Transcript

Grants Determination Subcommittee. Thank you very much. Any apologies for absence? I've received none. None. None. No apologies for absence. Any declarations of interest? Members? Anything? None. Okay. We've got the unrestricted minutes of the 6th of November. Anything there? That's fine. None? That's okay. Good. Consideration of public submissions. We've got nothing at all. Okay. Excess of mayoral discretions. That's none at all. Okay. The first item is 6.1. Renewal of funding of the Section 92 Policy Act 1996 Agreement with the Metropolitan Police. The Council Task Force. Please, Keith. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you, everyone. So, in summary, this paper is to seek authority to enter into the new grant with the police. So, the old grant has run out. That was the grant that we had for 12 police officers that we funded directly. The new grant that has come into play covers both the police that we want to fund, as we already have done, the 12 officers, as we've spoken about, what was the police task force, and the Tower Hamlets Homes Police that have come in as part of the insourcing. So, in total, we'll have four sergeants and 22 police officers brigaded together as the task force of the council with new KPIs and a much greater remit across the borough. So, they'll have a new shift pattern. They work alongside our CEOs that's expanded and grown, as you know, and there's no change to the funding arrangements. They'll be virtually half and half still funded by a court and HRA, as they have been. There's no demand for extra funding or anything like that. This is purely seeking that we can go back with the police, work alongside them, and then some of the key benefits that will come out of that will be things like co-location with them. I know we're looking at a couple of venues for that already. Much greater emphasis around the tasking, working alongside them. When the drug squad comes online in April, to be very heavily involved with the police. But, very clearly, that there's that, not just the emphasis on the estates, it's borough-wide, but we're still committing to what we need to deliver on the estates as part of the HRA arrangements. Shall I stop there, Mr Mayor, if there's any questions? Right, thank you. We want to continue the police officers being in the borough, and we're to retain them. If we lose them, we're never going to get them back. Any comments? It's a good proposal. One copy. Yeah, Mr Mayor, I support it, but I think, under best value, we also have to scrutinise kind of delivery and tasking. I think it's really important that we have contract management and how our tasking systems operate in line with that, and effective tasking with that as well. And how often they're pulled away for other police responsibilities within the agreement, they can be deployed for police operational matters, and how often that happens, and if that has an impact on our estates and the whole of Tower Hamlets. So, I think it would be important to get an understanding and reports back in relation to how often they're pulled away, and our contract monitoring and our tasking schedule, that's it. I was just going to say, absolutely right, councillor, something we monitor very regularly with them, and we're all doing going forward. Part of the new restructure of community safety, that contract, sorry, the grant management comes under the enforcement manager who's running the Theos, so it'll be absolutely scrutinised. It comes through the lead member, and we've asked the borough commander to equally talk about it at ONS in two weeks' time, when he comes along to talk about the scrutiny. And luckily, the figures have dropped a lot in terms of abstractions from our task force. Obviously, we don't pay for them when that happens, but we don't want it to happen, and it has improved massively. But we monitor that regularly, and I'm very happy that we bring that back here, or not here, but through MAB. Can you please just do us a note for the executive at the appropriate forum at the earliest time? Is that OK? Said. Thank you, Mayor. So on the back of that, I just wanted to understand what KPIs we're setting, and also when we get this report back to see where we are in terms of our set KPIs and the actual that we're getting in return. And additionally, I had one more question. So this is a great initiative, obviously, with us 1.82 million, isn't it? So I just wanted to understand which other boroughs are doing this, and where are we in terms of benchmarking with local boroughs? So I'm going to try and find it on my page, but somewhere on this document, here we are. Mine is not page numbered, unfortunately, but it's Appendix B. It's got some of the key KPIs that we're measuring the police on. We have to be very careful, because the police will not enter into an agreement where we've actually put numbers and targets on some of the KPIs, because they've, in the past, had lots of issues with chasing stop and search unnecessarily, making arrests that weren't necessarily, I'm not saying correct, but chasing numbers. So it's direction of travel, so we want to be seeing much greater emphasis on how many hours they're out with us, patrolling, arrests, outcomes of stop and search, some of the powers they've got. And we can see there we're also measuring attendance and sickness, and that's around the abstractions. So all of those will be reported back in through our lead member and up to, we'll bring that back to Mab quite