Transcript

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Members, Officers & Press and Members of the Public joining or watching this formal meeting of Cabinet on the 18th of February 2025. five um as mentioned there may well be members of the public and press watching this meeting not necessarily in the room or in chamber um via the council's youtube channel so for those members of the public and press watching on youtube welcome uh for those councillors that are members of the cabinet and the executive who are unable to join the meeting in person but are joining online they'll be able to participate in debates and discussions but won't be able to move a report or vote and their attendance will not be officially recorded and then with regards to meeting etiquette please can i ask that you indicate if you wish to speak by raising your hand in chamber and i'll come to you and if there are any members of the cabinet or executive online i will be um inviting joy who is clerk to the committee to advise me accordingly and i will be bringing them in at the appropriate point the same applies for some officers because occasionally we have officers that are participating in cabinet but are online and then as a reminder may i ask that members and officers um who are speaking to any of the reports being presented at this formal meeting of cabinet introduce themselves when speaking i wanted to also draw colleagues attention to the uh supplementary items that have been published so if you look at the agenda there is a item seven and item eight and uh papers were published with regards to the budget scrutiny commission report 2025 as a supplementary um and the executive response to commission report 2025 was also published as a supplementary on that note i'd like to welcome the chair of over the scrutiny councillor mccolman and other colleagues that sit on overviewing scrutiny councillor susan masters and also councillor rita welcome to this formal meeting of cabinet and we will be taking the agenda item as it relates to budget scrutiny commission report as per laid out that is as agenda item 11. so uh on that note um let's commence because we've got quite a lot to get through um i want to first invite joy could you kindly advise if we've received any formal apologies for absence by members of the cabinet by any members of the cabinet i guess shall we receive apologies from parents alert of john morris that's the wider executive yeah okay okay fine are there any other apologies that have been provided to any colleagues here councillor neil wilson yeah councillor montez khan unexpected work um commit okay and i enjoy if you could also note councillor rohit descopter because he's um abroad this week right okay declarations of interest um colleagues can i just invite you to note um the declarations of interest across pages nine and ten accordance with the members code of conduct this time for members to declare any disposable pecuniary interests or non-precuniary interests they may have in any matter being considered at this meeting having regards to guidance attached to the agenda before i invite you to confirm or otherwise i just want to get some advice from the monitoring officer rachel and when the final finance papers come to full council on 27th there's a requirement at that stage for all elected members to be um appropriately um up to date with their council tax and other matters i'm assuming given that we're receiving a financial report at today's meeting does the same apply it does yes right okay so are you able to just articulate yes what that will so so um there is such a vision uh that states that if any member is in two months arrears of council tax then they may not vote on on any matter concerning setting of council tax or the budget so that is in any meeting actually executive or for council it applies to so so okay i'm not aware of anyone here in that category okay so just to ensure that we're operating and making decisions in accordance with the legal requirement as it pertains to council council tax given that we've got a finance paper coming to this meeting of cabinets um would i in the first instance um would i in the first instance ask and this is cabinet members specifically because this is a decision making body of cabinet members only um are there any cabinet members that need to notify an officer as regards to council tax as set out so that's a no joy okay thank you very much and then moving on to declarations of interest are there any declarations of interest um either percune disclosable pecuniary or non-percuniary interests uh any member of cabinet and indeed any member of the executive i.e deputy cabinet members or commissioners have on any matters that we're going to be discussing today is that a yes or no that's a no joy thank you very much moving on to agenda item three appointments to outside bodies there are no appointments to be announced as it relates to outside bodies of the council at today's meeting now colleagues we're moving on to the substantive agenda items and the first is agenda item four and this is the budget setting report sustaining a fair and room and addressing the financial challenges challenge ahead so colleagues before i invite councils of kat ali to introduce the report um i wanted to say a few words firstly uh words of thanks and appreciation to all members of cabinet the wider executive and indeed all officers uh having been led by their colleagues in the corporate leadership team on what has been a really difficult and challenging uh period uh not just for noon but for all of local government we um have been uh alert in line with our uh commitment to demonstrate robust financial management uh with regards to the budget challenges facing this council which have been pronounced over a period of time uh particularly uh following on from the impact of covet 19 and the subsequent period uh that still exists of the cost of living crisis that has led to uh on the one hand in the context of a lack of resolution around fair funding for local government and the promises that were made by the previous government that money that was expended in order to save lives and respond to the global pandemic weren't sufficiently realized we have been navigating quite a difficult financial terrain facing this council but also as i said previously all other local authorities in london and elsewhere as it relates to local government finance the cost of living crisis has an impact on councils too the inflation pressures adds cost increases across a range of activities that we we undertake and as you will all know the challenge of a crisis in housing that has been long standing in london but has become exacerbated because of market failure have meant that councils exposure to temporary accommodation costs has become extreme coupled with the rising costs of social care both in adult and children's we have faced something quite unprecedented that has led for us needing to engage with national government with regards to an exceptional financial support application and most recently um as part of our application where we had uh requested an increase in council tax the government has provided some clarity allowing us without a referendum to increase council tax uh from the 4.99 percent allowed without a referendum to an additional four percent to make it 8.99 there's been a huge amount of work that's been undertaken coupled with an eye to the transformation plans of this council including the new delivery model of the organization to ensure over the lifetime of the mtfs where the financial position of the council remains challenging we have worked hard in ensuring that we maintain a coherence and an alignment with our purpose as an administration which is building a firm we've had to make some really tough choices we've pushed we've probed we will in the coming months be receiving a report uh related to our zero based budgeting endeavor which we commenced a couple of years ago with but in the context of other things that we've had to do as an organization have not been able to complete but that will also be a consideration as we've been forward further transformation and saving proposals for subsequent years outside of 25 26. i know there will be and have been lots of questions from members and i thank colleagues from overview and scrutiny participated in the budget working commission for your examination of our proposals there will be points of agreement points of disagreement which will come to no doubt when we engage with you on your budget working commission before and our executive response we are clear that the organization needs to change further we are clear that we need to demonstrate uh good value for money we are clear that we have got to be excellent in our response to our residents both in their time of need and also as they access the council for our business as usual stuff business as usual stuff can't be business as usual as we've been experienced experiencing it as an administration leading this council politically and it cannot be business business as usual as our residents have often raised with board councillors and myself as the mayor the council will change it has to change and it's part of our uh reform and transformation agenda yes which aligns to the national government's performance agenda of the public sector we've got to make sure and demonstrate every single penny and pound pounds so on that note i'm going to be inviting councillors alfakar ali to introduce this report thereafter uh i will be inviting specific cabinet members to talk to some aspects of the saving proposals that have been brought forward and also some of the transformation plans that have been mobilized in their areas in order for us to continue the pursuit of demonstrating good value for money that links to clear outcomes that we want to see for our people in the context of a building affair and newham mission where at its heart we want to be addressing those structural inequities that face too many people and hold them back so on that note councillor zulfiqar ali would you like to present good morning uh i'm councillor zulfiqar ali cabinet for finance and resources and thank you uh can i also echo your words with respect of thanking all our officers my cabinet colleagues and executive and indeed our spoken colleagues for their diligence and commitment and hard work in terms of supporting this administration get at a difficult time i'd also like to thank our residents who have also contributed through our engagement process let me start by saying that we all know that we are facing a very difficult and unprecedented financial challenges here and we're not alone as the entire local government sector is going through the same but clearly we have the worst problems in terms and this is as a result of the 14 years of conservative government's failures austerity a cost of living crisis an economic economy where we had the high interest rate at the highest inflation in history and the reality is that the government funding to keep face the rising costs and of course increase poverty and increasing population like we had in this borough under the previous government local authorities across the country have been pushed to the brink with the council being forced to choose between cuts in vital services or face a financial collapse as we all know our borough is one of the most deprived one in the country we are dealing with devastating consequences of the past commerce failures to meet residents needs our council has faced unprecedented challenges as made as already outlined in terms of homelessness and temporary accommodation 37 000 residents on our homeless register we are nearly 7 000 people who we are paying for in temporary accommodation most of them in nightly accommodation we have a social care crisis where demand and costs are rising beyond anything we have seen before we have chronic underfunding that is council like us to pick up the pieces of a broken system these brief pressures are so severe that no local authorities could manage them without additional government support and colleagues the scale of the financial challenges we face is enormous and i think we all gone through that painful process during this year our total budget revenue budget is 394 million our funding from center government was has been reduced by 25 percent since 2010 this equates to nearly 65 million or so and can you imagine what we could have done with that 65 million to assist our building for a new program but clearly we didn't have that and we had to find savings but we are where we are we have been investing in temporary accommodation you saw the additional investment we made last year but it was not enough because demand is continually rising our initial forecast of an overspend of 175 million over the next three years due to our hard work governments that support to local government finance sales came through in in december that forecast has now been reduced to 157 and i must stress this is a forecast you know based on number of assumptions new government who has committed to tackle homelessness i'm looking at uh fair funding uh for the authorities and social care reform so that may lead to substantial changes which may help us to do this further but at this juncture that is where we stand and of 157 million that we have projected overspend 100 million directly attributable to temporary accommodation costs so you can imagine the scale of the ta in comparison with auto revenue by the 394 million and that is very very difficult for any authority to cut vital services in order to bridge that gap that is understood by the government and i think it's fair to say the government has recognized that the local authorities