Transcript

Aaron can you hear the room? Yes I can, I can hear you if you can hear me. If you're on the outside if you're okay. Now you're on the company. Thank you. Danny's coming isn't he? Yes, yes, yes. I don't know what you want to do. It's always fun to look back not. Oh my gosh. I'm waiting for a big chance to do it because some of them are in trouble. OK, shall we start away? Good evening and welcome to this evening's overview and scrutiny committee. I'm Councillor Liz Atkins, Chair of the committee. This meeting is being recorded and is being forecast live in the event that technical issues require the meeting to be adjourned. And it can't be restarted within a few minutes. Further updates will be posted on the Council's democracy Twitter account. It is @LBLdemocracy. Please note that the council has a duty to protect sensitive personal data. So to ensure such information is not disclosed, please avoid using full names or any other details that may reveal the identity of others. For exits if you need them, exit either door and go upstairs to street level and their toilets, accessible toilets just outside on the right side of the room. Apologies for absence. I've received apologies for absence from Chancellor Sadiwal and Councillor Griffiths. Well, let's move on to introductions. Can you please members introduce yourselves and can you at the same time also say if you have any declarations of interest in relation to any matters to be considered this evening? So let's go left. I'm Councillor Annie Gallop and I believe I have no declarations in re-interest. Councillor Marianna Masters and I have no declarations. I'm Councillor Ben Curtis and I do not have any declarations. OK, I think we'll go to members and officers who can introduce themselves when we come to you. I'm David Oxley, Councillor for Stockwell West and Larkhole and I have no pecuniary interest in that. Councillor James Rand for Hornby, also Stockwell West and Larkhole and no interest to declare. Alison Inglis-Jones, Councillor for Clapham Common and Abbeville and no interest to declare. And I'm Liz Atkins, Member for Shulkin Hill East and I have no declarations to declare. We're still waiting for the cabinet members, so it's just that the officers perhaps quickly introduce themselves. Bill Kahn, the Corporate Director of Interest and Growth and Chair, Councillor Doolittle running five minutes late. OK. Hi, Catherine Ames, Development Director. Duncan Whitfield, Interim Corporate Director of Finance. Ruth Hart, Acting Corporate Director for Housing and Social Care. And Lou Parker, I'm the Assistant Director of Strategic Partnerships and Programs. OK, given that we're waiting for Councillor Zillipour to do an introduction, can I suggest that we change the agenda slightly and quickly take the work programme, which is normally at the end of the agenda, and see if there are any items that people would like to add to the agenda? I've got a suggestion that we have on the list of items to be considered that we look at libraries, which I think is overdue. But in addition to that, I think it might be useful to look at how the council supports some culture in terms of things like performing arts, museums, galleries and so forth. Would people support that, members? OK. Are there other items you think we should add? Can I just request, when we're looking at culture, how we get marginalised communities to interact? So rather than just look at it on its own, how actually different. Yeah. And if we could add to that with some night-time economy stuff as well. Night-time economy stuff? Yeah, sure. OK, good, good. And the next meeting in October, we're looking mainly at the Safer Lambeth Partnership. We also have an item from the Beall's Brief as well. I've forgotten what it is, home to Lambeth. And that's right. That's it. That's it. So and also looking at employment support for disadvantaged residents. So that is the October meeting. And then on to November, I think we're looking at finance. So can I suggest that that might be quite, three quite large topics, might be too much for one meeting. Would you like to move one of them to a later meeting, just that I think we'll run out of time and not give enough? Yeah, I mean, I must admit that I certainly had had some kind of reservations about that. Is your item time sensitive? No, it's not. We could move that item. Yeah. It just seems that having three quite large. Yeah, I agree. We did have a discussion, but if it was not time sensitive, then we can do that fine. OK. OK, we're still awaiting. All right, let's. I think I may have to take some witnesses first. Yeah, no, sure. So the minutes of the last meeting held on the 23rd of July on the pack. No amendments have been received by Democratic Services. Are these agreed? OK, so I think we're going to move on to the transition of Homes for Lambeth back into the council. Most of you will be aware that about two years ago, the Kurslake report recommended that Homes for Lambeth should be brought back into the council and it should be completely reset its approach to future state renewal. So we'll be discussing tonight what progress has been made. Now, I think that given we haven't got the cabinet member here, that perhaps we'll move on to. Some of the witnesses and then when Councillor Dilipour arrives, he can do his introduction. Because I think he will and he will have seen some of the. People to have been have been circulated. So let's start with. Sabine, who's the chair of the Central Hill Estate Residence Association committee. So you have up to three minutes and you'll be strictly timed. That's fine. Just just before you try. I thought we need to meet. So I was talking about the panel. No, that's fine. OK, fine. You'll have to. Thank you. OK. So on Wednesday, we had a regeneration meeting and I met the new senior director of development. And I just wanted to say thank you very much to all of the members of the council. And I just want to say thank you to all of the members of the council. And I just want to say thank you to all of the members of the council. And I just want to say thank you to all of the members of the council. And I just want to say thank you to all of the members of the council. It just shows that things are carrying on as usual. I probably know more about retrofitting than she does, and she's the development manager and she needs to know if it's going to be value for money. She needs to know if the options on the table are the best ones, the companies that are being sought are the best ones. And how is this going to happen if the person who is at the head has been recruited without needing any knowledge of this? This begs the question, is Lambeth Council really changing anything or even considering retrofitting? If we look at, this is from a personal experience, the estate before and the estate afterwards. Seven years ago, we had secured tenants, 300 secure tenants on our estate. We had 144 leaseholders, homeowners, 100% their own homes, obviously through mortgage or whatever. Now, fast forward seven years, we have about 20% of the homes are empty. 5% of the homes are people with no tenancy at all, not even temporary tenancy on our estate. This may have changed, but they were 23 last time I heard. They do not have any access to using the estate as their address. You have loads of temporary house people, you have people who want to leave because of the dognet store, toilets on the balcony and no one, you know, they don't know who to turn to. We've had three housing offices in just a few months. So homes for Lambeth, when it was set up, there were funds. There was, labour was cheaper. Access to money was cheaper. Now you fast forward, Lambeth is far more in debt than it ever has been. Things are far more expensive. The knowledge base is not there. Residents of Lambeth have been asking for a task force to retrofit. The mayor has said demolition needs to be the last option. You yourselves have to prove that. Which I know you're using the same company that did, Martin Arnold, that did the surveys that led to us being deemed ready for demolition. Although people have looked at that and said that document does not reflect a need to demolish. So yet the same company is now providing the document, the same stock assessment, that is supposed to help to influence whether we retrofit, whether we infill, whether we demolish and rebuild. The time for demolition rebuild is over. It's in the past, whether Lambeth knows it or not, whether whoever is making decisions. I know that Savills is informing Lambeth and maybe it needs to start listening to other people, but definitely to empower residents and officers. Thank you. Thank you very much. OK, let's move on to Rain Dove, who is replacing another local resident. That is on item four, not on this item. OK. On the transfer of assured hotel. Rain's just taken over from Cole. Rain's taking over from Cole, no? Yes, but that is on the next agenda item. On the assured tenancies you're talking about. OK. OK. Remind me to come to that. OK. And we've got someone who's replacing Andy Plant, Gwinde. Gwinde. Gwinde, sorry. I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce your second name, so my apologies. OK, you have three minutes of time. Apologies Andy. But he did give me his speech. I hope this can be truly a thrill to the officers, because from the resident's perspective, it's definitely not as rosy as what's being portrayed in the report. Let me highlight four of the top issues with this report from a Cresium Gardens perspective. One, no formal engagement with democratically elected resident sports and no resident engagement panel. This is in complete contradiction to your report. Board members have to chase for any updates and then often ignored with no or partial response. Two, no joined up thinking within the council. There has been an abject failure to consider the legally binding vote by residents for the implementation of the TMO in the council strategy for Cresium Gardens. Every month delay in the TMO go live is directly costing the council up to £10,000 a month, whilst the resident's board waits for the land to deliver on an office and a depot. And four of a million pounds spent a day would be a low estimate for no service delivery. There is no accountability for this absolute wastage of HRA funds. This issue highlights a failure of governance within the council that has no escalation route to resolve issues and standoffs between departments. Three, underhand communication with residents. A planning application snuck in over the summer holiday that was illegally posted late on the poll, with no direct link to where comments could be made, no communications to residents or their board, and nothing mentioned in their recent research. The planning application is indicative of the ongoing disrespect of residents in this process. Four, no visibility provided of the liveability work plan and works have definitely not been completed. We still have scaffolding all over the estate and legal disrepair cases outstanding. Further, officers chose an option to permanently damage our routes against the advice of the residents board, but still no acknowledgement or action plan to rectify the issue. This report is a clear misrepresentation of effects on the ground. The high number of repairs completed is a clear indication of the full quality service being delivered, not a job well done. With repairs having to be done multiple times and hiding a massive backlog of issues, the residents have given up reporting and resorting to legal routes. I am aware of one case, for example, where the council is openly in breach of a court order and penal notice for failure to undertake works that originally would have been just a minor repair in 2014, 10 years ago. Another landed officer may yet get arrested as a consequence. In summary, residents are not happy, continuing to feel unheard, disrespected and disregarded. And once again, a report is being tabled that is not reflective of what we are experiencing on the ground. So please do recognise this, it is way too green, everything is not complete, the devil's in the detail. And as a finance person, you should be worried about what's happening with the TMO going live, you're getting pushed between pillars between the regen team and the housing team and none is getting done and it's got to be money straight out of your pockets. So at least a quarter of a million pounds for the last five years with no service delivery. We're ready to go, why is not that? So please, this is not a good situation on the ground. Do question because you're going to be accountable for the HRA funds wastage. Thank you very much. Now, do members have any questions or witnesses? Obviously, we can raise points they've raised in the questions. Just one specific question on that, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe he said that residents have given up on reporting resources to illegal routes? Yes. Just some colour on that would be helpful. No, because if you've been trying to report, I mean, I'll give you an example, I won't use names, someone who's in your social care plan, but with a little bit more intelligence, he's quite independent, he's very proud to be independent, he's very proud of his home. It's been 10 years battle. A new kitchen for him and a new front door. And it is, he struggles to call the call centre. I've been called in. I've tried to escalate it through the councillors, through everyone. And you know what? This guy managed to get himself a lawyer. He gave up on your process. As I'm saying, even the most vulnerable residents are now going straight for lawyers, because Lambeth is not listening. I even have, personally, I even I have a, against you guys. No, this is the route now. People don't want to call you. They've been calling you for 10 years. You come after the storms against our advice. You totally damage all our routes. We clearly say new roofing is inappropriate contractor. The information commissioners told you that you have not sufficient reporting to be able to track contractors and subcontractors in the performance. When the routes blew off, we told you not to batten them down with wooden things, because I've had my personal experience, you wouldn't batten my wooden roof, my metal roof down. Within weeks, months, there was leaks every metre. And then you had to pay for a brand new roof, which was never necessary. So you've got this case where every roof now on Pressingham Gardens has been damaged by the contractor. We told them this is going to happen. It is now leaking. Everyone home is leaking. But the council is still requiring the individual resident to report it to the council. I'm going to stop you there because I know that loads of other questions are going to be asked. So let's move on to general questions. And when Councillor Dillyport arrived, we'll get him to do his introduction. But I'm sure quite a lot of the questions someone will be technical will be asked of officers anyway. So perhaps I'll start off with a question about H of L finances. There seem to be variations in the liability of home to Lambeth in recent financial statements from 69.5 million in the 22-23 financial year to estimated claims of 80 million from other sources. And I couldn't access the 23-24 financial statements. They don't seem to be publicly available. So can you clarify the current liability of home to Lambeth and its subsidiaries to the general fund and what the impact of the transition will be to council finances? I can. The 23-24 accounts have been delayed by