Transcript

Right. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Cabinet meeting of Wednesday, the 9th of April. Please be advised this meeting will be recorded and posted on the Council's YouTube channel. Can all those speaking please ensure you switch on your microphone before addressing the meeting, and remember to switch off when you have finished speaking. And also, when voting, can members please raise their hand. Item one, apologies for absence. Thank you. Item two, I don't see any urgent business. Item three, any declarations of interest? Item four, is Cabinet happy to agree the minutes of the last meeting? Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now move on to item five, to note the demand for places and agree the resource and the capital programme. This is for the school, place, planning and capital programme report. And I will hand over to Councillor Adele Kyra to open. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. As you're aware, it's a must on the local authorities to provide enough spaces for children and young people in education. These are all aged children up to the age of 25 with special needs. And this report outlines our strategy to manage the forecast demand coming forward and look at the protected properties as well that's coming forward across the borough and making sure that we've got enough spaces for all children and young people across the borough for schools. Over the years, Chair, we have been doing really well. The numbers have been going down and finding enough spaces. There is some difficulties in the south of the borough to have enough boy spaces for schools in the south of the borough. But since 2023, Chair, we had 189 young people that didn't have a school place on the first day of the school, the dates where schools are offered for young people. And in 2024, that's gone down to 79. And in 2025, this year has gone down to 39. So things are getting better. But we still have difficulties across, like I mentioned, in the south of the borough, enough spaces for boys. But over the years, things are going to level out, Chair. So happy to take any questions. Thank you very much. Just one question from me and happy for the other cabinet members to indicate. We'll probably also go to the officer for this question. Under this report, do we know how many dedicated designated specialist provisions we will be seeking to open via the report or just add to the existing number of dedicated supervision? Obviously, it's welcome the news that this is good support that will go to support children, young people who have special education needs. So just wanted to clarify how many, through the expansion of our dedicated support provision, what number that will be. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So we are going to add another five on top of what we had already, which was 15. So in total to be 20. And also to add that we have a program a lot long ago, myself and Medjid, for the new campus school, all through school special needs, which is a great asset to the borough. And hopefully at some point in the future, we'll also be looking at a primary school face. Brilliant. Thank you. And I also remember going on the the being with you and Medjid as we went to break the ground. Remind me of the name. What was it called again? Oh, the new special special education school that we're building. Rowan Wood. That's it. Rowan Wood. So it marks a new opportunity for children and young people in the borough. Obviously, we want all of our young people to have the best outcomes in the borough, especially those with special education needs. So welcome to you and the team. Are members happy to agree the decisions as outlined in section 1.1 to 1.10 of the report? Thank you very much. Brilliant. We'll now move on to item six, the proposed resolution for the prohibition of on borough wide review of ice cream trading. And I will say we've had this item come to cabinet in the past, and it's very exciting that it's here again. And I'll hand over to Councillor Smith to open on this item. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So, as the leader rightly said, this is a kind of long-standing, ongoing situation where we've had the ice cream trader and the legal representative making representations at full council. It's it presented us with the challenge in which we had to go out to consultation again to review some things that legally weren't done properly, although they seemed quite minor. It's it resulted in us having to do the consultation again. So the report that you've got sets out the outcome for the process. So of the responses we received in the month long consultation cream trading at King William walk with with 28 percent opposing. The only ground on which the council can prevent the itinerant ice cream trading on any of its interference or inconvenience to persons using the street. And we have had lots of complaints from residents of King William walk in the past. So should we agree this tonight at cabinet, it will have to go to full council and it's likely that it will be challenged legally at the magistrates court afterwards. And the council would need to robustly defend to the position. And it's also possible that there'll be significant media interest, although, frankly, why I don't know. And we're also mindful of the fact that even if the decision is made, there will still be ice cream traders who flout it and it will need to be robustly enforced. So, having said all of that, I would ask you to agree to go for it. Thank you, chair. Thank you very much, Councillor Smith. We'll move to questions. Councillor Slattery and then Councillor Taggart-Ryne. Thanks. Sorry, it's not a question actually, only to support what Councillor Smith is doing. So King