are having substantial difficulty in overall sense our ta gap for the next year is 52 million and if you look at the budget report chair our current uh the gap is 46 million so if we did not have the temporary accommodation pressures we would have been able to balance our budget without recourse to any external help i mean this also i may i say demonstrate the effectiveness and the way the council has been managing its finances over the years we have good governance we have good financial controls and it we can demonstrate that every penny and pound we spend is for the benefit of our residents despite these challenges the labor administration has worked tirelessly to protect essential services you see in the draft report where we looked at a number of other services which we could possibly look at based on responses from engagement we decided not to take any of those because those are close to the heart of other people the universal services everybody relies on it depends on keeping your streets clean getting your refuse collected maintaining your parks libraries and other services so we have managed despite the difficulties we have faced over the years 80 million pound of savings as throughout the medium-term financial strategy and the rest are exceptional financial support and this is a result of as i said earlier 14 years of cuts that we've been pushed to make impossible decisions and look efs is not something that we have only gone for last year 19 authorities applied for efs and this year that number is likely to increase substantially and we are aware of at least seven london boroughs that are also going for the exception of financial support our efs support was in twofold one was to increase the council tax by five percent over and about the 4.99 the government has already assumed in the local government financial settlement financial settlement the second was to enable us to sell our um non-strategic unproductive living value money assets we can bridge the gap and this is clearly with intention that we want to reduce borrowings because we don't want to increase the burden on the council for increased borrowing and that is the decision taken and as you all know the government has already accepted given us permission to increase the tax about four percent this is not something that we've taken the scene lightly it's a bit heavy heart because we know that it will have an impact on some of our residents but we did this because part of the requirements of the efs is that looks at your current council tax and because we have the lowest council tax in it's in london and we have the sex lowest in the whole of london the government would look at this in favorably because we want to to to have some comparable um the figure there but that that is i have been accepted that gives us the reasonable assurance that the second part of application will be successful the outcome of it is not known and i hope that before the council considered the budget we will have that that information so that we can make a choice in to see and on the budget and if you don't get it clearly it's a difficult area as i said earlier no no local authority will be able to make those difficult choices you know what are we going to cut we are going to reduce the refuse collection are we going to reduce the recycling service where we have now recently increased the performance we've got flagship you know we've got recent awards on various environmental services and those services close people's heart are we going to reduce those are we going to cut libraries these are going to be very difficult choices and i think this government you know i commend them for accepting the difficulty that public sector is facing and they're willing to do something about this they have demonstrated this through the recent local government finance settlement where we have an increased share of government resources at the same time they have they have given a commitment that this is a transitional year and from next year they will be um providing a multi-year of at least to do really um document settlement which will help us to plan back however the cancer tax increase as i said is is uh was a painful choice to make however we have been consulted the residents by retaining our cancer tax reduction scheme at 80 percent up to 80 percent and this will enable those eligible to get their relief up to that level pensioners borrow will be unaffected because the entitlement is set by the government as things stood recently 18 000 or so people benefit from this scheme and we will be doing more to support those who may have some difficulties we recognize that there are a lot of other benefits actually unclanked you must have seen in the news a lot of people don't know what the entitlement is and therefore we will be ensuring that we raise awareness and give people every opportunity and support them to to claim those benefits i mean i say also that despite having to increase the council tax to nine percent overall and i must say two percent of that goes to adult social care precept you know that is always the case even if you had four point nine nine percent two percent would go to adult social care so nine percent increase that will still as everybody else will be increasing this that will still keep us as the lowest again in outer london and possibly six or seven as well in comparative basis we will retain similar position and with respect to the council tax reduction scheme and we our scheme eighty percent is it's reasonably generous compared with other neighboring so labor administration has worked tirelessly deliver a responsible budget one that protects our services while responding to crises which are not of our own making we have shown the government that our financial governance is strong and that we're managing our resources responsibly this budget is a result of hard working of everybody as i said earlier i'm grateful to all the colleagues and especially the scrutiny process as well we did listen to the residents you noticed that i mentioned already the cancer tax reduction scheme proposal were to bring it down from 97 having listened to the residents we have taken it up to 80 percent as i said earlier our total revenue budget is 394 million two-thirds of that goes to the secretary services it doesn't leave us much room to play with but we refuse to abandon our universal services because they we know these are white to our residents and our community so balancing the budget through one of asset sales is not a long-term solution as the mayor had already indicated but we have enough surplus assets which we can go through and you will see a report later on isn't purely a result of the efs application that report i will address later on is is is is a long-term ambition of the administration since 2018 and we have been looking at assets previously and we will continue to do so but we want to make sure we look at them on fair basis so we want to protect them with all the services we can but we continue down this road after many years if we do not get additional support from the government as a result of fair funding review and other policy changes this is why we welcome the new government's recognition the local authorities are facing a crisis and they seem to treat next year's budget as transition as i said earlier is a welcoming gesture gives a a sense of uh the egg sense that the government is actually moving in the right direction and we welcome those commitments those are as i said earlier fair funding review social care reforms the new housing strategy the government has already made a commitment to 1.5 million homes and we hope that that will address the crisis but they are not sure things that could happen so quickly and we understand that and that will take so unlike the tories who have left the council to collapse under financial their management we are keeping our commitment to strong financial governance they committed earlier we are continuing to 3 million of our general fund reserves as we said before to make sure that they we bring them up to five percent of the total budget but we all know the historic difficulty we spent nine million during covet because the government said spend spend spend and we did and unfortunately we were not given that money and therefore they paid to reserve at the time so the budget is shaped by local needs delivering on our administration priorities and events manifesto commitment and it ensures that we can improve services for our residents while dealing with the best left behind 40 needs of austerities and as i said in the chair i thank the uh scrutiny colleagues and the budget working party for their their commitment and engagement in the process and uh i i'm sure that the the administration commitment to transparency and accountability and the the early support and contribution we've given has helped them to to to form their opinions and their views on those but we respect the views of everybody every member and and clearly that there will be a response uh published in due course following the recommendation that we have received from the budget about working party so again share all i'll say that face of enormous pressures this budget protects our vulnerable residents keeps our services running and ensures financial stability in the most difficult circumstances i ask the mayor and the cabinet to approve the recommendation in their support and recommend this budget to the full camera thank you chair very much i'm going to be bringing other cabinet members first and then i'll be bringing in comrade if that's okay yeah i just wanted to give cabinet members an opportunity to just talk to some aspects of their portfolios um neil i'm going to come to you purposefully so councillor neil wilson cabinet member for health and adult social care good morning everyone following on from my colleague's comments i just want to draw attention to how um chart one demonstrates on big page 21 of the bundle spending on adult social care and my colleagues um sarah ruiz with children's social care in detail later and homelessness um there is a uh uh line graph there clearly showing the um tremendous uh rise in cost over the pier from since 2015 in all three areas and it's in that context that i want to just address briefly some remarks concerning my portfolio responsibility the chart on page um table two shows that and i want to underline this point chair that the mtfs medium-term financial strategy is set for three years i welcome the government's commitments to um a three-year budgeting time but i think that would provide for greater stability even though we've got so many pressures on local government finance in the area of adult social care so the predicted savings in table two are of a 20 million pound saving within adult social care that has to be seen obviously in the context of in table four growth in the area projected over three years of 31.6 i want to highlight the fact that we have overachieved in our mtfs savings to a percentage of one 103 percent and we were set 9.2 and we've come in at something like 10.1 savings i think this demonstrates a commitment on behalf of the directorate and myself and deputy uh muntaz khan really interrogating data and it's in that context that i just want to briefly outline in the report how and for the um setting of the budget we have been subject as i think has already been mentioned to external challenge we've been compared with other local authorities in terms of cost terms and i think it's important to note that the savings listed under the uh tables that we've already presented haven't changed but they are rigorously examined and cross-checked on a regular basis so we have we have resisted any suggestion that these are somehow plucked out of the air or are dwelling on an optimistic framework and then the final thing to read to underline that is in appendix b the growth requirements in social care are actually and this was uh and i welcome scrutiny's uh forensic examination of our modeling on page 263 the financial impact of demographic projections is there talking about the service classification from daycare right through to supported living and the total number of clients is projected to increase along rigorous demographic analysis financial growth uh requirements and these projections in client numbers i just want to reiterate that chair that these figures are certainly we are becoming more and more confident with all the caveats about how projections in a transient borough will change with projection increase but these we are more confident and we're working across the northeast london care partnership provider networks to push back against the inflationary pressures not least of which obviously within the context of residential care have been somewhat exacerbated by national insurance and we commend basically the whole strength of the government's plan to make adult social care a true profession we are committed in our own provision still to maintaining the london living wage as a campaigning council we have not put on ice we are continuing to campaign for london living wage across the care sector my colleague has already mentioned the government's commitment to adult social care reform we as a campaigning council obviously um having the political alliances we have with central government at the moment have already made inroads to those discussions and finally chair just to mention briefly the public health grant this is always a rather late tradition it's it's it's not so late this year but obviously allocations it's could in the tables referred to under the section beginning uh on the public health grant they will be subject as is uh on section 14 the appendix g uh section 14 of