Transcript

Good evening and welcome to this evening's meeting. I'm Councillor Clare Hollands, Leader of the Council and Chair of this meeting. Apologies for the slight delay in starting. We're waiting for people to come in from downstairs. This meeting has been recorded and is being broadcast live. The recording of tonight's meeting may also be used for quality and training purposes. In the event that technical issues require the meeting to be adjourned and it cannot be restarted within a few minutes, further updates will be posted on the Council's democracy Twitter account, which is @lbldemocracy. There is no fire alarm planned and so if the fire alarm goes off, the fire exits are either side of the room and there's a toilet outside the room there. We have received one apology for tonight from Councillor Nanda Manley-Brown and Councillor Donatus and the AnWu needs to leave the meeting at 6.15 to get the train. Job share voting arrangements. I set out on the agenda, the portfolio holder for healthier communities operates under a job share arrangement. The current decision maker for healthier communities is Councillor Jackie Dyer. The portfolio for equalities and corporate resources also operates under a job share arrangement. The current decision maker for equalities and corporate resources is Councillor Nanda Manley-Brown. Declaration of pecuniary interests. Does any Councillor have a disclosable pecuniary interest that they have not already declared? Councillor Kind. In consulting the Director of Legal, we thought it was relevant for me to point out one of the schools included in the item on the agenda tonight is in my ward, but it's not a matter of declarable pecuniary interest. No, that's not pecuniary interest, but thank you in the interest of transparency. One moment, Councillor. Thank you for the interest of transparency, declaring that. Councillor Marcia Cameron. Thank you, Chair. It was the same issue that... Thank you very much, Councillor. Anyone want to declare disclosable pecuniary interest? No. Okay, I'll carry on to the next item. That's minutes from the previous meetings. All the minutes of the meeting held on the 7th of October, 2024 agreed as a correct record of proceedings. Thank you very much, colleagues. The minutes are confirmed as a correct record. We'll now move on to the next item. The next item this evening is pupil place planning. Before proceeding with this agenda item, I'd like to make a few notes. Firstly, a supplementary appendix was accepted under urgent consideration and published after the five-day statutory period. Cabinet needed to be aware of the adjudicator's decision as it relates to pupil place planning. While not specifically related to any of the proposals under current consideration, it is relevant to the overall context and transparency. Secondly, we have received several speaking requests on this item. I would like to note that cabinet meeting does not attract automatic rights for public involvement under section two of the constitution. However, as chair, I have attempted to split the time for representations equally among visiting members and members of the public given the sensitive nature of the subject matter. Therefore, time has been allocated so that where there is more than one speaker per school, each will receive two minutes. For a single speaker, three minutes have been allocated and councillors will receive two minutes each. Time will be allocated as such. Speakers for Holy Trinity primary will receive two minutes each. We have five speakers. Speakers for Fenn Stanton school will receive two minutes each. We have three speakers. There is only one speaker for Glenbrook primary, St. John the Divine, the Southwark Diocesan Board of Education, who will all receive three minutes each along with the school leaders union. We have four councillors in attendance who have been allocated two minutes each. Please note that although representations are warmly welcomed, it is important that we leave time for cabinet to ask questions and satisfy themselves for the decision being sought tonight. Before I turn over to Councillor Ben Kynes, cabinet member for children and families, I just wanted to set out a bit of context for the discussion this evening. We know that with falling birth rates, Brexit, Covid and the cost of living crisis, inner London has been particularly badly hit with falling pupil numbers. We know other inner London boroughs have already closed schools and are in the process of closing more. As colleagues will know, school funding is calculated by the government and is paid per pupil. The formula calculating amount per pupil was changed by the previous government and very much to the detriment of land birth children with land birth schools losing millions over the past 14 years as across all our public services and our own council budget. We have been lobbying for a long time for needs and deprivation to be included in the pupil formula to be fairer funding. I recall organising a public meeting with parents and unions back in 2017 when hundreds of parents and children attended to lobby against further cuts to schools and highlighted the impact of falling pupil numbers on inner London schools such as in land birth. I welcome the recognition in the budget last week with the additional funding for sending schools. We know that nationally the SEND system is broken and as with boroughs across the capital and country are asking the new government to work with us to fix it. And the indication about bringing back need and deprivation into the equation across the piece is very welcome too. But the reality is falling pupil numbers means less funding for schools and therefore threatens the schools viability. We all knew that when we bought our strategy to cabinet nearly two years ago to this day on the 7th of November 22 that due to falling pupil numbers our schools were facing an uncertain and challenging future which is why we engaged on the strategy and we welcomed the school community involvement in shaping the conversation. I recall the director of education for the diocese attending and the founder of Oasis amongst others. Our partnership approach was welcomed by participants as was our inclusive approach and everyone understood the magnitude of the challenges. We have at officer and member level been engaging for years before and since November 2022 with head teachers, governors, trade unions and the wider school community that engagement shaped our strategy that led to specific proposals that led to the 13 week informal consultation and four weeks formal consultation. I am very grateful for the work that the school communities engaged with us over the past years and for their partnership. These are difficult issues that we've all been grappling with and I will now hand over to Councillor Ben Kind cabinet member for children and families to introduce. Thank you and like you said these are difficult issues and others in cabinet want to be in this position discussing potential closes and amalgamations of local schools especially when they hold such strong significance to the communities. But the council has a statutory duty and a strategic responsibility to ensure a sustainable high quality and fair education system in Lambeth and we're here tonight because we must make complex decisions to protect the future of our schools for all of Lambeth's children and families. So as you were saying let's just be clear about the forces driving us to this point that's 14 years conservative and liberal Democrat austerity has gutted public services and specifically the education system in England. Schools have been forced to grapple with huge budget cuts and the NEU calculate that's around 40 million pounds in Lambeth alone and there's been a deliberate fragmentation of the education system with government policy constantly pushing towards academisation at the expense of community and maintained schools and I think it's a really important point to make for this because I don't think it's clear to everybody how academy schools sit outside of the local authorities powers regarding our statutory responsibilities on pupil place planning. The Lambeth family of schools like you were saying a second ago is strong regardless of type of school is strong but we're not the admissions authority for several of the schools in Lambeth and we can't make decisions about them as part of this process. Lambeth council is committed to community schooling and we're here to stand for our communities and our families but the proposals that we're considering today do reflect that harsh reality of the situation that was just outlined. Lambeth schools have faced this challenge head on and I want to thank our teachers, teaching assistants, school leaders who've shown extraordinary resilience especially during Covid. Through relentless hard work and dedication they've raised standards in Lambeth at schools ensuring that our schools are some of the best despite that constant financial strain and the challenging policy landscape. What we know this isn't just a policy decision because it affects people's lives. Parents are understandably concerned about their children's education and the stability of that. Young people themselves will feel the disruption and for our dedicated teachers and school staff there are real worries about job security. I must extend my thanks to those schools in Lambeth who have taken part in pupil place planning over the years. Many have come to the table with viable solutions and work to address falling numbers collaboratively. These schools and these leaders and the communities have understood the shared responsibility across all schools to all of Lambeth's children, not just those within their own school gates and their commitment has been invaluable and has guided us in creating a borough-wide approach that seeks a fair solution across the board but we've got to be honest about that. This is a borough-wide problem with a borough-wide responsibility for us as Council. Parents and communities will not forgive school leaders who dig their heels in to undermine others for their own benefit and the challenges we face cannot be solved by looking the other way. For Lambeth Council our priority must be to act strategically and ensure that every community has access to a robust sustainable and high quality education. The proposals that officers will guide us through tonight, they're rooted in care for analysis, consultation and planning like you were saying, we've been here for after years of work on pupil place planning which was adopted as you said in 2022. We've used rigorous data, we've reviewed it periodically, adjusting the strategy over time to respond to changing trends and community needs and our consultations over the past year have been about listening to confirmed concerns, reflecting on them and balancing them against that data which shows some of the scores are running at a fraction of the capacity and as you were saying that data shows us the demographic shifts driven by the cost of living, crisis, Brexit, falling birth rates and London post-pandemic which have led to an undeniable decline in pupil numbers, not just a temporary dip, a sustained trend and in some areas vacancy rates are so high that maintaining the state of the quo is just not viable. Recently some of our data that we could address financial challenges by moving children with special educational needs and disabilities placed out of borough to mainstream settings locally and I'm obviously sympathetic to that. Lambeth already has a high inclusive borough, we support 43% of our children and young people with the HCPs in mainstream settings which is above us at Statistical Neighbours and the national average and our duty tonight is about ensuring that Lambeth's children have access to quality education within a sustainable system locally so we have to face the realities of falling numbers, we have to act in the best interest of all children and not just preserve the status quo in Lambeth schools because streamlining our system means that we're not abandoning communities, we are strengthening them by ensuring that the resources we have are used effectively and that the families in the future will have access to strong local schools. In conclusion we recognise that the concerns raised during the consultations have been put forward. Consultations are not referenda, they're not yes no engagement exercises, they're an opportunity to hear the community, reflect on those voices and for us collectively to make decisions based on our legal and strategic responsibilities as officers have advised and it's time for us to work in collaboration not in competition and I hope that following any decisions that come from tonight's meeting that everybody in Lambeth schools communities will work together to serve all of the children in Lambeth and to be part of a future that puts every young person's education first. I'll leave it there and hand over to officers if necessary. Thank you very much Ben for that. Officers is there anything that you want to add before I call up the speakers? Thank you chair, just very briefly. So again just introduce yourself. I'm Andrew Carter and I'm the corporate director for Children's Families and Education. As Councillor Kind has said I'd just like to emphasise again that sense of passion that each and every individual school has had for its own pupils, its staff and the communities that they support and we emphasise with that but do stress the need to treat all schools with respect. Each school is as important to its pupil as the school is to pupils from any particular school. We have done an extensive series of consultations that was informal consultation, we extended that informal consultation and then had also the period of formal consultation. As you touched on chair we had a decision coming late in the process towards the end of October just prior to the papers being published a decision by the office of the school's adjudicator. We have included that within the pack although that is not directly related to any of the schools covered within these proposals it did raise issues around consultation and around pupil place planning in general. So both for transparency and context we've included that, set out the principle that we've applied to this consultation that we think has been fair and comprehensive and allowed those numbers of responses although it is not a referendum people to express their views and for us to be able to consider those. As a result of that informal process of consultation we did pause all set of proposals in relation to St John's, Angeltown and St Saviors and at the conclusion of this process we will again need to look at those proposals in the round. As Council of Kind stress we have talked extensively with union representatives, considered the needs and issues that will undoubtedly face staff and again one of the recommendations that certainly has come from our union colleagues