Transcript

Okay, good evening everybody and welcome to this evening's meeting. I'm Councillor Clare Holland, Leader of the Council and Chair of this meeting. This meeting is being recorded and is being broadcast live. The recording of tonight's meeting may also be used for quality and training purposes. In the event that technical issues require the meeting to be adjourned and it cannot be restarted within a few minutes, further updates will be posted on the Council's democracy. exTWitter account which is at LBL democracy. Everyone knows the fire exits arrive aside here and the toilets just outside the room. We have apologies from three councillors, cabinet members who will be slightly late tonight. Council Danny Adilapour, councillor Jackie Dyer and councillor Tim Winsall. As set out on the agenda the portfolio for healthier communities operates under a job share arrangement. The current decision-maker for Healthier Communities is Councillor Jackie Dyer. The portfolio for Equalities, Governance and Change also operates under a job share arrangement. The current decision-maker for Equalities, Governance and Change is Councillor Nanda Manley-Brown. Does any councillor have a disclosable pecuniary interest that they have not already declared? Great, thank you. No one's indicated, so I'll move on. Minutes from the previous meeting. Are the minutes of the meeting held on 27th January 2025 agreed as a correct record of the proceedings? Agreed. Thank you, colleagues. The minutes are confirmed as a correct record. So we'll now move on to the next item, which is Corporate Peer Challenge, the final report. I'm going to introduce this item and I want to say that I'm delighted to do so. I know that colleagues alongside me and cabinet and officers around the table can testify what an intense week that was with the Peer Challenge. Thank you to everybody who helped to organise and to coordinate the whole process from strategy, communications and change. You did an absolute fantastic job. Really, really thank you. The report gives a really strong insight into where we are at the moment as an organisation. It finds that we have strong political and organisational leadership, good relationships and critically, a clear focus on achieving equity and justice, which shines through Lambeth's ambitious master plan for the borough. I am particularly pleased that the LGA team also reported that Lambeth was making sustained progress on improving performance in key public services such as housing and children's. This is a testament to many, many people's hard work across the council and has also been reflected by the regulator of social housing, giving us a C2 rating, the first and highest in London, and also by Ofsted in their focus visit before Christmas. The peer team reported that the council has shown strong leadership on climate change and net zero and is leading from the front with innovative practice. Finally, and I suppose very importantly, given the discussion we will have a bit later, the report also finds that the council has worked hard to mitigate the significant financial challenges that we face in common with other local authorities, but recommended that it go further and faster to ensure the council's future financial stability. We are looking forward to welcoming the team back later this year and to review progress against the action plan. Now, the officers here are Amy Butson Jennings and Kieran Ferdinand. Did I see Kieran? I did. Do you want to come to the table, Kieran? Now, before I turn to the people who have indicated they wish to speak, did you want to say anything now, Fiona, or later? OK. OK. Thanks, Kieran. Thanks, Amy. So, we have two visiting members who have indicated they wish to speak on this item. That's councillor Nicole Griffiths and councillor Matthew Briar. Nicole and Matthew, would you like to come up to the table, please? I'm going to take you in the order that you're on my paper in. So, I'll turn to you first, Nicole. You have three minutes. Thank you, Cher. Good evening, everybody. Hi, Kieran. I'm having read the corporate peer challenge report, the action plan, and the report for cabinet, the quotes that I'd like to make are... First, I'd like to ask about the action plan. So, I can see that suggestions have been taken from the CPC recommendations and allocated to a strategic director, a team leader, and given a timeframe, but there's no actual actions outlined in the actual plan. Can we expect a more robust and detailed plan in three months' time? Will that go to both of you speaking to the board's cabinet for the first question? I'm going to ask you, 0.1.5 million points to cabinet, the knowledge is the council provides for sure it's going in the right direction. Yet, one of the clear recommendations in the CPC revolves around greater transparency, openness and honesty about council operations and decisions and the need to reorganise given the dire financial challenges that the council is facing. I don't see that reflected in the action plan. Are there plans for more expansive communication and with all stakeholders and residents? And can we expect more involvement, more citizens assemblies perhaps, to support the future direction of the council? Given the current constraints on new services, how can the council deliver on the aims in one land of the 2013? If they can't, and those aims need to be planned, how will the council engage with residents to keep them informed, on board and ensure that their voices are flowing with them forward? There's several references to the legal intervention and early intervention to steer residents away from needing to access costier services at a later stage. The plan requires real security services initially. Now, I'm very interested to hear to what extent HART or the H-E-A-R-T funding will help achieve that, and are there further funding opportunities in the pipeline to help reinforce that approach? In the area of governance and scrutiny, if it's not free in the action plan, the council will accept the recommended actions such as the council code of governance being updated annually and to improve past relationship actions, if pre-decision scrutiny would become common practice, and greater clarity provided on what happens to recommendations, will that you said, and we did, approach be adopted as recommended, and the corporate committee will receive additional training and support and more prompt responses to its questions. Will these recommendations been taken up and will they be answered? The action plan acknowledges the need for members' training, and can I suggest that a survey be set up? Yeah, your time's up now. So we can say where the need lies. Oh, I was going to talk about climate change. Yeah, sorry. Your time's up, but thank you very much, Nicole. You have three minutes. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I think it's a good report that's coming through from the challenge. I think it's quite powerful recommendations in the report, and I like the layout of the action plan. Though I do like Council Griffiths, I'll quibble with some of the content, I suppose. And there's three particular things, I suppose. And the first is the first recommendation from the group was about the administration should be working quickly to provide clarity on the full revenue implications of winding down homes for Lambeth. And whilst that's addressed in your action plan, the action is really not very specific there. And it's actually seems to be rather kicking the can down the road on that. I mean, time scale is long term. And I'm just mindful also that actually the auditors similarly made comments last Thursday at the corporate committee about their concerns about a lack of impetus being shown by the Council in terms of addressing this. So I think I'll be asking what more can be done to expedite that particular action. And particularly because it has an impact on the HRA, which we know that our financial situation becomes actually doubly crucial. The second one was in terms of looking at improved governance. One of the recommendations there was, again, that the administration should consider external representation on the Housing Improvement Board. And again, the action plan is silent on that. It's actually rather wishy-washy comment, I think, was in there. Which basically says something on the line. So we will review how these boards can help to further strengthen governance in the Council. It doesn't really say whether you're going to accept external representation or not. I think that would actually be very important that you do. And the final one is obviously the key bit. But there's also reference about obviously the development of the new target operating model. And it will come on to the next item because that's a key bit of the budget proposals for next year. But obviously, to some extent, for some of us, this is the first time we've had mention of this. And whilst you do actually say in actions and on page 65 of the document, you're saying that you're developing this in partnership with staff and trade unions and members. Are you including opposition councillors on that? Because certainly nobody in our group has actually been involved in any of those discussions so far. And also, most crucially, will you be involving residents? Thank you. Thank you. OK. So, I think there are a couple of things in there. There's delivery plans being drawn up under for all the directorates and these functions. These are just obviously line actions. If you had an action plan with all the actions, it would be hundreds of pages long. And there was one other thing that some of the points about the greater focus, the scrutiny was greater focus. I think one of the things that has been suggested is a more regular cycle of reports going to scrutiny, which is accepted and that's going to be reviewed with the scrutiny chairs. But also, it's about members of scrutiny being more focused on their recommendations. That really came up really strongly. There are so many recommendations that are wide ranging and unfocused and to have more impact and be more effective. They really need to focus on where they're adding value as the scrutiny committee, which again, we will work with scrutiny members. But can I turn to you, Amy, for the other points? Thanks. Yeah, no, absolutely. So, first of all, on the question about the detail, we're absolutely right to say that we made a decision to develop this as a high level plan. So that the detail could follow both in our director of business plans, which is part of our business planning process as a council, but also there's reference in the action plan to the development of a transformation plan, which is in the category of short term. So by the summer, we'll follow that. I also wanted to pick up on the question about scrutiny and training. I know Raymond may want to follow up on this, but specifically the feedback from the corporate peer review team was that for committee members, we should think about what further training might be needed so that we could deal with the point of phase without needing to make sure that recommendations are focused and that we follow up. And I think one of the councillors who raised the question talked about, you said we did approach, which absolutely we would want to adopt that. There were some questions that were raised on some of the financial issues, which you might