the main report is uh the outline of the public health grant for new and for the financial year for new and for the financial year 2025 teaching and its allocation but remember that this will come back to this cabinet for further decision making in light of external um um um um um britain we had on that and making certain that the prescribed functions are still maintained and that the allocation strategy will particularly as it says in 14.4 for aim to enhance outcomes and cost effectiveness with adjustment pre-inflationary pressures in staffing and contract so uh uh uh contribution in public health a contribution across adults and social care is to continue to maintain as as alpha goes rightly highlighted to maintain these essential services for some of the most vulnerable in our society we continue to continue to push back in a rather fragmented privatized care provider market and just as a segue to that in daycare we are now at 98 percent i think of um our um allocations done on a contractual basis it's only two percent where it's a rather ad hoc i should say ad hoc spot purchasing which by definition is more expensive that's where you have to deal with really specialized individuals so people say that you know there are there's a jargon i'm creeping in the jargon is certainly not to be hidden behind we have a transformation board both within adult social care we are very clear that we work with the corporate leadership and the council in order to transform the council generally it is important it is important to stress that this is no way a complacent approach from adult social care but we are aware of the pressures and we're continuing to make certain the residents are least affected by our changes thanks chair thank you very much i'm going to come to um councillor sir roos next and i was going to pass over to councillor anna birdie and councillor blossom young but particularly context of the temporary accommodation um exposure that has and its impact on our financial position worth you talking through um aspects as it relates to that and our response and then other portfolio lead cabinet members and i'll also include some stuff as it relates to uh savings from inclusive economy thank you uh councillor sarah ruiz statutory deputy mayor cabinet member for children's services education environments and sustainable transport and if i'm right uh chair um i could cover off both children's and environments at the same time if that's helpful thank you um so yes so like councillor wilson we are considered to be the sort of prolific spenders of the council's budget um and uh also like councillor wilson we struggle uh with our placements budget that takes up a huge amount of our money so we have seen a large increase in the number of children and families presenting themselves to mash this year but during um a period of time we have been looking at working with prevention and early health so it means that not all the children who come in through mash that's multi-agency something they've got yeah um actually go on to be um looked up or in in care so our work in uh in in working in prevention and our early health is at last beginning to show uh dividends uh but that doesn't mean that uh the number of our vulnerable very most vulnerable children who we have to find placements for doesn't is doesn't decrease and what it means is that our placements budget is is constantly constantly constantly overspending but that's mainly because until the government actually um acts on the issue of big businesses and shareholders making huge amounts of profit from our vulnerable children and then we are always going to be in that position and that's not just new and that's especially across london but actually across the whole country i have colleagues in plymouth in devon who suffer from exactly the same issues um we have worked very closely in with our family hubs and our ongoing dialogue with our children's centers in looking at not just this year but in future how we can mitigate against our budget uh it is really really tricky we've got probably two or three restructures that have happened which means that you know we're moving we're not losing staff we're moving staff into different positions but also what's made a real difference this year is the number of agency staff that have become permanent uh we all know that agencies cost us a lot of money but also we also recognize that having permanent staff is much better for the service so you know we will always do our very best to work within our budget but we also have to recognize that actually some things are outside of our our control and the volatility of our our placements is something that we will have to cope with um on the um yes on the environment front so um you this portfolio actually affects every single resident in this borough um very others very little other services do but that's refuse street cleaning hot holes safer transport parks parking of cloth um and also some lovely things like parks and green spaces um we really always try and manage within our budget envelope uh uh and i think that if you look at how we have managed our roads and our lampposts and our fly tipping i think that we have we have the great things and we have the real rough things for this borough um fortunately tfl are really recognize how well that we are performing um so um i think probably last year and we're again on we might this year as well get uh probably one of the largest plant allocations from tfl so that means that we've been able to um certainly increase our sustainable transport like cycling walking and and i know it's an irritation people who drive their cars to go up the wrongford road but it will soon be over um we're introducing another 11 healthy school streets uh now which is actually quite amazing and we are still not as great as some other bundles but actually we're almost up there with walton forest and hackney so you know our cycle lanes um um we have resisted uh to go to fortnightly in collections most of you will be aware if we went to fortnightly for new collections we would have more supply tipping and residual rubbish on the streets so and although other boroughs have have gone down that road it's not a time that we can at the moment um certainly not after we've just had a huge campaign around being being bin ready where it's made it easier for operative um street cleaning has has seen a real upturn and this has been recognized by keeping keep britain tidy we've had a huge um increase in where we stand in in london on our street clean cleaner streets and lastly i'd make no apology uh for our increase in parking charges um we have strived constantly for clean air in our borough and if that means that we have to increase the parking charges for the most fastiest air vehicles then we will do so uh we're increasing uh diesel vehicles uh charges uh charges that actually is is though it sounds we have less diesel vehicles in this fire um so we will still be very much in line with our neighboring boroughs and to be honest with you we want to discourage large air polluting vehicles coming into our borough we have amazing transport links and um be encouraging uh transport links uh i know i mean i'm a car driver so i know it's not about getting rid of your car but actually we genuinely need to look at how um we manage the air quality um um and that is specifically um for many of our older people and also of course our children i think i couldn't finish there chair all right thank you very much um thank you chair i'm a birdie cabinet member for housing needs homelessness private rental sector and community safety and crime um such a stark reality of where we are in newham as a place um i'll recognize the challenges that not just us as accounts as the space in terms of having a fair and secure home for residents is fundamentally important in terms of stability and just in terms of not just for families but children and young people which makes a big part of our borough as counselor ali mentioned earlier on without the ta pressure that we've got we're in a very good position but i think there's something about we don't want to be complacent in the fact that where do we get in what led to us getting there looking at our macro level and i was just looking at some of the decisions that have been made by government i do welcome those by the labour government in terms of what's needed in the private rental sector yeah over 40 percent of our population in newham sits within the private rental sector and it shows the level of concerns of instability that they have if i was to tell you that within the private rental sector we have the most amount of evictions that take place and the insecurity that provides the resident just to highlight some of the challenges that we face if you look at the cap in terms there is no cap in terms of how much renters pay yep it's one of the biggest challenges that we face and if you look at instability and if you look at how much income people earn and most their wages go on to rent it shows the amount of disproportionate you have the biggest of the challenge i know we talk about supply and acquisition but amount of landlords are exiting the market as well which poses a national challenge as well um landlords in terms of that would have secure homes and now change the landscape in terms of what they present and how they support residents not just in newham but across the uk and national level as well right so on a macro level you're seeing the amount of challenges in terms of affordability those are exiting the market in terms of no caps on rent which is obviously those are challenges not just to newham itself residents of newham as well at the same time right so those are some of the kind of the challenges that we have to face in a macro i think that is just not sort of seen compared to some of the other boroughs i speak to colleagues in other boroughs at this moment in time and they're starting to fear and see some of those challenges but newham has been bathed for that so i just wanted to paint the context on the macro levels and the challenges that we're experiencing i do welcome the government's announcements on no fault predictions and i do welcome their commitment to kind of pledge to 1.5 million homes which is not going to be an easy challenge to do but i welcome the announcements for apprenticeships to get people skilled to get into opportunity because what i found looking at the residents of newham one of the key things that councillor ali mentioned and councillor wilson mentioned level of deprivation and poverty and how much of the challenge that poses because the amount of opportunity that is needed to get people into highly skilled professional jobs to ensure they can pay rent is one of the biggest challenges that i've seen i've been as a councillor but what have been there way before me i know colleagues have been working really hard to ensure the fact that we do everything we can to provide opportunities to people but there's definitely a long way to go without a doubt and if i look at some of the root causes of what causes homelessness those are probably one of the two outliers for me and i think for this council in terms of we're seeing in terms of not earning enough money and people being evicted out of their homes we've had the highest increase of people and landlords evicting residents as i mentioned before so it's not an easy scale and challenge to contribute and change quickly but i mentioned a couple of weeks ago some of the things that as part of the teams and working as a council collectively coming together to try and support people that early prevention work is fundamentally key and i think that's across all services how we all come together we talk about real prevention it is those teams in place ensuring the fact that when people go to front facing services they can support residents whether it's career opportunities whether it's pathways but ensuring that residents know their rights systems ultimately that's one of the biggest gaps that i find in terms of sometimes our residents don't understand their rights and there's knowledge that needs to be presented so some of the case work that i have to demonstrate to residents is ensuring they know their rights and ensuring that they've got the right information whether it's from the gov uk home office human they've got the information just to touch on in terms of some proactive work because i know it's not easy to present this case to residents to ensure some of the good work that's been done so far is the homeless prevention programs that have been put into place and just in terms of data which i think is really important um quarter one 24 25 national homeless data we've been able to benchmark our performance against other local authorities and ensure the fact that we are the second highest number of homeless preventions that we've taken place the fourth prize total successful outcomes in london we also achieved the highest number of decisions made across london with the fifth highest rate of negative decisions that just gives you indication of where we are and some of the work that we are trying to do and wider work in terms of work in the center for homelessness um and then mhclg in terms of funded pilots i recognize that this is no easy feat and we have had some positive movement in terms of budget position it's also like i said commend the team but recognize the fact that look this is not just only a council back to working with colleagues in this room and how dedicated we all are but working with government to ensure that we're in a much much better places in terms of this national crisis when it comes to homelessness so if that gives you an indication of where we are