Transcript

Thank you. The meeting is being recorded and is being broadcast live. The recording of tonight's meeting may also be used for quality and training purposes. While we hope everything runs smoothly, please be patient if we hit some challenges in this virtual environment. In the event that technical issues require the meeting to be adjourned and it can't be restarted within a few minutes, further updates will be posted on the Council's Democracy Twitter account, which is at LBL Democracy. Can I just remind those of what's physically in the room that microphones are fitted into the ceiling? They are always on and can pick up what we say, even if you whisper. Fire exits exit from the room either door or go upstairs and go upstairs to street level. The toilets, there's an accessible toilet just outside the right-hand side of the room. We've received no apologies for this evening. Do any members have any declarations of peculiar interest? Thank you. I'd also like to go on. I don't have any disclosure or peculiar interest in any matter to be considered this evening. Rather than go around and do introductions, I'll ask officers to introduce themselves as they speak on their items. But I would like to make one introduction. We have Xena Cook joining for the first quarter of the committee joining. I don't know if you want to introduce or can you introduce yourself, please, sir? I'm very pleased to have you here on the committee joining us. So we'll move to the next agenda item. Do members agree that the minutes of the meeting on Thursday, the 28th of November represents an accurate record of discussion? Thanks. Thanks. I note that the minutes of the meeting on Thursday, the 28th of November are approved. So we'll move on to agenda item three, which is the work programme in action one through blog. So I'll invite the opening of the beaker from Democratic Services to introduce the item. Good evening, everyone. This is the standard report that actually comes to the corporate committee. Appendix A is the work programme for 25-25-26. Appendix B is the action slot. Prescribed there are five outstanding items and actions, thanks to Xena, that need to be completed. And this has been actively followed up. And if you want them, let's say, for 2017. I have a discussion with the 4H now, I'm going to prove that I would exit our first actions so that they need to be able to understand it to fight them out. And I do believe the members have certainly received them. I appreciate the monogamy zones now today and certainly going forward with the plans to make sure that the questions as well will be going in front of their comments and comments. So do I have any questions on the work programme? No questions asking that? All right. If there's no further questions on the committee, the committee will keep the item by note of the report in the work programme. So we'll move on to the next item of the business, which is gender item 4, and it's a spotlight item on corporate risks. So I'd like Paul Rock, assistant director for internal orders and counterpart to introduce the item. Thank you, chair. I'm here on behalf of James, who unfortunately isn't able to attend this evening and we might be somewhat limited by IT because this item, as the chair has rightly pointed out, is reserved for a risk spotlight report and discussion. But we didn't have one programmed for this particular meeting, so I wanted to use it as an opportunity to discuss with the committee what the current or what the previous reported risks were to you and which you would like to appear on a future programme or future item for a risk spotlight. And my hope was that I was going to share a copy of the top 10 risks with you and I have just emailed it to all members of the committee and LOCO in the hope that we might be able to project it on the screen. Unfortunately, we can't. So we're somewhat limited by IT at the moment to inform the discussion. And I should say that the item I just emailed you, the PDF page I've entitled in the absence of IT, these are our risks. Just to clarify, these are not our risks because we don't have IT. These are these are just the risks that are on the corporate risk register and strategic risk register at the moment for discussion. I can see a number of the committee members have got laptops and therefore may be able to see the risks. So perhaps we can have a discussion if we can. We'll do it if this is the top 10 risk answers. Could you read through the 10 so that we. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I don't think this is your answer. We can get it pretty quickly. I mean, if you just want to read through the title of each of the 10 risks. Yeah. I think that and we have seen these before. So we can. Yes. If you jog on it. Sure. What we'd like to see. Okay. So I'll take a risks in order of the inherent risk score and current risk score. So there are 10 risks in total. The first is in relation to financial planning and typically, you know, our expenditure exceeding budgets and or income targets. So a general risk around our financial position. The second risk is around the national local economic conditions impacting on accessibility of investment and business opportunities and growth for the community. The third is around poverty or increase in poverty and debt amongst vulnerable residents. The fourth is our cyber attack risk, which I'm sure you agree most councils have. The fifth is on climate emergency and a risk that we may have insufficient funding to deliver fully on our net zero ambitions for 2030. Six is around a high and increasing levels of serious youth violence. Seven is on workforce planning and making sure that we have the capacity issues. And if we don't, there is a risk that we'll have delays in achievement of our key outcomes. Eight is a failure is a risk of failing to deliver a minimum of 500 affordable homes by 2030. Nine is on the failure, the risk of failure of a major contractor or supplier. And ten is around pupil placement planning and pupil numbers decreasing, impacting on services by itself, of course, schools themselves. So those very briefly are our top ten risks on the corporate and strategic risk registers. And moving forward across the remainder of this financial year and its next financial year, we would obviously like to bring to you a risk spotlight item to give you the opportunity to delve into a particular risk. And we would arrange for the risk owner, probably their director, if not their corporate director, to come along and talk to you about that risk and then be available to you to answer any questions you may have and seek the reassurance you would like on those risks. I'll stop then. Yes, I mean, I'm sure it will have an interest in most of these. I don't know if I can have an interest in a view, but I'll open it up to any of the committee members. Is there anything that stands out as a preference for what we'd like to see at the next committee? I'd make a comment on the cyber attack risk. I think there's probably only limited amount that we could discuss in the public forum in terms of the risks or vulnerabilities that we hold there. Yes. And whilst I think that is of interest, I think that if that's something that the committee wants to know more about, we would discuss the outside of the public forum. It's very big risk. So Chair, you do have the opportunity for a part two discussion if you wanted to be a bit more detailed on that particular risk. Yeah, yeah. Any references for case members as to risks that anyone can? I guess we can't just find what we think about from maybe part of the major contract or supply. Yeah. So it's still a very big movement. Yeah. Yeah. Six. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is that something that we can bring to the next? Yeah. So failure of a major contract or supplier. Yeah. That particular. Is there any particular area of the council you're most concerned about? I think. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it would probably be counseling services. And that would also be just picking up obviously the fact that we did have a situation a year ago where 410 actually asked to come out and they, I think they've blocked contracts for responsive repairs. And I think they had the contract in the north of the borough government and they actually asked to come out of that contract so they could deliver on it. I think I've got this correct. So that's actually an example where you actually have, it was not a failure of a contractor but the technical contract saying it's no longer available. It's no longer available. And also actually to an extent we've actually enhanced our risk because we are awarded that the contract they had to wait who were the other major contractor. So actually now we put more of our eggs in one basket. So actually as an organization I think we have exposed ourselves to more risk. There are also reasons why we did that, but I think it would be useful. The other reason I think it would be, I think it's a very good list is Mr. Ted, but the way I would look at it as well is that there are some of these ones where the council can do more to mitigate the risk. And there's some where actually we are just a player. So for instance, you know, it's very important the risk behind increasing levels of serious youth violence, but actually there's a whole load of factors that lead to that. And not all of them were within the control of the council, whereas actually the failure of a contractor is definitely within them. But the other two important ones to me are the failure to deliver a minimum of 500 affordable homes, which is largely in the controls council, and the cyber security one that you've entered, which is a home. Well, there are lots of work I'm sure has been done for basically. How's that? There's been one that's contracting to the, what am I going through? Is there a council grants sort of about housing contractor in all things with waste services? Waste services? Be certain. It's just so good to have done. Yeah. If we're in that spotlight, can we delve into specific contracts? Sure. I mean, ultimately you can choose to, you know, if it's related clearly to a risk of governance or internal control, then yes, you can delve into particular areas of that risk. My only caution would be just managing the size of the agenda for you, really. I certainly wouldn't recommend more than two, and perhaps depending