchens now, those costs will continue to incur for those families, so if they're contributing that £3.64 a week, on average now, in order for them to get better windows in the future, would help their energy costs in the next couple of years. So it's just a matter of, you need to sort of put some money in now towards looking at a better future for their finances. So again, ultimately, it balances out at the end. I understand the argument. Councillor Ouddin. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. My question to you, that is something different. How is the international situation with the threat of tariff impact of this Council's ability to manage inflation and its overall cost? Have you, have we undertaken a worst-case scenario assessment in the relation to the capital and HRA element and set up the report? Thank you. Sorry, can I just clarify? So is that about whether we've tested the worst-case scenario and whether we could weather that storm about financial resilience? It's a really good question, Councillor, and really important. So when we set any budget, particularly in the HRA, we then say to ourselves, what if something happens that we don't know? And we run exactly, as you say, scenario tests. And we run the scenario test that breaks the business plan. We see what will it take to break this? And what could we do if it broke to fix it? So it might mean that we pulled, put back certain programmes. It might mean that we have to pull forward some programmes, maybe technology that will reduce costs. But we do run that scenario testing and we do make sure we break the business plan and then we have a plan in place. If that happens, we'll put it back together. So the answer is yes. And in the final report, you will see when we bring our HR business plan in full, the updated one, you will see that stress testing and you will see the scenarios that we've run. Thank you. Are you happy? Okay. Councillor Khan, last question. Thank you, Chair, for giving me last question to me. An answer question. Okay. My question will be brief and short. Don't worry. You can have your question. No problem. So, thank you, Chair, again, for giving me the opportunity to ask questions because colleagues are asking questions from all directions. so I thought I'll be like patient and ask the last question possibly. Wonderful. I can see you've been supported by the whole teams. I never saw supported by committee members supported by the whole teams. I look like everybody's here and we're grateful that we're here. So my question is that there is significant investment in council existing housing stocks. Is this part of what you say that new windows, new kitchen and new bathroom? If it is, if it is, then I want to know what criteria will people have to make to get their bathroom and window and their kitchen set out? My second question is any increases rent or council tax, any increase is not good news for a resident in this cost of living crisis. But it is, we can see that 2.7% increase in rent. And what criteria do you do when you work out this amount, what criteria do you use? Thank you very much. So if I can come back on both of those, first of all, does the figures you include, you're seeing on the HRA include provisions for kitchens and bathrooms? The answer is yes. In terms of which ones, the data, the formula that the accountant choose, is how old is the one that's there? So the calculations are all based on the age of the current components and the rules the council applies. So for example, we could have a rule that said every seven years you replace a sink every ten years a bathroom. So it's based on age. And in terms of your second question, what do we take into account when considering the rent increase? There are strict controls on social housing rent, government rent policy controls those. And so we follow the rent formula. We've just undertaken a compliance test to make sure that all our rents are compliant with that formula. So again, we follow it. There's one more point I would make. Councillors don't have any choice about putting rent up above that threshold. But you do have a choice as to whether or not you put it up to that threshold. And the one thing that I would say to I absolutely understand it's a difficult decision for all members to take from whatever party that increase in costs. The rules on the HRA go two-way. And that means that the HRA can't subsidise the general fund and the general fund can't subsidise the HRA. So the only way to fund improvements to properties, bathrooms, safety, new building, is the rent that the existing tenants pay. The rules force you that that is the only money you can use. And so it's a balancing act isn't it? It's a choice. And if as we have safety first we will incorporate 100% of all of the requirements for the safety and upkeep of our stock in accordance with those rules, if we don't apply a rent increase to that level there are some of those things we can't do because the model has been based on that rent level but it is a controlled rent. Does that help? Great. Thank you. So in the capital programme report I'm looking at number 5.5 which says that there is a balance remaining of capital receipts of £88 to £3 million fund academies and the private sector. So that's a particular question for you cabinet member. Particularly as lots of the officers who were here were not here at the time the decision was made to cancel and pause the NCIL programme back in 2023. And you were. Thanks for the question. I think just to put it on a high level in terms of programmes and NCIL capital and all different programmes that's going on. It's something that the administration and the Mayor look at and see what suits best in terms of where we have in our manifesto pledges to complete and see what's best way of distributing that and what kind of programmes we want to complete. When it comes to schools and funding for George Greenhouse schools it's really important. Schools are very important. Today obviously we had the Mayor go with the Queen in an opening at London school. It's very important. So George Queen is one that of course is an important area and of course we can always review that going forward and see where and what sort of work is required and what programme we can put that into. But I think for the interim whichever works needed got prioritised at the moment and I think that was what everyone agreed with. But yeah your point is important. For example where we have programmes that we know the NCIL has a remit and we can cover those costs and plans and programmes. we will use NCIL and we will use whichever funding is available to make sure that it's within their school to fund their project. Thank you. Zaid you've got the last question. Thank you Chair. Just taking you back to the rent increase. I wanted to ask how long before residents can see some tangible improvements to their homes homes from that increase is it something that is already planned and is going to happen and rent will subsequently follow or does someone or is someone a household will wait another maybe a year or so until you have that capital and then the work will start. What's the plan around that? That's one question. Can I ask another? Just a case study. Pauline house is in scope to be a tower block I believe it was in scope to be internally and externally reviewed due to fire safety and hazard. It's been there for three years. There's scaffolding that was put up for additional two years and until it was forcefully removed by recommendation from the Ombudsman but that's how far it went because there was no clear indication or any sort of understanding or project of what was to happen in terms of having improvements to the building. You may not be aware of the situation so I'm not expecting you to answer that but something for you to maybe look into. How does that work and what does it look like? On the first part of the question about when can residents start to see the improvements I think although we talk a lot about the investment that we've built into the plan and as I say we're doing a major procurement this year for to start getting that investment to flow into the buildings I don't want to lose the fact that we do have a current programme that's on site and there are already blogs that are receiving major awards and there are already kitchen and bathroom programmes and decent homes improvements happening and in fact we have seen since the point of our regulatory referral improvement already in terms of our decent homes performance from the point of the referral so I think although if you're in a block you're still waiting for the works that's called comfort because you're still waiting for those improvements to come the overall picture is an improving one I I think it is important to stress that and we are through the one of the critical things that we've done in our improvement plan is to have a rolling stock condition survey so that we get better insights into which properties have the greatest investment need and we can actually target the investment on the worst properties rather than just doing it based on a kind of it's been 20 years since you've had your bathroom updated so we'll go and replace your bathroom we're trying to get greater insights from that stock condition information so that we really do target the worst properties so for some residents it is going to take a period of time one to two sort of five years investment program but we will try and target the worst properties first and just to reassure we do already have works on site so we're not starting from a position of doing nothing I'm not sure if that's answering your question under the radar for over three years and it's plans have changed many times and what I find quite demoralising for the residents is communication is quite lacking and so they have no idea what's going on so I think we recognise that there are gaps in communication and we absolutely need to do better in that space I think part of the reason so as referenced by David and Julie the capital investment program obviously has to evolve as we get data from things like the stock investment program the stock condition surveys that tells us you know some components might be failing earlier than we anticipated so within that we'll have to build in flexibility in terms of some blocks being pulled in earlier others being deferred so that that is sometimes something that does happen but again specifically with Pauline House it's one of those blocks that falls now under the building safety act because of its height and that introduces additional complex complications in terms of the types of fire safety works that are required the types of investigations that are required and also having to go through the entire process the gateway process with the building safety regulator which is taking quite an inordinate amount of time at the moment so I think very much for the regulator itself it's also very early days and that's not been particularly helpful for us as well in terms of trying to get things done and I think this really comes back to the question that you asked earlier chair about we need to manage the expectations and we need to communicate those more effectively and I appreciate this is all really frustrating for for residents I mean it is an industry-wide problem by the to every project that has to go through it because they just don't have the resources to go up to the demand but as you've said we need to tell residents that and make sure that they can expect that although we'll push as hard as we can it's not an overnight job to get through that stage and understand care that we bought Tatham's home in-house for them it was always council stock doesn't matter if it was Alvo or it's in source now the fact that you know we have sat on the board for four years where we looked at major work programs that have been delayed years after year and it's the goal course kept changing so it's just about going in there to be able to say reassure them that we've now got a long-term sustainable plan which lots of members here was trying to probe out of you it is due to that it's what we get to hear at the doorstep so thank you for your support today I think we've got a lot of answers and I feel quite I feel like we spent this time quite well is there any other questions or can I please close this section of yeah so thank you and like one of the members said you were well resourced with our officers today thank you all for coming do you all want a five-minute break before recommendations yeah wait guys wait okay Thomas can we go on a five minute for the viewing for the public viewing just to let you know we took a five-minute comfort break coming back so that was a very good session with the lead member and officers there well done on all everyone's questions and contributions at this point I'm going to open it up for discussion so any comments any further information and clarity or you have some recommendations I'll take it all at once I'm going to go around the room if you don't want to take up this opportunity you're welcome not to speak so starting with Councillor Uddin is that live broadcast is it yeah that's why I said for the for the record I know I just want to make sure don't worry you're always recorded we are public servant and we are here in the interest of our residents and it doesn't matter how long it takes but I will feed that back improvement plan thank you for that you have no contribution towards what we discussed today anything else no recommendations okay Councillor Abdi something tells me you're going to have some stuff wow chair thank you just two things I think one I think just James councillor Lincoln or King also mentioned it I think it was the point about George Green and the unspent money I think there is there's a substantial amount of unspent money and there was previous plans have been made so I think it's I'm sure councillor King is going to come on to it but um just one thing I wanted to pick up and wanted more clarity on I thought I'd say recommendation but I think one of the officers spoke about um when it came to the money is put aside for um for redundancies or potential redundancies and it's always a worst case scenario that money's been put aside being put to one side but I think one of my questions was about well there's not 27 million being put aside but I think I was slightly brushed away with the point of that's not how we plan it um but there's a juxtaposition there there's there's inconsistency so it's be helpful to understand have we put money that aside that money for redundancies slash a bit more of a thoughtful plan I think because I appreciate it they can look at so much into these papers but it just felt like very drip feeding around these um the leisure contract where I think a lot of our residents would be really interested to know what the plan is for the next 10 10 years kind of thing that would be really helpful to understand thank you so have we got that councilman none yeah I just want to highlight actually they said growth bid for 15 million pounds for the waste management for next three years that's the budget that's what sorry it's general general fund yeah I know we already done the record we've done the recommendations for that today we're talking about HR one of the things I was thinking they never mentioned much about the specifically about on the thing about the waste management tackle so I thought is maybe they're putting under the big umbrella and so on so I couldn't see in the report because recycle was the big agenda for plus last year I would have thought they have a specific area we'll say that's the how much you're going to spend on recycling and so on so on this I feel like so with the waste management we've been given something from Julie today we've circulated that so you all should have seen that so that provides more clarity and information but that is we've already dealt with the general fund of the budget so