chair thank you thank you very much okay um awesome is there anything that you want to add uh i think um and i'll sum this up really uh wonderfully actually that there is a huge challenge isn't there um around housing um the moves that uh the labor government are making are important ones most of um most of my area of work of course is uh within the housing revenue account so isn't materially impacted in terms of this this particular budget however i think there's uh and we are committed to bringing this this back uh in in the summer um so i think that uh yes i'd echo everything that amal has said all right super do you think um and then charlene and then i'll say some stuff about some key areas of my portfolio thank you chair yeah councillor john whitworth um cabinet member for air quality and climate emergency now the the area of uh climate action is is fortunate in a sense because because the the government is committed to um achieving the target of net zero emissions by 2050 and councils across the country majority including ours early on have declared a climate emergency there is an awareness that these targets must be met progressively and uh consequently there are a a number of grants available from various sources and um we have seen um with our council officers have been adept at uh securing a number of these grants um for essential projects within the borough uh and uh i can cite the case of the climate action team have actually secured grants worth 10 times as much as their the cost of the team to the council um we're also uh committed to um getting the cooperation and mobilizing our residents and um councillor ruiz has mentioned the important measures measures in transport um to improve air quality and consequently health we need the cooperation of the residents for this and so engagement is one of our priorities and an example of community engagement uh is that um in a different uh area this is energy generation um we have a um community energy cooperative community energy newham is launching a share option and inviting residents to pledge a contribution this month so this is something that everybody can take part in okay um thank you chair um councillor charlie mclean cabinet member for resident engagement and resident experience um i'm conscious that you know we've still got quite a bit to go through on the agenda and um um yeah so i'll keep my comments pretty short on this so just with regards to the engagement on the budget uh the public engagement for this piece was a lot more successful than last year um we spoke to to many residents and engaged with them engaged not consulted with them on this and it was interesting to hear their views and we listened to people so if you look at the report um fire being section five on the report it says about um different parts of the engagement and it also speaks about some of the things that residents said were important to them so like the children's centers and youth services and libraries are these are things that they valued and we've listened to people and just on the the resident experience side of my portfolio so obviously um customer services comes under myself um and one of the the savings is is part of transformation um of the the customer services and just to make sure that there's a better experience for for residents as well as delivering um savings as part of the transforming of the future program and the first phase is about um the way that that residents contacts the the council and at the tail end of that you have the um the face-to-face functioning of of the transformation of which the libraries which is another part of my um portfolio that's that's in scope for a saving will be looked at we've been trained with that to ensure that um the front line face-to-face services effective for residents um i'll leave it there i know that council tax also comes under myself and i know that councillor ali did stress about that and that we had a full consultation with regards to the increase in the chance tax the decrease in the council tax reduction scheme and also the increase in council tax um but we did listen to people with the consultation of the reduction scheme um our original proposal was 70 um reduction and that's 80 percent by listening to people and also i'll just stress that there's also the is still helping the responsible high potential people that might um i'll leave my comments there in this one chair thank you john is there anything that you wanted to add in addition uh beyond what you uh no i think i i i was able to uh make the main points i wish to thank you well um i'm going to just talk to a couple of things i know that aspects of the times in the the executive response budget working commission and i will also be inviting um council's office alley to talk to the capital budget as well in a bit more detail and maybe that's something that comrade come in you can talk to um so there's been obviously a process that we've under taken as it relates to an exacting budget challenge process and i wouldn't want anyone who is watching the these proceedings or indeed colleagues from budget working commission uh notwithstanding their experience of engagement with the executive alongside officers through their budget challenge session to leave this meeting thinking the things weren't interrogated sharply and as deep as we could in the context of the time that we had and yes it has been a extended period of time uh from the point at which we were presented with the position as it related to cast on ta early in summer and then what subsequently informed the august finance report the subsequent october finance report and the subsequent draft budget plan leading to this final budget plan what i mean by that is that we have been exacting as an administration not in impressing on the organization the all-important need to demonstrate good value for money and that every single pound needs to have an evidence of it spent well leading to a discernible shift in delivery impact stroke outcome and resident experience those were core parts of three pillars that we articulated as administration in the period immediately after may 2022 robust financial management excellent resident experience and as a demonstration of us acknowledging and wanting to respond to a issue that impacts the experience of all of our residents as they go about their day-to-day lives in this borough a borough that is cleaner um in the context of this budget challenge process we had an independent expert involved rob whiteman who's the independent chair of our performance and transformation board who was willing to be part of budget challenge sessions that i convened and i was also subject and parted to that and in the context of housing delivery the big issues are why is the council continuing to borrow to build homes that people can afford because we need to and we need to particularly in the face of the housing crisis that we have a housing crisis that we have been facing and as a mechanism but not the only silver bullet to help in part address the ta position that we find ourselves in but we recognize and we have been having conversations the drawing down on grant through a demonstration of our delivery we are in the top four most proficient local authorities that are delivering homes that people can afford of any local authority in this country for us to stop doing that is madness in the context of a one point pound ambition around housing delivery by this new national government it will open up opportunity for more grant we have land that we can unlock for more homes as newham as a place grows against the backdrop of emerging and new conversations as it relates to devolution and the restructure of local government outside of london primarily in the first instance but it will come to london as well we also recognize that the foreign exposure to the council reflective of risk appetite needs to be balanced and needs to be prudent and we believe that we have done that but that is not absolving our responsibility and obligations to look at different ways in which we can fund housing delivery so that we don't over stretch we are marshalling and mobilizing the absolute requirement housing services and as blossoms said that will come through in additional papers to cabinet in the coming months as it relates to the hra budget and responding to both the regulators but also what our residents need to see because they've been waiting waiting too long as have we as an administration six years is frankly it's disgraceful that we have got to this point where we're having to deal with ac4 grading but that will be addressed it is hoped it will be pushed in the context of a transformation journey this organization is finally entered into in a substantive way as outlined in the cabinet paper that was presented to cabinet in august uh of last year uh of last year and the new operating model and a delivery partner it's got to happen quicker rapidly because we can ill afford or go slow and the disruptive impact of that to the organization that also needs to be managed carefully uh there will also be and have been questions as it relates to decisions political policy decisions that we've taken uh concerning the youth empowerment service the youth empowerment service there's a general golden thread principle that we've applied throughout all of our budget challenge services including all those things that relate to the inclusive economy and housing director that i'm responsible for um which primarily are strategic housing delivery community wealth building place community wealth building people i'll come to our new money shortly um on planning the planning team are on an improvement journey the savings that we've identified a part of that in relation to our new work it is not in accordance with a principle that's applied throughout our budget challenge process given the exceptional financial support application that we were needing to apply for in light of ta and that principle was look deeply clearly at those statutory requirements and look seriously and thoughtfully at those that will be deemed discretionary as it so happens youth empowerment services has underpinning it a statutory requirement what the council chooses to do in terms of its delivery of youth service provision uh can be many fold there's been a policy direction from 2018 that this administration will build up the youth empowerment service within the council that doesn't preclude in the future in spite of this time a different engagement and partnership work voluntary communities and faith sector which i'll come to as well because that's been a prominent feature of discussions amongst cabinet the wider executive and indeed members as a consequence of that policy direction a decision and a decision that's clearly not liked um by those parties that are part of the commissioned youth service has been to bring the end and conclusion of that sooner than was planned i.e. bring forward the conclusion of the contract 25 26 it will give the youth empowerment service and the council uh the space and the time to uh continue its conversations with national government because government's already announced over 100 million pounds of money that can be drawn from dormant accounts and we want to be part of developing developing and supporting the government in delivering a ambitious financially sustainable rebirth of youth service provision in this country through a national youth services strategy so that was this strategy on the enrichment culture heritage creative sector are going to be prominent features in the impending uh london uh london growth plan uh london growth plan that's going to be published on 27th of february it's a visitor economy the experience of me in the context of the character of newham as a place and what we have as assets through our partnership working with the likes of excel with the east bank and also in light of what we stated in our building newham's creative future um arts culture heritage remain important and we will be looking to see how we can draw further efficiencies and subsequent savings well further savings in subsequent years through a integration of all of our cultural creative and heritage work in appropriate ways and there's something important that i've acknowledged and have discussed with cabinet and the wider executive as it relates to our relationship with the voluntary community and faith sector for too long we've been saying indeed since 2018 we want a different type of relationship and that's not being followed through so in the coming week i will be intending to make some announcements with regards to how we will uh reset that indeed if the voluntary community faith sector are willing to but we're really clear that our our relationship with that valued partner network is and remains important but we clearly haven't got it right and we need to fix it and i will be making announcements in due course similarly announcements as it relates to our valued work that the commissioned partners in youth services have brought to the table and that all-important and that all-important child young person first and how we help transition them to our provision across our youth zones uh finally just to conclude for my area of work the our noon service so the principle of statutory versus discretionary it is regretful the the orthodoxy of local government and indeed national government financial approaches look at things in the context of how can you demonstrate a discernible meeting of a statute of requirement as stated by national government and the kind of nuts and bolts over the kind of texture of life and how we need to through early intervention and preventative approaches which this government has