Transcript

Yes, the Council Chamber, and in our virtual meeting room and everyone watching online. Just a few brief housekeeping points. This meeting is being recorded and live streamed now. Please could everyone keep your microphones mute throughout the meeting to prevent audio feedback. If you'd like to speak, please raise your hand to get my attention. Any virtual attendees, the chat function must not be used to have conversation with other participants or to provide personal information. All chat will be recorded as this is a formal meeting of Hackney Council. Please only use the chat function to alert me if you wish to speak, raise points of order, report technical problems. Officers will assist you. This is a formal meeting of Hackney Council. Please note the press may be in attendance, and the rights of the press and public to record and film the meeting will apply. So, moving on to Agenda Item 1, Introduction, Welcome and Apologies for Absence. I've had one set of apologies from Councillor Claire Potter. Apologies for lateness and joining online for Councillor SEDAC. I've also had apologies from Councillor Chapman, the Cabinet Member for Finance, and Councillor Nicholson, Deputy Mayor for Delivery, Inclusive Economy and Regeneration, who've got other engagements this evening. And also welcome to Sam Humphrey, Transformation Program Manager, who's joining us online. Are there any other apologies for absence? No, thank you. Moving on to Item 2, Urgent Items, Order of Business. I haven't been notified of any urgent items, and the Order of Business is as laid out of the Agenda. Agenda Item 3, Declarations of Interest. Do members have any interest to declare this evening? Thank you. Okay, so moving on to Agenda Item 4, which is the Cabinet Question Time with Hackney's Mayor, Mayor Woodley. Welcome to scrutiny panel, Mayor Woodley. So just to introduce this item, a key element of the scrutiny function is to hold the Mayor and Cabinet to account in public as part of a Cabinet Question Time. The Mayor's Cabinet Question Time is responsible to scrutiny panel. The Mayor has given advance notice to the topic areas which will be the focus of these questions, which are relevant to her portfolio, and also to her responsibilities as Mayor of Hackney. This Question Time session was also open to members of the public to submit questions to the Mayor. Tonight, the Mayor will provide a verbal response to the questions submitted by scrutiny panel, and also to two questions from members of the public. The questions submitted from the scrutiny panel were, firstly, for the Mayor to provide an update on the delivery of the key manifesto commitments, achievements, and to outline her key priorities for the next 18 months. The second question was an update on key recommendations from the recent Corporate Peer Challenge that came to Hackney, along with strategic decisions and actions that the Council plans to take in response to that report from the Corporate Peer Challenge Review. So, many thanks to all residents who sent in questions. Unfortunately, we do not have unlimited time in the meeting tonight to respond to all the questions submitted from the public. Please note that if a verbal response is not provided to your question tonight, you will receive a written response following this meeting. So, two questions from the public will be also answered in the meeting tonight. Question one is a two-part question concerning Adult Social Care Services. This question asks for the Mayor's response and insight into satisfaction levels among older people for Hackney's older people services and for her to comment on the performance levels and plans for improvement. The second part of this question deals with the Council's carer support services for carers and support services for people with dementia. This question also asks about the assessment process, carer's isolation, the replacement for the carer's first service and how the new contractor's performance will be assessed and what improvements they should expect to see. Question two deals with transparency and oversight of Hackney Council in its role as a freeholder, particularly regarding its responsibilities towards tenants and leaseholders. So, I'd like to welcome to the meeting Mayor Caroline Woodley and I invite her to unmute her microphone and commence her verbal update to the four questions submitted. Thank you very much, Chair. As you can imagine, I was really excited to be part of the manifesto setting process in 2022. My first time at that time as a Cabinet member. Of course, I'm now attempting to deliver it as Mayor, which is a great opportunity, but also a huge responsibility. I do want to stress that an incredible amount has been achieved so far in this administration. Despite all the challenges that are rightly brought to our door, we are able to achieve so much because we have a really dedicated team of staff and we have set a clear direction and ambitious direction as well and attempt to work with our partners to deliver as much as we possibly can. So, you asked for some highlights. You know, for me, the reason I did stick my head above the parapet and decide to run as Mayor was because I hoped it would present a more opportunity for me to raise the case for special educational needs and disabilities. And indeed, we are seeing reform come forward in that space nationally and fortunately, through my role in London councils, I get to be at that table as well. But here in Hackney, we secured over £20 million DFE capital funding to help our commitment to create additional seven places. We set a target of 300 places and we hope to exceed that, although that may dip into 2026. But with the latest tranche we just received, another £3.5 million confirmed just in the last couple of weeks, we're able to not only produce additional resource provision, but also plans that are moving ahead with a new special school. And of course, we're working to improve inclusiveness within our mainstream settings as well. So I do want to kind of put that at the top of my list just because that was the thing I most wanted to kind of drive forward as a cabinet member, but also as Mayor. Around that, if we're kind of picking up on the theme of sort of working for every child, which came out of our manifesto setting process was embedded into the strategic plan. I think one highlight is our 10 by 10 programme. That's not only been accessible in terms of ensuring children up to the age of 10 have access to 10 opportunities, experiences, things that are taking place across the borough. But there's something really dynamic about the officers who are behind this work. It produces a map, counsellors, you love a map, so do have a look at the map if you haven't seen one, kind of opportunities across the borough. But of course, that could shift and change from week to week when you think of the range of partners that we work with, whether it's adventure playgrounds, youth hubs, nurseries, children's centres, all the rest of it. There are so many activities that they also inspire and take out into the public realm. But I know the team were like, well, when are you going to do the 20 by 20 map? So, you know, I guess watch this space. In terms of the ambition of the council and ambition obviously comes with risk. I think the fact that we made a pledge to bring the historic King's Hall Leisure Centre back to, you know, full glory and provide a really modern leisure centre. It's a historic building. So this proposal for almost like ancient and modern architecture and design is really exciting and has now received planning permission. And work is expected to start in 25 and complete in 2028. And we're looking at how to accommodate the users of the King's Hall Leisure Centre. Because a really key thing to remember is that our local community really value this centre and use it a lot. So we're looking at trying to bring the drive side, you know, the gym equipment into another location close to the location of King's Hall, whilst that building is closed, but also ensure that people can use our other excellent leisure centres during that period. And that's going to have to be a project we closely monitor because it's, when you're working with a heritage building like that, that's been, you know, reaching a state of disrepair. You know, there's a lot, there's a lot at stake. So, but the vision is amazing and very excited that we're moving ahead with that. We've also demonstrated our commitment to being a welcoming borough for refugees and migrants by pleasuring to become a borough of sanctuary. And just recently I met with the refugee and migrant forum, you know, obviously the key thing is that our groups that are working on the ground in terms of advocacy, advice, health, that they forged the way forward for what that borough sanctuary might look like. And there's a timetable of working with them sort of ground up with the hope to achieving that borough sanctuary status within a year. We're also pushing forward with pledges to improve our local environment. We've installed over a thousand cycle hangers, delivered over 50 school streets to improve air quality. And we're constantly trying to make it easier and safer for children to walk and cycle to school. We've also delivered on our pledge to support community energy through our Hattie Community Energy Fund and Hattie Light and Power. And I like to think that we're influencing central government as well. We did have that nice moment on the rooftop of Stoke Newton School with our now deputy mayor of London, Mete Coburn, for environment and energy, but also Epilaband Minister for fronting the GB Green Energy work because they've now supported solar panels on top of Homerton Hospital, which Councillor Chris Kennedy has recently been celebrating. So we like to think we're influencing that vision of if you look across the rooftops of Hattie and you see the solar panels, the air pumps, the heat pumps that are being installed across schools, estates, faith settings, community hubs, that there's a real excitement there about how we can bring more renewable energy to our borough, but also save our residents some pennies and our hospital some of the cost in terms of what we saw was a really difficult cost to meet during the energy crisis. Moving ahead to my priorities, I think I have to then flip to the other side of running a borough like Hackney, which is where all the really deep challenges lie. So my three critical areas, I think, where I know we need to invest time, money, where we have it, and our focus is around housing, tackling poverty and inequality, and also retaining our position as climate leaders, and how do we avert the climate crisis. So in terms of housing and tackling the urgent issue of homelessness, you know we've got over eight and a half thousand households on our waiting list. There's a lot of work that we need to do in terms of looking at our assets and understanding where we can bring in more temporary accommodation. Also, the reality check of temporary doesn't always mean temporary in the sense that we might have imagined when we first set up our temporary accommodation, that people may be living in temporary accommodation for many years. So, you know, we have to look at the quality of those sites. We also have to look at the significant challenges of rising building costs, and we know that it's only really with new housing and building social rent housing, council housing, that we're going to be able to really help some of our residents who will not be able to afford private market priced housing. We set a really ambitious target of a thousand, working towards a thousand new council homes. Whilst this is a case of getting to a position of planning and designing rather than kind of completing, we do have 968 social homes now in delivery or planned for delivery, which is, given the challenges, a huge achievement. So obviously that's an area to keep our attention and focus. However, when it comes to our wider housing stock, we've got a bit of a crisis. I mean, it's not a new thing. We've been talking about councils, local government being a breaking point for many years, and I think that's starting to really show in our housing stock. I think that the key thing to stress here is that we are aware of the challenge, that we want to place tenants at the heart of everything that we're doing, and that we're absolutely committed to improvement. So it's how we work towards that improvement journey where we put in our focus. We respond now to leaks and reports of damp and mould more quickly. We've brought forward new policy in terms of supporting residents with additional needs to thrive. That just came forward at the March Cabinet. And also outside of that housing stock, we're implementing our private sector housing strategy to ensure safe and sustainable homes. looking at things like unfair evictions, which is now being addressed through the private renters bill, rent bidding, and what we can do locally to support renters. And key to that will be our proposal to expand the landlord licensing scheme that we tested out with three wards, including my form award, and are bringing our proposal for this to this month's Cabinet meeting. We had hoped to bring it last month, but it's set to go this month. That was quite a long introduction to the first priority. I'll move more quickly through the second and third. So, secondly, poverty and inequality. Clearly, I always refer back to housing on this because it's when you take housing into account that you see over 40% of our children living in poverty. And that's why it's such a key, that poverty divide is such a key area to address. But we're doing our bit to support those families and beyond that, you know, everybody living in poverty who, for example, might benefit from our council tax reduction scheme. We had aimed to get to 90% by 26. We got there two years early. We've done so much work through here to help to ensure that residents in need are actually claiming what they're entitled to. And we do feel with older people actually, they often don't claim what they're entitled to. They sometimes, when I've talked to them about, because we've done telethons and, you