has been around giving amalgamations where possible and not closures in terms of the impact that has in terms of trying to minimise disruption and protect jobs. We have been asked by the unions whether or not we can say there will be no compulsory redundancies, we have clearly stated that we are willing and working hard, we are not the only employer but working across all the employers to try and introduce a recruitment freeze to protect as many jobs as possible but we clearly cannot commit to no compulsory redundancies. We will do everything in our power to avoid those. Again the whole premise of this and working in partnership and co-producing has been around parental choice and trying to maintain parental choice across the borough rather than in an individual school. We have tried to get the balance right in terms of maintaining faith schools that are available across the borough. Financial forecasting clearly has been at the centre of this and we have looked time and time again at our forecast, we continue to review those and we have adjusted our data as more information has become available to us but the fundamentals of the birth rate, the census data, has not changed in terms of us having far too many places for the number of pupils who will be available. We have done extensive equality impact assessments, we have looked at what this means for children with special education needs and disabilities, we are aware and parents have very correctly vocally with passion raised their concerns around school and classroom sizes and what impact that might have on children with special educational needs and disabilities and again we have stressed the importance of having the right level of finance so not just that your child is in a smaller class but depending on your child's need they are actually getting that classroom assistant, teaching support, ability to really move their education forward. We have looked again at that challenge around the level or if the authority could avoid these measures if children weren't being sent to private school provision, we have one of the lowest rates in London of children are actually sent out of authority to private schools but if as a result of a tribunal that is the right decision for an individual child with complex needs then we have to support that. I think finally before I cross over to Ibrilie to go through any more of the details, we have also worked with our protectionised safeguarding team and with colleagues across the council to look at the impact of these measures in terms of community safety and very early on we discounted measures that might mean children were having to cross postcodes and would put them at risk and recognise that that's a concern particularly if it's older siblings taking younger siblings to school and we will continue to work with the contextualised safeguarding team and the community safety team to make sure that our children are able to get to school safely. I think I will leave it there and hand over to Ibrilie to cover some of the details in the proposal. So unless there's anything that you wanted to add Ibrilie, sorry, really brief, because we've got the proposals in front of us so we do not need you to go through them, right, if there's anything to add before I call the speakers, yep, good evening Chair, to you and corporate directors and councillors. Just to say thank you and thank you just to remind cabinet today that when we come to the point of making decisions that we should consider each item and each proposal in isolation for its own merits. I'm not going to rehash what has already been said, I just wanted to make cabinet aware of two issues with the report, one was just a formatting issue when the report was uploaded some of the bullet points misaligned so that report will be updated as it is a legacy report to ensure that the format of new content will be corrected on the report. So apologies for that technical issue and also to make a cabinet aware and it was indicated in the report that some of our data in schools particularly in the east planning area was updated to reflect again some changes in a misalignment with one of our calculations. So those are in the report and I just wanted to ensure for a minute in purposes that cabinet is aware of that. Just to thank cabinet and everyone here and acknowledge that we need officer in this proposal, the passion that's come out and I think just by the audience represented, the public meetings which were actually done you know with real respect but also real passion for stakeholders recognising this is a really sensitive topic for all myself as a teacher and an educator, I never thought that sit in a room proposing amalgamations and school closures, however in my strategic role it's important to protect the quality of education in Lambert and as I never said in the report we'll do that as we face the crisis around folding rules in our borough. Thank you very much Ibrilie. So I'm gonna call the speakers in tranches as it were and I'm trying to group it so that a school can all speak together one after the other and I'm going to take three individual speakers first and I'm going to ask you to come to the table and then when we address any questions that you may have I'm going to have to ask you to step back because there are other officers in the room that need to come to the table that might have the specific answer. So if I can call up please Brian Hazel on behalf of school leaders, Peter Truesdale on behalf of Governor's Assistant John for Divine and Jane Scarsbrook from Glenbrook Primary School. Thank you, so you each have three minutes and I know you're all separate speakers but then once you've finished then what I'll do is ask them to step back and go to officers for any questions that you may have and we set a timer. So in your own time just start speaking. Is the bell to start and stop? No that's me but all I know is it says on behalf of school leaders. Hi, my name is Brian Hazel and I'm the Branch Secretary of the National Association of Headteachers. Thank you. The Labour branch of the National Association of Headteachers understands the need to reduce primary school places due to falling roads. At the start of the Pupil Place Planning Initiative the local authority and headteachers work closely together to significantly reduce the number of reception classes across the borough. I understand at that time it was the Council's fated view not to close schools, not to close schools but to amalgamate them and this is still the preferred view of the Lambert branch. In fact the original planned proposal was to amalgamate Ben Stanson and other local primary schools. Schools as we know are at the heart of the community and closing them will have a devastating impact on the local community, the children, families, carers and staff. If any of you attended any of the public meetings of Impact Schools you would have heard and felt the passion from the school and the community they support keep them open. Two primary schools Ben Stanson and Only Trinity named to close in the consultation document I put forward an alternative proposal to amalgamate. This is supported both by the Lambert NAHT and the Southwark Diocese Board of Education. This proposal will ensure the community that both schools serve and maintains a primary school now and for the future. Due to the continuing falling birth rate and the number of young children in the borough, the Lambert NHT would also propose in the highly likely second cycle to amalgamations as Council seeks to gather views of all impacted schools before any consultation is announced. This will give school leaders time to consider amalgamations from the bottom up rather than the top down approach and provide very viable options for the Council to consider. We feel this is a better way to provide local communities with a clear say in the process. We would also urge the Lambert Council to continue to consider and encourage larger schools to reduce their forms of entry so that other local schools can remain viable. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Peter Truesdale, you're here on behalf of Governor of St John the Divine. If you just start speaking we'll start the timer. Can I just ask one correction to be made and noted? On page 1178 it says both schools St John's and Christchurch have a panel of 30. St John the Divine was asked to consult if he did not consult. That's a complete error and that was pointed out in our Governor's submission so please note for that on my time. We're going to have to speak up. I'm struggling because you're swallowing the end of your sentences. I'll pass that on. Now I'm just going to concentrate on the main point. Some people won't know we're a Lambeth school but we're actually geographically in something. Two-thirds of our children come from Southwark and the majority of our reception class comes from Southwark. From the beginning we've explained to the authority that our parents in the event of identification ceasing on their site would transfer their children to Southwark schools. That's of course their right, that's their choice. We surveyed the parents. What we found was that only four children who would be expected to be still on our old at the point of amalgamation would go to the amalgamated school. Most of them would go to schools in Southwark. That was re-addressed just to make sure that there'd been no change. So if you close us down the money follows the children, the money follows the children into Southwark. This therefore raises a question about the viability of the so-called amalgamated school. The amalgamated school on any reasonable expectations will be four children bigger than Christchurch by itself. Therefore, and there's a letter in the pack which I'm sure you've all read and I know you've been emailed about by our Chair of Finance, that would leave the amalgamated school in an extremely difficult position. Certainly it wouldn't staff up to be the one form entry template which I think that the borough's been sensible to try and read about. So if the action goes ahead as proposed in recommendation three on the paper, what will be produced after two years of the sort of strife and work and stress that would be faced by the governors of the two schools and the officers of the council and of the diocese will be a school that is clearly not viable as a one form entry school and probably just above the level of a pan of 15 school. That is I think a mistake. We have tried to warn about it all the way through and therefore our recommendation would be that that be set aside and you should give consideration that the truth of what will be available in terms of money following the children, because if you shut us down, which I'm perfectly entitled to do, the money will not stay in Lambeth and more crucially, while it might be good across the whole of the East Planning region, it will not be good for the school that replaces ourselves and Christchurch. Thank you very much. Okay and then finally in this section we have Jane Scarsbrook, Headteacher at Glenbrook Primary School. You have three minutes, start when you wish. I'm speaking in support of the proposal to amalgamate Kings Avenue and Glenbrook as it is published, which is that Kings Avenue Primary School discontinues and the newly amalgamated school will be at Glenbrook taking effect from September 2026. So at Glenbrook we agree it's a logical proposal, since people's numbers for both schools have declined, then better use can be made of our new school building. The declining role in the last five years at Kings Avenue doubled that at Glenbrook in the consultation document. And January 2024 first preference applications for reception show Kings Avenue having the lowest number in Lambeth at six compared with 16 at Glenbrook. So Glenbrook is a logical site for the amalgamated school based on the most recent pupil number trends. Glenbrook Primary School is a new build with excellent indoor and outdoor facilities and accessibility. It's not on a main road. Clarence Crescent, where it's situated, is located within the school street by 2026 further protecting pupils from pollution and traffic hazards. Financially Glenbrook has achieved an in-year surplus for the last two financial years. Kings Avenue has been sharing its site with ICRA, but ICRA has now moved into a new build. So the financial implications of low pupil numbers are projected to impact on both schools' budgets and we understand that. The rationale for this proposal, as it stands, is to ensure that the new school is financially viable based on pupil number trends which indicate Glenbrook is explaining its numbers better. Glenbrook has provided consistently good or better education for pupils with its two most recent offsets good in 2016 and 2021. And the quality of education was judged to be excellent by the school's Lambeth advisor in summer 2024. The percentage of children achieving the combined standard in reading, writing and maths at the end of key stage two has been above national for the past two years, with areas of excellent in maths and outcomes for pupils eligible for pupil premiums. And Glenbrook has the highest proportion of pupils eligible for pupil premiums in Lambeth. Glenbrook has had a long period of stability in quality of education, despite, as you mentioned, the strain of the finances and the PPP consultation. We're in a good position to ensure a smooth transition for pupils joining. We're free to school for Harris Clapham Park secondary with priority admissions for year six, and that's our partner school with additional partnerships that offer opportunities to pupils, for example, with Thomas' foundation, Dutch College and Emmanuel. You've got 30 seconds. Thank you. As well as our very high pupil premium percentage, it's really important that we take note of height at the end with 25% and 6.2% of pupils with EHD. Some parents have particularly chosen the Glenbrook site for its accessibility for wheelchair use, and that needs to be taken into account. It's got lift, medical room, protected pedestrian access. Glenbrook and King's Avenue leaders have been in meetings with Lambeth for a number of years, and the council has had sufficient time to ensure that the formal proposal is well considered. At the informal consultation stage Glenbrook Parents and Carers contributed in greater numbers. Have I executed our part properly? Yes, absolutely. Last point. I think the most important point for us is if the nature of the proposal is amended at decision stage, for example, changing slide to school to distance venue, then the Glenbrook community will not have been fairly consulted on in the adaptation to the proposal. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you to all three of you. If I may ask you to return to your seats, I'm now going to cancel all your points to officers. Thank you very much. What I heard in that was about the original plan to amalgamate from Stanton and Holy Trinity, and I think the point was can we wait to the next phase? I think that that was the point being made. You said to consult on that. And then on St John the Divine, only four children are said to be going to Christchurch. And then I think the last point that the headteacher made about Glenbrook, that if the site changes about that, the Glenbrook community wouldn't have been consulted because at the moment they're assuming it's the Glenbrook site. I think those were the points that I wrote down. Can officers answer those please? Andrew? Thank you chair. I think we can manage those without the additional officers. If that turns out not to be the case, the space is now there. I will take the first and the third, and if we jointly can come back to Foothill's question chair, if that works for you. I think that what Mr Hazel was suggesting, he was supporting the proposal as is set out in the documents. That is a closure with conditions and that for the schools to be allowed to bring forward that proposal. What I understood was that really stressing that we had to do another round of this, that we do a bottom up, which I think we did. So I think we are in agreement with what has been said Mr Hazel. I think in relation to Ms Scarsbrook, again, it's that if there was a change, there is no proposed change in front of. Right, so I think the proposals are as is. OK, and then the four children, only four children. Thank you chair. So I think we've had a few conversations as officers and we have had the challenge from particularly from St John's City buying numbers in our responses and we have written identity report. We've made really clear that our people place planning forecast is based on a peer reviewed assessment of forecast for people numbers. So we look at bullet rates, we look at projections in terms of demographic changes and particularly demand across the borough, but also within planning areas. We tend to often then distribute the demand for a particular planning area across schools really as a courtesy, but even the office for the schools adjudicator recognises that our data is quite volatile. It's one that we shouldn't necessarily consider above or planning area forecast. So when we project numbers for what the demand will be, it is recognising those who are currently, but those who are we are forecasting as well based on our peer review process will demand the places in that particular area. And what our data is saying is that in 2026 there will actually be a demand for 211 places across those two schools and particularly 21 reception places. Across both schools, we will, both schools currently are one form and St John's and Divine has consulted to reduce the amount of 15 for 2025, which means there's an oversupply of places. So although we recognise that for current parents have said they may or may not see new school or forecast may take them into consideration, but it also looks at the trends that we've had in the past and we should have in the future. So it represents actual parents, but it also represents future parents and currently our data is saying we only have the demand for one school, not two. Okay, thank you. That was Claire. I think that those were all the points then, unless you get there. Okay. So thank you very much. I'm going to move now to Holy Trinity speakers. So I think we've got enough chairs for you all. Can I ask for Pauline Thomas, acting headteacher to come forward? Thank you. Leslie Saddington, deputy headteacher. Thank you. Daniel Brooks, Jess Edwards, Chris Tongman, chair of governors. So you've all got two minutes each. I think this has been communicated to you. So, Miss Thomas, if I can ask you to start first, that'd be great. I am opposed to the proposed closure of Holy Trinity and fully support the proposal of an amalgamation with Fenn Stanton Primary School. The closure of Holy Trinity Primary School and Fenn Stanton Primary School would permanently change the landscape of primary education in the local area and take the heart out of primary education served in the Tulsa community by both schools. I was appointed as acting headteacher in 2023 with Miss Saddington as acting deputy headteacher. Together with our team, we have raised standards significantly, reduced our deficit and increased reception places in 2024. We, the school, were steadfast in ensuring and committed to ensuring that our pupils receive the best quality of education. In support of the proposed amalgamation, Holy Trinity and Fenn Stanton School serve a very similar demographic community in Tulsa and are both strongly supported by the community, very dedicated staff and parents, and the education the pupils receive take full account of the whole child. Holy Trinity and Fenn Stanton parents are very supportive. Both schools have created a culture and live out values that have significantly impacted upon each school over the years. I'll take the quote from Lambeth, by harnessing the power and pride of our people and partnerships, the amalgamation of Holy Trinity and Fenn Stanton will enable all pupils of both schools to thrive in a place of opportunity. Oh, sorry, that was accidentally a bell. We don't normally have a bell, but thank you very much. Had you completed? No. Did you have much? Would you just want to finish that sentence? I finished the sentence, but I will make reference to the fact that both schools facilitate a high percentage of pupils who have sent with EHC parents, despite financial constraints, and we have never refused a child or permanently excluded a child. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Lesley Saddington. I'm acting deputy head and leader of teaching and learning at Holy Trinity school. I've been at Holy Trinity for 22 years working in a variety of roles and my own children that attended the school and they flourished there. Since September, 2023, myself and the head, Pauline Thomas have strived to improve standards and quality of education post-offset. As a result, the data outcomes for last year shown an overall improvement of 17% improvement in our phonics screening, we achieved 90% for our year ones and improved outcomes in all areas for our key stage two SAT results. Improving quality of education is the result of strategic leadership and an experienced and skillful teaching and support. Presently, we're on an upward trajectory of improving standards. However, school closures will disrupt pupil teacher and community networks, which will have an adverse effect on pupils outcomes that will become more apparent later in secondary school. This is actually supported by three research conducted over the last three decades. We have a very experienced and committed team at Holy Trinity to provide high quality education for all pupils, including pupils with the best EMT. Extracurricular enrichment experiences and they build cohesion within the community where there is a high level of socioeconomic disadvantage families. Attendance levels of families and careers to our events and workshops have dramatically risen over the last year. 30 seconds. Okay, these proposed school closures will create a social disturbance. A community will be dismantled. Families will become isolated and displaced and educational outcomes may be affected negatively. We are fully aware of language rationale behind these closures and amalgamations. However, behind every piece of data, there is a human story, so I appeal to you as leaders and counselors of our community to reconsider the price of residents and families of Lambeth will be forced to pay for the dismantling of our irreplaceable schools and community. Thank you very much. I'm now moving to Daniel, it doesn't say whether you're a parent or a teacher. I'm a teacher and a new representative at the school. Daniel, you have two minutes. Thank you very much. My name is Dan Brooks and some context on my 10th year teaching at Holy Trinity School. I've been told by the previous Director of Education that Lambeth will experience a drop in birth rate in January

1. In September 2021, the school started to do everything that Lambeth asked us to reduce. We were asked to reduce the one form entry we did. We are now essentially one form entry school. Last winter we were asked to reduce to a half form entry, a pan of 15. For 2026, we did that. Less than six months later, we were then told in a consultation to close. The consultation was and is farcical. Families and communities do not fail to handle correctly or respectfully. My school is a home, family and a community serving a huge number of free school meal, people premium, SEND pupils, including those with and also without, so no funding for EHCPs. We have been told that the press, the rationale behind this is the good, is the preservation, excuse me, of good quality education affected by people, people place numbers. Both Holy Trinity and Penn Stanton have been good schools under Ofsted until June or July 2023. My question to the cabinet is, how is closing both schools going to improve the lives of pupils and families to be both served? And we've come out so strongly behind us here and outside there to show their desires for the school to reign open. How are you going to make schools better by closing existing schools? How are you going to improve the quality of education? Thank you very much. I've never, thanks to Edward. Jess, would you like to say your role? I'm speaking on behalf of our members at Holy Trinity and Penn Stanton. We had you down for Holy Trinity. So you have two minutes, thanks Jess. We used to the last government model of education, which is very much to see schools and teachers and support staff and the children as very much parts of like a cog in a machine and schools being run very much without regard for the human beings that work and learn within them. And I'm really hoping that this new government will change that for our pupils and for our staff, because the human side of things is very real. And it's that that I wanted to touch on. You can see even here, people scrabbling around to save their school at the expense of another school. Schools being pitted against each other in a war to save their own, rather than to lift everybody and to save them all. And that's what I'm here to say, that we need to save them all and not fight between each other about what schools deserve to be saved. Because the other thing, and people have talked about it, is the support that we provide to families. That support is built up through human relationships over years and that support will be decimated. Those families that rely on the teachers and the support staff will be gone and it will take years for them to build up those relationships again in a new school. It will cause real trauma to children. Don't think that children who have their friendship groups and their teachers, who they are attached to, who they love to be ripped from those schools and put in another one will cause them trauma. Don't for a moment believe that that human impact is not real. And I wanted to say something about falling rows. It should be for the benefit of our schools. We should have smaller class sizes like they do in private schools. And I don't want to hear any more about how smaller class sizes don't affect education. That's one set of research. Most research says that it absolutely does. And that's why people pay for it in private schools. It's good enough for them, it's good enough for the children, the communities that we serve. And I want to say one more thing on redundancies. I'm bored of hearing that the authority doesn't have any power over schools, that schools can opt in and out of things. We need to start to think much more creatively about applying pressure on those head teachers that won't cooperate in pan reductions, that won't cooperate with each other, that won't serve the community for the benefit of them all, that want to just save their own skin. We should be putting pressure on them and we should be calling them out. And I don't hear it ever. Thank you. And you are Chair of Governors of Holy Trinity. Chair of Governors of Holy Trinity. You have two minutes, sir. Can I ask that you reflect on the fact that Holy Trinity and Pennsylvania are the only schools in Lambeth that are proposing and supporting an amalgamation, that have driven it themselves, acknowledging the LA's need for a reduction in pupil places. Parents from both schools have voted almost unanimously in support of an amalgamation. This isn't because anyone is in favour of closures. It's simply that both communities feel so strongly that there needs to be a school in our areas. We'd rather set aside our wishes to see our schools survive and work together for our community. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that the 300 or 400 pupils won't be scattered across schools outside their community if Holy Trinity and Fen Stanton are closed in 2026. Producers that are likely to have similar negative impact on children's education and wellbeing to the impact they've just been through with a pandemic. Those of you voting today, don't send a message to this community that they don't deserve their own primary school, they're not valued. Don't show the children that make the children feel they're worth nothing. Opposing Holy Trinity Church of England Primary School and Fen Stanton Primary School will be ripping the heart out of primary education in this Tuls Hill community. Please support our schools working together as a single amalgamated school. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you all of you speaking on behalf of Holy Trinity. If I could ask you to step back, I'm going to now put those matters to officers and if any other officers need to come to the table, they can and I'll try and run through them. I think there was questions around there, really basically about possible amalgamation of Holy Trinity and Fen Stanton was running throughout, both the first speaker and the last. There were also many points by the deputy headteacher, but other speakers about the impact upon educational achievements. And the last speaker talked about impacts on wellbeing as well, if schools close and then children have to go across a bigger geographical area. There was a point about that the school feel that they've done what was asked and now they're being asked to do something again, that they've done all that they've been asked. Impacts upon children, then there was a question about smaller class sizes, whether that's possible and also these two schools are the only schools proposing a support in amalgamation. Do you have any other questions? And why was closing both schools going to improve children's lives? And I think probably academically education achievement and emotional and social wellbeing. Okay, thank you. Chair, if I could ask the additional officers to come forward please. Okay, so in order that we can then fit in all the speakers tonight, Andrew, we're going to have to keep the answers focused. So answer the question, but please keep it focused. We know that there are ongoing conversations. Thank you. Okay, if you could go to those. Very sharp. Before I pass to Brilly, that overarching, as you say, the proposal that is in front of Cabinet is for a closure with conditions. The conditions are to allow that proposal that came from both schools to amalgamate to actually see if that's viable. So I think in answer to all you heard as a global, that's exactly what we're asking of Cabinet, but it is a closure with conditions. Thank you, Chair, to reinforce that and I think Cabinet should be minded that we have asked for an approval with modifications to the proposal and it is in considering if a viable counter proposal followed by both schools within a particular time frame and we would agree with those schools when that has been mapped out provisionally in the report. We must ensure and remember that this is a pupil based planning strategy and what we're here for is to manage surplus places in the borough. We have significant surplus places and without managing surplus places, we are risking schools actually falling, as Councillor Kang outlined, in a position where they're not able to manage their resources because unfortunately schools are funded per pupil, which could have an impact on the quality of education. So the real emphasis behind this strategy is about maintaining good quality education. We looked at both schools. Both schools have significant vacancies, both in terms of their pupil published admissions numbers, but also in terms of spaces in schools. And we recognise that has particular challenges as well in terms of financial viability and market outline was if required. We do have 95% of our schools in Lambert are good and outstanding. So for us, it's really important as part of this proposal when we identified schools that were within two kilometres, which is considered a buggy ride. For parents we recognise for some parents, that's not necessarily a buggy ride, but it is officially recognised by the DFA as a buggy ride. We have identified only good and outstanding schools that our children from both schools can access. Both schools were to close and it's outlined in the report. There are well over 1000 failing places across schools in both the East planning area, South East planning area and across other areas within the borough that can accommodate children from both schools if it were to close. And it is about maintaining high quality education but we do support, as I said, both schools bringing a counter proposal as long as it is viable. We need to use the numbers we need to any local authority to maintain efficient pupil number. I think with reference to that addresses quite a few questions with reference to smaller class sizes and this has been raised by stakeholders and as just Edwards outlined, I think we must remember as a cabinet that we are funded very differently from private schools. On average, if we were just to look at the basic funding per child in Lambert, we funded just over £4000 per child. Obviously if there are special needs people, premium additions, it is a little bit more and we know that's not comparable to what children in private schools may be funded for, which could be sometimes as much as 10 times that amount. Schools aren't funded by the local authority, they're funded by the DFA via the dedicated schools grant. So you know what we have to do is manage a resource that is depleted that has had even more conditions placed on it over the last few years and I actually want to congratulate our school leaders in the room, all of whom we're consulting on are managing really tight budgets and in some cases managing to turn around in-year surpluses because they are really looking at their cohorts and their staff, but that does not necessarily deliver, we believe in long term, the quality of education that children would require because your most expensive resource is your staff. So if you start to make cuts to staff, that then has an impact potentially on the quality of teaching and the quality of education. So that has been our core driver throughout this entire process and it continues to be our core driver which is maintaining high quality education. We recognise that closing both schools could have an impact on families, on children and the proposal would be to support families through our coordinated solutions process, so mentee, firstly parental choice, so parents will be given a choice and they would be allocated to schools based on that choice, but also schools that are close to where they live or schools that they would prefer to attend for their children, so parents will be supported through that process if schools will do anything else from us. Just minding the choice direction regarding time, if that covers the questions we've heard. I mean I think it did, so unless there's anyone who's got anything that they wanted to add specifically, sorry to put you up there. Okay, I think that did cover the questions that I had out, so thank you. I'm going to now go on to the next set of speakers, so it's Stanton School speakers now. Is it Sylvester Gary or Gary Sylvester? Not here. Okay, Danny Walsh and I've also got Gillian Roberts, Headteacher. Danny, it doesn't say whether you're a parent or a teacher. Assistant Head in Year 16. Thank you very much. I've got you down first, so if you wouldn't mind starting and you've got two minutes. Thanks very much for the opportunity. We've heard a lot about numbers today. I want to remind the Cabinet that behind every one of those numbers is an individual child, family and more importantly a wider school community that you are deciding on in the future today. That community spoke loud and clear at the public meeting. The feeling in the room was that the kids reject your proposal for school closures and merge with another school. Also in the room that day, it was really great to hear just everyone that we work with as a school, the vision that we supply for our children. They cast forth well-being for Year 6, speech bubbles, volunteers, reader. All that disappears if you make the decision to shut our skit. There's no particular way that this will be continued in other schools. We're pushing schools on schools with lots of SCN needs, schools which are struggling to already meet their demands in the schools at the moment. Staunton is a school with a high level of pupil premium and children of SCND and ECP children. This decision that you are taking today is affecting some of the most disadvantaged children in the borough. We as a school understand the challenges faced by our parents and the issues they face. That has been through conversations over time and a trust that has been built up over years with families. That also disappears. What, 30 seconds? It's a decision about what you want to do. You do have a choice. The status quo is to keep the schools open. The status quo is to continue cuts and closures and taking away amenities from already disadvantaged communities. It's a very clear opportunity. You have a chance here today as cabinet members to vote to keep schools open, have lower class sizes and increase the education chances of disadvantaged children or continue the Tory cut and equality. It's a very, very clear choice. Thank you very much. That we voted for at the month of death. Thank you, thank you. Julian, you're the headteacher. Yes. So you have two minutes. Thank you. While the challenge of managing service pupil places has engaged, the notion of closing both schools could be seen as neglectful and irresponsible by stakeholders associated with each school. And Sandton's pupil and parent carer community relies heavily on the support the school and its staff provide. And as advocates for our parents and pupils and on behalf of our staff, we urge the council to receive the alternatives proposal put forward by Sandton Holy Trinity, it's in the EPDB, as it obviously revives a lot of things. Lambap has been clear that it favours amalgamation over soldiers. The original proposal was to amalgamate them. Sandton was another notion of primary school amalgamating for example, holy trinity offers a sustainable alternative to closure, which preserves educational opportunity for local children while addressing pupil numbers and providing significant savings to the constable amalgamation avoids displacement of vulnerable pupils and families. And Sandton and Holy Trinity serve a uniquely similar community. The levels of disadvantaged pupils attending our schools far exceed that of all but one of the schools in the area, at least significantly above the national averages. Closing the only two schools in the area and high numbers of vulnerable pupils and displacing these communities and schools is a really different thing to us. We need some educational inequality and exacerbate disadvantage and marginalisation. Amalgamation allows the community to retain school and community hub that serves local families, people, children, in an environment and manages for community ties. Both schools are beacons of support and work extensively with strong partnerships to contribute to proper additional services for families. There's very strong support from staff and pupils and care of EPD in both schools for amalgamation. It could serve, say, to make significant financial savings but I ask you to wrap up now, can you? Finally, LAMP has been clear that offset rating is not a factor in identifying which schools were included in the consultation. We do acknowledge that both schools are just RI in their previous inspection and both schools leadership teams along with the support of SDBE are committed to ensuring the improvement to the future. Thank you very much. The other officers saved time. You can shout out to them and they come up if you need to. I think the points are a continuation of specialist provision in jeopardy and that displacing vulnerable pupils therefore would exacerbate inequalities. I know you answered about the good or at a tiny school within two kilometres which the government says is a buggy ride but if you could answer that specific point around that, around vulnerable pupils and also family hubs. I'm Sophie Allen, Assistant Director for Education, Strategy and inclusion, Access. We drive to make sure all our primary schools are inclusive. We are focused as Councillor Klein pointed out on making sure our young people are in the mainstream settings. We have above national and statistical averages for our resource spaces as well. We have invested over 1.5 million early intervention to support young people who don't have those EHCPs. We invested over 7 million expanding those seven places. So our focus is that it shouldn't be a specific school that is able to meet a young person's need. All our primary schools are driven to be inclusive and be able to support the EHR for those times when all early Trinity be able to meet their needs by supporting the work and collaboratively with them. I'm Gerald Merton, I'm the Interim Assistant Director for Education and Learning responsible for school standards safeguarding and partnerships. So just pick on the point that Julie made that both the schools were in RI in their last inspection in 2023. We've been working with both those schools to improve standards and those standards have improved, but this isn't a decision around the quality of education. It's not open to your eyes or the outcomes will blow. National is why this decision should be made. It's about ensuring a sufficient number of school places put in planning areas within Lambeth and if you include the number of places here for this decision, then you need to make a decision elsewhere to reduce this number elsewhere to ensure we have sufficient places to provide for our children going forward. I've been in a number of meetings over the last three weeks working with schools facing deficit budgets because they're small numbers. This is financially very, very challenging to meet the resources they need to deliver a quality of education. As schools get smaller it just becomes more and more challenging and I have real empathy with the heads and all the staff about how they're working and trying to achieve that. It's a very, very challenging position we're finding ourselves in towards the government, towards education. Okay, thank you very much. I think, oh the point about family herbs. Not quite sure, I think it was the point that there's a family herb at the school. Supporting families. Or supporting families, that they are a hub supporting families. Okay, I think that's been answered myself, of course, and we've specifically answered that. So I think I'm going to move on. Okay, so we now have one speaker, Pia Longman from the Southwark Diocese Board of Education. Did I get your title right? Assistant Director. Assistant Director, thank you. Pia, you've got three minutes. Thank you. Thanks. Firstly, on behalf of the SCBE, I'm hoping for everyone to speak today. I'm aware that a lot of representation, many things have already been said, so I will try not to go over things that have already been touched on. Firstly, on behalf of the SCBE, I'd like to thank Avrilie and her team. I think that this has been an enormous task and we recognise what a difficult task it's been. These are not easy decisions. We want to thank them for the way that they have worked with us that we're looking to ask. It's hard to listen to the speakers today not be impacted. We know that this is an original decision to be made, and we can see that there's many different views around the table. But I think what we can all agree on is that doing nothing is not an option. Whilst we haven't always agreed with these proposals put forward by Lambda, we have been committed to working with them, to working to find the right solutions. We want to ensure a strong school system and one that doesn't provide just education for today and tomorrow, but provides strong education for 2040 and beyond. We recognise that in order to do that, there are going to need to be tough decisions made. The driver for us has always been providing a system that provides choice for parents, proportionality of our schools, church and other schools, as well as schools of other faiths and no faith. And we accept that in order to do that, we need to see that we've got a pool of allegations in the form of an allegations, and where an affirmation has not been possible that there will be closures. What we're here today to try and ensure is that the decisions made are ones that balance the need of removal of those cases with the needs of our communities that are served by our schools. You're making decisions on three of our schools today. The first is whether to nominate St John the Divine and Christchurch primary and Christchurch site. We recognise and we've heard from representatives from St John the Divine today that this proposal is not wholly supported by the stakeholders and that school is in the violence of the