Transcript

Transcript

Welcome to the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee. These meetings, as you know, may be recorded and broadcast and you may be included in the broadcast by attending, whether you are speaking in person or online. Council recordings are covered by the Council's privacy note, which can be found at www.varnet.gov.uk. They're all very familiar as members and speakers about how to use the microphone. If you need any assistance, just look amongst the person who is with you. We are going to begin with the minutes of the previous meeting, which need to be agreed. This was a meeting on the 30th of January. I have not been notified there are any changes to be made. On that basis, I intend to sign them. In terms of absence, Councillor Ella Rose and Councillor Peter Zinkin have sent their apologies and they are replaced Councillor Cather McWirk and Councillor Lucie Wakeley. Are there any declarations of interest in relation to any items? No, thank you. No dispensations were required by the Monitoring Officer. There are no public questions and comments. There are no members items. So, we are going to move on. Right. So, we are going to move the agenda. There is an officer who is delayed on a train, the one who is dealing with timber-framed homes. I am moving, if we can, to Borough of Sanctuary update. We have Councillor Zara Begg, who is the Cabinet Member for Equality's Poverty Reduction in the Voluntary Community Sector. We have three minutes to present her report. I believe she has got Jess with her and Sue is online. Thank you. Now, just to remind you, this is a report that we asked for. It wouldn't necessarily have come here, but when we were still young and naive, we asked for yet another report to come to us. So, I am delighted that this report is, in fact, available to us. Councillor Begg, the floor is yours. Sure. Well, Councillor Begg just logs on. I will give a very quick summary. So, this is a report, as the Chair advised, that was requested to give an update on the wide range of work that we have been doing to support refugees and asylum seekers in Barnet, and on the progress since our accreditation as a Borough of Sanctuary in July 2024. We are seeking to provide you with an update on the status of some of the central government grant-funded schemes, and the arrangements in place for those who seek sanctuary in Barnet. We are outlining the arrangements for grant funding as they are attached to specific schemes, so, for example, the Afghanistan Resettlement Scheme and Homes for Ukraine, and this funds the resourcing required to administrate them and includes the provision of things like education, English language lessons, and social care. We also outline the grant funding received by the Council for the Home Office contingency and dispersal hotels, of which there are five, and that funds the outreach, support, public health initiatives, and the staff that we employ to support the coordination of the programme. We also highlight within the report that the Council is experiencing pressures around housing services at the point that people are granted asylum, in the same way that we have been historically at the point that people are granted refugee status and are therefore able to access any local services in the borough that they are, and we reference how we are seeking to mitigate some of the pressures through the use of the existing grants that we have secured through those schemes. We have been able to divert some of the government funding to support this, but there does continue to be a substantial pressure on us and many other local authorities around the long-term housing solutions for former asylum seekers. As I say, this very much predates the Borough of Sanctuary work, and it is reported by all other councils who have similar hotel arrangements. We also go on to talk about the action plan that we have in place under the Borough of Sanctuary work, the Borough of Sanctuary network, the work that we do with partners to support people who come to Barnet Seeking Sanctuary, and the important community cohesion work that we are involved in, making sure that we celebrate the positive contributions of our refugees and asylum seekers to the community. So can I just add in there, the purpose of our Borough of Sanctuary, so the hotels were already there before we came into power there, and I don't believe there's been any more, but there has been movement in and out of the hotels. That's nothing to do with the council, it's a home office directive as to who comes in and who goes out. As Jess has said, we are funded by the home office, so there's no core funding that's coming from the council to support our asylum seekers. There's many benefits of being a Borough of Sanctuary, but one of the main ones is that we are able to collaborate with other London boroughs in how they're managing the asylum seekers in their hotels, and exchanging really good business practices as well for them. We will outline, if necessary, the kind of activities we are doing. So in the Borough of Sanctuary network, that's a collaboration of lots of charities, public sector organisations, volunteering, and we discuss together what we need to do to improve the lives and starting new lives of our asylum seekers. Thank you. Comprehensive report. Anybody make comments? I've got some questions. Councillor Wakelin and Councillor Cornelius. Councillor Incenti. Councillor. Thank you. Thank you for your report. I wanted to ask about, you touched on it briefly about what actually being a Borough of Sanctuary means for Barnet. And you said about that collaboration with other councils, which sounds really positive, although I guess in theory you could do that anyway, reach out to other councils. So I just think it would be helpful to residents if the cabinet member could outline what's the difference for Barnet now that we're a Borough of Sanctuary, other than the collaboration which you mentioned. Thank you. The question was, are there additional benefits from being a Borough of Sanctuary? If I can start answering that, and then we do have Ella, who's the Head of Service Responsible, and Sue as the Service Manager online. The Borough of Sanctuary network does bring together all of those local authorities, and that is an additional layer of infrastructure and support. So that isn't something we'd be able to access if we weren't a Borough of Sanctuary. There are existing arrangements across London and more widely, but that proactive network where they're sharing best practice actually wouldn't be available to us otherwise. So that is, that's a real benefit. And there was work done by the London School of Economics in 2023, which did reflect that one of the ways that councils could work more effectively to make use of the existing arrangements, because we are subject to the decisions of the Home Office without being able to influence them in a major way, was by sharing best practice. And recognising that individually we don't have the same opportunities that we do as if we are sharing the practice that other local authorities have developed. Ella, can you hear us? No, it seems not at the moment. Oh, hi everyone. Can you see me? Hello. Can you hear me? Okay. Did you hear the exchanges so far? I did, yeah. Sorry, it took a second to come off mute. I don't think you want to add anything, but Councillor Wakeley asked specifically about the benefits of being a city of sanctuary. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So I think like with any external accreditation, what it also gives us is access to that kind of external view of what we are doing. And kind of guidance and advice about where we could improve, where we could work more effectively. And I think the other benefit has been giving a bit of a kind of platform for all the different parts of the council who work on this area to come together under one network. And it's kind of prompted our borough of sanctuary network to also grow and include other partners. So, yeah, I think having that kind of wider perspective has been really beneficial. I suppose my question is, are the neighbouring boroughs pulling their weight on this? If the number of people coming to Barnett is effectively determined by the Home Office, are the Home Office allocating similar numbers relative to the population to Enfield and Brent? Or are we, as usual, picking up a greater burden than other boroughs? And I guess that's my concern. Whilst it's Home Office funded, of course, it's a great thing to do. But if people then become a burden on, well, that's the wrong word. It costs the adult and children social service budget money, which they can't afford, then there's an element potentially of unfairness there. So, all of the costs that are associated with the individuals who reside in the hotels is covered through the grants that we receive. But then there's a difference that with the improvements with the determination regarding asylum, lots of people are getting refugee status now. And then the budgetary consideration is something serious. Yes. So, the pressure that is being felt is a pressure on housing services because the other costs are covered. And that is a position that the Council historically has lobbied on. If they weren't concentrated in the hotels, it would possibly be even more evenly spread. But it's quite clear from what the Home Office has told us and from some of the exploratory work. So, I've worked with staff to look at a comparison between those places that are receiving incoming residents and those that aren't. And it's entirely done to the availability of accommodation. So, it's outer London boroughs that have available hotel accommodation as they did during the pandemic. So, there's no other determining factor. And it isn't necessarily about an equal spread because it is determined by what they can find. And some of our neighboring boroughs don't have hotel accommodation. So, as I was just saying, Councillor Cornelius. So, we have no say over which asylum seekers come into the hotels or not. We don't have any of those conversations there. The expenditure, as we already said, comes from the Home Office Grant in the main. We also have our commissioned agencies that are working in both of our hotels. So, they have their own charities. So, they make