Transcript

Right, good evening, everyone. I make it seven o'clock. Excuse me. Welcome to this meeting of the Cabinet. I'm Councillor Shantanu Rajuat, Leader of the Council and Chair of this meeting. I'm joined around the table by my colleagues on Cabinet, who will be introducing themselves as they speak. We also have joining us via a standing invite, the Leader of the Opposition, Councillor Thompson, and the Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Councillor Thompson, Councillor Stowe Raza as well. You're both very welcome. Both Councillor Thompson and Councillor Raza do not take part in the decision-making process, but are welcome to ask questions. I'm also joined around the table by officers of the Council who also do not take part in the decision-making process, but are here to offer any expert clarification as required. We've got a fairly light but mighty agenda this evening, so lots of interesting things to discuss. I'm going to start with the first item on the agenda. Oh no, actually, before I start on the first item, a new face around the table. Can we welcome Elliot Brooks, who's stepping in as our Interim Director of Housing, Assets and Communities? Not in that order. In a version of that order, so you're very welcome, Elliot, as well. Right, the first item on the agenda is apologies for absence. I've got apologies from Councillor Sampson and Councillor Bruce. I think everyone else is here. Oh, and Councillor Shivraj Garawal as well. Sorry, beg your pardon. Yeah. Are there any declarations of interest from members? No. Any communications from members? And colleagues, can I just draw your attention to the Monitoring Officer's note on interest as well? Sorry. Right, we then move on to the minutes of the meeting held on 12th of November. That's page 7 onwards. I'll take them page by page for accuracy and matters arising. Page 7, page 8, page 9, page 10, page 11, and finally page 12. All agreed? Thank you very much, colleagues. Right, we then move on to the first substantive item on the agenda. This is an update relating to the purchase of 164 homes at Sion Lane in Brentford. As Councillor Bruce isn't here, I'll be introducing this item. So just a little bit of background on this. A previous subcommittee of this Cabinet, known as the Affordable Housing Committee, in December 2020, approved the purchase of 164 homes at the Sion Lane development, often known as Tesco Homebase, for use as council housing. You'll recall the planning committee resolved to grant planning permission on the 8th of April 2021. And then the Secretary of State, after a bit of a gap, approved the scheme, following the use of call-in powers in December 23. So in the gap between the original council approval and the Secretary of State's approval, there were several changes to fire safety regulations, as well as new design requirements. And details of that can be found in 4.5 and 4.6 of the report before you. These changes have led to an increase in the cost of the development. The developer approached the council to review the agreed purchase price, given the increase in costs associated with the development. It goes without saying, as a council, we are committed to delivering affordable housing and ensuring we are securing the best value for money when doing so. Our officers here have reviewed the way we can fund the scheme to ensure we can still deliver the 164 much-needed council homes. And we've secured an additional grant from the GLA and are using our right to buy receipts more effectively, as per the changes the national government made in July. And further information on this can be seen in 4.7 to 4.10 of the report. This new approach to the way we've funded this scheme means that although the purchase price is increasing, we can reduce the borrowing required to deliver the affordable homes. And in addition, the changes to the design that are currently being made mean more dual-aspect units and a better mix of housing types, which will only benefit our residents. So overall, whilst it looks like it is an increase, it does work out to be good value for the council and actually will cost less than what we can currently build a council home for. So with that, I formally move the report. Council Barth, would you mind seconding it? Yeah, thank you. I'm happy to second that. Thank you very much, Council Barth. Right, it's been moved and seconded. It's open for discussion and debate. Anybody, any questions, comments on this one? No? Okay. Right. So then we'll move straight to the vote on this one, which are on page 13 of your report. One and two. Can I see all those in favour? So that is carried. Thank you very much, colleagues. Okay. Next one. I'm afraid it's a heavy agenda of me speaking, so my apologies on that. The next item is the one-hound financial strategy update. And members will note there is an exempt appendix to this. So this is an update as we lead into setting the budget in February. Colleagues, you'll know that we've had several updates over the last year come to both Cabinet and Council. It is very, very challenging. It's not just challenging for Hounslow, it's challenging across London and across local government in terms of financing. And I know that there are conversations going on with the new government around local government financing. But nonetheless, we need to address the issue that we have before us. And it's more than just addressing the savings. It is about transforming the services that