know, stuff where counsellors can engage to kind of get a sense of the work we do to support people who need just a little bit of extra help. Sometimes you chat to people and they feel they don't want to be a burden or they don't want to take money away from others. And I do, you know, do really want people to take what they are entitled to. But there's also infrastructural work. Hackney was chosen as one of 75 local authorities to deliver family hubs and the Start for Life programme. We've now opened four children of family hubs. We've commissioned over 26 support services to Bennett families and children. And that's that space where we can get in and recognise where we need to offer that early help and intervention. We might identify families in need and identify areas of child poverty through them coming to us for support within those centres. And of course, there's a network of children centres and nurseries. Almost 300 private and voluntary and independent nurseries that we have contact with through our sort of network liaison group. So my third priority is that we retain our position as climate leaders. We have a rapidly narrowing window to reduce carbon emissions. We're really focused on not only sort of encouraging recycling, but also that reduce, reuse, repair. I would really like to see Hackney as we bring forward our economic development plan establish its position within the London Growth Plan as a place for inclusive growth in the circular economy. And I think we've got really dedicated staff who can help us to achieve that. We'll continue our sector-leading rollout of EV charges and build on the success of the Community Energy Fund and our Climate Action Plan. And we'll continue to hear representative voices from the community. You all know that we had a citizen's climate jury and we want to build on that method of finding out what will actually make the main difference for residents. And what they focused on when we spoke to them about climate change was how we support the most vulnerable. So whether that's cooling streets with tree canopy cover or focusing on what we can do around our GP surgeries, warm rooms, cool rooms. They were really focused on how we help the people that need our help the most, which was excellent. I'll stop there. I'm not sure of how much time I was supposed to speak. I'm sorry if I've gone on too long. You actually have up to 30 minutes. So, I mean, you've got another 16 or so minutes of that or, I mean, or we could have a break and take questions on your main presentation. Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, there is a bit of risk on that in terms of not giving full attention to the residents' questions. So maybe if you respond to those and we'll have all the questions together, if that's okay. I haven't gone into the council corporate peer challenge review. Did you want me to get into that or into the? Yes. Yeah. I can be quicker. Yeah. Yes. So corporate peer challenge and then the residents' questions. Yes. Yeah. And then we'll take questions altogether. Okay. So I suppose to rattle through this, essentially the most important thing to say is that coming in as a new mayor at the same time as, you know, appointing a permanent chief exec and welcoming that new chief exec into position, who fortunately for us actually had the institutional memory and history within Hackney. And it was very clear that we'd want to welcome in the local government association corporate peer challenge as quickly as possible. And so that we could get a sense as we tried to figure out how to set our priorities and move the council in a clear direction that we had a really clear overview of where our strengths and weaknesses might be. And we had our own sense, but, you know, to actually have someone come in independently and sent to check that for us and bring some recommendations. We were just so keen that they come in early in our tenure. And so the peer challenge came in September and spent four days meeting over a hundred people and as members of all parties and staff, partners and residents. And they did recognize the council's many strengths, I think the chief exec from Croydon and the council leader from Lambeth, I think they were both looking at their own councils by comparison. And they recognized that we still have sort of, you know, many assets, were low borrowing and still had reserves and they felt, my goodness, you know, you still have a lot of options despite the challenges that we know we're all in. And they described London Borough of Acme as inclusive, exciting and ambitious council committed to delivering for its residents. And they picked out some really key points, which I was really pleased to see, which were around our understanding of the communities that we serve, the strong ambitions of our qualities agenda and positive outcomes for residents in the community, resulting from strong partnership arrangements, which was really good. I was heartened to see the leadership presented by me and Dawn and across the council was recognized as strong. And they felt that that meant we'd be in a good position to build on success and make the necessary changes that we need to make. And I thought it was also important to have that moment to celebrate the hard work and commitment from councillors, officers and partners, which helped to enable this. And that was a great moment to be able to do that as the report was published and we recognize that there's areas to strengthen. Absolutely. And in terms of our action plan, we've grouped these under three things, which we'll talk about, I guess, in terms of our transformation as well. So delivering for residents, securing happiness, future and modernizing together. And within these themes, key actions are around continuation of our partnership work to deliver a green, inclusive economy. Accelerated work now to define how the council will operate in future. And reviewing elements of support we offer our members to deliver their vital roles and member training as well as general wellbeing. And to monitor the progress being made in the action plan. So in autumn, we'll welcome back the peer challenge team for a follow up visit. And I'm sure they'll be keen to sort of see how we're progressing and we'll be keen to see their response to where we are. If I move on then to the questions from the public, do I need to read out the questions as set out? I summarise them at the beginning, so I think you can go straight to the answer. Thank you. Okay, so in terms of concern around satisfaction amongst older people. The resident survey in 2024 found that whilst there is lower satisfaction among older people, it did not mean that our services are of poor quality. We are aging now, we have more older people and we have come through a period of kind of crisis after crisis. And I think that has had a big impact on older people, the isolation that came with the pandemic, the huge rise in demand that we've seen in older people coming for adult social care support. There is obviously pressure around the cost of living crisis as well. And I think that sort of general sense of dissatisfaction is broader and goes beyond perhaps direct concern with the council. To kind of qualify that, there are instances where older residents have shown higher levels of satisfaction and positive sentiment. The survey shows that 95% of those aged 65 to 84 and impressive 100% of those over 85 agree that they feel they belong in Hackney and that this is significantly higher than the general average. And there is this sense of belonging in Hackney that I do think is important that we should always continue to build. According to the 23-24 adult social care survey, the average percentage of adult social care service users who are very or extremely satisfied with services is 58%, which is similar to London as a whole. We know satisfaction is complex and related to a number of variables. For example, for older adults, access and ease of finding information can be an issue. With the resident survey showing those aged over 75 have the lowest internet access, which is likely to have implications for the digital device, something we really did try and address during the pandemic, and the ability to access and engage with online council services. And that's why we must always think about how to offer paper copies when we're doing our consultations and surveys as well. With adult social care, improvement work is set out and the services three year plan 2023 to 26. We're improving the quality and access to information, as well as the choice given to residents on the type of care and support that enables them to lead a life of their choice. And the plan sets out the improvement work over the final year, 25-26, and each year a summary is provided of achievements and actions being taken with partners and communities to continue to improve. I think the same person also asked about carer support services and services for people living with dementia. And I do recognise that the questioners are speaking from their personal experience, where they've clearly been quite disappointed. And I want to offer some sort of empathy. I guess, you know, my mum has dementia, I've been supporting her over 15 years, although she does not live in this borough. I know how hard it is to, yeah, support somebody as their memory is going and their behaviours change. So, dementia care is certainly a priority within Hackney. We're involved with the City and Hackney Dementia Alliance. The Alliance is a partnership of health, social care and voluntary sector organisations in the City of London and Hackney, who work together to improve dementia care and support for individuals living with dementia, their families and carers. The Alliance aims to ensure timely dementia diagnosis, access to ongoing support and a positive experience for those affected by dementia. The City and Hackney Dementia Alliance have a number of priorities and targets set for 2024-26, which include improving the systems and services that we have set up to support people living with dementia. We're also committed to supporting our carers. And as you may know, the Care Act places really specific responsibilities on local authority, adult social care in relation to carers. And we're committed to improving the number of carers who have access to a carer's assessment. These assessments help us to understand the carer's experience and help them to maintain their wellbeing. And we have increased the number of carer assessments from the first half of 24 to the second. During 23 and into 24, we developed a new carer's strategy for 24 to 27 with partner organisations and over 160 carers. And we listened to what our carers told us. And the strategy is structured around three key priority areas, what areas, what Hackney carers should be offered, how Hackney organisations should offer support and information and how Hackney carers should be able to shape their experiences. So Hackney adult social care commission services for carers. And from April 25, we'll have the City and Hackney Carers Centre. A dedicated quality assurance officer will monitor the carer's centre contract performance, looking at a range of areas such as feedback from carers, safeguarding concerns and a number of standards in the contracts. And I think as we go into the transformation piece, we're going to be talking about performance management and monitoring as a key area of improvement that we need to see across the council as well. Additionally, as part of the contract monitoring process, the service provider will be required to attend regular contract monitoring meetings with the council to review service delivery and discuss any areas of underperformance. And of course, if they are underperforming, we'll address that. And then I think the final question was around transparency and oversight of our role as a freeholder with reference to the makers building. So I've been advised on this one, that the council has established clear governance protocols for its wholly owned private limited companies. These companies are also subject to independent annual audits to assure accountability. To provide ongoing oversight, the council designates a senior officer known as the intelligent shareholder. And in this case, that's our group director for finance and corporate resources. And their role is to hold each company accountable for their performance against their agreed business plans. And this is reported annually to the council's cabinet. Regarding the makers management company, this company actively manages the site through weekly meetings with the residential building manager and regular site inspections. Monthly contract meetings are also held where Pinnacle, the residential building manager, provides comprehensive reports. And these reports detail their performance and feedback received from leaseholders or the resident association and assess Pinnacle's performance against agreed contractual key performance indicators. The makers management company delivers this service through the Pinnacle group. And just to clarify the roles of the different services involved in the energy service, we have with energy, which acts as the billing agent for residents heating and cooling consumption. The tariff administered by with energy reflects the cost of supplying heat, which includes various operational factors beyond just the price of gas. And in terms of gas supply, the company purchases the gas utility supply through arrangements facilitated by the council. We annually tender for utility services to try and get the best possible price. And the cost of the gas supplied is then reimbursed to the makers management company without any added profit. The provision of heat and cooling through communal heating systems and heat networks is currently an unregulated service and is not subject to the same price caps as regulated energy supplies. However, heat provision is expected to become a regulated service later this year. So I hope that will address the core concern. And there's a reference to an individual, but I'm not sure how appropriate it is to go into that in this forum. But I can always follow up in writing. Given the anticipated shift towards