Transcript

Well, I don't know about that. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to this evening's meeting. I'm councillor Clare Holland, leader of the council and chair of this meeting. This meeting is being recorded and is being broadcast live and the recording of tonight's meeting may be used for quality and training purposes. In the event that technical issues require the meeting to be adjourned and it cannot be restarted within a few minutes, further updates will be posted on the council's Democracy X Twitter account, which is at LBL Democracy. I don't think we have any members of the public here, do we? No. OK, we all know where the fire exits and toilets are then. OK, apologies for this meeting. We have received apologies from councillor Fred Carroll and councillor Dr. Mahamed Hashi. Job share voting arrangements. After out on the agenda, the portfolio for healthier communities operates under a job share arrangement. The current decision maker for healthier communities is councillor Jackie Dyer. The portfolio for equalities, governance and change also operates under a job share arrangement. The current decision maker for equalities, governance and change is councillor Nanda Manley-Brown. I'd also like to welcome our new chief exec, Ian Davies, to his first cabinet meeting. I'm sure you'll find it very interesting. So, item one, declaration of pecuniary interest. Does any councillor have a disclosable pecuniary interest that they have not already declared? OK, thank you. No one's indicated, so we'll move on. Minutes of the previous meeting. Are the minutes of the meeting held on the 17th of March 2025 agreed as a correct record of proceedings? Agreed. Thank you, colleagues. The minutes were confirmed as a correct record. We'll now move on to the next item, which is homelessness strategy. This is going to be introduced by Councillor Danny Adilapour, Deputy Leader of the Council Housing Investment and New Homes. And we have the key officers here, which is Ruth, Alex Clark. Yeah, and Tom Tyson. Yeah. OK, so maybe once Danny's done his introduction and then we've heard from the speakers, you could then come up to the table to answer any queries. Thanks. So, Danny, over to you. Thank you, Chair. Colleagues, as we've discussed here many times, know that Lander, like the rest of London, this is a chronic shortage of housing, particularly affordable and social housing. We have 35,000 households on our waiting list and 4,800 families living in temporary accommodation, which is often in poor condition and expensive for the council. In 2024-25, over £100 million was spent by the council on social accommodation, which is by far the biggest pressure on the council's general fund. So, we have been taking ambitious steps to deliver more affordable housing in Lambeth. As you remember, last month I presented an update on our new Homes Programme, looking at the progress we've made to fast track the delivery of more affordable housing on council-owned land. And we're also pushing to get empty homes in the borough back into use. In December, we published our Empty Homes Action Plan, and early this year, Councillor Hashi and I wrote to the Minister of Housing, calling for more government action to tackle the problem of empty homes. As part of our Lambeth 2030 agenda, we're also striving to become a borough of equity and justice. Housing is central to this ambition. This is the context in which I'm presenting the rough sleeping and homeless strategy to Cabinet today. And this strategy focuses on a people-centred approach that focuses on prevention, early intervention, and partnership working. And this strategy sets out four priorities, as you read in the paper. Ensuring that there is suitable accommodation for homeless people to move into. Ensuring that rough sleeping is prevented, and that when it does occur, it is rare, brief, and non-recurrent. And finally, improving the quality of the data we have on our homeless residents. The strategy sets out the actions that we've taken so far, the achievements to date, but also the further work that we recognise needs to be done over the course of the strategy. And as part of the New Homes programme that we went through last month, we've also introduced a new work stream in the programme, specifically about sourcing more financially sustainable temporary accommodation. We've also made use of our own assets as Meanwhile TA in areas undergoing redevelopment, as well as entering into a partnership with the Royal Foundation on the Homewards programme. The tireless work of our rough sleeper outreach team in the Council has also resulted in the numbers of rough sleepers in Lambeth decreasing by over a third since the previous year, which of course is incredibly welcome, but there's still much work to be done. Just to conclude, I want to set out there are massive asks we need to make of government as well, as we cannot solve all the challenges around homelessness alone. And this issue needs the government to also address the housing crisis by investing in new affordable homes, properly funding TA by removing the 2011 LIJ cap and also increasing work at a national level on early intervention and prevention. And with that, colleagues, I recommend this paper to you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Danny. So I've got four people who have indicated that they wish to speak. So I've got councillor Nicole Griffiths, councillor Jackie Meldrum, councillor Alison Inglis-Jones and councillor David Bridgson. So you can all come up to the table and I'll take you in that order. Jackie, would you like to come up to the table? Thanks. Thank you. Nicole, you have three minutes to address Cabinet. Chair, I'd like to begin by praising the Street Homelessness team for recent intervention in a very complex case at Streatham. Their commitment and perseverance pay dividends in the end. And we recognise the ever-increasing challenges of their role under the circumstances. Thank you very much. The Green Party wants to see the provision of comfortable, secure, council-owned homes at council-rent levels. Homes that people across the