want to go to Xena or councillor and address either now or perhaps the item that followed. Yeah. Okay. Do you want to come in on anything else? I think in terms of the new target operating model, I think that's will be covered. Some of that will be covered in the next item. But I think just to give assurance, I think it's very timely when we had the peer review come in because they could see that as an organisation, we know ourselves really well. There's no surprises that came out of the recommendations and the findings from the peer review team, which is really reassuring combined with our gap in terms of revenue, in terms of the savings that we need to make. Peer review is very helpful in talking and discussing with us around the need to review our current operating model. That isn't just about staff and structures or some of that will be part of that. It's also around demand management, for example. You will know that some of our costs, for example, are significantly high in terms of third party spend, particularly in adults and children's and so on and so forth. So a lot of the work that we're doing around that we have already started because some of it is business as usual. Bringing it together to shape and form our narrative is really important. So that when the review team come back in September, they can see all of the work that we're doing. So it is quite complex. Of course, staff, trade union colleagues, so on and so forth will be involved. We have shared the review outcomes and the action plan with all colleagues across the workforce and we'll be doing more updates at our next one round table in March as well. OK, thank you. OK, I think that a couple of things will be coming up later. So apart from there was a specific reference to heart funding. Andrew, did you want to come back on that? I can pick that up. So just to clarify, heart funding funds our ability to enable research. So traditionally there's been plenty of money directed through the NHS for research, but less so through local government. The whole point of the programme is to try and build the capacity for local government to undertake research, particularly in the area of social care as well. So the aim would be to use that research to improve our decision. Help us find out what's most effective, what works for our residents and includes elements of how we might take forward research. the research along with our residents in a productive way, so community based research as well as more traditional methods. So that's how it will help us. It's not service delivery directly as such. OK, thanks for that clarification. I think that they were covered then, so I'm going to ask councillors to step back, please, from the table, if I may. Thank you very much for addressing us. I was going to open it now to colleagues for questions, comments, observations. Anyone want to add anything on this item? Councillor Ben Kind. Just make one observation based on comments from Councillor Griffiths that it seems odd on the one hand to request specific actions, but then not note that the action plan on scrutiny recommends us having some external input in the view of scrutiny. And if we, I suppose we'd be criticised for making decisions and pre-empting the outcome of any review of scrutiny, we sat here tonight and decided that we as cabinet should make changes to scrutiny rather than allowing for that independent report to come forward. So I'm I'd be more content with allowing us to proceed with the action plan as is rather than us being specific at this moment on what changes should take place. I don't, not so sure it should be for cabinet to sit there and say specifically right now this is the change that should happen. Far better for us to get some input and to have a review as the action plan says. Yeah, no, that's a really good point. Well made. Thank you, Councillor for that. Any other questions or comments? No, I know. We've all been through this a lot. I'm really grateful as I said at the beginning for everyone's work. Kieran, thank you to you and your team. I know it's a feat of organisation. Organisational excellence really to achieve five days of organising a peer team here and it felt really inclusive. And so many people across the organisation across the borough were involved and reported gave us such positive feedback about their inclusion in it and their ability to have their voice heard. So thank you very much for that. Please thank your team. So colleagues, given that no one else has indicated they wish to speak, I'm going to move to the recommendations on page eight of your agenda. There are three recommendations to note the report and the recommendations in Appendix A to agree the action plan and to note the progress review that will take place later in the year. Are those recommendations agreed? Agreed. Thank you very much. Thanks, Kieran. In fact, Amy. OK, we'll now move on to the next item. Which is the Revenue and Capital Budget 2025-26 and medium term financial strategy 25-26, 28-29. I will introduce this item before I turn to officers. So it won't be a surprise to anyone around this table that Lambeth Council faces an extremely challenging and perilous financial future. Due to years of structural underfunding from successive Conservative led governments, significant increases in cost due to inflation and the demand crisis that local government is facing in delivering statutory services, particularly temporary accommodation in London. Local government has faced 14 years of austerity from Tory led and Lib Dem governments and a frustrating succession of delays in addressing long term funding stability and reforms. The effects of inflation and the unprecedented increase in demand and cost of providing services is testing local government's ability to deliver those vital local services whilst remaining financially sustainable. Lambeth welcomes the two billion pound of funding confirmed by the newly elected Labour government as an essential first step on the road to rebuilding local governments under pressure frontline services. The settlement indicates government is serious about tackling the damage caused by a generation of austerity. But 14 years of economic vandalism and stripping away of public services across the peace cannot be rebuilt overnight. It will take years to repair the damage that has been done. Had Lambeth's core spending power increased simply in line with inflation since 2010, it would be 136.8 million pounds higher than it is today. And the Institute of fiscal studies in 2023 assessed the largest gap between funding and need in the whole country is in London. And it was then at 17% and that is before the explosion of the housing crisis across London. Councils will need further support to protect the services our residents depend upon and we will continue to make the case clearly to government for Lambeth to receive the funding it needs to support the services for our residents. Despite the much needed funding increase from government, this simply doesn't represent way enough to tackle the demand and cost pressures that the Council is experiencing and leaves us with a significant gap. Lambeth and London are on the front line of a national housing crisis. The number of homeless households supported by Lambeth has increased by 50% in the last two years to 4,700 households. The cost of housing homeless households in overnight accommodation is expected to reach 100 million pounds this year. And the Council will be spending over 30 million more than budgeted for on temporary accommodation, leaving the Council with huge budget pressures that we are taking immediate financial action to control. Due to the unprecedented demand for statutory services such as temporary accommodation along with adults and children's social care, we expect the Council will require 45.9 million pounds of further growth next year to fund these statutory services alone. For 25-26, 46.3 million pounds of saving and income generating proposals will need to, will be needed to balance the budget with a further 49.8 million pound funding gap over the next four years. This will have to be found in addition to the 99 million pounds of cumulative savings already agreed to. We need to be open with residents that this is the worst funding crisis that the Council and local government has ever faced. In line with most Councils and to meet the need to fund essential services, Lambeth will raise Council tax by 2.99% and the adult social care preset by 2%. In addition to the Council tax premium collected on empty homes, which charged 21.7 million pounds last year, ensuring that those who allow their properties to stay empty pay their fair share, the Council will also be introducing a Council tax premium on second homes for 25-26. And although the rise will maintain Lambeth's Council tax rate as one of the lowest in the UK, we know significant challenges remain for some of our most vulnerable residents. Support will be available through the Lambeth Council tax support scheme, which remains one of the most generous in London. We provided 29.7 million pounds of support last year alongside the Council's cost of living support programme. Lambeth is maintaining vital services in the face of significant demand and costs. We've provided millions in direct and targeted support to help residents through the cost of living crisis. We've expanded free school meals provision and continue to tackle the climate crisis with record investment in planting trees and creating safer and cleaner neighbourhoods. But due to the demand crisis facing local authorities where the cost of providing services is outstripping available funding and following years of Tory led austerity, where Secretaries of State told Councils to rely on their reserves and to stop crying wolf. And when the Lambeth Green Party joined forces with the Tory government and argued we should use up our reserves, difficult decisions are now having to be taken to ensure financial stability so that we can keep delivering for our residents. We will continue to do all we can to protect the frontline services people rely on, but this will not be easy. And a relentless focus on delivering a balanced budget will be needed to ensure the future financial sustainability of the Council. We are a fiscally responsible and competent administration driven by our labour values of justice and equity. Financial stability and sustainability are vital to ensure we can keep delivering for our residents, protect the most vulnerable and support our residents and businesses to thrive. So I'm now going to move on, unless Zina wanted to come in at this point, but I'm going to move on to visiting members. So I have had four requests to speak on this item. I've had, I think two representatives who are going to represent Unison together. Are they here? Jocelyn, Andy Tulis? Yes. Andy, you're here. Are you doing it yourself? Yeah. OK, welcome. Come to the table, Andy. And Laura Swaffield. Against library service cuts on behalf of Lambeth Library users. OK, and all the borough friends of Lambeth Library's umbrella group. So I'll take you and then I'll turn to the visiting members. So I think you've addressed us before, Andy. Have you been to a meeting before? Yeah. Yeah. So you have three minutes to speak and I'll give you a 30 seconds. Shout out that you've got 30 seconds left, basically. All right. In your own