community. However, given the low pupil numbers in the school and the risk of long term closure, we are in support of a large majority of schools. We see it as an opportunity to secure Church of England education in the area and should the decision be agreed, we have 30 seconds in our steering group, which would want to transition that. We've heard a lot about Holy Trinity and the proposal with conditions. I think those two schools are serving the same community. If you look at the contextual data of both Holy Trinity and Fencehampton, they are always the same. Both have significantly via disadvantage, significantly via send and significantly via GAO. They have repeatedly said that they are in favour of viable amalgamations and we have put forward an amalgamation with the two schools that would seek to bring Holy Trinity and Fencehampton together. Can I ask you to wrap up please? Sure. I say that we came here today to ensure decisions are balanced on the need for a new cases and the needs of our community. In the instance of Fencehampton and Holy Trinity, the needs of the community far outweigh the need to remove cases, however the SDB worked with telephone authority to find cases to remove rather than take it from that community. Thank you. Thank you very much, Pia. I don't think there were any questions that need answering. There were points. That's fine. There were points that want to be made and that we've heard and have been minuted. So I don't think there's any questions to answer though. So I'm now going to turn to the Councillors. I've got Councillor Nicole Griffiths, Councillor Jackie Meldrum, Councillor Linda Bray, Councillor Matthew Bryant. You want to come up and I've got you down in that order. That's the order I'm going to take you in. If Councillor Nicole Griffiths kicks off, just to remind you, you've got two minutes tonight. Thank you, Chair. Good to be welcoming everybody. I'm Councillor Nicole Griffiths. I'm part of the Councillors. Chair, can I just apologise because I am going to rush up at 6.30 and it looks like things are going to overrun. I feel like a bit of a late person saying this, but I've taken on board everything that's been said tonight. I really hope cabinet members have heard everything that's been said tonight. I'm really concerned that there's short-sightedness to these plans that we're hearing tonight and that they're being driven by cost factors over and above meeting the needs of our children, families and communities. I worry that the Councillors are looking at services through the single lens of saving money track. I understand the hard logic, but the plans can only respond to what's best for our children, families, the local community and our school staff. Making savings rather than investing in our children and what's best for them, their wellbeing, socialisation, education and providing safe and nurturing environments in our schools. The consultation process shows clearly that the majority of Councillors do not want to see schools closed and children's lives disrupted. Officer recommendations are based on levels of deficit and potential increased vulnerability and future stress potentials, rather than what's best for our children. I urge the cabinet to consider both the short and long term outcomes of the decisions made tonight. Unless they want to, do not close for a while too late, but support schools to remain open to have the ebb and flow of a pupil number and be led by school leaders and demand that the governments provide the additional funding that they need. This will allow for greater flexibility in response to any future change in pupils. I'm going to ask a couple of questions. I've only got 30 seconds. Does the additional funding the schools announced in the budget last week impact this decision in any way? And my other question is, officers are promoting the inorganic information. That's probably going to be what happens if both schools have those, but with certain modifications being met and with a future inorganic information, what's the timeline as it goes forward? Okay. Thanks, Nicole. Okay. Councillor Jacqueline Meldam, you have a few minutes. Hi everybody. I'm a Councillor in the south of the borough, where we've had an enormous increase in the number of school places over the last 15 years. But even in the south of the borough, we've begun to see a bit of a reduction in schools. But at the moment, we're not directly affected by these. So I've got a couple of questions. Can you explain how many school places, that's the pan that Odie talks about, have been reduced using the academy school in the last few years? And once the changes proposed this evening, presumably at stage one, how do you envision further changes in school numbers and mergers to proceed? My ward in the south of the borough borders with Croydon. Several of our schools lie very close to that border. Families ignore the borough boundaries when seeking local school. But of course, school funding is dependent on the number of children. Any overspends is a kind of a horror possibility. One of my questions, following on your one, is about where where are such overspends covered financially? And throughout these very difficult times, it's very stressful, and we've all heard tonight, it is very stressful for everybody involved in this. I urge you to ensure excellent and effective communications with the families, when necessary. And I do remember our professor plays a demi's work on the negative impact of school mobility on children's school achievement. Please avoid the risk of children having to move school twice. Thanks, Jackie. I've now got Councillor Linda Bray. Linda, you've got two minutes. Thank you, Jack. I'm a Councillor in Clapham town ward. As you know, there are several schools in the wider Clapham area. Bearing in mind all the rules, the amalgamation of Kings Avenue and Glenbrook is probably reasonable. On the other hand, the school's adjudicator has rejected a reduction in pupil numbers in Bonneville Primary School, which is in the neighbouring ward of Clapham Common, Abbeville. I am concerned not only for the proposals being considered tonight, but also for future pupil place planning in the West Planning area, which covers Clapham town. And I'd therefore like to ask three questions of officers. First, given the school's adjudicator's decision on Bonneville Primary School's published administration number reductions, can officers explain how this outcome impacts the current proposals before cabinet, particularly with regard to managing surplus places in the West Planning area? Second, the schools in the West Planning area, particularly those near Bonneville, are we now facing any increased risks of instability in pupil numbers or financial sustainability due to this decision? We've got 10 seconds. How are we planning to address or mitigate these potential challenges? Three, what lessons has the council taken from the adjudicator's ruling and how might this influence our approach to pupil place planning and admissions across other schools in areas like Clapham town and beyond? Thank you. Thank you. Sorry I didn't give you the 30 seconds. I was so busy writing down your questions, but thank you very much, Councillor. And now Councillor Matthew Bryant. Matthew, you've got two minutes. Thank you, Chair. I'm speaking this evening as both a Councillor, but also as Chair of Governors at King's Avenue schools, so I need to declare that interest. I've got points to cover two areas. 32 minutes is going to be very difficult. Looking at the amalgamation of King's Avenue and Glenbrook school, I think that's probably the least contentious of the four proposals before the cabinet. Our body in their response to consultation agreed that it was probably the best way forward for these two schools to amalgamate. The point at which we disagreed was which schools should be the one to close, but those arguments have been rehearsed in the consultation. I won't repeat them here, but there are two new items that have been introduced in this final report. The first is there's a suggestion that Glenbrook's cumulative deficit at the point of amalgamation may be written off. This actually is a welcome development in my mind because it means that the new school would start life without a large overraft round its neck. So I'd like great good officers to confirm that that is the case. The second point is you'll see that there's also a proposal to bring forward the amalgamation by one year to 2025, September 25. Personally, I think the timescales for this are now tight given that we're in November. I'd like to know more reasons for the justification for that and why that's been considered for this one and not the other three proposals before cabinet. Looking into the consultation as a whole, I've got three points. Firstly, it would be helpful if officers could give us clarification on the governance arrangements for the two amalgamations that we're talking about. What are the timescales for creating new governing bodies? Point number two, just coming back on St John the Divine, I would really go back to that about the question of the projections of pupil numbers for the East Manning region. Is that based purely on Lambert residents? Does it take account of the fact that the number of Southern residents who now come into our schools are probably not likely to go? I don't think that's been answered. And the final point I'd like to make is just to say I hugely support the proposal about the proposal amalgamation of Holy Trinity and Pen Stanton. I'd like to say I applaud the fact that it's a bottom up recommendation that's come from the community and I really hope you can come up with a viable proposal because that will keep the school in that area and that's much needed. Thank you, Matthew. Okay, thank you very much councillors. Thank you. Go back to your seats. Thank you. I've lost where I started now. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. The government's announcement last week of additional funding for schools and STEM provision. Well, I've added STEM provision. Does it impact decisions in any way? Family school places reduced in the last few years. And after tonight, which councillor Meldrum assumed in phase one, how do you visit proceeding? Where are the overspends? I think by schools, councillor Menn, where are they covered? If a school has a deficit budget and overspend, where's that covered? And can we avoid children moving school twice? And then Clapham Town and De Grey, the schools adjudicated decision. Can you explain how it impacts the current proposals and surplus of places in the west planning area? Are we now facing increased risks? And if so, what are the mitigations? What lessons have we taken from it and how it's going to impact the PPE in Clapham area? And then Matthew was asking the accumulative deficit being written off. I think that was again, Brooke. Was it Matthew? Yes. Thank you. And can you address that? And also, he said it may be and also bringing forward the amalgamation sector 25. What's the reasons for this? That's what I have done. Is there anything else that you have done on the governance arrangements for amalgamation? And he said, I'm not sure I agree, but he said that St John the Divine answer, was it based purely on Lambeth residents because you didn't address that. Did you have anything else to say? Oh, sorry. And Nicole asked about the timeline for amalgamation. Thank you. I was waiting for you. Are you happy? You're happy for us to. And I think if we take those first block questions, if you could cover first block. And then I'll bring Mark in, in relationship with deficit. Thank you. Thank you. I think it's really important to remind cabinet that when we proposed in 2022 to manage pupil places, there were some key drivers at the heart of it was quality of education. We were really clear that I was a key driver, maintaining parental choice, including the proportion of faith and non complete schools, ensuring schools were within a buggy ride. And then looking at the quality of assets finance actually was not a key driver. And Mark will talk more about why we have had to consider that alongside this proposal, because it is a real risk to schools, but also to the council as well. We do recognize the children at the heart of it, but we recognize more than anything else. If schools are not able to manage their resources, they're not able to employ high quality staff and therefore deliver good education. And our schools have actually done so. And we give a massive credit to our schools who under really difficult circumstances have maintained good quality education in numbers. We had 29 inspections from Ofsted last year at 30, very 29. We were really proud of our schools, but we look really closely at the data, myself and Gerald, who's my assistant director. And we're beginning to see patterns between falling rules and pupil outcomes. And that's an emerging pattern for us as well. And it's not causal. We need to look at those relationships with schools that are actually beginning to fall in numbers and then climb in educational outcomes. And we're not saying it's causal, but there's definitely emerging evidence that there is a relationship. So this strategy is about maintaining high quality education, making sure that children are supported in strong and sustainable schools, because if we don't make those difficult decisions now, schools may lose in an unplanned way. And we've seen that with two of our secondary schools in Lambert that closed quite abruptly. We're trying to be strategic in managing that and managing that with a very long running time. So to answer the question that's been laid out really clearly in the report, the proposed implementation date, September 2026, we have obviously considered King's Avenue and Glenbrook, which I'll put that separately. But I think it's probably important for Mark to just shed a bit of light on the financial. Before we go to Mark, I think the other part of that share was the funding that was announced, impact on the decisions. Again, as we've been saying, this is around pupil place finance, pupil numbers. That funding is really welcome. But that, as I understand, it goes into the high needs block. That is for pupils with specific needs in relation to their education, health and care plans that will not increase the number of pupils and the baseline funding. So while it's welcome, it does not stress the overall issue. I think the other one, as you just were beginning to touch on, was around the timeline, specifically in relation to Holy Trinity and Staunton. Again, it is for those governing bodies to come forward with the proposal. As we've heard, this is bottom up, not top down. They have to come forward with a barbell proposal that they've consulted on. We are not in a position, it's not for the local disability, who say this is the proposal, it's their proposal. They need to come forward with it. That's why we're recommending the closure