your but your points have been recorded again yeah Thomas sent that over this afternoon yeah any recommendations or any views you had about the HRA account and the capital program thank you thank you thank you thank you chair I think mine was around the concerns around building and fire safety remedial works it is a significant amount of money that's going to be required I don't think that was answered properly so that's one of my concerns I think my recommendation would be around the question that you asked for those people who don't meet the threshold of that 50,000 council tax that figure there was no clarity other than you know and for many meetings they keep referring us back to the resident support scheme having spoken to lots of residents in the borough not everybody qualifies regardless of what the cabinet the cabinet member and the officers are telling us so that's something that I think we should make a recommendation where there needs to be more emphasis or there needs to be more clear directions as how people can access that okay so I heard your concerns and I'm going to recommend a recommendation for you because you didn't point to one I say with the working out if we're if there are people who aren't on the lower end of the income or on benefits and don't meet the threshold it we we can maybe recommend that we ask for some more clarity around that and the recommendation could be that we work with the tackling poverty team and and us as a committee to come back and do a deep dive into this and so the more clarity we get then we can put together some suggestions when they come to the committee so that will be just to manage expectations that will be for the next calendar year but that means that by then the council tax would have been in place and the rent increase and so to be honest give it a few months to really get feedback from residents but very good idea and we should really have residents come and give evidence to that and how it's been for the last two years for them yeah so should we put that as a recommendation that that is one recommendation that has actions for us as well as the executive so we work together on this it's not it's a collaborative form of way working um natalie um so my um i guess so judy's already offered to do this but um i guess make a recommendation to uh better link up how the the so the underspect is the the concern i have is um umbrella is the um deliverability of the capital projects which are going to um which is it enables viability of our um capital uh in in the hra um budget um and if we are so we this is a kind of quarterly and it's in our quarterly monitoring report but um i actually had to ask daniel about it just as we were beginning the item because i hadn't actually realized it's this part of my own training like i hadn't realized made the connection about how to monitor that properly so um i guess maybe a recommendation that that is clarified in the narrative of the um quarterly budget reporting um so that we can as as a committee effectively monitor because i think that's yeah for me that's a really really key part of um whether the whether it's viable the managing risk some really good points there and i think it's worth thinking about um some of the action some of the um activities we'll be involved in uh setting the kpi looking at um the improvement plan for scooting and that maybe you might want to all think about how all of that now you've got a better understanding of how all of this works um how you might want to utilize those but do we have recommendations yeah we've got the recommendations without councillor chowdhury your turn uh thank you chair uh not recommendation but uh i would like some more insights into it that the 140 million that has been invested for uh damp mold and whatever kitchen bathroom or whatever a timeline on that would be nice to have you know when the money's going to be spent yes and how what in how many years or whatever okay uh plan should we put that as a recommendation um to take um we'll monitor it as as the main body but should we should we give that to the housing regeneration committee yeah thanks for reminding me yeah and one more thing because you also now get to report to the housing subcommittee so you've got a few few goals that have to go at this with the exec uh one more thing they said they're spending a lot of uh i forgot the figure on uh uh in-house the the facilities sports facilities that has come in house what was the okay they were spending at this point about sustainability long term and the 10-year program am i correct uh what was the figure i just want i missed it what was the figure they're investing the investment in leisure you talked about and and and the upgrades of the pitches and uh the oh i see the improvement improvement i would like to know a bit more on that so you want more information they come back in six months but we'll get something out in writing is that right as you know i've been asking for a uh two eleven side pitches to be building town because we are investing sorry we are hiring uh in in our neighboring uh councils to use for facilities for for young old and middle-aged everyone luckily for you the cabinet member is a party colleague unfortunately it's harder for me to get answers so you might you might have better luck but yeah we'll put that down yeah okay i'll start from the end uh thank you chair um my uh recommendation would be like um we have um we have um this kind of plug in the loopholes for example um the um our cotty whether jahid ahmed mentioned about the um pulling house i'm sure it's not only pulling out there's so many others uh other issues that um if uh especially not blaming the council offices but when a contract given to the external contractors they seems to um not so much bother about the the job they're giving they take their time but i would be i'll recommend our council offices to monitor those extra charge or whatever occurred by these contractors which is um we we can avoid okay so this kind of loophole that money goes which is um the officers are not aware of you know the billing to the council thank you i think there's three questions you want answers for tell me if i'm wrong so one is um where we're not able to get repairs right in the first attempt how much is that costing us um there is something about efficiency savings um and then the third thing if i'm correct is about how how does our contracts works our repair contracts work and that is probably something we can also send to housing subcommittee and then we'll bring it here to monitor but we'll get them to do the work for us thank you cancer king i've got several firstly about the format of the meeting um i had this thought in previous meetings as well but i thought i'd just um um and if there's any like technical stuff i'm happy so happy taken away sorry that's that on recommendations i've got several things right so on the capital receipts um i share the concerns of councillor lee and i think we should ask if any other um if we can get further details back on how um spending essentially like nearly four million pounds on getting rid of staff and capital stuff yeah and i think on leisure services i think we just need reassurance that the funding that is being spent will um will mean that if they say an input on the infrastructure they want to see because we used to have that but predominantly would feed uh public realm um programs we had them all um again as well as particular like big ticket items like george green school and then um yeah that's it from me i mean what was actually the school improvements program on the in the capital program where does that lie now and what's what's the direction of travel because we know there is one selective school families um especially with um the birth rate dropping and you know school schools not having um uptake as they are do you need any more information on anything only information oh yeah only information i need to know that about the lease or when the company based on the bathroom windows and uh uh kitchens what portion of the what the lease orders yeah so you can tell your residents when they're going to get their works done yes they are the part of your residence amy um yeah just to record the point about the um capital receipts i do think that's important um i'm not i wasn't quite convinced but the answers on that um just something it's well i don't know whether it's a small thing or not um julie mentioned something right at the start where she said that the management of temporary accommodation is coming in house and i can't for the life of me find that anywhere in the documents or any details about that and we talked about the difficulties surrounding you know managing our own stock i think we all know as councillors the state of some of the temporary accommodation to me that seems like quite a big job and i can't actually find any it's probably just packaged into something else and i just can't see it but i can't find any figures on that and i actually think that's quite an important thing considering the state of the temporary accommodation that we have i would like to hear some more about that that may be something to take to housing possibly but it wasn't it was raised at the start but i can't actually see any further detail whatsoever so thank you chair uh it's about the meeting that we had last week uh recreation facilities which came in house uh the membership of men who are over 55 who have the facilities to use was very low so if that could be noted 1725 remember that was one of the reason i said we should get the age barriers a bit i feel like i'm going to ask you guys to declare interest of the age i haven't finished uh and the ladies take membership was out of this world 16 000 so i think if the age barrier was to come down for amend i think the membership would go a bit higher 1720 out of 20 wards we have that is a bear that's a very low uh intake of membership thank you thank you so i think if it's all right with you instead of a recommendation this is more clarity is that okay and yes if i could get some responses responses yeah because you we haven't got a recommendation from that okay is that right perfect no other contributions perfect thank you uh one minute one minute any other business okay if there is no other business i now officially call this me to an end you mean
Transcript
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to this night's meeting of overview and scrutiny committee. My name is councillor Asma Islam, and I will be chairing this meeting. Can I remind everyone that this meeting is being filmed for public viewing on the council's website. Those participating in the meeting will be included in the footage. If there are any technical issues, I will decide if and how the meeting should continue after taking advice, from officers. Members, should you want to speak, please speak on my direction and ensure that you speak clearly to the microphone. Thomas, are you able to advise us on any apologies sent for this committee? Good evening, Chair. We have a full house. No apologies. Thank you. Thank you very much. Full house. Can members declare whether they have any DPIs? Thank you, Chair. I am a co-optie, and I am a leaseholder of Tower Hamlets Council. I am a Tower Hamlets leaseholder, as per my declarations of interest. For the sake of transparency, are there any committee members who are council tenants? Do you want to declare that? Thank you, Chair. I am Shaheed, co-optie. I am a council tenant. Thank you very much. So, on the 14th of January, the committee reviewed the council's 2025 to 26 budget report, medium-term financial strategy, and fees and charges 2025 to 26. We have submitted our response to the proposals, including recommendations and requests for further information to the Mayor. This evening, we will consider additional information in the budget proposal, which was agreed at Cabinet on January 29th. So, now, I would like to thank Councillor Saeed Ahmed, Cabinet Member for Resources and Costs of Living, and Julie Lorraine, Deputy Chief Executive and Corporate Director for Resources, for joining us. I can see there is a full house of offices as well, so if you speak, please do introduce yourself. So, I am going to give you a chance to provide us with an overview and additional information agreed in the budget proposals at Cabinet on 29th January. You have up to 10 minutes. You don't have to take the 10 minutes. And you can also take it that the committee members have read the report. Thank you both. Thank you, Chair, and good evening to the committee. So, I believe we will take HRA and capital together, if that is right. So, to give a brief overview of the HRA, so over the next four years, there is £513 million of investment in new-build programmes and £187 million in property acquisitions. Over the 30-year of the HRA business plan, there is investment of £1.3 billion in existing stock. The key HRA indicators of financial sustainability are maintained with a minimum reserve level of £10 million with an interest cover ratio of 1.15. Rent increases are set at 2.7%, an average weekly increase of £3.64. 73% of the HRA's income comes from the rents fund, the stock investment and the new-build programmes. Approximately 68%, that is a very important fact here, 68% of the tenants are on housing benefit and will not be impacted directly by the increase of 2.7%. The council will also be investing in new technology to more effectively target repairs and replacements, as well as providing an improved service to residents. That means new roof, new windows, kitchens and bathrooms for our residents. This all comes at an average rent increase, equivalent to maybe a cup of coffee. Nearly 50% of that increase goes towards existing stock and new stock, meaning more homes for our residents and more effective repairs and maintenance to our HRA. Just to touch on the capital. So, in addition to the HRA, there is a £242 million capital programme for 2024-2028 for the general fund. That is the proposal. An overview of significant capital programmes, including the general fund, including key investment, are, within culture we have £56.1 million, largely relating to the new St George's Leisure Centre, but also new investment of £3 million in existing Leisure Centre, a £700,000 for Milan Stadium pitches and half a million on York Hall's spa investments, improvements. School, £44.4 million in basic need expansion, including the New Morbury London Dock School and the Institute of Academic Excellence. £18 million for conditions and improvement. The programme includes new investment of £3 million to ensure the council's school assets remain safe and usable, and £5 million to support the decarbonisation of schools through boiler replacements. £17.8 million for new infrastructure, including Whitechapel Road, improvements and works to the bridges. We have £24.6 million in public grammar improvements, including carriageways, footways, street lighting and also £1 million of investment of traffic schemes relating to Manchester Road, Brabazon Street, Blackwell Way and Wick Lane, all across different parts of the borough. We have £13.8 million in parks, which includes new investment of £900,000 in prefab CAFs and £600,000 to support electric supply points across various sites. We have £12.3 million in waste recycling and fleet, which includes new investment of £2.1 million for flats, food waste services, and £1.3 million for waste vehicle replacements. Lastly, I would like to touch on £8.1 million, which is to do with carbon offsetting. Commitments have been included within the programme to make the borough cleaner and greener with £3.1 million of new investment going towards energy efficiency, renewable energy and food waste treatment. Lastly, I would like to thank my finance team, my 151 officer, for helping us go through this rigorous process and bringing this here, which is an additional piece from the previous meetings that we've had on the budget. And of course, I would like to thank all the officers for attending today and I'll hand over to Julie. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, all I wanted to do, I think we provided the slide deck that we gave as training to everybody. So, all that falls to me is to point out to you what do I think you need to be aware of, where do I think you need assurance as members. If we start with capital, then that would be assurance of the affordability of debt, that the council's not taking unnecessary risk, that we're not being overexposed to debt. We've got our treasury manager here. We operate very prudent measures for treasury at Town Hamlet, so I can give you that assurance and you're welcome to ask any specific questions about that you want to. Key risk associated with capital, timing. So, the worst case scenario is you borrow money, a project slips, you keep it in the bank, get in a lower rate than it costs you to borrow it and don't have the assets that you wanted to build for the benefit of the community. So, slippage is a risk and we do mitigate around that. Other risks, of course, are how prudent have we been in estimations of cost, what processes, governance processes do we have in place around capital and capital release and additional spends. And all those processes are in place and we've seen them work effectively throughout the year. On the HRA, the two things I would draw to your attention specifically, it is a robust HRA, many would envy it, but it's designed to do a really tough job quite quick. It needs to ensure we invest in our existing stock and make sure our residents' homes are safe and warm and pleasant places to live in. And at the same time, we know we haven't got enough homes for residents and that they're not to a good enough standard, so it needs to build houses. There are two things to draw to your attention contained in the HRA paper that are new and it's important you're aware of. One relates to a proposal that new build properties. We take advantage of our ability to charge a 5% premium on the rent. We have provided details in the slide deck on the corresponding savings you could expect as a tenant from a home that's new build, because they're much more energy efficient. But it is important that I stress that. And the second area to draw to your attention is that this year we propose to take advantage of the fact that we now have THH in-house. We have a very well-resourced housing section and corporate director, so what we want to do is bring the management of our temporary accommodation under the professional team with David. And for that, we need to appropriate, move the assets from the general fund into the HRA. And so you are seeing a proposal to move the assets from the general fund to the HRA has no impact on tenants, has no impact on the tenant rent. It's built into the HRA business plan and it does mean that the standards of housing management and the ability for the team to have flexibility around moving from short-haul tenancies to secure tenancies, should they wish to, there's a lot more flexibility. So they would be the two key differences I would highlight to you in the HRA. Thanks. Thank you. David, did you want to add anything? I think just to sort of confirm what Julie said, the HRA business plan puts us in a very strong position, both to invest in our existing homes, but also fulfil our commitments around building new homes. And also maintaining and improving the standard of service that residents are receiving, particularly around our improvement plan that we've put in place as part of our self-referral to the housing regulators. So I think, you know, I've got three at the moment. So do you want to kick off, Abdi? Great. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Lead Member. And thank you, officers, for that. I want to touch briefly on, for my first question, we'll do hopefully another round, but come to the capital programme, the fact, Julie, that it's from 24 to 28. Is that a pretty standard thing to be doing it in a four-year basis, midway through a term of office? So if we're to see the same changes or something upheaval, for example, that we had in 22, coming in 26 as, you know, the lead finance officer in this programme, and if you could talk a bit more to that about how we mitigate some of those, because that's, I suppose, outside of the political kind of thing, but I think we need assurances that there's strong governance there. If there was to be changes in 26, that actually this could have just been swept away, and if it was, what are the ramifications? So, essentially, between now and in any local authority, there is always a conflict between an accountant wanting long-term sustainability and political tenure. It happens in every council. From a professional perspective, it's important I look ahead and ensure across that period that the available resources are affordable to the level I'm stating. The different position of the different projects at any point in time will determine whether the current administration or any different administration makes changes to what is being delivered. Sometimes there can be a cost to canceling something, sometimes there can be a cost to accelerating it, but for me, this is about an affordability of an ambitious capital investment in the borough. So, that affordability will change with any administrative changes, what could change, even under the current administration, it's important that we have flexibility in looking, if something happens and we don't know about it yet, to turn some dows off, turn more on, fast-track some projects. But it's essentially the stage at which they've been delivered to, in front of any changes that would determine the ability of the current or new administration to make changes to the programme. What would it be if the fact the capital was there? Does that help? Yes, just to follow up. It does help, I suppose. It's just, it's an interesting time to be doing. 24 to 20, I think, is right in the middle of two terms. So, it's just kind of the assurances. And I think you've given that, and it's helpful to understand that, and I appreciate, we sometimes make your lives a bit harder. But it's just helpful to understand, because this could be particularly in two upheaval, kind of, you know, tumultuous times, shall we say. Perhaps I can give you another example that's a bit more significant. You're right, this programme goes across a medium-term period, which is what I'm required to do. The HRA goes across a 30-year period. There could be several changes of administration in that. We review the HRA annually. We review the MTFS annually. So, the time to make changes to your MTFS is at an annual budget setting base a year, and then you look into the future. The extent to which that commitment has been made is part of that governance process on capital where it's drawn down. So, like I say, a 30-year business plan, councillor, lots of potential political changes. So, I think that's a really fair point, a really helpful point, but I think the distinction between the HRA and the capital, we could be midway through building something, and obviously the HRA is slightly different. So, I take your point, but I think it's apples and oranges, not apple and apple, but I think it's a fair point. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. So, this is a question for the Cabinet member, and it's regarding, in the HRA, the, let me find the report, council-built homes, which is obviously a positive, but the schemes that have been identified, Bancroft, Whitford, Albert Jacobs House, H8, and the Caliche Estate, these are all planned and indeed funded over two and a half, many years ago, and for many other things, was halted, paused. So, my question is, why is that member, not the officers? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor, for your question. I think, first of all, since I've been in the office and we've seen these processes from 2022, Caliche Estate was one that kept coming up. But, I mean, the Director for Housing can explain better, but there was never a proper plan in place of what was actually deliverable. There was a lot of unfinished work around that programme, and that sort of went back and forth in many areas to sort of iron out exactly what is required for that area, in terms of number of additional homes and how that programme is going to get delivered and exactly the costing of it. Because, I think, originally, when things were drawn up, there was a big gap and costing have changed. And, as we know, with the inflation going up, there was a lot of need to revise and review this programme. So, I think we've come to a point now where we have built this in, and I'm hoping that we can see this sort of pull through completely to the end of this programme. But, like I say, it's mainly due to inflationary pressures and changes in scope, which we had to bring this again into the capital programme and actually see it through in a way that it can get delivered. Thank you. Professor King, did you have a supplementary? I mean, it just begs the question, really. I mean, the building of new homes is such a vital thing that the Council needs to do. And, from this administration, we've received so many mixed messages. The re-announcing funding for these houses is just surprising, I feel, that the capital funding could have been... Professor King, can I ask that, I get your point, but can I ask that you tie this in with a question for the HRA now? So, how, what assurance would you... They're actually, yeah, will be coming to fruition as soon as possible. Yeah, so, can I just add on the back of that? So, when this is not just for home building, but across the Council, when the assurances that he requires, it's like how, I guess it comes back to Councillor Mohammed's point about resilience in making sure it doesn't matter what the election cycle looks like, that we're able to still have that long-term sustainability of home building. And I think there's a political question there, and I think you kind of covered the ambition there, but from the Office's point of view, if you can cover those three points, that would be great. Yeah, so, I think, thank you, Chair. I think that, you know, any Council delivering major estate regeneration like that in this particular estate will have had a challenging time over the last 2.5 years in terms of getting viability to stack up and getting schemes into deliverable position, and in every case, including ones that I've worked on and other councils, we need to revise budgets and make sure they're fit for purpose in the world that we live today, where a number of factors have moved on and changed. But just to give reassurance on the particular example of the cliché estate that the cabinet, the lead member referred to in its answer, we have made a lot of progress towards delivering that scheme, including appointing a development partner recently, a cabinet, to do this pre-contract services agreement work to move us forward and then allow us to basically get on site and start delivering that scheme. We've obviously been through things like the resident ballot as well, and we have really progressed through a lot of work during that period of time that you've referred to. So we haven't stood still, and we are in a position now where having appointed a development partner we will be able to really motor on with the next stage of work. And I've got Sadiqa and Yasmin here who are leading our house building programme, who can add to that if you want. You said obviously we appreciate the pressures, especially around inflation and viability, that puts house building under pressure. But are you aware of other councils in London who basically cancelled and scrapped their house building HRA portion of the capital programme? A little bit more to help with articulating this. It's also about having clarity about the programmes and the schemes. So different schemes are in different stages of the pipeline, and so that clarity obviously isn't always clear for councillors, and the concerning part is when it's at the peak of the pipeline, and then it gets cancelled, there's a lot of resource. Like I said, office's time, money gets spent, and there's not a clear rationale behind why some have been cancelled, some have been redesigned and come back. I think there's, in the past, that's been a little bit of, needed a little bit more clarity, I think. So I think that's where, am I right? Yeah. Can I just, from a financial perspective, which are indicators that you should all be able to rely on, what should you expect to see in order to be able to hand-maintain oversight of progress? One is delivery against plan of schemes, and the second key one would be sight of any abortive costs. So schemes that start, and sometimes, councillor, ground works are done, and it's quite a legitimate reason that there are abortive costs, but they would be the two elements that will enable you to continue to have oversight. I think the housing scrutiny, I don't know whether that, is a forum that looks at development, build, but certainly abortive costs of schemes should be something that's quite visible to all members. Well, I suppose just to say, I am definitely aware of a lot of London councils that have had to review their programmes. They may have had to abort schemes for the reason Julie's outlined. They may have to amend or change the scope of a scheme to make it affordable. And so, and I don't think you'll find a council in London that hasn't been doing that. I can't really speak to all of the history here, but I think there's a programme there where we can get into more granular detail. Thank you, David. This is the right place to bring it up, but I think where you want to dig in deeper, then that will be the right committee, you're right. Natalie, you're next. Yeah, I guess the fundamental anxiety about the question that Councillor King raised for me is that the viability of this budget rests on the deliverability. And so if there's a concern about a scheme that was looked at two years ago that hasn't been delivered, how can we have assurance as a committee that it is deliverable? And I guess, obviously, there are things that we don't know, like how long is a piece of string, but yeah, like I guess it's what stage of the pipeline are we at at the moment? There's just one question, but the second question is, okay, we'll maybe answer that one and I can come back in another round. I think, let me just add this from the executive point of view. I think setting the budget is obviously a responsibility of the executive and then with the right processes and coming for the right scrutiny process with the support of the officers. But delivery is also something that has to be achievable, realistic, and I think this is what we've gone through a rigorous process to understand that whatever we're putting in this budget has to be achievable and it comes through from the buying of the corporate directors of the departments that know what needs to come through and that includes HRA and the capital programme. So I think the delivery of the specifics would rely on the departments and the corporate directors are all on deck to make sure that we see it through. That's from the executive. I think I would also add there is something quite visible for you all. So your quarterly financial report shows you capital spend, it gives you delivery, it shows you the proportion of that capital that's been spent against what should have been spent. So there are lines of sight. What I don't think, what I think we could do better, I could do better, is ensure that those dots are joined for you. You don't have to go and look in the different places for them. And I think that we could and should house building is development of new homes and the improvement to existing homes is something every single councillor holds dear. I think for you to be able to monitor progress on those as a KPI is something we'll look at in our financial reporting and see if we can work with them. Thank you, Chair. So my question is around building and fire safety remedial works. Obviously there's so much going on in the sector at the minute. How will that impact the budget? Are there any sort of immediate risks as such that's been identified? Can I just come back? Because I think your question might have also been relevant to our existing stock as well and our investment in our existing stock. So just to reassure that everything that the team have asked for in terms of resources to do all of our compliance testing and action that's required in terms of remedials has been built into this plan. So everything that we asked our colleagues and resources to put into the plan in order to fulfil that programme has been put in which includes the kind of fire risk assessments that we do but also all the works that come out of the back of that in terms of remedial actions and the catch-up programme that we're doing as part of our regulatory referral. But then we've tried to work out OK, what does this new enhanced regulatory regime look like on an ongoing basis? Because we're not just going to do it once it's something that's recurring. And we have built that into the plan but obviously we will every year that we update the plan we will look at whether those assistance are still fit for purpose and whether it's affordable. And what we've always said when we work together on this is that the safety of residence is the first priority. So that's the first thing that we have to meet before we do anything else because clearly... Can I come to Bodhubai because I know you haven't spoken. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Saeed and the officers. My question, I think some parts of it has been answered already. Obviously, Tehran Homes has come in-house it's been over a year. A lot of residents come to us with my surgeries or mould and damp issues. What are your plans to eradicate that problem? Because it's been ongoing for some time. Obviously, the stock has just come in-house so it'd be nice to hear an update from the lead member and the officers. Thank you. Lead member's not here but should we... Housing. Sorry. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Councillor. I'm Gillam Hussain, Acting Director of Neighbourhoods and Customer Services. So we're not going to eliminate damp and mould because it's always... It's a challenge but it's about how we manage it and how we support our residents as part of that. We've got an ambitious programme in terms of capital investment and particularly looking at component replacements you know, windows and other things where we know that helps better manage insulation within the property. We've got K&T Heating who do our gas servicing and as part of that annual gas servicing checks they will be also looking for damp and mould within property so that gives us early warning. We're looking at a number of technology-based solutions as well that allows us the opportunity to intervene and in addition to that what we've also done is that we're training all our housing officers in accordance to the HHSRS that's the Housing Health and Safety Rating System standard so when they're undertaking their standard routine visits or tenancy health checks they're able to look at the environment and understand risks and come back and raise those repairs with our colleagues internally. Obviously we're working very closely with colleagues in the lettings division as well so clearly we're overcrowding and other challenges mean that the property will not we cannot necessarily manage damp and mould within that sort of scenario it's to look at how can we try and resolve that issue through the lettings process so that there's a sort of a sustainable solution to the problem. Okay. Councillor Amy. Thank you Chair. I wanted to ask about the flexible use of capital receipts and it's just on the obviously more money more of this fund is being put into a redundancy scheme and look whilst I understand the justification for the scheme I think some of the wording in here about how this is actually protecting frontline services I think as time has gone on I think unfortunately as councillors who support residents every day we can see that this redundancy scheme is actually having an impact on frontline services because we're losing good solid officers with institutional knowledge of this council because of this redundancy scheme and I just want to know whether you really believe that putting a pretty solid amount of money into this again and as I understand it this is only the statutory part this isn't the additional part of redundancy is that best value for our residents because I can tell you that as councillors we actually are seeing an impact of this scheme on our residents so from a financial planning perspective that doesn't mean that we're going to use the money it simply means that it's been provided for centrally should we choose to the council has a policy of no compulsory redundancy there is a voluntary scheme in place the governance around that voluntary scheme councillor is never about a person it's about the post and I do have huge sympathy that often the person and it's voluntary so the person is required to go particularly in early retirement or flexible retirement they could probably go anyway and sometimes this scheme retains their services for longer but the fact that that's in there does not mean that the council is planning to spend that much on making people redundant it simply means that if as part of their transformation proposals staff volunteer that the burden of funding those redundancies does not fall to individual services we provide for it centrally it does not mean it's going to be spent so there isn't a list that sits behind that of which post that equates to we've just made provision for it yeah so I understand that and I understand of course what you're saying there isn't a list and it isn't about people at spec posts but this is quite a lot it is a lot of money like it is quite a lot of money and I think my point is when you're allocating this money is that genuinely you believe regardless of whether you're going to spend every single penny of it or not you think putting that money into this scheme is best value for residents I do because the criteria for accepting a redundancy is based on a required payback period within the MTFS life so that means if we were to spend all of that three million in year one the rules say that it would have to generate 1.3 million a year savings and repay it and those savings would go on year after year after year so you spend your redundancy payment once the saving you make against it continues year after year after year and that's why the way in which we set our rules for does a redundancy meet the criteria is around that payback period that's how we demonstrate value for money can I just add one more point here just to sort of compliment what Julie said I think it would be a risk for as a lead member to see that we don't have a substantial amount put aside to meet that requirement if we do need so so I think it's important that we have a robust plan in place and also we would like to retain our staff of course with the knowledge and everything that our staff we value that the services staff do but at the end of the day if someone wants an early redundancy a voluntary redundancy we can't tie them down forcefully so I think there has to be the option that staff know that if they do want something and they've got an option to explore and at the same time there's enough funds for them to take out from there because we know the packages include pensions and all of that so but this because am I right in thinking we might not need all of that right so you've calculated at the highest amount in case we need it as a safety net that's exactly what we do and I think in the document on the actual strategy there's a graph in there that shows that savings over time is only if you spend the money if you don't spend the money nobody gets made redundant you don't make the saving and I get the political will to keep the staff and the expertise and everything else how does that then play out as far because it's it's a council we're a massive employer how do we then make sure that other corporate directors are service heads that there is an understanding that we are still trying to retain staff and not lose staff that we you know when you lose staff you're losing that expertise that's correct councillor and the process the governance arrangement that sits around this is the request comes from an individual to their manager the request comes from an individual to their manager the manager it actually goes into a central HR thing the manager supports it or not regardless of whether that manager supports it or not that staff member's request together with the manager's recommendations the rules around you've got to be able to sacrifice the post and I don't this sounds light hearted it's not meant to I can't tell you how difficult it is to persuade a manager to give up a post and often we see more no's than yes's we see that around flexible retirement so I don't see a pressure anywhere for more staff exiting than we've made provision for it's the opposite managers do consider it carefully and I'm sure that we can set out for the committee what that process is on a flow chart so that you can see it really isn't somebody in a darkened room saying all these people can go it's very controlled okay thank you for that I don't want to claim to be a HR expert so I'm seeking this clarification I understand the process but what are the safeguarding measures in place to make sure that our staff aren't feeling pressurised or in an environment that pushes them to make decisions that maybe they wouldn't have otherwise I don't have the full details I'm just talking about an incident that took place in the council very scary two weeks ago when I think about all of that and I think about our staff and the council as a whole can you talk to me about safeguards I understand the policy but on top of that there must be safeguards in place so one of the safeguards is that the individual's request goes into HR it's a direct box it's not something that you go through your manager the most issues we get counter and safeguarding is usually the other way round my manager says no because they don't like me or it's not been fair so HR are involved what we can do is ask them they're not here today is ask for some assurance to be given to the HR committee I think that's next week around this question if you'd find that helpful when those experts are in the room is that okay I think he might want that assurance as well thank you I'm going to come back to the board councillors now who wants to go first east or west west has it thank you councillor Mohammed and chair I have a maybe seems a slightly nerdy accounting question the home energy advice programme it seems like it's a general fund cost and I'm concerned that will the auditors have questions about why it's being funded through a programme it's one of the carbon offset fund and most of the carbon offset funds they are I think they're clearly capital but this one is seems to be general fund is there any are we opening ourselves up to any risk on that particular one no because the definition of capital is an item that has a life of longer than a year so it's a tangible asset that deteriorates over time and this is home energy advice so it's a service it's not it's not a tangible asset we can we have reviewed and asan in particular is my reliable right hand person on what are the rules associated with this funding are we sure we're meeting them so we would check very carefully councillor that expenditure was allowed we wouldn't put ourselves in a position where that was challengeable but to the best of my knowledge the grant isn't a totally limited to capital b if an item isn't a capital item it has to be a revenue charge there's no other way of doing it supplementary okay thank you well can I bring in councillor Ahmed and then I'll come back because he hasn't spoken at all thank you thank you chair my question is on repair service how are you actually prioritizing the repair service because council is responsible for housing issues as well the homeless and everything but above all the people who are already living in the accommodation we have a severe problem as a councillor of children mentioned a little bit is damp and dampness and other things but I'm going to address further you know into more severe repairs that some I mean in some cases in my ward one tenant has like for past eight months tracing a roof repair to take place there have been so many contractors coming in and out so how do you address that issue because they're also taking if somebody comes if you send somebody wrong person to a wrong repair service it costs council money that's one thing how you addressing those issues and another question is people are living in their current accommodation do you have a are you within your budget do you have a cap that you can't go beyond that or the repair service is open to without any capping thank you so just on the first question I think the strongest response in terms of trying to invest in this issue is around the planned investment programme so the large amount of capital that's built into the 30 year plan the lead member mentioned around investing in a existing stock should hopefully address some of the significant failings that generate repairs so I know that many members here will have had complaints over the winter about things like common boiler systems going down and it's a recurring problem that's happened over a number of years and so the route to addressing that is to invest in replacing those systems once and for all and actually putting in systems which are more resilient and that is built into the very significant investment that we talked about so that's one part of it and we will be running a significant procurement exercise this year to bring in contractors to do that work so that I think is an important aspect of it having said all of that we're not going to fix everything overnight and it will take time and there will always be the need for responsive repairs so members will probably have heard me talk about in other forums our end to end review of our repair service which is looking at every aspect of it including how we triage calls through the call centre the Gulan managers to make sure that we're actually getting the issue diagnosed correctly at the outset so that we don't send the wrong contractor or we don't attend and then have to visit a second and third time which happens too often at the moment and I know that's a common cause of complaint as well we're also looking to the use of technology as well so that we can learn more about our stock ahead of the problem occurring and we get flags on the system before the issue fails and that is through the use of smart technology so that we're getting the data in live time rather than when something falls over so there's a lot of work that we have to do in this space to improve the current position we know it's one of the main drivers of dissatisfaction it should be said that probably 90% of complaints go to plan and repairs go to plan and we get good feedback about the experience residents have but that's on the more simple end of the scale when it's more complicated things like the example you gave the roof leak or the communal boiler system it does take us several visits often to get to the root of the problem and those are the ones that generate the very substantial complaints understandably from residents and so that's about the long term investment but also getting the process working better so we diagnose the problem earlier at the outset do you have a supplementary no thank you councilman you haven't spoken thank you chair to the lead member just want to look at the report can you tell me for rainy