time. Should be all right. Thanks. Well, I did say before the council meetings, councillors, that this is a bit like old times. We've got a new government. We've got all the public sector cuts coming our way in 2010. As far as we can make out Unison, around 40 million over the next three to four years. But that's as far as we know. Unison does not believe that Lambeth, as they stated they want to be, are being open and transparent with the unions and the community about the information they're presenting. Figures presented to us at the Workforce Roundtable discussion January did not reflect the actual scale of the cuts going forward. We also think other terms like the targeted outcome models obscure where the cuts are going to fall. So one thing we call on the council to do at the very least, which won't cost anything, is to be open, transparent and realistic about the scale of the cuts and the implications. You don't have to shoot the coat anything with us or use politicians speak or talk about the seasonally adjusted figures. We've been here before, so we can take it. We believe the more realistic figure presented to the trade unions at the consultative forum last week showed upwards of actually 7 million cuts, which was upwards of what we got told before of 5 million and possibly more. So yet again, children's services is getting in the neck, so I'm planning to tell this I represent children services for Unison. And cuts to children centres are on the cards again, which were not popular the last time the council tried to cut them. But also very alarmingly, I want to raise Unison's concerns about cuts to the contextual safeguarding team. And this is in a borough where the council's aim is to make Lambeth the most secure and safe place for children to grow up in. So how that's going to be achieved with all these level of cuts in children's services and children centres and things like this safeguarding team is explained in the documents. I've sent the councillors Unison's concerns about the cuts to the contextual safeguarding team. And I hope that it's taken seriously and that alternatives are looked at. But I don't have to remind the council of trying those cuts to a service, an important service like that being made in grooming gangs, inquiries about systematic failures of social services. And of course, the ever present horror of knife crime amongst huge sexualists and this goes on, but it's not like old times. This relatively new government is a Labour government that should not be cutting public services, should be preserving public services and funding services properly. So if Labour councils don't fight for that and make these cuts, no one will thank them. The community won't thank them in the long run. And all it will do is pave the way for a revival of the Tories or worse. Time's up. Thank you, Andy. Sorry, I just want to say, besides all that, the community and the trade unions are going to fight for these cuts. After 14 years of Tory austerity, we have no choice. Sorry, you have three minutes. Please, please don't shoot yourselves in the foot. Buried in the Cabinet papers, all of a sudden, come from nowhere, nobody knows who's tooth-footed in. The devastating cut to the library service. It has been spotted. There's not a good look for the council. People are furious. There's a big crowd outside at the door right now. The MPs have been met and they're on board with it. So this, if you persist with this, this is just the beginning of a large and embarrassing campaign, as it's always happened before. Meanwhile, the library service has been shortlisted to the UK Library of the Year. Other councils are boasting about this and getting themselves cover in the local press. But you can't because it would make you look silly, wouldn't it? Because you're smashing up the library service right at the same time. So actually, the library service is extremely efficient, gives you very good value for money. They help thousands of people in dozens of ways. The actual budget in cash terms is much the same as it was in 1984. Four million odd. Can you imagine what inflation has done to that four million odd? It's about two thirds cut. So really, if you want to make this devastating cut, you've got to ask yourself, choose several of these things, because you'll have to cut them all. Ours and staff, so that people can't actually go to the library and get the help they need, especially the vulnerable sort of people who can't use machines or fend to themselves or go online. The PCs, which are used again by vulnerable people who need a heck of a lot of help, some of them, you don't want them at your call desk, believe me. They can take hours to sort out a single person. Live used to all that. The work with preschoolers, making them ready to read. That's one of Keir Starmer's five principal things that you're supposed to be doing. Live used to do that like nothing else on earth in the borough. The events programme, which brings people to the borough, puts the borough on the map. Makes you look good culture wise. The borough's entire position of art galleries and museums, save maybe one, I think. The entire position of anything cultural, really, and the entire position of literary talks and events and stuff like that. Clubs for older people, study space for kids. You have 30 seconds. Obviously, I could go on and on and on with this. I'll have to stop now, but there's plenty more. So do please think, if you lose all this, what pressure is going to fall on? Children's services, social services, the housing department, schools, youth provision, public health and God knows what else. You're doing yourself a great deal of harm with this. Thank you, Laura. Thank you very much. If you'd like to step back, please. A few members have indicated they wish to speak. Councillor Scott Amesley, I believe you're going to read out what he wants to say, Nicole. Right? Yes. They're visiting members now. You're going to read out, I believe, what Scott was going to say. And Councillor Matthew Bryant. Yeah. So again, this is on my order paper, Nicole. If you wouldn't mind going first, you have three minutes. Thank you. Scott sends his apologies. He's got a family emergency, so I'm reading out what he's going to say. So what he's asking me to say on his behalf is a corporate committee last week, that is the external auditors, said that they would be writing to the council, making statutory recommendations, because they are concerned about the following. Number one, the administration's falling record on achieving budgeted savings year on year, despite previous warnings. Number two, the low reserve situations in both the general fund and the HRA. And number three, the impact on the council's finances of homes for Lambeth. Has Lambeth ever had auditors do this before? And if so, when? And have any other London boroughs or auditors issued statutory recommendations in this way? And if so, do we know which ones and when that happened? The auditor's report is full of red flags, littered with examples showing that despite previous warnings, it remains clear that there is no corporate grip on governance of these issues. Some quotes from their report on Homes for Lambeth. The council has made very little tangible progress against the key recommendation of bringing the activities of Homes for Lambeth back in house. The council have been unable to provide a plan detailing an unintended course of action to achieve this. We have concluded that the weakness of the arrangement still exists during 23 to 24. We note the capitalisation decision from the central government of £40 million of additional borrowing and see it as a cost so far off in the state that was close to London. Perhaps the cabinet can tell us just how much worse it's going to get. What is the worst case scenario we are looking at for this failed experiment? On budget setting, the council has spelled to budget for demand pressures in relation to temporary accommodation despite prior year overspends and knowledge of demand pressures owing to the cost of living crisis. The 23-24 outturn report identified a total overspend of 19 million pounds of this overspend 10.475 million was contributed by temporary accommodation costs. Despite this overspend, the budget for service area only allowed the growth of 3.1 million in 24-25. Will the cabinet members please account for this year on year only? Lambeth Libraries. 30 seconds, Nicole. Yet this cabinet is about the third sign off on slashing our library service by 25%. Greens have identified 43 million of unspent and unallocated developer contribution funds from which it's not been spent since 2015. Surely some of this could be earmarked to save our library services. Our libraries and staff are the pride of our borough and the frontline to access to all sorts of help and assistance for our residents. Time, Nicole. Thank you. It must be a more flexible way to get our farm and gain funds more urgently. Thank you, Nicole. We can invest in this essential service. Thank you, Nicole. Matthew, you have three minutes. Thank you, Chair. And firstly, we really want to flag up concerns that we have about some of the new items that have been added into the savings plan for next year. And obviously the first one is the proposed cut of libraries of £1 million. I suppose a particular concern we have, and we've heard a lot about transparency and scrutiny earlier on in discussions about why that wasn't included in the list of savings proposals in December. That when the MTFS came for, it was discussed at Cabinet then, because effectively by not having it in the December one means it's actually avoided scrutiny by the overview and scrutiny committee, which actually filled into all of the rest of the medium term financial strategy. And secondly, is obviously to get, is there some explanation of actually what this actually means? Because it's loosely talked about efficiency savings and maximising income. So how much of this is actually going to be cutting costs? And how much do you think you can actually achieve by generating income? And if so, where is that income going to come from? As previous speakers said, it's such an incredibly valuable service that to be cutting it at this stage is a really retrograde step for this administration. The second point we'd want to make is obviously coming back to the earlier discussion around the target operating model. There's a large amount included in there for savings in 2526. Is that realistic and how confident are officers that that can actually be achieved? And then my third point is obviously comes to the housing revenue account, which obviously is such a sort of crucial issue now for this council. And there's two bits there. Obviously, we heard last Thursday, I think, that the application of capitalisation for £40 million has been approved. What are the implications of having to repay that? The report to the cabinet this evening suggests implies it most likely will have to be repaid by asset sales, by selling off council houses. How many units, how many council houses are going to need to be sold to pay that £40 million back? And then the second one is I'd be interested to get some comments from the cabinet member, particularly about our expenditure on repairs and maintenance, which is absolutely going through the roof. On the one hand, there's a ward council who gets lots and lots of casework about