on the size of the risk and the paper that you're being presented and the opportunity for discussion, you might only want one. I mean, at the moment I've captured three areas of the risk. So cyber attack, failure of a major contractor or supplier, referencing housing services and waste and failures to deliver 500 homes. So that's a good start in terms of our program of risk spotlights because equally you want to keep it fluid. There might be emerging risks that that pique your interest and you would like reassurance on. So can we stick with the failure of contractor and supplier for the next one? Yeah. My suggestion is if we do want to have a spotlight on cyber attack and do that. We either haven't got it offline or they'll have a quiet meeting. I don't think there's too much that we need to be able to discuss it with them. Yes, absolutely. We can speak with you outside the committee chair and you can have a discussion of how best you'd like to be informed on that risk. And then we've got the failure to deliver homes as the third option. Should we spare the failure to deliver homes for the meeting after so that we can do what we need to contract to all this? Sorry chair, I would recommend that you have more than one risk spotlight item per meeting. Yeah, that would be good. So in terms of the contract related risk, if it's helpful to see if you can answer some questions. But there are key lines in firing agreements with you so that we can then send that to our colleagues who manage those. In fact, they don't know if they were about mortgages. Maybe you'll be more interested in identifying around which things I'm thinking about. That's helpful. We could draw some structure and that would at least let you all be clear about what you're expecting to see and then probably be clear about what you're expecting to see. Yeah. Just to close it off with the kind of live contracts that you're doing at the moment, which is where a lot of us have questions on. Is there any, I guess, legal restriction around anything that's ongoing with those contracts at the moment in terms of if there's any penalties or performance or anything that's being managed? Yeah. I would suggest that I would suggest that anything that might be commercial confidential or anything that is not a fair thing to share. Your skill and so on. Again, you may have skills to move into part two and that's why I think that we should be clear about your key lines being fired. Yeah. I'm very happy to see if that works for you as a president coach. Yeah. We can apply that to which sort of. Yeah. Any further questions from Chris members? All right. In that case, I think that concludes the agenda item. So we'll agree with the suggestions made. So we'll move to the next item of this business, which is agenda item five, which is the calculations of council tax base and national non-domestic rates return. And I'll invite Greg Pike, interim group manager, strategic finance, to introduce the report. Oh, sure Greg is online. I don't apologize to you. I won't get people to attend today, but I'm very happy to go to the court if that's helpful. It's a very straightforward. Yeah, if you're happy to do that, that would be great. Absolutely. And so you'll be aware of this is one of your responsibilities. So you'll be aware that every year we're required to set the council tax base. We're also required to finalise and approve the national non-domestic rates return to the government authority. This report is basically cutting out what that documentation is and making recommendations to you in terms of the approval of that documentation. And also seeking your approval to delegate to move responding to the changes that may be required. The deadline for the GLA application is tomorrow. So this needs to be implemented properly for the three months. So we're going to need to be able to do three months to go back on that. Do you have any questions? Yeah, Councillor Lloyd. Yeah. The first question was just. I'm interested to see we are still working. This is Paragraph 218. And apart from working the assumption of a collection rate of 96.5%. I'm just wondering, how does that compare with neighbouring boroughs while the boroughs are in London? And are there any opportunities to try to increase that? So I'm very happy to take away an action to provide comparative data. Certainly we'd be able to do that for the completed financial years. Such information is for the latest available. Being in collections and sometimes being as soon as the different counties have different ranges about numbers of months divided, et cetera. But we can certainly have that. I'm not close enough to the Lamberts with a fit position to know that it will not. My six is a figure that we are applying and stretched on to. But again, I'm very happy to take that away and find out. But I do know that colleagues, certainly in Class of the Max, are maximising every opportunity to collect what is appropriately due to us. And that includes sort of outstanding tax as well as sort of a bit of billing. So I'm very happy to take that away. If the report's not here, you may not have available, Zena, was I'm just wanting to clarification on what the arrangements are now