country and in Lambeth are crying out for. While the strategy does propose to ask the government to fix the housing crisis, it fails to address one of the root causes of homelessness, the unequal ownership of wealth. As the one to two percent of the wealthiest individuals, corporations suck up ownership of more and more assets, there is less left for the rest of us. And what is left is becoming increasingly increasing. Government plan to build one and a half million homes through private development is therefore not the answer. It's also why I question the new Home 6 strategy. The handing over of council assets to private developers can only offer a short-term solution to social housing provision. This council must prioritise the purchase of suitable empty properties and the retrofitting of council homes. And the government must tax wealth to raise the money to provide government-owned housing nationally and locally. It was possible in the 50s. Let's do it again. Otherwise, we're in danger of returning to Dickensian times. Only Lambeth residents can't afford current private sector rent and are placed in expensive temporary accommodation when they turn to the council for help. Housing benefit, which covers around 90% of council housing costs, only covers around 40% of TA costs. This is public money going directly into private hands instead of to the local authority where it can contribute to the cost of council home provision. In addition, caps on benefits, including housing benefit, must be lifted to help families with housing costs. The council deserves praise for its continued support for women who experience domestic violence. And the strategy acknowledges that domestic violence and family breakdown are major contributors to homelessness for women, young people and children. The experience of homelessness contributes additional stress and mental and physical health issues, factors which make it even more essential to provide secure health and health for those who need them. My questions are, will you address the root cause of homelessness by asking national government to introduce wealth-related taxation to fund government-owned housing schemes? And my second question is, how will the council balance protecting women, young people and children at risk of domestic violence with its stay-in-place prevention and temporary accommodation strategy? Thank you very much. Thank you, Nicole. Jackie, you have three minutes to address the cabinet. Thank you, thank you, Chair. For too many families and too many councils across the UK, current policy and practice on homelessness is just not working and it's got to change at a national level. And I suggest part of this change will require a national debate to review the role of social council housing in the mix of housing tenures. People on lower incomes who are working and or on benefits require subsidised homes to live in. How much subsidised housing is needed and where is that subsidy to come from? It needs a national debate. It's not something we can solve locally at the Lambeth level or even the London level. My second point is about suitability of temporary accommodation, particularly about out of borough placements, particularly for us in Lambeths, of course, where out of our placements tend to be in South London, either for temporary accommodation placements or for discharge of housing duty. In my ward, I met a Bengali speaking Hindu family who were placed in TA by an East London borough in a lovely Norwood flat, one of the nicest flats I've ever seen. The mental health of these parents is deteriorating to the point of despair at the lack of any familiar culture and language nearby and the difficulty in keeping in touch with their previous support networks in East London. But temporary accommodation offers are not just about offering a vulnerable household a warm and dry home, if they're lucky, if they're lucky. It's about offering a home in a neighbourhood to live in and socialise in. Homelessness needs to be creatively tackled at a pan-London level. The London Council's Inter-Borough Accommodation Agreement, the IBAA, was last agreed in 2011, nearly 15 years ago. It must need updating to work better. We have an excellent team of very hard-working and committed staff in the homelessness team, probably the best team we have in the Council at the moment. I always appreciate speaking to them. Politicians must provide these excellent staff with policies necessary to give a generation of homeless families and their children a better future, especially in Lambeth, which is a child-friendly borough. Thank you. Thank you, Jackie. Next speaker I have is Councillor Alison Inglis-Jones. Alison, you have three minutes. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I'm acutely aware of the vulnerabilities of our sleepers in Lambeth. As Councillor for Clapham Common and Aberville, outgoing chair of the Lambeth South and Croydon Food Bank, a frontline advisor in the newly merged food bank, as well as Holy Trinity Clapham's Breakfast Club, it's unusual if a week passes without being called to support rough sleepers and people experiencing homelessness. I've just finished a five-month support stint with the Ropes project from November of last year through to March of this year, as rough sleepers access overnight accommodation and meals in churches across the boroughs. This example of a non-commissioned service alongside Spires doing an incredible job, Ace of Clubs also doing an amazing job, as well as being able to rely on offices in Lambeth have been key to supporting those who are vulnerable. The rough sleeping and homelessness strategy resonates with my direct experience of the support needed. The second priority of the strategy is to ensure that rough sleeping is prevented where possible and that when it does occur, it's rare, brief and non-recurrent. This was brought home to me in my recent visit to the Belvedere Hotel with Councillor Bridgson on Clapham Common Southside. I met with Lambeth officers from the Supportive Housing Commissioning Team and the resident of the hotel who was a former rough sleeper. It was very