it. That's probably good news. But then there's a question about what is this actually because of that work not being done in the past or how much of it is actually down to claims, disrepair claims that the councils have to settle. Literally, you're looking at a budget this year of £63 million for repairs. This year spending £75 million and budgeting £87 million next year. So there's a big numbers and that's driving the problems in the HRA. What is actually being done to get a grip on repairs and maintenance? Thank you. Thanks, thank you. OK, thank you both. If I could ask you to step back and then I'm going to go to Oxford. Thank you very much in cabinet. I just, before I go to, I might go to you first, Zena, but also there was some housing, housing question there for Ruth. Who's going to speak to Target? I don't know. And there's something there, Phoenicia, I wrote down your name. Yeah. I just want to talk about the phrase not being open and transparent being used in the word buried. If it's buried, I mean, it's there, it's printed, it's not buried. There are over 400 pages of financial information there that we are being really open and transparent about. And hence why everyone's able to attend this meeting and address us. It's not a situation we want to be in after 14 years of austerity. When you strip away funding, when you have a cumulative impact of everyone else around you having their funding stripped away. And we are on the front line because when the police don't have money, people come to us. When the health service turns people away, people come to us and we face a housing crisis. It's a national crisis, but particularly a London crisis and particularly in a London crisis. So I would like to say that I'm really proud about how transparent and open we're being as a council. And I thank officers for that. And I also thank my colleagues for that because we're really clear this. You know, we have to find solutions together to this and we have to collaborate and we have to ensure that our resources are targeted on those who need us most. And to ensure that we continue to be financially sustainable and so that we can continue to deliver our services. So I'm going to turn to Zena first. In general terms, we confirmed that the auditors presented their audit reports to Corporate Committee last Thursday. And that was the outcome of their audit on the 2324 accounts. And they have two audit reports, one is on the actual account and one is on their value for money judgment. They did confirm that they were highlighting areas of concern which will say we'll accept the council to respond to. And that will go through the normal due process of governance to be considered by thought council. I'm so sorry, we can't we can't hear down here. Apologies. Yeah, but you are speaking to cabinet. Yeah, but yeah, if you can try and speak up. Of course. So in terms of the audit report, we are really going to identify those things we're already doing because that audit relates to 2324. Clearly we've we've had another year. The backlog in the external audit of all local authorities. This is not unique to Lambeth. It is something that all local authorities are experiencing. So we will have that response. They will come back and do their audit 2425. We're planning to have that audit normal timetable and that will cover off all of the recommendations that the auditors give us. OK, great. Thank you. Ruth, did you want to come in on the repair service and disrepair that Matthew made? Yep. So we have a significant contract for repairs. Disrepair we know is part of the ongoing issue that we faced. As borough and that's partly because of the companies we've got that have been chasing some of our tenants to encourage them to put as well disrepair claims. So we are planning for next year, particularly to try and get ahead of that, to ensure that we continue to improve our repairs performance, which has been improving. There is also new legislation coming in next year or next financially, I should say around that mold. So all of those things will have an impact. So we will continue to work to improve that and we're monitoring performance very, very tightly. It's also monitored through the housing improvement board. So it gets reported regularly and those reports also regularly come through scrutiny and other places. So they are available so that we can track that performance over time. OK. And just on the issue of, I suppose, just to say on the capitalisation, which will help as well to do the work that we need to do in the next financial year. The interest that we will have to pay potential on capitalisation is factored into our budgets for next year. It's factored in. Thank you. Thank you very much. Benicia, did you want to come in? Yeah. Library's chair. So I'll echo what everyone has said in terms of library service being an absolutely fantastic service that I'm phenomenally with all the staff that work in libraries. Throughout this financial year, we have run a library service with over 16 vacancies. That has allowed us to deliver over half a million pounds worth of savings that is sitting in our turn at this point. Our proposal going forward is that we make some of those vacancies part of formal budget savings. So they stay in perpetuity as savings. This is not getting rid of individuals working in libraries or reduce the library service. It is operating the way we've operated this year because we've demonstrated that we can run the service as efficiently as we've always done. And we tend to do that going forward. What we've also done this year is to reduce the amount we have in our book fund. This is the second year we've done that. And on the back of that, we employed strategies that allowed us to buy books that are needed in each demographic area. So we made the purchasing decisions, localised to the library to ensure those residents got the books they needed because we had less to spend. On the back of that, we've been shortlisted, as Laura's mentioned, for the British Library Book Awards for the innovative use of that reduced funding. Our proposal that's in the MTFS is about how we carry that onwards. So there's nothing in our MTFS around cutting library service or any sort of reduction. But the point Laura raised is a vital one. We do run a lot of events in our libraries. We were given £1.6 million or I think it's between £1.4 and £1.6 million capital investment to improve our venue space, which we have undertaken the capital work with financial year to be able to improve and increase the type of events we do run in libraries. Our commercial strategy is that we do take commission. So if someone can say, if I'm selling paintings, we do take commission, we've revamped that strategy. That's part of the fees and charges that sit in the proposals now. It is that combination that gets us to £1 million while keeping the library service going. And I'm proud that we've been able to do that, really proud. Thank you very much, Venetia. That's incredibly helpful. Andrew, I forgot there was a question that was raised about safeguard, contextual safeguarding. I wonder whether you could address that. I can do chair. Thank you. So Lambeth had a two year pilot on the contextualised safeguarding team. That's the team that protects young people from exploitation. So criminal exploitation and sexual exploitation. The team have done tremendously well. And as Venetia with Libes, I'm very proud what contextualised safeguarding team does. It was always the plan after a two year period to review the work of that team. To look to see if we had the best possible model. What we did early, so last year we moved the team from being part of our commissioning service. And we moved it into our front door. Again, that real drive and that commitment to early intervention and prevention. Trying to get further ahead of the curve so that we're meeting need early. So these proposals in terms of the MTFS happen to coincide with it. They're not necessarily driven by it. We looked at a number of other local authorities. How they are currently running their contextualised safeguarding services. Authorities like Hackney who see some real improvements around their work in terms of gangs. We went outside of London as well to try and get that knowledge and learning. Ultimately, while we accept we acknowledge the importance of intelligence. What our young people are telling us, what our social workers are telling us. It's actually that ability to do more direct work. To actually work alongside young people. The way the team was originally set up was much more about not directly holding young people. Doing some limited intervention alongside the social workers. But the social workers took the main responsibility. So we want to change the way we do that. Have a lot more direct work with our young people. Because it's that direct work that the evidence base shows actually protects young people. So I think the target operating model, the question was asked, are we confident that we can deliver that? And is that realistic? I think it is very realistic and we're extremely confident, not just management board, but also our new incoming chief exec. Because he comes in on the 24th of March and he will be leading the management board delivering this model. I think the target operating model and all of the savings that are before us tonight have all been through a very robust policies impact assessment. Huge amount of work to push in place by officers to assure political leads that these savings have been worked up very carefully to minimize impact. But clearly there will be impact. But when you take the scale of these savings out of any budget, there will be an impact. The impact is very much being managed and also making sure that those who are the most vulnerable in our society living in Lambert continue to be supported and protected. But also as in the other item around peer review and what Venetia has just said around libraries, even with these pressures, we're continuing to deliver innovative services that are responding to the needs of our local residents. OK, thank you very much for that. I'm just checking that no officers wanted to come in for a time to Cabinet colleague. Next. OK. Yeah. There were just some very minor cosmetic amendments to some existing savings in Appendix Balls. Just need to be reflected if that's the case. Yeah. Do they need to be read out if they're minor? No. Who said no? Sorry. OK. Yeah. OK. I believe one was the name spelt incorrectly, for example. Yeah. So just to reassure everyone that they're not to do with any figures. Quite importantly. OK. Thank you. That's noted in the minutes. OK. So I'm now going to turn to Cabinet colleagues and see if anyone wishes to speak on this item. Councillor Anyanmio and Councillor Adilipour. Thank you, Chair. Issues have been raised in relation to the libraries. Can I categorically assure individuals who are here, particularly Laura, who I know very well. None of our libraries are being closed. We are also seeing our home libraries and the prison library will also continue. What we are looking, Laura, as I was saying, you know me quite well. I remember when I became a councillor here, we used to be told that we waste a lot of money. This is efficiency. This is how we deliver service. This is how we use our book fund that is actually, on average, larger than any book fund in the