with conditions. I think that covers all of that first batch of questions. Thank you, Chair. So I think the first one from Councillor Melvyn was around how many school places have been reduced. Yeah, so as everyone has said, today we worked in collaboration with schools. So from this September 2024, we, in consultation with schools, collaboratively removed what, 495 places and that was across community schools, foundation schools and academies. And that has removed a significant proportion of places in reception. And the proposal so far suggests there will be a further, well initially, a projected 135. Obviously the OSA's decision will affect that proposed number for 2025 as well, but that overall should have removed well in excess of 300 places across reception and our target was 440. So we've made a real significant impact and that has been purely by schools coming forward and working in collaboration with the local authority to do that. And we are really pleased because that has reduced the pressure on people's numbers. Mark obviously will address the question with reference to overspend and if that's the local authority's responsibility. I think the question around communication with families is welcome. Councillor Meldrum, I think that is correct. We in our consultation did actually provide translated surveys and opportunities for parents from all backgrounds and those who speak English as an additional language to access the information that we shared. And we will continue to do so in collaboration with governing bodies who know their communities really well. I think the point about children moving twice is a really key point as well. We know the funding formula favors two form entry schools, but at the heart of this, as I said, one of our key drivers was maintaining parental choice and ensuring schools are within a buggy rise. So although it may be more financially viable to have two form entry schools, we know that that may decrease parent choice and may remove a buggy ride strategy. So for us, having one form entry schools that are full and strong maintains those two key drivers as part of the strategy, but we will continue to look at those drivers as well. And Mark, before you do, Mark, I think the only other part of Councillor Meldrum's question was around, sorry, the only other part of Councillor Meldrum's question was around, was there a phase two? As I said, right at the very beginning, we did pause those decisions in relation to St John's Angels and St Saviour's. So yes, we need to go back and look at those. And again, as you heard from the Diocese, as part of their proposals, they would be looking at taking out school places from other areas rather than potentially from Prince Daphne and Holy Trinity. So there will be another phase of this, we've been very clear on that. I think, Mark, if you could just really briefly license deficits. I'm Mark Whipping, I'm the Assistant Director of Finance for Children's Families and Education. And in essence, the deficit position would be one that would be reported within the Council's overall balance sheet. So at the moment, scores are in surplus overall and there's 16 million or so at the end of last year, they are forecast to use and be in deficit and that will directly impact upon the Council's own balance sheet. If change isn't made, those deficits aren't reduced and eliminated. When you say balance sheet, do you mean that the Council pay? Sorry, I don't, is that the next part? So the deficits and surpluses stay with schools, but it's their responsibility, budgets are delegated to schools to manage. And so a surplus or deficit with them and is carried forward from one year to the next, unless a school is closed and then reach the circumstances where those deficits would be written off or could be written off. I'm not sure it did, but OK. We hold the deficit, so if a school was to close, that would hit our core reserves in terms of the Council. OK, I think that was what Councillor Nelson was asking. Yeah, but thank you. OK, so then the school adjudicator, I think, is the last one. There was a couple more. We need to really speed up because cabinet have to have their own chance to ask questions. Councillor and Annie, you are the training coach. I think the short answer is, and we feel that from the appendix, we do not agree with the OSA's determination with reference to the consultation to reduce pan at Bonneville School, and we're currently considering local authorities' position and how we respond to that coefficient. OK. That was a focused answer. I think, have we answered all the rest? Oh, yeah. Timeline for amalgamation, September 25. So that proposal actually came out of representation from Glenbrook and Kings Avenue. There was a suggestion from, particularly from the finance manager in Kings Avenue to consider an earlier implementation because it is more cost effective, and we have also recommended in the paper that cabinet would consider writing off any cumulative deficit of another major school, including schools that have the opportunity to start afresh with violence treatment. We recognise that there may be financial implications going forward, which is not the case. We recognise that that's not necessarily possible, but we have recommended it in the paper. But in this particular case, bringing the proposals forward actually reduces that liability on the council, reducing the need to spend additional general fund on schoolers or amalgamations as well. I think in terms of governance arrangements, what usually happens in an amalgamation proposal is that interim governance bodies would be implemented immediately, and both governing bodies would begin to make decisions about that amalgamated school, and the first call of action would be really employing a headteacher and a leadership team to manage that process as well. In reference to the last question around the projected numbers, our projected numbers do take out of consideration this rate within the borough to recognise what those numbers may look like, and a lot of our data is actually based on children who are born now, not necessarily children who are to be born, but we do look at the ebbs and flow for those parents and families that are across the border. That's really important for us in our data. We can't always account for school parental choice. We recognise there's been significant changes in Southwark as well, so some schools are closed at the border, for what we've said to schools is we need to monitor the trends and update our dashboards and our data as that comes through over time. Thank you very much, thank you, thank you very much. I'm going to open it up to cabinet colleagues and have any questions or comments. Before I do that, Ben, did you want to come in now or at the end, at the end for anything? OK, I saw Councillor Danny Adilipour. I'm going to let Councillor Donatus and Ianne we go first, actually, because you have got to go and get your train, Councillor. And then Danny, and then I'm going to come to Hashi and then I'll go back out again. Thank you very much. I think we have had a lot of concerns and variation of other things, for me really the key to me is we were here before, I can remember having been on the Southern Councillors where our population dropped and then gradually it's just want to know how we collected the data, the methodology that have been used and then how we, you know, our projections in the next few years so that we are absolutely certain that all the method we use and our prediction is absolutely important. We will also know in relation to how the scorecard on the method used for that. More or less the part of the question is, you did mention this in relation to standard, we know our schools are quite outstanding, how do we reassure parents that absolutely A, the standard will be maintained based on this process and then also we assured them that they didn't use anything as subject to parents who did not perform the variation of the results that we need. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you very much for your time Andrew, do feel free to leave when you need to. Councillor Danny O'Dellaport. Thank you, I've got two very quick questions if I may, the first is related to the housing challenge we face in Lambeth and London because I'm conscious that there's lots of commentary in the media about how housing costs are forcing families out and contributing to this problem which I acknowledge is a concern that obviously I share but I think it would be helpful if officers could give a bit of wider context on the bigger, wider issues such as declining birth rates in general, the impact of Brexit and the cost of living because I think this issue is more than a housing challenge, there's numerous factors that have led to this falling pupil numbers so a bit more detail on that I think I'd find helpful as part of the discussion tonight and secondly, linked to that, again there's lots of commentary about the challenges of temporary accommodation in Lambeth and the increasing demand we have to house people in that emergency temporary accommodation but I think it's important that we stress that that is an important service we offer and that service is not what's causing this problem either so really stressing that fact that this issue of temporary accommodation is not what is responsible for the scale of the enrollment decline that we are seeing in Lambeth because I think that's an important point to correct as well. Thanks. Thanks Danny and then Councillor Niel Plaszczuk. Thank you very much. In Lambeth we have eight high harm gangs, for context our neighbours in Southwark and Wandsworth only have one and although violence from injury has gone down 11.3 percent and knife crime has decreased by a frequent amount of percent compared to last year, I'd like to know how has the community safety factor been factored into these proposals to ensure that safe routes to schools for our children and young people, that there are safe routes for our children and young people especially given the context I've just mentioned. For families that rely on older siblings that come from younger children to school, has any consideration been given to the potential impact of the school amalgamations on their routines and the implications on their safety to ensure that this does not increase the risk to our young people's safety especially for the requirement that the result of school closures and amalgamations. Thanks colleagues. Andrew, could you take those points? Do you want to cover the data, the methodology that we used? Yeah thank you, so we have a statistician who works for the council, a people-placed planner and obviously we're working in collaboration with my team as well. When we look at our data, as I said it's peer-reviewed so we make sure that it is locally and nationally, we use data from the office for national statistics, GP registration, NHS bird rates and we look at general data that's also provided by the GLE. That's a normal part of our process, we start to look at what we call our scap which will return on vacancies and capacity in schools and we monitor that to ensure that we're forecasting, based on our forecast we look every year at our actuals and we're seeing those numbers increasing in accuracy year on year. I believe the last time we looked at it we were something as much as 10 children out from what we had projected many years before, so we're seeing you know even more sophisticated systems and it does, as I said, include demand from schools on board as well but all those data sets help us to set trends and at the moment there's no data to suggest we're going to improve. There will be a slight improvement next year as it says, as put in report and that's based on the COVID-19 pandemic and then it's set to decline again by as much as five percent so we mustn't enforce non-security as well. The only thing I'd add to your question was well what about the future, how do we know if things might change? We've got a false mark and we know that things can change, there can be external factors that suddenly mean you have more children in the borough, part of the very early commitment given by Pravna in terms of how we how we use the sites so if we then had an upsurge what could our schools then do to either increase their pan or do we have the flexibility then to provide additional classes so we are keeping that in mind as well. I think that covers those questions. I was going to move on to the next one. I was going to turn and bring my colleague Ruth Hutt in around the housing and schools. So I think the point made quite articulately is true that this is driven largely by birth from birth rates and other reasons including cost of living which means it's very expensive in central London and Lambeth being part of that. I've had temporary accommodation placements around 90% are in Lambeth borough and it's a local borough that neighbours Lambeth and many many parents would choose to continue to educate the children at the school they're already in at the point they move into TA anyway unless they're in a sort of transition of schools because although people end up in there for longer than they might plan to they are meant to be temporary arrangements so we do not think that TA placements are a factor. Thank you very much Rouge and the community safety point. Just to reassure you Councillor Hachey at the beginning of this process about two years ago and even now we worked really closely with our community safety team. We actually looked, we mapped where our schools were in relation to those unfortunately that we've mentioned and we took those into consideration especially where we were proposing amalgamations. So there's one example that's been alluded to a couple of times tonight where we considered another amalgamation with Fence Phantom School for example but that was discounted unfortunately in the process for the reasons that you've highlighted because we recognised that children and young people and those who would have had to cross down lines was a significant risk to children not just those potentially attending the school but those who may be accompanying them like older siblings and so on and that's why unfortunately we've landed a new position on a consultation to close Fence Phantom rather than an amalgamation. We will continue to work with our community safety colleagues in recognising any new and emerging risk and of course as I said at the start it's about supporting parental choice as well parents will still have a choice in school closures and even in amalgamations if they choose not to send children this will not be parental choice they will be supported to attend schools that leave things right for them and children. Okay I think that that one of those points aren't those are those points aren't so thank you. Yeah before I go just to say that I prefer being proactive rather than being driven by because I have seen schools that have includes