reassuring to hear from the team that my signposting to key voluntary sector groups was in tandem with their own support providers in the borough. The residency we met was clear that support from the team had enabled them to move off the streets, to temporary accommodation, employment and onward into permanent housing. Members of the team were clearly more than advisors to him. They were empathetic, supportive and the warmth of the relationships of moving to observe. My role as counsellor involves advising rough sleepers on support available to them, so being able to call on the rough sleeping outreach team who conduct shifts seven days a week is crucial. Knowing where to go and how to access support and working closely with non-commissioned services and Lambeth officers is immensely reassuring to all of us to involve in voluntary sector provision across the borough as we work together to end rough sleeping in Lambeth and across Lambeth. Thank you. Thank you very much, counsellor. Finally, counsellor David Bridson. Thank you, Chair. For the past year, I've been Deputy Cabinet Member for Housing and had the opportunity to lead the homelessness strategy. My job outside of being a counsellor is working for a homelessness charity, supporting 20,000 people every single night across the country. This enables me to reflect on the service offering and policy direction of Lambeth and how it compares to other boroughs. This is an area I care deeply about and I'm confident from my professional experience that this strategy will enable the council to reduce homelessness and rough sleeping. I want to talk a bit about how the strategies come together. We consulted over 300 residents and organisations, including 150 people living in temporary accommodation, ensuring that the strategy was formed by the lived experiences of homeless households. I'm pleased that the report received high levels of support of all four priority areas within the strategy and what came through was that affordable housing, financial stability, mental health and better communication with housing authorities could have helped prevent homelessness in the first place, all of which are in this strategy today. We held an in-person consultation event with over 40 people attending across the council and partners, from charities to housing associations to the NHS. I also joined our rough sleeping outreach team in the middle of the night to see the fantastic work they do. I've also visited charities and non-commissioned partners, such as the work of Ace of Clubs in Clapham, to hear directly what they want to see from Lambeth. I've also visited our hostels and also our crash pad services to see what we're doing to support homelessness people into sustainable housing. Lambeth is at the epicentre of the housing crisis, created by years of national Tory and lived-den neglect, inaction and underfunding. This council cannot solve homelessness alone and will only really achieve this mission by working together to prevent and reduce homelessness. The work of Thames Reach and Homewards are key examples of this. Our vulnerable adults pathway and our young persons pathway both have partnership working at their core. We will continue our partnership approach through the creation of our Homelessness Forum, bringing together key stakeholders in overseeing and delivering of this strategy into the future. And most importantly, we will work in partnership with our residents and households that receive our homelessness services to ensure that we maintain a person-centred approach. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank officers for pulling together this strategy to the frontline workers who go above and beyond every single day and every single night for our most vulnerable residents across the borough. And I hope you'll support this strategy tonight. Sorry, I shouldn't have been at the end of it. Thank you very much. Thank you, all of you. And yeah, I just want to take this opportunity to thank Councillor Bridson on leading politically on this over the last year and for the amazing work you've been doing with Council Adilaport and all our brilliant officers. So thanks so much for that energy and bringing it about. We're incredibly grateful. I was going to ask if you wouldn't mind stepping back now and I'll bring the officers to the table and we'll go through a couple of the questions that were raised there. So, sorry, the officers are... I've lost my piece of paper. Ruth, you're here. Alex and Tom. So Alex Clark and Tom Tyson. So the questions I had in there was about addressing the root cause of homelessness. That's, I think, that's been addressed. It's addressed in the strategy. It's been addressed politically by Danny. He may want to say something at the end but there was a question specifically about balancing protection of women and young people versus the stay put. Then there was a call for a national debate. It's what we are contributing to and creating a national debate on the housing crisis in London. Both Danny and myself and David Bridson and other councillors in our roles and doing that, Jackie. But there was a specific question on out of borough placement. The officers may wish to add to this but London Councils is doing a huge piece of work on that at the moment. Jackie, it does need updating. It's looking at how to update it within London boundaries so across borough but also outside of London boundaries to other authorities. So I'm sure if you wish to get involved in that piece of work you'd be very welcome to but that is happening and it's something that we've discussed a lot over the last 12 months at London Council so I think that your questions answered but Ruth, who can answer the one about balancing the protection of women and young people versus staying put approach? Perhaps I ask Alex to talk about our placement policy and the sorts of things that we take into account when we're women and women and women and how we make those decisions. That might be helpful. Yeah, so obviously whenever we make an offer of accommodation whether that's temporary accommodation or an offer of private rented