funding applications in their own name to help the asylum seekers. That's nothing to do with us. They have partners in the voluntary sector that they might say, actually, we want to have an Iftar celebration, or we want to have an Eid celebration. They make those celebrations themselves by funding from the public. Nothing to do with the council. I appreciate that. I think that's a question. I don't wish to speak for him, of course. Please do. Is what happens when somebody is given asylum, they then can make an application to Barnet for housing, I think is the point I think he was asking. So, when they are given refugee status, they are the same as you and I. They have those rights. So, they present to Barnet Homes for accommodation. They are assessed in exactly the same way as a homeless family would. The single people generally do not qualify for housing and they make their own arrangements. The families are eligible for housing, but they don't have any preference over any other family. About nearly 77-80% of the asylum families, when they become refugee families, are placed outside of Barnet, just like anyone else, outside of Barnet. And, in fact, it's so difficult for them because in a couple of years they've been living here in Barnet, and we are a very welcoming borough there. They have made their friendships at school, in the hotels, and suddenly they find they're ripped out of this and gone over to Luton or Watford, and we've had cases where they are completely isolated. So, it's not an easy journey for them at all. Sorry to labour the point. I guess, really, the point… Thank you, Chair, for translating my garbled vocabulary and making it simpler. I guess my concern or my wish would be that there is lobbying at the back end of the process. If we could be sure that we were taking our fair share into the hotel accommodation, it would reduce the burden that we face with housing. And I appreciate, unfortunately, it's a fact of life they will be housed outside Barnet, maybe in Luton or wherever. However, that faces all of us if we were seeking housing as well. And to a certain extent that's tough, but it's still housing that could go to Barnet residents. I guess that's the point I'm making. It's fine. Thank you. Just to respond to your question around formulas, so there is a formula both for asylum seekers and for unaccompanied children, and Barnet is below the threshold on both of them. As opposed to there are other boroughs, Hillingdon and Hounslow would be too, that are above that threshold. I suppose the issue is that there are going to be some boroughs that are even further below that threshold. But we still haven't hit that point. Thank you, Chair. I've got two questions around homelessness. Have we seen, since the move-on period has increased to 56 days, have we seen a reduction, do we know, in the number of people who are left homeless after they've obtained their refugee status and the 56 days period has passed? Do we know if that's improved from before? And the other question is, is it possible to get, I saw in the report that we don't have accurate data for the number of homeless refugees in Barnet? Is it possible to get that data for those at least that are leaving the hotels in Barnet? Is it possible to track people? It just seems like such an important piece of data. Those are my two questions. I don't have the data or the kind of information that asked a book. I certainly get it. I suppose there are two issues. So, the first is it is looked at a London level, and there is still very much an issue around single men, because the reality being that they're very unlikely to meet housing criteria. The issue with tracking people at the point that they receive their refugee status, obviously it's up to them where they choose to go, and we don't have a relationship with them unless they choose to approach us and to talk to us about things. So, it would be difficult to know. So, I do wonder if it's one of those things that we could probably look at a proxy or talk to the rest of London and not understand how they're doing that work to identify people. But it's quite hard, because we don't know what we don't know. So, if people haven't approached us, we won't know if they're at risk of homelessness. Does that mean that… We do have a single homelessness team in Barnet Homes, and they do work with them to see what they can do for single asylum seekers that have received refugee status, as well as other people in the public in the same way? So, once this 56-day period is over, and if they haven't received any accommodation in Barnet… So, 56 days gives them longer to approach us, but at the point that they haven't, they are… We've executed our responsibilities, really. I mean, it's probably a question if we need to dig into it more that we can go back to Barnet Homes on, because they're obviously the experts. So, we do have an arrangement with Barnet Homes. They do come and visit in the asylum hotels and seek advice. They are always told by our commissioning agencies in the hotel that as soon as you receive your letter, your 56 days start, and you need to approach Barnet Homes as soon as possible. We have had a couple of cases where people either can't get appointments or they don't book, and it comes to the end of that period. So, the 56-day period was from recently. It was 28 days, gone to 56 days. In the summer, that's going to be reviewed again by . Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councillor Burke, for the wonderful work you've done with the Borough Sanctuary Programme. I think it's one of the courses which are quite close to your heart. You've also amplified and stressed the point about working in partnership with other Boroughs. Community cohesion in Barnet is an issue. What have we learned from other Boroughs? How we can find community cohesion being a Borough Sanctuary with refugees and asylum seekers? Thank you. I think we might have lost sound because it's not just me. Ella's spoken once already. Okay. Sorry. Ella, just to be clear, would you like to introduce yourself again? Oh, sure. Yep. Hi, everyone. Sorry, not hearing all the sound, but I think I'm getting most of it. My name's Ella Gostrock. I'm the Head of Commissioning for Communities Prevention and Technology. So, I'm the Head of Service overseeing the Sanctuary team. And I heard the question. So, it was about what have we learned in terms of community cohesion? Is that right? Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. So, we are just starting a campaign at the moment. Probably some counsellors will know about this more than me. Community cohesion comms campaign, which is all about kind of celebrating positive stories and contributions. And that's really a theme, not so much that we've heard from other boroughs actually, but that we hear within the Borough of Sanctuary Network and from our partners is that the kind of focus on positive stories is really powerful. So, it's something that we can, yeah, we'll continue to kind of pick up as part of the networks. And often, yeah, we kind of, we hear from others about their experiences of hosting people in the hotels and what happens afterwards. So, that's really helped us in terms of good practice and move ons and that side of things. But yeah, we definitely pick up the community cohesion point as well. Councilor McGrath. Councilor McGrath. Councilor McGrath and then Councilor Incentive. Yeah. Thank you. 61 years living in the London Borough of Barnet, I've always seen this as a place of sanctuary. The tag borough of sanctuary release is home office funding, but doesn't mean that the last 100, 200 years, that this place in North London hasn't been a safe place, for people to find sanctuary. And I think we, all of us, agree that we are most welcoming and looking after those who are most vulnerable. And I think, you know, it's what the work you've done. And we all said, sanctuary is for everyone in this borough. And I think our officers and our team are absolutely delivering that. And I thank you for it. One of the things I come up with, housing always comes up. And you could put me and Ross in a room for about 200 days and we'll talk about housing till the cows come home. The one thing is, particularly in primary education, where I've come across before we became a borough sanctuary, is the moving of children, particularly in primary education. How was you working as officers with boroughs actually working within our schools? Because the change of schools, people who are that young, is far more detrimental to their future. I am an absolute believer in early years education. And I hope, as a borough, that we're working with our primary educational services to ensure that those children who've had major upheaval are being helped and supported. I know what schools are doing. I've done case work in schools, which is so frightening. I'm not going to tell you in this tonight. But I think as a borough sanctuary is good. I think we shouldn't victimise supporting. And it shouldn't be pointing fingers at, oh, that borough is not doing as much as we are. I think that's wrong. These are human beings who need help and support. I think we're doing good. But there is a thing around the primary education stuff, I think. And I think anyone who is a school governor who worked in schools, had kids or grandchildren, you know, that is, you know, is one where you can change people's lives. I just don't know whether what you're doing to do that. But I think you're doing sanctuaries for all sorts of things. Can I just ask a question about the major focus of this? Did you want to, did you want to comment on that? On what you just said? My comment about, I'd love a response. And I think we do need, I think, basically, we don't work in silence. We work across the board in Barnet. Well, I'll just start off and then if I can hand over to Ella, because I know she's got, she's been working quite closely with Bells. One of the things that was identified very early when the hotels were opened was actually that Barnet was able to find school places for all of those children remarkably quickly. And it was recognised as good practice. And actually, the way that we have worked with unaccompanied minors and with children was recognised in our recent Ofsted as outstanding practice. The work with