without local authorities being prepared so I believe I will agree with the decision the cabinet will make in relation to making sure that we safeguard schools rather schools closed without even anybody knowing because this is the plan and decision being made without the authorities doing where the school just closed and so just letting people know that's my position. Okay thank you that's very helpful Councillor safe journey okay I'm going down to the next round I saw Councillor Marcia Cameron, Councillor Tim Wyndall, Councillor Fred Cowell, Councillor Rosina Choudry. Thank you chair I've got two questions and the first one is given the high demand for send support across the borough was the possibility of creating resource bases or specialist send units in school in schools with falling roles fully explored as a strategy to enhance inclusion while supporting school stability and then the second one is if a mongolation sorry I can't I'm sure you know what I mean or closures proceed could the council outline its plans for any vacated school buildings specifically if there's potential to repurpose these spaces to address the growing needs for dedicated send facilities or other educational support services in Lambeth. Okay thank you Councillor, Councillor Tim Wyndall. Yeah I just wanted to touch on the comments from Mr Treasdale and also some elder about schools having to close twice or sorry pupils potentially having to move twice. Thank you so much for the explanation of the planning area forecasts and the modelling but if those claims of only four children moving over to Christchurch proved to be true or I guess for any other amalgamated school if it turns out that the numbers that we're seeing don't meet that and that begins to affect viability is there any support or measures that we need to support those schools? Sorry can you say that last sentence? Is there any support or measures we can put in place to support those amalgamated schools? Support all measures thank you okay. Councillor Fred Cowell. I've got sort of two questions three around being part of my portfolio who takes any qualities the first is to ask what kind of specific spring is there a place for those affected by the exposures and amalgamations especially for those who protected the policy characteristics under the 2010 quality act and if in the specific case and early 20 and fenced hands where we're being asked to make closure with conditions and that leads to a number of different eventualities what kinds of support would be available there to cope with both either a successful amalgamation or closure with the Columbus boats eventualities as we would do that just to create certainty particularly amongst those who have plans in place that we specialize and protecting characteristics. Finally in the second thing is as well as I would like to know in terms of when this has been reviewed or it may clear by yourselves that most given the current funding available pupil very small class sizes actually end up posing a risk for ongoing divisions for those with special educational needs and in terms of not going to secure the relevant funding or imposing particular advice at that stage and I was wondering if you could just talk us through that now because I think that does help highlight the issues associated with the status quo with youth schools with incredibly low numbers. Okay I'm going to take it forth, sorry, Councillor Rosina Choudry. Thank you, thank you very much for this, I just want to commend you for the hard work and the dedication, it can't have been easy and just you know just to your team for all the hard work that you've put in and also to Councillor Kind for making sure that we were kept abreast as cabinet of all the developments so thank you. So just a couple of questions and it's around workforce, so I just want to know what steps are being taken to ensure the workplace, the workforce responsibilities including potential redeployment or redundancies are managed fairly and transparently which is in line with Lambeth Council's commitment to supporting our school workforce during this period of transition and leading on from that you know in view of the potential impacts on teaching and support staff, what measures are being considered to retain our skilled educators within Lambeth's school system and ensuring that there's continuity for students and minimising disruption for staff affected by these changes? Thank you very much Councillor Andrew. Claire and Sophie do you mind coming to the table please? Okay sorry before we answer the questions I have to ask colleagues something. We have to finish at 7pm, we haven't finished this item and we've got another item after this. We can vote to extend the guillotine to half past seven which means that we can go up to half past seven so but I need agreement of you all to do that so agreed colleagues. Okay thank you, over to you. Mindful of that guillotine really quick so let me just touch on that question about the resource spaces. In terms of resource spaces we fully support resource spaces in the borough and we have a set criteria when it comes to looking to establish resource spaces. We always complete a full scoping which is looking at what needs, whether those are high needs, domestic and mental autism and where we need it in the borough. In terms of all the criteria it is laid out that the school has to be a good or outstanding school to open up a new resource space and that is made widely available to schools which is one of the decisions around why a resource space is not being established either since 9/10 or at home opportunity. But we continue to work to expand as I said before our resource spaces and we have an expanding SCEN places within our mainstream and resource spaces. Thank you, vacate school buildings. Again as is when it previously came to cabinet we would be looking to plant both of those farm buildings, find interim use so if we need them again for educational purposes and part of that use could include then bases for SCND provision. Great, thank you. I then had if support measures that can be put in place to support amalgamated schools. So I think this was specifically in relation to the risk of them closing twice and I think this was given in terms of St John's, St John the Divine and Christchurch option. Again it would really depend on the circumstances so we would work very closely with those schools with the governing bodies to try and support that amalgamation. We are not bringing this to you because we believe that amalgamation is the right route to go. If for any reason that didn't work we would have to come back with a new set of proposals. Okay then Councillor Cowell's questions around protected characteristics and class sizes and risks to educational needs. We have included detailed equality impact statements and assessments in the report so for us and that has been considered throughout the entire process. We actually believe this strategy does protect those children and families with protected characteristics because what we're ensuring is that there is a sustained and strategic plan to manage numbers rather than schools closing in an on-land way because we recognise how particularly disruptive that is if there isn't a strategy for maintaining numbers. I think with reference to small class sizes and it is included in the report, we recognise that schools with significantly small class sizes it costs more per child each class and in some cases let's take scenario of 15 children in a class that just about covers the cost of an experienced teacher. It does not then cover support staff and other resources that children would send may need other additional resources so we actually believe small class sizes pose a risk to children with special educational needs because they are not funded adequately to cover and meet their needs and having strong and sustainable classes, full classes that are well funded gives schools efficient budgets to actually manage their resources more effectively for children and young people. Thank you and then the questions on the workforce. Is that you Andrew? Well very briefly this was just around redeployment and redundancy and duration. And it was what steps are being taken to ensure that redeployment is being done fairly and transparently and what measures are we undertaking to ensure that we retain skilled educators? So we're working on a local agreement with the trade unions in our school so this proposal being drawn up for that. So we'll be asking schools to save any post they have got vacant to make available for those people that potentially could be made redundant. That would help us retain the school workforce although it may be working in another school but still in education. Okay, thank you. That was quite clear. Thank you Claire and Sophie. Councillor David Amos. You on time? No, I can't see any of the hands up so I'm just you on your own. My own, that's fine. Very focused question for me in life of financial implementation. I think if you take that one I can't see any of the hands up. Just for brevity, the deficits will continue to grow I think as you heard previously from Mark there is a slight surplus but the trajectory is that that would get worse and worse and when that eventually if it ever hits the council's properties are then unmanageable. So we don't do this now then we'll get ourselves into a position where we're having to license unmanageable deficits. Okay, okay. All right, thank you. I can't see any other hands up so Councillor Benkine do you want to close? Yeah, obviously this is a hugely important issue and the amount of time that you spend tonight considering this and the representations received and the answers and the questions everybody may count to that and to reiterate it's not an issue of educational given the outstanding schools in Lanmouth but running schools at low capacity is not sustainable and have really made the point earlier that the most expensive resources is the staff and ultimately if the schools are increasingly accumulating that deficit in order for them to manage it on their own that then has an impact on the ability to retain that staff which then could impact on educational quality and I think that the thing that I want to make clear is that both with the last government and the current government, the Council has called on them to change the funding arrangements to support schools particularly like those that we have in Lanmouth where additional need is higher and avoid and reverse the Conservative and Lib Dem process that saw money taken out of schools like we've seen in Lanmouth and diverted elsewhere. So what I'd encourage members of cabinet to reflect on is how these proposals avoid the abrupt closures that we saw with St Martin in the Fields and Ashford with Tennyson's where they came out of the blue and where there was no warning to staff or parents, carers and pupils. I would highlight that earlier one of the speakers who are things not here anymore said that only representatives from Holy Trinity and Fen Stanton support amalgamation actually five of the six schools that we're considering tonight have supported amalgamations and the Holy Trinity and Fen Stanton one obviously coming in response to the possibility of them closing and I think it's important that we recognise that the proposal in the papers is to allow that potential amalgamation to go ahead if a viable option can be brought in and I think that Gerald made when he came up to speak about that where he mentioned about how that viable proposal does need to take into account the implications on wider pupil planning across the area and that it's important for all of us as cabinet members to not reflect on the comments that Councillor Bray made about the office of the schools adjudicator and the situation of Bonneville where we find their outcome there actually to be unreasonable in setting parental preference for one community against another and that this proposal that we've got forward for us tonight is about trying to balance it from the whole borough. So I would recommend that we agree the proposals as they are down in the papers there which is to pursue the amalgamations on the Divine in Christchurch, the amalgamation of King's Avenue and Glenbrook and to support that amended option to close Holy Trinity and Fen Stanton but seek that potential viable option if that can be brought forward. Thank you Councillor. Before I come to the recommendations I just really want to thank everybody for your time and your commitment and your patience tonight in over the many marks and years that these conversations have been had. These are really difficult decisions and really difficult times and I really want to acknowledge the hard work and the commitment and I know a lot of the time people feel that their work is not seen and that's difficult but we really acknowledge what's been going on and the hard work there and I want to thank a brilliant team for the continuing engagement and the hard work of officers and Councillor Kind but basically across the borough and the whole school community. So colleagues the recommendations are on page six of your agenda. I'm going to read them out so we're really clear on what they are. There are four recommendations. One to approve the closure of Fen Stanton Primary School with modifications subject to certain conditions being met. Two to approve the closure of Holy Trinity C of E Primary School with modifications subject to certain conditions being met. Three to approve without modification the amalgamation of Christchurch Primary SW9 and St John the Divine C of E Primary School by closing St John the Divine Primary, sorry St John the Divine C of E Primary School and site and merging into Christchurch Primary SW9 on its site. And four to approve with modification the amalgamation Glenbrooke Primary School with King's Avenue Primary School by closing King's Avenue Primary School and site and merging into Glenbrooke Primary School on its site. Colleagues can I ask are those recommendations agreed? I don't think there's a need to vote on that. Okay thank you very much colleagues and thank you everybody for attending. We're going to move to the next item now. Everyone's welcome to stay and the next item is on selective license soon. The next item we've got, Pashy, we've got 25 minutes. I'm sorry that you've written that short but that was such an important agenda item. The problem is we give them all the time, people. I think we keep going. Tory is that your advice? So we keep going, we're going to move on to, let's just speak up, we're going to move on to selective. Do you want to advise me about anything? Do you want me to stop while you have a quick word? No are you okay? Sorry Jackie we're moving on to another item. We're going to have to speak to the officers afterwards. No I don't want to. I don't know what that goes into. No sorry Jackie. I think it's whether we can continue or not but okay thank