regularly, and it'll be in our performance dashboards that come up. It's one of the new KPIs we've got on the strategic indicators that will come back regularly to everyone. We've also asked, on top of that, that they give us some much more detailed work returns every month. Obviously, they'll do daily work returns, but that we can then utilise for promotion, all the good news and the work that they've done. So it actually turns the numbers into stories and things that we can then share with the public. Is that okay, Councillor? I'll bring that back. Yeah, yeah. The other question around other boroughs and... Sorry, we are the only borough that funds them through this route at the moment. I believe that's across the country, but I could be wrong, but it's certainly in London, so we're the last one to do this. And the reason for that is some have already pulled away for funding, funding issues that boroughs have had pressures on them. But the police will not, at the moment, enter into any more contracts or grants with anyone because of the pressures on their staffing. Hence why, remember, Mr Mayor, we were trying to go for more police officers, but they wouldn't let us. But they would let us keep what we've got. So it's a case of holding on to what we've got and not letting it go, but we are the only ones. However, KPI-wise, we will measure this against what other teams are producing, so we know what the Safe and Neighbours teams produce, what other boroughs produce, and we can keep that monitoring going. Good. Anyone else? Got mine, quickly. Great news, we're the only borough. I mean, that's brilliant. But I just wanted some kind of assurance about value for money. I know the value. I know it's about residents, you know, visionary and so on, and about confidence to our residents. But, and again, because it's coming through the grant, I mean, I'm a bit, normally it's contract, or normally it's tendering process, but it's coming through grant. But normally when we do grants, I mean, obviously it's, we look at the monitoring and evaluation process. So, I mean, in that sense, what assurance are there for us to look at that? You're absolutely right to ask that question. So, although it's technically handled as a grant for this purposes, we treat it as a contract like we would with any other. So, every month we're having contract management meetings with the inspector and the chief inspector to go through all their performance and scrutinise it regularly to make sure that they're hitting the, not just the KPIs we've got here, the direction of travel, all the other bits around the day-to-day working, is it working with our theos, is it working on co-location, and all of those factors. So, that's been the amount of money they're spending. Are they fulfilling the HRA agreements with being on estates and doing the work on the estates? So, all of that happens. They're also solidly brought into co-chairing all of our tasking meetings. We're brought into the whole, we tackle these problems together, we're out there together. Hopefully, within the next couple of months, we'll have some co-location models that we can bring together. So, we'll see the value from that. And when the, I said, when the drugs team come on and then the new Theo shift patterns and everything kick in very soon, they'll be working out there together. So, there'll be value in terms of everyone seeing it. There'll be value in terms of what we're collecting and the good news stories that we promote. So, and then that regular contract management, whatever you want to call it, and then we'll feed that back through Mab. Anyone else? None? Okay. Can we agree the recommendation? Just one caveat, please. On recommendation three, I would like to see the agreement, the documentation. Can we say in consultation with the mayor? Is that okay? Make that caveat. Is that okay? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Please, yeah. Other than that, we're happy with it, yeah? Thank you very much. Okay. The next one is 6.2. Just a performance report. It's a back data report. Yeah. So, this is our usual standard quarterly performance report for the mayor's committee grants program for the period July to September 2024. We're reporting against 109 projects across the five themes of the grants program. As you will see on the grants program, 106 of the projects are rated as green, with three projects rated as amber, with two of them in theme one, scheme A, and both of them related to the page 49 of your agenda pack. All three are listed on page 49, so if I just go through those, if that's okay. So, the first two are in theme one, scheme A, both related to the cumulative, so the year-in performance, although the quarterly performance was fine. We've just received the October to the December kind of projects, updates, and they've both been rated as green. So, we've worked with these organizations to improve their overall performance. So, the next time we bring a performance report on both of these, we will be reporting those as green. And the third one related to some staffing issue the organization had in theme three, scheme B. Again, we've done quite a lot of work with the organization to support them, to move them from amber to green. And for the period October to December, when we bring the next report, we'll be reporting those two as green. The rest of the report we set out each thematically, the number of individuals supported and some of the outcomes delivered. So, just to highlight a few, I'm