country. In essence, that is why we are nominated or listed in the finalist as book award. We also know that we listen to energy efficiency in relation to how we manage our rotors in relation to how we deliver all services that is important without wastage. So Venetia rightly pointed out, we had vacancies. Those vacancies have not affected the way the library has been delivered. So there's no need me sitting here and saying we will use council's budget in a way we don't need it. This is also a result, as you know and people know, the financial stress that we have been on since 14 years in relation to all the courts and we still maintain our library services. So I do not want anybody going outside and saying the library is in danger. The library is libraries are not in danger because what we want to do is be absolutely certain we maintain the quality of service, improved service without wastage. And we absolutely categorically say that library services and the people who run it are absolutely well appreciated. But what I couldn't do with my colleagues is to say when there is a lot of stress and pressure financially for us to not manage it efficiently. This is what it is all about. Chair, let me turn around in relation to colleagues from the opposition party. I sat here again for many years when they said to us, use the results. Come on, use the results. Now we have been told there's not enough results. From the hypothetical. This is something that you, with the coalition, contributed in many years. So we need to be absolutely certain whether we are within an administration or opposition, realistic. Rather than really having opportunities, that is not just want to get political opportunity. We need to manage the service. We need to manage the results. We also need to manage the finance. And this is what this is all about, Chair. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Councillor. That's very helpful. Councillor Danny Adilapour. Thank you, Chair. I just want to talk briefly about the housing revenue account, which is mentioned in the paper, because as you will know, it's a very challenging state at the minute due to lots of decisions made by the previous government, particularly around rent caps and rent reductions, which means that over the next 30 years, we've got a shortfall of £1 billion in our HRA compared to where it should be. We also face the challenge over recent years of an increasing number of legal claims being brought against us, alongside new regulatory requirements around fire safety and building regulations, without any additional funding from the government to meet those new requirements. All of those costs together between 2018 and 2028, about an extra £76 million for the council. So the numbers we're talking about here are severe. Lambeth is also seriously affected because we're the second largest social landlord in London. We have a large amount of ageing stock, a large number of high rise blocks, which require significant amounts of maintenance and repair. We've sort of been in discussions with government and we found that at the end of the last week, we were getting permission for this financial support to take the form of a £40 million loan from the public workforce to help us to stabilise the HRA for the next year, or we continue to make difficult decisions to ensure its long-term stability. To be clear though, this isn't only a lambeth problem. As we saw in the government announcement, a number of councils have asked for support this year, and there will be further councils in the years ahead, because in every urban area and every part of London, Highs Revenue Council are struggling because of the decision that was made back in 2012, to say they should be self-financing, but then taking away every mechanism that councils had to make them self-financing. So the whole model is broken. We're working under severe constraints, but we are now confident with this support in the form of a loan. We can take the steps needed through difficult decisions to make sure we do stabilise our HRA for the benefit of our residents. So that is welcome news, and we'll make sure we have a stable balanced HRA this year, but difficult times lie ahead and a new system is needed to make sure we have a fully functioning HRA model for the whole country in the future. Yeah, absolutely councillor. Thank you for that. And it's quite right that there's multiple councils across the country that are having to seek help because so many years of structural underfunding and increasing demand and increasing complexity of demand and costs spiring up control for all sorts of reasons, including Liz Truss's budget, means that it's just, as I said at the introduction, demand and need is outstripping the money that we have to fund it. And so this is the most dire situation that we faced as a local authority sector across the country, and particularly in London. Are there any other colleagues who wanted to come in at all? Councillor Ben Kind and Councillor Fred Cowell. Ben. I was just going to highlight that the budget does include increases in spending on some areas of the children's services budget. For instance, there's £2 million extra in here for scent transport and to address some problems that have been there over the last decade or so with the chronic failures of the last government to ever get a grip on the profiteering that takes place at scent transport and how challenging it is for us as a council to need to balance the needs of vulnerable communities, where what we're doing is looking at fixed budget and we're able to sit there and say we need to be able to support a lot of different communities at the same time. And I think that this is presenting the right balance in terms of being able to put that extra money in this extra money for social care in general within the budget as well as for scent transport. But then, like Councillor Anyamu, I do hope that when we get to the full council meeting on the budget, that our opposition colleagues do revisit some of their arguments because I know Councillor Ainslie isn't in the room, but Councillor Griffith read out his statement. And I think it's a shame that, again, after 11 years of him being a councillor, he's not quite understood how SIL and Section 106 works because we can't just take that money and use it to fund the revenue end of libraries. So I do hope that when we get to the full council meeting, there's a better solution. What should come instead? Because I don't want us to be considering not increasing SEND transport money, £2 million that's there, because the proposal is that it should go on something else that, for instance, the Green Party is proposing. So I would urge Councillor Griffith to take that back and revisit that argument because I know it's not what you meant, but it's what Councillor Ainslie has suggested for libraries. And I think it would be a shame if we had to sit there and, you know, Venetia made a very compelling outline there about what the savings are. Councillor Anyamu echoed it for libraries. This is vacant posts that have been vacant. And that's why the service is able to go forward for this award is because the service is so good, even with these vacant posts. So I think that's it's really important to highlight those aspects of the difficult choice that we face in supporting some vulnerable members of our community, like those who need SEND transport. Yeah. And the difference between being a party protest or a party of serious government. Yeah, I agree. Councillor Fred, thank you, Councillor. Councillor Fred Cowell. Thank you, Councillor Holland. Following on from what Councillor Kind said, I also want to highlight here the Council Tax Support Scheme, which we have had to make changes for, but still is ranks along one of the more generous Council Tax Support Scheme, and also to functions very closely within the wider work Council and Ali Brown and myself have done on the cost of living crisis and more generally. And these powers and these schemes that we have are still working in tandem with one other to make sure that when we are passing this budget, we are having highly regarded to those who are quite frankly the sharpest end financial decisions in society, have suffered the most over the last decade and a half. And we also too in restructuring the scheme have put in place safeguards to ensure those, the people who are disabled, people who are carers, are exempt from any forms of reduction. So even though we are keeping the exemption, keeping the exemption fairly generous still, even when we've had to make some decisions, we've always had an eye in doing that. That's part of the constant process, not just through formal EIO process, but from what earlier agreed to be that we've applied using the policies throughout the budget process has enabled us to do. And in light of that, you know, we've heard some speaking tonight about warning about particular services, but we have had that at the forefront of what needs to protect leaders. Yeah, thank you, Fred. And I think it's really important to say that we acknowledge and are really grateful for the work of the Equalities Impact Assessment Panel and that your ongoing work, as Fiona says, that these proposals have been through robust processes, not just politically between offices and political leads, but also through the Equalities Impact Assessment Process. So we're really grateful for that work and the feedback that we constantly get for that to look at the proposals on an ongoing basis. So thank you. Any other comments or observations, colleagues or questions? Nope. Nope. Okay. All right, then. Well, I will thank you, everybody, for your hard work on this. It's really challenging and I'm really grateful how, as an organisation officer and member alike, that everyone's stepping up to the plate and not shying away from the hard work that needs to be done. So I'm really, really grateful for that because it would be easy to duck and hide away from it. But therein lies the road to rack and ruin. So I'm really grateful for all the hard work. So the recommendations that we're looking at are on page 75 of your agenda. And I need to read out a bit of a long one, so you're going to have to bear with me here. So we've got to add an additional recommendation to what's already on page 75. The budget will need to be approved by full council and there are 21 recommendations this evening on page 75 of the agenda. And what we're being asked tonight is does cabinet agree to recommend to council to note or adopt the recommendations listed on page 75? Right. OK, thank you very much. OK. We'll now move on to the next item and the next item here. Oh no, it's 321 for the minute. It's 1-3 to 21 for the minutes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. OK, we'll now move on to the next item. And the next item is, oh no, it's 321 for the minute. If you want to. It's 1-3 to 21 for the minutes. minutes thank you um the next item is quarterly finance report 43 24 to 25 um i'm going to go straight over to you zina to see if there's any introduction you have for this report thank you chair just very briefly uh this is the financial position just try and remember that some people say this is the financial position according to you as at the end of december position this report similar to the previous report covers the general fund the hra for dedicated fees