you. Selective licensing, would you go for it? Have you? Yeah very well. As a council, we believe good quality housing is a right essential to our thorough plan ambition to make land use available. As a council, we believe good quality housing is a right essential to our thorough plan ambition to make Lambert a place we can qualify. Currently, Lambeth is one of the most borrowed in private renting is often the only option for residents who can't access social and aren't able to purchase their own books. Around a third of housing in the borough are privately rented properties. Whilst most landlords provide good quality safe accommodation, there are some who take advantage of tenants and don't know what their responsibilities are. That is why it's important that the full suite of interventions is not only available to the council but readily used. We are committed to working with good landlords, helping them understand the legislative requirements, providing information for them on our website and as part of our communications campaign and being involved in landlord forums. In addition, we're also committed to our land of tenants advocating for the tenants charter that Lambeth has in place since 2020, exploring tenants forums to provide information about what their rights are, working with the community to help educate. But we're also committed to tackling those landlords that refuse to provide self and healthy housing to tenants in Lambeth. As of last month, the first phase of selected licensing came into force. This is a license. This is the licensing of all private rented properties within four identified units, night sale, Stratton Common and Vale, Stratton Hill East and Stratton St Leonards. This has helped inform the standards that premises must meet, provide a level playing field for all and help protect the tenants rights through preventing section 21 evictions in unlicensed premises but also providing information to them about their rights. Just a reminder, this was designed to tackle road landlords and improve conditions for people living in private rented accommodations in parts of our borough. In the first month, we had over a thousand applications recently. In regards to phase two, if agreed, officers will be seeking approval from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, MHCLG, to designate new selective licensing areas for a further 19 wards. To note, this will not include Waterloo and South Bank, which are the only exceptions. An application will then be submitted to the MHCLG. This month would be likely to go live at the end of quarter one, 2526 at the latest. This is taking into account the likely turnaround time of the MHCLG as well as the statutory month. I will now pass you on to our offices. Thank you very much for taking over then. Have you got anything? Only speak if you've got something to add. No, I don't think there's anything else to add at this point. I don't want to stop you speaking. I don't want to sign up for anyone. Okay, so we've had, the offices relevant for the record are Ganesha Reeve Baptiste, Richard Lebron and Nigel Lambert. We had three councillors who indicated they wish to speak, Councillor Jackie Muldren, Councillor Matthew Bryant and Councillor Nicole Griffiths. But Councillor Jackie Muldren is the only person present. So I'm going to just take you, Jackie. I'll take the course. Nicole did say she had to go at half six. So Jackie, I think we're back to normal timings now and you have three minutes. I think it's very interesting. This issue is not as emotional as the previous one, but it's even more important. It'll have more significance to this borough than what we've been talking about earlier. It obviously doesn't have just the impact of the individual meeting. Lambeth has 40 per cent of its households in private renting. There's only a few other English boroughs that have more. Due to the current affordable housing crisis, private rented homes are in high demand and some landlords are taking advantage. Lambeth's private selective housing schemes have been piloted in my ward and three others since September. It's making an excellent start to a very large task. 40 per cent of households in this borough is a large task. So far, about 10 per cent of our landlords, assuming the better ones, unfortunately, have applied for registration. I have two questions I just wanted to ask. Firstly, Lambeth is using the Metastreet software to hold confidential data on 40 per cent of the households in the borough. Is this data owned by Metastreet or by Lambeth? I'm thinking AI here, you see. What assurances are in place for GDPR best practice and for protection from cyber attack? My second question is about how the licensing team will affect the tenants. Too many tenants are still in fear of eviction to complain about their landlord. Until the Labour government passes the Private Renters' Rights Bill and thus finally eliminates no-fault evictions, tenants are dependent on the council for taking up problems with their landlords. If they do it themselves, they'll be evicted. As the enforcement team will be inspecting many rented homes in the borough, they will begin to identify vulnerable tenants who will be unknown to the council. These vulnerable people will be referred on to other council support services. Are the other supportive council services gearing up to respond to increasing demand for support? I'm thinking social services, I'm thinking temporary accommodation, I'm thinking OTs, all that kind of thing. As we identify them, we're not going to be able to ignore them anymore. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councillor Matthew Bryan has reappeared. I've been missing in action. I had to disappear because both council member and I are meant to be in another meeting at the moment. We're back to normal timings, Matthew. You have three minutes. I'll probably take three minutes because I'm aware it's really late and we had a long discussion on this. My first point is, I think I'm going to raise this in May, obviously there's been a pilot but it only started in September so my question is actually why are we bringing this forward now? I know it's a very important issue but actually shouldn't the Cabinet and the leadership actually take some time to reflect on the lessons from the four wards where we're piloting this? My question is going to be are there any lessons you've learnt? I'd be interested to know if there are but obviously I recognise it's only two months worth so it may not have been time to learn lessons. The second one is, a real concern is, and we won't have any evidence of this yet, I don't know whether there's any evidence from other councils that have applied a selective licence scheme but the real concern there is about will we see private landlords withdrawing from the market and that's a particular concern to me and I think to everybody here because of our temporary accommodation problem that the last thing we want to have is to find private landlords withdrawing and therefore potentially more people coming to the Council in search of temporary accommodation. And then the third point is obviously pleasing to see that in the schedule of charges I think there now is a proposal around discounts for landlords that may have multiple flats or units of accommodation in the same block and I would just be asking whether that would be extended to, may not be in the same block but particularly its charitable organisations actually fall within the net of these private landlords and this was something that I did raise at Cabinet when this first came back in May because it's a particular issue in my own ward where we've got the Hayes Dashwood Foundation which owns about 175 properties in two rows. They're actually set up under Covenant for, the charitable beneficiaries are primarily former members of the Armed Services at the moment, they're going to have to pay 175 times the fee here which is actually a huge amount of money and a huge pressure on them and bearing in mind they are a charitable organisation. Would that discount be extended to them? Those are my three points, thank you. Okay, thank you very much Councillor May. So Venetia, am I coming to you? Who am I going to to answer all those questions? I can start and then Richard and Nigel will give me one more point. So I think the first question was around the mentor street data, that data is owned by us, we do have a contract that covers everything around private security, so we're pretty comfortable and confident in that. The next question, Chair, was around Renfrew's Bill and whether we will identify vulnerable tenants and what we might do. We do have a selective license which does include colleagues from social care and housing. We are very aware that in some boroughs people identify individuals who court, for example, we know they might need some social fair support, so there is a mechanism in place that will help us to address that to pass people on as required. I think I'll turn to Richard and Nigel. Thank you, moving on to the last three questions. I know it's been phased as a pilot, but it was actually phase one, the four awards, and the reason was obviously to learn lessons from it, but more about the administration side, which includes Metastreet and getting landlords on board and actually ensuring that process from website to database, money, the conditions, all that aspect was working well, which we have made some adjustments. We have learned some lessons, but actually phase two, as we said, won't come into play until July next year, so we've actually got quite a long phase between phase one and phase two to actually mitigate any other things that come up that we're not expecting, the lessons learned and actually report back to the programme board that we mentioned. In terms of landlords withdrawing from the market, there's 17 other schemes in London and there's no evidence that we've seen or any evidence they've reported of landlords withdrawing from the market. There are other reasons why landlords withdraw, obviously you see that with the budget and reasons around that, but when it comes to selective licensing, even independent surveys, surveys by government as well, have shown no indication that selective licensing drives people out of the market. And the last one about the discounts. Yes, there is a discount for multiple flats, the reason being the administration for those is much less for us when we deal with it. So if you've got five flats from the same landlords, it's going to be the five sets of the same paperwork, same risk assessment, same kind of approach, and therefore the administration side is less of a burden, thus the discount. I do understand around charities, but it's a point we made last time as well, which is, well, we appreciate the charities and not a charity that specialise in housing. Now, selective is all about making sure standards are actually met, minimum standards. So even in charitable foundations, private rented sector, all these aspects, the standards still need to be met, we still need to inspect and the paperwork and the administration and the cost still remains the same for the council. All right, thank you. I think that answered all the questions. OK. Colleagues, any questions or quotes? Councillor Daniel Dillaport. Thank you, church. I fully welcome for my orders of the original ones in phase one because there's been lots of problems with poor qualities in the private sector. It's reduced to higher level, obviously this only applies to the rented sector when it applies to one household with two friends sharing. There's also a significant problem with HMOs, particularly in those wards that are in phase one. Just to give colleagues an assurance, we've just finished a consultation and have a good look to tackle that through the planning system because with HMOs, obviously they're an important part of the tenure mix that we have in Lambeth. The balance has to be right and it's not an excuse for dumbing down standards in those properties, which is what we've seen in wards like mine. So at some point next year we'll be bringing forward the decision following that consultation on whether we will implement an Article 4 in two of those wards from phase one. I was jumping on a veil and set limits to try and regulate and scrutinise HMOs and those two boards more effectively, which will hopefully complement the work going on in this report as well. Thanks. Thank you very much. Councillor Fred Cowell. It was just to say two things. First of all, to welcome the report overall. I do understand and I've discussed this extensively because I did have the question that Councillor Bryant had about having to do the two elements next to each other. And there is obviously a particular statutory process that we need to adhere to. And it's very important to hear from your answer on that. We're going to get the opportunity before July next year to really look at some of the findings from it, make appropriate recommendations and tackle that as well. And I think that's really driving in terms of moving forward in this. I think also the second thing as well is to say very quickly to say this, is that when we considered this proposal as the EIO panel, we went through different categories of landlords extensively, including landlords that may be renting for religious reasons or other forms of things where there may be charitable purposes there. And we also had to weigh this against the decision to be taken as a borough to prevent socioeconomic status as well and the individuals living within those properties need this level of protection. So I think this proposal overall strikes the balance correctly, even though obviously there are concerns about the very bespoke natures of different types of landlords out there doing some quite noble and charitable functions. We still do need to be concerned about the individuals living in their properties. So I think that's a really important point. I think that's a really important point. I'm very, very proud of that. I think that's a really important point. I think that's a really, really important point. I think that's a really important point. I think that's a really important point. I think that's a really important point. I think that's a really important point. I'm very, very proud of that and I think that's a really important point. Thank you. All right. Well, colleagues, thank you for that. There are five recommendations for us on this paper and they're all on page 1,224. Did anyone get any sleep in the last week? Okay. I'm not going to read all these out. Is that okay? Yeah. They are on page 1,224, all four of them. Can I just ask, are those recommendations agreed? Agreed. Thank you very much, colleagues. And that concludes this evening's business. Thank you for agreeing to the extension of guillotine. The next cabinet meeting is scheduled to place on Monday, the 9th of December, midnight, and it said to say close, close. [BLANK_AUDIO]