our residents use and interact with for long-term benefit. So whilst, of course, attention is drawn to proposals that will go to overview and scrutiny in January for further consideration, actually, this report gives a very good commentary on what is going on across the country, across this sector, but also here in Hounslow, where we're seeing a perfect storm of inflation and demand-led services increasing and the cost of those going up. As a Cabinet, in fact, as Cabinet, you will be aware, I've been pushing you very hard and pushing myself very hard, as well as officers, that these proposals and anything that comes forward is thoroughly tested. Nothing is off the table and must be, once agreed, subject to, obviously, comments from scrutiny delivered in the long term and then followed through as well in terms of giving assurance to our taxpayers that we are doing everything that we can with the agreements that we have. So it's a very, very comprehensive report. It talks a lot about what's going on both in Hounslow and across the country and across the sector as well. And then you've got the schedule of proposals that will go to scrutiny in January. And with that, I formally move the report. Councillor Siddharth, would you second? I second the report. Thank you very much. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. It's now open for discussion and debate. Any comments? Councillor Dunn. Yeah, thank you. Councillor Catherine Dunn, Cabinet Member for Climate, Environment and Transport. Another difficult financial conclusion to come to, and I appreciate we haven't finished the process yet. And of course, it is very important that this report will go to scrutiny and there are still things that are unknown. But unfortunately, we do know that there was a large black hole within the budget and the spending plans that we had to make adjustments in order to be able to fill. And everyone around this table has worked really hard in making those difficult decisions, examining everything within our portfolios to see where we can make savings, where we can increase income to the council, how we can do this whilst having the least effect on our residents, whilst certainly protecting the most vulnerable residents, which is, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, is a theme for what we do every year with this council. Still various unknowns in terms of the level of support that the government will be able to give us this year in terms of our council tax base, all of those things. But I think just the fact that we've got to this point and we are confident that we are still a council that is financially prudent, that is financially stable, is not about to fall over, is testament to the work of the officers and the cabinet members and everyone who's assisted us. So just a reminder, I suppose, to people who are listening as well about, I know it can seem difficult when everything seems like things, prices are going up and council tax might go up, might not go up. And I think people sometimes don't realise some of the things that we are spending money on and the reasons we have to do that. And so adult social care, special educational needs, still with the housing crisis and the money that we have to spend on temporary accommodation. These are the big ticket items that we have sought to protect, and that's why we've got to the place we have with the proposals that are in today's report. So there will be things that people don't like in it, including probably all of us. On the other hand, we try as much as we can to improve the way we do things, make things more efficient where we can, and sometimes that's very much a part of the saving process as well. So it's not all doom and gloom, and I think we can be confident that we will come out of this, and then hopefully in future years with longer term settlements that give us that much more stable basis in order to be making these decisions on. So I'm very happy to vote for the report, but also glad that there's still going to be that scrutiny process, because it's important that these conclusions that we've come to, hopefully everyone around this table that has come to and going to vote for in a moment, will be further scrutinised by other colleagues on the council. Thank you, Councillor Dunn. Anyone else? I'll take Councillor Thompson first and Councillor Sheehan. Obviously for me, there's another time, another place to make these sort of party critical points. We'll leave that to February, but I am conscious, obviously, looking over this, that this is not an easy process, and some of these measures would seem at first glance to be negatively impacting on some of the priorities that you think are important, and we all do, in terms of reducing crime or planting more trees and all the rest of that. I suppose my only question is in terms of process. I think I said last year at Borough Council that we seem to have moved away from many real attempts to engage residents. You know, it's fine for scrutiny to have a whore over this. It's, you know, we were very well served by the director there who came to our group and just described the bigger picture, because we know this is not an easy process to go through. But again, looking at some of the headlines here, what's available to the public, it is hard to get a sense of what it actually means, you know, what will it mean for me? So when we, for example, are, you know, bringing the Hounslow's Highways Network into