is from April 2025, in regard to second homes, because the table on page 30 implies that we still give you 100% discount. implies that we're still giving 100% discount on second homes, but paragraph 2.2.20 actually implies that actually we're now having 100% household tax premium. So that's the sort of, they're two different positions there, trying to clarify what are the actual approaches now to second homes. That's a very good point. I think we will make sure that the table is clearer, because it does say sort of recommended discounts for premiums to be in the cloud, but you're absolutely worth second homes. To discretionary or tripletly, the point made in paragraph 2.19, 2.20, 2.2. Would I ask, following up from that, how many second homes fall into this category? How much do you ascertain whether it is a second show? Do people, presumably, claim the discount on the basis that it's a second show? Do people claim the discount on the basis that it's a second show? How much do you ascertain whether it is a second show? Do people, presumably, they claim they claim the discount on the basis that it's a second show? I'd need to check for how that's tested made. There are a range of measures. Some, some counselors, it's been talking in the news, um, credit reference pages and type data to identify when the homes are being locked. There is, um, I'm sure there is a self-process, um, but I'm trying to refer back to that as well. I suppose, again, I told you I'm not giving you the answer here now, but certainly, yeah, I'm trying to move on to the other company. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah, it would be good to have that information followed up. I don't think that would impact the decision to approve the recommendations. Um, so I'll ask if there are no further questions. Can we conclude the item by approving the recommendation sets on the agenda? Yeah, so that's, um, that's agreed and we'll notice of the information that you'll send that to the syllabus have. Um, so we'll move to the next agenda item, um, which is internal audit and counterpart for progress from 2020 to 2025. So I'll invite Paul Roch, the Assistant Director, internal audit and counterpart to introduce the approval. Thank you, Chair. Um, I've got a few items to run through with the committee this evening. I thank you all of your favourites and I think the initial introduction brief, but I do need to discuss with you the new standards that are coming in as well. And for that end, I've got a short slide there that I've shared with the committee in advance, thankfully, so you can actually see it. Um, so in terms of the internal audit approach, capital progress update, as you'll see in the report, we've issued six final assurance reports, uh, since the last committee, Treasury Management, Community Infrastructure, Levy and Section 106, and the Jubilee Primary School have all received reasonable insurance, which is really positive. Um, a few more challenging areas in, um, disrepair section 17, Crime and Disorder Act and Freedom of Inflammation Act, where we've actually offered a split opinion, because in terms of the Freedom of Inflammation Act, the kind of governance arrangements that the team have got in place are good, but the compliance generally across the council is under, under performing and therefore we've given, uh, a limited assurance opinion on the compliance. And I'm pleased to say that there are directors available and, and other officers available here, uh, in person and a couple online as well in order to answer any questions, uh, that you may have. Um, having, uh, has said that the overall balance of assurance opinions we've issued this year remains positive, which is freezing. I'm anticipating, um, but that will continue and I'll be able to give a positive assurance opinion at the end, but we'll wait to see when the end of the, uh, the year has been held. Um, you'll also know we are seeing some positive movement on the implementation rates of management actions since the last committee. It's still slower than I think management and certainly we would like, and I'm sure you would like as well, but we've recently agreed some new processes. We've presented, presented the management board some thoughts, uh, which are included in my slide deck about how we might help, uh, management keep track of and implement those actions and find out what the blockers are to improvement. So I'm hoping that that will, uh, improve the processes again, and we'll be able to reflect positive movement back in March. And we've been working with the programme assurance team as well, positively to help that move forward. Uh, in counter frauds, I'm really pleased to say that, um, one member of our team, Shelley Osborne has been, uh, nominated and is a finalist for the government counter for perfection member of the year. She's really, really pleased, really pleased for Sherry. The award ceremony will be in March this year. So, um, a couple of us will be attending, uh, to cheer Shelley on and hope that she, uh, achieves, uh, an award, uh, certainly would be well deserved. Um, and also the council, uh, this week has been mentioned really positively in a professional housing publication. Um, Landers