Transcript

Fernand. If you can't let me in, that's all right. I don't seem to be able to let you in, but we all are. No, no. Okay. Thanks. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to this meeting of the London Borough of Newham Housing and Regeneration Scrutiny Commission. This evening meeting is held here in East Ham Town Hall. I would like to welcome all members, officers, and members of the press, who are here in the meeting, or viewing on YouTube. Concerning the agenda this evening, I tend to take the items in the following order. Item 1 to 4, 8, 5. There is a technical issue. If there is, and we are not live yet. Are we live? I'll tell you what, we can record, and then, um, um, no, no, it's live. That's live. Okay. So I will start again, and, okay. So I go again. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to this meeting of the Land, um, of the Housing and Resident Experience Scrutiny Commission. Held here in the London Borough of Newham, East Ham Town Hall. I would like to welcome our members and officers, the public, and press to this meeting, whether they are here, present, or watching on YouTube. Concerning the agenda for this evening, I intend to take the items in the foreign order. Item 1 to 4, 8, 5 to 7, and 9. This will allow members and officers to consider and contribute to discussion about the work program. We have a busy agenda, and I anticipate that the meeting will likely run until around 9, 9.30. With regards to meeting etiquette, I shall invite all participating in the meeting to introduce themselves when speaking for the first time. This will be helpful to members listening and for the clock who were mimiting this meeting. Members of the concert present in the chamber, please may I ask that you raise your hands when you intend to speak, and those online, if you raise your virtual hands, please. Having said this, this meeting of the Scrutiny Commission is now called to order. Welcome once again to our meeting, and the first item on our agenda is apologies. Do we have any apologies? No. I'm told that Councillor Josh Garfield has sent his apology, and Councillor Winston Vaughan has also sent his apology. Is that noted? Noted. Okay. Decoration of interest. Are there any members wishing to declare any interest? Thank you, sir. Yeah. And the clock would note that there's no decoration of interest. The minutes. The next item on our agenda is the minutes of the meeting held on the 17th of September 2024. I move that the minutes of the meeting of the Housing and Resident Experience Commission held on the 17th of September 2024 be agreed as a correct record. I've got one amendment on page 10, paragraph 7.6, it should read that they met their equality duty under the Equality Act 2010, and it actually says under the Disability Discrimination Act. I think it was said at the meeting. Okay. Can you repeat the paragraph? Page 10, paragraph 7.6, page 10 of the bundle, and it's paragraph 7.6. 7.6. 7.6. To read Equality Duty 2010. Okay. Equality Duty 2010. Are you... I can send a note to the clerk on the exact wording. Okay. Is that noted? Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Pass on that, is there any... So do we then agree the minutes? Agree the minutes, Chair. Agreed. Thank you very much. Before we go into the work program... Are we going to go to actions arising? Are we going to actions arising from the minutes? Well, that is what you were. Do you have any action? Yeah. Okay. You may go ahead. Thank you. Page 8 and page 7 references... Page 8 of page 7, paragraph 5.4 recognizes the work of the Credit Union. The Mayor undertook to provide us with a briefing on the work of the Credit Union. To my knowledge, that hasn't been provided. I think this is more pertinent now because the Credit Union, since that meeting, has now gone bankrupt. So it would be good to know what Newman's position is. Okay. Have you made a note of that, Patrick? Have you made a note of that, Patrick? So that's 5.4. Yes, Chair. I'm here to provide a briefing on the Credit Union. The next... That's Matthew? That's it. That's it. Okay. Thank you. Now that we've dispensed with the formality, I would introduce ourselves. I am Councillor Anthony McCormand. I'm a member for Royal Albert, the beautiful side of the borough. Okay. And I ask... Okay. Councillor Reacher Chudder, Canning Town North. Councillor James Beckles, Custom House. And Councillor Blossom Young, who is resident in the beautiful side of the borough. Also in the beautiful side of the borough. So Councillor Blossom Young, Becton Ward and Cabinet Number Four, Housing, Landlord and Tenant, experience improvements. Paul Kittsson, Corporate Director for Inclusive Economy Housing and Council. David Cutfield, Introduction for Housing. Head of Housing Strategy and partnership. Yeah. Lead Director of Housing. Council Member Verdi, Green Street West, Cabinet Member for Housing, Needs, Homes, Sector and Community Safety and Crime. Thank you. I said in my opening remarks, I should take item eight and that is the work programme. If you look in your bundle, the briefing, we should come across item eight and that is to give members an opportunity. Trying to find it myself in my... I'm not sure it was presented to us because it says in the agenda to follow. So it's not because I discussed it as recently as last night. I'm sorry if it's not in this abundance. So we would defer that item. Okay. And then that takes us back to item five. Days with the regulatory update, Newham Council response to the Regulators of Social Housing Inspection. And that is on the agenda. And that is on the agenda. That's page 15 to page 66. We have the lead cabinet member for this area of work is Councillor Bussam Young. And we have Dave Patfield also and Paul here with us. This report provides our scrutiny commission with outside steps taken and outlines for action by Newham Council. This report was the Regulator of Social Housing in October 2024 on housing within the borough. The report highlights how Newham Council is making progress in ensuring that homes in Newham are safe. In the interest of time, I will be taking the papers as read in order to maximize the time for questions from members, albeit as agreed before the meeting start, I will be giving the executive about five minutes to introduce and set the context for this report. So over to yourselves. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to colleagues. I just wanted to reiterate how seriously we take our responsibility to ensure that tenants living in council housing have access to safe, secure homes and have access to high quality landlord services. It's fundamental to us and, you know, it's a real, I want to pay credit actually to the work that Paul and David and the team have done in making improvements since the regulatory judgment that we received in October. So a reminder as background in October 2024, the Regulator of Social Housing issued the council with a C4 judgment against its consumer standards. This is the lowest available grading and indicated serious failings in compliance across several key areas. We've apologized to residents and we take seriously our response to the issues the Regulator identified. Since that judgment, we've embarked on a significant improvement journey for our residents working very closely with the Regulator. This has included establishing more robust governance mechanisms to drive our improvement plan, a root cause analysis to understand and address the factors that led to previous service failures, and a renewed commitment to working closely with residents on further improvements in the service. An improvement plan responding to the issues identified is in draft form and is currently being worked on by the Council in conjunction with the Regulator. I'm really pleased that at this stage, the Regulator has chosen not to use the enforcement powers available to it. We've already agreed 20 million pounds worth of investment in addressing fire safety in blocks of flats. We've agreed 18 million pounds investment in accelerating our decent homes program significant works being carried out to better understand the needs of our more vulnerable tenants. In relation to fire safety and building safety in particular, to ensure that the risk to our more vulnerable tenants can be effectively mitigated. The service is starting to make inroads into the repairs backlog. I'm pleased to see improvements against many of our repairs indicators. We've also brought on external experts to provide challenge to our improvement journey and to audit our resident safety approach. Key leadership appointments have been made to drive our next steps. And both internal capacity and external insights will be important as we continue to shape housing services to better meet the needs of residents. And colleagues fully redressing previous service failures will not be solved in a matter of weeks. The draft improvement plan sets out the steps the service will take in the short, medium and long term to achieve this. So it's an important milestone in ensuring residents have access to the high quality landlord services they deserve. I draw colleagues attention to some of the areas where we are making specific improvements and will invite officers to contribute to. But the significant work being made around electrification, the significant work happening in relation to fire risk assessment actions, which were particularly highlighted with the regulator. And we are seeing a shift in our responsive repairs service. There's a long way to go with this, but I think what we're really establishing is a roadmap for how we're able to address those service failures that have happened previously. Turn that around. Turn that around. I mean, the key to all of this will be when residents start to really see that improvement. Um, but I think this is a really important step towards that. Yep. Thank you. Right. Um, do you want to say anything, Paul? Chair, I think Councillor Young has provided a fantastic introduction, and I'm happy to be exciting to questions, and we will bring out some of the threads of the improvement work that we've been undertaking and what has been going on. Thank you for the report, and I will resolve my comments later. Um, do I recognize any member, Councillor Chauder, and then Beckels? What I'm intending to do, if you have a single question, or if you have a suite of questions, I allow you to answer those, and then we move on. Is that okay? Thank you, Chair. Thanks. Okay. Um, just as the clarity, I've got 11 questions here in total. Most of them are practical kind of questions, and then some political questions at the end. So can we just start off with, can I turn your attention to page 14 of, uh, have you got the bundle? Yeah, you can see page 14? Yes. Um, the appointment at Capstick, very simple question. How was, was that an open tender process? How was Capstick contracted? Can I answer that, Chair? Yes. Yep. It's a question for, yes. Right to confirm this in writing, because I don't want to get it wrong. Okay. I think we invited three firms to submit proposals and prices, and we have interviewed with three firms. But we're right to confirm that process, just for us. My question was, essentially, it was an open tender process. There was a procurement. It was a selected number of legal firms were brought forward. And then there was a competition between three. And that's because this is such a specialist area. Yeah, correct. And it's another procurement guidance too. Thank you. Okay. Um, paragraph, and this could just be a phrasing question. This might be something you want to take away with, um, point nine. I didn't quite understand this. Um, next steps will be to produce a rolling programme to be able to report effectively on the trajectory and to provide assurance that all properties are inspected within a 10 year period. Great. Yeah. We will then aim to have all properties inspected within a five year period by May 2026. Yes. Am I being dumb? I don't understand that. So, um, yeah, so at present, or at the time we wrote the report, there's no statutory guidance as to how frequently you need to do the inspections. As part of the government's response on Greenfield 2, they've just announced that they wanted to be five years. But at the time we wrote this, that wasn't there. Um, what we'd said as our intention was that by this May, May 25, we want to have every property with an electoral certificate that's less than 10 years old. Okay. But then within the next 12 months by May 26, where everyone's got a certificate that's less than five years old. Okay. It doesn't read like that. Yeah. Okay. You might just want to just correct that because it just reads like you're getting, you're getting to 10 years by 2026. Which doesn't. Yeah. But you get the point. Thank you for clarifying that. Um, and it'd be useful also to reference that that's now a Grenfield recommendation as well. Before we move on from that, unless my knowledge is out of date. I always thought that electrical safety certificate has to be done every five years. Isn't that so? The private sector requirement was five years. Yeah. There's no requirement ever set for social housing, other than the regulator expected people to do it on a regular basis. So if, so, so what's the difference then between the private sector and the council in terms of providing housing, social housing? Um, the private sector tenants has to have it done every five years. Yes. The council tenants, the council doesn't have any, um, set criteria so they can do it whenever they want. So are they, I suppose the private sector is to prevent, um, tenants being put at risk. Exactly. But the government is now. I see. So you see where I'm going with that. So we don't want one set of tenants being put at risk, but then the government is silent. Or we are silent in terms of our own tenant. That's how it reads. So the government is now not silent and, and that is the direction of travel. Okay. So, so it's about you to, um, electrical testing within a five year period by May, 2026. Okay. So I'm here. Thank you. Um, also on, on page 14, 1.10, it says that you've been undertaking work to identify and contact vulnerable tenants in the council's high rise blocks. Does that mean, is this the first contact you've had with those vulnerable residents? Uh, no, they wouldn't be the first, it wouldn't have been the first contact that the council has had with vulnerable residents through its normal tenancy audits and business, your housing liaison officer work. Uh, what David will explain now is a, uh, a programmed systematic approach to identifying vulnerabilities across all of our high rise buildings, which is slightly different today. Yeah, exactly. So the exercise that has been referred to here, the regulator is very, very keen that we mitigate any risks to residents whilst we are undertaking the, the catch up works that the regulator has identified. Okay. So those residents most at risk are our most vulnerable residents in our high risk buildings, our high rise buildings. So what we've done is we've looked at our data on vulnerability and we're making sure that we're contacting the most accurate vulnerable residents in the higher risk blocks to talk to them about their safety. So for example, in some cases we might do a person centered high risk assessment. Um, so that, that is a specific piece of work that's been alluded to here. More broadly, as part of our improvement plan, we're developing a diverse needs strategy. Yeah. Um, which will bring the way in which we're interacting with vulnerable residents more into line with what the regulator expects in the long run and what the housing ombudsman expects as well. Okay. And that is linked to our tenancy audit process. Okay. So next few years we'll be visiting all of our tenants partly to check that the person in the property is the person who should be in the property, but also to check on the needs of the person who's in the property. Okay. And I, I gather that you, um, want to move on, um, but that gives rise. How many valuable