publication because of adjustments that need to be made in the 22-23 accounts, following on from the Kerslake review and the decision by cabinet to close the company. And particularly our external investors want us to make some adjustments in terms of our loans outstanding and our investment in that company and the numbers that are in our draft accounts for March 24, which are completely other than for the 22-23 adjustments, is that there is a total outstanding of £90 million by way of loans with the company. And that's £36 million worth of working capital and £54 million worth of loans on construction specific buildings that have been constructed and are still being built by HFL. And that is all net of repayments that have been made to the council by HFL. So I think something like £15 million of the building costs so far have been repaid. There's also an £8 million shareholding in the group of companies, which is still on our draft accounts for March 24. So that's the full extent of the liability and investments in the HFL group, £90 million worth of loans, including interest in HFL shareholding. OK, so do you see the council needing to go to government either to ask for capitalisation direction or in the worst case scenario, Section 114? No. I can explain some work that we've done around the transition programme, if that would be helpful and where we are today. I think what would be helpful probably is to give the committee details that you've just outlined to us. But certainly, I mean, if you can tell us what kind of mitigations are being put in place to limit the impact on council finances, that would be really helpful. And after you've spoken I'll bring in Councillor Diddy Poor, give him a chance to catch his breath. Why are you calling him the cart or the horse? I'm not quite sure. Let's keep going. So from the point of the decision back in December 22, there was clearly a transition programme which is clearly set out in the report you have here tonight, which was largely based around operations and functionality and moving things around as how would we close it? How would we move the property back? How would we maintain the properties that have been built and were being built and still are being built? And the residents within them in line with all the planning requirements, so on and so forth. So that was a huge piece of work. And I think the work in anger on the financial treatment around HFL probably began last spring. And particularly that then emerged into the movement to what financial issues that HFL creates. It's a lot easier to create a company than it is to close it. And that's the point I made at corporate committee, I think now a number of times. It was very clear the accounting treatments would need to be adjusted within our corporate accounts, our statement of accounts. External audit would be interested because any company being closed in their local authority, and there have been a few, gets additional scrutiny. Timing would be an issue. What would be the best timing for the closure from a financial point of view, let alone a residents point of view? The HRA financial health here is a bit of a worry for us, has been reported through cabinet from certainly 23 to 22, 23 and then into 23, 24. And any transfer stop, for example, we need to be taking very close attention to not impairing that health in any way. But at the same time, the company was being slimmed down, no new developments, so on and so forth. But some new developments to complete. And some of those developments will continue to be completed through to 2025. What we set in autumn of 23 in certainly with some guiding principles for how we would approach the closure of the company from a financial point of view. And they recommend there are four of them. And they're actually to give me some comfort that we were actually from a statutory accounting point of view, moving in the right direction. Number one is obviously the recognition of the need to have appropriate accounting treatments for the closure. Those would be auditable in line with local authority regulations. An orderly closure of the company. Liquidation, for example, would immediately transfer financial stress, contractual issues back to the council. So it was an orderly closure from a financial point of view. And that clearly echoed the transition programme that was happening anyway. Best value considerations for the Lambeth taxpayer. I heard your comments, but that is absolutely in my mind. Whatever we do from a financial transition, the company point of view, I don't want to leave the Lambeth taxpayer a penny short on investments already made and avoid compromising HRA. So they were the four key principles. Where we were from there is we issued the statement of accounts 22-23 with disclosures and statements included within those draft accounts about how we were planning to manage finance. Our external auditors, who are for this Mazars, have required us to make accounting adjustments for 22-23. So our accounts for 22-23 are currently pending adjustments that require reflections on the balance sheet because of the closure decision, the assets that we have been built and the working capital that has been used and the shareholding of the three issues where we have been now discussing with Mazars for the best part of six months, how to best satisfy all of those guiding principles for the closure. And where we are now is we work through all sorts of options with the auditors in terms of the best treatment and meet those guidelines. And we are expecting a response now from Mazars within the fortnight of the proposals that we have made to them, which would then, subject to their agreement, be subject to management board approval here. I'd be confident on both counts. We will then re-present the 22-23 accounts for due diligence and final audit by Mazars and then we plan to present those to the corporate committee in November. That's where we are today. That's probably as far as I can take you in terms of the detail of that. But progress, I would say, has been good. The auditors cooperation and actually support has been very, very helpful. And I'll just point back to those guiding principles that I think are really important resources to actually get the closure in an audit manner with no additional cost to the council. OK, let me update you, Councillor Dillyport. We have taken the three witnesses, but through you I assume we'll give you the chance to have your introduction. You have up to five minutes. You'd like to do that now? Sure, yeah. Thank you, Chair, and thank the committee for their patience this evening. I think this is a really timely moment to reflect on what's happened since the KERSLAG review, which did set a number of recommendations, including bringing homes for land birth back into the council. For a bit of context, the HFL Group is essentially three separate companies. HFL is the parent company for HFL Living, HFL Build, HFL Homes, and in this report we're trying to explain what's happened in each of these as part of that transition journey and how we've delivered many of the recommendations so far. I'm pleased to have had progress has gone so far on this transition and implementing the recommendations from KERSLAG with 26 out of 33 specific actions being committed to in our plan. We did so far, so seven are left outstanding to do. In terms of development schemes, there's only four that are left tonight that have been transferred to the Council for Delivery. The four remaining schemes at Hydeford, Atmos, Roman, Rice and Fenwick have been retained by HFL for completion. We expect all of these to be finished by spring next year, delivering vital homes for our communities, including significant numbers of affordable and social housing. In terms of the future of HFL Living, I think we can discuss that a bit later because it's sort of covered in the AST's paper that we've got on the agenda. HFL Homes, the decision we make on the future of that particular company will have to be part of the conversation about the HRA, linked very much to the financial challenges around that and ongoing discussions about how we take the best approach that protects the future of the HRA, whilst gradually winding that company up as well. Another significant action that we've taken has been produced in the Housing Strategy, again following the KERSLAG review, and this was approved by Cabinet earlier this year, and the new strategy outlines how we're going to deliver even more homes at a more efficient pace, improve our housing and repair services, seek to create healthy incentives for our residents. Outside this, we've also recently launched our new housing to be programme, which we're calling our new homes programme, about how we will maximise and then given the specific sites where we're looking to bring new homes forward. So lots of ambitious work going on in this area. We are conscious of much work still to do in terms of the transition as well, and as Doug was alluding to just then, there's important work to get right with the finances because we want to be no debate about what's up in there. So we're having these really intensive conversations with the auditors to make sure that every penny is truly accounted for so it can be transparent about that transition and the costs that are being involved. Thanks very much Danny. Okay, who would like to come into questions? We've got, sorry, it's members questions, not members. Actually qualified accountants. Okay, thank you very much. So we've got Ben, Annie, Alison. Okay, we'll start with those first. Yeah, thank you so much for the introduction all. The lady who gave evidence, who sat at the desk there, said that the residents board on Crescent Gardens felt like they were being unheard and she referred to a disrespect to residents. I wonder whether or not you could speak to that first, I've just got two other questions. The resident was in touch with our team about a consultation notice for the removal of a bin storage in Trinity Rise, which is an area of Crescent Gardens. You'll see the demolishment of our bin storage is a relatively minor thing. But in the report, it's suggested that the approach to Cressingham is ongoing. This would kind of suggest otherwise, so just to kind of where are we up to with the states that are still under review and have residents been consulted with on this change. And then finally, more generally, using the consolidation of homes and living within two or three years is still realistic and are we on track? Thank you Councillor Curtis, they're all very important questions. In terms of the first one that you asked, I think it's best to say historically the relationship wasn't right. That's why I made a public apology out for Council last year for how that relationship had been handled, committed to a full reset of the relationship with residents on the estate regen sites, including resetting our entire engagement framework with residents. And I feel that things have improved significantly since then, and maybe Kathleen can come in a bit for some more detail on that. In terms of the second point, I'm not aware of the specifics about the bin storage, but we've always been clear that we don't treat that site as part of Cressingham Gardens. Our approach to it is, as I said, for a small site that will continue to be the approach. Any plans that come forward on the Trinity Rise site will be looked at separately from the long term engagement plan on Cressingham Gardens. That has always been that approach. I've reiterated that approach every time I've been asked about it. I'm happy to reiterate it again tonight. What was the third question again? The third question was about whether or not the consolidation of HPR homes and living within two or three years is still realistic, and whether or not you and the team think we're back. Yes, I think we are on track. I think we've made good progress so far. We've made the right decisions and we're going at the right pace, making the decisions that we can at this stage. She's taking the time for more complex ones. I think that time still is still achievable and we'll meet them. Thanks. No, you have to excuse my ignorance around the Trinity Rise site. We would disagree. It's part of the Cressingham Gardens. Members questions now? Thank you very much. Annie, would you like to come in? Yeah, it was just going back to some of what Ben was saying, and I noticed on 25 it is recognised on the risk register. Engaging residents effectively in all renewal proposals. And it does seem as though I know that that's making improvement, you're saying, and there is more resident engagement. There still seems to be people who don't feel they're being engaged with. And I just wondered if there's any ban to change even more, to try and get more residents involved. Engagement is absolutely a journey, Councillor Gallip, and any steps to improve that journey, do so. Because we want to form programs to be involved. We had a very good level of engagement on consultation. We did a new framework on resident engagement, but since then there's been good attendance and engagement of the sessions we've held. So, I mean, I would absolutely agree with that point about it being a journey. Obviously, we've been working and engaging with these states for many, many years. And there is quite a lot that would be, quite rightly so for residents, because we've been out for many, many rounds of consultation. And I think the establishment, the state renewal engagement framework, really tried to draw an eye on that and take a warm approach to engagement. So on those estates where we are actively working, so Westbury, Southland, Buses of Avon, we're looking to agree and delivery of notes on those. And for the back running estates referred to as Central Hill, Fenwick and Crenshaw, we're going to take a stage approach to options of residents. We'll be engaging very widely with residents. But that is a journey. So actually it's about building on our approach, it's about tracking our engagement, it's about understanding who we're reaching and who we're not and trying different approaches to reach other people. So we are really trying to be very dynamic and reactive in terms of looking at the data which we're collecting from every engagement we do. And then reflecting that in terms of what we do then to go out and engage in future. So it is very much a learning journey for us and also to build trust with residents in terms of that engagement. That is a process that we're working through. From the witness statement we heard there was talk of some sort of TMO, is the TMO existing in Gresham or is it proposed to exist? Tenant Management Organisation. I can't respond to the TMO questions. Let me comment on that. So I'm aware that our interim chief executive here at Economy and a couple of the health colleagues have been discussing about two meetings in recent weeks and months with tenants about the setup of the TMO. That's as much as I know at the moment. We can certainly take that away and find out where. I'd be interested to know what the motivation was for the tenants to do that and also just to add that we now have seen the Grenfell Report. Ironically, the distrust was with the TMO and the toxicity was with the TMO. But there's kind of distrust from residents here. So, you know, I think we all need to look at how we build levels of trust. OK, and then we'll come to that in the recommendation. Excuse me, sorry, sorry, time is now for members questions. So I'd be grateful if you allow members to ask questions. They've listened