line with the average for London, does that just mean more potholes, more cracks and less repairs? Or does it? It's very hard to tell from what's in front of us. So is there, this year round, taking on board the time constraints and the limitations, and we haven't got the big picture yet because the announcement's not being made, maybe tomorrow, maybe Friday, who knows what's going to happen. Is there any thought in this process to how we can sort of try to engage with residents, maybe as a communication exercise and education? As Councillor Dunne said, most of what the council spends are the statutory vital services that transform people's lives. But for most residents, it's the street lights, the potholes, the trees that matter to them. So have we given any thought this year to maybe try and do it a little bit better? Okay. Thank you very much, Councillor Salman Shaheen, Cabinet Member for Culture, Leisure and Public Spaces. I want to talk a little bit about some of the items in this. And I think, Lida, as you said, as Councillor Dunne said, as Councillor Thompson said, there are points of pain in here, and I think we have to recognise that. But there also, I do think there are also opportunities in here. There are opportunities to do things better. And when budgets are limited, when choices are difficult, there are opportunities to improve the way we do things. And some of that detail may be lost in the report itself as set out. But let's look at a few items from my portfolio, for example. We can talk about the naturalisation of certain areas of parks. Now, that's an opportunity. We can create really interesting, fun areas of parks that are havens for wildlife that really support our objectives to green the borough. And if that comes with a couple of K of saving based on the maintenance budgets of parks, that's a bonus. But it's not about trimming the maintenance budget of parks. It's about doing things better, about creating better parks for our residents and using that money in a smarter way. We can look in the same vein at the naturalisation of play areas. How do we use the natural features around us, features that aren't going to rust, to make our play areas better and more enduring and actually more fun for kids to be able to play amongst nature? I think that's an opportunity to be had with a little bit of cost savings with it. And also, we have to look at the opportunities that we have in our parks and open spaces. We have one of the greenest boroughs in London. We have some of the best green spaces in the capital. We have some amazing historic houses. There are ample opportunities for filmmaking. There are ample opportunities for more festivals and events in our public spaces. And I think that's something we absolutely have to explore. I don't think we've fully explored it yet. And I think that's an opportunity to bring in money also to serve the objective, which I think should always be our North Star, which is to create a destination borough for Hounslow, for us to be far more than just a flight path. And if we can do that and bring in money for the borough at the same time, I think that is a fantastic opportunity for us. Yep, couldn't agree more. Thank you, Councillor Sheen. Councillor Sidhu. Thank you, Leader. Councillor Agwin De Sidhu, lead member for public safety, regulatory services and enforcement. And in my portfolio, we looked into the savings. But this one is not a saving. It's like a deterrent, increasing the fixed penalty notices from £400 to £1,000. That would increase revenue. Plus, it will also, to the public, that like fly tippings, we are serious about it. And we are increasing the fine from £400 to £2,000. That will help us with the revenue and deterrent. And if the fly tippings reduced, we can make some savings with high waste in the long run. Thank you. Councillor Barth. Thank you, Leader. Councillor Lily Barth, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health. So, I have the portfolio of adult social care services, which are, obviously, you know, statutory services. And it's always quite a challenge, I think, when you are overseeing statutory services to make sure that when you look at any savings or efficiencies, that they don't sort of compromise your ability to deliver a statutory legal service. So, but as you said, we have to look at all of the services, which we've done here. And I just wanted to reassure people, although there are huge challenges in adult social care, not just now, but going forward in the future as well. And I don't think we're the only local authority. I think probably the vast majority of local authorities across the country are experiencing the same challenges that we have. But we are looking at some efficiencies. But I can say that at this present time, there aren't any cuts to services as such. We are looking at ways where we can maximise efficiencies. And our corporate commitment and priorities have always been to make sure that we can support vulnerable residents as best as we possibly can. And hopefully, you'll be able to get flavour of this and some of the sort of proposals that we put forward in the future, which are around, for example, building extra care housing. So that we're not going out to the market and sort of spending a lot of money when we can do that ourselves. So, yes, there are huge challenges and there are going to be challenges moving forward as well. But, yeah, as Councillor Shaheen said, opportunities as well. But