not going to go through the whole report. So, on social welfare advice, during the period July to September, over 4,000 people were supported with over nearly a million pounds of debts written off during that period. Over 4,000 people supported with successful appeals against benefit claims. So, quite substantial, over 86 community groups supported with food through our food hub. And again, you can see throughout the report, work we've done with young people, particularly SEN, young people for this period, around 486 young people that engaged with some of our projects. And similarly, if you look at Scheme B of Theme 2, over 648 young people that we worked with. So, throughout the project, we've listed individually what each project has done, but also thematically. So, this is a quarterly report that we do bring back. As I said, we work with these organizations to make sure that they are supported, address any kind of performance issue. Up until September, we had visited around 60. And since then, we have visited. So, all 109 projects would have had a visit by the end of the financial year. Our aim, obviously, is to make sure these projects are successful. And in the next municipal year, we will bring an annual report that will focus on annually what these projects have delivered and how they've supported our residents, but also equalities information around the different equalities groups that we have supported. Within this report, we've also have included the geographical spread of residents that we've supported. I'll stop there, May, if I'm happy to take any questions or comments. Thank you very much. So, there are no reds, three ambers. But the three ambers are on the right trajectory. They will become green. You're confident in due course. Yeah? Okay. So, we don't have any cause for concern as such at this stage. Yeah? That's right. As I said, I think we've already got the October to December monitoring returns. And that's showing that they are green in terms of – because mainly it was relating to performance targets that they will achieve their annual targets. Don't worry at this stage. Okay. You're looking good. Okay. Please, COVID. Sorry. I just wanted to pick up on the three ambers. The first two under theme one identifies work is continuing to support the project to get back on track to achieve lifetime targets. Firstly, what's the length of the lifetime target and what are the markers? Because I think that's quite an open statement. We need to have more robust tracking and monitoring around that. So, if the lifetime is for the course of, you know, a three-year grants program and they're not achieving in year one, year two, it will be potentially risky. And I would like to see what type of assurances we have in place in terms of them achieving green by year three. So, that's the first area. It seems quite loose in definition. So, we need to have it more robust in terms of monitoring. And under theme B, it says outstanding returns to be submitted in January at the latest with a visit scheduled to view activity. It's February now. Have we had those returns and has that visit taken place? So, I answer this. Yes. So, we have had the returns. So, that was the platform cricket, the amber one. And we have had all the returns, including the October to December, which is why we'll be able to say, based on what they've reported, they'll be green. In terms of the visit, we did have a visit scheduled for yesterday. But, unfortunately, because the activity has taken place in schools, we couldn't do a sort of an unannounced visit. We did speak to the school. And we need to, the organisation didn't get back to us in time for them to arrange with the school that we could go in with them to see the activity. So, we're rescheduling that visit. We have got their schedule of all the schools that they're delivering this activity in with each day. And my colleague is liaising to get a visit scheduled for, well, as soon as we can, as soon as everyone's available, with enough time to, for the organisation to inform the school that we will be accompanying them to see the activity. So, we were hoping to have it in January. Anyway, but the, we did sort of prioritise getting those returns in, and they did come in, because there was, so it wasn't just the latest one, it was the last couple of returns. So, we have actually sort of withheld payment for the last two quarters because of this issue. So, based on the returns, we're looking at green, but we are planning to hold on to the payments until we've had that visit, just so we can see the activity and that it does match up with the returns that have come in. So, yeah, so it didn't go entirely to plan, but we have got the returns in. We have been able to have better communication with the project as they recruit a new staff to replace those that left. And, yeah, as soon as we had a satisfactory visit, then we'll release the outstanding payments. Thank you. Anyone else? I think on one of those areas, the report highlights the staffing issues. I just want to understand, are we satisfied with that as well? Has that been put in place? So, that is with platform cricket, which is why we didn't have those returns. So, we've worked with them to understand what those issues are. And they've reassured us that those have been resolved and partly why they have been able to provide us with those monitoring report. So, we do, I think, where we have any concerns with organisation, we do have a lot more regular contact. We