to what you've said and it's now their opportunity to answer the questions. Can I answer the question regarding the TMO, because clearly no one here knows about the TMO and this is a great example of this other organisation who has zero clue what a legally binding vote is and where we're trying to push. Could you please, could you please remain silent and let members speak now, please? Thank you. Sorry to go back to the resident engagement thing again, but can I ask about data? Because you very helpfully said what you were saying. Can I just put out the data issue? Maybe, would it be possible maybe to come back to this committee with where we were and where we get scenarios of the numbers involved? Because we're talking quite sort of, it seems... In numbers of resident engagement. Resident engagement, exactly, because we're talking about data, but can we have some data? And yeah, any KPIs that have been set in place so we can understand what the situation was and what potential uplift and what targets we're setting ourselves. Because it's great to know the ambition, but actually we need to have some, you know, you're tracking data. You must have then an idea of what you would consider better engagement in terms of data. OK, we'll capture that. OK, I've got David next, unless you want to come back. David next and then Joe, did I see you coming? Two questions. Ben stole my first question. I'm in a similar area, though. It's just to get confirmation. [inaudible] If you link that towards the [inaudible] And rebuild it. Do you think that we never ever do refurbish or is it unlikely? [inaudible] I can take the first one. I mean, at this stage, yeah, absolutely. Refurb is not really considered. It's not just there tokenistically, but all these data, many of them have got complexities. We can get a full suite of options as things stand at the wall of the table. [inaudible] No, I mean, I would just add that we do have Arabs working with us and they're industry experts in sustainability and retrofit. So they are informing the process in terms of refurb and the sort of different levels of retrofit. And as Danny said, they are all in discussion at the moment. You want to come back? No, I'm fine. Joe, I'm a bit confused with financing, but it isn't surprising, so I'm not honest. There'll be more information that goes to the Cork Committee in November when we got an agreement with these services. In summary, the council has a shareholding of eight million pounds in a jet valve. And part of the issue for the auditors is that on the basis the company will not close with a surplus. And the best it will do is close with a breakeven position. They want us to show an adjustment in our accounts to account for that shareholding. Where the auditors come from here, because they could take an alternative here, I think that basically says, let's wait for the completion of all of the construction, look at the value of the loans and the value of the estate, see if one offsets the other. But they would rather show some form of adjustment within the accounts at this time. This is already capitalized. It's already in our budgets. We already pay for it. So it just needs to be presented differently within the accounts. And then you walk into many different options for doing that. And that's what we're trying to finalize. I think it's important for us all to remember when HFL was created, the view was that it was a company that would last forever. Really, because they could take that to a different place. So that's where the auditors come from. And they do look at other council companies that have all over the country decided to wind themselves down. Yeah, that's fine. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah, a couple of questions. Just on the on the data point that colleagues have raised, it'd be helpful to get some data on, you know, how many residents these days are taking a kind of illegal route to try and get repairs resolved, to the point that the witness made. Because that, I suppose, is another indicator of a lack of engagement and the appropriate paths working. And certainly just on the point two point one nine, which is six and a half thousand repairs on the state's insurance since December twenty forty two. Do we have data on how many of these are repeat repairs? And I would, you know, if someone in this meeting has specific knowledge, the specific issues raised around the roof and which sound like an issue that many, many residents have complained about has been ongoing. But can an officer provide me with with an officer view of that specific case? Because it seems like such as a good case that it would have come across your desk and it'd be very helpful to get an officer view of that specific case study. Thank you. I don't think there are any officers here from the repair team. And I think I think I mean, this is this is kind of outside, obviously, the remit of this this paper. But, yeah, but let's say a response on this particular case, which state was it? Was it the Gressingham State, the state roof and what's been done about it? I mean, in a sense, that's not, you know, obviously it's important, but it's more the subject of your committee, perhaps. The paper does reference the number of repairs in this case. I think that should be then referred to the Housing Self-Committee. OK. I was going to link in with that, not from the sort of housing perspective, but how it impacts on the speed of things like voids, the percentage of, you know, the 47 percent of voids only being attended to in a timely way. So we do need to sort of see the bigger picture as to inadequate repairs affecting us working at pace and what measures are in place. Again, data really needs to be sort of shown in terms of where we are, what the intention is and what the sort of percentage uplift we're expecting. Given that there is, you know, across the piece, from what I've read of the report, it seems that there are things in place to actually, you know, obviously transition the whole structure to us and everything's being attended to. So what is it that we, you know, from the previous structure, from previous foundations, do we expect now when we take it in house? Quality control, timeliness. And I think, again, linking in with housing, sanctions with subcontractors, are they fit for purpose? There are lots of questions asked about retrofitting versus, you know, do we have the right contractors in place to attend to what is needed? OK, let's try to capture that. OK, basically we want to look for the full picture of what's happening. Absolutely. Yeah, states. OK, we'll capture that in the recommendation. Thank you. Yeah, I noticed in the action plan talks about, in point number two, talks about a single point of contact for each estate being established and several witnesses and I have been at previous committee meetings have talked about a relatively high turnover of staff. And I just wonder whether or not that single point of contact for each estate is stable and if not, whether or not the new contact details of the individual responsibilities being said, how it's being said. Is it state notice boards? Is it letters to doors? How does that process work when something moves on? That was supposed to be part of the resident panel protest, wasn't it? Yes. I just wanted to add something quickly, if that's OK, just on that, is along the same lines, the action plan for the in-house skills and capacity, 2.43, I think that could build in. So that's the recruitment and staff retention in-house for. Sure, I mean, in fact we covered that, didn't we, in the last meeting when we were looking at the new home strategy. We're talking about the importance of actually building those skills, particularly in relation to retrofitting and also passive house skills. So that's the recommendations actually. I think it's minute here. If we could have follow up from that, because it's good to have the recommendation, but obviously to know, I mean, what was really good is that we do recognise that we need to upskill our staff and they're going for different courses. But what's the result of that? And then what's the skills audit further on? So we start again, it's like before and after. Sure, sure. And in fact, I think if you look at the recommendations in the last meeting, it has captured, I don't want to refer back now, but we've certainly asked for an update on what was happening in terms of the internal team. And it's split between this committee in terms of the development, but also obviously Joe's housing subcommittee. But I'll check back. It's in point well made that we need to follow up. And we have our clerk here who does chase up recommendations and attempts on many occasions to get a response. Sometimes they should be having to break heads, but I can promise that deal will be for new ones coming through. Recommendations three at the last meeting. When you read the new reports, there's still reference to new staff training. OK, any other questions on this item? Sorry, I know that was a couple of officers wanted to come in. I was just a bit more focused on members. Any final comments? So we had our employees engagement officers on the estate now and they've just newly started and we have pinched them from us. Let's just clarify, do you have resident engagement panels on each of the estates? We've got resident engagement panels on Central Hill, on Fenwick, on Westbury, on South Lambeth. We engage personally down there, which works really well for those residents. So you're not having an engagement panel on that site? We might do, but we know most of the residents, because there's a very few number of residents that live down there. We know most of them personally. So actually with Councillor Amos and ourselves, they prefer that sort of one. OK, if that's a preference of residents? Yes. With Crestingham, we would like to set up a resident engagement group. And actually when we start to do the work around the options appraisal, the intention would be to work very closely with residents down there to set that up, because it's very helpful for us to work with a representative from the residents from that state. So that will be an action going forward. In terms of resident engagement offices, we have got two that have just started. And they come with lots of engagement knowledge that come from other London boroughs where they've worked in estate regeneration and development. So they already have really good existing skills. We also do have housing engagement officers who work alongside the officers in regeneration and development. And we have independent tenant advisors who worked for quite a long time on all of those estates. And their role, in addition to working confidentially with residents, is to do engagement with residents as well. So there is quite a group of resource that engage with residents on those estates. And that is something that we're going to continue to work with. I mean, how stable those individuals are in terms of that recruitment and that employment. I can't state, but they are permanent employees and they're working. And how would a resident on a specific estate know who those people are? Is it interested in a public place? We have resident newsletters that go out on supporter. We have, in fact, for the new resident engagement officers, I think the team are going to put out flyers and leaflets to communicate them. We have stuff on our website, but the main sort of active communication is through the newsletters which are reviewed at least once a quarter. And actually, once we start working more actively on some of these estates, they'll be issued more frequently. Also, we would communicate through the UX who obviously can communicate back to their community. OK, I'm going to attempt to capture recommendations on this. So first of all, to provide the committee with more details of the impact of the transition of homes for land back into the council on accounts finances and what is being done to minimise negative impact. To provide a response on the quesium estate roof issue and what's being done about it and to refer that back to the housing subcommittee. To ensure that this committee and the housing subcommittee has a full picture on the homes for land estates in terms of repairs. Empty properties, voids and retrofitting and was there anything else? The time frame for the engagement framework for Crestedham Gardens. And then on engagement, to ensure that residents on the HfL estates are fully engaged in the resident engagement panels. They have a contact, named contact on each estate. Residents are properly consulted and informed and have meaningful involvement in decisions about their estate. To provide the committee with feedback from residents about how they believe this process is working. And then separately provide us with data on what has changed and what new targets have been set in relation to resident engagement. Provide data on the number of residents taking legal action and how that has changed over the last three years. And then on the structure to provide the committee with an update on the status and costs of each of the HfL committees every six months. If a briefing could be provided to members of this committee and the housing subcommittee on this brief case. Yes, I did. Yeah. Yeah. OK. You have that? Yeah. And I'll follow up on the floor. Fine. Thank you very much. OK, so let's then move on. Sorry. You know, it's just an issue regarding independent residence advisors. There's no confidentiality that we've had a breach before, so people don't trust them. And secondly, they don't have the necessary legal knowledge to be able to appropriately advise residents. Thank you very much. We'll move on to the next item, which is the transfer of assured, short hold tenancies from HfL to the council for households to be used for households with the most urgent need. So the council, you know, is intending to transfer council owned properties currently leased to HfL back to the council so they can be let to people with the most urgent housing. But what will that mean for those residents who are currently living in ASC properties and for the most vulnerable residents in Lambeth? So we have Councillor Dillyport to introduce this item. You have up to five minutes to introduce the report and then we'll move on to witnesses. Thank you, Chair. I think it's really timely having this discussion this evening because all the members are aware temporary accommodation is a serious problem. Over 4000 households in temporary accommodation, over 40,000 households on the waiting list. How we're using our housing stock is really a part of that. Trying to find that issue. And given the soaring costs, we're facing accommodation at minute caused by the failures of the last government and increasing levels of homelessness and poverty. We need to do something to address it in the longer term temporary accommodation we have in this borough. Therefore, given the situation, my political belief is that we can no longer justify a situation where we have council owned properties being let out on the private market, making money for private letting agents. So they've been brought back into use by the council for residents that did it the most. That is a political choice that I'm intending to make. But I wanted to do that with full transparency, which is why the support is coming to the committee tonight before I make that decision. But I want to be clear about the politics behind that decision and why I'm firm of the belief that is the right thing to do. It's also worth