accommodation hurry out a detailed housing needs assessment so we can make sure that the property that we're offering meets the needs of that family or that individual and that includes looking at any areas of that household and making sure that the accommodation that we're offering them takes them away from that risk so it's a safe and sustainable accommodation I think I'd also mention that we are currently in the process of obtaining accreditation with Daha which is the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance so that's been an ongoing piece of work for a number of years and we're hopefully going to receive some good news in the next couple of months on that but that has reviewed all of our internal policies and procedures not just within the housing needs space but also in our role as a landlord and across our neighbourhood housing teams to make sure that we are demonstrating best practice in the sector and making sure that we're keeping residents safe and responding to risk-evaking of them Thank you Alex I think that probably addresses it and just sorry one final thing to add on the root cause of homelessness obviously there's an issue with supply and we need to build and we need to build more homes and so it's really great that we have an administration that is pro-house building and pro-inclusive growth and we need to get those homes across the line in order to meet the need and we need to deal with the reality of the economic circumstances and the market that we face and I think our record has been really really good on this and particularly that we've spoken about at Cabinet recently the levels of affordable we've got up on Summer Layton Road for example as one recent partnership that is actually promoting homes that if that wasn't going ahead and we listened to people who opposed it those homes would not be being built now for people including the extra care units so that is something that we can try and use all our influence across the council and with our partners to try and ensure that we increase that supply and that's one of the ways of addressing the root causes of homelessness and do you think that I've left any other I don't know all the questions that were asked okay so I'm now going to open it up to colleagues if you want to ask any questions or observations I see Councillor Ben Kind Councillor Donato I'm just going to turn to a point Councillor Griffith said because if Green Party councillors want to continue to come to Cabinet to talk about the housing programme and housing being built I just point out that Trinity Rise on Crescent Gardens is 100% affordable housing with three quarters of those properties offered at council rent and it's a great scheme and the only councillor who turned up and opposed that at the meeting voted against it was the Green Party councillor so I think there's a bit of a contradiction with the kind of points that keep on being made at Cabinet and the actions of the opposition and in that six votes in favour of it all of whom were Labour councillors so Labour councillors voted through getting the additional affordable housing that will be built there but I wanted to turn to a point that Councillor Bridson made which was about the young person's pathway and obviously as part of the programme that we're doing in Lambeth to make sure that we're a child-friendly borough accredited by UNICEF and best place to grow up one of the programmes that we're doing is the young person's pathway and that's a great joint programme between housing and children's services and it provides a tailored trauma-informed housing and support provision for young people who are over 16 and that includes young people who have care experience or the sanctuaries heaping young people but it specifically includes those who are at risk of homelessness and it's an early intervention process it identifies people before risk hits and then works with them to address things like work and mental health and managing their own finances and independence and it's a really fantastic programme that I think I want to highlight because I'd like to draw attention to the great work by officers and particularly the fact that it's also been recognised at the London Homelessness Awards for the impact that it has to literally changing lives and so in that context I guess the question for officers is how could we better integrate early years education services and the rest of the offer that we have an aspiration that we have around the 0-19 integrated service for young people to ensure that young people are better supported outside of just that pathway where obviously some of those young people are the most in need of support so how do we begin to shift the ethos of that to those on the cusp of the programme those that haven't even got into the position where we identified them and the second question is about the housing needs assessment you just referenced and about making sure that within that when through the young person's pathway the routes to independence for the young mums provision the properties that are procured are specially set up for young mums and the space is designed specifically for them and to meet their needs but I'm wondering how the housing needs assessment takes into account the additional space required particularly when you've got a young child for a cot or for a separate bed in order to be able to provide that space and all the additional stuff that you then have with you and whether or not that's being taken into account in the housing needs assessment thank you very much um thank you very much um thank you and the work that's been done I'm absolutely delighted in relation to the emphasis in relation to prevention I think it's absolutely key um affordability is fantastic we know there's lack of housing but also there are homelessness that resulted as a result of failure and that failure is ability to maintain tenancies and you know and I remember when we used to have tenancy support officers that used to work with as Councillor Cairn mentioned particularly individuals whose level of understanding their rights and their