well it also sets out acquisition on reserves um the general fund overview um all details are available in appendix a and the headline is that there has been a small increase in the reported overspend since quarter two which was a report that was considered at the last cabinet okay thank you very much so i've had one one visiting member has indicated they wish to speak and that's councillor matthew bryant matthew would you like to come up to the table thank you you have three minutes okay i i won't need that long because um i think the report really speaks to itself but i suppose the overall is obviously it's slightly disappointing that the forecast overspend has decreased now to quarter two so obviously quarter two actually comes out of quarter one quarter two reduced which showed the benefit which had the positive effect of some of the measures that the council have implemented to curtail costs um obviously it's now gone in the wrong direction this four degree uh so just be interested if um xena or other officers could perhaps give some explanation about whether the um measures to concentrate expenditure have not been had been hope and in light of that are we still confident of that the out turn will be um in line with the forecast as our quarter three um particularly noticing that as you look at some individual departmental spend figures uh you're looking at a run rate being lower in the last quarter than in the first nine months of the year um and how confident are you that that is actually realistic thank you thank you matthew do you want to step back break or if i put that get you want to go to cena um so um the um position for quarter three is um based on the latest forecast with finance staff working very closely with service colleagues particularly in the demand-led areas um so notwithstanding there are always um elements within areas like children services adults and ta that can lead to changes in those forecasts the way in which that forecast is done it is that it is based on that activity and it is based on um the information that is known at that time we do have more broadly enhanced spending controls across the council which have been in place for some months and they are uh proving to be effective as a way of more broadly addressing some of those demand-led pressures um whilst i can't um give you a hundred percent guarantee in terms of the forecast being where it currently is now by the time we get to the end of um the end of the financial year i think given the close scrutiny and monitoring that happens internally across both finance and the services it is as close to what we can anticipate at this point um and we are looking in some of those areas on an almost weekly basis where there is demand activity that we can um that we can control okay thank you very much for that uh thank you matthew for addressing us on that item um i'm now going to unless there's anything else you wanted to add i'm going to turn to cabinet colleagues um does anyone wish to speak on this item that's a bank kind i was just going to highlight because council of brian referenced the change and xenie you were just specifically talking about volatility within potentially within children's services and council brian could see on page 509 of the pack 2.12 of this section where it highlights how in q3 you have the start of the new school year which on its own brings in additional pressures on sen transport um and that there is a forecast overspend an increase here of half a million pounds and that's coming in part from the addition of new routes so i guess the question is do we not provide those routes those that sen transport for those young people um or do we provide it then try and manage that increase in demand but it is only going to come in q3 when the new school year starts and once we know that that demand is there we can't begin paying that in quarter one of the financial year because we wouldn't be incurring it at that point um so that is going to be something that happens year on year when there are those kind of pressures increased demand for sen transport is absolutely the right thing we should be paying uh for those young people to be able to get to school appropriately and that's why as i said in the last item we're increasing the money next year um in order to be able to accommodate that safe travel to school so i'd hope that it wasn't um something that we didn't we didn't acknowledge councillor brian in this it's really important that we do highlight that some of the extra spend is essential to support young people okay so that's an observation thank you no well made thank you any other councillor uh cabinet member want to speak on this item no okay well i shall leave to the recommendation that's on page four nine five of the agenda and that is to note the financial position of the council at the end of quarter three is that recommendation agreed agreed okay thank you colleagues we're now going to move on i think it's the final item and this is age friendly lambo um we have andrew as and meg yeah i'm just checking we've got the officers here and megan co if you'd like to come to oh two of you great don't come to the table you're very welcome so this being introduced by yourself tim yeah and i've also had four holes as indicators he wishes to speak but am i going to bring him as a visiting member of the public after you yes yes you're going to introduce that okay so could you bear with me yeah yeah of course yeah okay so sorry okay right sorry just clarifying something on the process yeah go ahead councillor um yeah i suppose you just want to recognize the huge amount of work that's gone into this um i think particularly um but uh i think also across the council and sort of part of the nation in three specific areas firstly um the evidence that has been collected and drawn on to develop this um the very high level of community engagement which um i think really does go above and beyond community engagement we do around the council um and as i mentioned across partnership working and this truly has been a one lambeth approach to develop this strategy um on the evidence just pointed the 2024 annual public health reports um which focused on aging well and made some specific recommendations which really supports uh this strategy um and the older people profile which i really recommend um everyone takes a look at online and um there's a huge wealth of information demographic cultural and um uh all kinds of things that is just really fascinating to and help and all of this helped us to really um drill down i think better understand i think the levels of inequality and diversity that we have in the older population and to make sure that our um approach is as inclusive as possible and again sort of reflects the golden thread of the barris strategy um i mentioned community engagement um we've had over 25 people have attended our age-friendly forums the most most recent of which was last tuesday uh over 60 people attended um and the feedback uh i would suggest is overwhelmingly positive from uh people feeling listened to and the opportunity to to feed in to engage with those events um we had over 300 consultation responses 132 of those were online and 182 were via outreach recognizing that some of the people who may want to feed into this strategy um are perhaps less digitally enabled or perhaps less able to engage through some of our traditional consultation channels um and also in terms of governance this has gone through um scrutiny health and well-being board lambeth together staying healthy people um an eia panel um and yeah finally on partnership working um i said i think this is a really exemplary approach of example of a one lambeth approach with colleagues from multiple teams and departments across the council or feeding in working together to suggest ideas what might be practical and what we can actually deliver um i should highlight unfortunately because the financial situation there is no new funding or no significant funding attached to this but what the work that's outlined in this action plan in the documents aligns with existing work streams within the council um and what this is really doing i think is a first step to embed age friendly as a kind of thought process within the council um and there's a lot more that i think we can do and we want to do um a lot that we can continue and build on with our external partners um but yeah this is a huge first step um there's more we want to do more community tell us that they want um and more that we hope to deliver in future to ensure that lambeth will become the best place to grow old um and just from a governance perspective uh i know there was a couple of uh a few difficulties with the ia and so i think the outcome of the ia um and their thoughts uh went in the papers that came to this meeting so i've just got a very short paragraph i'm going to read out just to make sure that that is covered off so uh the ipad's comments included asking officers about engagement with faith groups and how the plan reached underserved or isolated older residents in response to the panel's questions obviously set out the engagement approach undertaken to inform the plan's development this included outreach work and engaging with voluntary community and faithful organizations so that effort will continue to be made to engage specific groups such as older residents living alone and residents from black asian multi-ethnic groups to further shape the action plan during its delivery office is also detailed how the plan's framework was informed by the combination of residents views local intelligence data as well as examples of big practice and it should be noticed that members of the ia panel um noted this framework could serve a strong model for borough-wide equalities planning great thank you very much councillor um unless any officer wants to comment at this point i was going to turn to the um visitors visiting members of the public to speak okay thank you so we have two um people online who wish to speak we have paul cole ceo of age uk lambeth and beverly development see health and well-being projects lead at black prince trust hello can you hear us i can thank you okay so paul you're first on my order paper so can i take you first and then you've got three minutes to address and thank you very much for attending thank you um so dear councillors um i'm speaking in support of the friend age from the lambeth plan on behalf of age uk lambeth firstly i would like to thank the age-friendly team for the public acknowledgement of the work my former colleague kathy play blake delivered in supporting the development of an age-friendly lambeth anyone who met her would know of her commitment to the cause determination and tenacity in helping lambeth become an age-friendly borough age uk lambeth is working on our new five-year strategy our draft vision is for lambeth to be a place where people are connected with the opportunity resources and knowledge to age healthily the age-friendly lambeth plan focuses focuses on six key themes which i believe align with our vision for lambeth delivering these will enable our older residents to look forward to a fulfilling later life where they remain healthy for longer are not isolated and are able to access the civic resources available to them helping older residents to age well challenges the stigma of older