stressing that if we do this, all the housing stock that we bring back into use will go to the families that are most allergic to heat, less than the most. The investment aid of housing gives you a lot of explanation. And I think we've been concerned regarding the current AST tenants. With this, I need to be clear that having these properties on the private market was only ever intended to be a short term solution. I think we've been clear about it from the start. But going forwards, if there are any AST subtenants currently in the private sector whose circumstances require it, we'll provide the support that is required in line of our statutory duties. We do have a homelessness prevention team that are fully on top of this area and they will conduct priority needs assessments. Where it is found for any of those current tenants, as a council we have the main housing duty, we will consider whether that particular AST tenant should continue to live at the same property as TA until more suitable long term accommodation. Again, I have to be clear that the people who aren't living in those units owned by the council are the most vulnerable people that need that housing the most, not people that are renting it currently in the private sector. I also want to stress the members as well to give a reassurance that we have done a comprehensive equalities impact assessment for this upcoming decision, which included the survey of the AST subtenants affected by this decision. And the findings of the survey are included in the report and overall it showed an overall positive impact from the decision due to the direct benefits for those currently desperately in need of that housing stock, who are predominantly families in extreme levels of poverty and disproportionately represented with ethnic minority families as well. So it's clear that by making this decision, we're having a significant number of those individuals. One of the points I think is important to address is the issue of that being empty homes on these dates as well, which is a fair challenge. We have got a very clear new voids strategy as well about improving the turnaround time on those voids. And we are working to address that issue on a particular state and also bring those units back into use as part of a wider approach. We're also developing an empty homes action plan and our state voids turnaround strategy is already seeing falling levels of voids and quicker turnaround times there. I need to stress as well, that voids issue doesn't change the fact that we currently have a number of properties sat in the private sector, but that we would put some much better use as accommodation maintained by the council as used as temporary accommodation. Just to reiterate, I have 100% confidence this is the right decision to make. It will ensure we're using our stock to house those people in most dire need and we will take necessary steps to support the current private sector tenants in those properties. With that, I'm happy to take any questions and then get us to make any additional comments they want. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. We have three local residents who are going to give us witness statements. We'll start off with Jules, who also provides a written statement, then we'll go to Rain Dove, then Pete Elliott. I stand, is that okay? Jules, I mean, you each have three minutes. Should I start? My partner and I moved into our flat over two years ago. It took us six months to find. Our previous place was a mould-ridden studio with no ventilation. Two months after moving in, I found out our estate was due to be demolished. No HFL tenants were notified of that before moving in, nor were we told that our landlord was essentially Lambeth Council. In recent press releases, Lambeth claims renting these flats to us was only a short-term solution. From the get-go, we've indicated we were looking for somewhere long-term, so you'd think the landlord would tell us about this, right? No, they didn't. Though last year, the council decided to call up the demolition. For now, we breathed a sigh of relief and thought we will be able to stay here long-term. That didn't last long. In February, we received a section 21 notice, otherwise known as a no-fault eviction notice. Our labour-led council served as precisely the thing the Labour Party has been promising to abolish for years. Despite me literally holding this document right now, the council's initial briefing boasted no tenants are being evicted. But what? Why did we get that notice? I thought the decision hasn't been made yet. Turns out there's an investment committee that already decided last year behind closed doors. Although all committees are required to be listed on the council's website, this one isn't. Its briefing states there's a comms strategy to ensure the council is not seen to be making households homeless. Lambeth claims it wants to let our homes to those with the most urgent housing needs. If evicted, my partner and I will become homeless. Same is true for many affected tenants. Wouldn't that make us precisely the people Lambeth claims it wants to house in our flat? Why inflict this completely avoidable suffering? Ironically, eviction from a privately rented home is one of the leading triggers of homelessness and our homes are the cheapest private rent homes in the borough. How are we meant to find somewhere else if our homes are already the cheapest ones? And why create a problem that will need fixing later, if you could just not? Perhaps the council's resources could be better spent on bringing its approximately 700 empty properties back into use. There's a flat opposite ours that's been empty since we moved in. We've seen it refurbished twice. Still empty, as it has been for over two years now. Why so many of these perfectly safe, often newly refurbished homes have been left to stand empty in the first place? Why make us homeless when you already have hundreds of empty homes you can use? Thank you very much. Thanks for your statement. We're going to Wayne Duff next. I'm going to talk like an auctioneer. My name is Rain Dove. I'm an American model, influencer and activist. I'm going to talk really fast to try to get this all in. You ready? You're probably wondering why am I coming here from the USA? Well, I'll tell you what, that's how far your story's gone. It's gone around the world. And there's an unfortunate truth, which is that this is completely avoidable. Now, we haven't eviscerated you online yet. And the reason why is because I offered to come and address this council. I believe that local civil servants rarely take up this job with malice, but rather with the desire of that of their community and maybe make a little bit of a memory that there's someone good on this planet. Now I know you're faced with the impossible task of housing people in one of the worst housing crisis is this nation's modern history. However, the way that you're going about it is causing such distress that is creating more issues than it's solving. You know, I've been speaking to a lot of the tenants in this situation. We have friends, we have Jules, who had to extend their interruption from uni and might not be able to continue their education altogether because she has to spend this time fighting to have a roof over her head. We have another person, they almost had a miscarriage, had to go to the hospital after they read the email because the stress that induced and they are still threatening to a victor with a new baby on the way. You have Jay who went into a deep depression, they lost her business and their livelihood. You have people who went back on their antidepressants after four years. And every single person, I talked to a very few people who didn't express depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, to the extent you even have one person who actively tried to commit suicide because they did not see a path to them going forward. I was homeless for six years. I understand what it's like to be unhoused. I would never in a million years ever want to be housed at the risk and the reward of having another person be unhoused in my name. It would cause me distress, it would cause me anxiety, and I would feel so guilty. And this story is going to be so big, every one of your residents put in this place will understand that they are there because someone else is not and that other someone is suffering, and that creates a lot of stress. Now, one wouldn't believe it, but fixing things means changing them and change the creative process. Meaning your job is a creative job and I'm begging you to take pride in that. Do not do the old things you've always had to do because in this particular case, it won't work. This is a chance for you to look at your constituents and yourself in the eye and say, truly, I'm not going to fail you. Because most of these people that will be unhoused by this issue will likely have to move to a place outside of Lambeth, uprooting their lives and making them no longer your constituents. And essentially, it means you're not serving your community, but rather banishing them. You are literally throwing your voters away to replace them. What could be a greater failure to constituents than to make them not exist anymore? I know that there are several solutions on the table that can house the people you're seeking to house while protecting other vulnerable house people from becoming part of the unhoused themselves. I want you to get creative. And on that note, I'm going to wrap up by saying, why did you get into politics? Was it to be remembered as a creator of trauma as someone's worst childhood memory as a reason they finally felt and couldn't get back up? Or did you get into this profession because you wanted to be remembered as an ingenuous, fair, innovative person who provided protection when someone needed it most? You are your own legacy and you have the ability to be creative about this problem. Thank you very much. And finally, we'll move on to Pete Elliott. Pete Elliott, Lambeth Green Party. I'll start with a quote from the Kerslake report, which was commissioned by Lambeth's former chief executive to advise on how to improve the poor delivery of social housing in Lambeth. Kerslake said that the key aim should be greater clarity, transparency and accountability for decision making and delivery. As ever, Lambeth's management have not heeded external advice, and as we have heard, they have caused yet more unnecessary distress and damage to residents. Decisions have been made secretively behind closed doors by a shadowy investment committee whose existence has been denied in the Freedom of Information request. Senior officers, including legal officers, attended these meetings, which we have minutes of. This original decision to force HFL tenants out seems to be made by officers alone with no oversight or direction from elected councillors. As a result, Lambeth residents have once again suffered. When did the overview and scrutiny committee members become aware of Lambeth's investment committee's existence? Not only have families suffered directly from the absence of clarity, transparency and accountability, but once again the council's finances are taking yet another unnecessary hit. Many of the HFL families have been forced out of their homes through misinformation and the coercive nature of the language used by housing officers and their agents, and now their homes lie empty with no rents being earned on them. Lambeth Council has borrowed £590 million since January 2019. Borrowing from the Public Works Loans Board should be for capital expenditure. So what does Lambeth have to show for this massive investment? We could have retrofitted all council homes in the borough for that. So much money has been wasted and continues to be so. Hundreds of refurbished homes have remained empty on regeneration estates, and while they sit empty they are prone to scammers, squatters and thieves who rip out all the metal from them, damaging any refurbishment work completed, including to my own former home in Gypsy Hill. This report to the scrutiny committee gives the committee no information about the impact on the council finances. The original options appraisal by Catherine Eames and Luke Parker in November 2023 presented to the investment committee suggested there could be an income of £650,000. Why isn't there a financial breakdown in this report? What income has been received from HFL's private renters? What about the potential revenue from filling the empty homes to secure families? What will it cost to unhoused the HFL families if they refuse to move out? And you need to take each one of them to court to evict them? What will the savings be if you do manage to fill the homes residents in TA and not secure tenants? How can the security committee scrutinise when it is presented with such a vacuum of data? This committee needs to be robust today and ensure that it is truly fit for purpose when scrutinising a road council like Lambeth where clarity, transparency and accountability continue to be absent. Okay, we'll move on to members questions. So can we start off by perhaps having a little bit of clarity around the short hold tenancies. So we're talking about 77 fixed assured short hold tenancies and 41 periodic tenancies. Can you tell us a bit more about them? The fixed term, how long is that fixed term and how long are the periodic tenancy? Are they just a rolling periodic tenancy? I mean, some of the witness statements seem to imply that the tenant didn't realise they were on a short term fixed tenancy. That's also going to clearly anyone who's homeless is in need. But when we're talking about households with the most urgent need, are we talking about those households who qualify for bands A and B or are we talking about a different formulation? Yeah, so the fixed term tenancies are usually typically two years, but there are variations in the data. Currently we've got 69 tenanted ASTs remaining that are fixed term. How long do they have to work? So it's staggered. So I think we've got about 30 that are due to end in October. The very last fixed term ends in January 2026, but the vast majority, that's a bit of an anomaly, the vast majority end by March. And what happens is the default is once the fixed term ends, it goes automatically onto periodic, which is typically monthly rolling arrangements. So it's a constantly rolling programme without any kind of end date. And were the subtenants told in their agreement, is there some kind of written agreement which says that it is actually a short term tenancy because this is being disputed? So their fixed term date will be in the tenancy agreement that they've signed, yes. OK, fine. And I understand that it's normally two months notice for determining AST? That's correct. So it's a two month notice under Section 21 legislation. OK. I mean, it strikes me that if someone has signed an agreement for two years, then it would be reasonable for that to run its course, but they should be obviously be informed that is a short term tenancy and that any periodic extension, you know, they again should know that that's subject to a two months termination. I mean, is that clear in the tenants agreement? I think where we need to be clear here is the distinction between the emails. The report is quite clear on the fact that the communications that were received were less than adequate earlier in the year. But that is not the official process. That was from Homes for Lambeth. Yes. So the email that was sent in February was not, though, to be