responsibilities as tenants often is quite limited and also you also mentioned issues in relation to people with variation of needs whether they are learning disabilities or mental health issues my question is what emphasis are we put in relation to tenants support and then also supporting residents to maintain their tenancies so that they don't fail you know because they're inability to maintain their tenancies this thank you councillor councillor Tim Windle I just wanted to recognise welcome and highlight that this strategy goes hand in hand with our health and wellbeing strategy and focus on the wider determinants of health which housing is obviously one and there are obviously long-term physical and mental health impacts of homelessness sleeping rough but poor health can also be a cause and a consequence of homelessness the strategy takes a holistic approach to preventing homelessness it links in with services including primary care mental health and hospital discharge and also links in with our public health team support for substance misuse sexual health services for example on newly commissioned sexual health outreach services provide support for our street outreach team I think another example of that more holistic approach is the link with the Lambeth Housing Partnership which has a health work stream which attempts to bring together a lot of the work around different housing people on Lambeth estates and our housing association states and as Councillor Brinson mentioned we've got the vulnerable adults pathway which obviously accommodates rough sleepers but also focuses more on those with support needs around substance misuse and physical and mental health issues so I didn't have a specific question but I just wanted to flag I think some of the ways that this relates to our brief in health and how it will continue to do that fantastic work to tackle some of those root causes of homelessness and provide support to the most vulnerable in the borough Thanks Councillor Do you want to come back and answer those questions from Ben and Donatus who's going to answer Ruth So if I just take a couple and over but how we better integrate the offer so that young people are better supported throughout the pathway and some of the work that we've done in housing is to work much more closely with social care team to children social care team specifically we've recently set up around temporary accommodation which we are involving children's social workers within those panels as well as well as adults so that where we're picking up vulnerable adults and other vulnerabilities there's an opportunity to have a discussion and work out what is the best way to support somebody both within the sort of TA bit but also potentially outside of it and there is I'm aware of work more widely with health particularly where at neighbourhood level I think you mentioned Councillor Windle the health and housing partnership which actually does some of that out in the community as well so strengthening those links so they're more meaningful so that we connect people beyond housing into other people as well as that's what they would connect into housing is really critical because you're right picking up people at early stages in far with outcomes outcomes I think in relation to supporting people in relation to tenancy maintaining tenancy so for people who have a tenancy with us already there is a tenancy support team if they have social housing tenancy where they can be supported through that team there is also and I'll ask Alex to speak more about what we have in place around prevention and support and advice that's available to people at a point where their tenancy might be vulnerable because what is then available to them to hopefully maintain those tenancies and increasingly now we're looking at where we discharge people and where they're discharged the duty is discharged what's available to them I guess after they move into the private rental sector so we have an internal housing support team to prevent homelessness from our own accommodation so I think the success of that team can be seen in the very small number of residents who are placed into temporary accommodation having been addicted from our own social housing obviously we're able to help people maximize their income to arrange payment plans and sustain their tenancies so we get very few of our own residents who become homeless in terms of our work with the private rented sector we've got an in-house tenancy sustainment team which we've recently expanded to acknowledge the fact that eviction from the private rented sector is one of the biggest causes of homelessness in Lambeth so we offer that ongoing tenancy support to any resident that we place into temporary accommodation whether that is a property that we've procured for them or whether it's a property they've found themselves they're able to tap into our tenancy support team to help with maximizing income resolving issues with the landlord to prevent homelessness accommodation accommodation okay okay thank you there was something about housing needs assessment accounting for additional space has that been answered I'm happy to answer that so within the homelessness code of guidance there was a change last year which made it clear that for a family that's got a child under the age of two any accommodation which doesn't have sufficient space for a cot would be deemed unsuitable so obviously we take that on board with any assessment of accommodation and provision of accommodation to make sure that if someone requires a cot the accommodation has sufficient space for that I would say more generally we acknowledge that one of our biggest sources of demand is young mums single parents and I think with our work with Homewoods that's one of the key priority areas that they're focusing on which is how can we better prevent homelessness for single mothers and where we've got single mothers in temporary accommodation how can we best support them it's a long-term sustainable accommodation yeah and I mean building on what Councillor Kind the new houses and flats that we built both at Patmos Lodge