clearly demonstrated it is committed to because it ends offsetting the high costs associated with what we are um conversant with as it relates to statutory services children's services adult social care um but the alnum service in that the doc's world view is considered universal and non-statutory discretionary what we are aiming to do through leveraging the government's new approach to both welfare reform and we await the green paper but also through its recognition as part of its growth mission for this country that the impediments that don't enable people to access the labor market particularly as it relates to specific cohorts young people as well it's not efficient there's going to be changes to that and also welfare reform as it relates to will be able to access the entitlements um that they should be readily accessing the our new money proposition will need to be evolved into some a service that enables more targeted work um and as part of the wider conversation that i've referred to as it relates to the voluntary community and faith sector there's a recognition that there will be a impact on those partners in the voluntary community and faith sector that we work with presently on the our new money but that doesn't need to stop what will have to happen what will have to happen is a dialogue and discussion as to how much capacity um the rest of the organization in terms of new and council has and we are actively looking at alternative sources of funding having removed as set out in this report the general fund um pressure that this presents um so there will be further detail in due course um and as per earlier conversations this whole budget framing well budget setting process arriving at the final budget hasn't been easy you know decisions needed to be made around council tax to 80 percent over 90 percent relief but we're preserving the 90 position as it relates to eligible pensioners so we're trying to be balanced we're trying to be fair we're still keeping intact our vision around building a fair renewal but we also recognize that as we transition to a new national terrain there's opportunity there that we've got to exploit and exploit we shall and similarly there are more changes and transformation that needs to happen in this organization so that we can identify of that valuable penny and pound to achieve the outcomes that we want to see for our people and our neighborhoods so i'm going to pause there through solfica did you want to say anything before yes you you mentioned capital and i'd just like to pull um for his attention that uh i'm pleased to know that following the the draft budget proposal uh we went through the capital uh strategy um process to evaluate all the projects basis thanks to conrad and his team and all the colleagues we reduce the capital spend by 60 million for next year that results seriously uh in terms of borrowing of 1.6 million i mean clearly our intention is to do spotting wherever possible but this is upon which the projects are a financial return as well as contribution to the the overall strategic priority and strategic priority one of the strategic priorities to make sure that we continue to build more homes we've got manifesto commitment that we heard about the ta cost implications so every family that we divert and is going to make a saving and also keep that family uh in peace and give them dignity and respect they deserve so our building program is continuing on that basis and that's where the capital program is going but the appendix c gives you further details but i can assure you we're doing and to make sure that only those projects we deliver value for money and program thank you jay i don't know i just need to invite conrad now to a comment thank you the mayor and council ellie uh i'm conrad hall i'm the corporate director of resources and the council's statutory chief finance officer uh i shall be brief because uh most much all the important points have already been made i would just like to reiterate uh my thanks also to all the politicians from uh different parts of the council and all of the members of the council uh for their support in putting this together as well as of course all the residents and other groups contributed to it just two brief procedural matters mayor in terms of exceptional financial support has been as has been discussed uh the council has been granted flexibility to increase council tax by nine percent eight point nine nine percent uh we do not yet have uh confirmation of the agreement to the capitalization element of that i wrote yesterday to a senior civil servant at the ministry of housing communities and local government just reminding him of the importance of that on behalf of newham and several other london boroughs we hope to receive that the 27th of february and i agree with council rally's assessment uh that you can be hopeful about that i cannot of course yet give a guarantee that we will receive that for the 27th and therefore as members know the date of the 4th of march placed in the calendar secondly as members will be aware uh scrutiny have called in cabinet reports uh on people powered places and carpenters of which of course uh forms a part of the budget as currently drafted clearly we don't know the outcome of that calling yet it is taking place this evening uh and may of course as we don't know the outcome of it uh lead to uh a change in the budget a cabinet meeting on the 24th of february has been scheduled to consider people on that scrutiny meeting so if any changes are proposed they can be dealt with in an orderly fashion there and then just very briefly the sort of strategic picture if you like uh i would highlight as i have done previously section 19 of the report which is my statutory statement that i'm required to make under section 25 of the local government act 2003 those of you on on the paper versions it's page 45 to 52 of the printed agenda uh i won't uh repeat it well i do commend all members to to read it carefully uh before the budget making meeting just highlight particular paragraph 19.25 as highlighted already in the discussion you know i quote there this is not a sustainable financial strategy uh clearly there are wider issues for the housing community local government and indeed government more widely about the role they expect local authorities to play uh funding for that and indeed the duties they expect us to nonetheless into the current framework that exceptional financial support is the only way is the only way forward is uh i am content lawful but as has been said it's not a sustainable approach context on that where of six other london boroughs so seven out of 33 or roughly one in five london boroughs are going down this route and i fear in future years that figure will only increase increase chief executive institute of public finance and accountancy is on record of stating that exceptional financial support ceases to become exceptional when it starts to become normalized as we are seeing so i emphasize and to finish you know uh this is uh by no means the approach that we would like to take setting the budget current legal framework and policy framework and direction from government that is one and in which considerable effort has been found made that identify savings and efficiencies to the maximum we can financial challenges uh that we face pause there now i'm happy of course to thank you for the opportunity to speak okay fine um i am going to open up to any questions i am also really conscious of time i've got a number of papers and we've got colleagues from scrutiny um because we've got asset strategy that's relevant to this and building a veronium corporate delivery plan review which is relevant to this it's all part of yeah questions um so uh i guess just picking up on um um on red's last point about um exceptional uh not becoming exceptional if it is too many times and and just in that context what steps the council is taking to get to a firmer footing with uh with the national government in terms of getting to a kind of medium term and long term strategy so we have set out sorry if i may respond we've set out to government our our concerns newman sector about the structure of funding for local authorities uh it's very difficult to see the current arrangement uh how we will be able to set a convention balance budget either very significant increases in funding for local authorities or changes to the distribution of that to newman's advantage or kind of fundamental rebalancing of the expectations of local authorities based on them by government so i think i think the question is much wider than the question or the answer to it is is an issue that uh all local authorities government and society more broadly if i may has to engage in is what what level of services do we expect government to require the local authorities it's supposed to be funded okay um anne easter thank you i'm anne easter one of the councillors for royal albert walton the commissioner for interfaite and interreligious dialogue um that the golden thread that pervades all our work in this very diverse borough is building a fairer newham can we assure our residents that this budget will sustain our efforts in that regard okay thank you very much um i mean i was saying earlier that in spite of the challenges during the budget setting process i don't believe we have lost sight of our fundamental process that we had commenced since 2018 and now iterated in building a firm since 2022 it's addressing the inequities that exist including those structural inequalities that lead to a landscape of households of great vulnerability in perpetual crisis and entrenched in poverty and there are things that we can control and things that we can't control we can't control the global economy we can't control decisions made at national government level as it relates to interest rates or a economic policy direction that leads to the entirety of the financial system you know seemingly about to collapse as of a orientation towards a particular political ideology as it relates to free markets all of those things we can't contain we can't control precisely the cost of living crisis but we can help help but it's not help in the sense of a dependency culture that we're sustaining it's about strengthening households and their abilities to be able to lift themselves out of that's that's the reason why our place vision our work an inclusive economy as it relates to enabling our residents to equip this themselves with skills build on their excellent educational outcomes be able to disrupt the labor market so that people can get a look in all of those things are driven by fairness and justice but really clear about the social determinants of ill health and that's poverty we've made it really clear from the the moment which we realize the full extent of covet 19 and its disproportionate impact on our borough acutely that we needed to change tack it's the reason why we do just transition it's the reason why we've always spoken in this language so in spite of what we've had to do and we've had to make some really tough choices that retains adherence and beyond virtue signaling commitment to that that's uh and it's important stuff and it requires way of looking at the world translated into a practice that we need to explore more of within the organization and in our actions and practice as we work with partners be they in the voluntary community faith sector or local businesses and other public sector body partners so i'm thinking in the north of the borough the legacy development corporation our growth borough partners that are trying you know working towards mobilizing in a material sense the inclusive economy outcomes we want to see for this part of east london as part of the legacy promise from the olympics and then in the world docs the work that we're doing with mayor of london and the gla on the world docs enterprise so yes thank you um are there any final questions i'm just really conscious of time right okay madeline um of course that among councillors are being aware of a particular financial situation that we find ourselves in and you've gone into a little detail uh saying that uh in the papers saying that um of increases in spending in things like ta uh special needs and uh adult social care are in line with those increases with some low health obviously with things like ta we've gone over um we have needs of other people could you give us a bit more contextualization of our position in line with uh other national and um london councils right i think uh it is well known fact that we are not alone and the situation we are facing is across the public sector i will just give you some um figures and the trying out the council and fga if you look at realistically our spending power has gone down by 25 percent over the last 10 years the service demands has been increased by 11 percent our population has gone up by percent if i remember correctly and uh we've had increasingly more regulations which haven't been funded at all by the previous government so the burden is on us to deliver the changes in law but actually no no additional funding the london the lg actually forecasted earlier on that there's going to be 2.1 billion savings that local authorities will have to make during the current next financial year they are to survive five billion a hole in the dedicated school grant as well which we haven't discussed in detail and they you know the the rates have gone up by one point one percent you've heard my colleagues saying the 39 of our people are living in private sector housing you know the local housing subsidy hasn't gone up you know this is why it's costing us a lot of money and you also we've had 25 000 council on stock it's down