is one of the top three performing London boroughs for recovery houses, properties, um, that were essentially subjects of some form of fraud, either through application or their use after receiving, um, or, uh, getting hold of the property. And that's thanks to the work of the counter board team and also the housing team, some of whom are here for you. So that's really, really positive. Um, lastly chair, I just, I do want to mention the new incoming internal audit standards. Um, they'll apply from the 1st of April, uh, this year, uh, and in order to meet the new standards, we've produced a new internal audit charter and mandate, which is presented to you today for approval. It's already been to management board and I've received their agreement for it. You'll note from that and the slide there that it does entail quite a few essential conditions for both the corporate committee and management board that have to be in place, must be in place in order for me to provide an effective internal audit service. Um, and that these, uh, uh, central and the standards in general, it's now mandated that I've discussed them both with senior management and the corporate committee to make sure that you're aware of those standards and the essential conditions and that you are in agreement to them. Um, to that end, I've provided a, uh, a slide deck. Um, it's about 10 slides, but I think I can go through it quite quickly and then I'll be free to answer your questions as will the officers here to help you today. So the, uh, the new standards are based around five domains and 15 principles. It is 122 pages long, the full document. Um, there is no way I'm going to try and summarize that for you, nor would I expect you to read it. I have to, I've read it, I've been through it. Um, generally speaking, and this is commonly accepted across the public sector. Um, the public sector delivery of internal audit is already meeting the majority of those standards and it's only where they've introduced new and interesting ways of us working that we'll need to create new policies, procedures, and adapt the way that we're working. But fundamentally, uh, just to reassure you that the internal audit we have been doing will continue and it will meet, you know, the standards at their core. Um, the key changes around these standards. Um, so the purpose of internal auditing has been, purpose of internal audit has been slightly updated and that's mainly to reflect, um, uh, uh, uh, focus on providing insight and foresight to the organization, to the management and the corporate committee, but also, um, explicitly setting out, uh, uh, a requirement to serve the public interest. Previously, the standards were more focused towards supporting the organization, but in the public sector. I now have an explicit requirement, which I've met anyway, by reporting to you in public and providing insurance that we are, you know, meeting the public interest and the community is as a key stakeholder. Um, as I've said, the new domain three has a specific requirement. That means I have to discuss these standards with you, make sure that you're comfortable with them. I really, I don't think I can achieve that in five minutes. In fact, tomorrow there is a session. You've all been invited to being provided by the technical lead for the Chartered Institute and Colonel Auditors on the new standards and their application in local government. Um, I encourage you all to attend. I appreciate it in the morning. I will, I'm sure get hold, I'm going to be present online. I'll get hold of a copy of the slides and I'll be able to reproduce it for you separately at a time more convenient if you aren't able to attempt. Um, so the essential conditions, as I say, there are a lot of, a lot of them and in slide. Five, I've summarized them for you. Um, as I said, the stat that the conditions themselves have come, um, surprising. I don't think you'll be, uh, I don't think I have any difficulty in agreeing to them. They're certainly good practice. I think that we're delivering them ready, but essentially, um, they can be covered by, by half a dozen topics. So making sure that I've got the authority and that my role of internal audit and myself as the chief audit executive, as it's referred to in the standards are clear, uh, and that you understand my role and I understand how I'm going to support you, uh, that you are a champion of internal audit, which I know that you are, uh, and as well of, of counter fraud, um, that we have a direct relationship. Um, I can meet with you separately, individually, privately in order to have a free and frank conversation about the government's risk and controls and my views around it. And I've had private meetings with any number of you over the last couple of years, so comfortable that we're there. Um, I need to make sure that I'm coming to you and talking to you about the resources that I have to make sure I'm adequately resourced to, to, to meet your assurance needs. I have to adopt a quality and assurance program and report to you annually on my performance, uh, the team's performance, uh, and the organization's performance. And then equally you have oversight of any action plan arising from