and Roman Rise where we have adaptable units and their beautiful units again were opposed in terms of the building by people and parties in this borough but they're amazing and they've got air source heat pumps solar panels so to bring energy bills down but also that physical space and making sure that as we build and we go into the future that we're bearing this in mind which of course doesn't address the question when we're having to place people in an emergency accommodation because of the homeless crisis that is a national and London crisis I think that answered your question Councillor and Councillor Annie I think it answered any other questions or comments or observations Councillor Dillaport yeah I think so I don't think anyone else is coming in thank you chair really just to reiterate that as well as it's being one of our statutory duties morally it's one of the most important things that we do preventing homeless and ensuring that our families get safe and secure accommodation and given some of the early contributions I think it's important to stress that sadly their actions don't match their rhetoric on this issue as I mentioned to Councillor Ainsley at the last meeting in the local elections last year the Green Party in Bristol came forward saying they were going to build more affordable social housing they won power in Bristol then one of the first things they did was a cosy backroom deal with the Conservatives to pull the plug on hundreds of new affordable social homes that the Labour Party had put in place so the Green Party the Green Party says one thing then it gets into power and it's something completely different and all it says that when Councillor Ainsley says there isn't a housing crisis he is wrong and when the Green Party pull the plug on new social homes they are wrong our priorities administration is clear to get new homes built for our residents and we're determined to keep focused on doing just that thank you thank you very much councillor absolutely so colleagues we're now going to go to the recommendations since no one else is indicating they wish to speak and there's one recommendation for you this evening it's on page six of your agenda and that is to adopt the homelessness and rough sleeping strategy is that recommendation agreed okay thank you very much thank you very much for everyone who addressed cabinet tonight thank you to the officers we look forward to working with you continuing to work with you on this and to building more homes okay now moving on to the next item which is quarterly performance and business planning report quarter three this will be introduced by councillor Nanda Manley Brown cabinet member for equalities governance and change job share and I think we've got Ryan Devlin and Tom Foot have we got yeah so Nanda are you going to introduce thank you yeah you might as well wait till they come up thank you our council faces unprecedented financial challenges so you can push us on the general one driven by temporary accommodation as outlined by my colleague councillor and our housing revenue account is also under significant pressure we've been granted exceptional financial support to the government to help us balance the HR budget for the year 2025 to 2026 but we're not the only council under these pressures and we are over the reform of local government finance the government must address both the structural deficit resulting 14 years of austerity under previous conservative and liberal democrat governments and also reform the outdated funding formulae which is used to distribute funding currently it's under these difficult circumstances that I present the quarter three performance report to cabinets despite these challenging circumstances we remain committed to delivering for our residents number 2030 our future our Lambeth is our bold borough plan that sets out our vision for the borough we have three ambitions one is to make Lambeth neighbourhoods fit through the future two making Lambeth boroughs and three making Lambeth a place where we can all these are all tied together with our golden frame equity and justice and these priorities shape all of the work that we do and the outcome framework adopted last year brings together our strategic aims with performance metrics and outcomes so that residents can see how we are delivering against our ambitions now this quarter three report on performance reflects the strong and improving of our council amidst the very difficult financial conditions and we're meeting 81% of our targeted indicators which are up from 74% in quarter two there are several highlights in the report including good news from adult social care and children services for agency staff throughout the six year low fewer agency workers means more permanent workforce and medium term savings we've also seen positive news in temporary accommodation move on increased membership of active lamber and improved street cleansing which has also led to greater support in employment and training for our residents I would also like to highlight the key and excellent work of our Gaia centre which supports victims and survivors of gender based violence across our borough in quarter three 100% of our Gaia centre service users reported increased confidence in accessing help and support and we have much much more work to do in keeping delivering for our residents which we will keep doing but during a time of increased global insecurity and economic uncertainty we will continue to focus on improving the lives of our residents and making Lambeth a borough of equity and justice thank you very much councillor so we've had no one who's indicated they wish to speak on this item so unless the officers have anything to add I'm going to go straight to cabinet and open it up for comment did you no nothing to add I didn't actually okay I see councillor Danny Adilapour councillor Rosini Sherby councillor Cameron and then I'll come back round thank you chair given the last item I think I'll highlight some of the achievements we've made in the area around housing and temporary accommodation because progress has been made and