clear, the start of any formal process. So that's not conflate the official nature of a two month notice, which would be the issuing notice to leave this instance Section 21. OK. OK. OK, let's move on to other questions. So we got Ben, then Tony. Sorry, you're just stretching. OK, David, fine. I'll take those three first. I've got loads of questions, but I'll just take the first two. I'll come back for the other. If you're permitted. You know, as was stated by the witnesses, is there a fear that those who are being served these notices will just fall back to the bottom of the waiting list or to the temporary accommodation list? And what is the process of residents can't find somewhere? I mean, at what point will will notice be enforced on them or are we going to go to court with, you know, 110 plus people? And the other point is, and obviously we can't, you know, talk about legislation that hasn't passed, but will this actually be legal at the point in which you do this? I mean, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister responsible has talked about outlawing Section 21 notices. And to the best of my knowledge, that legislation seems to be coming relatively soon. And I just wonder whether or not we're talking about something that will never actually happen, because the legal parameters won't exist. So, I mean, you may not be able to talk to that now, but it's something I think definitely needs to be considered. And do you want to ask the second question? Actually, one issue wasn't answered in terms of when you're talking about households with the most urgent need. What is your definition of that? Can I bring in colleagues online? Sure, I mean, but surely it must be a clear definition. I mean, are you talking about Bands A and B in effect? I don't know actually whether the subtenants are actually on the housing waiting list or not. Bringing colleagues online to either duty question is in the paper, but they're a better place to answer it. And then on the legislation question, I'll ask Luke to respond on that. OK. Hi, my name's Alex Clark, I'm the assistant director of housing needs. And so in terms of the households that we would be looking to place into these properties, we're talking about the four thousand seven hundred households who are currently in temporary accommodation, many of whom have been placed outside of the borough, many of whom are in nightly paid accommodation, which is typically the lower quality accommodation and also of the highest cost to the council, many of whom have been in temporary accommodation for many years. And what, apart from being in TA, what are their priority needs? I mean, are we talking about people with disabilities, with single parents? What are we talking about? It's just, I mean, clearly, most people in TA being put there because they have priority needs. But what I'm trying to understand the cohort of tenants who are currently in the ASTs and those who might be replacing them. And what benefit that is to our most vulnerable residents. So the vast majority of people in temporary accommodation are families with children, mostly single parent households. But we obviously also have a number of households with disabilities, with mental health needs, primarily households on low income. So, yeah, every household that's in temporary accommodation has been determined to be in priority need under the legislation. And as I say, the primary causes of priority need are dependent children, pregnancy and medical or social needs. OK, are we clear of the 77 fixed short hold tendencies and the 41 periodic tendencies, whether they consist of people with similar needs or not? So in terms of, as Councillor Dilipour set out, anyone that is considered to be in priority need will be supported. If they're not able to resolve their own housing need, then they will be supported by the council to do so. And I think it's important to say as well that every household, regardless of whether they're in priority need or not, is entitled to receive advice and assistance to support them in finding alternative accommodation as well. OK, so I mean, so I think this committee would certainly want to ensure that both the AST tenants in priority need are provided with proper accommodation. Also, those who aren't deemed to be in priority need are given assistance to find alternative private sector accommodation if they can't get council accommodation. OK, thanks. So I've got Annie next and then David. My question about legislation was to be answered. Oh right, OK. OK, let's come back to... Just to build on Alex's point, can we come back on data on specific sub tenants? OK, yeah, briefly, if possible. So just to feed on from Alex's point about the, so we have the cohort currently in temporary accommodation, so 4,600, 4,700 in fact Alex said earlier, and they would all have been, all of those would have been assessed, they would all be deemed in priority need of support from the council, so all 4,700. The group that we're talking about in terms of the AST sub tenants, we carried out an equalities impact assessment and 88 were provided their feedback to us out of... So 60 odd percent provided feedback to us through the equalities impact assessment. And whilst there are tenants who may be assessed as being in priority need, it is fair to say it's a mixed bunch, actually. So 41 of those are earning over £50,000 a year, for example, and some of those are electing and are happy to move on. And in fact, the analysis that we've done shows in summary, there is significantly more vulnerability in our TA cohort than there is in the AST sub tenant cohort that we're looking at in terms of this decision. So I'm not suggesting that there won't be priority needs within that group, but as a whole, there is significantly more priority need in the TA cohort that we're looking at than there is in the AST cohort that we looked at in terms of the equalities impact assessment. It's built into the strategy that somebody says, within one of those properties, says, if you kick me out, I'm going to be forced into temporary accommodation, I'm forced into homelessness. What will be the process to assess those needs when they can't? I'm assuming it's not going to be everyone, as you say, there's 41% earning over £50,000 a year, but for those, say there are 10 people, what's the priority? They'll get a priority needs assessment and despite that assessment will be determined if the council has the main housing duty, and if that is the case, it will be considered whether it's more appropriate for that particular AST tenant to stay in that accommodation, but it be converted to TA rather than being in the private sector. So all of us would have the opportunity to have that priority needs assessment to see if that is an appropriate move for them. OK, I'm sorry, I've got my legislation question as well about section 2. The legislation question. Yes, absolutely. So we have taken advice on this. So the draft legislation that was proposed does have provision, given that there is a lease between the council and Homes for Lambeth, the termination of that lease in future legislation enables the same notice for HFL to issue. So long story short is there is a legal route if section 21 is banned, but it requires an extra step as the current draft legislation is written. What needs to be made clear, though, is that we don't yet know if that will make it into the final bill. I was, I mean, I had conversations ongoing, you know, I just worry you get to the halfway through this, the legislation gets produced and passed, and then you're kind of stuck with half a strategy. I just wonder whether or not those conversations are happening with the department themselves, or you're essentially waiting for something that might come tomorrow in two years. Can I clarify, are you seeking to end before the end of their term some of the fixed term tendencies, or are you proposing for them to run to their fixed term? So we are proposing that the tendencies will be able to run to their full term. Right, fine, fine. And it will only be those that then default onto a periodic tendency that are served any notices to leave if they then refuse to leave. Are you talking about two months on that case, or three months? From the point of the issue of the notice it's two months. OK, so I'm confused as to whether people are actually being forced to move from a fixed to a... I think that's what I was just talking about. You know, I'm still confused because that's what a fixed term is. It's having their current fixed term arrangements changed. Once it reaches the end of that, if they are not leaving at that point, they go on to the periodic role in tenants. Which is what monthly, presumably, or whatever. It's a rolling monthly tenancy. OK, sorry, I'm sorry, I've got Annie next. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to remember what I was... Anyway, yeah, my concern about all of this is the clarification. So this, as I understand it, is a private tenancy. These were properties that were bought back from leaseholders when the demolition was started. I'm concerned that I understand a short hold tenancy, I understand a private tenancy. I just worry how that wasn't conveyed to, or the understanding doesn't seem to have rested with the residents. And I just wondered how that had arisen. That confusion. Obviously, many of these tenants have been in Titchy for four years plus now, so these decisions are quite historic. What's important to note, though, is that all of the tenants with the fixed-term tenancy have signed a two-year tenancy agreement. It states specifically in that agreement what the date and the terms of that agreement are. Is it that they just presume that it's going to keep on rolling because it has in the past, but we haven't notified them? That's what happens at the point at which the fixed-term date ends. It automatically goes on to a monthly rolling tenancy until such time as they're served a notice to leave. Now, some tenants have chosen during that window to voluntarily leave and find alternative accommodation. That has happened on 55 instances to date. So to me, that indicates that there are people that are able to find alternative accommodation. OK, I'm going to move on to David who wants to come in. Somebody who actually first came to London. This is why I was not that my landlord wasn't the Councillor, it was an actual private landlord. It's actually very common in London to actually get it because it's the first year you get a fixed tenancy. And then at first year you could actually say to him, could I have another fixed or you just go on to a rolling? And I went on to the rolling. And when you do it for such a long time, initially you sort of have this little, you have a little concern because you don't have quite the security the first year. And after a while, you maybe forget about that and you could get surprised if the landlord decides, well, we've got a house now. But I had all that documentation there when I did it and it was just me who slipped it to the back of my mind. So it wasn't as if it's all standard documents that you get. Anyway, what was I going to say? This has gone through the roof since then. The first one was that you've already answered about the section 21 housing does go to actually on the cover of possession because it's the deal between the Councillor and the landlord. It would actually still go ahead. So that's actually answered. The other particular one is that on the actual use of them when they're actually brought back, we're talking about the actual people in temporary accommodation. Would it all be that or would it be also people who are possibly priority A? I think they're saying particularly nightly, the most expensive properties, the nightly TA accommodation. That would be the first priority, as I understand it. I know, I know. Fine. But they've already answered that question. OK. Would it be the case that there would be all the temporary accommodation or would it be other ones as well? I think it was answered, but Alex wants to speak again. OK. Alex, can you just clarify that the priority would be for temporary accommodation residents and particularly those in nightly temporary accommodation? Yeah. So just to confirm, they would be offered to people who are currently in temporary accommodation. The first priority would be those households who are currently in temporary accommodation that's been identified as unsuitable for their housing needs. And then following that, it would be based on the households that are in the highest cost nightly paid accommodation. Thank you very much. Joe. Thank you, Chair. I'd say, well, clearly there were communication issues with this earlier on, you know, and obviously on this committee and on the housing subcommittee I chair, there are lots of issues with housing that we're quite critical of the Council. I actually think this seems to be reasonable and is pretty similar. You know, these are people on effectively a private tenancy, the time comes up and then with the reasonable and legal kind of latest period, they're asked to move on because the priorities for this housing has changed. And I have a couple of questions. One, in terms of given that there's quite a clear plan to kind of move on residents out of this and we have a clear sense of when their tenancies are going to end, would it be worth the Council giving as much notice as possible? You know, if someone, say, has ten months of two year tenancy and the Council is pretty confident that at the end of those ten months, they would like that person to leave, could the Council give that person ten months notice, which would hopefully be helpful for that residents having time to move out. And then my second question is just about the assessment of people in these properties who might, you know, then qualify for temporary accommodation themselves is, you know, if we've had residents on the Housing Waiter List in temporary accommodation who are desperate need and have been there for years, I would surely argue that they would take priority anyway. So I'd actually like to seek assurances that we're not prioritising, you know, people who have effectively been in private rented accommodation over people who we would recognise are in more need of housing. So my two questions. Thank you, Councilor Dapol. On the first point, absolutely. We're very definitely not creating any clear situations in this, which is why at the end of the current fixed up arrangements, we're moving people on to those rolling periodic tenancies, rather than saying out at this point, server notice. I think it's important to clarify as well, because people have raised the issue of these tenancies and how in other instances people can be left with them for ages, becomes the new norm. This is something that's relatively recent. There's nobody that's been on a periodic tenancy for more than the past six months. When we start to see the end of these fixed up arrangements and that shift onto periodic. So this is a recent arrangement. It's important to be out in the open, making that decision as quickly as possible to avoid precisely that scenario where, because people would have been left on periodic tenancies for a long amount of time, they can easily expect that is the new norm. That isn't the case. As tenancies have ended from the start of this year, they've moved on to that periodic system and we're looking to make that decision as quickly as possible. And yes, on the second point, absolutely, because as I've been clear, this whole decision is about these