regulation of communal heat supply, the makers management company is actively considering registering the building with the heat trust. It's important to note that no other council buildings are currently registered with this body. Registration would involve associated costs that would likely increase service charges and would necessitate prior consultation with the lease holders. The makers residence association has, as I understand it, been provided with a detailed breakdown of the calculations used on the building's heat charges. And finally, the council has a protocol on the governance of council interests and companies. Furthermore, the council operates its own comprehensive conflicts of interest policy against all its operations. So the intelligent shareholder and the council cabinet provide ongoing scrutiny through the annual reports. And the makers management company has also adopted the same conflict of interest policy. So hopefully that covers those questions. Thank you very much, Mayor Woodley. And thank you also for beautifully keeping to time. It's very helpful for the efficient running of the meeting. So I'm sure that colleagues will have follow up questions on the points that you've made. I'll just start with a question. I mean, you, so I'm just trying to find the reference in my notes. You mentioned that the peer review identified that we're a strong council with a strong understanding of communities who, who, you know, are delivering an inclusive economy for residents. I'm not sure. Well, I'm, I am sure that not all residents feel that, you know, that Hackney's an equal place or Hackney as a sort of council and community delivers equally for, for all our residents or that all their voices are sort of heard in terms of the sort of delivery of our services. I mean, I think you, you also referenced in your report as well, that there are, you know, sort of levels of dissatisfaction. Obviously we've had, you know, a number of sorts of shocks and traumas as a, you know, nation and a community. But I wonder really how we can sort of pull together as a council ready to, you know, increase trust and togetherness and also to increase, you know, the numbers. So, I mean, tracking poverty and inequality is obviously one of your aims, but you know, there is an extremely deep inequality between the most fortunate residents and Hackney and the least fortunate as well. So, I mean, I think it's making sure that all voices are heard and that we pull together as a community. Sorry, that's probably a bit of a ramble, but I hope that you can respond to some of that and I'll bring in colleagues. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I mean, there's certainly those, I mean, they traditionally called residents who don't feel so engaged or so well represented as hard to reach. And I think our Young Futures Commission did a brilliant job of pointing out there is no such person who is hard to reach. You know, you have to go to them and meet residents where they are. And I do want to speak up a little bit, not to deny what you're saying, you're absolutely right. Obviously, there are many residents who feel left behind and never was that more brought home to me than when I was able to get back out on the door after the pandemic. And, you know, found some people in a really stark state of mental health or, you know, their home in need of disrepair or mental health had led to hoarding or that kind of thing. And that huge gap between, you know, those residents who are really benefiting from all the amenities that we offer and those that are just almost hidden and that we're at risk of losing. And I think that's where our work in partnership is really key. Our work with advice services, people that might, there are many residents who might be more comfortable going to, for example, Citizens Advice Bureau than they are to come into the council. But that's why, as we develop the Children and Family Hubs, we place the Citizens Advice Bureau in there. You know, there are things that we are good at doing in partnership to make sure that we reach people. And we can look at, if you like, the main items and main issues that come to some of those free advice services, whether it's the Hackney Migrant Centre or the Hackney Law Centre, Community Law Centre. The people that come to the council and the people that come to our MPs or directly to councillors and you can almost see where the cracks and the gaps are and figure out how to amend them. So I think that commitment to knowing our residents in partnership is kind of deeply embedded within the action plan. But I do also just, you know, if it doesn't completely contradict what you're saying, I want to speak up for the amount of work that we do in communications and consultation. I know there's frustration often with consultation because it's not a referendum. It literally is to see how people feel about some of the things that we might decide to drive forward because it fits our vision or the kind of resources that we have. But there is constantly consultation taking place in Hackney and there have been really nice bits of work around you said we did. And I think we really have to build on that as we go forward as well to make sure that, I mean, we just have the nice experience of going around all the new play areas that we're building across Hackney. And I'm really looking forward to going back to the kind of the opening launch with, for example, students from Stormont House who had input into how we design Hackney Downs play area and to see if we did what they said. I mean, they might tell us no. There's always the risk. But I do I do want to give a bit of a shout out to the effort and energy that goes into consulting and surveying. We do our best. I'll turn to colleagues to see if they've got any questions. Anybody? Councillor Billy Leverk, anybody else? You go. Thank you. And thank you for that update. With Corporate Peer Challenge, I think has been to some extent used to justify a reduction of opportunities for the public and members, members of the public and members of the council to scrutinise the executive, as we saw at the Constitution Committee yesterday. And you've been talking about your priorities over the next 18 months. Obviously, we have local elections within those 18 months. So I'm wondering if you will make a commitment now to make sure that the public have a chance to scrutinise your priorities during that election campaign by attending hustings and answering to those members of the public. Because, you know, with the last election, that wasn't possible. Thank you. Thank you. I guess we're in a room right now that demonstrates how firmly and strongly we uphold the importance of scrutinising the executive. I mean, not just me, but we've got chairs and vice chairs here that represent all the different scrutiny commissions which you're engaged in yourself. And I think you've got an item on the agenda about the review that took place. I mean, my understanding is that we're exemplary in contrast to other barriers in terms of the work we put into scrutiny. In terms of kind of how I put myself forward in the run up to the election. Yes, I think one of the things that I think we've got representative from the citizen here now was that I didn't feel there was a hustling opportunity that would kind of cover all the ground outside of, if you like, special interest areas. And I do remember talking to Julia Gregory at the time saying, oh, is the citizen going to put one on because that would be a good forum. So I hope there will be some of those kind of broader overview hustings. And I look forward to, if I am the candidate, coming to those. So there will be opportunity there as well. But I think also, we obviously welcome questions to full council. And I'm not exactly inaccessible and nor the cabinet members were out and about in our wards and the borough. I have my own surgery here at the town hall and they also hold surgery. So we try to get back to all the queries that come. I can't promise I catch every single email, but I know there is a real attempt to pick up all those sort of member inquiries as well. So I think, I think we cover that sort of scrutiny challenge. There's obviously a complaints system as well, to the best of our ability as a council, but also as an executive. Thank you, Mayor. I'm just to highlight on one of those priority areas in terms of housing, housing. I think we all experience with sort of the housing repairs, frustration at times, in terms of the system perhaps not working as smoothly or as efficiently as it can do. I mean, are we learning from who is the, I appreciate there are significant money constraints there, but which social landlord or other local authority in the country is the best? Who are we looking to do this to really try and improve that, try and drive that forward? Exactly. You know, I think from my perspective, you know, that's one of the big things we haven't managed to properly succeed every number of years to do as well as we've been to. So what sort of fresh ideas can bring to that? Thank you. Yeah, I think housing repairs frustration is probably a polite way of putting it. I think I do want to talk about the financial constraints because obviously we have that housing revenue account and that limited constrained envelope of cash. And I think it is frustrating to everybody offices, politicians, the residents, especially alike, that the money that comes in through that rent is not covering the cost of maintaining the stock to the level that we want. And whether it's through the pandemic or the cyber attack, there is information gaps sometimes. And there has been a delay to the major works that desperately need to be done without any clear sort of sense of where that crash injection will come to do that. And I think until we can, for example, you know, take an estate where we're probably in touch with residents daily because the same leaks and repairs are happening on repeat until we can kind of pull out all the pipes and the boil and replace the whole lot with some resource to do that. We are holding people in an incredibly difficult space. And I have to say the stress and pressure that puts on the resident, I think for any of us that kind of pick up some of that casework is beyond grim, you know, can really affect mental health. But also I think about the health and wellbeing of our staff, you just feel frustrated that they're not able to respond in the way. But I think there's also, you know, a rocket we can put behind some of the work that we should always be doing consistently and well. I've always been really proud of RDLO and the fact that we can go out and do some of those kind of sort of more minor repairs, I suppose, in terms of decoration. I think, you know, we need to have that monitoring and that standard. I suppose rather than kind of say best counsel, best practice, the conversations I've been having most often really with people with similar challenges. So I've been talking a lot, you know, with Lambeth and they've got a similar size stock, similar demographic. And, you know, they've actually had to go for exceptional financial support because of that gap. And so I think my focus has been really on how do we address the challenges whilst we look with Campbell to Cowley's come in and to look over the stock and our sort of housing need more broadly and other advisers over what can be done. And we're already on that housing improvement journey. We are already committed to bringing in our sort of overall housing IT system. We're reviewing our policies, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, and we'll keep doing that good work. So, I mean, I think it'd be a great piece of work for living in Hattie, maybe not looking too firmly at the chair to see where best practice is so that we can, you know, check and challenge the work that we're already doing to be sure that it is going to take us to the best possible place. Thank you, Mayor Woodley. It's good to kind of, one, have a manifesto and have commitments and have something to kind of measure ourselves against those commitments and what we're doing in terms of delivering for the residents of Hackney. But it can feel like from feedback from residents that they're not necessarily hearing or understanding the commitment, sorry, the achievements that we're making. And my question is, like, have you thought of ways in which we can carry residents along in a different way so that they are understanding what we're doing in a more coherent way, especially across the sort of diversity that we kind of have in Hackney. Thank you. I mean, partly why I sort of tried to give a bit of a shout out to comms and consultation earlier, because we can definitely always do better. And I'd be interested to sort of see what you think about ways to do better outside of this forum. But, you know, we do try and tell stories really resident focused and led stories, not political stories, but through our Love Hackney magazine, what was Hackney today, which is distributed across the whole borough on a regular basis, obviously through our website. We've got some excellent social media. If you go on Instagram, there's a really nice reel, which I'm fronting. It's not often I get to front really lovely news, but it's about, you know, 2.2 million coming to Hackney Museum. But it would be so boring and nobody would look at it if it was just me speaking. There's just this collage of all the kind of items from the archive of the museum that fill that kind of Instagram reel. But, you know, if you're not on Instagram, then you're not going to get that. But hopefully you will get Love Hackney. If you can go on the website, you see Hackney News all the time. So, you know, just published on the play areas I was talking about earlier. But if you're digitally disconnected, then you've only got Love Hackney. And then I think that's where I sort of almost offer a little bit of an invitation to ward counsellors, I suppose, in terms of their direct mails and how they might, through their surgeries and their walkabouts and their roving surgeries, sort of tell that story. Yes, pick up the casework and the challenge, but also tell the story of what we're doing well. I mean, again, we have local newspapers as well who can, I'm sure, do their best to kind of present a balanced view from the point of view of what the council is achieving and also where we need to do better. So, you know, hopefully that local press also cuts through and we can work harder at trying to give breaking news every time we have a new development. Patra, do you have a question? I mean, it's wonderful news about Kingsville Leisure Centre, the fact that despite us having financial crisis, we're able to renew and rebuild Kingsville Leisure Centre. You touched on briefly about, briefly in your speech earlier about this, and the reprovision dry side. I just wondered about, obviously, we can't temporarily re-provide the wet side. Dig a hole and that. But I just went hoping that perhaps we can make sure that residents that do use a wet side, can be, make sure they know where there's alternative provision and how to get to it. Especially where residents at the east of Borough, that we're either going to happen to go down to Oxnard or up to Clisaldon, near Flurry Street, at least two buses, if not three buses. So perhaps we can ensure that residents find it, know how to get to the hotel. And we make sure there's enough provision for those people that already, that use the wet side. I know there's many clubs and groups that do use the wet side. It's very popular at Lower Clapson. And we can make sure that those residents do get, make sure they get their, their swimming. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I think we'll have to do a big piece of work around that. And there is a commitment to do that. And it is great that we have such good resource, obviously at Britannia and at Clisald in terms of those pools. But I know they're also very popular. So it's making sure that they can actually get access to them as well as get there physically in the first place. And as I said before, yes, I do hope to get the sort of the gym equipment into a building. I think it's, we're going to aim for like within 10 minutes walk from the current site, which obviously we can't do with the pools. But their membership, better leisure membership will mean they are allowed, you know, to go across. So I think giving extra information on how they get there will be a very important piece of work. Thanks for flagging. I think we've got time for two or three more questions. I was going to come in and then Councillor Hayhurst and then anybody else who wants to come in for the second question. So, I mean, obviously, it's the council's in a very sort of challenging financial position. And it's going to be very difficult to deliver priorities without sufficient funding. And we are in a, you know, really significant difficulties with overspend and our three most demanding areas in terms of spend. Obviously, really significant important areas to support vulnerable residents of adult social care, children's social care and temporary accommodation. So, I was just wondering whether you could update us on any sort of conversations you've had, you know, with pan London leaders and also with the government in terms of alleviating this crisis. Because, you know, we've obviously had to go, you know, to fulfill our duty to set a balanced budget last year. We've had to go into our reserves and that's, as everyone understands, an unsustainable position. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I mean, what was interesting, not only in London Council's meeting, but when a delegation of us went to meet Ali McGovern, who's heading up the Child Poverty Task Force, the MP who's heading that up, or Minister within DWP heading up the Task Force, that essentially we're all aligned that, like, if you could kind of tackle the housing challenge, a lot else will fall into place. I mean, we're certainly looking at sort of benefit restrictions as well, and I think we do have to lobby around that. But, you know, we need that injection in terms of the housing allowance and the HRA, and that's a key area in terms of addressing the financial gaps. I think the key position that we're in in Hackney, and other councils are at different stages, is that we have come to the end, I think, of where we can just keep salami slicing and cutting services. You know, essentially services will just die by a thousand cuts and so on. And, you know, I will look to the 14 years under the Tories, and the challenge is to make that recovery. In the last year, now we're sort of almost daily hearing, frankly, madness in terms of tariff wars and so on. It doesn't help to make you feel more stable when you're just trying to get, you know, bins collected in Hackney when the world seems quite uncertain. But I think there is a commitment through the spring statement that's coming forward to offer multi-year settlement. And that sounds very dry, but the reality of it is key because it does mean that we'll be able to plan. We'll know what we're actually getting and we'll know what we have to do, I suppose, in terms of if we go beyond salami slicing into transformation, not to segue to the next item too quickly, but we'll know how severe some of the changes that we're going to kind of have to make, are going to meet our 52 million budget shortfall are going to have to be. But also we might discover that we've got some opportunity because I think there is a commitment to consolidate a lot of the different pots that are managed by central government, to recognise deprivation and that funding must follow deprivation. And that that means that we should, you know, get a strong settlement. And we'll know, I guess, from the other side of the announcement around June, where the land lies. But in the meantime, we'll keep working on doing what we have to do in order to build a more resilient council. Because as you say, setting a budget with 10 million in planned reserves is not an ideal situation. And if there's any chance of reducing that use of those reserves, then, you know, we should move towards that place. Two parts. I mean, just on that sort of conversation, I mean, the point that you can't keep on salamicizing, I mean, query whether there has to come a point where you actually just have, the council just has to say, look, we cannot do these aspects because we don't. But we will do these and we'll do them well, you know, whether that be parks or clean streets or what have you. And then just having an honest conversation in that in that. Debate whether we've tried to do previously too much or fine, if we've got the fine answer to do it. But if we haven't, do we just need to be then more honest and just do something, but do them very well. And that is what we do and have that honest conversation. And the second thing is just on your observations in terms of the consultation on the playgrounds. Yes, I mean, I mean, you, I mean, my kids are daily. It's Hackney Downs open. They're excited about it. I mean, I think it's testament to your legacy as mayor about the sort of the rejuvenation of the playgrounds from when you were cabinet members to now across the borough. And I think you should be very proud of that. It's very exciting. And there's thousands of kids who've benefited from that. So, you know, I think you make a valid point that they feel fully engaged and consulted and incredibly excited about it. So congratulations. Thank you. I mean, I suppose my fear about doing less but doing it well is that if you were to look at the kind of direction, of travel in terms of demand on our finances and meeting need, you know, this is not just, you know, statistics, it's real people with real needs, we could spend all our money on adult social care and children's social care and indeed TA. I will always want to hold on to some of those discretionary services because we know how important Young Hackney and, you know, that early help and early intervention that comes through the children family hubs and, you know, libraries, you know, you name it. Like these sort of discretionary services as they're framed are where we chip at most because if you go into those other areas, you're actually just driving up the overspend because it's just not realistic. And I think this is the annual dilemma, you know, for this council, you know, how we kind of manage that. So I think, not to put too much pressure on my colleague, but through transformation, I think there is a question of kind of, are there services that can be more closely aligned? And, you know, there will obviously be all the efficiencies process in terms of ending duplication, the resident facing work in terms of making sure that if they're contacting the council, they have to go to three different kind of, you know, maybe sometimes five different departments. You know, there is, there is an efficiency piece there. There isn't a byword for cut. There are cuts, but there are also like true real efficiencies that we can do if we invest. And I think that's my final point, you know, we have to invest to save. So I would take send as that area where we manage to invest to save, but we could also look at our position around children homes or care in the home. You know, that sort of supported living piece around adults. And I think we, we are again in that position where we could, whether it's disposal of assets in order to build up the finances or whether it's reallocating our capital receipts, we can invest to save as well as cut, find efficiencies and so on. So I think it's just, you know, again, working with residences, with our offices, sorry, with our offices and with elected members to just make sure that we navigate that path as well, because change is hard. It's hard for absolutely everybody, whether staff, residents or ourselves as councillors. But change also with financial savings to be made is even harder, you know, because it means people are living in a sort of tension about, you know, how they're going to impact them. And that's why it's always been really important that we have our kind of transparency around cumulative impact and that iterative impact that kind of comes with each decision that we make, just to kind of make sure that we're not going to kind of affect our sort of underrepresented groups the most. And to end, then, thank you for the opportunity to end on an upbeat note with the playgrounds. I think there has to be something in terms of our universal services, not just the clean streets and picking up the bins, though it is really important about getting the basics right. There's something that gives a sort of a high standard, a real quality to absolutely everybody, particularly in a densely built by row like Hackney, where you don't necessarily have people with a garden, sometimes living in really overcrowded properties, that they can get out and play and recognise that they matter and we think they matter and providing beautiful spaces. I will argue the best in London, OK, we've come second two years in a row. You know, maybe next time we'll be first. You know, really beautiful parks, players that we're developing, not, you know, to try and expand out from just early years, but to older children too. And then I think there's some good news coming around Moogers as well. Our multi-use games areas, which have been very difficult to resource and maintain, but we're always out looking for money. We've got some grant funding coming down the line. So watch this space for announcements on that. OK, thank you. Apologies, Mayor Woodley, that's not your last question, actually. To be fair, we do have five more minutes. I'm going to bring in Councillor Billy Lubbock. Thank you very much. It's lovely to hear about the playgrounds. Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to add my congratulations around the playgrounds as well. I think that, you know, we went to one of hack downs and it was very good. And it's also great to hear that there's investment coming for those multi-use play areas. I guess my question was around, and it sort of leads into transformation a little bit, but from the corporate peer challenge, they did say that the current use of reserves was, you know, not sustainable. And obviously a lot of that reserves is around the investor, say, propositions that we're trying to bring forward. And so I would like to know what your kind of view is on how that is looking going forward. You know, what's that going to look like next year and how we plan to manage that. And additionally, you mentioned about the sale of assets and the flexible use of capital receipts. I guess my concern around that is how is that, you know, is that sustainable in the long term and is it sensible in the long term where, you know, those are potential assets that could be borrowed against for things like, you know, building more social housing, etc. Thank you. So, I only noted down use of assets and capital receipts. What was the first bit? Reserves. Reserves. Thank you. So, in terms of the use of assets, we do, we do have, I was going to say 400, but I'm slightly worried I've got that wrong. So it might need to be verified. We do have a substantial quantity of assets and we never want to go down the sort of the fire sale route. You know, there is a number of assets that we've described as non-core assets, i.e. they're not core to our current delivery of community or commercial leased buildings or, you know, for wider use by the council. And what we're doing is reviewing those to see that some of them may come into needing, you know, several million to repair if we're going to keep them on. And what we're saying is that the value may be substantially less than that. And are they the right asset to be holding for council with the challenges that we've got? And I think we need to kind of scrutinise that carefully to, you know, make the right decision. There are some that are worth more than that. And we've already agreed, you know, again, all of this is happening regularly. It's not like we're waiting for one moment and then doing everything all at once. We're already in the process through our... Oh God, I can never remember the acronyms. Capital and... What's CASP? Capital and something board. You don't know either. Capital assets. Capital assets