I did actually want to take this opportunity to thank all the officers for doing some of this because it is really painful. And, you know, it can be quite worrying in terms of what, you know, what impacts, you know, some of our decisions can make. But I'm pleased that we continue to be quite innovative and do our best to protect some of our most vulnerable residents. So, yeah. Thank you, Councillor Barth. I can't see anyone else indicating. So I'll sum up and answer some of the points. Yeah, Councillor Dunne's absolutely right. You know, we've managed the finances really, really well. And the chronic underfunding of local government means that actually some very good councils in London, across the country, will fall over through no fault of their own. And that's a really sad thing to see, considering we are the first line and probably the most efficient part of government, certainly over the recent past. So that's absolutely right. And Councillor Sheen's right. We need to think about things differently, work smarter, transform the way we offer our services and think about where there are things happening, perhaps in mild duplication and rationalise those as well. To your point, Councillor Thompson. I do take slight issue, Councillor Thompson, in one of your points around talking with residents. We do it every year. There is a commons plan that underpins all of this. And obviously, I'm happy to talk to that at scrutiny. And that will really kick off from January. But that does include taking this out. I appreciate in this report, it's very high level. The detail will go to scrutiny and that will be in the public domain as well for challenge. So, it's been moved and seconded. We've had a good debate on it. I'll move to the vote on this. The recommendations are on page 23, A, B and C. Can I see all those in favour? That is carried. Thank you very much. Right. We then move on to agenda item five. Five, yep. Which is the quarterly performance reporting for quarter two. A report that Cabinet will be very aware of. I talked in the item just now about being able to monitor the commitments we make. This is a very lengthy document looking at how we are performing against our KPIs, which are derived from the corporate plan. And that's what I was going to say on it. There's a lot of detail in there. Happy to take any questions. I've got a feeling Councillor Dunn is going to draw out an individual item. Getting there first. But I formally moved the report. Councillor Dunn, do you want to second it? Yeah, happy to second the report. Shall I speak now? Look, you don't have to scroll far because it's the first item in the appendix, which is the borough-wide carbon emissions, which I just wanted to comment briefly on tonight. Because this is a new piece of information. It's an annual target and it's something that we just have got the data for, for the year 2022. So we rely on government data for this, which is why it's a couple of years behind, obviously calculating the carbon emissions for the whole country. It can take some time. And so we can see from this that the carbon emissions for the borough in 2022 had decreased by 3% compared to 2021, which is a small decrease, but nevertheless a decrease. And the commentary there says that this is due largely to decarbonisation of the electricity grid and the rollout of renewable energy. So we now have, thanks to the new government, we have GB Energy. We have a target to be producing our renewable energy as a country by 2030. And so that decarbonisation of the grid will continue. In tandem with that, we have to be doing things like reducing gas use for heating housing across the borough. And of course, the other big carbon emitter is transport. And as you know, as hopefully residents will know, we have been consulting recently on our new transport strategy, which again should help us to reduce the carbon emissions from transport, help us shift to more cleaner, sustainable forms of transport, particularly walking, cycling and public transport. And of course, making sure that that public transport is as environmentally friendly as possible. So things like rolling out electric buses, making sure that people have access to reliable train services, ensuring that people feel they can walk and cycle safely around the borough will all help with that. On the homes, the gas that is used to power currently, or to heat the majority of homes in the borough, that is another big challenge, very big challenge. But we have two very big projects in the pipeline, which are going to address that. One is our net zero neighbourhoods project, which is leveraging private finance, well, a mixture of private and public finance, really, in order to retrofit homes across the borough and provide renewable energy sources, renewable heat sources for them. We had a big showcase day just recently because we are a pilot borough for net zero neighbourhoods, along with a few other areas of the country. We had the deputy mayor for energy and environment, Mete Koban, come along to see and talk to our residents who've been involved in helping us shape this. We have a resident, we have a resident, we've recruited resident researchers who are helping us, they're paid, to help us develop this strategy. And they work with larger groups of residents in some of the pilot areas that we've identified for this. And the second big project is the heat network project that we are currently developing feasibility for, a heat