properties are currently used by people that can afford to it through the private sector. We want to bring them back into use as accommodation for them as vulnerable. So whilst we're giving people that priority needs assessment, nobody's going to jump to the queue just because they're an existing private sector tenant. It'll be assessed purely on housing needs. And we anticipate that the vast majority of those that need that accommodation will be those currently in the 90 TA who will be assessed as much higher housing needs than the current private sector residents. Thank you. OK, I'm going to take these last two questions. We need to move on. I just want to challenge you on the assumption that obviously tenants that are already taken up on with these ASDs are somehow like, you know, millionaires, whatever. They're not in this sort of need. It's kind of close to me because my daughter was out of Burroughs, not in Lambeth. But was in this sort of situation now as a 34 year old is back home in her childhood bedroom because she could not afford, you know, she's a key worker teacher and on a seemingly decent salary. But still nothing like, you know, we make these assumptions that these tenants can afford. You have to look at the markets. Is that is that the case? Are we looking at the market and seeing what the market is doing and making that determination? Very clear, I make none of those assumptions. As I say, we've had the equality impacts assessment. We know that some of those current tenants are people earning £50,000 a year plus. But I'm not lying to the fact that the private rented sector is a mess and causes problems for people. But ultimately, our job as a local authority is not to prop up the private rented market. It's to make sure we're maximising ad properties for those that need it the most. So I do fully sympathise with the challenges some tenants face. But we have to prioritize those in the most urgent need, which are the single parent families, those people with addiction needs, those people with disabilities who are currently basically stuck in horrendous accommodation in some cases. And it's all going to cost the council. So that's ultimately why this is a political decision about how we address those priorities. We're also affecting key workers. So, you know, so I'm not coming very quickly into bail because we need to. And then Ben and then Ben will be the last person. Should also say that regardless of property need, all ASG residents are entitled to advice and assistance when it comes to securing. We'll capture that in recommendations. I'll read these out really quickly. There's a great long list, but you're very welcome to come back afterwards if they're longer points. The residents who are being moved have a dedicated point of contact. What measures will be in place for the continuation of education provision if they're moved on? Do you have robust data that you can trust on the needs of these residents, particularly around accessibility? And how will you ensure that these people are suitably housed? The council's got a less than impressive record as a landlord. Is there capacity to as a as a as a social housing landlord? Is there capacity to maintain these properties to a high standard? And if it's not already been published and you have to excuse my ignorance, is the void strategy to be? You're very welcome to come back to that. I'm sure they're quite specific because a lot of them are quite technical. But in terms of what you made towards the end the back, can we take this properties on? Absolutely. To be honest, with TA at the minute, with the mercy of people that we happen to place a lot of trust in, a lot of the TA we're using are providers where we're having to have assurances about the quality of the accommodation. And sometimes it isn't up to scratch. We have to go into it at a later date. We're in a much stronger position if we can use our own stock as TA accommodation, have more control over the quality of it and the people that go into it. At the minute, as we say, we're using lots of these nightly rate TAs which make a lot of money for a lot of people. So they don't deliver the right outcomes for our residents. The steps we can take to limit that will take as much as we can. OK, so I'm going to confirm in the recommendation some of the points of what you made, but I think it's important to have it on the record. So, so, so, so come back. I'm trying to take the mood of the meeting, but it may not have entirely ensure that the fixed term tenancies are allowed to run their full two year term. And the periodic tenancies are given longer than two months notice wherever possible to terminate to allow tenants time to find alternative accommodation. To ensure the council provides advice and assistance to AST tenants to find alternative private sector accommodation when their AST term ends. If they are just normal AST tenants, but in terms of priority, ensure AST tenants in priority need are unable to remain in their current homes or are housed elsewhere by the council in secure tenancies. Can I just comment on that? Not jump the queue over existing TA tenants with greater need. Yeah, no, no, no, no, sure. I think the issue is, and I think I've taken the mood of the meeting, that we're talking about, it's about priority needs. And it's not just about losing the tenancy, it's about priority needs and making sure that residents, many of whom have spent years in TA on housing lists, should have first go at the opportunity to move in to these properties, particularly since some of them, given they've been taken over from leaseholders, probably most are in better condition than most of the TA accommodation we provide. So finally, and I'm going to in general say to support the council's proposal to transfer assured short hold tenancies from Homes for Lambert to the council so that they can be let to people with the most urgent housing needs and to reduce the cost of TA, temporary accommodation. People happy with that? Yeah, I think I don't know whether or not it's a recommendation, whether or not it's in the gift of the team, but I think it would be useful to revisit this if legislation changes, national legislation changes. Fine. OK, so I've been moving on to the next item. Thanks very much, the witnesses. Thank you. So none of my plug-ins are there, thank you guys. Thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you very much. OK, so now we move on to the third item of core business for tonight's meeting, support residents in receipt of benefits. Know that the council provides a vast amount of support for residents in receipt of benefits directly and through its voluntary and community sector partners. How is the current provision working? Are there improvements that could be made to benefit our most vulnerable residents? That's what we'll be discussing tonight. So to start off with, we have the two joint cabinet members for equalities, governance and change. Councillor Craig Cowell and Councillor Nanda Mandley-Brown, and you together have up to five minutes to introduce the report. I can start now. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, you'll be timed very strictly. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for giving us the opportunity to present at this scrutiny meeting as we gather to discuss something that resonates deeply with our collective mission to ensure that no one in our community is left behind. Now I'll cover the overall context of our work and the broad measures that the council takes to support residents in receipt of benefits, whilst Councillor Cowell will go through the detail of some key areas. Now over the past year, we've faced unprecedented challenges, but we've also shown an unprecedented result. Lambeth 2030, our borough plan is not just words on the page. It's a commitment to fight for justice and equity in everything that we do. Lambeth residents have been significantly affected by the cost of living crisis, with 41% of our residents saying that it is difficult to pay energy bills. And data shows that 29,000 households in the borough are in receipt of localised benefits, including 15,500 children. The crisis has hit those with the lowest incomes hardest and exacerbated existing inequalities. And during the crisis, the council has implemented measures to support vulnerable residents, and we are developing our work around tackling poverty in the long term, investing not just financial commitment, but an investment in hope, resilience and in the futures of the 29,000 households in our borough who rely on our support. The council currently spends 9.4 million per annum on direct support to financially precarious residents, which includes statutory support as well as discretionary provision, including commissioning advice services and providing emergency support scheme and work around food poverty. In July of this year, the council launched our cost of living package for £24.25, which includes a £5 million programme in addition to our existing support. As part of this, we created a tackling poverty reserve valued at £2.1 million to create a longer term funding pot to enable planning over longer periods of time and shift the council's approach from short term solutions to providing longer term sustainable and preventative solutions to poverty. Now, the government has recently announced that the household support fund will continue until March 2025, which is welcome news. And we've primarily used our April, September 2024 HSF allocations to provide additional financial support to families in receipt of free school meals during the holiday periods and to help meet the increased demand within our council's existing emergency support scheme. So I'll now pass on to Councillor Fred, who will take us through the detail of some of the paper. Thanks, Councillor Lanley-Brown. The paper provides detail around the four key objectives of the cost of living plan, which are firstly responding to urgent need, secondly, minimising costs for residents, thirdly, maximising residents' income and fourthly, building financial resilience, ability to find debt. I just want to highlight some key pieces of work contained in place. Firstly, there's the work around food support. The report details food bank usage compared to previous years. Since the beginning of the cost of living crisis, the council has funded both the Trussell Trust, which runs the Brixton and Norwood food banks, as well as the Healthy Living Project to provide at scale food support. This has been supported by a scheme of supermarket vouchers to advise services to use at their discretion. Secondly, we've looked at energy support. We've commissioned a Green Doctor service to provide energy support, which includes energy relief vouchers, as well as advice and guidance. And through our financial workers and housing teams, we were able to refer residents to the fuel bank, which is for residents who are at risk of having their energy cut off. Thirdly, I want to talk about the Every Pound Counts. This is our in-the-past specialist welfare benefits advice service for vulnerable, ill and disabled residents. In 2023 to 2024, this service achieved an additional £9.4 million of income for 750 vulnerable residents who were under claiming benefits for getting those residents the support they were entitled to and need. There are many other areas of work full of details, including our provision of free period products, our employment support, our early health offer, our free childcare provision, the small new full term award process and the provision of Alexandra Road vouchers and money. I'm now going to pass on to officers for more detail or to take any further questions. OK, thanks very much. I suggest that we get officers to respond to members questions. But before that, we have a number of witnesses, each of which have three minutes to present to the committee. We'll start off with Karen Munger from Citizens' Advice, Merton Lambeth. Thank you very much and thank you so much for inviting us to present at tonight's meeting. If I can just introduce myself fully. I'm Karen Munger, I'm the head of advice services from Citizens' Advice, Merton Lambeth. One of the advice organisations that the Lambeth Council do commission to provide advice. We certainly have got a wide range of services offered throughout the borough. We do, however, continue to see so many issues with clients still claiming benefits. Appreciate some of this is DWP related rather than Lambeth Council, but I will for consistency say that the issues that we are seeing. We're still seeing a number of residents unaware of all the benefits they can claim. Difficulty making initial claims. Long waits for first payments. We are still seeing a number of working age clients claiming housing benefits, which, as we know, we should be universal credit for all those who are working age. And quite often there is a timely delay before they are notified by the council that that should be a universal credit application. We are also with older people seeing a lack of take up of pension credits, which, as everyone will have seen in the news recently, will also prevent people from getting the Winterfield payments. Very topical news item tonight. And in addition, we are still continuing to see a number of clients coming to us with problems because they've got no recourse to public funds. As I did mention in the submission, 50 percent of residents who are seeking our help are either disabled or a long term health condition, which do compare with 7.8 percent typically reported in census. So common issues we are seeing is that we are operating from a relatively small location in Covington hub with very small office interview space that we were promised. Small space that we would be able to offer from. We've still got printing and scanning problems that we have had ever since we first went in there about three, two and a half years ago. Which shows you very much. And you have three minutes to address the committee. No rush. Actually, before you start, it's obvious that we're going to go beyond nine o'clock to have permission of members of committee to continue until nine thirty. Thanks very much. Can I just clarify something? I did say I had no peculiar interest, but I am a disabled person on benefits. Yes. Yes. OK, so it's a declaration of interest. Fine. OK. OK. I hope you're settled. So let's go over. You have three minutes. I'm not sure you're splitting it or how you're doing it. That's all they're going to be for me. OK, fine. And you're Claire. I'm Claire Whittle and I'm the chair of Clapham Relief Fund. And first of all, thank you very much for inviting us to join today's meeting. Thank you very much. All right. So for those who haven't heard of the Clapham Relief Fund, first of all, I'm joined by Shirley, who is the clerk. And I think runs the day to day running of the fund for us. So Clapham Relief Fund is there to serve a particular area within the Clapham area. We're not full of we don't cover the whole of Lambeth. It's just mainly Clapham. And we're there to help people that are experiencing financial hardship. We meet four times a year, four times a year, and we give financial grants to both individuals and organisations. For individuals, it tends to be of about up to three hundred pounds and applicants have to prove that there is a need. And the things that we're being asked for ranges from they finished a course and they know they've done an employment course and now they need knives because they're going to be a chef or they need a suit for a job