it's important to address that given the unsettled concerns and challenges we face in this area so it is encouraging to see at the end of quarter three we did exceed our annual target of moving sections with the households on from temporary accommodation I also want to flag that we do have a newly recruited temporary accommodation move on team to ensure we're building this work even further in the next financial year as well also linked to the previous item we need to support the diverse needs of our rough sleepers and getting them into suitable accommodation so again it's good that we're seeing progress in this area and in Q3 we saw the number of rough sleepers assisted in suitable accommodation going up to 55 in the area of housing standards this is also a really important area for our residents so again I forgot to highlight the progress that is being made here I've seen a significant reduction in the portion of homes that aren't meeting the decent home standard this has fallen to 10.5% and this is less than the same time last year so a significant achievement in this area and also on damp and mould which we know is an issue of very serious concern that we treat with the seriousness it deserves the time being taken to remove and treat mould and damp is moving in the right direction as well and in Q3 the average was 15.6 days and improvement of 20% on Q2 although of course this is still not enough and want to improve even further in this area but it is important to note that we are continuing our housing improvement journey as has been recognised by the housing ombudsman and the social housing regulator and it is encouraging that this progress has been made nonetheless I fully recognise there's a lot more to be done but I just want to pay tribute to officers for the hard work done to the improvements we've seen so far and to the reassured colleagues that the journey is incomplete and we're going to keep that improvements going forward over the next year thank you thank you councillor councillor Rosina Chowdhury thank you I'd like to say a few words on the Q3 report so one of the ambitions of Lambeth 2030 is to make our neighbourhood fit for the future by 2030 Lambeth will be a clean vibrant climate resilient borough where people can lead healthier happier lives and our local environment streets have a major impact on our communities recycling reducing waste and litter are priorities for residents across the borough affecting their day to day lives and a key element to highlight from this Q3 street cleansing we want our streets and open spaces to be clean from litter so they can be welcoming environments for our residents and businesses and visitors and we responded to resident feedback about street cleansing by taking over the management and deploying additional services additional resources rather and council officers carry out daily inspections of our streets and report on the areas that are at risk of falling below standards and I'm pleased to report that this resulted in a significant decrease in the prevalence of litter in the most recent reporting period the percentage of land and highways with unacceptable levels of litter in Q3 is within our target of 7% and a reduction of 30% since Q2 and in line with our climate action plan we want to be a zero waste borough this means increasing the reuse of materials expanding food waste and increasing a number of materials that can be recycled and key to this is supporting all the residents to better understand and access recycling options as you all know we introduced fortnightly waste collection a year ago and now put additional focus on notifying residents on the contamination of recycled waste so 45% of our curbside waste is sent for reuse recycling or composting which is above our target of 42% and we're pushing forward with actions to increase the waste from estates sent for recycling too and we expect to see an improvement in the next quarterly reporting so Lambeth is committed to positively improving our environment and becoming sustainable climate friendly borough thank you very much councillor councillor marcia cameron thank you chair mine's a comment as well on the quarter three report i'm pleased to report a notable achievement in economic inclusion and it's great that learners have obtained level three qualifications surpassing the london average the elevate programme has successfully engaged 75% of schools and we recently hosted our first borough school jobs fair which engaged young people earlier with employers particularly those employers in the growth sector our growth areas are crucial as we know it's a crucial priority as we strive to create new communities for our residents so far 317 residents have engaged with our growth sectors and we not only met but significantly exceeded our target of supporting not the target of 975 residents but having successfully assisted over 1,112 individuals into work or training in light of the current cost of living crisis more than 300 businesses are contributing positively to society by paying the London living wage in partnership with Homewoods Timewise and the Living Wage Foundation we organised a good works meeting that brought together businesses stakeholders and local authorities this event provided an opportunity to share best practice and exchange valuable recommendation and we learnt from each other by addressing the complex barriers that hinder access to secure paid work we are not only enhancing our local economy but also improving outcomes for our entire community and lastly Chair may I say we want to do more we are ambitious for this borough that's why we're currently working on the land birth growth plan which will set our vision for inclusive growth in the borough and now this will directly put pounds in the pockets of our residents sitting under this overarching plan will be our skills and employment strategy which will set out how we will continue to deliver effective employment for residents and understand how to best target our resources to the needs of our local areas thank you very much councillor councillor donald tisani yanwu thank you