day contingency plan for 25 26 how much it is what it is for rainy day money put aside also my second question is for school uniform I'm looking at secondary school year seven is specifically certain group going to get it or is it that year seven and other people who also year eight nine and ten so specifically clarification on that please because you did mention that uniform will be given to primary school and secondary school so is it the whole of the primary school or secondary school or is specifically certain group going to get it thank you thank you for your question so I think that takes us back to the MTFS question not specific to HRA and capital but I think I could just answer the question very quickly we have an inbuilt revenue contingency of five million pounds just to support the ongoing cost that we have already accounted for this is a buffer we have built in just in case as a contingency and in terms of the school uniforms that's a brand new initiative that's being introduced from this year's budget and that's to help students who are starting secondary schools and starting primary schools so it's the starting support that we're giving to the students and of course the families but obviously this is something we can explore going forward and see how it goes how well things are taken up and there's always room for improvement and see how things go that's just an initiative that's been introduced brand new pioneering initiative like the winter food payments we are continuing our trailblazing trend so can I just clarify that so one of the primary schools children who are going to receptions they're going to get it and transformation from primary to secondary school so any kids who are already in the secondary school they're going to miss out just for you can answer it I can see you're very eager to answer this one but just for noting we sent around a briefing we've been asking corporate director he's been very helpful providing all the information today because Councillor Ahmed is here with Rasmah and he really wants to answer the question I'll let it go but can we concentrate on the HRA in the capital please like I say so this is part of the MTFS not the HRA but again this is for new starters starting year seven and for starting reception so it isn't for future years but I think this is something that going forward can be explored and cost it as we explore this new initiative the take going forward can thank you thank you chair just to follow up to what councillor lee and councillor islam were talking about and in terms of I appreciate the point about you do finance your accountants you prepare for the worst and hope it doesn't get there but you budget for the worst so in terms of the capital programme when you do budget for the worst it doesn't quite get to the extreme what happens with that money because this is a four year programme so I'll use the example of say we don't build the academy of excellence but there was money allocated to rebuilding some of George Green's access bits so is there plans that we turn other bits of money that haven't been used into other areas or do we put that back into the general fund that was actually my question but it would be helpful to get information about the money that's not spent my actual question is to Julie around the capital programme 4.16 and 4.18 which looks like the leisure insourcing is helpful report it tells us what the process is so you allocate you find out how much money you've got and then you take bids and then people if they're successful will go into building into the bid or the programme in terms of the leisure insourcing it talks about there's an extra 3 million a year over 10 years or an extra 3 million for that 10 years my follow-up got you exactly to that because we benefited from having the leisure resource contracts coming last week and they told us that ultimately there's 27 million that's needed over 10 years but this report talks about 3 million that's allocated over question and an actual question yeah yes thank you but the first one was about HIV and then while you're working out the housing one so so the first question what happens to the check what happens if we've made provision in a capital programme and the scheme either doesn't go ahead or it does go ahead and it costs less where's the change and the answer is that every single scheme goes through a capital governance process so if a scheme were to be stopped or reported then the balances would go back into the council's ability to fund other schemes an alternative scheme coming forward would be separately costed you couldn't just say well we're going to use that and move it over there without that governance process that went with it so and nor is it just lost so it doesn't just sit there unused particularly because one of the things we're keen about and I recall you did ask a question specifically about that scheme so from our perspective when we review capital we don't just review what else do you want to spend it also incorporates what aren't we going to spend and that's what brings the update to our capital position every quarter when you get your finance report council it will include ins and outs into that capital programme it's not just forgotten so that's helpful I think but just these are tough decisions because I have no doubt you get the bids that you get outweigh the amount of money you probably have but I suppose what we don't see behind this is the formula the document that people have to fill in and the likelihood of that being achieved this programme you're doing the accounting parts of funding it appropriately but there is a whole bit of work where it might be rag rated and this is unlikely to be delivered for example because of external factors and I used the academy example because it's the gift of the government to approve that and that's something I suppose it's all interlinked and I think that's the point I'm trying to make but it's my substantive point I was more interested in and again Abdul Razak we have a capital programme we have an internal officer based one as well as one that involves members and cabinet and the mayor but Abdul Razak is the lead finance officer on that do you want to just provide some reassurance around that process thanks Julie hi my name is Abdul Razak Kassim director of finance so councillor I think when the bids come through there's different elements to that there's a funding source if it's funded by grants or external income that gets prioritisation I think the limiting factor for us is how much and I think your question on that 3 million that's 1 million per annum for life cycle costs for the entire duration so the MTFS is three years so we set the budget for three years but that would be a rolling programme just one follow-up to that because I'm not necessarily sure to answer my question so really helpfully last ONS meeting which was last week we had a presentation by officers who were leading on this leisure and it was identified that there's a 1 million pound spend on the capital so over 10 years 10 million pounds but there's a gap and the work that's needed is 27 million over 10 years so I suppose it's understanding but you've allocated three so it's just when projects are taken forward it's understanding where the gap is and how that's going to be funded and the reassurance is that you're not necessarily just doing a partial job not that you would of course but it's understanding that doesn't quite make up to 27 million can I come up with a supplementary point about this the scrutiny meeting said that there's an operational risk by 26-27 without this funding so will this operational risk be gone away with this new funding that's coming I'll respond partly to that councillor because I wasn't at that meeting but the 27 million is based on stock condition survey so we don't have to 9 and 10 1 million for this sorry yeah no worries so that's what I meant the 27 million is to do every single thing we don't have to do everything to kind of explain in the prioritisation of that thank you Joe Rally director for culture and leisure so the stock condition survey that was done shows the life cycle of the building and some of the buildings have 10 15 20 30 years to go so the 27 million of that the priority works that were identified were 3.8 million this financial year which has been budgeted and and works are going on there was 3.2 million pounds worth of work for next year which has already been approved on top of that finance colleagues have allocated a million pounds every year until the building gets demolished and rebuilt or until the end of the life cycle of the building so if so currently there's sufficient budgets to manage the main boilers tanks water heaters and all of those things if next year we see that something's likely to fail we would come back into the capital bidding cycle to say we've now been alerted to a risk from new surveys can we have some more money so currently the position is based on the information that we have but if new information were to arise and we have a ceiling that might potentially collapse we would come back and say actually we need more money and that would then go back into the ask an assessment would be done and then the process would inform us how we can draw that money down do you do you mind and again just to clarify because a lot of capital stuff I mean it's just like a dark heart isn't it but essentially if we know from the stock condition survey that during the remaining life of this building 30 years or 50 years you will need to spend 27 million what we would never do is put 27 million aside today and leave it doing nothing because it might be 10 or 15 of those years before the roof needs replaced so that's why we do it the way we do it and that's exactly the right thing to do what are the priorities what needs to be done within this cycle but we do make a provision each year so you would never if you bought a house and you got a stock condition survey somebody could probably say to you over the next 20 years you're probably going to spend 100,000 on this you wouldn't put no it's okay we can always ask for further information thank you but that was helpful thank you can I ask a question which is around the rent increase I understand can we put in place or is in place regarding those that don't quite meet there aren't on benefits just above that 50,000 because if you're looking at a council okay and that doesn't really just push them off especially those that are single parents the other question I had was completely understand the works that needs to be done for the stock and the house building plans and all the ambitious plans in place that the rent increase is going to enable this council to do but if you're a resident who lives here and you know council talked about new bathrooms and having works done which is much needed in some of the old stocks but realistically they're not going to be rolled out like that one and it's going to take time to go estate by estate we know how major work work plans go and sometimes there might be delays due to things that aren't in our control if you're a family who's who's now seen this rent increase and have seen the council tax increase and we're saying okay but they might think okay but I'll have work done I'll have my mold and dealt with at home I'll have a new bathroom how do we make sure that the communication of this council is balanced in a way that is realistic for those residents that we don't put their expectations how can I apply for this am I eligible for this like it's just making sure that we've got the expectations at the right point yeah I mean I'll ask I'm good I'm to comment because one of the things that we have within housing is the financial inclusion team which does a lot of work with tenants particularly those that are in danger of falling into arrears so that we get in early and try pathways into other services that might be able to help and I think those tend to be some of the people that you're talking about the sort of just about managing that aren't on benefits but are struggling more broadly I mean of course it's worth saying there's a lot of the other things that the council's doing will help those families mitigate the issues like school uniforms for instance because that can reduce the costs but in terms of housing we will definitely work with families that might fall into rent but also fall into areas but also we will look to make sure that families that are eligible for benefits but perhaps not accessing the mother are getting that advice because often people don't realise that they are eligible for benefits and that's one of the things that we can do to help them but it also helps us in the end because it increases our sort of rent recovery and actually we do have quite a bit of rent recovery percentage when you compare us to other landlords so good and is there anything you want to add? No I think I mean we did cover some of this David when we did the presentation to housing scrutiny subcommittee on how we manage the income service I think you've referenced some of the strong partnership working that we've got with a lot of the third sector organisations there as well both through the rents team but also through some of the work the community partnership service delivers. Also we absolutely look at income maximisation and it's generally a supportive process that we try and support residents it's in the single digits so we have very few evictions if at all any because of the fact that rents have not been paid and usually there are other overlying circumstances involved which is why we would have had a possession order and certainly as part of this round of communication as well you know we were looking at the rents letter to make sure it's made absolutely clear I mean as an example for this year where we've had the higher spike as opposed to what's coming from you know we had the seven points rent increase and with the 53 weeks with one of which isn't covered by universal credit we've done a lot of messaging with residents as well in terms of directly communicating making sure every opportunity we've had every touch point we've had we've reinforced the approaching us directly if they've got any concerns around paying rent and equally our repairs colleagues are more and more aware of things like particularly how that interfaces with damp and mould you know if residents are struggling to pay bills they're not out there and heating their homes looking to do with switchy and some of the other technologies we're onboarding rent sense and repair sense that will give us more opportunity to preemptively intervene the rent increase now is not something you're going to see straight away it's not something that we don't see in our system for at least a year and a bit so I guess I think you answered a little bit but where's where's the preventative work where's the comms where's how are we going to because we already have a massive piece of work that needs to be done with debt collection so in terms of that so obviously as part of the rent notification letters we will be working with residents to make sure that they understand so we usually plan that period where we do the proactive engagement particularly with residents that we know might have some particular challenges around that and where they need to particularly interface with universal credit to make sure that they are fully sort of aware of the process I think technology plays a big role so rent assessment which is one of those technologies we're looking to introduce it helps us understand trends and do the early intervention so when it notices any changes in patterns and behaviours of payments it sort of flags up for us and then we're able to proactively engage and say what's changed for you so those early conversations are certainly happening certainly as part of our policy we've got equally our housing officers as part of their tenancy health check processes they also