interview. Right through to money towards a training course. Or it could be what we're finding a greater need at the moment is white goods, furniture. Then people are going into a house and they've got absolutely nothing. We will give them grants of up to, as I say, three hundred pounds either through we send them to our partner Emmaus or we fulfil through their own requirements through Argos, wherever else. We do need a sponsor. So that person will validate their need and their claim. And then the money is physically passed on to the sponsor, which is an organisation. It's not just a random individual. And then they do the purchasing and then we ask for a receipt back. The particular challenges that we have is that to get our message out there. So we have an extensive mailing list and we mail all sorts of children centres to doctor surgeries to counsellors, but we feel that and the food bank work quite closely with the food bank, but we feel that we're missing a need and we feel that we could be working much closer with Lambeth. I'm interested to hear of your every pound counts work and I definitely feel that there may be a connection there that we can use. We also are seeing a higher rate of requests for things like basic things that I would take in a flat like flooring an oven. And I don't know whether that's a change in policy to the council that these things just aren't being provided in the council properties. And therefore, that's why we're being asked for those things. Bearing in mind, £300 is not going to be able to fully give floor to a whole flat, but we do really plan. As I say, we will take emergency grants and we do meet four times a year, but we do have a system that if something is urgent, especially if it's time critical, like for school uniform, we will kind of make a decision out of the meeting. I don't know how I'm doing for time. You'll have 10 seconds. Oh wow, technically then we probably give out grants of about 20, 25,000 a year. And last year we helped about 60 individuals and about five organisations. Thank you very much. Let's move on to Centre70 and Helen Griffiths. You don't mind sharing the platform, do you? I'm not really going to speak about Centre70 because I circulated something. Just before you start your time, I've done bullet points, I told Roger, so if you want me to circulate, I'm happy to do that. OK, so my name is Helen Griffiths, I'm the debt supervisor at Centre70 in Lambeth. I'm summarising the statement that I circulated, which was compiled in conjunction with my colleagues. So starting with council tax and council tax support, some positives. Positive changes to council tax support from April 22, which resulted in a lot of reduced debt. It's generous compared to other local authorities, particularly Croydon. We have a good working relationship with the council tax team and the council tax team have a helpful approach of writing off arrears where it is clear the client would have been entitled to council tax support. Some suggestions. A big drive to ensure that clients know that council tax support has to be applied for separately through Lambeth. And it's not included through Universal Credit. That's a big problem. Simplify the council tax support form. And also this isn't on the original statement, but less use of bailiffs where clients are in full receipt of benefits because deductions for benefits are easy to arrange and there's no fees for the client and no distress. OK. Discretionary housing payment. Positives are that it's a very simple form compared to other local authorities and relatively generous compared to other local authorities. Some suggestions. DHP, discretion housing payment award, they tend to only last for three months, which is quite time consuming for us to have to keep reapplying. There's lots of people, it's clear that they're going to need longer term. So we would ask that in some circumstances the award could be for 12 months, much better. Lambeth won't consider awards for rent arrears at all, which we think is a shame because it also means that the council will end up affecting someone. And if they're processing they'll be right back through the door. So we think perhaps should sometimes consider making an award for rent arrears. But if DHP can't do that, then the possibility of Lambeth housing considering arrears right off in certain cases. The emergency support scheme, I'm afraid I can't be quite so positive about. The form has been simplified since it was launched, that's my only positive. Suggestions that applications are allowed more than once in a 12 month period. And there's no space in the form for free text, so it's very restrictive and an application could be rejected without it ever being looked at by an officer. You can get to the end of the form and it's rejected outright. It used to offer help for people who were moving, I think that was a deal with Emmaus. But that stopped, which is a real shame, particularly for those in temporary accommodation being moved to another temporary accommodation or to permanent accommodation. And also, you mentioned supermarket vouchers. That was brilliant. We haven't had those for years. So we would like that to happen again because we can identify the people most in need. Just to say grants and we do use that here, which is great. It's great to have grants to do applications. Oh, please just one more thing. I've got so little to say. We've got your statement anyway, so I'll let you finish. They are becoming increasingly restrictive. But the last thing that I just want to say is we have, I said earlier, we have a great working relationship with council tax. What we desperately need, Lambeth Advice Network desperately needs is to have dedicated points of contact with the Lambeth benefits, rents and temporary accommodation. We could just make things so much easier for everybody. And also just for Lambeth Council to trust us a little bit more. We're FCA regulated. We're not going to make unsustainable or unrealistic payment offers. Please believe us when we say that. That's me. OK, fine. Thanks very much to all of you. Any any direct questions to witnesses before we move on to other members questions? OK, let's let's move on to the questions. So sorry for a question to witnesses or to. Well, I mean, OK, I hope that the officers will be able to answer it. No, no. Do you have a question for them? So I was going to go, I saw your hand. I was going to go to Alison first, then Annie, then Marianna and then Ben. And we can. OK, can I. So first off, just I'm on the board of Clapham Relief Fund. Pleasure to work with you. Thank you. Work very closely with the Doriot Centre 70. Absolutely fantastic. Just to say really quickly, Trussell Trust do not run the food bank. The last time I looked, Trussell Trust was 60 million in the black. It is Norwood and Brixton Food Bank. And we are our own separate charity. It's just in case there's any. The Trussell Trust are simply the umbrella body. Can I just ask the closer relationship? I really welcome what you said about Lambeth trusting trusted partners. I would love to see from officers as we go forward, closer relationships with relief fund Centre 70. Thank you so much for everything you do for the food bank. But I think there is more we could do to formulate strategy. We genuinely have. We have all we all have had the experience on the ground. I think we could really work more closely together. So if you could trust us more, I really echo that. I think that's fantastic. And that question about supermarket vouchers. I haven't seen those for ages either. So I'd love to know what's going on in the report. Yes, I haven't seen them actually. I'll have to get an offer to clarify that again. And the last question is the the emergency support scheme. I'm really sorry. It's just not enough. The reason why that relief fund put in a lot of money every year. And why we are constantly stymied at the food bank is just simply that it's not enough to cover the white goods that are needed for people moving for accommodation to accommodation. And also the rejection, again, that that you flag happens time and time again. And it's very frustrating for us to go through the process and simply to have nothing at the end of it. So that's it. But trust the SS and the supermarket vouchers. And on the emergency support scheme, it would be good to have clarification from officers about what the payments are. And given I don't understand the sense in giving cash sums, which enables residents to make their own choices. But if the cash sum is not sufficient, say, to buy a washing machine or whatever the need is, then it's a bit counterproductive. So perhaps we can have some clarity on that, have some clarity on the supermarket voucher, which I thought were ongoing. And one of the other points Alison makes, but I don't, Fred, I don't know if you want to direct people or Orlando to direct people to the office to answer that. It's specifically on the supermarket voucher. When we have been through the policy, it surprises me slightly in terms of one going through the policy and one going through the policy. We just haven't seen the much. Hi there. Thanks. Thanks, councillors. And I just say thank you to Helen, to Claire, to Shirley and to Karen as well, because it's really good to hear from you all. And certainly that the sentiments that you're expressing about a more trusting relationship and partnership work. I'm now kind of responsible for the council's community partnerships directorate, not just for the Council Living Programme, which is what I was with councillors for the last time I came to see. And I think part of that role, I'm really interested in resetting our relationship with our advice agency, with our voluntary sector organisations and so on. In relation to the question around supermarket vouchers, I think there have been some occasions where we've used them previously with the ESS. And there was a period during the first phases of the household support fund where we had to supply vouchers and did provide them to the advice agency. So it's good to hear that those were kind of well received from you. And that can be something that we might be able to begin to think about utilising again. I might hand over to Miranda. Are you saying that they're not currently being used? No, they're not currently being used. From my understanding, particularly in the emergency support scheme, we are now entirely cash based on the emergency support scheme and with the most of the rest of the support that we've detailed in the paper that we've provided, that is targeted support that doesn't include supermarket vouchers. OK, I don't know if people want to come back on that. OK, fine. 0.2.9. Can you address the specifics of 0.2.9? We do have supermarket vouchers that we have given out both through advice agencies as yourselves, the food bank and other kind of large scale food provision in the barrow. Some of those agencies still do have some left over from previous that they are giving out. But also we have a bank within the council now so that if someone approaches the civic centre or our financial link workers when they're out in the community and they're in urgent need, we can give that to them. As Tom mentioned, though, we're happy to kind of review if it's been really helpful having those and look at spreading that wider in the future. And if I could bring Miranda Feasy in, who can describe a little bit about what the sums distributed from the ESS are as well. Hello, everyone. My name is Miranda Feasy. I work directly with Revs and Bens. We, as part of ESS, we have a benchmarked price list. So depending on the support that individuals are requesting. So if they're requesting a cooker, maybe it will be £150 that they would be given. If they want a single mattress, it might be £80. So we have a benchmarked list of all support that we offer. And that benchmark support is being checked against things like Gumtree, Amazon, IKEA, AO and other local authorities to make sure that it is actually possible to get something for that price. And those figures are reviewed annually. Do you want to come back? OK, so move to Annie. All right, yes. I'm also a trustee on a similar scheme for white goods and other things. It's one of the hardest committees to sit on. It breaks your heart a lot of the time, but they're so important that they are there. But the question I wanted to ask is, there's going to be a migration from certain benefits to Universal Credit. I believe the latest is early December 2024. Don't know whether that's going to, how many people that's likely to affect and how much information is out there for the residents of Lambeth that are going to be affected by the migration. OK, I don't know. I want to see what there is and how many people are likely to be affected and should we be getting more information out there. Thanks, Tom. If I just kind of mentioned, so the scope of this report was initially for non statutory provision, just because if we included statutory and benefit system in general, it would get very, very long. And it was already a really long report as it is. And there is some work that we've been doing to identify residents who will be eligible. And we have a lot of data on these residents that are about to move over and are writing out to those residents, sending them booklets and doing drop in sessions in their areas where we know that many residents might struggle. Miranda, I don't know if you've got any data to hand on this, but we can come back. I don't have data. We've been trying to get data from the DWP and it is a challenge. I will say that migration has already begun, so actually began in April this year. We are already seeing termination notices in terms of housing benefits and from the internal kind of benefit perspective, trying to make sure that people don't drop off and then lose council tax support. So doing what we can from that perspective. But in terms of actual forecasting and numbers from the DWP, we don't have very much. I think the committee could. OK, I think what I'll suggest then is that you provide details of the migration, that at some point when you have more details and that we get with a view of this committee looking at that. Because obviously, as you said, this is outside the scope of the paper. We're very much looking at what the additional support provided by Lambdas as opposed to the statutory support. But it is something that actually I think it is more to the point, is there going to be more people affected, that they will need more mattresses and more overbridge because not so much whether it is statutory or not, but how the effects will affect people who are migrating. OK, fine. Let's move to Marianna. Yeah, I just wanted to ask, first of all, you guys are amazing. All of you wanted to ask about what you are doing, what you're going to be doing with regards to pensioners who obviously are losing winter fuel payments and haven't necessarily, they're not claiming benefits. So what the council, what we are actually going to do, because I know that we're going to, it should be a huge volume of work. So I can just briefly give the steer that we've talked about with Tom, because we don't have an answer specifically on this yet. What we've asked to have a look at is ways in which we, to the extent that it is possible, if the nature of the legislation, the nature of the law in this, is to run more proactive schemes whereby we can emulate what we did with the free school meals, which is essentially where we would see the sort of strategy involved in multiple