people being a burden on society and recognizes them for the assets they are so that's all i'd like to say thank you very much paul um and now i'm gonna turn to beverly beverly um you have three minutes to address cabinet and thank you for being here thanks for having me um i work at black prince trust which is a sports and well-being hub and we aim to help people move stay active increase their mobility eat well have fun and socialize this is even more important as they age um we're so grateful for our partnership working with public health gp surgeries patient participation groups social prescribers and guys in st thomas's hospital with their guidance we design all our programs for the best outcomes for our participants i'd just like to share one success story with you one of our 85 year old ladies with osteoporosis had an awful accident before christmas but the outcome made us realize we're hitting the sweet spot noreen fell and fractured her pelvis when um but when she came to she remembered what she'd learned in her community living room classes she got herself up she called for help and she even remembered to open the front door and get out of get out of the way off to st thomas's hospital now we were worried the average staying hospital at her age for this would be around 15 nights the doctors were so impressed with her mobility and upper body strength they decided she was better at home without surgery two nights that's all she spent in hospital he showed the doctors how she could use her resistance patterns from class to hook around one leg at a time and lift her legs transferring herself from the chair to the bed dr george exclaimed where did you learn that and she she replied in our lockdown classes at black prince trust they explained that this would be a long recovery a young person could maybe hope to recover in eight to ten weeks but at her age it would be months eight weeks from that catastrophic fall noreen headed out with one walking stick got on the tube and a bus and made her way to bpt and came to see us saying that she had been so scared that she'd never make it back to the gym eight weeks from the day she fell one hospital doctor said that her activity and fitness levels saved her life her gp said he was so proud of her and her core of strength and mobility was the game changer here we have other incredible similar stories to tell but time is short and my point is if we work together maybe we can make two nights instead of 15 in hospital the norm thank you to the public health team for enabling so much of our work and we really look forward to continuing to engage with physio waitlist replacement joint surgery patients weight management patients the possibilities are endless and our community can live active healthy happy lives and they can age well and remain independent we believe together we can take a little strain off the stretched nhs and social care resources by empowering people in their aging journey what's next a shameless pitch from me um we launch our launch our online walk leader training in the next fortnight and our mission is to get as many lamb of people as possible walking so send them our way but thank you for listening thank you very much beverly and noreen sounds like an absolute legend um so we wish her well um so thank you very much thank you um so i have three no yeah two members who've indicated they wish to speak uh councillor verity mcgiven let's come to the table and councillor nicole griffiths can you pull up a chair for nicole please thank you thanks verity okay very welcome to cabinet tonight so um verity you're first on my order paper so you have three minutes to address cabinet and i'll let you know when you've got 30 seconds to go thanks verity chair so as some of you will know when i'm not a councillor i work on older people's rights in other parts of the world so it's been a real joy to see this program come to fruition in lambeth and we can talk about national policies and global frameworks that how we live and therefore how we age is intensely local from the pavements that we walk down the steps up to local shops and opportunities to build connections in the community and aging well is about just maximizing everyone's ability to continue to do the things that matter to us as we get older and there's four things that i want to welcome in this report and congratulate the team that's been working on it for the first is really rooting the action plan in a clear understanding of who our older residents are through the data and analysis that tim's been talking about it keeps us really rooted in the reality of our borough and avoids also some common stereotypes and pitfalls when it comes to aging um a person turning 75 today will have turned 20 in 1975 number one that day was come up and see me make me smile by steve harley and cockney rebel so these are people that were teenagers in the 1960s and it's quite different from the image that we sometimes hold on to of white haired ladies singing singing along some verily and things like that um and what people want and expect in older age reflects who they've been their whole lives and in lambeth is the report and the um the action plan makes clear there's a really high level of diversity in the older population which reflects more broadly who we are as the borough and we've seen that in the data we've seen it in the really excellent forums that have been held which brings me to my second point which is that the action plan brings forward an approach to aging that recognizes this as a social justice issue in our borough and that's really core to our labor values older age is not a time of universal wealth and privilege as some would have us believe living a long life does give you a better shot accumulating wealth and privilege if that's the trajectory that you're on if you start from a place of disadvantage then you can accumulate that too and we see that manifesting in our borough we know that from the data some of our communities are more likely to spend a larger part of their later life in poor health that's because of disadvantage over a lifetime it's due to poverty poor housing those sorts of things it's a social justice issue that we should all be concerned about and equity is really at the heart of the action plan and it also brings an understanding that we age across a whole lifetime and not just when we're older the many of the poor health outcomes that older people experience they're not inevitable they're a consequence of poor social economic and environmental factors as well as limited access to preventative health care we've talked about that a bit just now and while we're taking action for older people now we need to also be committed to preventative action across all the determinants of health and taking opportunities across all stages of life and i think the action plan is also striking the right balance on that and then finally the action plan puts forward a whole system approach that's important because of the breadth of issues that need to be addressed and but also according to the financial climate we're in after 14 years of austerity we need to join up approach to be effective there are common benefits to inclusive design and practices clear pavements aren't only good for older people and but also families children people with disabilities there's a risk inherent to a joined up approach and tim's mentioned that you know we don't have uh an additional budget allocation for this so i really want to highlight to members of the cabinet the need for really clear accountability to this action plan across all parts of the council that's going to be really critical to delivering and to seeing clear benefits for older people in our borough and holding on to this as an issue of social justice and equity is really important thank you thank you very much and sorry i should have um outlined that the the work that you've been doing as policy lead in this area so thank you very much for leading on this um councillor nicole griffiths you have three minutes you so i i really welcome the council's work in this area so thank you very much so being one of the 28 i am personally grateful that my generation is not being completely overlooked um you're not singing any beer and ligand songs i think um so it's um it's been really refreshing actually to read um a report that has gathered data and evidence which highlights intersectional experience individuals and acknowledges that each person will have their own view on both age and aging and what that means for us in our lives and it's reassuring to read data that paints a clearer picture of what life is like as we age and that challenges stereotypes about the aging process you know many preconceived science preconceived ideas such as the odd people own their own homes and financially stable or as you said a burden on society and it's just not the case for many and i just want to make a few observations that um so there's a real need for access to pay part-time work not just volunteering i know that is acknowledged the report um and the massive impact of societal inequalities on the aging process which you mentioned social justice um the need to prepare younger generations of older age in a fast changing world so there's no longer any guarantees of course for a lifetime job or career um with a steady income there's no chance of buying a home and retiring in your 60s so all of this is relevant and needs to be addressed so from a younger age it's not just once you're over 50. um entering older age in good physical shape and with high levels of well-being are recognized as essential and the role of the council and third sector in all of that is well recognized older people are struggling financially with many unable to meet their food energy housing accounts costs a holistic approach needs to be taken across all sectors and there is a danger of increased levels of loneliness and isolation with cuts and services essential to the well-being of older people we know that growing inequalities poverty and loneliness all have an impact on life expectancy 30 of adults over 60 are suffering income deprivation in numbers therefore the resources that are are available really needs to be directed to the areas that have already been mentioned but the financial support with energy costs which help maintain homes at comfortable temperature all year round and the ability to prepare meals access to nutritional meals every day um truly affordable and accessible housing so supported and sheltered housing units and council housing units on ground floor level um something that was asked for um and of course count continue council tax support 30 seconds nicole access to community resources such as libraries and other third sector organizations have been essential for learning socializing information gathering in the past couple of years even for providing warm spaces so i'm really reassured and i really hope this is the case that there'll be no further cuts to library services and of course the additional support for older people to claim benefits that are available and pension credits so that work has been um i know well covered by the council i hope it continues um and i just wanted to ask the money as well will the action against ageism campaign still go ahead despite funding restrictions and about the funding streams to age uk lambeth and 150 000 