network that could potentially, if all goes to plan, could serve big parts of the borough with renewable heat source. So it's all very exciting. There's still a long way to go, but something that I am very enthusiastic and positive about. Thank you, Councillor Dunn, I think we all are, looking forward to seeing those come forward. Good, it's been moved and seconded, it's now open for comments and questions. Anybody? Councillor Thompson, would you mind referencing the page that you... Yeah, just a couple of areas. On page 58, hoping I've got the same version as everybody else. Just in light of what Councillor Dunn was saying, obviously, this is a vital, important area and a lot of more work to be done. But I think, therefore, I'm assuming you shared my disappointment that we're not doing particularly well in terms of rolling out the electric vehicle charging points. There's been none since for this year. And obviously, as that market itself seems to be stalling and folks seem to be hesitant to buy electric vehicles, the lack of suitable charging points is an issue. But I'm pleased to see within the report that we will be perhaps moving towards that, and that will be, you know, speeding up. And then the only other one to pick up on, because I think this is one that perhaps does impact on a lot of people, really, is to do with housing. And it's the non-emergency responsive repair times. We are well away from where we need to be. These might be quite small repairs, but I'm guessing most of them do make a big difference to the quality of life of folks living in those homes. I read with slightly disbelief that we've just, in October, restarted having the meetings with some of the repairers. I would have thought that was happening already, but that's the bottom, sorry, page 73. And I suppose linked to housing, we just need to get the response times to, on page 77, the response times to the ombudsman complaints, you know, 30%, 29%, 24% is just not acceptable, especially since the target is, you know, in the high 70s and, you know, ideally 100, isn't it? But that, they're probably linked together, don't they? If you get the repairs done quicker, folks aren't going to be complaining about it. So there's a real incentive there, I think, for housing to knock some heads together, get a bit more joined up thinking between all the providers, and to ensure that the residents get the windows and the boilers and whatever else they need fixing ASAP. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. I'll come back to those points in summing up. I wouldn't normally allow it, but Councillor Dunn, do you want to respond to the charging point one? Yeah, thanks. Just briefly to say, I acknowledge we have, we've had a lot of challenges in that area, and I would much prefer, yeah, I was hoping we'd be a lot further ahead by now. I still think we're going to meet our target in terms of providing the 2,000 charge points, but obviously, yeah, it is a bit disappointing, but we are moving on, I mean, just, you know, we had issues around government funding, which took much longer to get hold of than we expected. There were issues around procurement and so on, but we are in a much, I think now we're in a much better position, and obviously going into 2025, I think we'll start to see that roll out, which will help us get towards that 2026 target. Thank you. I can't see anyone else indicating. So just to take your two points, obviously, to state perhaps the obvious, this is Q2, so the data is a little bit historic, but two very valid questions, actually, and they're questions that with the Cabinet and me, and working with Councillor Sampson, we've been pushing on, certainly on the repairs, there is a whole review of that whole service that is already made a number of recommendations that are being implemented, and there is more to come in that, so we absolutely acknowledge for us, the most important thing for our residents is that the repair is done when they say it's going to be done, and it's done the first time, and that's absolutely important. It's important that we're transparent where we haven't done it properly up until now, but I think what you'll see in Q3 is an improvement in that. On the Ombudsman, obviously, there was a load of changes, regulatory changes that came in, which facilitated, I believe, I'm looking to Mandy a little bit, a new system that needed to be implemented that is now in place, so I think, again, you're going to see, yeah, the performance improve. It's not going to be an overnight fix, of course, but certainly we'll start seeing we're going in the right direction on those, but absolutely, we want to be transparent about those and also talk about how we're improving on those performance issues. Okay, I can't see anyone else indicating, so the recommendation on this is on page 52, just one there. Can I see all those in favour? That is carried. Excellent. Thank you very much. Right. I have not been, there haven't been any referrals from other council committees. I've not been notified of any urgent business. Would someone mind moving exclusion of the press public? Council of Bath, second number, Council of Chowdhury. Is that agreed? Agreed. Right, to those at home, thank you very much for joining us. We're going to have to leave you here. Have a lovely Christmas, and those that are public in the gallery, you'll also have to sling your hook as well. Everyone looks confused when I say that. Well, maybe, maybe.