board, anyway. So, Sylvester House, I think, is already in the process of being sold. And that's a building that we felt we were able to release, which will put a substantial amount into the Transformation Programme, which essentially the Corporate Peer Challenge told us to scale up. I think if we can get through that process of identifying resource that we can inject into that Invest to Save approach, we are less likely to have to continue to lean to the reserves. And the reserves will remain there for the purpose that they exist, which is to be that contingency. So that if we have to go into them in an emergency, we can. But obviously we want to shore them up now that we've had to go into them this year after the sort of the bill shock, as I framed it, of the temporary accommodation overspend after the increase in nightly rates. In terms of capital receipts, my priority, I mean, I was asked my priority within days of taking on the mayoralty. And I said social rent, social housing, particularly because we've made that commitment to a thousand social homes. So that is where the priority has been placed. However, we now have the opportunity, I think, through the Corporate Peer Challenge and the Transformation Process, to look at, well, what about the children home, what we do with an aging borough to ensure that we have the right offer, I guess, for older people as well and supported living and care in the home. So I think that's the shift that you're seeing, that there will rightly be checks and balances against those decisions as we proceed. But certainly we can't just rely on reserves because it will essentially take us to Section 114 and asking for government support. And then we'll lose our ability to make our own decisions, which is not where any of us want to be, clearly. And now I'm ending on a sour note. Thank you very much. We're ending precisely on time. So thank you, everyone, for contributing to that. So we're now going to move on to, and Mayor Woodley, we're going to hear from you again very shortly, on Agenda Item 5, the Corporate Transformation Programme. So the Council's journey over the last two decades has resulted in Hackney Council having strong performing services. Like most local authorities, Hackney has been facing extraordinary demands on its services. In addition to this, councils across the UK have experienced deep budget cuts for an extended period. The financial challenge ahead remains considerable, as we've already referenced, particularly given the significant uncertainty regarding the impact of future government plans and funding levels, the socioeconomic challenges that include deep-rooted inequality, the climate emergency, the cost of living crisis, a broken housing market, all of which have contributed to the unprecedented demand for public services. Hackney's current funding shortfalls over the next three years, combined with rising demand, mean over-growing proportion to the Council's budget, is really being spent on supporting residents who have profound fundamental needs. We've already touched on that. Hackney Council has adopted a corporate transformation strategy, which sets out Hackney's ambitious and progressive approach to change. The plan to secure Hackney's future by solving problems and meeting challenges differently, and creating an enabled, effective and efficient Council. So in this meeting, we will have an overview of the corporate transformation programme. We're going to be reviewing the governance underpinning the corporate programme delivery of the programme, and hearing about how the transformation programme will support the Council's budget savings work to continue to achieve a balanced budget. To support this discussion, we have the presentation, the main agenda pack, and a copy of the corporate transformation strategy. So I'd like to welcome to the meeting for discussion, Mayor Caroline Woodley, Kieran Reid, Director for Corporate Strategy and Transformation, and Sam Humphrey, who's joining online, thank you, and the Transformation Programme Manager. So I don't know what order you want to do this in, but I don't know whether, because Mayor Woodley, I've got you down as having an introduction. You can do that now or afterwards if you prefer to press your voice. And then presentation from the offices, and then we'll be having a Q&A. So over to whoever wants to start. I mean, I feel like I've already been introducing this item for most of the last one, so I can really, really just very quickly just say a few words, and really picking up again on that theme of the Corporate Peer Challenge, which recommended that we scale up and accelerate our transformation work stream. We were already committed to and undertaking transformation, but it was at a much more modest level. And Kieran will testify that every meeting that we had, I'll be saying that's great and understand we can't really scale it up, but can we scale it up? And we can only do that, I think, with making some of those difficult decisions around assets that we've just discussed. But now we have committed to a more ambitious transformation strategy. And I have already set out that it's about providing our council teams an enabling environment that will give them the tools to deliver an effective and efficient, high-performing council, always putting residents first. So we want to put residents first by providing for the people who live and work in Hackney, secure Hackney's future by maintaining financial stability and investing in what matters most, and that's around meeting that demand and those needs, and changing together by acting as one council. I always think Dawn should have that tatted across her forehead, because she's almost picture it there, because that's her drive, and she really wants us to bring our services together to work as one council, modernised, flexible, collaborative and skilled to meet our future challenges. I will hand over to Kieran, who's been waiting patiently to get his opportunity to set up the plan. So Kieran and Sam, you have around 14 minutes for this presentation, thank you. It's okay, Joe. We've obviously had the paper, but I think we've got about 10 minutes for our introduction, is my understanding. I'm just sharing a couple of slides just to focus the conversation on some of the key points in response to your brief that you've set out. And I will build on some of what Neil Woodley's said, so I'll try and move through them sort of fairly quickly. I'll give the presentation and Sam's available to join the question and answers afterwards. So just a sort of bit on sort of the story here, and the Mayor's touched on some of this. So this presentation focuses on our corporate transformation programme and the work we've been doing over the last year and a bit. Really important to say upfront that, of course, colleagues across the Council delivering really effective and important change and service delivery prior to that, and we'll reference some of that already, but absolutely strong sort of foundations to build on. So in terms of the roles that Sam and I are in and the additional work that we're doing, really starting that at the back end start of last year. We, as you've said, chair agreed our corporate transformation strategy in July last year. We've had, as you've heard from the Mayor, a corporate peer challenge in the early autumn, and the last period since then has really been about us responding to that challenge to accelerate transformation, and I'll say a bit about how we're going about that. So really important, I think, with transformation, which can be over-jargonised or over-mystified sometimes, really, you know, the strategic plan sets the what we want to achieve in the borough, flowing from the Mayor's vision, flowing from political priorities, and transformation is not about changing that. It's about the how we do it as effectively as we can within the resources we've got. And as the Mayor said, both the strategic plan, the transformation strategy, and all our work, you heard how to reframe the peer challenge action plan, are really around those three headers, ensuring that we put residents first, that we are being effective in delivering our services to residents and getting the outcomes we want for our community, that we are supporting that by changing in the Council. Some of this is about responding to opportunities, technological developments, changing in the way people work, but cultural change, as the Mayor's mentioned, in terms of breaking down silos in the organisation, making sure we are collaborating around the needs of residents, making sure we are as efficient and lean as we can be. And by doing those two things, we're confident that we will make an important contribution to the significant financial challenges that the authority face, and play our part in securing the future of the organisation, and our ability to continue delivering those services and controlling our own destiny. Important to say, as the Mayor's already done, you know, we're realistic. We can't guarantee there is £51 million worth of transformation. There probably are difficult choices, and I think the authority is trying to be open with that. But we're obviously trying, and I'll say a bit more about how, to maximise and challenge ourselves that we're doing all of those more innovative or more positive things to limit that requirement for service reductions. So, it's probably quite small, isn't it, for people in the room, but we'll share the slides afterwards. A copy of this diagram is also in your papers. What this is reflects the kind of programme structure that we've got now, and I'll talk to it briefly to kind of speak to the governance. So, what we did was we looked at the work the Council's already doing, and how we could bring that together within a programme management structure, to make sure we were holding people accountable for delivery, we were working together across service boundaries to address challenges, to drive delivery. So, the programmes that are currently under delivery in the programme are our Transforming Outcomes for Older People programme and Adult Social Care, Programme of Change in Children and Education, the Housing Improvement programme, Programme of Work which we've initiated over the last year around homeless and temporary accommodation, both supply and prevention, a resident experience programme, a resident experience programme looking at customer contact channels, and the work the Mayor's mentioned around our corporate landlord and strategic asset management. So, each of those has a member of CLT as an SRO, a sponsor for the work, and they'll have their own programme governance suitable and flexible to the requirements of the programme. They all report on a monthly basis to Transformation Board, which is CLT with a number of other offices. We meet once a month in the Transformation Board capacity, chaired by DAWN, to both review progress, to sort of problem solve around issues, and to oversee the programme development. And in the more detailed slide in your version of the slide in your pack, you've got some additional detail on the development work streams. which I'll come on to. We report our progress to Cabinet members, both through portfolio holder briefings and collectively through regular meetings of CLT Cabinet. All of that infrastructure is kind of internal, non-decision making, non-executive. So, the strategy was agreed by Cabinet. The Cabinet individual change programmes, where they require significant change, will go back to Cabinet for the appropriate decision. And, of course, there's wider member oversight, which we're involved in this evening. The mayors talked a bit about the Corporate Peer Challenge, which was a really important milestone for us. We were really pleased that it recognised the progress being made, and in particular recognised the opportunity and enthusiasm for that change journey amongst our staff at all levels. But they were also very clear with us that, you know, the, as we knew and as we'd self-assessed, the council faces a very, very difficult challenge, and really does have that choice that the mayor's outlined of more fundamentally changing or, you know, just reducing the size of the envelope of the things it currently does. And, of course, we want to take that former route wherever possible, as I've said. So, their recommendation, which was in the Peer Challenge Action Plan report recently agreed by Cabinet, was that we should accelerate the whole council work stream. That would require more investment. It would also enable greater return and need to build on the work we'd got underway, which was largely service or issue specific, with the exception of the Resident Experience Programme, and really stretch that sort of cross-council working. So, that's what we've been doing over the last few months. And this, again, this is in your pack if people want to look at the detail, but essentially kind of four or five responses to that. So, the first piece of work was we have sought some external consultancy support provided by a company called Inner Circle, who are working with us to do two things, to develop what in the jargon you would call a target operating model, which very simply just means how the council will operate and work in the future. And we'll cover areas around strategy, around structure, around vision, around performance culture. And then, associated with that, we develop a number of business cases that flow from that operating model. And some of the things that might be included are there, although that work is underway, so it's not definitive. The second area, where we're also seeking some short-term consultancy support, and we're at the back end of a market procurement exercise at the moment, it is in relation to the challenges you identified, Chair, in the introduction, around the very significant demand-led challenges we face. So, we're wanting to make sure, building on the work in adults, building on the work in children, to create children's homes in the borough, building on that temporary accommodation programme, to really stretch our opportunities and see what more could we do to prevent, reduce, delay that demand, through approaches which get better