Bells, you know, where there has been costs attached to it, we've been able to divert migrant funds towards that work, additional investment into family services. But it has enabled them to be really proactive and make sure that we are undertaking our corporate parenting responsibilities and really supporting those children. And Ella will have a little bit more if we want to. Yeah, so that was mostly what I was going to say as well. I'll just add that we have always worked really closely with early help and kind of children safeguarding. So kind of picking up any challenges really early, not just in the hotels, but also homes for Ukraine scheme and other resettlement schemes. And public health have always been really proactive, really involved. So kind of running sessions, particularly about children's health vaccinations. So I know quite not exactly your question, but yeah, I think that kind of wraparound support is really strong and the motivations of officers is really there. Thank you for saying that. Thank you. Thank you. I can answer my question. No, just, just. Question now. It's just, I mean, you've got numbers against Afghan refugees, you've got numbers against Ukrainians. I just wonder, there's a reference at the top to Hong Kongers. Do we have still a reference, a number of those still? I don't have it to hand. I can just, we can check if Ella and Sue have easier access to the information and we can certainly provide it to the committee. All right. Thank you. No. Thanks, Jeff. When will we know when, if we're successful with getting another asylum grant for 25, 26? It's so late in the day now when, when are we, I mean, it's extremely late in the day. I imagine this is April to April. So any idea when that will come through and do we have a contingency plan if we don't get that grant? It's very late in the day. It's not surprising. Unfortunately, our experience of many government grants is that they are quite late notice. We did receive confirmation from the Home Office this week that they were going to tell us imminently. So one hopes that that is soon. It wouldn't be unusual for us to have the information sort of during the first quarter of the, of the year. So in sort of May, June time. So the fact that they're indicating at the end of March that they, they are going to let us know shortly is a good sign. Um, there are additional grant, we have unspent grant monies on the assumption that we would need to carry some forward to ensure that we could maintain existing services or, or wind them down safely. Um, so it doesn't place any of the existing infrastructure at risk. Um, but obviously if, if we were notified any later and if the grant, if the arrangements were to change, we would have to wind those services down and we would then be, you know, having to have that communication with the Home Office about the fact that without the additional funding, we won't be able to afford to have those services in place. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor David. With the generation of, uh, uh, sanctuary seekers that we've had, and those that have moved on, how do we reduce experiences and have we had any, um, uh, what have we learned working with them? And then the way we work with them and how does that feature in our future decision going forward? So the generations of the asylum seekers that have moved on, so when they leave our service and are transferred to, what's their general experience? How do they review the experiences they've had? And how have we learned, and what have we learned from them that we can use to influence future decision making? So once they have left the hotel, how they speak about the experience while they were in the hotel. Yes. Um, we don't really do like an exit strategy. Exactly. But what we do do is speak to the asylum seekers while they're in the hotels and they tell us, um, quite openly, if they are comfortable, they're not comfortable, the food, the experience that they're having. So we're kind of picking that up all the way through, not just at the end, um, there. But as we've kind of said, once they are told they have to leave, the situation becomes very rapid. And we are trying to deal with our homelessness, the schools, trying to find new schools, but we don't have too much data, I don't think, on, um, once they leave the hotels. But it is connected as they're there. And we've also invited, um, former, uh, hotel residents to, to join the sanctuary network, um, in the hopes that that will enable them to share that experience. Um, and quite a lot of the people that work within the outreach services. So, um, within the community, uh, sector provision. And some of the people that work within the existing team within the council are either former sanctuary seekers or with experience, family experience. It may well be why they were drawn into the work to begin with and everything that they can bring in terms of their lived experience informs how we work with people. Thank you. Thank you. In, first of all, thanking you for the report, and more importantly, what the report is about, are there any recommendations the committee wishes to make other than to thank the, thank the, uh, report writers and the team for the work? It looks like the figure on Hong Kong, if that's possible. At some point. No, but, um, it's, I should have declared an interest that I, I'm the president of UK Welcomes Refugees, and we do a lot of work with refugees. We, we think it's very small, small numbers, less than 50, but we will, we will confirm. Less than 50? Yes. They're fine. Then I don't need any further data. Would I get support from the committee in putting forward to a recommendation to cabinet that they should be mindful that Barnett is treated fairly relative to other London boroughs, if I did as mildly as that? Um, if I understand it, that's already the case, that the officers in consultation, in, let me just be clear, in discussions with the Home Office, are trying to make sure that, that, that when people leave this accommodation, Barnett doesn't take a disproportionate hit in terms of, um, you know, if you place people in a borough and you put the kids in the schools, they're likely to want to live in the borough, and there is a challenge about that. I think that's, I think that's, was, has been communicated to the Home Office, um, but, I'm, I'm. Sorry Chair, I was going to say, I mean, I, I wouldn't necessarily think it's like cabinet can ensure that we're treated fairly, that's a Home Office decision, rather than a, we don't, cabinet don't decide who comes here. It may be more that cabinet should be mindful that, huh, lobby, yeah, but. I think it's not unreasonable to ask the cabinet to consider whether or not, it needs to make further representation to the Home Office, about, um, the implications of that. Well, you know, because, in practice, if they decided to place them all in Scotland, clearly less of them would be homeless in Barnett. I'm not in favour or against that, all I'm saying is. They might quite like it. I think, I think there is, what I mind is, the education thing is, it's not just a cabinet decision. It's not just the Barrow of Sanctuary decision and the cabinet members. There is, there are children and families, and I think, I would assume that this is, these conversations are happening on a regular basis. But, let, the committee would, is quite a liberty to, to remind the cabinet that it, that it should consider strong lobbying to the Home Office. We might be entitled to extra money, if people are going to be in the borough, whatever. And, that, where they place people does have implications further down the mountain. Would that be sufficient? Does that sum up the will of the committee? We're to move back to item seven, which is on timber-framed houses. We've got Councillor Ross Houston, of course, the cabinet member for housing and other things, and deputy leader. We have Susan Caron, who's the head of strategic housing. Belinda Liversey is the head of housing regulatory services. Luke Ward, the director of housing, economy and placemaking. Helen Phillips online, who's the project manager. And Councillor Kamal Gurung, who's represent Burnt Oak Ward, wishes to speak, and I have consented to this. I'm not sure about the order, but he will have three minutes too. So, I think we're going to go to Councillor Gurung first. Okay. He has been waiting patiently. You have three minutes to tell the committee what you'd like to tell us. Okay. Thank you, Chair. Good evening to all. My name is Kamal Gurung, and I'm one of three councillors of Burnt Oak Ward. Timber-framed housing. The Burnt Oak Councils welcome the work that has gone on to identify and agree cheaper Bible options for Burnt Oak residents. But note that this has taken a long time since the first communication a year ago and been a successful, a stressful period for Burnt Oak residents. We have liaised with the officers and kept in touch with residents. We are aware that although the letters have been co-produced with residents, that the last letter outlining the different options has been confusing. With people unclear which options should be taken and of next step in this process. They are also waiting for information on any launch process. So, an update letter to residents is needed to give greater clarity and also to advise when the meetings will start with residents, including setting of sessions for owners to discuss potential specific issues, pre-meditation options, pre-meditation options, and the council loans available. Thank you. Thank you very much, councillor. I know we will stay on the line from, on the, whatever it's called, system, while we ask councillor Houston to introduce the report, and maybe then he will respond somewhat you've had to say. All right. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, thank you, Chair, and thank you for everyone who's joining us online and in person. I, I think I, one of the things that just to, to just remind committee of is that this, this is a situation that arose because of a fire, in Mosshole Grove, in summer of 2023. And I, the chair of the committee and myself will remember that day after the fire when we were both, I went down there and obviously, Councillor McGurk is very much aware of this as well, but we, we spent a whole day down there with residents affected and, and it was an horrific, it was an horrific fire actually. And they, and they, four people lost their homes and almost all their possessions. It was a, and I am convinced that had it been a, a night time of fire, it would have been potentially more serious because I, the fire spread with alarming speed across the whole terrace. And, and I, as a result of that, it basically alerted us to the fact that something like this can't be allowed to happen. It's not, you know, there was something wrong with the way that that fire had, they had spread so quickly. And so we were very keen to get the, you know, to make sure that actually we fulfilled our duties as a borough and made sure that there were no similar properties elsewhere. And so we started a long process, and, you know, we had briefings with Councillor Cornelius and, and opposition councils and ward councils and the various wards about this. And I, and I, and it has been a long process and a lot of work has gone into, to getting it to us, to, to where we are today. I updates to cabinet on 12th March 24 and taking forward a plan of work. I, the, part of the process has actually to be, you know, to, to look at where, I, we have similar properties that needed investigation. I, across the borough and one of the, and that having identified a, those properties to carry out a sample inspections. And what we're talking about basically is, and what we found during those inspections, I, was that there was what is known in housing world as a category one hazard. I, under the housing health and safety rating system, which was introduced as part of the Housing Act 2004. Now, that system of, of housing regulation has been around for a long time. It's well known. A category one hazard is something you cannot let stand. As a local authority, you have to make sure you take action to deal with category one hazards once they're identified. And often, you know, we've often had these discussions in relation to the private rented sector and licensing and actually, you know, raising standards. Because some of, there are some private properties that, and actually occasionally, not private properties, but public properties that are in falling condition. Not in Barnet, I hasten to add, when it comes to our own housing stock. So, a series of pilots were undertaken, and a lot of public meetings. And I went to a meeting over in Burnt Oak, and as you'll see from the report, the vast majority of the most affected ward is Burnt Oak in terms of the numbers of properties that are in scope for this hazard. And I went to a very packed meeting, which some very good local residents, associations, sprung up out of, you know, responding to this, and the ward counselors were at. And one of the things that was very clear when I spoke to those people was that the majority of people affected, as the report will end, the numbers are in the report, are obviously freeholders and not council tenants. And one of the things they said very clearly to us was, you know, we want to get our properties safe. There was an acknowledgement of that. But cost was an issue. And basically, you know, they don't are occupiers, and the council has to make sure they don't have category one hazards, but looking at practical ways to make sure that the risk to them was lowered, to an extent that it would not be a hazard under category one of the HHSRS. And so basically what we did, and a very strong message that was taken back to the officer team was to look for practical solutions to try and make sure that this was a solution that was affordable, but actually also a solution that dealt with getting rid of that category one hazard. There were some remedial actions that also took place as a, you know, we obviously, we provided smoke detectors and fire safety advice to all residents. There's a communications plan set up, and there's a dedicated web page set up, which is updated regularly, and meetings with residents groups. Barnett Holmes put in place personal emergency evacuation plans, which is a housing, a term for basically a, in high risk properties to have something in place for the fire brigades as they attend the site. That was done for Barnett Holmes residents, but also the high risk private residents. We have commenced work in relation to Barnett Holmes properties on the highest risk properties, and the inspections on the freeholder sites, starting with the highest risk properties are underway. I think one of the things that is worth saying, and actually one of the things that we've procured an external provider to do the inspections. One of the things in relation to the, you know, important part of this report, and I'm conscious that we've got Councillor Radford at this meeting, is the cost to the council. The general fund requirements were expected to be 13 million. This is now reduced to 7 million because we found a more affordable option. That's a provision to allow us to give loans to those people that are affected, should they require a loan. The loan will have to, the loan on repayment scheme will be available, subject to certain conditions to help residents who meet the criteria to deal with the category one hazards. It's subject to interest and will remain as a charge on the property until it's paid, so we will eventually get that money back. But as we've had it done in the past, when it comes to large scale leaseholder and freeholder bills, the council has tried to help with the paying of those bills. The housing revenue account deals with the cost of remediating council properties. That has gone up slightly from 3.6 million to 5.1 million. That's partly due to, and the report does cover this, that there were potential legal challenges. And the decision was made that actually the most cost effective way was to deal with the council dealing with the party of all issues. Rather than getting into legal disputes, all pepper potted around the whole of the properties affected. And actually that's, that money is not easily recoverable. So there is a slightly increase in the cost, but actually is a, it is actually a money saving, a money saving, a sort of a, a reason that we're doing that. And finally, just to say that I think that, you know, we've briefed the central government, the GLA, local councillors, local MPs. And, you know, basically I want to just commend the, commend the officers for the effort that has gone into getting us to this stage where we're now going to plan in place and our way forward. Thank you, councillor Houston. I know you've got a bit more than three minutes, but it's a very important topic. And thank you very much for adding reassurance. I hope to, don't hope, is councillor Gurren still there? Yes. And others who were affected. Absolutely. Councillor Gurren, do you have specific points you want to make to councillor Houston? Otherwise I have a question, but. Are you asking to me? Yes. Is there anything that councillor Houston has anything you want to say to the committee or to councillor Houston that's not been said? No, I don't have anything, chair. There are four councillors, I think, in this meeting. Three of us are here. One's online. The property's affected and the fire at Mossel Grove shocked everyone. It's absolutely devastating. Finally, as you're talking about the funding, we've got complications. I think I brought it up all over. I think the point is that where you've got leaseholders, freeholders, council tenants, and then people who might have then left the properties on. It's, you know, how can we as a council and any future applications for the right to buy? My views on the right to buy are well documented in this chamber. I just think, I think how we need as a council to ensure that we as a council are actually doing financially properly, looking after our tenants and actually alerting anyone who is a leaseholder or a freeholder or who in future may want to actually purchase properties, that we're not going to go down the 1980s small print and actually alert where there could be problems. The first ever council meeting I sat in this room was Stone Grove and a large panel system, which is a history of the making. That was the first meeting I ever sat on. So there are issues around the right to buy lease and freehold. Are we confident that we can actually, are we secure in that we can advise people without compromising our position? If you want, I can kick off. I mean, I think the, I mean, obviously, one of the things that is very, I think, fair to say is this is an emergent, a risk that no survey could have identified when people would have purchased those properties. I think it's fair to say. And also we are not going to be the local, only local authority affected by these sort of properties. We have alerted national government. We've alerted the GLA. We are doing the remedial action we think is appropriate. We've got a good history in Barnett of actually being, you know, with the response to fire safety. We wanted to be, you know, deal with those things exemplary. And I think, and we've done that with Damper Mould as well. I think we have to be, this is a category one hazard in our view. And that's, that's why we do have to act. I think this has been a problematic, a solution. And I think it's something that actually, I, it is fair, people who have been left in the position that council McGurk has raised, that we put in together our financing, a position that allows them to potentially pay for costs that they, they weren't expecting. And I think that, that, that is a fair thing to do. We don't have to do it as a local authority, but we, we have done it in the past and it was fair to do it in this case. I, councillors, one of the things that we will do, and I think particularly in burnt oak is, is we, you know, we are going to be having meetings with individual residents to take forward what's proposed in their particular properties. And I, obviously, I think those meetings should involve the local councillors and the local MPs. And they, where they want to be involved in those meetings. I, but it, to some extent, it's probably, we can, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll set up briefings for, for ward councillors in relation to, now that we're at this stage where we go forward. I, but yeah, so I think that's