look at things like rents arrears are there any concerns so it's not just the income team themselves that are working in isolation we're also triangulating data with colleagues and benefits and ensuring that we know where appropriate we're getting the DHB applications in and what we do certainly on a monthly basis we also report on how much income we've tried to maximise for residents I guess we don't want all residents think that we're able to have an overnight solution for this yeah I think I think it is a good point and whilst we've presented a positive view of what this plan does for us in terms of giving us the fire power we need I don't think we should pretend for a minute that there are no challenges in the housing sector to to invest every single council and landlord in the country is having to make difficult decisions and we can't do it all at once just from an affordability point of view so I think you are right and you know let's not forget that we had a decade of rent freezes which basically meant that the housing sector has been under-invested in and we can't undo that in a year we can't undo it in two years we can't undo it in five years we are living with that legacy so I think your point about managing expectations thank you one more question can I just add a quick point to that so so on top of what we have with the council tax cost of living relief fund we've got the tackling poverty team and the resident support scheme so where where we have residents who are struggling there's also that that that support is always there but on top of that like you say you acknowledge that the the this slight rent increase and the return for that is is great it's great it's great in terms of new homes and repairs to the existing stock that we have although it may not happen overnight like you mentioned but we will request the team to expedite that process and and get those new bathrooms and kitchens in as in a timely manner uh but the the increase in council tax which which which reflects um the mtfs obviously the slight percentage increase that we'll see um in a 2.99 percent of council tax increase the return for that is we know what our residents will get in we know the long list that we've mentioned several times from from free school meals to free uniform to ema not discussing that today and and and but we're very well best thank you that's fine councillor because you touched on council tax increase i just wanted to mention what what we get in return is a great amount of return in this time around with the adult social care 7 million pound investment for free home care as well thank you clever one more question say different thank you chair um i there's no question in what i'm going to say so but just a statement i just don't i'm sure you're aware of the rising water uh bill that's just been as planned across the across the country i suppose uh so this rent increase and couldn't come at a bad time especially for what uh council asma mentioned around the demographic that don't uh qualify for anything um and you said you mentioned about programs available but those programs actually when they do fall into that category what about those who are right at the edge and are at risk do they qualify for support uh especially at cost around uh increase in water electricity gas and so forth and we're still in the uh cost of living crisis that hasn't gone away so support is my question what support is available for them thank you um thank you for your question i think that comes from again uh the resident support that we have through our tackling poverty team uh anyone that's sort of financially struggling should should could reach out to that team and there they would be an assessment uh carried out and then financial support is is given up to those families um that doesn't mean that they need to be on benefit it depends on their income in and outgoing their rent and like you say the bills if there is a point where any resident feels like it's becoming a very big burden the council is there to support them but on top of that like we mentioned we as a council as services that we're providing in many areas is going to help every resident in every household uh especially with children to make sure that their costs are covered in many ways from like a cost of free school meal that we know is goes to hundreds of pounds free uniform and and the list goes on there's there's plenty of existing support that we've introduced but in additional support um the council's here to support them it's a good point but um even though it's not on capital and hr i think the point was made and we can bring that back another day because you've got lots of investment it's just that balance of of if you think about the household income and their outgoings if you take 150 pounds out of a school uniform for watching at numbers just to give you an example it could be they're spending 400 pounds and that could be lots of several things energy bills all of that it's about how that family works and how the outgoings are and maybe we have a wider conversation about tackling poverty and what what more we can do as far as promoting benefits that aren't claimed and support from the there might be support that council offers that they're not taking up so it's about looking at the whole whole program that we have just just just on that on that point yeah i mean if we don't take the investments now to improve windows and bathrooms and kitchens now those costs will continue to incur for those families so if they're contributing that three pounds 64 pence a week on average now in order for them to get better windows in the future would help their energy costs in the next couple of years so it's just a matter of you need to sort of put some money in now towards looking at a better future for their finances so again ultimately it balances out at the end thank you thank you chair my question to you that is something different how is the international situation with the threat of tariff impact of this council ability to manage inflation and it is overall cost have you have we undertaking a worst case scenario assessment in the relation to the capital and hra element and set up the report thank you sorry can i just clarify so is that about whether we've tested the worst case scenario and whether we could whether that's from about financial resilience it's a really good question council and really important so when we set any budget particularly in the hra we then say to ourselves what if something happens that we don't know and we run exactly as you say scenario tests and we run the scenario test that breaks the business plan we see what will it take to break this and what could we do if it broke to fix it so it might mean that we pulled put back certain programs it might mean that we have to pull forward some programs maybe technology that will reduce costs but we do run that scenario testing and we do make sure we break the business plan and then we have a plan in place if that happens we'll put it back together so the answer is yes and in the final report you will see when we bring our hr business plan in full the updated one you will see that stress testing and you will see the scenarios that we've run thank you are you happy okay can I stop on last question thank you chair for giving you last question so thank you chair again for giving me the opportunity asking questions because colleagues are asking questions from all directions so I thought I will be like patient and ask the last question I can see you have been supported by the whole teams I never saw you supported by the whole teams I look like everybody is here and we are grateful that we are here so my question is that there is a significant investment in council existing housing stocks is this part of what you say that new windows new kitchen and new bathroom if it is if it is then I want to know what criteria will people have to make to get their bathroom and window and the kitchen sort out my second question is any increase any increases rent or consult any increase is not a good news for a resident in this living cost of living crisis but it is we can see that 2.7% increase in rent and what criteria do you do when you work out this amount what criteria do you use thank you very much so if I can come back on both of those first of all just does the figures you look at the first of all just does the figures you include and you're seeing on the HRA include provisions for kitchens and bathrooms the answer is yes in terms of which ones the data the formula that accountants use is how old is the one that's there so the calculations are all based on the age of the current components and the rules the council applies so for example we could have a rule that said every seven years you replace the sink every 10 years of bathroom so it's based on age and in terms of your second question what do we take into account when considering the rent increase and there are strict controls on social housing rent government rent policy controls those and so we follow and so we follow and so we follow the rent formula we've just undertaken a compliance test to make sure that all our rents are compliant with that formula so again we follow it and there's one more point I would make councillors don't have any choice about putting rent up above that threshold but you do have a choice as to whether or not you put it up to that threshold and the one thing that I would say to get here I absolutely understand it's a difficult decision for all members to take from whatever party that increase in costs the rules on the HRA go two way and that means that the HRA can't subsidise the general fund and the general fund can't subsidise the HRA so the only way to fund improvements to properties bathrooms safety new building is the rent that the existing tenants pay the rules force you that that is the only money you can use and so it's a balance and so it's a balance and it's a choice and if as we have safety first we will incorporate 100% of all of the requirements for the safety and upkeep of our stock in accordance with those rules if we don't apply a rent increase to that level there are some of those things we can't do because the model has been based on that rent level but it is a control rent does that help great thank you so in the capital program report I'm looking at number 5.5 which says that there is a balance remaining of capital receipts of 88.3 million pounds fund academies and the private sector so that's a particular question for you cabinet member particularly as lots of the officers who are here were not here at the time the decision was made to cancel and pause the NCIL program back in 2023 and you were thanks for the question I think just to sort of put on a high level in terms of programs and NCIL's capital and all different programs that's going on it's it's something that we need to it's something that the administration and and they may look at and see what what suits best in terms of where we have in our manifesto where we have pledges to complete and and sort of see what's best best way of of of of I'm distributing that and and sort of what kind of what comes to what kind of what kind of programs want to complete when it comes to schools and funding for George Green as well as it's really important schools are very important today obviously we had the Mayor, go with the Queen in an opening after London.School. It's very important. So, George Queen is one that, of course, is an important area, and, of course, we can always review that going forward and see what sort of work is required and what programme we can put that into. But I think for the interim, whichever works more needed got prioritised at the moment, and I think that was what everyone agreed with. But, yeah, your point is important. For example, where we have programmes that we know the NCO has a remit and we can cover those costs and plans and programmes, we will use NCO and we will use whichever funding is available to make sure that it's within their school to fund their project. Thank you. Thank you, in particular. Zaid, you've got the last question. Thank you, Chair. Just taking you back to the rent increase, so I wanted to ask how long before residents can see some tangible improvements to their homes from that increase? Is it something that's already planned and is going to happen and rent will subsequently follow? Or does someone, or a household will wait another probably maybe a year or so until you have that capital and then the work will start? What's the plan around that? That's one question. Can I ask another? Just a case study. Pauline House is in scope to be, it's a tower block, I believe it was in scope to be internally and externally reviewed due to fire safety and hazard. It's been there for three years, the scaffolding that was put up for additional two years and until it was forcefully removed by recommendation from the Ombudsman. But that's how far it went, because there was no clear indication or any sort of understanding or project of what was to happen in terms of having improvements to the building. You may not be aware of the situation, so I'm not expecting you to answer that, but it's something for you to maybe look into. How does that work and what does it look like? I mean, on the first part of the question about when can residents start to see the improvements, I think although we talk a lot about the investment that we've built into the plan and, as I say, we're doing a major procurement this year for us to start getting that investment to flow into the buildings, I don't want to lose the fact that we do have a current programme that's on site and there are already blogs that are receiving major works and there are already kitchen and bathroom programmes and decent homes improvements happening. And, in fact, we have seen, since the point of our regulatory referral, improvement already in terms of our decent homes performance from the point of the referral. So I think, although if you're in a block, you're still waiting for the works, that's called comfort because you're still waiting for those improvements to come. The overall picture is an improving one. I think it is important to stress that. And we are through the – one of the critical things that we've done in our improvement plan is to have a rolling stock condition survey so that we get better insights into which properties have the greatest investment need and we can actually target the investment on the worst properties rather than just doing it based on a kind of, it's been 20 years since you've had your bathroom updated, so we'll go and replace your bathroom. We're trying to get greater insights from that stock condition information so that we really do target the worst properties. So for some residents, it is going to take a period of time, one to two, to sort of five years investment programme, but we will try and target the worst properties first and just to reassure we do already have works on site, so we're not starting from a position of doing nothing. I'm not sure if that's answering your question. I'm on the radar for over three years and its plans have changed many times. And what I find quite demoralising for the residents is communication is quite lacking and so they have no idea what's going on. So I think we recognise that there are gaps in communication and we absolutely need to do better in that space. I think part of the reason, so as referenced by David and Julie, the capital investment programme obviously has to evolve as we get data from things like the stock condition surveys that tells us some components might be failing earlier than we anticipated. So within that, we'll have to build in flexibility in terms of some blocks being pulled in earlier, others being deferred, so that that is sometimes something that does happen. But again, specifically with Pauline House, it's one of those blocks that falls now under the Building Safety Act because of its height