outcomes, keep people safely in the community with dignity for longer, work more effectively with at-risk young people, for example, explore the boundaries between those services around transitions from children to adults. We've made some provision in the budget strategy by the flexible use of capital receipts strategy to support that kind of innovation, that invest-to-save approach, and one of the areas where that investment has been deployed to has been to sort of pump-prime the team which Sam leaves with approvals to recruit some increased capacity, so that wherever possible, and it probably won't be possible in every case, we can take forward those business cases ourselves, create opportunities cost-effectively, and build on the skills of our workforce. I know one of your questions was around kind of financial impact, so the existing programmes that were underway had a financial value of around about £17 million in the MTFP, we've added to that by around £4 million over the last year, and we have set ourselves an additional target of £21 million, we're doing the work streams I've mentioned to identify and build up getting to that, and of course if that figure can be bigger, we will push ourselves to be bigger, but we need to be realistic about what that would involve in terms of change, in terms of investment, so that the working assumption at the moment is the programme should seek to make a £40 million plus contribution to our budget challenge. Final slide sort of from me, and then to tee up the sort of conversation, so all of that's quite processing, quite abstract isn't it, so what are we trying to achieve, what do we think that things will look like, and I just want to use one or two examples, so I mentioned Resident Experience is one of our programmes, it's one of the areas we've been working on with colleagues across the Council over the last six months, so we know that we can make it better for residents to access services, so one of the projects we've done is the Council Tax Portal, enabling residents now to go online, check their balance, set up their own direct debit, check the status of exemptions etc applied to their account, so that's a much better experience for residents, it stops a number of residents who would otherwise have had to call the contact centre, or visit the service centre to find out those enquiries, it's also much more efficient for us, because typically it's cheaper for us to process transactions online, we can collect all of the information in one go, and that proposal is linked to savings which are being delivered through the budget strategy. That's one service line of it, we're doing work on the digital strategy to support the programme at the moment, and we would like to be in a position, I think in a few years' time, where we can deploy that approach across Council services, so perhaps you could log on via the portal and see all of your transactions without the Council in one place, get regular updates on the status of the service requests you've actions. It's going to be incremental progress to get there, some of that is going to require technology investment, Sam and her team are supporting a number of high volume services, doing process mapping work at the moment to identify quick wins, our customer contact colleagues are doing that, triaging the messages that are left on the phones, triaging the contact us information, to try and make sure we give a better customer experience, that we are able to get it right first time for more people and reduce frustrated chasing of us or unnecessary calls to us. We obviously, as I've mentioned, what to build on the really successful work the Council's been doing in recent years around prevention and early intervention. whilst we talk a lot about the demand pressures we face in social care, our children's colleagues have been successful in safely reducing the number of children who are looked after, our adults colleagues have been successful in keeping a higher percentage of residents in their own homes for longer, which is typically people's preferred outcome, rather than moving into residential or other more expensive forms of care. We want to do that, we want to see how could we join up across services to make that more effective. And I think that last point there is we are being really open with staff. This will mean change. It might mean change because we are looking to enable to perhaps automate some lower value processes and use new technology to enable staff to focus more of their time on the bits of their job that are most value adding. It might mean change because we want to bring together like-minded functions to get economies of scale or centres of excellence in the way we do particular functions, or any change that we need to implement. We need to go through the Council's processes. We need to think about our policy of avoiding compulsory redundancies wherever possible, thinking about redeployment. But there's no way that this isn't going to mean change in the way people are organised. And we've put lots and lots of effort and time into our communications and engagement with staff. I was speaking at Dawn's Chief Executive Road Show just the other week to sort of share some of this with staff. So I'm conscious of time and wanting to give you time for questions, Chair, so I'll stop there, but very happy to follow up and of course bring in Sam and her expertise too. Thank you. Thank you very much, Kieran. Just so that everyone's clear, we've got until 9 o'clock hard stop for questions. So I'll start and then I'll bring in Councillor Hayhurst. So thank you very much for the presentation, Kieran. I mean, this is obviously, I mean, I think we can all get in board with services working as well as possible for residents. And I think we can all identify improvements in that direction. But there also seems to me to be significant risks in terms of this programme. And also, you know, quite significant start-up costs, some of which are going to consultants outside Hackney, which are set out on page 19. So, you know, I think really, I think we want to sort of understand why that money needs to be invested in, you know, sort of such challenging financial times rather than being spent directly on resident services and whether it's, you know, whether there is a risk really that we are going to come out of this process without improved services and having spent, you know, considerable amount of money on, you know, outside, you know, relatively highly paid. So it'd be really helpful if you could take us through that spend and the justification for it. I don't know whether that's enough of a question or whether I should bring in Councillor Hayhurst as well. I don't know whether you would be asking us something on similar lines, something different, no? Different, okay. I'll leave you with that one for a moment, so. So, yeah. Councillor Sertak, are you saying something on similar lines or...? No, my questions are on different topics. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Sorry. Right. So, we are clear that we need to implement change well where we're going to implement it. So, a few points to make in response to your very fair challenge. The first is that provision in the flexible use of capital receipts strategy is not the same as the money having been spent. That is making provision for the Council to be able to draw down and recognising the challenge from our peers that they felt we were under-resourcing the level of change that would be needed. But not all of those amounts which are set out in the table in your report are committed, and they certainly are not all going to be committed to external consultancies in a number of areas where we're choosing to make that investment direct into our own workforce, either into Sam's team, into workarounds, temporary accommodation, into some of the change we're making in our environmental services. I think, you know, the peer team made the point to us, but I think we do think that to manage change well, there will be one-off costs, whether they be for capital costs to look at technology deployment, whether they be project management costs to manage change through, make sure staff and residents understand the change and that the intended change is adopted. So, you know, to give the Council Tax Portal example I gave, you know, creating the technology is one thing, driving take-up of it so that you see the benefits is another, and that work may need resourcing in some cases. So, it's important to have provision and really welcome that the Budget Strategy has been able to make use of that. We have got a very urgent challenge. You rightly picked out that that was something the peer team had also said to us in their feedback. So, in the autumn, we had a bit of a choice to make, really. Should we look to scale up our resourcing entirely through internal recruitment, creating new posts and either bringing people into the Council or redeploying staff? And we didn't feel it was realistic, given the volume of work colleagues are already delivering, that we would be able to pull sufficient staff away from that to resource the programme at the scale we need. We also felt that, particularly in the development of a programme of change, there was value in working with a consultancy partner in a managed way, who have done this work around the country, supported a range of authorities recently, would bring that experience, bring their own kind of intellectual property around benchmarking and other areas that they've worked with providers. So, that informed the strategy that we've set to seek support through those two commissions. As I mentioned, we are recruiting in parallel to grow our central transformation capacity, as well as investing in a number of service level changes. And we will review the business cases that come out of that work, to determine the future resourcing strategy and what the return on investment is. But we will definitely seek to maximise our internal resource wherever possible. I may come back to some of these points, but I will let colleagues come in. So, I think Councillor Hayhurst first. Thank you, Kiran. I mean, I think for the reasons the Mayor outlined earlier, I think you are playing an important role. Because obviously, if we can't get financial stability, we lose the control to manage our own finances and make our own decisions. Can I just pick up on where Councillor Binnie Lubbock left off, I think, with the Mayor, just in terms of this use of capital receipts? Because I haven't fully grasped this previously. I do think, I think after quite a few years of plugging, I think we did then get clarity on the reserve position, which I'm now quite, here I understand. I think there probably is a bit of work to be done on properly educating councillors as to the capital receipts, how it works, and it being used. I think there's a lot of work to be done on the reserve, but also to educate and assist. So, just looking down this schedule here, I can clearly see, for example, temporary accommodation, investor-save. Well, I can fully understand why that would be the case. Because obviously, if we purchase temporary accommodation in-house, we're in control of our own rents, and we're not able to pay private provider. To me, that's an obvious one. But some of the other areas here that don't have the invest-to-save bracket after it, just for clarity for us, is that essentially then money being used for the general fund for day-to-day expenses? So, for example, transform for adult social care, is that all going to Newton or is some of that just meeting day-to-day costs? Or the school estate strategy falling role? Again, is that an invest-to-save or it's not? Because it hasn't got those words after it. So, I'm a bit unclear at the moment as to whether that… I know, I take your point that these are only earmarked full, and not having being spent, but is the intention they would be invest-to-save? Or are they going for day-to-day funding? And then if they are all going for invest-to-save, just in terms of checking yourself and for us for accountability, can we see the investor-save, even if it's just a few lines, what is the investor-save figures behind it? Do you see what I mean? So, we know we're going to spend 1.5 million on temporary accommodation. I can see how that multiplies up, but what are the figures? What are the other ones for the other heads? I presume that would be a useful stop for you if you haven't already got it, and it provides accountability check balance for us. And then in the terms of the fact that it's coming from the capital receipts, well, what does that mean? Does that mean that we have sold X, Y and Z to this, or is this the fact that because we rent out X, Y and Z, that it's sort of the profit element from that that we've got, that we're putting into that? So, yes, it makes a small-ish reduction to what we're otherwise investing, but in the grand scheme of things, going back to Councillor Bennie Lover's point, it's not dramatically denting our ability to, say, invest in social housing. So, I just think that overall picture, and maybe we need Neem here to sort of elaborate it more, but I do think we need greater oversight, clarity, understanding as to what's going on right now. I'll let you answer that question, Neem, but just to build on that as well, on those very well-made points, we'd also be interested in the projected spend going beyond 26, 27, if there's anything you can tell us about that. You know, maybe not tonight, but in due course, I think we'd be interested in certainly need to have oversight of the projected costs going forward. Thank you. Thank you. So, on the sort of flexible use of capital receipts point, typically, we would have capital and revenue spend. So, capital on a, you know, basis on revenue for day-to-day spending on services. And we do still have that. We can make bids to the capital strategy. You'll see them come to Cabinet fairly regularly for traditional qualifying capital expenditure, buildings, ICT program assets with a fixed life, et cetera. So, what the flexible use of capital receipts strategy lets us do is the government has created a directive whereby, within certain