why we put the financial package together. I, and I think that's the fair way to deal with this. Thank you, chair. Obviously, this is a very specific problem that affects very specific properties, but what has been learned from this process and this kind of crisis that can be used in the future, if something equally as serious were to emerge in our housing stock? I will pass that one to Belinda. It's a really interesting question. I think it's, it's been a particularly complicated project. I mean, it's run kind of in tandem with the RAC issue coming through. And, you know, we know there's going to be other similar issues that, that do come across our books over time. I mean, obviously we've had Grenfell as well. So there's, it's been, it's been a process of, of kind of evolving and learning, particularly in relation to fire safety over the past few years. I mean, I think, I think in relation to this, this project particularly had to be quite agile in our thinking to try and think of, so I'm a, you run a housing enforcement service. We deal with landlords and tenants. This is not dealing with landlords and tenants. This is, this has taken us into kind of other considerations in relation to things like, how it might affect people's insurance in relation to the properties, how it might affect, yeah, people want to sell their properties. We've had to, I think we've, we've set up a team with people for the skill sets. And basically it's been making the best of those people in the skill sets and taking it in the directions that the projects had to go. We've had to be agile. We've had to change. It has taken time, which is obviously to the frustration of the residents. And I, I don't think we're there yet. Um, but I think the learning is that when you are doing things on the move, you've just had to evolve and change. And just all of us have had to be very flexible in relation to what we're doing. And it's just been, I think, I think probably what we've learned, I've learned more than anything else is when we think as we've, we've heard from the counselor earlier, when we think we're doing a lot of comprehensive communication with residents, it's never enough. And it's never, even though we've consulted with residents, we never get it right. Um, so it's, it's just that constantly knowing that even though we are, we're doing everything we can to get it on, it's never going to be quite right. We're always going to slightly miss the target. And it's how we then kind of steer it back to somebody raising, oh, you didn't hit the target. How are we going to get it back on track? So it's that constant checking and rechecking, you know, keeping things going in the right direction, I think. I think, yeah, I think that's right. I think, um, definitely the resident loan, but also I guess ways of working between the council and ban at home. And I think, you know, through this process that has, I mean, it was almost good, but I think that has improved and that should help for any future situations that may come. Councillor Macenti. Thanks chair. I just wanted to ask something about the loan. Um, so as I understand, it's a loan of up to 7,000 pounds. Um, if what happens, firstly, do they have to pay interest on that loan? Secondly, um, what happens? How much is the average amount that they would have to pay? Because I mean, talking to some residents, it was 15,000, if not more. What happens to residents who have to do this in a certain amount of time and the loan isn't enough? Um, so we have reduced the loan offer to reflect that we've got a cheaper, more cost effective solution now. So the loan should fully cover the cost of the misting system. Now, the slight caveat to that is we don't know what an individual situation in a house may be. So if there is full electrical rewiring needed, there may be, you know, that may not cover that, but we will need to look at that as that comes up. But we do believe that the cost of the loan will cover the cost of the misting system. It's been set as higher than we think costs should come in at to give kind of a headroom in case other issues are found. But from the inspections, the inspections we've done so far have been very split between properties that are really, they're fine and they've got nothing to do here and properties that actually have quite a lot of issues to be looking at. So, so we're very alive to the fact that set a number around what we know so far, but there is going to have to be some level of caveats to accommodate circumstances where people find themselves and they have bigger bills and they think they're going to have and how we're going to kind of assist people in helping with those issues. So for most people it will cost not more than 7,000. Council. For family home residents, as the council resident, so this remedial work, will it affect their rent going forward? No. So just on the loan, obviously the paper said they'll be secured against the property. Now obviously these homes, similar homes with cladding issues, are very difficult to resell and might resell below their market value. We will obviously be a charge on the property beneath the mortgage normally because of timing. What's in place to ensure that we do recover as much money as possible, should someone foreclose and the property sell below market rate? It is always a risk of putting a charge on any property, but we are doing checks before the charges are put on the property to ensure there's enough room in the debt amount on the property that they could still be, it will still be paid if it's not paid during the process, but on the sale of the property. I mean, obviously our hope is that these are paid over time as opposed to paid on sale. That should only be in the most extreme of cases. Really trying to find a balance between respecting the council's financial position and also trying to provide them as much support as we can to residents who are obviously very worried about this. So it's trying to strike that balance. Yes, anything the committee wants to recommend on this report or just notes it? Notes it. Anything on the comms to residents we heard from Councillor Durham? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we need to take, you know, I think Belinda is exactly right. You can never do too much comms. I think another round of comms is needed and I think, you know, face-to-face meetings. I think some of the best change in direction of this came as a result was face-to-face meetings. I think it's appropriate for me in particular to thank the residents groups in Burnt Oak in particular who have been very, really, really good at engaging with this process and actually being constructive, realising there's a genuine issue but realising there's a cost to residents. So a big thank you to them but we will take forward the comms. So how about the committee acknowledges the way that our residents have responded to this tragedy and to what follows. Thanks to the team for the work they've done and ask them to review again communication to make sure that we accept the point. There are some of us who put leaflets through every door in a ward and somebody says, you never sent a leaflet to me. I know I put a leaflet through your door. The fact that you never read it or don't tell me. So we know that some people need more than one and we ask you to just make sure that you're doing the very best that you can given that budgets are limited to communicate with residents. And particularly with those councils in Burnt Oak, Brunswick Park and West Virginia. Is that sufficient for the committee? Thank you very much indeed. We move now on to item number. Just before we begin to make a statement. The statement is this. Members on both sides of the chamber, that is Labour members of this committee and Conservative members of this committee, do not believe that we got all of the budget scrutiny perfect and that it could be improved. Now, rather than have a long debate about that, I would like the committee to acknowledge that at the beginning. Ask its new chair to work with governments to look at budget scrutiny and not spend the long fruitless half an hour debating whether we could have done it better or not done it better. Ask the new chair with the vice chair to look at better ways or improved ways. There may be a dispute about how much we actually did. We did some, but that we could always do more and see if we could do it more effectively within the programme that's available to us. Would that be acceptable to circumvent the debate? Thank you. But we do want to have a look now at these papers. So we've got Simon Radford online. We've got Anissa Dar online. We have a finance person with us. So, I mean, I think most of these figures are already known to you. I don't think there's anything unusual in them or dramatic in them. I don't know whether Anissa or Simon wants to update us in any way. Yes. So maybe a short update either from Simon or Anissa or both as you decide. I'm very happy to start because then I can take the low hanging fruit and Anissa can do the difficult bits. Thanks for having me with you today. And yes, I'm very happy to echo Councillor Rich's point. Very happy to work with new chair and vice chair to make sure that there is sufficient scrutiny. I just say when it comes to the budget scrutiny is very welcome. I think one of the first conversations which I had with Anissa as a new cabinet member have been going through the whole budget was asking questions about what exactly does this mean? What exactly does that mean? And making sure that the budget which we published was understandable by a resident logging on and looking in as far as is humanly possible. And if there are any further thoughts or comments about how we can lay things out so it's more readily understandable, I would very much welcome them. In terms of progress, since you saw me last or we discussed this topic last, you know, that in the papers, it shows some of our kind of ongoing work to make sure that, you know, we don't have a huge amount of reserves, there's not a huge amount of wiggle room, nor frankly, should we, you know, presume that there is we should treat it like we're trying to sort of save every penny where we can and spend it very wisely, because ultimately it's not our money, it's the council taxpayers of Barnett's