to 15 000 we lost about 9 000 for the right to buy policy all those changes are having you know not only impact on us but for the whole country and this is as a result of the you know 14 years of the past failures address the four issues really i mean that's the big price so we're not alone part of the whole sector and the lga london council and the politicians across the country are actually doing everything they can to lobby the government the current make sure that they bridge that that you know the loss that we've incurred last 14 years to make sure we continue to deliver services that raises the demand or deserve you know the balance of you okay i'm going to suggest if we can conclude unless there are any burning questions because we need to move on so colleagues i um just draw your attention to the very long so i windows by the background across across the number of pages recommendations uh um and for the best It's all those that may be watching. Recommendations are on big page number 19 to big page number 20, and that's Recommendations 2.2 from 2.1 all the way to 2.19. Do we agree? Agree, Evie. That's agreed. Right, now moving to, which is relevant to the budget, it's the asset strategy. So would you like to introduce the paper, Zulfika? Thank you, Chair. Councilor Zulfika Ali, Cabinet for Finance and Resources, again. Chair, we all know that every asset we own comes with a cost. We have acquisition costs, maintenance costs, operational expenses, but also there's great potential where some assets generate vital income for Council, while others provide crucial support for residents, community, and local businesses. And it is imperative that we ensure every asset is strategically managed, evaluated, efficiently utilized, and also that it contributes to our shared goals. Effective management of our asset is a critical part of this administration's priorities, and since 2018, this is something that we have been planning and looking at. And we want to ensure that our assets provide value and contribute to our overall vision, are linked with our community wealth building policies, our regeneration policies, the place building strategies, and indeed building fair and new. So asset program has been ongoing, and you may recall earlier this year, we agreed to sell a number of assets that were not delivering value for money or for any community benefits. These were estimated to raise £16 million at the time that we agreed. We are well on track. I'm assured by my colleagues' offices. And we're also expecting to receive more than £60 million. I think the anticipated income by the end of the current financial year is likely to be around £20 million. So, Chair, this paper is the next stage of the process. It is no way directly linked with the budget situation, because asset management is a critical factor of the Council. We have over 800 properties, which we do have responsibility to ensure that we manage properly and adequately. So this is about future strategy and framework. As outlined in the report, the Council has substantial assets, and a number of those. We do have some legacy assets, which were acquired many years ago. So each of these assets represent both an opportunity and a responsibility, one that we must manage strategically to maximize potential and support our financial resilience. The approach stated in this strategy will ensure our property portfolio delivers maximum value for money for our residents, for our businesses, our communities, and our services. But the proposed approach in this strategy provides a framework for us. It's not detailed. It's not asking for the makers to see what to sell or not. It's purely a strategy, which is to ensure that we look at every asset in an open, transparency, and a consistent manner to ensure that we do justice to everything that we do here. So this is a framework. It will guide the Council in making informed, sustained, strategic, and property decisions, ensuring that our portfolio remains fit for purpose in the years to come. This strategy is not just about building and about balancing our budget sheets. It is about delivering for our people. It underpins our building for a new program, supports our frontline services, and strengthens our ability to meet the needs of our diverse community. Furthermore, this strategy aligns with our broader vision, integrating with our policies, as I said earlier, services, and commitment to create a borough that is resilient, dynamic, and forward-thinking. In short, all our assets, whether commercial, corporate, residential, community, or educational, continue to serve their purpose, deliver value for money for our residents, and reinforce the Council's financial stability. Our approach is clear. We must optimize our resources, reduce unnecessary costs, and improve our assets to ensure long-term sustainability. By doing so, we're not only safeguarding essential services, but also reinforcing our commitment to fairness, efficiency, and innovation. As I said earlier, it's not just about managing property. It's about shaping the future of new. It's actually contributes to our overall policies. As I said earlier, in terms of regeneration, place vision, community wealth building. It's about ensuring that every pound we spend on our asset is a pound that delivers the real value to our residents. It's about making strategic decisions today for benefit generation to come. It is a process that will help us to dispose of assets that are not delivering value for money, or are not cost-intensive, or are not of any strategic importance to this authority. So with those world chairs, I recommend the recommendation of this report. Thank you. I don't know whether Conrad or Sam would like to add anything. Yeah, I've nothing to add. Sam Folding is online and may be able to assist. Sam, I'm going to invite you to say a few things, if you can. There's quite a lot of background noise. Okay, thank you, Mayor. Can you hear me okay? Yeah, there's just a little bit of background noise, like a television set. Oh, it could just be the office. I'll try to be as clear as possible. Sam Folding, Assistant Director for Asset Strategy. Nothing really further to add from Councillor Ali's point, other than to say we'll also be bringing a further report in April that will cover off the disposals progress that has been made this financial year and disposals for the future financial year. And also, just to reiterate, as the Asset Strategy points out, this report isn't just about disposals. It's also about reinvestment in the required corporate and commercial assets that the Council owns. But other than that, nothing more to add. Thank you. All right, thank you very much. Okay, are there any questions, colleagues? Otherwise, I'm going to suggest that we move on. Right, okay, we've got Charlene and then Councillor Boston-Milk. Brilliant. Thank you, Chair. I had one point of clarification, but then also a couple of questions. So, I was wondering in point four, when it talks about the actual asset strategy methodology, and in 4.2, at the end of page 474, it just talks about the corporate landlord operating model. So, I was just wondering if officers could expand on that a bit, exactly what that is. My other point was just moving on to page 475. Just at the top, it says about it will enable the Council. The Council will maintain accurate and up-to-date information on all property assets. I've had a look through the Appendix 1, which lists the commercial assets, and there's just some confusion because some of the ones that are on Appendix 2 are also listed in Appendix 1. So, are they commercial assets or are they not commercial assets? And also, there are some properties on there that I know no longer exist. So, buildings have been built on them now by us. So, I just wanted to double-check about that. And my last point, sorry, is just on page 479, it just mentions about the asset strategy, the asset review group, and I was just requesting if possibly resident engagement and participation could be added there in its own right, just because I know that, obviously, we currently sit within adults, but if we move out of adults, I don't want resident engagement to not be part of this group because they are affected by it and they could have quite a good input into the discussions there within that group. Okay. And I'll leave it there for now. Thank you very much. Zofka, do you want to say anything? Sam, did you pick up all of those points? I did. Thank you. Do you want me to take them in turn? Yeah, please. Okay. Thank you. And hopefully, it's a bit quieter. Sorry about that. So, in the first point on the corporate landlord model, so, in essence, and I can take something further, if helpful, to Cabinet on this. In essence, the corporate landlord model centralises all estate-related budgets and decision-making activities within a central team, so the property team within Newham. And in short, it's, in essence, what the asset strategy sets out. So, it's to ensure that all corporate commercial assets are looked at one and all decision-making is looked at one. So, it's kind of encompassing all of those things together. In regards to the asset list, there may be some duplication on there because some of the commercial units will be leased to either a community organisation or internally to an internal team, but we can rectify any of those. And part of the asset strategy work on the data is trying to get a lot better and a lot cleaner data. So, those mistakes don't happen. And then, on the final point on the asset review criteria, yes, we can add that in. Have I missed anything? I don't think so. No. I did just have one further point. In 2.4 of the recommendations, it says that about disposing of commercial assets at Lardin Paragas 5.16. but I'd just be a bit wary about that if the list of assets is in equities. Does that make sense? It does. Thank you. And just to reiterate on that point, there will be a report coming to April Cabinet that will list out indicative disposals for 25-26. So, we'll ensure that any mistakes are rectified there. Okay. I'm going to suggest that we move to the next question. Councillor Bosom Young. Thank you, Chair. And just to say, really welcome this as an approach to kind of getting a handle on where we are with our asset portfolio and having a process and a kind of understanding of the decisions that we may take guard to assets and appreciating that this is not solely a disposal strategy, but one which looks at how do we maximise the effectiveness of the commercial and other assets that we own. I just really had a question about confidence and confidence in the value of the assets that we hold and confidence that we are working to kind of maximise the effectiveness of those and kind of what assurance mechanisms the council has in place to reassure itself and to reassure us that. Sam, Somrad. Thank you. So on the assurance point, before any decision is taken to dispose of an asset, a valuation is carried out. On approval, if that be cabinet or through an officer non-key decision report, as part of Section 123 regulation, the council gets a red book valuation carried out on its assets before that decision is taken. That red book valuation demonstrates that the council is getting market value for the asset to ensure that it's not selling, to ensure that its interests are taken into account and to ensure that it's getting best value. So when we come to decide and make decisions on disposing of assets, that process is always taken to ensure that we know the value. We will use indicative values and open market value advice up until that point. But before any governance decision is taken, there is always reassurance that we get third-party independent red book advice. Thank you. Okay, cool. Thank you very much. Right. I'm going to suggest that we move on. Move on to the... Oh, God, there's so much. Right. Okay, one second. Move to the recommendations. Okay. Thank you for coming through. Okay, so we've got recommendations set out on Big Ten 4.7.3. The Bs are set out in the report and it's appendices. Cabinet is recommended to agree. 