and that introduces additional complications in terms of the types of fire safety works that are required, the types of investigations that are required and also having to go through the entire process, the gateway process with the Building Safety Regulator, which is taking quite an inordinate amount of time at the moment. So I think very much for the regulator itself, it's also very early days and that's not been particularly helpful for us as well in terms of trying to get things done. And I think this really comes back to the question that you asked earlier, Chair, about we need to manage the expectations and we need to communicate those more effectively. And I appreciate this is all really frustrating for residents. I mean, it is an industry-wide problem to every project that has to go through it because they just don't have the resources to go through the demand. But as you've said, we need to tell residents that and make sure that they can expect that although we'll push as hard as we can, it's not an overnight job to get through that stage. And I understand that we bought Tathammer's home in-house. For them, it was always council stock. It doesn't matter if it was our or it's in-source now. The fact that, you know, we have sat on the board for four years where we looked at major work programmes that have been delayed years after year and the goal course kept changing. So it's just about going in there to be able to say, reassure them that we've now got a long-term sustainable plan which lots of members here was trying to probe out of you. It is due to that. It's what we get to hear at the doorstep. So thank you for your support today. I think we've got a lot of answers and I feel like we've spent this time quite well. Is there any other questions or can I please close this section? So thank you. And like one of the members said, you were well-resourced with our officers today. Thank you all for coming. See you soon. Bye-bye. Thank you. Do you all want a five-minute break before recommendations, yeah? Great. Guys, wait. Okay, Thomas, can we go on a five-minute? Five minutes. Thank you. For the viewing, for the public viewing, just to let you know, we took a five-minute comfort break. Coming back, so that was a very good session with the lead member and officers there. Well done on all everyone's questions and contributions. At this point, I'm going to open it up for discussion. So any comments, any further information and clarity or you have some recommendations, I'll take it all at once. I'm going to go around the room. If you don't want to take up this opportunity, you're welcome not to speak. So starting with Councillor Uddin. Is that a live broadcast, is it? Yeah. That's why I said for the public viewing. Don't worry, you're always recorded. Councillor Uddin? I have no recommendation, but only one recommendation I can ask. But it's too long our meeting. Can you pursue any tea or coffee or anything? We are a public servant and we are here in the interest of our residents and it doesn't matter how long it takes, but I will feed that back. Improvement plan. Thank you for that. You have no contribution towards what we discussed today? Anything else? No recommendations? Okay. Councillor Abdi, something tells me you're going to have some stuff. Wow, Chair, thank you. Just two things, I think. One, I think just... Councilor King also mentioned it. I think it was the point about George Green and the unspent money. I think there is a substantial amount of unspent money and there was previous plans to be made. So I think it's... I'm sure Councilor King is going to come on to it. But just one thing I wanted to pick up and wanted more clarity on, it's not necessarily a recommendation, but I think one of the officers spoke about when it came to the money is put aside for redundancies or potential redundancies and it's always a worst-case scenario, that money is being put aside, being put to one side. But I think one of my questions was about, well, there's not 27 million being put aside, but I think I was slightly brushed away with the point of, well, that's not how we plan it. But there's a juxtaposition there. There's inconsistencies. So it would be helpful to understand, have we put aside that money for redundancies slash a bit more of a thoughtful plan, I think, because I appreciate it. They can look so much into these papers, but it just felt like very drip-feeding around the leisure contract, where I think a lot of our residents would be really interested to know what the plan is for the next 10 years. I think that would be really helpful to understand. Thank you. So have we got that? Councilman Nunn. Yeah, I just want to highlight for you, they said growth bid for a 15 million fund for the waste management for the next three years. That's the budget. That's the budget. Sorry? That's the general fund. It's the general fund. Yeah, I know. That's the given budget. We've already done the recommendations for that today. We're talking about HR. Let me come back to my question. But one of the things I was thinking, they never mentioned much about the, specifically about the thing, about the waste management tackle. So our thought is maybe they're putting it under the big umbrella and so on. So I couldn't see in the report, because recycle was the big agenda for last year. I would have thought there was a specific area, we'll say that's how much you're going to spend on recycling and so on and so on this. I feel like, so with the waste management, we've been given something from Julie today. We've circulated that. So you all should have seen that. So that provides more clarity and information. But that is, we've already dealt with the general fund of the budget. So your, but your points have been recorded again. Yeah. Thomas sent that over this afternoon. Yeah. Any recommendations or any views you had about the HRA account and the capital program? Thank you. Thank you. Halima? Thank you, Chair. I think mine was around, the concerns around building and fire safety remedial works. It is a significant amount of money that's going to be required. I don't think that was answered properly. So that's one of my concerns. I think my recommendation would be around the question that you asked for those people who don't meet the threshold of that 50,000 council tax, that figure. There was no clarity other than, you know, and for many meetings, they keep referring us back to the resident support scheme. Having spoken to lots of residents in the borough, not everybody qualifies, regardless of what the cabinet member and the officers are telling us. So that's something that I think we should make a recommendation where there needs to be more emphasis or there needs to be more clear directions as how people can access that. Okay. So I heard your concerns and I'm going to recommend a recommendation for you because you didn't point to one. I say with the working out, if there are people who aren't on the lower end of the income or on benefits and don't meet the threshold, we can maybe recommend that we ask for some more clarity around that and the recommendation could be that we work with the Tackling Poverty team and ask as a committee to come back and do a deep dive into this. And so the more clarity we get, then we can put together some suggestions when they come to the committee. So that will be, just to manage expectations, that will be for the next calendar year. But that means that by then, the council tax would have been in place and the rent increase. And so to be honest, give it a few months to really get feedback from residents. But very good idea and we should really have residents come and give evidence to that and how it's been for the last two years for them. Yeah? So should we put that as a recommendation? That is one recommendation that has actions for us as well as the executive, so we work together on this. It's a collaborative form of working. Natalie? So my... I guess... So Judy's already offered to do this, but I guess make a recommendation in addition to better link up how the... So the concern I have is... Umbrella is the deliverability of the capital projects, which are going to... Which enables the viability of our capital in the HRA budget. And if we are... So we... This is a kind of quarterly... And it's in our quarterly monitoring report. But I actually had to ask Daniel about it just as we were beginning the item because I hadn't actually realised... It's this part of my own training. Like, I hadn't realised... Made the connection about how to monitor that properly. So I guess maybe a recommendation that that is clarified in the narrative of the quarterly budget reporting so that we can, as a committee, effectively monitor. Because I think that's... Yeah, for me, that's a really, really key part of whether it's viable. And managing risk. Some really good points there. And I think it's worth thinking about some of the action... Some of the activities we'll be involved in, say, in the KPI, looking at the improvement plan for scooting and that maybe you might want to all think about how all of that... Now you've got a better understanding of how all of this works, how you might want to utilise those. But do we have recommendations? Yeah, we've got the recommendations for that. Councillor Chowdhury, your turn. Thank you, Chair. Not recommendations, but I would like some more insights into it. That the £140 million that has been invested for damp mould and whatever, kitchen, bathroom and whatever, a timeline on that would be nice to have. When the money's going to be spent? Yes, and how many years or whatever plan. Should we put that as a recommendation to take... We'll monitor it as the main body, but should we give that to the Housing Regeneration Committee? Thanks for reminding me. And one more thing... Because you also now get to report to the Housing Subcommittee, so you've got a few goals that have to go at this with the exec. One more thing. They said they're spending a lot of... I forgot the figure on in-house, the facilities, sports facilities that has come in-house. What was the figure they were spending? I forgot. Abdi's point about sustainability long-term and the 10-year programme. Am I correct? What was the figure? I just missed it. What was the figure they're investing? The investment in leisure. You talked about... And the upgrades of the pitches and the... Oh, I see. The improvement. Improvement. I would like to know a bit more on that. So you want more information? Yes. They're coming back in six months, but we'll get something out in writing. Is that right? As you know, I've been asking for two 11-side pitches to be built in Tower of Humboldt because we are investing... Sorry. We are hiring in our neighbouring councils to use for facilities for young, old and middle-aged everyone. Luckily for you, the cabinet member is a party colleague. Unfortunately, it's harder for me to get answers. So you might have better luck. But yeah, we'll put that down, yeah? Okay. I'll start from the end. Councillor Ahmed. Thank you, Chair. My recommendation would be that we have this kind of plug-in the loopholes. For example, our Cotty, or the Jahed Ahmed, mentioned about the polling house. I'm sure it's not only polling house. There are so many other issues that if, especially not blaming the council offices, but when a contract given to the external contractors, they seem to not so much bother about the job they're giving, they take their time. But I would be, I would recommend our council offices to monitor those extra charge charge or whatever occurred by these contractors, which is, we can avoid. Okay. So this kind of loophole that money goes, which is, the officers are not aware of, you know, the billing to the council. Thank you. I think there's three questions you want answers for. Tell me if I'm wrong. So one is, where we're not able to get repairs right in the first attempt, how much is that costing us? There is something about efficiency savings. And then the third thing, if I'm correct, is about how, how does our contracts work, our repair contracts work. And that is probably something we can also send to Housing Subcommittee. And then we'll bring it here to monitor, but we'll get them to do the work for us. Thank you. Councillor King. I've got several. Firstly, about the format of the meeting. I had this thought in previous meetings as well, but I thought I'd just, and if there's any technical stuff, I'm happy to have it taken away. Sorry, that's that. On recommendations, I've got several things, right. So on the capital receipts, I share the concerns of Councillor Lee, and I think we should ask if any other, if we can get further details back on how spending, essentially like nearly four million pounds on getting rid of staff and capital stuff, yeah. And I think on leisure services, I think we just need reassurance that the funding that is being spent will mean that, if they say, an input on the infrastructure they want to see, because we used to have that. Predominantly, it would feed public realm programmes. We had them all, again, as well as particular like big ticket items like George Green School. And then, yeah, that's it from me. What was actually the school improvements programme in the capital programme, where does that lie now and what's the direction of travel? Because we know there is one selective school families, especially with the birth rate dropping and, you know, schools not having uptake as they are. Do you need any more information on anything? Only information, oh yeah, only information I need to know that about the lease or when the can't come in based on the bathroom windows and kitchens. What portion of the work the lease orders? So you can tell your residents when they're going to get their works done? Yes. They are a part of our residence. Amy? Yeah, just to back on the point about the capital receipts, I do think that's important. I wasn't quite convinced by the answers on that. Just something, well, I don't know whether it's a small thing or not. Julie mentioned something right at the start where she said that the management of temporary accommodation is coming in-house and I can't for the life of me find that anywhere in the documents or any details about that. And we talked about the difficulties surrounding, you know, managing our own stock. I think we all know as councillors the state of some of the temporary accommodation. To me, that seems like quite a big job and I can't actually find any, it's probably just packaged into something else and I just can't see it, but I can't find any figures on that. And I actually think that's quite an important thing considering the state of the temporary accommodation that we have. I would like to hear some more about that. That may be something to take to housing, possibly, but it was raised at the start but I can't actually see any further detail whatsoever. Councilor Chowdhury, you want to come back? Thank you Chair. It's about the meeting that we had last week, recreation facilities which came in-house. The membership of men who are over 55 who have the facilities to use was very low. So if that could be noted, 1,720 if I remember. That was one of the reasons I said we should get the age barriers a bit lower. I feel like I'm going to ask you guys to declare interest of the age. I haven't finished. And the ladies take membership was out of this world, 16,000. So I think if the age barrier was to come down for men, I think the membership would go a bit higher. 1,720 out of 20 wards we have. That is a very low intake of membership. Thank you. Thank you. So I think if it's all right with you, instead of a recommendation this is more clarity. Is that okay? Yes, if I could get some responses. Because we haven't got a recommendation from that. Is that right? Perfect. No other contributions? Perfect. Thank you. One minute. Any other business? No. Okay. If there is no other business, I now officially call this me to an end. Thank you. Thank you.