residents do we have? Because you say in the concert, it's not the first time we've contacted our valuable residents. And so that begs the question, how many do we have? Well, if I can clarify, can you give us the number, the person centered assessment risks that you've done? Uh, we, we have that information and it can be provided. Um, obviously we've been targeting so far on our highest risk blocks are the ones we've assessed as having the most issues, but that program will be rolled out over time. So I can provide a written update. Go on. So I was just gonna say, I think there is a point across all of these papers where this is a moment in time for the council as it goes on this journey. Um, when I read that paragraph, it led me to believe given the history of, of this issue as well, that we hadn't visited any residents since Grenfell. Did, I mean, I presume we did do risk assessments post Grenfell. We can't have missed that. That's not fair on YouTube because you weren't here and actually nobody was here at the time. But if we could just go back and get some reassurance. This is, that's why I asked is this isn't the first time you've met these residents, is it? Right. Can I, so, um, and when you come in Paul, because my question hasn't been answered as if we're going to be contacting them. We supposed to have an idea of the number and then have an idea of when we're going to achieve that, because if it's X number, then, you know, we're going to achieve it by Y time, et cetera. So do we have the number of these vulnerable tenants? But we residents, we are going to be content. Well, if I, if I can, uh, multiple questions, perhaps. So there are obviously some gaps in the information that we have about the people that live in, uh, the homes that we manage. And, uh, at least I was too, uh, the tenancy audit inspection regime, which I think came to the cabinet about 12 months ago. So the audit committee about 12 months ago, uh, was the first time a line in the sand where there was a systematic approach to, um, uh, doing a tenancy audit on every single property that we have. And that tenancy audit, if you recall, is aimed at doing a number of different same time. It's probably trying to find out that we've got the right people in the buildings. So we're trying to make sure that people aren't subletting. We're trying to make sure that there's, uh, there isn't any tenancy fraud going on. But more importantly, we're trying to make sure that people are, uh, don't have any additional needs or vulnerable, for example, that might need additional services from the council brought in. And there's also additionally, I'd like to touch an internal only property inspection, which can clean through. So there have been historic gaps in understanding who is in which home. The tenancy audit program is a rolling program that our housing liaison officers are now undertaking is aimed at, um, aimed at plugging that gap. The conversation we've just been having, obviously, is much more targeted, deliberately targeted effort, because by definition, the most vulnerable people, um, uh, to fire risk in our homes are those with particular needs in the buildings that are most vulnerable. And so we've been targeting the most vulnerable buildings and a higher risk building for fire safety, and then making sure that we fully understand. So the two practices are separate, but they're largely trying to do the same thing. Thank you. So moving on, um, on page 16, you talk about the procurement of a compliance partner to undertake your assessments. Who's the compliance partner going to report to? So the compliance partner that's been appointed is Payington Choices. Uh, and the person clienting that is our, uh, interim head of building safety, Desmond Vincent. Okay. What's the fallback mechanism? If, if that individual's not around, how, how does that work get picked up? Yeah, if I can. So it's a good question. So the compliance partner will work to the head of building safety. The, their regular reports and the information from, from that work will be then fed through to, in governance terms, through David's management structure. Then on a monthly basis through the CAM portfolio meetings attended by the portfolio holder. And then the information will also then be relevant, um, escalated to the housing strategic improvement board, which is a new government structure, which has been put in place, chaired by the chief executive. Uh, including both cabinet members and also, um, uh, external independent housing experts. It's on our housing, um, transformation improvement board. So there's a clear flow of the compliance work that that third party will do through management meetings. And then the government structure all the way up to HSAB and if MSAB and, and, and fully then if you think about it into quarterly reporting to cabinet. And then I would anticipate that you're also seeking to then mirror that quarterly reporting. So then ultimately to scrutiny. So that would be a reuse phrase, the golden thread, I suppose, of how that should be managed. Okay. So this fallback mechanisms, if somebody's gone off sick, those types of things, you're able to capture those. It would be, there would be management interventions if somebody went off sick to capture that level. The rest of that structure that I've described would remain in place, of course, but there would be a management fixer. And, and not wishing to cast any aspersions on the compliance partner, but just generally in terms of contract management, how would you quality assure that contract management is delivering to, to scale and to the pace that you need? So that is part of the work that our compliance partner will be doing with us, making sure that, um, we have properly quality assured all of the compliance work that we are doing. No, no. How would you make sure that their work's up to standard? So, um, how would you make sure if you've set them KPIs, how are you going to make, are there break clauses in the contract if they don't deliver? So just, it is, it's a very good question, but just to clarify the understanding of the role. So we have a range of different contractors who work on different elements of our building compliance elements. This is not them. So we are. No. I mean, as part of the quality assurance piece. Yeah. No, no, I get that. But the point is you've procured a contractor to do a piece of work with you, just as you would with any contractors. And we know contractors are going under in the construction and building industry. What mechanism is there for you to assure that they deliver at the pace and the scale? You've obviously got a service level agreement with them somewhere along the line. What's your fallback position if, heaven forbid, they went under? How do we get assurance on the assurance? Yes. Well, some of that comes through the governance structures that I've just described. So I'll give you an example of how we're asking those questions. At last week's CAM meeting, we were speaking about a discussion about the increased number of stock condition surveys, for example. And we asked the question, what assurance are we getting about the quality of the work, for example? And as well, we introduced a new inspection regime where we'll take a sample of work to assess the work that's been undertaken on our behalf. I suppose we would adopt a similar approach on the assurance of the compliance sector, but we would expect that role to be a pretty significant weighty level of compliance work. Yeah, no, indeed, but I think the point I'm trying to get set. You've raised, Councillor Scharding. It's about systems failures. And at any point, any contractor, anybody can go sick, anybody contractor can fail. Just are we, and it might not be something we need to do a huge piece of work on, but have we got the fact that actually any part of us, any system can fail at any point? We're concerned that the contractor will stop working. Yes. Okay, well, fine. Yeah. I mean, to that being too blunt, we can simply find another partner. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. I just want, I mean, I think it's the quality of the work. Oh, no, no, no, because I mean, that will be what it is. And I'm confident you'll get reports on that. The point is, if a contractor fails, what I don't want to see is you coming back to a committee similar to this in the next municipal year saying, we've had a huge blockage because we're the contractors. Now, you know, which does happen. Yes. That's happen. Okay, and that's no reflection on the contractor as it is. So, Chair, I've just got five more questions then. I know that you've got 11. And I'm looking at the time. So what I don't want to deprive you for 11, but I may break it up. That's fine. Give another member and then come back to you. Yep. So I give you this one. Oh, okay. Well, actually, it finishes off this section neatly then. Page 18, and you mentioned this before, David, about the Council's got a diverse needs strategy. But the way that's written in paragraph 5.8, it talks about cross-council diverse needs strategy. Now, knowing how much this council is going through transformation, is going through so many different pieces of work, is your what you need from this diverse needs strategy going to get held up by the slow machinery of the rest of this council? Very, very, very good question. So the cross-council element there is recognizing the council's desire to join up this council. So for example, children's services are very concerned about the welfare of children who are living in council property. So the idea here is that that diverse needs strategy works with other partners, other sections within the council to make sure that is a joined up piece of work. It means it will take us longer to do than it would if we were just doing something in isolation. But that doesn't stop you doing like the work you mentioned previously about the high risk residents. That doesn't stop you doing, right. I just wanted to be clear, you're not waiting for somebody else to sign off something else in some other department that's gone to sleep in this council. No, absolutely not. And the priority work in in this plan is stuff that we're getting on with as we thank you. Please do come back to this committee if you find blockages. That's it. I'll pause there, Chair. Thanks, Rebecca. Thanks. In terms of the timeline for when all the work is meant to be complete, what timeline do you have in place working with the regulator and for a council overall timeline? So, I guess. So the draft improvement plan, the regulator contains 11 work stream areas. And underneath that there are several different projects, and each of those have separate timelines. So to give you a kind of overarching answer to that, it's really project right by project. We have circulated separately to members of this committee the roadmap, which gives that those indicative timeframes. We are in the process of finalizing that with the regulator. And it's really important that once we have full confidence in the timelines that we're in a position where we're agreeing. So there's nothing to say right now to say by next year, September 2026. In terms of the projects that need to be completed. We can chip in. We can fix it out. Done. Yeah, we can. We can pick some items out. I think it's helpful. Yeah, it is. It can be quite difficult to access this and see how quickly it's going to happen. And I'll pass to David in a moment. It's worth noting that some of the work to chip away at the actions that need to be done. For example, fire doors are subject to a procurement piece of work that was signed off before Christmas. That work will be undertaken across two year periods, for example. So we know for a fact that the work to undertake fire doors are going to be two years. David's already hinted at some of the more shorter term. So electrical testing, for example, you said all properties within 10 years would be by, by the end of May, by the end of May, and then with five years by May 26, for example. If you see in deep in the paperwork, there is we were criticized by the regulator for not having stock conditions survey. So you don't know your property. So how can you understand what you're doing? You can see there's a trajectory there, which looks at some time around midpoint of 26. So around June next year, we should have completed stock condition surveys on all of our properties, for example. There's some granular detail on some of the actions. It's a granular detail on many of the actions. Don't be still undertaking root cause analysis and understanding how to program that. But so there's some of it's really quite advanced in terms of programming. Some of it's still evolving. And one of the things that we must stress, of course, today is that the four and a half months into regulation. There's been a considerable amount of work being undertaken with someone going still to make sure that we've got a firm foundation for improvement. So the root cause analysis work that we've undertaken across the failings have obviously indicated the many reasons, the myriad of reasons of why a housing service can get into this particular. Some of it's around bandwidth. Some is around skills and capacity. Some around data and different systems talk to each other. All sorts of different reasons, and we've been developing strategies to approach all of those. So the foundations have been laid around an enhanced and strengthened senior leadership team, for example, making sure that you've got fewer single points of failure, making sure that people have got a clearer focus on their work. Those sorts of things. I think we've got this across time. There's a number of questions. So thank you. But we've got what you're saying. Thank you. That's okay. If it's a key witness about the granularity of the data. You're currently hiring the 3.3, page 16, a data governance manager in the process of hiring. In their absence, as they're not, are they in post now? Yes. They are in post. So in terms of what they're doing and the information they're gathering. If you have a job beforehand, so if you have that person to do a job now, what confidence does this committee have and the residents at home that the data that we're currently collecting was robust, sufficient, and actually can assure us all if this person was in post before? So we knew that they got insights. Problems that we've identified as part of our root cause analysis that we did not have that level of assurance on the data. So that will be looked at in a bit more detail with the work that capsticks are doing. But that lack of data governance within the organization and data assurance is one of the problems that we're trying to fix. So page 17, it's 4.1 about the ongoing transformation. And it kind of goes back to that question around timelines about a period of stability. You've talked about 20 million pounds worth of investment. There's 2 million pounds allocated from the fund for transformation. I think transformation is generally quite a turbulent process, at least it is within this organization. Again, it goes back to assurance and bustness that transformation is not going to lose sight of, I guess, the end goal of actually having better housing for our residents. So is what date really? So are you confident that the 2 million pounds are going to be invested along with the 20 million pounds set aside in the latest budget? Is an adequate timeframe in which transformation would be complete? We're not going to lose sight of the end goal, which is better housing for our residents. Sure. I mean, I'll just say one thing. So, you know, I've been working on this now since November, so for four months effectively. And Paul, I'm sure we'll speak to the detail, but in this is to my mind, a twin track approach. So how do we deliver better housing services with what we have with the capability and the capacity we have with external contractors? We can bring in properly quality assured and keeping very focused on that journey. And at the same time, the foundational work