chair as we know active number brought in house in order to make sure that our residents are looking very active being involved in relation of things that we offer and that is why I'm absolutely delighted and thank officers that we see as councillor nanda brown pointed out massive increase in membership and I give you for example last December December 2024 we saw 1,352 new members if you compare it to December 2023 where we only have 457 new members so that is absolutely massive job we also absolutely delighted the work that we're doing in relation to engaging people with disabilities and the review regarding C residents that shows that we are working very well that all our communities are very much involved in active landbath that is why we met our 5% people with disabilities joining active landbath as membership so that target was reached we continue to work to remove other barriers that associates barriers for people with disabilities and that is why we're also working to make sure people with sensory issues are very much involved in the work we are doing so that is why we have sensory areas in our active landbath facilities we are also reducing membership fees for those suffering from cancer and cancer and before again in the past we people with conditions but now these key individuals were identified they're also working to increase our active landbath membership amongst our black and Asian and other ethnic minority residents which is again area officers are focusing I'm absolutely certain that we will reach the target so overall really our 2030 commitment is working with active landbath achieving that health and we want to see in our 2030 plan I'm pleased that the membership continues to grow thank you very much councillor are there any other comments or questions Ben councillor Ben kind I wanted to thank councillor Dillipor just draw to attention the hard work of children's services and how the QC report aligns with the period when we had our visit from Ofsted at the end of last year and just to draw attention to the incredibly hard work that has been done over the years to get the figures that we see in the report but also more broadly the work around the rest of the service to a position of where it is I think that sometimes in the report when you look at the figures you can't see then the impact that it has in the detail side of it and there's an article on the Lambeth Council website where it specifically draws out Ofsted's praise about the way that they've been undertaking the assessments and the visits that are the figures in the report and how they have been now getting to the point where they're effectively analysing risk and working to effectively identify interventions and I think it's really important for us to pour out the impact not just the fact that we met a target and that we're doing better but actually it has a real life impact on somebody's well-being and their quality of life and their future chances because that's the reason why we have it as a target but most people in the general public wouldn't see that and then I also have a question which is perhaps maybe it'll end up being more for Venetia which is about the policing and antisocial behaviour side of things around the concerns that are raised by residents and others around criminal social behaviour and whether or not we felt that police were taking robust enforcement given that so much of the challenges that we face come down to organised criminal drug dealing especially in Brixton and that sometimes there's an expectation that it's the council that should be able to drive the change on that whereas actually the reality is that it's the police who have the legal powers to arrest drug dealers and to crack down gangs that are coming across to steal their drugs here exploit people who live here and it's not necessarily your social behaviour team so I just wondered whether you felt the police were doing enough to drive their side of that Thanks councillor do you want to come back on that Venetia So I'll say thank you very much Chair so we work quite closely with the police in terms of the actions that need to be taken to drive down that social behaviour but when we develop these action plans we are very clear which areas are responsibility for the council and the type of community protection that we can issue we are very clear in terms of the actions that do relate to the chief of what we do understand with questions it try very hard to hold the police to account so I'll say for the rest we know there is more that police needs to do that is beyond doubt and we do try to make that very clear to the police okay okay councillor thank you any other questions or comments and I don't know if there's anything the officers want to say I wanted to observe I think the outcomes framework that we've introduced to align with Lambeth of our future Lambeth 2030 feels to me that it really has gained momentum and really like directorates and political leaders feel a real ownership of it because we can then focus on what we are doing well and where we need to put our resources where we need to improve so I think this conversation tells me that it's a framework that's actually working always always tweak frameworks get that and always amend them but actually the move to it is really the proof is in the pudding I know but it feels like it's something that people as I say can feel in ownership of and really therefore drive that change and improvement that we need to see in whatever area it is my observation of the conversation but I don't know if anyone else wants to add anything before I go to recommendation that's manly brown anything no all right well I want to thank officers for all their hard work on this and colleagues you have one recommendation which is on page 53 of your agenda and that's to note the latest performance update against the delivery of the outcomes framework is that recommendation agreed thank you and thank you for attending officers that concludes tonight's business the next cabinet meeting is scheduled to take place on Monday 19th May so have a good night everyone thanks bye bye