constraints, councils can capitalise costs which would typically be revenue. They can only do that in relation to certain categories of activity, primarily one-off transformation activity associated with implementing change. So, our provisions in relation to that sort of are around that criteria. So, they would not be around day-to-day service spending. And it's, to pick up the sort of previous question, therefore not really a choice between this or between that money going into day-to-day service delivery. Naima section 151 would not be able to approve day-to-day spending from a capitalisation directive under the regulations. In terms of how we've gone about kind of allocating it, we do have to have a capital receipt to set the spend against. So, it is contingent on us having those. The council naturally will have some in the capital strategy, and it probably is for Naim and his accountancy team to give you that detailed breakdown. I don't want to start sort of speculating on that. But, as the mayor said, non-core asset review, one of the objectives of that would be to divest of some properties that are not core to our service delivery and don't have a viable commercial purpose to the council in order to create the capacity to drive that change. We definitely can, in due course, share a breakdown of where funding is allocated. As I mentioned, a million of that is around us growing the central team. There is an amount around the existing savings in the budget strategy around debt for accommodation and so on. That's probably best for us to follow up in writing, I would have thought, to the chair, but we can do that. In terms of what this might cost going forward, I don't think I can sort of say that today, and obviously it will partly be contingent on what the size of the opportunity is. So one of the pieces of work, one of the outputs of both of those work streams where we're seeking that external consultancy support is to define those business case opportunities and tell us the upfront investment, the return on investment, the lifespan of that. We've done some benchmarking around that, looking at programmes from other councils. Quite hard to get absolutely comparable figures in that area that typically would sort of point to an investment between a sort of one-to-one ratio and a one-to-three ratio, i.e. at the bottom end, you put a pound in on a one-off basis, you make a pound, you deliver a recurrent saving of a pound at the upper end, average of around one to two. Just for comparison, I'm absolutely not saying this will be the outcome for that. Croydon are in very different circumstances to us, obviously, already seeking exceptional financial support from government, but they have brought forward a similar piece of work fairly recently, seeking £42 million of capital investment to deliver recurrent revenue savings around £33 million. So I think we can expect, as the Mayor said, that there is a cost to change at a large scale that we do need to make a provision for. And, of course, the specific figures for Hackney will need to come back. And one of the things we're doing with Naeem and with Dawn and with the Mayor and Cabinet is running our transformation development process alongside the budget development process, so that members will be able to scrutinise that in the way we become familiar with. I think maybe with Naeem's here, if we could possibly have going forward, I mean, on all those line items, a bit more clarity as to what the money's going towards, what the expected return is, and where it's coming from. So I think there just needs to be some degree of oversight from somebody as to what's going on next at the moment. And others really can get a grip of it without… I think, if I've understood correctly, that Kieran said that that's something that could be provided potentially in writing to the Commission. Yes, Chair, where we know it at the moment, obviously, as I said, not all of that money is committed, so it won't… We won't… But yes, I'm sure we can do that in relation to the work streams which are committed. Thank you. Siddak, then Councillor Binney-Lovett. Councillor Siddak. Thanks, Chair. I've got three questions. Two of them, I suppose, are related, so maybe I'll just ask two for now and let Councillor Binney-Lovett come in and then maybe if there's time, ask the final one. But the first two, Kieran, are around, I suppose, mainly around work stream one and how things are being framed there. I appreciate it. It's high level for the purposes of this forum and it's rightly quite aspirational and, you know, ambitious. But I suppose I would have one concern or reaction to the framing of the sort of, the objective of where we want to get to in terms of some of the things we say around operating model and then the development of business cases. So we want to set out the capabilities that are required to deliver against those target operating models. We're talking about moving towards effective and modern corporate services and functions. We're sort of defining where we want to get to. And I suppose I would like to understand whether that process, particularly if it's going to be conducted by or in some part or in large part, you know, by external consultants coming in and helping define those objectives. How far are these objectives going to be grounded in sort of realistic assumptions about the existing capability within the organization? Because it would be regrettable to spend a lot of money in defining what would be fantastic outcomes, but where they were, you know, where there were unrealistic assumptions built in. So that's one concern. And then I guess the other concern about reaching those objectives and realizing the, you know, what we're trying, where we're trying to get to under this transformation strategy. My, you know, you'll know much more about this than me, but my assumption is that this depends massively on buy in from the staff population at the council. And so I've got a question around staff sentiment towards the strategy so far, particularly where some of the focus of the strategy is around improving capability, which I assume in large part or in some part to some degree refers to workforce capability, productivity, and so on. And so a failure to bring the workforce with us could lead to a failure of the strategy to some degree. So I'm interested in the story there. And then just within that context about staff buying and that, you know, that needs to be managed sensitively. Are there particular, you know, how far are you looking at particular areas of what the count of the council services where that might be, that point I've just made might be acutely relevant. The one that comes to mind is for customer service, where the kind of the motivation and attitude and buy in and positive sentiment of the workforce is absolutely critical to the, to the, to the role that they do, especially, you know, where there's that interaction with residents. So are, are we looking to manage things as we go through this process and, you know, in a targeted way when it comes to workforce buy-in and to the extent that there's leeway within the process to treat different teams differently? Those are obviously quite significant questions, Kieran. So I'll let you answer them before I've been councillor. But if you could try and keep your responses as short as possible, because we do have more questions. Thank you. Thank you. Apologies. So definitely in relation to defining those business cases, we obviously want to set a positive ambition to the council. And I think we actually think it's a change tool. Having that vision is important in itself to bring that motivation, to bring that buy-in that you sort of so rightly identify we need. But, you know, we need to be grounded in reality. It does not do anybody any favours for us to build unrealistic plans, non-deliverable assumptions into the corporate strategy, into the budget strategy. So that, you know, we are absolutely basing it in our strengths and challenges, our evidence base as of now. That's a big piece of the work which we're doing at the moment. And that speaks to your second point or question about making sure we've got that buy-in. And we've got, I'd say, a sort of multi-part sort of strategy there. We've been doing over the last year quite a lot of communications and engagement in dawn's engagement sessions, in corporate show-and-tells, in our regular, introduced a quarterly newsletter that tells staff about corporate developments, helping people understand and raise awareness of the change journey we're going on. We'll be doing detailed engagements with colleagues on the development of ideas. And what we found is it's most important to do that in a way which is meaningful and real for people. So, you know, senior managers might want to engage on a sort of strategic set of opportunities around service configuration or frontline staff will typically want to engage with this around their own specific service or the experience of working here. So I think we know that there are, you know, full of passion and commitment for Hackney, full of kind of ideas and opportunities about how things could be improved. We have held workshops with some of the cohorts you mentioned around that kind of resident experience, customer, customer journey. One of the things we hear from staff is, you know, they have some of the same frustrations as some of the frustrations residents might articulate to us about processes. So they would like swifter technology. They would like not to have to, you know, look up between different systems. They would like, you know, those kind of areas. So I think there is an, you know, we had really strong response to the trial before Christmas from the start. We're involved with the Gemini tool, which is the corporate AI tool as part of the Google suite and IT colleagues will be looking at rolling that out. So actually, I think, you know, obviously at the point there's a change proposal for anyone's service. People will have maybe concerns and that process, as I said earlier, needs to be managed respectfully, transparently. And that's something that I actually think staff are telling us they want to change. They recognise the need for change and some of the opportunities for them, whether it be around their day job better, whether it be about managing capacity or whether it be about career development. So we are actively working on it. I think that HR colleagues will be developing a new workforce and organisational development strategy alongside this, which really reflects the importance we put on it, needing to equip and enable the fantastic staff that we've got. Thank you, Kieran. Now bringing in to Councillor Boone Leverk. Yeah, I like councillors that I have, like, three or four questions, so I'll try and keep it to two, basically. With the contractors that we're looking to bring in, I'm wondering if they have, you know, sort of the track record of improving resident experience alongside the making of savings. And with that, obviously, it's kind of easier to set a target for savings and to measure savings versus resident experience, which could be a lot more sort of qualitative. So I'm just wondering if there's already been some thought put into how that resident experience piece is being measured and making sure the systems that we're putting in place are really robust and do we have, like, baselines to measure those against. So, for example, I keep bringing up the Constitution Committee yesterday. There was a proposal that's going to full councillors that the e-petition system is being brought in and will be the only digital access point for people for doing petitions. But there has never been a use of that that has resulted in a petition being heard at full council. So I just want to make sure that those kinds of issues don't kind of get repeated and all the systems that we're putting in place are really robust. Yeah, thank you. So two points. On the procurement, absolutely. One of our, we weighted towards quality because we wanted the right provider to do this, not necessarily just the cheapest. We wanted, we tested on experience. We sought case studies of programmes that the providers had delivered to other sites. How relevant and transferable those experiences were. Had they worked in large unitary authorities? What testimonials from the officers who'd commissioned the work? What had the outputs been, you know? So we looked at all of that and I think we're confident through both processes. We are sourcing, you know, credible support that brings not just the capacity in the short time window that I mentioned, but also that kind of insight. We also thought about fit for us. There are obviously different, you know, within the consultancy world, there are different types of organisations. And, you know, we wanted to have the one who had the right approach, the right method to work with our staff, our politicians, our members. So, yeah, I think we've actively tried to do that. Yeah, there's some quite high level performance metrics in the strategy around kind of financial security satisfaction. All of the programmes will have their own sort of KPIs. You mentioned resident experience in particular. So some of the things that we would look at within that would obviously be sort of total contacts through the contact centre, particularly look at number of repeat contacts in some dashboard work Sam and colleagues have been doing to identify where are people having to come back to us and where can we try and target efforts to improve the process. We'd look at something called the kind of bounce rate on website pages, which is where, you know, people kind of find what they want first time or then have to go off to other pages. So all of those things tell us a picture about the volume, the efficiency of our processes, and it will be the same. You know, there'll be obviously very different metrics, but, you know, the adult social care programme would have very, very granular metrics about the number of people being supported independently, the flow rate through. So all of those programmes in their own way would be looking at that. OK, Ramon. Thank you. So whilst it's appreciated, it's a big piece