that we need to do to stabilize the service to make it fit for the future in the long term. So, you know, it's not about one or the other. It's a both end in terms of how we're really tackling this. No, I would agree with that. Okay. So, no, okay. So there's a twin track approach that's understandable there. Yeah. In terms of, I guess, transformation and that period of question is about loss of expertise, institutional knowledge. Are you concerned or is that within your regulations that that loss of knowledge doesn't come back to bite us in terms of the transformation period being turbulent and that we can lose track? You're saying that that transformation will make service better? Yes. Okay. I'll hold you to that. In terms of question five and around engagement with residents. I can see that November and December, the main cabinet lead and director of housing, you met with residents. And I wonder, how are you making use of the HLOs? And is there further, I can see you've got strategy in place, but is there further use for the local area forums to get more engagement with residents? They have the quality data. You mentioned that resident experience will tell us whether we're improving. So how often are you going to speak to those residents? So we speak with residents in a number of different ways and the housing forums and the local area forums are an important part of that process. So they are scheduled just over quarterly. I think the next ones are in June. I believe unless we've got some earlier. I'm not sure. So we've got some more information on the dates. Like Larry of forums. We also have a number of resident groups who feed into different areas of the work. So I met with the repairs improvement panel a couple of weeks ago. We've done a very interesting deep dive piece of work into the contact center, for example, and residents experience of of the center. And coupling that with other other data that we have with that indicate that there is work to do. So that's, you know, that's an area that we are looking to tackle. There's also a leaseholder forum. There is a high rise buildings forum. So there are resident engagement processes happening where we're hearing from different groups of residents about different aspects of the service. What's a snapshot that they're telling us currently or telling you? What are they saying in those meetings? Do they feel safe currently? So, you know, you can listen to them. Do they feel safe now? So June is quite, you know, spring. June is quite far for the forums. I agree. And I think, look, I think that the proof of whether all of this is working will be whether residents tell us they feel safe or not. And different residents naturally are have different experiences of of our services. So, you know, I hear things through case data will tell us something else. So there is a kind of triangulation where it's about the experience of your residents, but also what the data is showing us and also why we're hearing from different sources. But that resident voice is really important. So one of the things we are doing is to refresh our approach to resident engagement and resident involvement. So first of all, we're establishing a resident challenge board, which will be scrutinizing the work of the improvement plan that will be partly drawn from those existing forums groups that are influencing the service, but also residents who've not been involved in those processes to date. But they are not feeds directly into the government structure, so that will be feeding into the housing strategic improvement board. So we'll have resident challenge to the work that we are doing, and that's being established at the moment and should be going live early in April. We're also developing or about to develop the next kind of wider resident involvement strategy. I'm very much taking a co-design approach to approach to that so that that's in its design phase at the moment. I'm very happy to share those of that when when we're in a position to launch that. And the and then the other thing is for me is really about how do we build the kind of customer experience part of this as as part of that journey. So we know too often that residents do not feel like they get a good service from from our housing services, and we need to change that fundamentally. And that's both about how we are communicating with residents about what's going on more broadly, but it's also really fundamentally about what are we doing about someone's repair issue or around the fire safety question or, you know, keeping in touch with residents there. And that's that's a particular bit that we need to focus on. So there's also a communications plan being developed. Thank you. My only supplement, Jim, that is just more of a critique on the strategy. And as there's been a lot of engagement processes in place and action plans and stuff, another strategy which we probably have to go. If iterations, what strategy was currently in place? If we we have local community forums, sorry, if we have local area forums already, there's always a process of challenge of engagement rather than another strategy. Can we simply just create an action plan? How to engage? What feedback we can get? Make that process so that it's slightly more slimline rather than going through a process with cabinet scrutiny, executive and stuff. I think our residents have, you know, resident voice is important. They're the ones we're experiencing. Yes. Once we're seeing your officers in on a day to day basis, checking their plugs and everything else. That's rich. Yes. It needs another strategy, but it just needs a bit more action. That's just a critique rather than a question. Okay. Thank you. Do you have any question? I do. I'm really sorry if any of these repeat what people have said. I'm sorry to be late. I was rushing from a sixth form open day in West London for various reasons. One of my questions was about the overall sort of governance structures that are being set up to oversee our response to the regulators reports. I noticed the kind of there's a structure and we talk about kind of various boards and things, and I wondered how much we can do or how much we are doing to make sure that that reporting back is transparent and accessible. to anyone who wants to get into it. So like how much I think I was I was wondering whether chair is invited to the board or even gets the minutes of the minutes various meetings that happen are published online, whether they take place in public, that sort of thing. So it'd be really good to get your thoughts on that first. Should I? I don't know if you're in the room and we described the government structure that we've established. I think I probably wasn't. I guess there's no need to repeat yourself. Okay. So we've established a new board anyway. It has a strategic improvement board, which is obviously key officers from the housing services team, chaired by the chief executive. It has both portfolio members on and it's also attended by the independent housing expert from our improvement board, the council's improvement board. So those meetings meet on a monthly basis. That's the, I suppose it's the new piece of governance, which is aimed at bringing everything together. The then public facing, I suppose, council trip at this proposal is that then the quarterly reporting to cabinet and to this meeting then provides the paperwork in the transparent way that people can see what is happening. I think it's also entirely reasonable. Absolutely. Kick me for scrutiny members to think about whether they would like to attend those meetings or indeed meet with the regulator at some point. And the regulators are a king to meet a variety of people at some point across the whole sphere. But there's, there are those opportunities as well for council to become involved in different ways to to main public facing was with cabinet and scrutiny for us. Be transparent about what we're doing. I was wondering whether it might be possible to, for example, make sure that either Tony's invited or like regularly sent minutes from the monthly meeting for, I mean, just for example. Thank you. That's a good solution. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, um, Rachel. So it's a good suggestion. So are we going to take it on board? Um, I think it's a very least what we asking for is the information, the minutes to be shared with us. We are, and I'm going to announce that later intended to have it as a standing item on our agenda. And if we have anything in the standing item on the agenda, um, the way, um, I was a regulated item. So therefore it can feed in into that part of the agenda. So if even I'm not invited or anyone from scrutiny is not invited, that is we get to know what's going on because as part of the government's arrangement, because if it goes wrong. It's true to me, it's a part of what were you doing? Did you know? Indeed. Having the exclusive time to say we didn't know it because it's been in our face. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. Following on following on from that in terms of what we know and what we didn't know. Um, page 16, um, specifically comes back to a concern that I've raised before about how the information that was provided to scrutiny seemed quite different from what we sort of what we felt as a commission. Quite suddenly found out with the results and regulator that actually the situation not only really needed improvement, but it's really quite markedly bad. Um, I was interested to see that there'd been an internal review to begin with looking at existing and historic governance arrangements in 3.2. Is that internal review? Um, public is it available to scrutiny? Uh, the caps export. Can we, can we come back to you on that? So just to confirm the, um, the status of that? Because it might have been quite an informal review to inform the decision to whether we need to go external or not. Um, so yeah, can we come back to you please? Oh, I'd be happy to do that. Um, perhaps we could pick that up in the, in the minutes, make sure we lose track of it. Yeah. Thank you. I think the action to get the external review by, is it cap six? Um, seems like a, seems like a really sensible idea. And will the report that's produced as a result of that be public or be available to scrutiny or both? I just thought it would be. Uh, the reason I would hesitate is that the capsic investigation may involve personal information about members of staff. Yes. Or other issues. Which I wouldn't, which for clarity, I wouldn't expect us to see. Um, yeah. So again, I think we probably want to just come back to you in writing if we could just to understand the status. But I mean, certainly the spirit of the investigation would obviously be made public because it's, um, entirely relevant to the public. But there would be personal data. I'm sure we'd need to. Yep. Um, given that, um, this is something that scrutiny pushed for in the wake of the report being published, obviously we do not want to have the personal details of anyone, but the spirit of what is being, what the report is saying. Yeah. Because we, um, had scrutiny on several occasions and some of the information weren't revealed to us. So we were under the, um, you know, we were being told that everything is okay. Business as usual. And then, um, alas, it wasn't, um, okay. So, so we're very interested to know what the findings are. Understood. Yeah. Thank you. Um, just another couple of questions from me, both of which are about understanding a bit better, um, two of the data points that are in the paper that we've got. So for example, on page 18, it talks about one of the regulator's findings. Um, this is 6.2. It was 5,400 open repairs. Um, I wondered if we had, I mean, obviously that strikes me as an extraordinary number, um, depending on how many is expected. I wonder if we have a kind of a way of assessing how far out of the ordinary that is. If things were working as they should be, if repairs were being done within their required timeframe, how many open repairs would look like a success? It would look like a well-managed system. Um, you might not have that to hand, but I think it would be really helpful to have that. Um, on a similar vein. Um, on a similar vein, when we talk about, is it more than 3000 homes identified as requiring works through our stock condition surveys? That's page 15, paragraph 1.11. Um, I was keen to know what percentage of our stock that was. And again, if we had a well-managed service where we would completely on top of long-term maintenance, and we were just going through what we would think to be a general well-planned program of refurbishing our homes, what sort of percentage would we be looking at running the of that kind of work each, each year? Again, I'm happy for you to take those away, or if you've got any kind of context on those. Because now that would be really useful. Yeah. So, so we have the figures in terms of repairs. What we're trying to do at the moment is clear the backlog. Um, but we know because of access issues and other access issues that there will be some sort of tolerance. So what we've talked about internally is having about a 10% tolerance, um, in terms of work that might be outside. So, so for example, if we had, um, you know, 2,500 repairs that were live at any one time, we might expect some 150 of those repairs to be outside of target. That's like a 10% tolerance rather than 49% where we are at the moment. Well, that's what we were at the time of inspection, and we've significantly improved since, since the inspection. Do you have, oh sorry, did I miss it? Is there an update in terms of how many open repairs we have? So today? I can provide that in writing. I don't know. I think that would be really reassuring, actually, because I think partly what we were looking, certainly what I was looking for as I went through was kind of evidence, not only of what's planned going forwards, but also evidence of really where we've got to on the kind of bread and butter stuff. And when the regulator first said, you know, look, guys, okay, my report isn't out, but this is not going to be good. Um, it's, it's good in terms of building trust to show some real progress from then to now. And did you have an idea in terms of there being 5,400 open repairs? Obviously that's, you know, almost half of that is ones that are overdue. Do you have a kind of working figure in your head of how many open repairs a well-functioning repair system would have? You might not, I'm not, I'm not trying to trick you. Yeah. At the time of the inspection, about half of those repairs, about 2,600 or whatever, were in time. And, and I think that's probably not untypical of, of where we're at. But again, I confirm back to you and I confirm the number that we've got open at the present time and how many of those are in target and how many are out of target. That was, um, an area of concern for myself. And again, it's knowing, because if we know, um, as a member is saying, if you have a benchmark, then we can know, you know what? This is way off our benchmark, or this is acceptable level. It's shy community, as well as the member or so, but it's a high number. And so, you know, um, I've been dropped to know what's acceptable and what's not. Okay. That was the end of my question. Okay. Um, yes, I, um, I'm in the council, um, try the needs to come back and I'm looking at the time. Um, picking up a big, um, on the trips, um, line of questioning where, um, she's lead basically led me to where I wanted to, um, go. And if I looked at page 19, and consider trip has been speaking about repairs, and we know that the inspector came in August. Now we get the report in October, and so on. And then if you look at the table in page 19, and the repairs data, um, it's much very, um, odd admin, because if you look at the first line, the center of repairs completed on target. Um, we are not hitting target there. And very, um, poor, um, emergency. Okay. That's good. Um, actually emergency is emergency. So we expect it to be, um, good. Um, repair appointment kept. Um, and 90% supposed to, um, is the target. And we basically flat line. And you see, and that is one of the areas that cause a lot of distress and anguish with our residents, especially when you stay home. If you're a working resident and you stay home for the morning or the PM appointment, and then no one turn up. And then you have to take time off again from work. That is not good. So, um, it's basically not moving. And again, if you look at the repairs and completed on the first time, um, um, marginally better than the other data and repair satisfaction. Therefore, again, I would say it's about more or less flat line, but it's not telling the best of stories. And there, so we need to angle it. Anyway, if I take you to our, I think it's page 29 on our agenda pack. And that is the fixerings. Can I just come back on the repairs? Yes. Um, and just to clarify. So the inspector came in May, 24. Yes. Um, and then the report came out in clarity on, on that. Um, yes. Okay. Right. And time for, but notwithstanding the clarity, this scrutiny, every scrutiny, going umpteen scrutinies back. Repairs is always something we ask about. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's, if you ask any member case work, apart from wanting housing, the next thing is repairs and maintenance. And we don't seem to be able to get repairs and maintenance. Right. And so this is long before. And so, um, and I suppose this is an opportunity for us now to, um, once and for all, try to improve on the repair situation. I'd agree with that chair. I mean, I think, I think just in terms of the first, um, element you reference. So, and this is partly why I wanted to raise the date about May rather than August. So if you look at the percentage of repairs completed in target in May, 24, when the inspection was, we have a target of 90%. Repairs completed in target in May was 72% against the target of 90%. It's now at 89% against the target of 90%. So, so yes, it is not hitting target, but it is a percentage down as opposed to being 18% down from the time of inspection. So we will provide the figures in terms of where, where that backlog is. But I think on that particular one, we are seeing a positive direction. I'm promoted. Can I just, I think I just got bad. We have seen this before. We've seen the repair rate improvement go up, then slide straight back. And I think what the committee is looking for. We are on a long-term sustainable shift. Yes. To this rather than a temporary. Oh, we know everyone's watching us. Repairs are better now. That's the assurance we're looking for. Yeah. Yeah. And if I can respond to that, I think it was Councillor Boston's comment earlier, which I think is really important. And we've spoken about this before. These one set of data, the tenant satisfaction measures are another set of data. So they're triangulation points. The work engagement work is really important too, as is member casework. So we take all of that data together and information together to look to see whether we're really making lasting change. Don't take statistics like this for granted about what the story is underneath, for example, and making sure that we're triangulating different feedback, qualitative and quantitative from different places. That's how we're seeking assurance that we're actually making progress that we want to make. Okay, thanks. So, um, I just want to look and go to now the distance travel and what we understand and the work that we're doing. The, um, on page 29 and 30 of the agenda pack, the feelings, the regulatory judgment, that section. It identified, um, 20 areas of feelings. And obviously, um, as a result of that, we got C4. Now, have we prioritized, um, these, because obviously you cannot do everything in one go. So have we actually prioritized these feelings to address them? And if you have, um, can you, um, do you mind telling us which ones are priorities? So that we in scrutiny could say, okay, one, two, three, these are the priorities. And those are the ones we should keep our eyes on. And then we would ask the next question. When are the others going to be coming on board in terms of the work stream? Can we get the answers to that please? So the priorities that have been identified by us and also emphasized by the regulator are not surprisingly those that relate to resident safety. Um, so, uh, within these failings, uh, we are prioritizing the work on electrical certificates, which we discussed earlier on. We're also prioritizing some of the work on, uh, fire risk actions. Um, clear that while some of those needs to be done very rapidly, others will be dependent on capital programs. So we'll be a longer term fix. And those are things like the fire doors program, the implementation program, and some of the work. What might be, what do you have to report in front of you? And if you don't, we take it in writing. What might be easy is you reference it because in our report, we have reference F1, F2, and so on. And, and just for the viewing public, if somebody wants to go back, then they can, we would know that, you know, what, um, Dave was talking about F7 as a priority and F5 as a priority. So we know exactly how to come back and say, well, F7 was a priority three months ago. Where are we on that? So if you, if you don't have that information now, it would be useful to provide that for us, please. Okay. Um, okay. So in, um, is there any, um, progress that we've made in these feelings that you can identify and outline to us now that say, you know what, F1 is the progress that we've made. F2 is progress, et cetera, et cetera. But we haven't done anything with F3, for instance, because you know what, we're going to do it. But, um, can you tell us which ones that you've made significant progress on? Yeah, certainly. So one of the things that we're doing with the program is we'll be producing a dashboard with some of the metrics on it. So we can share that. Um, but just at the moment, one of our priorities is electrical certificates. So, um, the figure quoted in the report is the figure at the end of, uh, January, uh, where 66% of the properties under our management had a certificate within 10 years, 10 years old. Um, we are still waiting final confirmation on the February figures. Um, but it looks like we did a further in excess of 800. A lot of the work we've been doing is about building up the capacity with contractors to do that work. So it looks like we did a further 800 or so in, uh, in February. So that will be an extra six or 7% on top of the figure quoted in the report. One of the other areas is fire risk actions. So, uh, at the time of inspection, we had about 9,500 fire risk actions outstanding. Um, we haven't reported any change in that number because we've been doing some analysis of what that represented and, uh, making sure we were clear about ownership. Now that that work has been done, we can start closing down a significant number of those fire risk actions because we've done the underlying surveys. Um, so over the next few weeks, we should be able to reduce that number by probably at least 2000 actions. Okay. So can I ask, um, that you mentioned a dashboard and that's where they use for tools in terms of managing. Um, and, um, this council, the precedence has been set for instance, when it was children and, um, young people, when they were inadequate, they share some key information with us. So at least you give us the confidence, but, um, you are making progress and where the direction of travel is, et cetera. Can I ask, can we note that, but, um, those information also is shared with us on a regular basis. So we too can see it and know what progress has been made in these areas. Absolutely chair. And I think we, we've alluded already to, um, some of the challenges that we're having around, uh, data and particularly around making sure that we have confidence and assurance around the quality of data. So in terms of that dashboard, absolutely. And that's information that we would want to make as public as possible. We want residents to be able to see what that progress, um, looks like also, um, that is in development at the moment because we have to be sure about the data, um, to be able to work out where the progress is. Yes. Um, and I'm going to depart from our agenda, um, but I'm going to go through the cabinet paper that you will be taking tomorrow. So it's a public. Pardon? We took it this morning. This morning. Sorry. My, I'm thinking it's tomorrow. Um, okay. This morning. Right. So even better between this morning. Um, one of the thing is, we always say that we are, um, consulting and we are engaged in our residents. So I'm going to take you to your paper. Um, 4. 4.19. And just a simple question, because what it says here in November, December, the mayor, cabinet, and lead member and director of housing attended the local area forum around the bar to apologize to residents and provide information on the regulatory judgment, et cetera, et cetera. Um, when I was reading this, what came to mind, I wonder how many people they spoke to. Um, cause in terms of going out and so it's one thing to say that we went out and we spoke to residents. Yep. And if you don't know the number, it would be useful in terms of our tenant cohort, um, how many of them that we actually met. Yeah. Cause that's the first thing. It's good. What has been done. I just wonder how many people you apologize to. Um, very happy to provide the number chair. I don't have that too. And we had a series of different forms in different areas of the borough. Um, it will be in the hundreds in terms of people who turned up, um, in person. So held a forum online. Um, and there were also statements made at the time by the mayor, um, and by other colleagues around that, which was communicated fairly widely also. But yeah, happy to provide that number. Okay. And. And that's okay. Cause most of the questions that I wanted my colleagues, uh, answered that question. The next one here, I'm going to wait it for the very last item, which is the, um, the, um, HRA. Thank you chair. And so what we're going to do comes with Charlie is, um, complete this in about five minutes or so. That's fine. I did promise. I come back. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. And anything that I've left over, if you allow me chair, I'll just, uh, put in writing at the, at the end of the five minutes. Okay. 3,000 fire actions still outstanding. Now, if you, if it was 5,000, when the regulator report was known, which was in October, I understand that we're, we've got a piece of work to do around assessing. But forgive me, that seems like an awfully dangerous situation to have even at the best will 3,000 fire actions still outstanding. It was 9,500. 3,000 is still one too many. It's 3,000 too many. Yeah. What can we do? Do you need extra resources to speed up that process? At the, at the moment, I think we've got the resources that we need in place. We've needed to do quite a lot of analysis of that work. Part of the problem was that the way in which the fire risk actions have been reported didn't sort of neatly lend themselves to, uh, to triaging and ownership. So we've had to do some work to sort those out. Um, one of the things that we've been quite clear on is that any of those that were identified as very serious, immediate actions were actions promptly. Um, however, there are still actions in there that do need, uh, our attention. So one of the reasons that's about mitigating things is for those that we know that are going to take a longer period. We talked about external wall, um, uh, panels, for example, that we have appropriate mitigations in place. So to give some examples of what that might mean in practice for some of our blocks, we've reviewed our evacuations. Uh, and up until recently, um, we've had a waking watch. Some of those. Yeah. Um, to, to make sure that any risk to residents from fire is mitigated. We've now stood down those waking watches because we've changed the alarm systems in those buildings. It's just led me to a very obvious question. I don't know why I've not asked it before. If the regulator could find 5,900 things that were wrong, why couldn't we? Well, we had identified them as a charter. So we, the, the, the outstanding actions are results of the fire risk assessments that we'd undertaken. We provided them with that data. Yes. So we knew things were wrong. Okay. Fair enough. We know we are where we are. Okay. Um, moving on then to participation framework. And now this borough is very good at talking about resident engagement and co-production and the like. Why do we not look at any alternative models? Councillor Young. Uh, I think we are. So, um, T pass are supporting us with the development of, uh, the new strategy. So we're getting external input from tenant participation specialists on that. Um, I think look, we need to get to a place with that strategy where it's about working in a better beneficial way for residents. Based on co-production. Based in part on co-production, but recognizing that there are different methods of engagement. Okay. So when we, I mean, taken on board as Councillor Beckles said that actually this could be a lot more paperwork than is actually necessary. Yeah. Is there a process for you to streamline and be able to communicate to the resident in the block? This is what, how you engage with us and how we will communicate with. Can you do that on a simple sheet of A4? That is where I want to get to. And how long do you think it'll take you to get there? So I think in terms of formulation of the strategy as things stand, I think we're looking at a sign off of the strategy in September. But that is the strategy. And I think there are very much actions that we can be getting on with right now and are getting on with right now, actually, in terms of that engagement takes place in different forms, doesn't it? And, you know, there's, there's one thing around what does that look like in a kind of service transformation place. And there is another thing about actually what's going on with my repair. And I think we've got to be working at both those levels. Okay. Just one point around damp and mould. Now in September, 2023, this housing scrutiny committee heard from the then cabinet member that damp and mould was absolutely okay. That we were on top of it, that actually we were going to talk nationally about how good our damp and mould strategy was. And then in these papers, it refers back to we've got work to do there. Now, I understand that things move on and everything as well. But could we just go back and not now, but maybe you could come back to us with some information about damp and mould repairs and the satisfaction around that service? Because I think it's something that we, I do think we were kind of led to believe that actually we were in a very good position around damp and mould. And it's now clear that maybe there's more work to be done there. So if you could tell us what the difference is, what we thought we were doing, and what we actually need to be doing that be helpful. So the third point is around the comms. I don't know why, because now I've seen it. I can't unsee it right in your in your comms plan where you've kind of got your you've got kind of different work streams on how you're communicating with residents. One's called rat and one's called wow. Is that intentional? Because the rat one is related to diversity. Sorry, are you referring to? I think it's a road map. It's one of them. So these are these are the consumer standards. So we're taking these directly from the regulator. Are the regulators calling diversity rat? The regulator has a consumer standard, a strand, which is resident access and standard. Can you have a word with the regulator and feed that back? Feed that back. That is ridiculous. That is absolutely ridiculous for a public body to be calling diversity rat. Yes. And as for the working with other groups or whatever it's called, wow. So I mean, really? So wow is is our reference is but is is is ways of working. So we can find another name