2.1, which is to implement the asset strategy is set out in the report. And then you've got a further five recommendations. Do we agree? Cabinet members only? Agreed. Agreed. Thank you very much. Now moving on to the next agenda item. And can I ask James? James. Oh, hi. How are you doing? Thank you very much. No problem. Happy to join. Thank you. Yeah, I hope you're feeling better. A little bit. Thank you. Okay, so colleagues, I'll just do a quick introduction. So this is a really important document because it is an important plank as it relates to our budget plan in the context of our exceptional financial support, but also in the context of our transformation journey. And it sets out a finessed, refined corporate delivery plan that drives forward the building of fair and new intention and agenda that we had started off back in 2022 in light of the ongoing commitment to the transformative actions we want to be undertaking in order to address the character of Newham, as I described in an earlier agenda item, i.e. anti-poverty, equality, enabling our people to develop their skills, their resilience, and their ability to lead good, healthy, and happy lives. We have also responded to the local government association action plan commitment that we made as it relates to ensuring that we've got the capacity within the organisation to prioritise and to prioritise in a way that helps us deliver our agenda as an administration for the people of this borough and the place. So I'm going to pause there because it sets out in detail what we're going to be retaining, what we're going to be pausing, what we're going to be stopping. And we went through quite an exacting process as it relates to that. A lot of challenge to corporate leadership board, officer colleagues, making sure the decisions weren't being taken primarily through the prism of a crisis point we face as it relates to sexual financial support, but with the confidence and with the certainty that, as we have done in other times of crisis, and I particularly point to COVID-19, the global pandemic, we've been able to navigate through. And that's an important point that I want to conclude with by restating, at times of uncertainty, which we will perpetually be living in, we need to remain brave and courageous, but that's not foolhardy. It doesn't mean we don't know stuff. It does mean that people will have a different perspective, but it's also okay for us to disagree. We have been tasked with a mandate, deliver a building of fair renewal project. That is what we will continue to do. We will be narrow in our focus and we will charge the organisation to do it well. And we will work in our effective and loud way challenging government and any other body that isn't correcting the ineffectualities of the wider market, wider sector, as it relates to the failures in the broken system or systems pertaining to housing, pertaining to adult social care and children care. We have never claimed to be magicians, claimed to be able to look. Do they call them magic balls? I don't know what they call them. Crystal balls. That was nearly... Could be something else. Crystal balls. We never claimed to be crystal ball. Yeah. We never have that kind of superpower. But we are doing things logically, rationally, with good intent and with the fastidiousness that you would expect from this team. So on that note, I'm going to pass over to James Partis. James, we're kind of like at 24 minutes past 12. I'm very happy, Mayor, to keep it very brief just to follow up on your very helpful introduction. And the only thing I'd add is this report, I think, is a good signal of what a mature organisation should be seeking to do. Four years is an extremely long period of time in local government. And, you know, if we recall back to when Building Atherin was agreed, not only have a significant range of local contextual factors change significantly, but also the regional and national landscape has changed significantly as well. And I think, irrespective of the significant budget and financial constraints that the Council is operating within, it is excellent practice to continue to review corporate strategies and corporate plans in line with those changing contexts. That's exactly what this report does. The only other thing I'd add is I'd like to kind of credit Cabinet, really, for the proactive and positive way in which they've engaged with this process, which is always a challenging process to engage with. And to kind of add to that, I think as part of that engagement, working through the constraints that we're now working through, Cabinet and other colleagues have really been innovative in their approach to looking at alternative funding solutions, alternative ways of framing, continued kind of commitment to long-term ambitions while recognising challenging contexts that actually that innovation and that sort of collaboration which has come through that process has really added value to the corporate plan as much as it's reduced the number of commitments that we're focusing on and sharpening the organisation's focus. So a real credit to colleagues across the leadership teams involved in this for supporting the process. And finally, to add, the plan also, the revision to the corporate plan also picks up some much-needed changes to our performance framework and our outcomes and KPIs in some key areas to align with kind of known challenges in certain service areas like housing where we've expanded the range of measures that are directly aligned to our housing improvement plan to also ensuring that we're improving measures that really directly speak to what our residents continue to tell us is important to them, particularly in areas like street cleansing and resident experience as well. So I'll keep it as brief as that in order to an age of time and happy to take any further questions. Okay. Are there any further questions, colleagues? No. Okay. I'm going to suggest that we move straight to the recommendations on big page number 525. For the reasons set out in the report and its cabinet is recommended to approve 2.1, the revision of the delivery plan as detailed in appendix 1 which ensures alignment with funding availability, feasibility and the focus on delivering priority actions. 2.2, the revised performance framework as outlined in appendix 2.1. Procedent updates to the building of the new key performance indicators to better achievements of the council's is that agreed only? Agreed. Agreed. Now we are going to be inviting councillor Anthony McCollman to present and welcome Anthony to this meeting of Kepler to present report 2025. We have up to five minutes. Thank you. Mayor Fears, cabinet members, thank you. To have with me today comes the master chair of health and other social care and consider Rita Chow, the vice-chair of in-year budget scrutiny. He just popped out there. There's something sorted. You have seen the reports and recommendations of budget scrutiny commission. I'm here today in my roles as chair of budget commission and as chair of overdue and scrutiny committee. We examine the draft budget proposal against the backdrop of Newham's council's finances and its financial performance, while also considering its manifesto commitment and programs. Our duty requires us to satisfy ourselves and report both to you and cabinet whether we believe that the 496 million budget, general fund budget, efficiency savings, service growth and delivery plans are realistic in meeting the priorities identified in the building Ethereum cooperating plan. In fulfilling this duty, the OVIA scrutiny committee's primary duty is to adopt positions based on findings and make recommendations that are consistent with good scrutiny. We were unable to carry out the detail and comprehensive scrutiny but a draft budget in the current financial landscape was. Therefore, we felt unable to give full assurance that the budget proposal, efficiency savings and delivery plans are realistic or aligned adequately with the building Ethereum cooperate plan priorities. We are indeed disappointed that most of our recommendations have been rejected and that the executive has stated that you have done all you can in some areas of spending. This concerns us, especially when CONSER is facing in-year and MTFS budget gaps and diminishing capital financing reserves that covers only part of the in-year and MTFS target. Unless the executive takes action to resolve budget gaps and overspending and or the exceptional financial support application is approved, the commissioner found that the current capital financing reserve of 59 million will be heavily depleted to a mere $13 million in the year. Temporary accommodation is not fully under control, although we recognize that work is still ongoing. social care and SEND costs continue to rise and the council is seeking assistance from central government including exceptional financial that has been mentioned. our recommendations strongly indicate that more can be done and must be done. They bring considered solutions that are necessary to better manage the financial performance of this council and improve the trade. As our report indicates, the time has come for you, the executive, to pause and review whether council can afford capital expenditure at the current levels. The commission is of the opinion that council cannot afford to broaden its revenue budget with interest payment at the current level. The budget scrutiny commission gave extensive and intensive consideration to the information which was supplied. We queried policy decision like keeping cultural budget while cutting services that offered financial support to our residents. Our residents are living in a cost-of-living crisis. We need to give up and talk decisions need to be made. These remain in our conclusions. The recent financial histories of councils like Bominem, Freud, and Slau, and Woking must act as one. As chair overview and scrutiny commission, I urge you, the mayor and cabinet to reconsider your rejection of our recommendation and our savings proposals. Thank you. Thank you very much. Look, I'm going to make an initial response, primarily on the latter part of your statement, because you made pointed references to Birmingham, Slau, and Croydon. And I think it is appropriate and important for me to state very clearly that the situation facing Newham, as it relates to a crisis in temporary accommodation, issues of an ineffective stroke broken housing market in the capital and across the country, issues of increased costs within the temporary accommodation system, notwithstanding the work that's been undertaken for us to limit, push and hold, contain presentations through the amazing work of the preventing home scheme and other pensions that we're piloting that are developing, well, showing, evidencing a positive dividend in terms of outcome to avoid further temporary accommodation costs. the stuff as it relates to what both Councillor Sarah Ruiz and Councillor Neil Wilson talked to in their earlier contributions to their sections of the budget report relating to market failure in children's services, the profiteering that's happening and also in the wider care system. I'm really sorry but I utterly totally on behalf of the entirety of Cabinet reject your description of Newham as being the equivalent of Birmingham, Slough and Croydon. I'm more than happy to arrange for a briefing note to be provided to you as chair as to the circumstances that led to their financial challenges and difficulties. It was because of follies as it related to a housing delivery company that didn't deliver. Poplar Living has got tangible real assets of value, bricks and water, homes. If we wanted to at some future point we could sweat those assets further but we're choosing not to because we're in the face of a housing crisis. I don't know whether you picked up Anthony or should I say Council McCormand in deference to your position and your role as an elected board councillor. The current position as it relates to people on the housing waiting register embarking in Dagenham is 25 years. That's our neighbouring borough. Newham it's 13 years. Freudian was a complete and utter failure of governance as it related to governance and political governance. We don't have that here. So please I make an appeal when it's easy in this world given its complexity and its challenge to reduce things to simple and simplistic black and white. Newham is not Birmingham, Newham is not Snell and Newham is not Crosby. On that point I'm going to pass it over to Councillor Zulfika Ali. Thank you Chair and thank you Councillor Michael Mount for your report and your observation today and I think it excited me to see that we are failing to make links in terms of what Newham's problems are and we're looking more externally to link us with places like Birmingham, Croydon and others when the reality is that we're not comparing Apple with pears frankly and it, I thought that scrutiny had a great role to play and focus on Newham and the issues that Newham is facing and I also feel and I'm bit disappointed that the primary issues of facing Newham are not being acknowledged to the degree that they ought to be because we are all elected representatives of our residents and our goal is to make sure that we do everything we can to support and deliver the services we can within the most difficult financial circumstances and you heard me earlier explaining what differences are in that regard. It would have been nicer if the scrutiny had recognized the challenges and played a collective role, particularly when based on last year's recommendations. We started the budget setting process much earlier this year. We engaged reasonably well in comparison. We provided necessary information and explanation and details as were requested even at short notices sometimes. This was to facilitate a proper opportunity for scrutiny to go through the draft papers initially and the challenges. Back in August we said the budget forecast is $175 million deficit. We said that right from the early days but it went down. I think the missing point in recognition of the scrutinies of feedback is not politically internally but this focus externally perhaps a political biasness in terms of what this administration is taking because ultimately we all as Labour councillors and administration have committed ourselves to the manifesto that we all signed up to and that's what we're delivering. Our way of thinking may be different. Our approach may be different. Our ultimate goal is the same. We're all putting a man on the moon. That's how we're looking at it. I think the disappointment on my part was that it's more of a criticism coming through rather than an opportunity to contribute effectively by looking at everything that we are. In fact, we offered the opportunity to scrutiny right from day one. Let us know if you have any suggestions. We're very happy to take them on board. We don't see scrutiny in a different light. We're all working for the same council but we have a slightly different role. The decision we've taken in order to accept or reject the recommendations are based on much wider consideration that this administration has. Believe me, we have had so many meetings despite the short time you had received your recommendation. We went through very detailed due diligence, assess the implications, assess the impact of each of