of work in terms of transformation and we can get various sort of contractors coming in to make assessments and things like that. The screen's gone. I'm back. Where my question is, is what opportunities are there for co-production in terms of our transformation with residents? Because it's easy for people to come in and say, OK, this is what we recommend you should deliver us. And deliverers of the service say, this is what we want to deliver. But that's different to what the residents are experiencing. And yeah, with this, how are their voices being heard and how are they involved in that co-production? Because I think we really need to appreciate and understand what they want to see because they're the ones receiving the service. We're not receiving it. We're actually delivering it. Yeah, really, really agree. I mean, if you look in the strategy, you'll see that kind of working with community is one of the things we've said characterised as the council we want to be. Just maybe stick with the example of resident experience. So we've got lots of insight about what our residents tell us. So we've got the resident survey. We've got survey data from people who've contacted us through the customer service channels. We've got a user research team in ICT and customer services who've done a number of pieces of work. Hearing the experience of residents who use our channels. What works for them? What do they like? What do they find difficult? Kind of insights back around wanting to be kept more up to date, wanting to be able to log in and see all their transactions in one place. Wanting the kind of experience that people would expect in other kind of walks of life. So we absolutely are drawing on that. I mentioned the digital strategy work. We've got some upcoming engagement with some of our voluntary sector partners who work with some of the more disadvantaged residents in the borough. So whilst we want that digital first, slick, efficient processes for people who sort of choose to use them, we do know there is a smaller minority of residents in the borough where digital inclusion is a real issue. And often some of the residents we might be most sort of concerned about. So we'll be wanting to hear their perspectives on how we can improve that, how we can think about the referral pathways that they might have for customers they know need a particular type of help. So colleagues have done some of that work actually around direct referrals from trusted voluntary sector partners into our here to help scheme, which looks at benefit maximisation. So I think it's something we want to do and are committed to. I think a bit like with the staff conversation, it's about making sure we've got a really meaningful engagement opportunity for residents linked to the kind of experiences that they've got. Thank you. Yeah, so I've got a couple of other questions. So some of this has been touched on a little bit before. But, I mean, you're aspiring to make significant measurable benefits across all three criteria. And they're obviously very different criteria, improving resident outcomes, improving organisation, your culture, staff wellbeing, delivering savings or increased income. I mean, obviously the latter one is probably easier to assess. But, you know, and we've obviously got, you know, an oversight role and scrutiny in relation to this. So it would be really helpful, I think, for us to know really what sort of benchmarks have been assessed against all three criteria and if there is anything that we can see really in relation to when you're seeking to meet them and how, you know, in particular how you will meet the, you know, measure, the more, you know, sort of nebulous criteria. I mean, obviously, there are ways of doing that. Staff surveys and sort of resident surveys as well. So that's my sort of first question. Secondly, really, in terms of governance, obviously this is an extremely complex programme. There's a lot riding on it. And, you know, we are referenced as a scrutiny panel in the documents and the presentation as part of the sort of oversight and governance process. And I must confess really to some nervousness about that because this is a really sort of, you know, complex process. And, you know, it would be, I suppose, you know, so given the complexity, do you think we have sort of, you know, sufficient governance and insight? And how do you, you know, how do you propose really to sort of support us in making sure that we know enough about what's going on? So, you know, there's a number of different really, really, really complex, you know, innovative programmes going across. So, I mean, it's, we're really sort of almost going on trust that we are going to see enough of this to sort of, you know, give it appropriate oversight on behalf of the communities we serve. So, the first question is really about measurable benefits. The second question really is about, you know, sufficient oversight and how you can assist us with that. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. So, there are, as I mentioned, each of the programmes will have kind of KPIs associated with them. As we do this new piece of work on accelerating and broadening that kind of whole council change programme. That's something we'll need to define for the new work streams that come forward. But absolutely no objection to when that is there to sharing that with scrutiny colleagues. I think probably the first point on that would be around some of the budget scrutiny sessions where we'll be able to articulate what the objectives for change are and how we would look to manage it. In terms of the sort of the point on member scrutiny, and the Mayor may want to have a view on this as well. So, obviously, we are here mostly talking about the corporate programme and that new work that we're doing. We were at an audit committee recently. I'm sure you will probably want to have us back at some point to review what that programme looks like as we complete that work around the future vision, future ways of working, define the change programme, report on progress. So, definitely that slide that I showed is partly a recognition that this is a multi-year journey. It's a four-year transformation strategy. So, we're probably going to need to continue that work with you. The other area is that I think a number of the programmes which are further along in their delivery have also been to their dedicated scrutiny panel. So, I know the adults programme has been to that scrutiny. I think the housing improvement programme has come. So, I think that kind of scrutiny of those major areas aligned to our big challenges is another angle. So, not definitely... The Mayor mentioned Dawn's focus on kind of one council, but it's absolutely an area and a focus for us across the board. And the changes we have to make are... It's definitely not the case even... She's very, very good, but it's not just Sam and her team who are doing this. This is about the organisation coming together and responding to its big challenges. So, I'm sure all of the scrutiny panels in their different ways will want to seek updates on some of their relevant areas and we can work with Tracey and the team just to make sure that's purposeful and to duplicate effort. I wasn't suggesting that scrutiny is the only oversight, obviously, but it's an important and responsible part of the system. So, you know, in terms of... Just so that we're really clear about... Or as clear as we can be, really, in terms of sort of milestones and, you know, sort of what we can sort of really expect sort of going forward, could you really maybe just sort of talk us through where you sort of see the sort of key sort of milestones and sort of outcomes? If there are any financial targets and savings to them, it would be helpful to know that as well. Thank you. So, as I mentioned in the presentation, we've made the planning assumption that the work streams I've talked about will contribute an additional £21 million into the budget against the £51 million budget gap that we've got. Now, we're obviously doing the work to validate that, to develop the propositions and also try and stretch that if we can, so that we have to consider less service reduction. So that's the planning assumption around the budget. In terms of the work to do that, the work we are supported by in a circle, and really important to say it's our work, they're a tool to help us do that. We will need to own it going forward. Their work with us runs to the summer. So I think, you know, the proposals would, I expect, come back for formal adoption into the budget. That would be the mechanism for agreeing to the financial kind of aspects in the autumn. And then obviously they would be multi-year delivery programmes. One of the questions we need to look at is the phasing of those. So that's the broad timeline on that. The prevention and demand management work is running slightly later. We're still, as I mentioned, in the procurement phase. For that, we expect the provider to start with us, probably in early next month. And then, so that work will be early being done into the early autumn. So a couple of months sort of behind on timeframe. Thank you. Thank you. I think I'm now going to draw this, this item to a close. Thank you very much, Kieran and Sam and Mayor Woodley, for coming to present this important work, to ScootDee panel. We will be having you back into your course, and also across our commissions as well as you referenced. Mayor Woodley, I don't know whether you want to have a final word or a couple of words? No, I just think the, one of the key points that came out was whether we'd be able to share some of those business plans and proposals as they come forward. And I think we would both say that we more than welcome ScootDee to have those as they come forward, if we can accommodate it within your work programme. Thank you. Thank you very much. So I'm now going to, having more or a step to time, move on to agenda item six, which is the London Borough of Hackney scrutiny improvement review. So, the report appears in your papers. So, as we've referenced several times this evening, scrutiny is a vital role in Hackney, of holding the executive to account on behalf of the local community. It's right in principle that scrutiny, like all of the council functions, undergoes periodic external challenge and review, as well as continually reflecting internally with local partners and the impact of its work. The last external review of Hackney's overview and scrutiny function was back in 2016. In June 2024, the corporate leadership team, the Mayor and Cabinet and the scrutiny panel, jointly agreed to commission an external review of the council's overview and scrutiny function. The Centre for Governance and Scrutiny was invited to assess the council's scrutiny function in Hackney and carried out review between July and August 2024. During the review, the CFGS, Centre for Governance and Scrutiny, made nine recommendations to help strengthen and improve scrutiny in Hackney. In response to the report and recommendations, the scrutiny panels developed an action plan following consultation input from the executive and senior leadership. It should also be noted that in tandem with our service review, the council's undergoing a corporate peer challenge and review from the LGA, Local Government Association. That report was agreed at Cabinet in March 2025. It's our aim to ensure that both action plans are aligned to ensure that we're supporting the steps being taken to improve the performance of the council overall. Scrutiny response review report and action plan is in the supplementary agenda pack on pages 9 to 35, and scrutiny improvement review report is on pages 37 to 46. So our pass tonight is to approve the Scrutiny Panel Response and Proposed Action Plan and ask any questions. But to members of any questions. Councillor Billy Lubbock, thank you. Just one question. Recommendation four about scrutiny input into the policy development. I feel like the actions still don't really reflect what came out of the peer review because quite a lot of those things are kind of already happening. And so in terms of deepening that input into the Cabinet process and thinking about policy development, I'm not sure that there's quite enough in there, but that might just be my view. Anything particular that you feel is missing? I just feel like there's not a huge amount of difference between how it's currently set up and what the actions are. So I'm not sure that it will have that significant an impact. I mean, we can certainly take that on board and have further discussions about how, I mean, obviously this is a dynamic document and it's going to be, you know, a dynamic process as we sort of continue to work together. So I'm happy to sort of make a note of that and have further discussions. Thank you. Are there any more questions or comments from members? Not seeing anything. So are members in a position to agree the Scrutiny Panel Response and Action Plan for London Borough of Hackney? Agreed. Thank you. Agreed. Thank you. So agenda item seven is the minutes of the previous meeting. Do members have any comments or questions or can you agree the minutes? Thank you. So there's one matter arising. Public record is the Budget Scrutiny Report, which forms part of the papers and I think everyone has read. So agenda item eight is the Scrutiny Work Programme. So there's one particular item of note here, that we're going to have an extraordinary Scrutiny Panel meeting scheduled on the Council calendar for Thursday the 12th of June to constitute the Budget Task Group. We will have outside discussions about that and receive the Housing Ombudsman report as the Council's timetable to be met in response to that. We'll also receive the performance monitoring report for the new municipal year at that meeting. Do members have any questions or comments? Nope. Any other business? I declare the meeting formally closed. Thank you everyone very much. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Chair. Thanks, Chair. I declare the meeting formally closed. Thank you everyone very much. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Chair. Thanks, Chair.