for it. The mayor, the mayor sat there at the last meeting when I picked up on the point that are we really cool in this program? And it's mentioned in your papers again. We are housing. And she said, no, no, no, that's a working title. We'll look at it. But I really would encourage you to think about the communications implications of some of what we're saying out there. There is a time for leadership to be humble and to say what we messed up. And we don't come across as that we come across as one hell of an arrogant council sometimes. And I don't think that's fair on our residents, and especially when we're trying to move forward. So that's just that. And then my final questions are around governance. It says on page 57 that the transformation board is initially chaired by the chief executive. Are we led to believe by that that she's no longer going to be chairing it? Sorry, can I just just check which slide? Page 57 of the fact. And that has been also initially with just think, I think I've shared one meeting because the chief executive is absent. But the chief executive chair is meeting. And there's no plans to change that. So ownership of this is levels. Okay. And then the on page 58. Have you got that there, Paul? Yeah. Resident scrutiny and taking on board how much has been said this evening about resident engagement. Resident scrutiny doesn't seem to be linked into anything else on that diagram. Is that deliberate? So it will link into the housing strategic board. So this is the resident challenge board that we discussed earlier. But yes. Is it different to the resident scrutiny or the same thing? It's the same thing. We're just changing the name. Okay. So that will have an arrow going to where? To the housing strategic improvement board. And so? Chaired by the chief executive. So that will be direct, presumably if there's residents on that board. Will they mediate their views through yourself or through an officer? Or will they be directly able to make representations to the chief executive? So we're still working out the exact mechanisms, but I would expect that to involve direct representation. Thank you. Look forward to seeing that final plan when it's done. I'll leave it there, chair. Yeah. And thank you. The time is far spent in this, but it deserves the time. This is the first time that we've had a discussion on this since the regulator came and went. And so we've noted from your reports, but progress has been made. We know that work is being undertaken constantly, especially in terms of the safety aspect. And regarding the findings, and we look forward to receiving some more information in terms of progress and reference to those. So we can then go back and reference. Yes. You're going to be supplying us stuff and we will be getting information on the dashboard because dashboard is always useful. Yes. It helps you and it will help us. Agreed. So what is happening in the scheme of things? One thing that I'm concerned, I've made a note of in terms of the vulnerable residents that you are working with. We need to know the number, because if you don't know the number, then you don't know how to target how many you have, what the scale of the problem is, et cetera. It's not that you don't know the number. It's not that you don't know the number. I suppose you don't have it here. So we look forward to getting that, those information from yourself in the near future. So when can we get this information in terms of the time scale? So, so I would, I would just say on the vulnerable resident point. So we will have information about that has been cross-referenced from other data in counselors, particularly from adults, social care and from children's services. But then there is an ongoing process, accelerated process around the tenancy issues, which inevitably may identify further residents who have not been known to us as vulnerable previously. But we may identify as vulnerable as part of that process. So, so while, while I'm sure we have a number at this point in time, this is an ongoing and continuous process about understanding and getting to know our residents. Okay. Thank you very much. So what I would do, there is some actions that we're going to, the clock would bring to your attention. Yes. In terms of information, in addition to what I have said. Yeah. Can I make a comment, Chair, very briefly? I just wanted to thank Scrutiny for this opportunity. And I recognize that this has been delayed a couple of times now. And I just wanted to pick up on about being humble, actually, because I think, you know, we are, particularly in this service area, very aware, and I am very aware of what has happened and the need for us to make very swift improvement in a number of areas. It's important we make that rapid progress. It's also important that we are setting the foundations for that surety about the service as it moves forward. It's also important, and I think, you know, I am in no way approaching this in a way which is about trying to divert any attention. I want to be as honest as possible, actually, about where we are and about where we're going. So I hope it's taken in that that spirit. Thank you. And can I now move that members noted my comments and noted the actions that we should be? Chair, can I be controversial and raise a point here? We are often at Scrutiny just asked to note these reports. I think we should note them, bearing in mind your comments and everybody's questions this evening, to kind of say and put some value on the report, because what the hell are we doing just noting these reports when we've heard some very serious concerns? And that's no reflection on officers, but that's the nature of the situation. So can we move to a system where we're actually saying and also report what what I would like to see going forward is that when reports around this situation come before any committee going forward that actually we don't keep eating history. So we don't go back to the beginning and say the regulator came in October 20, 24, and we weren't happy to blah, blah, blah. We need to move on. And another thing to that is open to us, given all the information and the actions, and those can be put in the form of recommendations and send to the directorate. So just to give it some more seriousness and make certain that we get response and that the executive take on board some of this information and the our noting and observations. Thank you, Chair. Especially around some of the questions you raised and what other members have raised. Thank you. Have we, having said that, have we noted everything that is being said? So what comes to the chart address said? No to chair. Okay, thank you very much. And thank you from so young Paul and David for coming. Okay. You're welcome to stay. We've got an HRA business plan. So we'll stay. I think the best is that. You're all one team, aren't you? Council one team. Okay. Okay. Now, we move on to the temporary accommodation and homelessness prevention. This report sets out the current situation regarding temporary accommodation and homelessness prevention in the London Bar of Newham and explore some of the specific conditions that contribute to housing instability and homelessness. It's outside action taken to prevent homelessness and alleviate these pressures, as well as contributing, as well as continuing to address this through our corporate homelessness response program. The commission would like to thank conservative party and officer for attending to give us evidence in this respect. So over to yourselves. Over to me. Thank you. Thank you chair. Five minutes in terms of present patient. Yeah, I'll just I'll probably do a quick overview because I know this quite in depth report that was published by obviously the leading officer that's now left council. I think from the report, I think what's really important is the fact that you can see us, but some of the proactive work, but some of the wider context of today. I think stepping into this role in November, I recognize not just the challenges that we face just as a local authority, but on a national level. And there's some really important points that I've just listened to. My journey of learning scrutiny and some of the development of what to become. It's really important about the fact that not just we look as an inward facing council, but other best practices of what is being done elsewhere. You know, you will see throughout the report some good practice of looking at other partners, UEL, other organizations that are helping to support us. Because I think what's really important is the fact that as a council, there are demonstrations of where I've got it wrong and we've got to own that. And that's even me as a lead member stepping into this role to recognizing what has been done before, being transparent about where as a council, where it's lead members. I mean, that's recognizing where we've come to now. I think what the report highlights is some of the proactive work in terms of the homeless provincial programs that are based foundations, which are fundamentally needed for this council to ensure the fact that tier moves into positive line. What's needed for residents. I think one of the key things I pick up in terms of TAs about the sustainability of that, because rightly so. And as I've learned through my time, not just in scrutiny, which is fundamentally important about contingency, but when things go wrong is our ability to be robust and agile when it comes to it. So I think for me, the report gives a quite a lot in detail progression of where we have and the trajectory of travel. But I think ultimately, I think one of the key questions, which has always been asked to me is why are we here? What are we doing about it? And I think there's many, many different answers that I've picked up along the way, which talks about the performance, risk appetite, political appetite. I think sometimes we forget about about what we can do as lead members and as a council. Are we prepared to do this hard, challenging things as well, ultimately? And some of the things that in terms of, you know, as rightly said, I don't really cliche, but as a council, are we working cohesively to this issue? Some of the things that are here that you see in the paper talk about some really stark numbers and the reality of where we are. But some of the proactive benchmarking we put into place to ensure the fact that we've got some robustness in terms of decision making, in terms of pathways we create for people that need to be supported and some of the policies that we've changed. So I think I'll probably leave it there for now, Chair. And obviously, if you know, we've got Lee here as well, I want to add anything else as contribution of open remarks and then go straight into questions because I know the importance of scrutiny in terms of adding value to this and going through the document in greater detail. So I think I'll leave it there for now. Thank you. Thank you. Before I go to members, and welcome, Lee, for taking my posts, and I look forward to working with you. Having said that it would be a miss if I don't thank Candida Thompson for the work that she's done with us, because she's no stranger to this mission. And I note our report. And as I said, it's one of the best report in temporary accommodation I've seen in a very long time. Yes, yes. Thank you. I think it's a very good report. Something that we were asking for for youngs. Yes. And it's finally arrived when she departed. So maybe she's keeping the best for last. Okay, so I would like the records to reflect our gratitude. Yeah. For that. Having said that, over to members. Who was the first member? Did Lee, do you want to make any remarks? Absolutely. Or do you want to... I think maybe it might be healthy to kind of... This is my third week. Yeah, let's go to... Newham, so I would just... In terms of some reflections, I think that, you know, we've made some points in terms of... It is a really difficult and challenging time. Actually, it's been really refreshing in terms of seeing some of the work, and I think a lot of that is included in the report. Some really innovative work, I've been really amazed around some of the stuff around the data, predictive data, analytics around how we can reach people earlier to enable us to keep people in the homes that they're approaching from. And I think in terms of outcomes, in terms of some of the numbers, in terms of the increasing in prevention, I think it was around 160% increase. So there's a huge amount to do, but I think that, you know, I can see that there's a real commitment from being here for every week in terms of driving forward really, really positive change that should make a difference to residents' lives. Okay, I will start with two easy ones, whilst my colleagues are waiting to come in. Before you came, Newham had the 90 minutes of journey time, and that has been scrapped. And we now look to go further field. What's your briefing in terms of how far do we intend to go in terms of placing our residents? So, I don't know, Paul, if you... Yeah. Would you like me to answer? You'd like me to answer. Probably a bit fairer on, just a bit fairer on Lee. It's a good question. We're doing a distinct piece of work at the moment, actually, looking at exactly that question, Chair, about the benefits or otherwise of going further afield, much further afield than the 90 minutes financial perspective from a resident. So, there's a resettlement scheme which has been introduced as part of the Homes Prevention Programme. And so, as I say, it's a working progress, Chair. No conclusions have been drawn at the moment. And we know that there are sensitivities across the country as councils are looking for cheaper, more widely distributed housing solutions for their people. And not just London boroughs, either. Other cities are experiencing the same issue and are looking further afield outside of their areas. So, I would say it's a work in progress. But it is something, because it has come up with scrutiny before, something that we're actively looking at, both from a financial perspective and also as a way of sending a message to people about how Newham is now having to look to deal with this housing crisis. Councilor, I thank Paul. Councilor, for the actual predecessor and the Mayor, nearly every scrutiny that we talked about temporary accommodation and this issue. And at one time, it was going to be looked at, and then it's being looked at. When is the look-in going to be completed? They make a really good point. Are we going to arrive at a conclusion to say, this is our policy? Yeah, yeah. Why is we waiting to conclude our looking? We are spending a lot of money. Yeah. So, when is that going to be concluded? Yeah, I think you make a really good point. I think it's really important the fact that we don't just talk about it. We need to have, as I said about the appetite, to make a definitive decision. Those are the things that I discussed as well with Paul about. Look, we've got the 90 minutes. But I think one of the key things I want to mention and recognise is the fact that other local authorities are doing very similar. So, when a very competitive market, the fact that people already have got provision and policies in place, you're 90. So, they already, you could say, ahead of the curve compared to us, right? I think it's just about, I think with me, if you were to say, is my appetite there to do it? I'll say yes, because I think it's really fundamentally important the fact that we explore every option possible and not draw anything out. I think that's really key for me, because I think if we are going to get to a position where you talk about sustainability of temporary accommodation, what we need for a better place, we have to explore every option that's there. I agree. I agree with what you're saying. And I'm sure that you've arrived at where, at what, to my point of view, eventually, that we need to look further. Yes. In the 90 minutes. The thing is, you haven't arrived in terms of action, because you're the action