Summary
The Committee reviewed additional information on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and the capital programme budgets that had been approved at the Cabinet meeting on 29th January 2025. It was agreed to refer queries about repairs and maintenance, and the Council's contract for this work, to the Housing and Regeneration Scrutiny Sub-Committee. The Committee will then monitor the work of the Sub-Committee and provide feedback to the Executive. The Committee also requested further information from the Executive about the timeline for the spending of the £140 million allocated to the HRA for improvements to the existing housing stock, including new windows, bathrooms, and kitchens. Finally, the Committee requested clarity on the process of bringing temporary accommodation in-house.
Housing Revenue Account
Councillor Saeed Ahmed, Cabinet Member for Resources and Costs of Living, presented an overview of the proposed HRA budget, including a planned rent increase of 2.7% in 2025/26. Councillor Ahmed argued that this increase was necessary to fund the Council's ambitious plans for investing in the existing housing stock and building new homes, and was lower than the previous year's increase of 7.7%. He pointed out that
Approximately 68% of the tenants are on housing benefit and will not be impacted directly by the increase of 2.7%
He also noted that the increase was equivalent to maybe a cup of coffee.
Several Committee members raised concerns about the affordability of the rent increase for residents, particularly those who are not on housing benefits, in the context of the rising cost of living. Councillor Ahmed responded that the Council had a range of support measures in place for residents who are struggling to pay their rent, including the Council Tax Cost of Living Relief Fund and the Tackling Poverty team. The Committee requested further clarity on what support is available to residents who do not meet the threshold for these schemes, in light of rising energy and water bills.
The Committee also questioned why funding for previously announced new-build homes at several sites, including Bancroft, Whitford, Albert Jacob House, H8, and the Caliche Estate had to be re-announced.
Councillor Ahmed responded that
There was never a proper plan in place of what was actually deliverable. There was a lot of unfinished work around that programme
He also noted that the Council had come to a point now where we have built this in, and I'm hoping that we can see this sort of pull through completely to the end of this programme.
David Joyce, Corporate Director of Housing and Regeneration, assured the Committee that
We have made a lot of progress towards delivering that scheme, including appointing a development partner recently, a cabinet, to do this pre-contract services agreement work to move us forward and then allow us to basically get on site and start delivering that scheme.
Capital Programme
Councillor Ahmed also presented an overview of the proposed £242 million capital programme, highlighting key investments in culture, schools, infrastructure, and public realm improvements. This included £56.1 million for a new leisure centre on the site of the former St George's Town Hall, as well as upgrades to existing leisure centres.
Several Committee members raised concerns about the deliverability of the capital programme, noting that a number of previously announced schemes had been cancelled or paused. Julie Lorraine, Deputy Chief Executive and Corporate Director of Resources, explained that the Council had to make tough decisions about its capital spending in light of the challenging economic environment. She said
Every single council and landlord in the country is having to make difficult decisions and we can’t do it all at once just from an affordability point of view.
Committee members requested further details on the process by which the Council decides which capital projects to fund, and what happens to unspent capital funds. Ms Lorraine explained that the Council's capital receipts could be used flexibly to support transformation, invest-to-save, and efficiency projects. She explained that
If a scheme were to be stopped or reported, then the balances would go back into the council's ability to fund other schemes. A N alternative scheme coming forward would be separately costed. You couldn't just say, well, we're going to use that and move it over there without that governance process that went with it.
Committee members requested further information on a perceived gap in the funding for the insourcing of leisure services, which was estimated at £27 million over ten years. Ms Lorraine explained that the £27 million figure was based on a stock condition survey, and that the Council would not be able to do all of the work identified in the survey. She said
We don't have to do everything.
Joe O'Reilly, Director of Culture and Leisure, explained that the Council would prioritise the most urgent work, and that if new information were to arise, such as a ceiling collapse, the Council would come back and say, actually, we need more money.
He also noted that funding had been allocated to cover the main boilers, tanks, and water heaters in the leisure centres. Ms Lorraine added that the Council would review the capital programme every quarter, and that it would include ins and outs into that capital programme. It's not just forgotten.
Committee members also questioned the use of £3 million of the capital receipts for a redundancy scheme. Ms Lorraine explained that the scheme was voluntary and that it was designed to generate long-term savings for the Council. She said
If we were to spend all of that 3 million in year one the rules say that it would have to generate 1.3 million a year savings and repay it and those savings would go on year after year after year. So you spend your redundancy payment once the saving you make against it continues year after year after year and that's how we demonstrate value for money.
She acknowledged that there were risks associated with the scheme, such as the loss of staff expertise. However, she assured the Committee that the process was tightly controlled, and that managers were often reluctant to let staff go. She added that the Council had a policy of no compulsory redundancy
. Councillor Ahmed agreed that it was important to have a robust plan in place
and that the Council would like to retain our staff.
He added
At the end of the day if someone wants an early redundancy a voluntary redundancy we can't tie them down forcefully.
Other matters
Committee members also raised a number of other issues, including the impact of the international situation on the Council's finances, the prioritisation of repairs, and the availability of school uniform grants.
Ms Lorraine acknowledged that the Council was operating in a challenging environment
, but she assured the Committee that the Council had a robust financial strategy in place. She said that the Council had run scenario tests. And we run the scenario test that breaks the business plan. We see what will it take to break this? And what could we do if it broke to fix it?
She concluded that the answer is yes
when asked whether the Council had undertaken a worst-case scenario assessment.
Councillor Ahmed assured the Committee that the Council was committed to providing a high-quality repairs service, and that it was investing in new technology to improve the service. Gillam Hussain, Acting Director of Neighbourhoods and Customer Services, explained that the Council was training all housing officers in accordance with the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, so they could look at the environment and understand risks and come back and raise those repairs with our colleagues internally
. Mr Joyce explained that
The strongest response in terms of trying to invest in this issue is around the planned investment program.
Councillor Ahmed confirmed that the Council was introducing a new scheme to provide school uniform grants to all students starting primary or secondary school in Tower Hamlets, subject to a household income ceiling of £50,350. He said
It's the starting support that we're giving to the students and of course the families but obviously this is something we can explore going forward and see how it goes how well things are taken up and there's always room for improvement and see how things go.
Recommendations
The Committee agreed to make the following recommendations to the Mayor in Cabinet:
- The Committee requests that officers work with the Tackling Poverty team and the Committee itself to explore how the Council can better support residents who are struggling with the cost of living but who do not meet the threshold for the existing schemes. This work will take place during the next calendar year and will include gathering evidence from residents.
- The Committee requests that the quarterly budget reporting be amended to clarify the narrative about the deliverability of capital projects and the viability of the HRA budget.
- The Committee requests that the Housing and Regeneration Scrutiny Sub-Committee obtain more information about the timeline for the spending of the £140 million allocated to the HRA for improvements to the existing housing stock, and report back to the Committee.
- The Committee requests that the Housing and Regeneration Scrutiny Sub-Committee investigate the Council's current arrangements for repairs and maintenance, including its contract for this work, and report back to the Committee.
- The Committee requests that the Executive provide further information about the process of bringing temporary accommodation in-house.
The Committee also requested further information on:
- The funding for school improvements.
- The cost of the Council failing to get repairs right first time, and efficiency savings in this area.
- The level of leaseholder engagement with the programme for replacing windows, bathrooms and kitchens.
- The level of male membership of Council leisure centres.
Finally, the Committee requested clarity on:
- The level of funding for leisure centres, including the upgrade of pitches.
- The level of unspent capital receipts.
Attendees
- Abdi Mohamed
- Abdul Mannan
- Ahmodul Kabir
- Ahmodur Khan
- Amin Rahman
- Amy Lee
- Asma Islam
- Bellal Uddin
- Bodrul Choudhury
- Halima Islam
- Jahid Ahmed
- James King
- Maisha Begum
- Marc Francis
- Mufeedah Bustin
- Nathalie Bienfait
- Saif Uddin Khaled
- Suluk Ahmed
- 1 Vacancy
- Afazul Hoque
- Daniel Kerr
- Filuck Miah
Documents
- Agenda frontsheet 04th-Feb-2025 18.30 Overview Scrutiny Committee agenda
- Public reports pack 04th-Feb-2025 18.30 Overview Scrutiny Committee reports pack
- Declarations of Interest Note 2021 other
- Declarations of Interest Note 2021 other
- Budget Report 2025-26 and MTFS 2025-28 29012025 Cabinet other
- Budget Report 2025-26 and MTFS 2025-28 29012025 Cabinet other
- Agenda frontsheet 04th-Feb-2025 18.30 Overview Scrutiny Committee agenda
- Appendix 1A - Medium Term Financial Strategy MTFS Summary 2025-28 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 1B - Medium Term Financial Strategy MTFS Detail by Service Area 2025-28 29012025 Cabin other
- Appendix 2A - New Growth Core Grants and Inflation Summary 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 2B - Growth Business Cases 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 3A - New Savings Summary 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 3B - Savings Business Cases 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 1A - Medium Term Financial Strategy MTFS Summary 2025-28 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 2A - New Growth Core Grants and Inflation Summary 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 2B - Growth Business Cases 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 3A - New Savings Summary 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 3B - Savings Business Cases 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 4 - Council Taxbase Calculation 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 5 - Reserves Policy 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 6 - Projected Movements in Reserves 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 7A - Discretionary Fees and Charges 2025-26 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 7B - Statutory Fees and Charges 2025-26 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 4 - Council Taxbase Calculation 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 5 - Reserves Policy 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 6 - Projected Movements in Reserves 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 7A - Discretionary Fees and Charges 2025-26 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 7B - Statutory Fees and Charges 2025-26 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 8A - HRA Budget Summary 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 8A - HRA Budget Summary-THL10L1147 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 8B - HRA Rent Setting Policy 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 8A - HRA Budget Summary 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 8A - HRA Budget Summary-THL10L1147 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 8B - HRA Rent Setting Policy 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 8C - Housing Revenue Account Fees and Charges 2025-26 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 8D - Housing Revenue Account Growth and Savings 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 9A - Capital Programme 2024-28 Report 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 9B - General Fund GF Capital Programme 2024-28 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 9C - General Fund GF Capital Growth and Reductions 2024-28 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 8C - Housing Revenue Account Fees and Charges 2025-26 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 8D - Housing Revenue Account Growth and Savings 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 9A - Capital Programme 2024-28 Report 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 9B - General Fund GF Capital Programme 2024-28 29012025 Cabinet other
- Appendix 9C - General Fund GF Capital Growth and Reductions 2024-28 29012025 Cabinet other
- Public reports pack 04th-Feb-2025 18.30 Overview Scrutiny Committee reports pack