warehouses. And the difficulty that's happened here is that free school meals, we were totally empowered, both by the nature of the policy of the law itself, to auto-enroll their consent, which is simply not the case with universal pension credit, with pension credit. So I think the need that's been identified here is really important. We are looking into what kinds of mechanisms could be used for the council's end to do, to sort of facilitate that. There's also to sort of speak out in the report, there have been a number of ways we've pursued about essentially mining the council's data quite deeply to try and predict in advance where there are particular categories of need. And because that can often give us a sort of much deeper over the horizon thing rather than you coming to yourselves and seeing, you know, in the absolute crisis, which is obviously much more costly in terms of time and resources to address and also for the individual themselves. It may be absolutely detrimental to their health, wellbeing and material circumstances. So we're going to try and look to see where there's any advance measures that can be done there from the council's end, using essentially deep sorting of data that we have. We don't know what that would look like yet, but it's something that officers are actually working on and are sort of being given a sort of cautionary note here. Whilst I think Councilman Manly-Brown and myself are very keen for that to happen and really want that to happen, we've got to be careful in terms of what we can actually start doing, people's data and what kinds of sort of jump ahead we can do. Because I certainly don't want someone being freaked out, the letter lads on their door map being like, we predicted you're about to get into trouble and therefore please sign up for this. But I think there's something we'll have to give a further report back on about those kinds of measures, because it's not the obvious letter like there is with Spree School Meals Support. Yeah, I had another question. Yeah, in terms of, we mentioned white goods, and it's a cost of living price, I know that things are priced, you know, realistically, however, you need so much more to sort of refurbish and to decorate. So what we do in our streets is we have our sort of WhatsApp group and I then try and, you know, match, make and find groups to give things to. Now, what are we doing on Lambeth? Because there's lots of streets like mine where it's, you know, somebody saying I'm upgrading my washing machine and does anybody want to take delivery of this? And we do that before we actually try and arrange to get rid of stuff. Can the council get more proactive about that and with groups and sort of signposts, different groups, different streets, different residents, different groups that are actually doing this kind of stuff in the community. And then in terms of the trust with community groups, I've seen the work that that happens over, say, the school, the holiday feeding phenomenal and groups themselves on WhatsApp groups where they will say the Phoenix Project has delivered X amount more than we need. And people share things around. Again, how much can residents help with all of this? Because I know a lot of people want to volunteer. They want to contribute. If there's, you know, direct debits that people want to give as well. How can we get people to feed in to make these groups more sustainable as well? OK, so you're talking about working more closely with volunteer community groups and WhatsApp groups. OK, I've got Ben next. I'm going to dive in as well. You actually asked the question I was going to ask about today's vote and the implications of obviously what's happening. And witnesses, thank you so much. The way you're doing is incredible. This has been described by the members of the committee. I just wonder whether or not, you know, obviously there's been a change of government. You know, I'm obviously from the third party in parliament, so it's not my government. But what the outlook of Lambeth is towards the new government and what might change over the course of the next few years from the limited amount you know. And at a political level and both at a kind of civil service level, are we making the case to central government about the enormous amount of strain that we're after here? And actually finally, just as I was going to say at the beginning, I mean, the amount that Lambeth are doing with a very limited resource is pretty impressive. It transcends political parties. It is actually very impressive what you've done with the amount of strain. So maybe I'm not able to answer that question, but I just wonder whether or not Lambeth is making the case that central government are political and a civil service level. Is it? Yeah, I mean, do you want to respond to that? OK, so in terms of the case being made about the strain that's been made, I mean, yes. And one of the reasons that we have, one of the reasons that back in May, work was found to create the reserve customs and reserve funds, which Castleman and Brown talked about, was precisely to deal with the fact that we knew at some point of this financial year that we were likely to get a new government. But also, too, as well, that was a very sharp cliff edge for the House to support each other. We have, we will be and have been making representations on specific cost of living issues to ministers and will continue to do so. I mean, the fact that we have got the cost of living support extended and we're able to do things, for example, like being able to cover, which was the peak risk, which was covering the ongoing provision of school meals during the holidays, feeding that because that that's literally one of those gaps that clicks in between the different sports teams available. It's a testament to being able to work in a little bit more constructive basis, have more certainty now where we can go. And in the longer term, I mean, obviously we are heading into quite a difficult time. The inflation crisis does seem to have eased someone. We're still going to be needing, as we heard from the evidence here, considerable support to be given. So, yeah, we will need that continued and something that looks like the household support fund to continue from us. But we want to be, I think that that's probably, I think, probably the sort of the answer to the second part of the question in terms of that, that you asked in terms of the ongoing liaison about what kinds of things will happen. So at the moment, I guess we've resolved the short term, the medium and long term issues. I think that's still something that we need to work on a bit further about what kind of specific ask would be done at the moment. But then also we've got a fiscal event coming up as well. Do you need to look very carefully at that and see what sort of long term support is going to take to come down from central government as well? What streams of support are there to access those funds? Can I ask a question? Are you OK with that Ben? So the report says that you intend to commission a new energy advice service in place of Groundwork's Green Doctor service. I wondered why that was. I mean, is it a cost cutting exercise? Is it to provide more face to face appointment or what is the rationale? Which paragraph do you think? On the energy section. Laura can come in on that if you like. Essentially, Chair, it's about helping local residents to think about more energy efficient ways to kind of run their homes. Sure, sure. But I mean, the Green Doctor service was doing that anyway. But why are you ending the groundwork contract? Is it because you evaluated there's not actually meeting residents needs or is it the new service going to provide something additional that you're looking for, which is not currently being provided? I think it's more of an enhanced approach, but Laura can go into a bit more detail. Of course. Yeah. So I think exactly as you said, Nandra, it's a bit more of an enhanced approach. We're looking at kind of how we can work with residents initially when we set up the groundwork contract, which has been kind of year on year. It was it's it's not that we are ending a contract and recommissioning necessarily. It's that that contract ended and we are now going through a formal commissioning process for it. And that's partly because the scope has changed. So previously we were looking at short term energy efficiencies in response to the crisis. Now we're aware that kind of the people that have been most impacted by the crisis will continue to be impacted and we need more sustainable solutions. We are moving our energy support in that way and looking at how we can help the most vulnerable residents to be able to access retrofit, for example, and things that have larger, longer term works on their homes that they might not be able to access otherwise, because the central government schemes are quite confusing and difficult for our most vulnerable residents. Also, I probably should just mention that when we initially set up a contract with groundwork, they were probably the only provider in this space. However, as the crisis has continued, others have widened their scope to also include this work. So really, it's about kind of going out to the market and ensuring that we're being equitable with that money as well. OK, thanks, that's good. OK, I'm going to have to bring this to a close very soon. I'm going to take Annie, anyone else? Annie and Joan, that's it. I'm sorry, quick and I think it's following up from Marianna's touched on and also Emmaus, I can never pronounce it properly. We had a really good, I thought it looked great on paper, the white goods, Emmaus, reconditioning them, go to the charities, the vouchers, people take their vouchers and choose the things they wanted. What happened? That's my question. Was that what you're talking about, the emergency support fund? Emmaus provide refurbed furniture and white goods across Lambeth, and it's a real pity that that came to an end of why. Sorry, and also Emmaus removals. Yes, yes. Sorry. So it's the charity. Oh, Emmaus. OK, so refurbished. So basically that was, why was that finished? I think that would be probably best, Laura, if she saw the lining as the one. Do you want to tell us about that? Yes, so the Emmaus contract that we had was wrapped up in the emergency support scheme following London Council's guidance on local welfare assistance. So they did a large piece of research looking across London at local welfare assistance and gave recommendations on what would be best for residents. One of the things that came out of that is that a cash first approach is the thing that residents wanted most, and that enabled the ability to choose and shop around. So not just use Emmaus, but use Amazon, Gumtree, other areas and by second hand if they wanted from other avenues. As a result, we've moved our emergency support scheme to be cash based to reflect that. And that's where our Emmaus contract was to begin with. And so that's the reason for that happening. OK, so then what's related to the emergency support scheme, along the lines? OK. Do we monitor whether people having received cash money then buy what we say? OK, so Joe? Just one quick question on 2.84, looking at the impact in quality, we obviously have a decrease in percentage of unclaimed benefits. Do we also, or could we develop a target around residents who could be claiming discounts on essential services? So water bills, broadband, etc., actually claiming those discounts? Because it really frustrates me how few people understand discounts. And I know that community groups are fantastic at doing that. But would it be possible for the council to kind of have that as a target, you know, working with groups and then sort of report on that as well? Sorry, just discounts on? Discounts on kind of essential services, so your water bills, social clarity, exactly. Yeah, because even actually, not just the things you're paying out, say your boiler breaks, and your water, energy, internet. There are nationwide discount schemes available only if you apply and people just don't. And the other thing I think, which I think that Centre70 pointed out in your statement, was the fact that an awful lot of people don't know about the council tax deduction scheme. And that's really important to promote that, so perhaps we can capture that as well. OK, running out of time. So I'm going to quickly run through recommendations. We've already done the work programme, given that council didn't. I don't know if this is in your recommendations, but it seems that, because I haven't actually made one. From both our witnesses and from Councillor James, that there was some sort of, about that Emmaus contract and the reasoning for it, which obviously was based by the councils. And if this was something that you just hypothetically asked to have a look at, or to take a break, I suppose. Yeah, we potentially appreciate your recommendation from this. Yeah, it is. It is here. It is here. We've taken the mood of committee. OK, so let's start off, if we don't finish at 9.30, something indescribable happens. I'm not sure what happens. Apparently something really. Sorry, forgot to ask about people with long term medical conditions. I'm really going to have to go. OK, so recommendations. Calls on the council to ensure that the emergency support scheme, cash payments are sufficient to enable residents to buy white goods, move home and meet other crisis needs. And then say, review the ending of the Emmaus contract and look to provide refurbished white goods with a similar contract. And then also to say, review the use of supermarket vouchers to consider rolling them out again through advice agencies. And work more closely with voluntary and community groups and local WhatsApp groups to help provide goods to and guards to needy residents. Does that mean? Yeah. And also, the only point I wanted to add was that we're missing out guys at St Thomas's Trust who will refer people with long term medical conditions in Lambeth for different courses. So I went through pulmonary rehab and there wasn't the advice that could have been an advice. They can be covered by voluntary. OK. And on this point, provide the committee with details of the migration of benefits when available with a view for this committee to further consider this as a later meeting. OK. And in terms of winter fuel payments, look at what additional support the council can provide to vulnerable pensioners who lose their winter fuel payment. And how that support can be provided effectively. Lobby government to provide additional support to councils for crisis support to residents beyond that provided by the Household Support Fund. And call council to increase efforts to promote the council tax reduction scheme to increase take up and help residents and local groups to access discounts on essential services such as water, energy and internet use. Anything else I should add to that? OK. And I think just a point I made, support the council's decision to commission a new enhanced energy device service prioritised face to face appointments with our most vulnerable residents to focus on meeting their needs. I don't think I had anything else. Have I missed anything? Are people happy with those recommendations? OK. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks very much. Thanks very much witnesses. Thank you to our cabinet members and thank you to those who joined online. OK, so we are coming to the next meeting, and the next meeting is the 23rd of October. So, yes, we just.