William walk is in my ward. I think it's important to say that the council is not anti ice cream. There are ice cream vendors within a reasonable spit of where this ice cream van regularly parks up. It does get in the way. There are huge queues. It is very noisy and local residents have been very upset about it. So they'll be pleased to see this, but you're quite right that it's enforcement that's going to be the challenge. Thanks. Councillor Taggart-Ryne. I suppose my question comes to officers regarding enforcement during a period where we might be expecting a legal challenge. And if we were to escalate enforcement beyond fines, et cetera, would it be on legal ground to have a plan for enforcement even if we were waiting upon a court decision? If it was legally challenged again. If it was challenged, then the prohibition remains in place pending the outcome of the challenge. And that, excuse me, entitles the council to take enforcement action. But it's probably not appropriate at this stage to discuss what that enforcement action would look like and how it could be escalated. Thank you very much. Any comments on other questions? I don't see any. So I guess we can send a message back to Vanessa Feltz when she stood on TV and said, Come on, Greenwich, don't be boring. We're not banning ice creams in Greenwich in any way, shape or form. We do love an ice cream, actually. And it's nice to know that we haven't got Michael Gove writing to us again, writing to us about banning ice cream or banning ice cream locations, even though during in his own constituency had more places banned. So that was always an interesting reflection. Anyway, thank you very much, Councillor Swift, for your work on this and questions. Are members happy to agree the decisions as outlined in sections 1.1 to 1.2 of the report? Thank you very much. And we will now move on to the strategic risk register. And I'll just turn to officers just to do a very slight opening on strategic risk. Thank you. Vivian. Vivian. Yeah. I'll bring, welcome Vivian up. Yeah. And Vivian, can you just introduce yourself and just state whether this is your first time speaking at Cabinet? Thank you. Thank you. My name is Vivian. I am the Council's Head of Financial Governance Insurance and Risk. And this is my first time at Cabinet. Well, welcome. And it's good to have you here speaking to us about our strategic risk register. And I'll just give you an opportunity to open the report for us here at Cabinet. Thank you. Thank you. So, the report around the strategic risk register. The register is owned by the Council's Greenwich Management Team. It sets out the key risks that could impact on the Council's ability to achieve its objectives. The register went to the audit and risk management panel at the last meeting and they had a look through to scrutinise the register as well. Compared to the last update on registers, we have no new risks to report in this time around. Key risks, obviously, for every local authority, not just Greenwich, but it's also in our register, are around finances, as everyone could imagine. That's the biggest challenge across local government. Demand and complexity for school places. And also around achieving carbon neutral. As a Council, we've got robust internal controls in place to manage these risks. And we do carry out actions that are required to keep the risks mitigated. So, yeah, the report, we've got some appendices. Appendix A is the full register. There are two other appendices that provide a kind of summary overview. And appendix C, I'd say the first page of that, gives an overview of the top six risks in the Council. Yeah. Thank you very much. And then we'll now move to questions and comments. Just a comment from me. Just appreciate the layout of the report. It's much more easier to understand. I guess just in terms of a question from me, can you just speak to the mechanisms that kick in to catch on to those areas that we need to focus on of risks? Within the cross-working of different departments, how do we make sure we alleviate that risk? And what kind of cross-working mechanisms do you have in place to make sure by the different teams working across the borough? Okay. Well, in terms of working collaboratively with the Council, it's one of the key things that we do. So, when you think about, I'd say, a risk that affects social services or adult services, for instance, the measures that we have in place, processes, require interaction with other areas across the Council. So, when you look at our decision reports, one of the things we do is capture comments and views on the risks, what processes we have in place from various departments. So, we look at finance. We look at legal services. We look at, I'd say, housing, depending on the nature of the risks. So, that's one of the ways that we do that. And, of course, we have GMT departments and they consider risk areas in their individual management teams as well. They do so. So, that's some of the ways that we do communicate and collaborate across the Council. Brilliant. Thank you. Any other questions? I don't see anyone on any other comments. And I presume, can I just ask one clarifying question? Has this managed to go to audit and risk at this stage? Yeah. Yeah, it's been, its next destination is full Council. And was there any additional comments from audit and risk management? No? No? Okay. Thank you very much. Well, in that case, are members happy to agree to, thank you very much, Vivian. I appreciate your time. Are members happy to agree to the decisions as outlined in section 1.1 to 1.3 of the report? Agreed. Thank you very much. And that brings our Cabinet meeting to the end. Thank you so much, everyone. Have a good evening. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.