that self assessment against our standards and others, uh, and then monitor the performance. So there is a lot there, as I say, it's written in, in detail in this, in the charter itself, um, which has been produced based on models and practice at other leading local authorities. I'm confident that it's a good shot in covering all that we need. The remaining, uh, domains. So domain two is essentially the code of ethics. Um, we've always had a code of ethics. The new introduction is around professional courage, making sure that internally and myself have the professional courage to call out, um, under performance improvements when necessary, um, and that we don't, um, subvert, uh, subvert our judgment, subordinate our judgment to, to anyone else in that, in that, uh, uh, way. Um, we're required to have an internal strategy. I've actually presented strategies here for, um, we're in the process of updating it. And then domain five is really about the day to day internal audit practice. Um, I have included at the end two other slides, um, sorry, three other slides where having been through the standards, had discussions with the chair, had discussions with Zeno and other senior management where I think that we can provide more support to both the organization and the committee. Um, so slide ten sets out, um, how the internal audit plan should be developed. And, and this year we're going to develop, uh, a plan that is, uh, plans have always been dynamic dynamic, but this one is going to be over shorter periods so that we can be more reflective of changes in the emerging risks and needs of the capsule and hopefully get that plan delivered more evenly across the year with you. As I'm sure you've noticed from my main report, a lot of the work is coming back to you in quarters three and four and we're trying to avoid that going forward. Um, in terms of, um, management actions and implementation of them, I've spoken to management, I referred to it earlier. Um, we are now reporting regularly via a new insurance mechanism, um, that the programme assurance team are leading on. Um, we are meeting, in fact the meetings have been put in diaries today to meet with action and make sure that they're able to deliver and we'll get more regular updates. Um, we're going to look at the way that we report management actions and give access to management so that they can get real time information. Um, in fact, my team have just subscribed to the, uh, Microsoft co-pilot and the co-pilot pilot that's running here at, at, at the authority. So with, and we've been successful, so I'm hoping that we can leverage that to, to give real time data, which is really interesting. Um, and then in terms of the committee itself, um, so you've previously asked and we've agreed that corporate directors will attend this committee on rotation to give you an opportunity to see other corporate directors. Directors will attend when there's a limited and narrow assurance report and we've got a director here today and other directors online. So thank you. Um, in terms of committee actions, I think you'll have noticed quite a difference in the last month and a lot of those committee actions have been cleared and, and very few remain and in fact some of them aren't due yet. So, um, we're, we're taking a much more proactive approach than Xenia is very clearly leading on and, um, wants us to be good at it. So that's excellent. Um, one of the areas I think would really benefit the committee and we have tried this in the past is a committee effectiveness review. So to have an independent organisation, for example, SIPFA, um, who, um, provide, uh, who set the standards for local government in terms of finance and internal audit and external audit. Um, they can come in and do a committee effectiveness review, look at our terms, could be your terms of reference, your membership, um, your skills and knowledge and experience of your independent advisors, the quality of reporting, timeliness, et cetera, and give you some feedback on what they think is working well and what you might adjust going forward. It was also picked up in the LGA peer review. So it's another win in terms of us making sure we're giving you the most support we can and that will align with additional training we want to provide for you in topics that will agree with you to make sure you feel comfortable and able to discharge all of your responsibilities. Um, Prompties that was a bit longer than my usual brief introduction, but it's finished. So I'm very happy to have back to you and answer any questions. Um, I must admit, I do need to message one director who I promised to message whenever it was my item and I I'm probably already. So I'm actually going to attend, but I'm just going to message her now. Okay. Thanks. That was, um, there's quite a few elements of that update. So in terms of taking questions, um, the actions or the fiscal board, can we shelve that now and, um, we've discussed that at the end. If we go back to the, um, the report itself, does anyone have any questions? Yes. Yeah. Cancels aren't happy that we need to start. Um, yeah. I was just looking at the reports that we were, you know, that would be an issue. Um, I did the one