the recommendations and only then the scenes were taken to either accept, acknowledge, reject and that basis. But there is a rationale for those and I hope that response gives you some degree of assurance that we are doing it. This is not the end of the word. we are all here together. We will work together to make sure that we get this council out of the situation we have faced. Because that is a collective either we succeed or we fail. It is an opportunity for us to think in that line to make sure that we are being effective collectively. Yes, criticism is accepted. Challenge is accepted. I think it gives me some degree of discomfort that it is, you know, perception wise, it's all coming across negative. It's us and them situation, but I don't think that's the case. We are working together. We have slightly different perspectives. Are there any other members of Cabinet that wish to say anything with an eye to the time and also our executive response that's been formally tabled? OK, I'm going to just suggest thank you very much for that. Thank you very much Councillor McCollman and Councillor Masters as it relates to tabling of this paper. I'm just going to need to do the I'm going to just need to do the recommendation which is to note isn't it to note one second let me just quickly just give me two ticks colleagues so it is the budget scrutiny commission report and the recommendations the budget scrutiny report be noted and the executive response be agreed we don't have we do have the executive response that's published version so we can so we're basically being asked to note the budget working commission report and then you'll note in the published pack from yesterday it was a supplementary agenda item there is a additional report on page number second got it right so page 103 on the electronic version has got the executive response and recommendation and the executive response is to note the budget scrutiny commission's budget scrutiny report 2025 published as a separate paper to this meeting and agree the executive response to the budget scrutiny commission's budget scrutiny report 2025 and particularly the response in appendices one and two so what's the best way of doing it should I just take each paper because they're basically the recommendations are saying the same thing so 107 we'll come back let's 107 so colleagues if you could just agree on the recommendation right agenda item seven budget scrutiny report 2025 the recommendation is that the budget scrutiny report 2025 be noted and the executive response be agreed albeit we're going to come to the executive response and agree again in a moment okay so is that agreed cabinet members that's agreed and then if you can go to page 107 of the supplementary pack and that's the executive response to the budget working commission report that the budget scrutiny commission the budget scrutiny commission budget scrutiny report 2025 published as a separate paper for this meeting and agree the executive response for the budget scrutiny commission's budget scrutiny report 2025 and particularly the response in appendices one and two is that agreed and then colleagues just for the purposes of captioning the minutes you'll note agenda item 12 and agenda item 13 exact appendices for agenda item 9 rolling height oh gosh no I'm so sorry in our dreams yeah agenda item 9 rolling heights 36 unit acquisition this is councillor Zulfika Ali before we jump into that you're more than welcome to stay councillor McCollman and councillor Masters for the remainder of this agenda but you also are able to leave if you so wish thank you I'm the mayor but we take our leave we are out of business thank you thank you very much take care bye bye right okay we've got rolling heights and this is councillor Zulfika Ali and councillor Amaverde and then I've got comrade Hall and Sam Fordin again I'm so sorry to press I'll be brief thank you chair this report seeks approval for the purchase of 36 housing units at Bolin heights in Bakun rise of seven one bedroom twelve two bedroom three 17 three bedrooms all I'll say chair is that the necessary diligence is undergoing and will only complete once this is completed satisfactorily without it goes without saying that this will assist us in terms of meeting of temporary accommodation needs the necessary role to the charter surveyors where the work valuation has been obtained and that has demonstrated that this is delivering the market value the capital cost of acquisitions will be as you know through the general fund potential borrowing and I would just like to highlight that if we purchase this the cost avoidance in terms of temporary accommodations are 45 million over 50 years we've gone through the internal rate of return appraisal which is what we do for acquisition of this nature it is estimated that this will generate a return of 9.46 percent the borrowing is 5.5 percent so in the short term clearly we do have a temporary accommodation cost and the need and if in the long run it becomes apparent that we don't have that need therefore we have the flexibility to sell or look at alternate tenure for this I recommend that the cabinet approves the accommodations Conrad Sam anything else you wish to add no nothing to add no just to add we've also got a grant applied to this scheme as well so it's 50% PWLB lending and then 50% grant so that's also a win overall for the financial position brilliant thank you very much I'm going to suggest that we move to the recommendations on this paper so this is recommendations are set out on page number 582 going on to 583 recommendations 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 and I just need to seek approval do we all agree cabinet members we agree thank you very much now we're moving on to the Stratford Island delivery of the Stratford Vision and I am going to be inviting similarly to say a few words thank you chair I'll be brief again this is an excellent opportunity and for us to review what is happening in Stratford it's a link with our Stratford Vision we had a side visit which was very useful in that regard and we want to make sure that Stratford is developed to the extent we have admired and this is a great opportunity to deal with the difficulties we have when we looked at the site around it there was a landfill great opportunity for us to develop this site looks like a plan that actually fits pretty well with our Stratford regeneration program and there is good opportunity for us to negotiate with the current owner to assess how best we can integrate that with the vision as well as it has some opportunity for us to look at to see whether it will be worthwhile as considering possible move of the council's HQ to Morgan House building that currently has been empty for many years there and there's opportunity for us to renegotiate and see whether that will deliver value for money and best option for us to look at other options but in any event there are various part of the equation in terms of looking at whether we move to Morgan House or elsewhere and I think the overall benefit of this site will be that even if we don't move to Morgan House there is opportunity for us to look at housing improvements in our area particularly because we're facing a great deal of shortage there so this is a good opportunity and this recommendation this recommendation this report to actually agree those recommendations to move on with negotiations so we can come to some sort of final arrangements to come back to see what are the best financially viable options for our consideration Mayor I would say a few words because of the wider links with other I mean look I won't want to say much beyond Stratford vision which is a really exciting place vision for the Stratford and surrounding areas I will defer to officer colleagues if they want to add anything as it relates to the specificities of the leasehold arrangements as is now and as will be subject to approval of this paper and also on any Stratford vision stuff so who may want to go first officer wise if you need the detail of the lease structure set out of the report of course I can do that in the interest of time if I just clear what the ask is otherwise I'll hand over to Paul Kitson who could probably talk better than I about it okay before I do can I just invite Nazreen would you like to say anything about the arrangement and welcome to your first the lease hold arrangement as it is we've got the Stratford shopping centre we also have Morgan house two main assets which the council owns the freehold of and are leased on long leases to Corbridge institutional investments limited as set out in the report that's the nature of the lease hold ownership structure in summary and the opportunity here is to work as the freeholder to work with the long lease holder to unlock the development potential of the site and the town centre regenerational benefits so the report goes into some detail on that and makes the recommendation as councillor Ali has put forward makes the recommendation to enter into those lease structures that will unlock the redevelopment potential regardless of whether we do later make the decision of moving to Morgan House or not I hope that summarises that's really helpful thank you very much and then on Stratford Vision is there anything Paul Kitson otherwise I'll pass over to Yanni around Stratford Vision could we invite Yanni to talk about Yanni would you like to yeah sure just expand a bit on what the Stratford Vision says for this site so the retrofitting of Morgan House whether it's to be occupied by the council or not is a key tenet of the Stratford Vision and also a key part of our ambitions in terms of just transition so reusing that building for instead of demolishing it as per the previous planning application is something that is a great outcome and something that the Stratford Vision defines and I think as part of the Stratford Vision the consolidation of some of the car infrastructure around the site to open parts of the site up for public use in terms of green space and other uses I think is a real exciting step towards delivering some of what the Stratford Vision sets out so yeah that's that's a sort of summary but I'd encourage others to have a look at the Stratford Vision and look at the detail I guess and I think this is a step towards delivering that Super thank you very much and I just wanted to also similarly I think this is your first cabinet isn't it Yanni no it's not it's your second yeah I think I've come to cabinet before yeah okay super okay councillor Charlie McLean a question more a comment just in 3.6 it talks about the shopping centre a unique provision and that will be protected as part of development can we ensure that the market also is part of that is also protected as part of development thank you Jeff so the Stratford Market Village within the shopping centre so yeah who can talk to that Yanni I can Nazrin probably better placed on the property side there no problem so the location that the market that runs through the shopping centre the location that is actually in is outside of the demised area within the lease so in terms of the area that's outlined in terms of what we have actually leased to Corbridge that area isn't actually included so they in short and in summary that market those market traders are protected and these proposals will not affect those market traders need to make what I'm going to suggest is that we need to make a substantive primary decision as it relates to the leasehold structure which will enable progress in a part of the borough that requires investment any of the detail will be subject to ongoing discussions with the developer and that will have to also be subject to planning officers engagement and it ultimately will come to the local strategic development committee and we can pick it up outside but the assurance that the market area isn't part of this so there's outdoor market and there's the indoor market which goes through the shocking yeah yeah yeah that was what Nazrin was referring to that's right it's difficult to explain verbally but if you look at the plans and the appendices the area that is within the leases the lease to Corbridge excludes that pathway where the market traders are located within the shopping centre so from a legal perspective at present that area is not within the proposals in fact the proposals don't look to really touch the shopping centre from a physical standpoint at all okay it's just that because in the report it mentioned about the shopping centre I just wanted it to yeah okay so it's been clarified okay that's fine and it's in the report and it specifies what is meant by the shopping centre and it's made clear that it includes that stretch because that's subject to a particular legal treatment yeah okay fine so you want to vote on this no I need to go sorry thank you but it's me to pick up okay yeah I know but I know it's not me I'm not quite doing with her sorry for future reference if you need to leave please leave and it is better to not leave 30 seconds before us approving recommendations just for future reference and I'll pick it up with councillor mclean recommendations section 2 on big page number 595 2.1 2.2 2.3 right do we agree brilliant thank you very much so that's that and then sorry we're still needing to close a few things off we've got the exclusion of present public can we just note that agenda item 11 okay and then can we just note exempt dependencies for agenda item 9 voting height 36 unit acquisitions noted we're agreeing to note and then agenda item 13 can we agree to note the exempt dependencies for agenda item 10 structure island noted thank you very much colleagues and I look forward to seeing you all very soon thank you