in terms of the executive take the action. And we are delaying this, because this is, every scrutiny that we come and we talked about this, and we haven't seen a positive outcome there. So, we need to take that decision. Yeah. And so that we give clarity. Yeah. In terms of, and that is one win, at least it gives officers. Yeah. Some direction of how to tackle this particular aspect. And for us in scrutiny, it gives us some assurance. It's either you're going to stick to two hours, three hours, or even further. But we need to know. Yeah. Can I, then for me as a lead member, a commitment to take that away as well for me, to then get a definitive answer on that, and then come back. That's what the last lead member said. Is that all? Yeah. Well, I hope I can give you something a bit more than that. I don't want to just give you something as anything. Yeah. And that's why I'm asking for some kind of action now, because we've been dithering at this point. Yeah. For a long time. It's time scrutiny to get a definitive answer. Okay. I mean, is that something we can take away and come back and make that definitive decision? That's why I'm prepared to do that. Thank you. It's a commitment to people here, to get something more tangible back to people. Thanks, Richard. Following on from that point, I wanted to understand a bit better where we are right now, today, because obviously people are being placed in temporary accommodation all the time. You mentioned, Chair, that the 90 minute journey time had been scrapped. My understanding was that it was still in place. No, it's not. It's not. There are, if I can. I believe there's a map showing a distribution of where people are currently located. Oh, is that in our papers? Yeah. So I think on page 77 introduces you to a geographical distribution. Yes. Apologies. Which shows you that there's still a predominant focus within London. Yeah. Particularly there are. So you'll know that there was an acquisition deal in Edway, for example. one in future. Obviously, they're in development, but still predominantly a London, a London focus. There's a bit of a concentration around Brentwood, for example, where there's some HLH stock, for example, as well. So yeah, you can see that. That's really helpful. Thank you. So I don't know how I missed that. Yeah. Right. Okay. Um, so I have another question, but I'll leave it. Um, instead of coming in concert. Thank you. Um, I'll start on page 82, because I think this is where I found it. Um, interesting to read anyway about the use of AI and IT innovation, which is a month century. And just wondering in terms of working with UEL and confidentiality, screening our data, data quality again. Um, can, can we be assured that one resident's data and information is one going to be confidential? Is this a closed system? Are we just talking about, you know, using Microsoft, um, co-pilot to, to examine data a bit closer? Or are we building something new with the UEL? At which point it's going to probably have some implications for it. And, um, in terms of, as I said, automation through robotics, we have developed a robotic process automation systems. What's that mean to our residents in terms of, um, the administrative tasks? You've done a lot of the data collection and information here. You could be built a profile. We can't necessarily change our demographic of the area. How will AI and innovation and IT innovation really help, um, reduce? And I think that's ultimately what Councilor McCormack has touched on. Reduce the number of TA application that we have. How would it reduce it? If I can just respond just, uh, if I can, as well, if I can on the question. I mean, on your specific questionnaire on 16.3, um, I mean, the reality behind that is it seems rather humdrum. Uh, but that's a piece of software which, um, essentially means that, um, by the close of business, people who are making a homelessness application do that work. And then overnight that information is then distributed into a form, which is previously manually changed each morning by teams. Um, so it's a simple humdrum process, but what, what moving it to an automated process means is that the homeless prevention team are processing applications from the minute they log on in the morning. And they're not spending the first third or half of the day manually transposing data. So you would describe that, I suppose, as low hanging fruit in the kind of an efficiency drive, but that's the story behind 16.3, for example. So again, it seems humdrum, but actually that frees up. If you aggregate that time of, um, professionals, there's quite a lot of time that's been freed up. So can I just come in on that? So we didn't use anything like Microsoft Office forms or anything like that. We were that behind the curve that we were importing data from a different system. Right. Wow. And we, wow. Oh, I will use a wow now. Exactly. Yeah. It's working. I did describe it as low hanging fruit. Yeah. Yeah. So, and we had the audacity to think we are data and then say that we, we were going to be spearhead. Well, we can't even get Microsoft forms working. Oh my days. Sorry. There's always Google. Yeah, exactly. Um, and the gateway review, uh, again, the program was subject of the gateway review and, and got PWC come in and. Again, how is this going to streamline our, um, streamline our, our applications for temporary accommodation? How's it going to reduce the number of people who are, who are coming through? You know, is there a way to actually filter it down or are we just, you know, looking at new ways to collect data? And we haven't really figured out how we're actually going to reduce the TA, um, numbers. Cause it's, it's a lot of, you know, this is the access point to inputting your information. And there's no real solution here. You know, there's talk about risk appetite, but it would be good actually to see the risk appetite, um, recommendations that you have, um, set out. This is what we can do. This is, is it 90 minutes? Is it going to be, um, dispensing our duty to people, you know, controversially maybe challenging government and saying, look, after 10 years, after five years, if we haven't rehoused someone, they go back into the private rented sector. Um, you know, there's talk here about, um, policy and looking at government policy. I think let's focus less on government. Let's look at what we can do work with our closest neighbors and all from forest. And I think I read inside housing of 76 people, 76 people a month entering their, um, entering their, their, their TA functions. Could we do a project with our closest neighbors? What are they looking or what they looking at? Um, Southwark have a number of different, um, housing issues. Then they've lost a few cabinet members who've resigned because they looked at their, um, HRA budget and TA, and it's pretty much collapsing. Lib Dems are curious. They're not, they make it, make it political. What each I've looked at and compared this one, there's not really a succinct five point plan to say, this is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to ask for. And this is how we're going to reduce it. I like the beta, you know, I can geek out on it, but at the same time, I just want to see some solutions, a five point plan, even 20 point plan. How do we get from understanding our population cohort using AI, using this or resources to actually making those tough decisions? I'm being a bit controversial and say, this is how we get down from 6,000 to 3,000 or dispensing our duties. Because quite right now there's a financial implications. I'm not being like long winded. There's a financial implications. It's only going to get worse. And we need to be slightly more radical and push forward to it. And I don't see that in the report. That's the, that's the one absence I don't see. Sure. Can I come in? Yes. I might just try and respond to those questions. The PwC. And there's a lot there. Sure. No, the PwC gateway review was another way that we were seeking to get assurance that in our overall approach to the TA crisis that we had looked at everything that we could and we should. And quickly show that our own program management processes were robust. It sort of found that we were and it gave the program a green light. I would slightly and respectfully disagree about the three point plan. I think the homelessness response program has very clear three point plan, which is improving standards for increasing numbers in TA proving prevention of homelessness and mitigating the decrease of affordable residential supply. In other words, increasing supply. And from those three hangers, everything flows. So all of the work streams that you see reported here flow from the homelessness response program, which was initiated in 2022. And I would say on Canada's behalf, it's probably taken two years to get full grip and start to turn the dial both on the prevention work. And you can see in the report that now on mitigations and prevention. Newham is now in the top five where it should be discussed the biggest problem and where two or three years ago it wasn't. So I would argue that actually the response program has yielded benefits. And I think the question we should always be asked by scrutiny, and I think it is, is are we doing everything we should? Because it is such a significant crisis. I would also draw attention to the council motion, which I think was before Christmas, which resulted in the task and finish group, which is shared by Councillor John Gray, which has just come to a conclusion. And we'll be drafting up a report for consideration by members as well. And so I suppose that cancer, that would be another form of assurance about, you know, what is the council doing? Is it doing what you should be doing? And that again, please, that's not arrogance. It's just a way of keep checking, keep checking. So I'll respond to your points there, I suppose. On policy, I'm afraid to say somebody is really important and government policy is going to directly impact and affect how we respond to homelessness. Now, Bobby will talk in the HRA business plan about the right to buy policy. For example, we will see an increased reduction of our available housing across the next 12 months as a result of the right to buy policy change. We are also through our analysis and through sector analysis, likely to see an impact on the availability of private rented accommodation in Newham as a result of the private renters bill. These are all unintended consequences of policies which obviously have good and audible aims. So unfortunately, I do think doing here cannot be seen in a bubble. It's obviously meant to the housing market and therefore the government policy which does directly affect the housing market doesn't need to be taken into account. Yeah, just kind of following up on Council Beckles and hearing what you've said, Paul, I think the frustration for scrutiny is that in the three years I've sat on housing scrutiny. These reports are excellent, really, really excellent credit to Candida and the team for developing these, but they don't offer the grip on a solution and some of it may be out of our scope. And I think that's what we're looking for. And whether that's because there's not been the political impetus or the appetite to actually get a grip, maybe that's the issue. And I'd go back and respectfully suggest that actually cabinet look at this more closely. What's also interesting is watching your cabinet meetings recently, you don't seem to really challenge each other much, do you? You seem to kind of take this all kind of as read. Now, maybe, is there a sense of groupthink happening here? Are you in danger? And that's possibly why you're not moving on from this issue. In what way do you mean just in terms of accepting everything and then disregard? I think it's probably a fair point. I think, as I said, I've come here. I think this is my first one about embracing the fact that, as I said, as a lead member, I need to be bold enough to challenge and actually change the status quo and not just be like, oh, things are face value. I think there's really something important about, as I said, I stepped into this role in November, realising the fact that I have to do everything in my position, not just as a politician, but recognise the fact that everything we have to explore, which might be difficult for me as a lead member and other councillors and as politicians, we have to do. I need to walk that. And I hear what you, and I hear what's really important because if we were going to own this, I have to have committed myself to actually be a part of that journey and actually realise the fact that to overcome what TAE is, there are very, very difficult challenges that I think that, you know, many people might not have been able to do. And I think that's really, I think it's a really, really fair point, the fact that we have to look at ourselves and reflection, are we prepared to do that? Well, I mean, and I think, you know, with the best will in the world, I can see your and Councillor Young's commitment to the issue. But the point is, if you're and officers are clearly committed to resolving this issue as well, there's no doubt about that at all. But the problem is, if collectively, when you're getting into cabinet, and we've seen it, we've all watched cabinet, well, we don't all watch it. But when we do watch it, it's quite easy to see, yeah, just rubber stamp that thing. When, unless cabinet stops having group think, right, and until you start having the vibrant discussions in there to move this on, and you'll win some and you'll lose some, and that's life. But I don't actually see any chance of moving forward on this, until you are prepared to have those difficult conversations as political leaders. Yeah. And I'll go on the record on saying that. Yeah. And that does a disservice to officers who are, I can see, I can feel officers struggling here, to get all this data together, to put it in front of you and say, make a decision. Yeah. Make a decision. Give us a way out. And I don't see that reflected. So I think you're doing a great injustice to some of your officers and colleagues by not actually giving them the tools to move this on. So I'd ask you to go back and reflect that. One thing I will say, though, on this page 82 paragraph 15.4 talks about officers will use our new money and will offer support in a human centered way. Can I congratulate you on that? That's the first time I've seen this council use that, and that is such a wonderful idea in terms of working with homeless people. It's just a pity that we don't have the money to fund our new money, whatever it's called. So I think, you know, if we can use that, if the success of your work depends on our new money continuing, let's get that sorted ASAP. And especially seen as we pass the budget last week. And my final question was about the task force. I'm revealing its recommendations, which I'm sure you want to keep to an appropriate point. What's it been doing? It's been looking on it first. So John Gray is the chair. Councilor Dasgupta is in there. Myself is on there. And obviously we've had various senior officers. Candida Thomas was on there at the beginning. And then throughout the five sessions, there's been various officer call discussing different things. So some have been from Community Wealth Building, Populo have come in. Bobby, if I'm correct, was you in one of the sessions on top? Yes. What was your end goal? Well, the end goal was similar in terms of, like I said, I think the key thing was to look at one of the reasons is why are we here? Why are we here? That was one of the key things to look at as part of the task and we'll finish. And then same again in terms of what else could we do to, as you said, I think, which is rightly pointed out. What are the three, say, killer points that we need to do as a council to ensure the fact that, one, we extend the flow of TA. Two, what do we need to do? And as rightly said, as you've said, is that political, have we got the appetite to do that? And how