on the, uh, where there seemed to be like a split given. Um, but also I wasn't sure, um, there was, there was, there was, there was, you said it was put it in kind of a positive report aspect around the screening of requests for validity, but I'm just wondering if, do we have any information? Did you get information about how many times, um, have a report as well, the information commissioner has had to intervene, um, to actually instruct the authority to issue a report? Because I've I've had constituents claim that they've issued, they've requested FOIs, uh, which don't get answered and then they've actually had to go with the information commissioner who's ever come back to the authority to tell them, yes, it's within the scope that they need to answer. I don't know whether that was something that was picked up as your board. Um, yes, um, the short answer is no, I don't have that information to handle, unfortunately. Um, uh, Natasha Patterson has just joined the meeting, uh, uh, and, and that's only, that's because I messaged her late, just to be, just to be clear, Chair, that's not Natasha's fault at all. Um, but she is here and may be able to answer that question for you. Whether she heard the whole question or not, I don't know. So we might, we might have to repeat it. Yeah, I'm sorry. I haven't heard the question, so yeah, I've just joined. Apologies. I had a medical procedure this morning, hence why I'm not with you. Yeah, tonight. That's right, George. I was just asking if you've got data on the number of times, um, you've had the information commissioner's officers intervene in FOI requests, so particularly where requests have not been answered by the authority or the authorities ruled them out of scope and that the requestor has then obviously appealed or gone to the ICO, um, who has then ruled that said that the authority should be answering the request. So I can get you the data. I don't have it on hand, but from what I see, because obviously that comes via me as well, it has probably been on less than a handful occasions in the quarter three, uh, where we have refused the request on the grounds of either time or any other legislative reasons. And then ICO has come back and said that we have to provide the data. I'm happy to provide the number of instances separately. Uh, but as I said, it's it's not something that happens a lot. So I have probably seen couple of occasions where in quarter three that's that's happened, but it's usually the couple of cases I particularly remember where because the scope was too wide rather than us trying to withhold the information. So where the then requester came back with the, um, came back with the, um, scope which was more narrowed because if you can imagine some of the FOIs we get, you know, uh, is, are the requests for information that go way back in the past, um, the requester when they reviewed the scope we were able to then provide the data. Um, I have a question, sorry to the basic question. What's the size of the team who are responsible for fielding and looking after FOIs? Looking after FOIs. So, so the Corporate Complaints Unit looks after them. It's not a separate team that just deals with FOIs. All my staff in that team are multi-skilled, uh, to deal with, uh, complaints, members, inquiries, stage two complaints, members, inquiries, FOIs, and some, and some, some, some elements of SARS. And it's, uh, 12, it's 12 FT, including a manager. Uh, but if some recent exercise I've done, um, if we're going to talk about the full-time equivalent, it's about 2.5 FT that is just dedicated to the freedom of information requests. And in terms of the report around the limited, um, the limited assurance around compliance, can we dig a bit deeper into that? Where, what, what's kind of the, what's the issue? Okay. So, um, yeah. So as the, as the audit report, uh, stays there, it's a split, uh, rating. Correct me if I'm wrong, Paul. Is that the right term? That's correct. Yeah, absolutely. That's correct. Yeah. So the, the actual, uh, reasonable assurance was given for the corporate policy management in terms of our policies, procedures, and the, um, and the actual chasing and reporting and, you know, what not. Where we failed short, particularly in the quarter three, uh, limited assurance in terms of compliance, was the, uh, corporate compliance with, um, um, sign of process, uh, because, because of the sensitivity of quite a few of the, well, I'd say a large proportion of our effort, the FOIs we've seen, um, they, we require, um, direct to sign off for them, uh, and departments have their own governance process and sign off processes for that. And, uh, where I think the audit has found that doesn't work. Always, um, quite well. So I think in terms of limited assurance, there are pockets of the council that, uh, work really well, but there are pockets of the council where we still need to do more work, which we have since the audit report has come out, which we have already put in place. Chair, if you want, I can tell you a couple of examples of improvements that we've seen since put in place, not just because of the audit, but because obviously we monitor performance on a regular basis, uh, as well. So is