money. And in order to make sure that we are doing that, we're taking a series of actions. We've set up a series of boards internally doing deep dives in particular areas where we know there are big areas of spend or potential pressures. We're making sure that we are looking at those areas double and triple clicking where needed to get under the hood of these areas. I've been working with Anissa to start thinking about how do we put in place what I would call early warning systems, i.e., how do we find out any emerging pressures as soon as it would be possible to discover that. So whether there are emerging changes in demand, unit costs or supply changes in terms of market provision, which we would later rely on. We want to make sure that we are not identifying this in Q2 and Q3, but we are doing this as soon as we possibly can. Part of that ongoing monitoring means, you know, identifying areas where we can work with services to try and see how we can do things differently. I'm pleased to say that some of those changes in terms of, for example, of commissioning on adults and others have already yielded good results and we're looking to how we can spread best practice. We're also looking to bring in an improvement partner, which will add capacity, I think, to really do understand some of the processes, understand where there's potential replication or efficiency or productivity gains, where we can bring in potential tech where necessary in order to save cost and drive outcomes. And we've been reviewing the capital budget to make sure that it's both within the sort of envelope of what we can afford, but that it's also having the biggest possible impact. And we're also reviewing our asset base to make sure we're sweating every available asset. So if you were taking over a business, you would kind of make sure you were making the most out of your balance sheets. You'd make sure you're monitoring your cash, cash position. And that's what also we've been doing in terms of monitoring our debt position. Make sure we're managing cash as efficiently as possible. Making sure where the treasury function is going as well as it can. We're making sure that, you know, we're paying our pensions on time, our services as efficient as they can be, and that we're trying to work with people to drive more sustainable change. I think that's probably enough to sort of set the scene. I'm sure there's additional smart things Anissa might want to say, but hopefully that gives you a bit of a picture in terms of the areas of concentration and where we're putting in a lot of work to really get to the bottom of things and make sure that we are doing everything we can to turn around Barnett's finances in very challenging times for councils across London and across the country. Anissa, do you want to add anything? Yes, I just wanted to draw committee's attention to the paper. So it's specifically showing the position at Q3. Obviously, that is at the end of December 2024. So it is out of date. And what I can update the committee on is that since then, in terms of monitoring figures we've seen for month 10 and month 11, it has shown that there has been a reduction in the projected, the forecast overspend. Not massive, a couple of million pounds. But that is to do with cost control measures that have been put into the council, spending control panels, which operate four days a week, and really trying to improve that culture across the organization of the fact that while this is a sector wide problem, from a Barnett perspective, we still need to try and get onto a financially sustainable footing. As committee, the last thing I would just like to draw committee's attention to, which is in the cover report and not in the substantive report, is that earlier this year we were alerted by government that they had accepted our exceptional financial support bid or application rather. And that has been approved for 55 million. That is the basis on which we have obviously set the budget, but that is a short term breathing space measure. And again, Councillor Radford and his cabinet colleagues, along with council officers, are trying to work to ensure that the 26-27 budget is as sustainable and robust as possible. We're happy to take questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody? Councillor Cornelius, Councillor Weissau, Councillor Pryor, Councillor Incenti. Thank you. Thank you for the explanation. I suppose I'm slightly off beam here, but the concern is, of course, that there'll be – it's the unexpected things that come along that can dramatically throw a budget. And it's not only the spending. I mean, do you – is there a change in accounting for some things that will be adverse? I'm thinking particularly of the SEND funding, and also I'm wondering about the Birmingham equality issue, if that is now a risk to Barnett as the budget goes forward, please, those two issues. Anissa, do you want to take the SEND question? I can come in on. Yeah. So, the – there is a lot of press at the moment about something called the DSG statutory override, which will impact councils that have an overspend or an ongoing deficit on their DSG. Barnett currently does not have a deficit on their DSG. We do, in fact, have a positive reserve that we've been carrying forward in respect of our DSG. We will, this year, for 24-25, have a deficit, but we will offset that against that positive reserve. And going forward into 25-26, we also, while we're forecasting a potential overspend, the reserve should be able to contain it. There are about two-thirds of London boroughs that have got a deficit and it will impact them, but it doesn't impact Barnett at the moment. And just to add on your second point to make sure we don't miss that, yes, I guess we could, you know, you could do the whole Rumsfeldian unknown unknowns. And I can't give you a good list of them because they're unknown, but it's very wise to say, how do you deal with the unexpected? I think there's, I would hope to say that normally when we've had the unexpected, it tends to have always gone in one direction, which is always quite interesting. I'm hoping there might be some unexpected in a positive direction. Obviously, we've seen some good news on inflation coming down and the Bank of England cutting rates again. I know the sort of guilt tends to follow quite closely. The US Treasury rate and US Treasuries have started coming down as well. So while we must guard the sort of the unexpected risks, you know, I'm hoping to celebrate some unexpected rewards potentially as well. That being said, Birmingham. So one of the things which, you know, I've made sure to do in terms of batting my eye in as the new cabinet member is to sort of study and look at reach out to colleagues from other councils to understand various bits and pieces. So one of the things I did when I looked at the first budget paper, which obviously inherited, was to also look at how other councils have set fares out to see whether there's stuff which we can take on board. Birmingham was one of them. And as part of that, I've kind of looked into that. I think in terms of the equal pay claim in Birmingham and the Oracle claim, clearly those two things have got a lot of press, just as it's fair to say that our issues with Oracle have been nothing compared with Birmingham's. I would also expect that any issues with equal pay would also pale in comparison to what Birmingham had to go through. And so I think you're right to raise it as something which is worth keeping a watching brief on. But I'm confident that it's very far from crystallizing into something that would need to be reflected in a budget or anything at this point. And that's probably the most that I can probably say at this point, because it's there's no real clarity over even what the issue tangibly is, let alone what the implications for it might be. But that being said, I appreciate it being brought up because it is something that is on the agenda as an ongoing issue that I'm keeping an eye on. Thank you, Chair. Obviously, we've talked a lot about the overspend and about keeping an eye on overspend. What are we doing to kind of watch those budgets that are under but approaching so that we can try and stop the problem before it happens, like a traffic light system of a green budget, an amber budget, a red budget? And when it's amber, can we are we doing enough to not let it get to red in essence? Great question. And this will tell you that this has been a bit something of an obsession of mine since I started. And I think one of the challenge, I think that we that we have set the organization and it's it's a challenge which has been really readily accepted, which has been brilliant, is that because I think everyone is focused on financial level. Let me let me put it this way. It is in some organizations and in some councils, no doubt. And the job of financial sustainability falls on a finance team that can't be the case in Barnett and shouldn't be the case and won't be the case. It'll be it's the job of everyone and the entire council to that end. We need to make sure that we're getting the right data, the right information as early as possible around the right risk factors to be able to head off things as early as humanly possible. So as part of the boards, which I mentioned where we're doing deep dives in across the council on lots of the sort of areas which I think we feel like we need to do that work. Part of it is putting together a kind of what we call an early warning system. Other people might say is a dashboard or a tracker where we're getting as close to real time data on all the variables that matter as far as is humanly possible. And that allows us to track it against previous years, against tolerances and also with the context and the qualitative data that people in those services can also bring to bear in terms of putting some context and some perspective around those numbers. And then that allows us to work with that service to say, you know, what are you seeing here? Is this something which we can, you know, triage and address as soon as possible? So I think it's again a wise question, something that has certainly been close to an obsession of mine since we started and something which I'm pleased to say can genuinely say has been a really exciting area of collaboration across the council to make sure that we're doing as well as we possibly can. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I'm just a bit baffled as to what the value of bringing this paper to the OBS scrutiny committee this evening is. The budget has already been approved. What are we actually trying to do here? Without being provocative, you might want to ask your own leader for the paper to come, is that correct? Oh, we receive all quarterly reports. And quite rightly, the vice chair was vigilant that this one should come. This is the only meeting could have come to. I'm happy to curtail the discussion if there isn't much discussion. I think it leads to a bigger discussion around best practice democratic scrutiny to bring it to scrutiny after the budget has been set. And perhaps there's a question for the head of governance, which is maybe a bit unconventional this evening, but whether he believes that the current process needs to be reevaluated. Well, I made the comment at the beginning that both parties had agreed that the way we were scrutinized the budget could be improved and that that would be one of the tasks of the new chair to work with governance and the vice chair, who I don't know is changing. So I assume it will be the opposition to to improve that. With all due respect to the future chair and vice chair. The question really and governance, the question really should perhaps be addressed to the officers that are putting governance in this position. And just for a bit of context, so so this committee does a set piece budget scrutiny meeting around November, December every year. And the vice chairman picked up that there wasn't a forum where the call to the out term reports will be monitored. And there was a request for them to come to this committee. I think in the circumstance of this report, there's a timing issue because the Q3 out term report has already been to cabinet as pointed out the data is old. I think there is a value for this committee to be according to the out term reports. So the question is probably more of the timing of these meetings and getting at the right point in the cycle. But a function of this committee absolutely is to have a look at the out term reports and to scrutinize it and to say where there's identify where there's potential overspends or underspends and to challenge and scrutinize that. That's an absolutely critical function of the committee, because that's something that got lost when we changed the committee structure. So the vice chair who brought that to the attention and brought the quarterly reviews back was, in my mind, absolutely correct in that. It's more about the budget function here. And as you mentioned, it's old data. And again, my question really is whether officers are presenting agendas to governors with insufficient time for governors to turn them around to committees, if that's the case. And if so, I think your point is well, is well taken, as I indicated in my opening remarks, it will need to be explored, can't be explored today. So if there are questions you want on today's, even if the data someone had today, I'm happy to proceed. Of course, you can put a resolution that we move straight to note the report for all sorts of reasons. Not sure that will be objected to by many members of the committee. So would you like to put that as a possibility? Councilor, well, to be fair, I've got Councilor McGuirk, Councilor Incenti, Councilor Ambe and Councilor Cornelius again. So you can either all have your questions or you can second Councilor Praga's possibility that we just know we move straight on to other business. I promise not to take it personally, Chair. Can I just say is that I think there is an issue. If you're putting your face forward as a member of the Open Scrutiny Committee, there are times when you might have to put a pressure on governance. There are things will happen where you might have more meetings to actually do the scrutiny properly. The calendar doesn't necessarily always meet. The diary of meetings doesn't necessarily meet the calendar of finance. So I think we need to be, as a council, more flexible. As someone who's been a chair of a count of committees, a cabinet member, chair of a scrutiny committee and been doing this for some time, there needs to be some flexibility. And I think Simon has agreed that I think and when there's urgent things that come up and change that come up, we need to have something in the system whereby it's not a full scrutiny committee that we need to have somewhere that we can do it. I think we know that it wasn't perfect, wasn't perfect, but I think we need to have flexibility. OK, look, let's we understand the procedure has not been as good as it could have been or might be approved, but I think these these figures did, in fact, go to a previous meeting. Are there any questions? I know Councillor Senzi had one and Councillor Ambe had one and Councillor Cornelius had one on the set, which most members have already seen at Councillor David. Let's get through these relatively quickly and then we can move on. I will take Councillor Incentive's question. Thank you, Chair. My question is on revenue generation. I feel like I've sat in several meetings now where we've heard that we need to look at different income streams and develop new ways of generating income. Can we be can we have a report or something that tells us what what's been done over the last few years about diversifying our income streams or if this hasn't been done yet? What we have in place the next few years is just something I've repeatedly asked and I haven't seen any proof of yet. Thank you. So we could put that as a recommendation. I think that at some stage we'd like a report on income generation, historic income generation and what's happening. Thank you. Councillor. Well, you've done yours. Thank you. Councillor Ambe. Thank you, Chair. I'm sorry. My question was more to was more an explanation for what DSG meant. So I think we've more conversation till now. Yes. DSG stands for dedicated schools grant. It's the funding we receive for primarily funding schools, but we also fund early years block and also high needs from it. Thank you. It was just the acronym. Yeah, apologies. I should have used the full term before using the acronym. Thank you very much. Thank you. Councillor David, did you indicate or have I imagined that? No, you didn't. It's all right. I was just looking through the bad debts written off. And I'm aware that this was being looked at how we can recover as much as possible and reduce. Has there been an improvement in this area? So in respect of bad debt, as you all know, our biggest debt is health. So the ICB and in respect of the changes that were announced in the last couple of weeks in respect of changes to NHS England and also ICBs. I suspect it will become harder to engage with them. However, we are working really well across children's services, adults, public health and finance to ensure that we have got a good record of like all the agreements that are made, the debt they do owe us, invoicing on time, chasing up, etc. So unfortunately, just on our biggest debt, I suspect being realistic, things will get a little bit worse while they're going through a period of uncertainty. But the assurance I can give you is that we are absolutely working together to ensure that the performance on that is improved because that's a key risk, especially around getting health income for children with high needs packages. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you. That's a good build up. Building on Councillor Weiss's point and also Councillor Prager's point, Councillor Redford, with the new data that you're getting and the early warning system and the figures, would you put that online so that we can all see it? I mean, in the interest of transparency. I remember when we decided we'd publish all spending over 500 quid. All right. No history. Sorry, I'll shut up. Thank you. Would you do that, please? It's it would probably be bad practice to make glib and and and off the cuff promises. What I can say is at the beginning, I said I welcomed scrutiny and welcome the transparency. It's helpful, I think, for us to get that information, what we can share, which isn't proprietary, which isn't problematic to share. I don't see why we wouldn't look to do that. So why don't I promise to to look into what else we can share and and tell you that I think some of it probably is it's a large part of it is just pulling it together. I know, for example, in Barnet open data, there's an expenditure reporting for 2425, which I think we can share with everyone. So we still publish expenditure over £500. But if there are additional things which we can put together and share, of course, we will look to do that. What's the old cliche? Sunshine is the best disinfectant. I think that probably while it is a cliche probably remains true. So we're going to note this report, but we do want some more information on income generation. We note the commitment to be as open and transparent as possible. And the third one, of course, is to review with the new chair of the OU and Scruton Committee and relevant officers how we can do this or do this more efficiently and effectively. Is that OK for everybody? Before the actual recommendations go out, they get sent to the chair and vice chair. Now, that's something I've introduced to make sure that both parties in the chamber are reasonably content with and recommended. I haven't summarized something yet. But let's then move on. Thank you, Anissa and Councillor Redford. Anissa Dar and Councillor Simon Redford. Thank you very much indeed for your help this evening. Thank you all. We move swiftly on to item number 10, Task and Finish Group's supplementary agenda. Fiona Ray. Thank you very much, Fiona Ray overview and screening manager. So this is the standard task and finish group progress update report with a few extras. And so you might have seen we've got our usual table of how things are going and the sort of the green bar progress. And you might see that it's significantly greener now, which is nice. And similarly attached to the report as appendices D&E, you'll see some cabinet responses to task and finish groups. So these are just being reported for monitoring purposes for