are we going to have those really hard conversations? Because I think a lot of decisions that we have to make are ultimately, I know, when it's strictly says, it's political. But you've got that. You've got that in this report. You've got that through the challenge of scrutiny. You've got that through the transformation board. Why set the task force group? What added value has that added other than taking up officer time? I think the task of the finish has come up with some really productive things and inputs. There's no female representation on there? The female representation was, if I was correct, was obviously from, not just officer, but the external partners where I come in. But obviously from a membership point of view, no. Isn't that an omission, especially when one of your members is an Equalities League? You talk about a diverse lead strategy. Yeah. And you've excluded half the population. Well, I mean... From the task force. The biggest problem that's hit in this world. Yeah, like I said, I can only take that back and feed that back to the chair as well. And obviously in terms of reflection, if the task can finish, right? I recommend that when you look at those final recommendations, you actually look at it from a feminist perspective on how homelessness affects women in particular. Yeah. No problem. Yeah. I'm concerned. And you did mention about not just noting. So maybe that's a recommendation that could come from this paper that you have after. I'm still getting over Microsoft Teams chair, so. Definitely. I think the key thing is, obviously, like I said, is take a few more dots. Yeah, and obviously make sure that's the chair. If... Okay. Rachel, then I would come in with two questions. Rachel. Unhelpfully, I now can't find it, but I was really pleased to see in this report some of the ask to government, which I think talks about having a kind of needs-based allocation of financial support. Because obviously, as we all have, I've been trying to sort of understand temporary accommodation better and kind of chew my way over it. And it strikes me that partly my take on it is that having the temporary accommodation provision in itself is an illustration of the failure of the housing market and also the impact of welfare reform in that ultimately the... And the way that those have failed is effectively being bankrolled by the residents of Newham, who, through no fault of their own, are seeing the council being driven, you know, almost bankruptcy, subsidising accommodation for people who genuinely can't afford to find anywhere to live. It strikes me that, you know, quite apart from our duties around homelessness and what have you, you know, the kind of fundamentals are we don't believe that people who are vulnerable and particularly families with children should be sleeping rough. So they need somewhere to be and that we want people to have somewhere to live, which either they can afford because of their work or they can afford through their benefits or through some combination of the two. And where the temporary accommodation bill comes in is where those two are so far apart as to place a huge drain on the council. And I found it quite helpful to start trying to think about temporary accommodation through that lens, although it does obviously then lead us down some really, really difficult places in terms of where people then live and how they can afford to live. And those are those are questions which are much, much bigger than the people in this chamber, you know, we can't solve the housing market within this chamber. That said, it does make me wonder whether our ask to government or the way we kind of talk about the problem is sort of wide ranging enough. You know, there's some really important stuff about how the levels of the money that we can claim back are pegged to levels of housing allowance in a certain year or something. But, you know, there's there's something more fundamental there, which is that people's people should be able to afford somewhere to live and we should be able to help them find. Well, ideally, they should be able to find somewhere affordable, somewhere decent to live themselves. And it should really only be a small amount of people who are particularly vulnerable who find that they can't do that. And I wonder whether we should be phrasing our ask to government in even more clear and concrete terms than we are already. You know, the homelessness duty, the things we have to do the way that we just charge that that's all a really important framework. But it takes us away a bit from those kind of fundamentals about the economics of how people have decent lives and decent places to be. Some of the stuff in this paper. So that was more of a kind of little rant than a question. I'm sorry for going off a bit. Some of the stuff in this paper, I think, is really, really helpful. And in particular, I'm thinking about some of the kind of broader determinants of homelessness. So could we, for example, push back on the Home Office and the way in which people often seem to enter temporary accommodation because their accommodation provided by the Home Office, which I think the paper says is a very large amount in Newham. You know, that's basically a problem that the Home Office is creating and which the people of Newham are then paying for. And that's no fault of the people themselves who are, you know, and someone in my ward recently had been living somewhere for a while and his children were going to school and then he was suddenly evicted from his flat. His neighbours were all very distressed. That was a classic illustration of this kind of example. Should we push back on the Home Office about that? Should we be doing something, probably again, working with central government about making sure that people in Newham are paid the national minimum wage? I remember some data from several years ago about there being a huge number of people in Newham who weren't being paid the minimum wage. Again, if there was some enforcement around that, either funded by central government so that we could do it, or from central government, would that then help bridge that gap so people can actually afford somewhere to live? So I suppose that wasn't a question to the almost commention to you, Councillor. I feel there's more questions to come, Val. You make a really good point about the national minimum wage point, because obviously if you look at what, not just the level of deprivation poverty, one of the key things that you look at is how much people earn within Newham. The challenges are how much portion of how much they earn goes into rent, right? So really good point, because I think that's one of the key things if you look at affordability in Newham, how much more that needs to be done to people into position that they earn more money. And I think being a position there, if you look at how much they go and put into rent, it's a lot, especially in the parliamentary sector. So I think, yeah, there's definitely an opportunity, obviously, yeah, I think pushing back and obviously making that commitment as well. Thank you. Really good point. Really good point. And can I? I did have another question. Okay, sorry. I'm taking up time. What I don't really understand is the financial experience of residents who are moving out of temporary accommodation into the private rental sector. You know, my sort of assumption is that presumably things then become much more expensive for them, and that that might be partly a kind of drag factor, keeping people in temporary accommodation. Um, and I was hoping to just know a bit more about that once, you know, once they, once we've perhaps we've helped them to find a, a tenancy or, you know, whatever as it's, are those residents seeing their weekly costs go up substantially? I would say, not necessarily temporary accommodation, especially the nightly paid accommodation is actually can be more expensive. I mean, obviously we're limited in terms of what we can charge has got to be affordable for them. Um, but if we're going to resettle anyone into the private rental sector, then we have to be satisfied that they can afford it. So we really carefully assess the affordability of any accommodation before even making an offer. Um, but I think that there's this, you know, people just perceived as being a lot cheaper when actually it's not what will cost the residents just as much. And it costs the council even more because we're bridging the gap, as you say. Yeah. The cost that we're paying, um, the providers and the charge tenants. I'm coming. Just a quick question in the back of that. When we discharge our duty, uh, we put residents, we assist them to get into the private rented sector. And they then come off the waiting list. In terms of the pot, the policy position. And I, I, I don't know how close, you know, um, the policy position, but my understanding is at the moment, maybe we'll go away and check it. Is if at the moment, if we do discharge, then they would be removed off the housing waiting list. And there's, there's a disincentive. So I know that there's some work that we're going to look at the allocation policy around reviewing that element. So as this is now, your understanding is that they will be removed from the waiting list. I believe that if they accept a discharge into the private rented sector, they would be removed from the housing. Council housing register. From the council, because they would be seen as being adequately housed, but some local authorities make a decision to allow people to remain on there. You know, because it may encourage them to look at that as a, as an option. Yeah. So for us, it's for some residents, it could be a disincentive if they got removed. Yes. To want to take up into the private rented sector. So again, I'm going to allow it comes to charters, so we can make a recommendation. And to that, after our discussion, where we think we could go with that. Is there a supplementary? Yeah, it was supplementary to this. Can I just, do we offer deposits? We provide tenants with deposits into the private rented sector if, if they need it. Yeah, so we would, we would try and procure accommodation ourselves and help to cover the cost of setting tenancy up. People find their own accommodation and support them with maybe rent in advance and deposit. You know, it's much more cost effective way for us to support and help people into longer term housing than putting them into really, really expensive, costly, temporary accommodation, which is often more expensive, less suitable. And how creative can we be with the rule that says that it's only at the point where somebody's served an eviction notice that we actually step in? I know people approach councils, and this isn't unique to Newham, that people approach really early on when they first hear that they may be being evicted. But councils often say, well, when the bailiffs are at your door, then come back to us. Are we missing a trick about early intervention? Because surely it's got to cost more to us and to the resident by people turning up on crisis on a Friday afternoon than it does, because that's, that's across social services and other partners. Then just kind of trying to get in at the early stage. Yeah, so I mean, you can, it's really, in terms of looking at the report as a whole, something, you know, it can look quite bad because the numbers of people in temporary accommodation have gone up. But actually, the work around the restructure, the work that's come out of the reviews and the reports that have been done means that there is resource, and there are people now doing that work. And actually, we're much more effective at keeping people in the homes that they're approaching from because the point you're making is right, if we can, you know, offer landlords and incentives, maybe clear some smaller rears, we need to do whatever we possibly can to keep people in the homes that they're approaching from. And I think it's 160% increase in the last quarter, the report is always behind by about six months, the national statistics, we're also kind of you can see from that, that we're becoming one of the best now in London, whereas previously, you're one of the worst. The worst. Page 84 has a graph which shows, yeah, so it's obviously hugely challenging and look at it and say actually, you know, look, we're failing, but there is real progress that I can see that in the few weeks I've been here, there is real progress that's been made in terms of driving forward improvements, obviously, there's more to, there's more to do. Some of the things I think, you know, like the, the kind of the IT stuff, the AI, but we need to get our officers to spend as much of their time preventing and speaking to the loudspeaker. And that's what they should be spending their time doing, not spilling in forms and processing, remove away from that. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Thank you. I will have to conclude this very shortly. I just have two quick questions. And I'm looking at page 94, the residency criteria in the borough. And before I put my questions, we know that we have one of the largest private rent sector in London, Remedy 1000. We have 40,000 people on our waiting list. So this has gone up drastically from what it's to be. So do we think the time has come now for us to just reflect on our residency criteria? Because people come in, they get into crisis, they'll ask them to leave, they got the three years criteria, and then they go on to the waiting list. Some boroughs, I know in London seems to have got the longest is 10 years. I'm not suggesting we go to 10 years, but seeing that we are in the position that we are in with the largest private rent sector and 40,000 people on the waiting list. Don't you think the time has come for us to consider seriously consider moving it up from perhaps three to five years residency criteria? So again, Paul, I'm happy to come in. That is a political. Yes, that is. I'm looking at the politicians for that. When I make a comment, a technical point, if I may, that is something we could look at around managing the waiting list for council housing. Increasing it from three to five years or three to 10 years would not affect the duty we have for people. I'm not talking about the temporary, I'm not talking about temporary accommodation, but I'm looking here on page 94. It talks about residency criteria. So that's why you asked the question. I know the TA presentation is different to this, but because it's in the report. Okay, thank you. As long as it, because I know Canada has, I know Canada has made this, so I feel like I'm speaking for Canada here and Lee, but I know we've made this point in previous scrutinies. It is two different issues and increasing the resident criteria may result in a reduction in the numbers of people on the waiting list. Just to remind everybody, of course, we have got a very high waiting list and probably only five or six hundred homes a year become available. So the waiting average waiting time for homes is many, many years, if at all. And we've got average figures for those, but they are average figures. They don't mean you've just got to wait six years and get a home. It wouldn't affect our homeless applications in itself. I understand that, but I was just looking because it's in the report and it's something that I've always considered. And the last question for me is the, when do you think we're going to peak in our monthly presentation of homelessness, homeless residents coming to us? So, can I answer that? Yeah. It's impossible. It's impossible to say. In terms of the number. With any certainty, it's impossible to say. What I would say is that the modeling, the analysis that we do in house now and using some market information to model our demand has proved over the past 12 months to be much more accurate. I wasn't here. So I'm just much more accurate than previous modeling approaches that we've become much shorter footed about anticipating the demand. And we're looking for all of those external factors. We spoke about government policy a little bit earlier on factors, market factors that might increase the number of people being evicted and so on. So I think we've got the right processes in place, but I think it's impossible to say when we're going to peak and where the peak would be. So therefore, our budgeting may not be accurate then is if it's impossible to say when we're going to peak. That means we haven't peaked yet. And personally, I don't think we've peaked and therefore, and we pass the budget or agree the budget on a certain number. And if we haven't peaked yet, that means the presentation is going to be higher. Have we considered that? Yes. So the financial, the financial model that's going into the MTFS, I think you've seen the information before, assumes a set, a set number of increase of acceptances in nightly paid accommodation every month. And it makes an assumption about the inflationary cost of that nightly paid accommodation. And that MTFS is based on those two key criteria, which is based on analysis that we've developed ourselves, but also that we use market information to inform it. So, I mean, I think what you're saying is in the spirit, in its essence, is correct that if those figures are wildly wrong, then there would be an additional pressure on the council. In addition, what we've seen this year is that we've been pretty accurate about forecasting increases, for example. And because of all of the good work around prevention and relief, we've also been able to manage demand pretty consistently to target as well. Right. So I do believe that your analysis is getting better and has improved. What I don't believe is that we've peaked yet and given your analysis, although as good is getting better. But I don't think it's come to a point where you have accurately predict presentation. But you put for the budget and 106 million over the MTFS period. And I think it's going to be more if we haven't peaked yet, because you're you based on your analysis. So let's watch this space. And I think that is an area that we need a constant reporting on to see where are the presentations and how it affects your budgeting. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other members? I think we need to move on now. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much. So we would this will become a standing item on our our agenda just to get and we went one chapter for us what we would do. And I suppose we need to work with yourselves in knowing I'm asking as you say that a if we have a dashboard or such a data that can be brought to us on a regular basis. So we don't have to have a big, massive report just to get one page to give us some key data. So we know where we go in and keep abreast of this. Thank you. And the time is far spent. We have the Hr a business plan. So I'll go straight into it. Um, Blossom, are you, um, who's going to be presenting this? What we will present. I can get, I can just speak to a few words of introductions. Yes. If you were. Fine. Really, what I wanted to do in this, give a bit of an overview. So the Hr a business plan was last updated and presented to Kaplan in October. The idea is that it's, it's a continually evolving piece, but the changes, but, but most importantly, housing policy from government has changed an awful lot over the last six months and will continue over the coming months. So I wanted to just set out some of those things there. Um, taking the reporters read, I'd be happy to kind of answer some questions. I'm sure there'll be ones about rights, both rights by sales and things like that, which should be really, really significant changes. So happy to go straight into questions. Okay. Right. Um, let's look at members. Wow. We have to conclude by 9.30. I know. Um, so July, here in the, um, side of caution and extend. And then. Oh, well, I don't think members have an appetite for that. Okay. No. Okay. So 10 minutes. Okay. What for us? Councillor Charter. Uh, I think the, the only question for me is page 117, uh, 3.7 addressing viability. What are we going to do? Sorry. What's the reference again? Sorry. Uh, page, uh, 117 on the, um. Um, as in finance support. We've got problems, haven't we? Sorry. On my page. One, two, one. 5.3 says that there is a shortfall resources to meet the capital. It's totally 298 million, which require additional borrowing. That is unaffordable. There are shortfalls in resources to meet the capital plans. The outputs to the model are no longer valid. What are we going to do? So it's going back to cabinet. No, it's not. It's not going to back to cabinet straight away. The, that report at the time was looking at the assumptions that we made, which were prior to the, um, announcements made in, in the autumn statement. Oh, okay. Which was around, um, the, the rent increase mechanism that the government allows us to do, or social housing providers to do. So the rent policy was coming to an end. The rent policy had been to apply a CPI plus 1% uplift every year. In the absence of that policy, we had to assume CPI flat. There were then models that, that said, you know, what if, what if there's a new rent policy, which is CPI plus 1% for five years or CPI plus 1% for a 10 year period, which obviously increases the, the rental income over that period. So in the autumn statement, governments announced, um, their intention for a CPI plus one policy for five years. The social housing sector has been lobbying for a 10 year process, and the government will respond to the consultation that happened before Christmas to give us that certainty. But the HFS report shows that with the, with the five year policy that's already been, um, announced, um, that, that closes that immediate gap. But of course it doesn't speak about further investments and things like that, that, that we know we'll need to do. So this is a really important evolving piece and it fits in that, in that sector wide set of challenges. And it goes back to, so the HR, uh, the business plan goes back to cabinet when? Spring? Yes. Um, so we, you know, as I say, it is, it's an ongoing piece. Um, so we will be, so we updated the HR business plan to kind of take account of inflationary measures, which were kind of set in September. They set the, the rent increases for, for April. So those are updated in, in the budget pack in January. So there's that mini update there, but we want to go back and discuss all of these kind of issues in the, in the round, um, in, in about three or four months time. Okay. It's an ongoing piece. And that, that's the really important point. Because as I say, circumstances change investment needs in particular are going to be a key thing that we need to look at. Sorry, that's my fault. I didn't look at the date on the report. So I understand what you're saying now. Thank you. Um, can I, um, just pick up in terms of, um, similar to, um, considered charter. She looked at page 121. I'm looking at the cabinet reports that was considered this morning. I'm looking at, um, 8.5 in terms of the, and I think I've picked this up outside of this meeting already. Um, with, um, Paul regarding, um, what it says here, um, 8.5. It says the outcome of stock conditions survey and other, the regulatory requirements may necessitate an increase in the budget for major works. So if that's the case, which page number are you into? I'm looking at page, the comment paper page, big page, what's the one, the comment report that you considered this morning. Basically, what it is saying is that, or you, um, basically telling us that this, um, HRA, um, business plan is more or less out of data could be out of data very soon. And especially now, I know that you continue with your stock condition report. When that, those, um, um, reports are available. You may suddenly realize that, um, you, the situation is a much worse than it actually is unknown to you now, which may make this out of date. And if it is out of date, and I'm just thinking of the bigger picture in terms of our money and our borrowing, um, liability as mentioned here in. What comes the child just mentioned to put that all together. We are much in a good place. So chair, if I, if I may, just, just as a start, and then I'm sure Bobby will come in. Bobby's referred to the kind of ever evolving process with this. This is a 30 year plan is, um, uh, guided by and influenced by a number of different factors, inflation, government policy, and also the decisions that to make and the impacts of the various different services we have. And that's why a fuller review of the plan is taking place over the next, um, few months. And it's important to do that at this point. Um, partly because we are understanding more about our stock condition, um, data. We are understanding more about the need for investment in our existing stock versus our maintenance program. But also looking at the supply question and how that can support our wider ambitions around. Can I, in the interest of time. So, so, so I think you, you're right to highlight it, but that's exactly why this review is taking place at this point. Do you understand that and balance it? Yes. Good, nice. So when would the review be completed? I, I think, I think Councilor Young's point is right. There's, there's always review. It's always out of date. That's all. It's an ongoing piece. So that's what I said, coming back to the cabinet in late spring, early summer, that's what we've said. But equally, we all need to come back on six months or 12 months after that. So it is an ongoing piece because things change. So it's going to be before the mid-term, before September. So, so it, it's continually being updated for the specific review at this point with some specific decisions. But I think the question is being answered is you're going to have another review of it. At least by early summer. So, but when we're looking at the mid-term statement, it might be a reflected in there. The review, revision of the review of the business plan in early summer would primarily be to reflect the projected impact of the change to the right to buy policy. Sure. And we stated elsewhere that we obviously received a large number of applications for right to buy in the autumn as a result of the government's change in policy. They proposed to remove the discount. They gave a two week notice and therefore we experienced a very high volume. Which means that as Bobby and team are working through them, or sorry, the team are working through them, we will start to get an understanding of exactly how many transactions will be made and therefore how many council houses are sold through right to buy. That will have an impact on the projected rental income for the business plan. Yeah. The policy and the, and the refresh of the business plan will then look at the short term impact of that. But because it's anticipated then that the, a number of right to buy will actually reduce the results of the policy over the longer term. Short term costs will be needs then balanced with the longer term gaming rental income. And therefore the overall business plan kind of gets reset. That's the primary reason for coming back in. But then also you've got your stock condition, um, as well, as well. Yeah. And which might also have an impact and might be even a bigger impact when you do the report, because you're looking at your kitchens, your bathrooms, your windows, everything that you have to look at. So that may have an equally or even bigger impact. Um, isn't it? So we have, can I, can I, so, um, uh, as one of the things we've been doing, of course, is increasing at some part. The number of stock condition surveys, uh, which is part of the regulatory failing. So we've been doing that work and David and team have been analyzing the results from those stock condition surveys. And. Yes. So, so, so, so based on those initial results in terms of the internals, the initial figures are that they should be able to be contained within the HRA business plan as it stands at the moment. So whatever information we've got, we'll go into the next iteration. Yeah. But as you've heard earlier on, but that stock condition work is going to be spread up until, um, uh, yeah, something like August 26, I think is the target for completing that work. So we will need to do a substantial amount more, including a larger number of our external surveys before we can have some confidence. So it will, you know, there will be an iteration now in early summer, but then the bulk of that stock condition information will probably be going in in the next iteration. That's. Thank you. Any member? James. I just had a question around, um, I guess the 30 year projections of interest rates. And I was thinking if, if interest rates go up, and you know, the convention here is that, um, I guess ratio to debt and debt reserves. Starts to go down as we get to 20 52, which, um, if interest rates go up, how does that impact the HRA and how much money will, will be available, especially around major, especially around major repairs and around, um, the internal debt of paying 126 million pounds. Um, because interest rates right now are fluctuating, um, growth is down, and right to buy, I don't think it's going to bring in, or the changes, right? I don't think it will bring in that much more money in terms of receipts for us. So, well, I guess my question is, how can we be, um, confident that I guess interest rates go down and will, uh, make us money or save us money. Um, and our, and our HRA will be able to, um, survive to pay off the 126 million pounds internal debt. So obviously we can't predict, um, interest rates or all those kinds of economic factors, but, but what we can do is look at, look at strategies to reduce our borrowing, for example, and to create, you know, further income streams, whether that's through regeneration, regeneration schemes and things like that. Um, you know, so, so, so for example, in, in the October cabinet reports, you know, we, we shared the, the plans that where we look, delivering an increased supply of, of, of social, social homes. That's a lower unit cost and how we could increase subsidy use in, in that program. So, uh, you know, we, we increased the subsidy use in the program by 50, 60 million pounds. And we reduced the, the borrowing requirement by, by the corresponding amount. Some of the changes to the right to buy receipts, uh, to the right to buy rules will allow us to use those receipts to fund 100% of, of the, the property acquisition price. So therefore there's less borrowing. So the government changes, um, many, many of which, you know, have a, have a short term benefit. We're, you know, the, the sector is also campaigning for the ability to combine right to buy receipts with GLA grants and therefore kind of, you know, increase councils and housing providers ability to, to further deliver new homes without taking on lots more borrowing. So the reduction of the borrowing and the maximizing of subsidy and being as efficient as we can there is kind of, I think kind of the key point there, which retains capacity in, in, in the HRA. It reduces the annual cost of borrowing, which then allows us to have flexibility and, and particularly kind of, you know, addressing, um, the cost of the planned maintenance, which is normally kind of, um, funded through the major repairs reserve, which is, is linked to the depreciation figure. So where, and in the report, it shows that the requirements is above that depreciation figure. That's where that capacity funds that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We must bring this meeting to close at this, um, a point. And I thank, um, all officers and members and the members on the scrutiny board for, um, attending and staying with us. And along the date of our next meeting is scheduled to be on the 22nd of April of this year. So, um, is that noted? Check on the paper. Mm-hmm. Thank you very much. Thank you to everyone. Um, have a good night. Thank you. Cheers. Cheers. Thank you. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. So. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.