allocated for council work all those retirees and safe thank you thank you thank you thank you both really appreciate you attending and addressing us this evening um there were a couple of questions at the end then um got that andrew and andrew and bimpy bimpy did you there were a couple of questions at the end there uh certainly um certainly the 150k within the council's budgets that's secured uh and already invested into the the program management of the project in terms of the um the external funding i don't know whether bimpy were aware of that well currently what we are um seeking to do is to is to work with um partners i think this is a very much a first start yeah in terms of the action plan and we are engaging with a range of different organizations and i think the the hope and the ambition is that we don't just um focus on what the council can do but this is actually the start of galvanizing action across the whole of the borough so working with our local employers um businesses voluntary sectors we've talked about but also residents i think one of the things that we really want to highlight is the resourcefulness of the older people we have and and how we can make sure that we are harnessing that and they're very much part of and central to to this work so um it's the start very much in terms of also resources so it's not just financial resources but it's actually um all all the resources we have across um the borough that we want to really look at how we can capitalize on that that's great thank you very much bimpy but anything else to add there from any officers no i think it's there's a real correlation between the case that febrally talked about and the previous item around our quarter three financial monitoring you will know that the increase from quarter two to quarter three some of it was around all the people so this is a really good example of working with older people really early on so that we can put in place support to keep them healthy and active for as long as possible make sure they've got decent housing make sure that we are supporting them to prevent them from coming into services earlier than they need to and i think that's that's a really critical part of this as well absolutely and as bimpy said about working with well harnessing the power of our people in our partnerships as we say at the top of our borough plan but actually you've just you've just articulated that in practice around this partnership genuinely doing that and um as the speakers did earlier so yep absolutely thank you okay i'm gonna turn to cabinet members because i can't see anyone else indicating colleagues does anyone wish to speak on this item councillor tonight yeah thank you very much uh for the report um haven't um read it and i pointed out the areas that is absolutely important in relation to the um areas that i'm responsible for within the cabinet in relation to active lambat what we're doing in relation to uh you know um over 60s you know what also we're looking at in relation to the creation of spaces of activities within our usual services that are specifically going to be um area of interest for uh older people which are part of it now so in essence um also look at what beverly uh talked about in the partnership we have sports partnership is again in that including working with our nhs looking at areas that we will continue working in order to give uh those um opportunities for older people to deal with issues of our isolation um sports and other activities not only going to the gym but there is a variation of those and also i was talking to colleagues uh across the country this afternoon actually early this morning looking at create health creative so basically using our arts and culture in relation to dealing with issues to do with uh aging annual where nobel's team have that as core principle in relation to looking at that it's key to talk about our partners which is the volunteer community sector including our art and cultural institutions because again they have important role to play and working with us to deliver the whole um interest that you should within the report so again i welcome the report share thank you very much as an artist council fred cowell yeah this is just going to be very quick i really want to thank all the artists supporting this because i know you both myself and uh in the at the eip a panel on a couple of occasions and you do a premiums as well and and part of that uh due to a mistake in the papers but also too as well i think that we made we had such a rich discussion as we did it there it was so useful to see that all um coming through acknowledging the different intersectional aspects of aging and aging and so i think basically thank you fred and councillor ben kind just wondering about opportunities in the year ahead as you go through evaluation to work closely with colleagues across the council on the child friendly land birth we've spoken before the health and well-being board when we discussed this about seeing how the two sides could come together because sometimes we've seen some of the best support for young people has actually come from all older members of the community going into schools in other settings and actually sometimes the best kind of support that older members of the community get is when they're exposed to younger members of the community who are able to break down some of the barriers and stereotypes that are there so i'm wondering how we can make two programs dovetail and perhaps when it comes to some of the stuff that we do uh in child friendly lambeth that was about increasing participation there's some ways that older members of the community can get more involved but likewise some of the things that you've got in the action plan here could be beneficial to younger members of the community as well for instance around public realm design where we've already incorporated into our local plan uh child friendly policies which will be positive for older members of the community as well so perhaps we should uh align some of the work i'm wondering what opportunities there will be as we as we review it through implementation i want to come back on that yes i'm happy to stop but i'll pass on to megan because i know she's had lots of conversations with um child friendly colleagues and and i think you're not absolutely right in terms of how we can be working together one of the things that actually highlighted to me was when we started this work members of the youth council were really keen to help shape the the age-friendly work so and and there's been lots of conversation about intergenerational work so absolutely we'd be very keen to do that and i know megan's been having conversations with the child friendly team yes no thank you for your question councillor kind um so yes jess and i have been meeting with child friendly lambeth i think one of the a bit actually like councillor mcgibbon a reference earlier i think planning is a and the built environment is a great area to do that um around the the named officer for example for age friendly is actually how can some of those principles about an age friendly environment many of those will resonate with a child friendly environment and how can we join up evidence in that and in that regard as well to help support that going forward i don't know whether there's anything yeah no and obviously we have a specific action in the plan around kind of developing a um some further activities into general intergenerational activities with child friendly lambeth so um very much we've got those kind of ongoing links there to continue the conversation and think about what we can build on over the next years great thank you very much and councillor hashi mohammed thank you very much uh just to follow on from what what council said we've had the youth council engaging with the domino club as well and they've invited them to the youth summit um this year so again for me i'm really excited about not just the work we do with child friendly lamp before or age friendly number but also the work that we're doing together for me as well um as one of the co-founders of the bricks and soup kitchen where we have the domino club based downstairs we have seen as as some of the members get older they become more and more isolated they don't feel safe they don't feel confident especially in their their kind of deplete abilities so this reading this report is really refreshing especially since i've got a mum who doesn't believe she's she'd get any older but i've seen her more and more in the house which is a bit challenging so again as i said really glad to see this and thank you very much for the work that you guys have done thank you hashi and any one else want to come in on this item can't say to know to see any anyway yeah i'm absolutely delighted to hear about the intergeneration events where we pray we used to bring the young and the old together and i think we used maybe two or three times in a year so hopefully there is a plan to do that and also another thing we used to do is we used to have adult um than daddy or grandpa so particularly um some of like when myself and my wife have had it i was we we didn't have any uh grandparents so we needed somebody hope you know who could just um work with us either they are isolated we become the adopted family and we i think we used to do that in the past so i wonder whether that could come back is within the intergenerational connection yeah do you want to come back yeah i think it's a really helpful suggestion and it was very much something that came out of um uh the engagements that was you know really strongly so um i think yeah really open to kind of all the ideas and um and obviously something we want to continue working with the forum and our residents on to help kind of develop some of those ideas and um and look at what kind of specific activities that we can do and maybe just to add to that it's also facilitating other organizations so we know faith organizations do a lot of the stuff you're talking about a doctor and how do we facilitate that and support that happening um okay thank you i think you can hear from the questions and observations that there's a huge amount of enthusiasm and energy and interest for this um and we're incredibly grateful for all the work that you've been doing and with the cabinet members um kim and jackie and also with verity mcgillen and the council so thank you very much for that and i can't see any other hands up so i'm going to move to recommendation um there are two recommendations colleagues on page 560 of the agenda and that's to approve the age branch friendly lambeth action plan 2024 to 2027 and to note the efforts made to review the evidence space on aging and the extensive community engagement undertaking to inform the age friendly lambeth and the action plan are those two recommendations agreed please okay thank you thank you very much officers so they're the final that that completes all the items this evening i just have i forgot to say at the very beginning and i apologize for my omission that we've had apologies councillor david amos for this evening and our sincere thoughts and condolences go to him and his family so that concludes um business for tonight the next cabinet meeting is scheduled to take place on monday the 17th of march which is st patrick's day so um good night everybody have a good