information. And if there's any changes the committee would like to request or suggest, they're very welcomed. In addition, we also have the food security task and finish group scope, which is attached for your agreement. And I'm happy to answer questions on any of those. Any. I think we just need to note this report. Sorry, Council Weissel. I think I've raised this before that we I know that we had some problems in year one of moving things forward at pace. Topics that were agreed nearly a year ago by committee in our first meeting after the last AGM are now just being scoped. How are we progressing with moving these faster? Because I know we've just put out sort of ideas for the next round. If those are going to be agreed in June and they're not dealt with for almost a year, they're often then out of date by the time we're actually agreeing them at committee. And how are we getting better at being more responsive? Well, everything that's currently allotment management, fostering food security and sustainable travel were agreed at the beginning of this council year by this committee as task and finish groups. And they're only at the beginning of the green bar rather than at the end will be asked to agree new topics in our first this committee be asked to agree new topics in its first meeting. If those are then still coming back at this sort of stage for scoping, can we speed up finishing basically? So working with Fiona and the screening team, we are working on trying to speed these up. So in terms of scoping, what we've done is instead of waiting for a committee or subcommittee to agree the scope, as long as the members are on the group have agreed the scope, then we'll just push on with that. Taking the example of the allotments management, that has only started fairly recently and we're expecting the work to conclude at the end of April. And moving to a one stage process is going to speed things up a lot because what we found is some of the initial task and finish groups have taken a lot longer to complete their work reporting to cabinet and get reports back than we would have liked. So we are working on speeding everything up. There have been some externalities which have affected the progression of some of the groups. So I think on sustainable travel, the team weren't quite ready and they kind of pushed us back a couple of months before that start. So there wasn't anything to look at, which has been, unfortunately, a reason why it's been delayed. So there are various factors, but we are working really hard on getting them started and finished a lot quicker. Which I've said this before, we have tasks we don't do to finish. Are sometimes the tasks too big a scope to actually finish? So when we're going through a task and finish, I think making it more narrow and more direct and actually feasible is probably a better way. It's a better use of counsellors' time and officers' time. And if you can't think you're going to finish, just say we abandon it. Let's also be clear without being defensive that the committee has only existed for three years, or two years actually. We're beginning to learn how to do things better. Or we can all learn to do things differently. It can be better, of course sometimes it's worse, but we hope it will be better. So I think we're all conscious to do more. But we also have resource limitations. We need to get volunteers to sit on these groups. We also need to make sure that we need to get them. And we're trying all of those. So I think we're grateful for the comments. They're noted. And I want to move on, if I might, to cabinet forward planning plan. Can we just confirm that people are happy to agree? I'm happy to agree. The committee is happy to agree the scope for the food security task and finish group. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. That's agreed. Cabinet forward plan. So I won't go too much into the cabinet forward plan. We do have a number of items that have already been highlighted from previous cabinet forward plans on our upcoming work programme. But if anyone has anything they'd like to add or find out further information, please let us know. Thank you. That's noted. We now move on to item 12, which is the overview and scrutiny committee work programme. I will say as an introduction that we're a pretty hard working committee. We get probably still more papers than we should do. And as you know, in other barriers, there are more committees doing this work and more staff allocated to it. But we work within the resources that are allocated to us by whoever allocates them. And you have here on item 12, pages 67 to 69 to 70 something, six. And you'll also note a couple of references. One on cyber security. I'll ask Fiona to introduce you. Cyber security. Barnet Homes Repairs and Residence Communications. Brent Cross Project. Thank you, Jay. So on cyber security, you may remember at the December meeting, the committee asked us to look into whether it was necessary for this committee to look into the issue, because it is covered by the Governance Audit Risk Management and Standards, or GARMS committee. And we've heard back from officers that they do believe cyber security risks and measures as they're reported to GARMS, the committee, and through regular corporate risk updates, they believe that's sufficient. So if the committee is happy to accept that, we can remove it from the work programme. Alternatively, if we'd like to keep it on, it would be useful to have a focus for the paper. So cyber security, you either join Donald Trump's cabinet or you go to GARMS. Does that agree? Thank you. I'm rather Donald Trump's cabinet. Yes, I think you're probably right. OK. That's OK. Now, on Barnet Homes and Repairs and Residence Communications, there's obviously a connection between those two things. And I think the suggestion we bring it together is one report rather than two. I think that's sensible. So, Brenton Cross Project GARMS are recommended that the O thierel Scruton Committee and Cabinet should have Brenton Cross Project as a regular item on its agenda. it's a matter for uh council mitra is anything you want to add i mean comes from your committee oh it's me sorry thank you so i was trying to say that if brand cross region is part of the committee's work program could we consider what send them to be part of it the reason i say that is because this scheme has got loads of not just saving problems but serious issues so my comment and then others will come in i mean i'm i'm trying to take things off the agenda not add and that includes bread cross and west end of the matter i'm not making the two of them um i am just a bit reluctant and if we're not careful all every group and i guess i don't say this about anybody here but committees and individual councils and groups which think something is important and probably is will think aha send it to the overview scrutiny committee and we will we already have an unmanageable agenda and i think we'll have an even more on that man that's why it's me that's not about the there's no comment about west hendland or about brent cross it's just about the principle of adding all these things to the agenda so i hear i see councillor mitra and then councillor weissel thanks thanks chair i i agree with what you said i think there are a number of major schemes across the borough it becomes very very difficult to have them all come back every time um i think it's worth reminding councillor rambe that he can bring a member's item to this if you want any particular updates on any aspect so as as things progress he can always do thank you um i may regret this i haven't had a conversation with the leader about his plans for next year for licensing and general purposes chair but i do note that the forward plan for licensing and general purposes is light that general purposes is a broad description and i don't know if there's any work that is done here that's a noting of things that could maybe be dealt with by that committee um just to keep an eye on and then could be referred back if it needs to be because there's a point of concern um i know that that committee has reduced its number of meetings a year from three to two because of because of the lack of agenda items and as i say i may regret this in my other role i think i'm not unhappy to accept that provided there's some kind of recommendation that ensures that the issue is taken up properly at cabinet that things are screwed on we we have the duty to scrutinize i think we can add value to and i'm not sure that putting bread cross on regularly will do that call it absolutely but can we agree that we're not accepting that you'll communicate that back to carbs uh when appropriate uh we also have fun to have uh moving very closely to the end so don't get over excited 20 mile an hour policy in transport strategy i think um the governance manager the uh overview manager wrote to you and asked you whether you would like an additional meeting which most of you said no and that um we would deal with this by email or other so that will come to you in the appropriate way at the appropriate time and if i may share the same goes before there was a request to add the draft supplementary planning document sustainable design and development guidance and due to the timelines it's likely that that will be in a similar position and where it will be sort of um between meetings scrutiny if you will and then we can report it to the next meeting and the recommendations can go where they need to go so you get the papers you can respond to me or to fiona as you choose until the 20th of may and whether it's not a formal committee meeting i will be the chair of the committee so you can come back to me on those things there are no other urgent items i'd like to know there is this is your last meeting can i extend our thanks and i think i may have just beaten rich into that for the last two years of chairing yes i'd like to thank you you know it's very difficult being in opposition it's not much fun as the labor group no and we don't like it but you have been very fair and uh i thank you for that and uh the the committee meetings i believe have added value and they have not been intensely boring so thank you very very much thank you excellent staff and excellent committee so thank you all and go home