don't just wait for quarterly returns to come forward. So, platform cricket has been one that we have been working quite constantly with over the last three months just to get ourselves some assurance that actually they have got the staffing structure in place. they are delivering. I think what Robert's point was that actually, what we are assured is actually, because of safeguarding school wouldn't allow us, but the school did confirm those activities are taking place regularly at the school. So, I think it says that it's kind of underperformed on its five KPIs. Four. Four. Four. Go on. It says overperformed on five, and then there are some issues on other, yeah, so I just want you to understand that. Yeah, so, and this ties back to the, what was said earlier about the sort of, you know, wanting more robust reporting, because we do have, you know, a lot of different things that we do have, what's been achieved in terms of the KPIs on a quarterly basis, we do look at the cumulative position, and we do look at the annual and lifetime, you know, how confident are we that they can meet those targets, because the key thing with this program and these projects is that we're looking at the outcome, what is being achieved in terms of, you know, the support given to residents, moving them into a better place, what's actually being achieved. And so these indicators are sort of steps along the way to achieving that outcome, and so that's what we look at on a quarterly basis, are they sort of delivering in the individual quarter, but also cumulatively, to achieve that outcome, and if they're, as in this case, the cumulative targets are under what we would expect, then that gives us, you know, less assurance that they're going to achieve that outcome. So that's where the officer works with the group to support them in, you know, if it's an issue with they're not getting enough participants in, how can they increase that? Is it, you know, kind of, how are the projects being delivered? Can that change to sort of improve getting those outcomes? And so that's, yeah, so that's why it's sort of amber, because there's a concern that we need to address, and that help them get back to green. And, you know, sort of red-rated projects are when there is, you know, serious concern that the entire project will not deliver its, you know, even, as pointed out, you know, it's a three-in-a-eight-year programme. So, you know, we don't anticipate too many red-rated projects, because that would be sort of really serious. We're sort of saying that, you know, there's a risk that they won't deliver at all, whereas the amber, there is concerns, but we're working with them to get them back to green. So, and that's with those two projects, including the Wapping Bangladesh Association, where there's concerns about the cumulative target, but as has been said, we've got them sort of back on track, and we'll continue to work with them. Thank you, Mitch. So, just picking up on that, within the report, geographical areas served, so if we start with Wapping Bangladesh Association as one of the ambers, it says that they serve St. Catharines in Wapping, Shadwell, Whitechapel, Spitalfields in Banglatan, and Weavers. What assurances do we have that they're serving that wider group of residents, firstly, and secondly, with all the other organisations, including the green ones, what measures or assurances do we have that they're representing the scope of people that they've said they will be serving? In terms of borough-wide or otherwise? And do we have any assessment process in tracking and monitoring any of that? Yes. So, on the quarterly monitoring return, it does include the actual, you know, ward that the participants in the project that they're reporting, where they're from. That is part of the assessment process. So, when the officer is reviewing the return, they're looking at the KPIs, yes, they're looking at what the activity that's been delivered and how it's been presented in their sort of progress update. But they're also looking at that geographical spread. And, you know, if that wasn't being delivered, then that would be flagged up. And if it was seriously not being delivered, then that would mean it could be amber on that basis. And the support would be to help them sort of broaden the scope geographically to get those beneficiaries in. So, it is part of, I don't have this particular project's individual numbers with me at the moment, although I can forward that on. But that is part of what the assessment is. So, when we're rating the project, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you're nervous. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you've got a little bit of work with other patients. The reporting, the performance, you know, they've got a lot of Salish story. In fact, not just talking about performance, I'm kind of thinking about putting some more data on. It's a good point, in the performance, we would like to see that, please, if they insisted they've got an award, or grant, to work in five, six awards, in the performance, when it comes to us, performance, monitoring, that comes to us every quarter we will very much see want to see the ward breakdown how many residents they've seen and advised in those respective wards we can do that it's quite important yeah it's okay yeah thank you with that caveat uh we're we're okay to note note the report okay the report's noted thank you okay no further item close the meeting yet thank you very much