that, sorry, I'm just trying to get this. Is the issue that once the team has compiled a response to that, it goes to a director to sign off and there seems to be an issue around the directories Is that that timely sign off? I was struggling to understand the summary. It would appear so. It would go through the internal government governance with teams, head of, assistant director, director, and that doesn't, that isn't always timely. So the issue is untimely responses or directors not acknowledging and responding to an FOI. Their responsibility is to ensure the information is, is correct. Correct. And then, so the issue lies with assistant directors and directors not responding on time. Is that correct? Is that correct? Not signing, not necessarily signing off in time. Okay. Now, that said, yeah, issue, but, um, not necessarily always, um, majorly overdue. We're not talking months here. Sometimes it can be a day or two or things like that. Uh, so we have now started the process which is going to show probably the next period figures where we, as soon as they, um, the FOIs, when they're becoming due, when we do chase, we, uh, escalate to strategic director, sorry, to corporate directors ahead of time. And we have seen an improvement where there is that sort of more senior exposure. What we have also done, and I think it's important to remember, we have seen a surge, surge in volume as well. Um, but what we have, uh, implemented and it's gone live in September, we have created on our website a catalogue or FOIs and the process now takes the request down what we call a BAU route and kind of signpost the requesters to the library, uh, or a catalogue of FOIs which we can publish. They don't contain sensitive data which we can publish on the website to search there before the actual fresh, fresh, uh, request is, uh, submitted. We do get a lot of repeated FOIs, I have to say, and I'll speak for, for example, just as a, for the purpose of, of an example from my area, because IT, um, does receive a large volume of FOIs from the suppliers who kind of track our renewal dates and whatnot. There's a lot of repetition and, and, and requests for the exactly the same information. And that is the case, you know, with quite a few areas across the Council. So since we've introduced the catalogue where, you know, the requesters can go and search for the data that's already available there or where we can signpost them to a part of the website which does has our publicly published reports or our policies and all of that. Um, we have seen, we have seen some of the improvements so that actually what directors and assistant directors are improving is really a sensitive, sensitive work that they should be approving, um, in, in, in the main. And so last question then I'll invite others. That's okay. There's a surge, um, a surge in requests. How, to what extent, what does this look like? Like when has there been a surge? Is it kind of, you know, doubled? What do you think the reason that is? And how does that compare to other, other similar councils? We seem to go through these ebbs and flows with FOIs and, uh, they are tied around, um, our procurement renewal dates. They, we had a surge, you know, when the new government came in power. We have, we've seen the surge after Ombudsman would publish their reports and all of that. So there isn't one single reason as in we're not doing something well. There's usually ebbs and flows around some of the key events either outside of the local government that impact the local government or around some of our key dates. Um, key, key procurement, uh, dates, but I could not from what I know and I keep obviously abreast of it on a daily basis. I could not single one particular reason as to why that happens. We, we have seen with the, um, with some of the other London councils and the neighboring boroughs. We have seen the same trend, uh, but it seemed to be not a specific attack, may I say, on our sort of data provision. It seems to be, um, it seems to ebbs and ebbs and flow, uh, for whatever reason. I personally just allowed to that. I have personally seen the surge in my area around the construct support consultation around the, um, and around cause my, for example, this year has been really big for my major IT reprocurements. So I've seen a surge related to that cause obviously market follows, uh, what's happening within the services. So. Any questions? Um, Councillor Bray? Thank you. Um. Referring to, um, paragraph 2.8. Um. The, um, 23-24 internal audit made 41 recommendations and actions were agreed with management. 20 were considered high priority, 21 medium priority, but then, um, the, um, implementation of the, um, high priority was only 33%, um, in comparison with 54% for, um, medium priority is 71% for medium priority. Um, a, it seems rather low implementation rate. And I was wondering why, um, resources weren't concentrated on the high priority. Um, perhaps in comparison with the, uh, other priorities. Uh, I don't think they're not considered as a priority. I think we, um, oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, did you want to answer? Sorry. Natasha, this is more of the general point for all. So you're not, you're not responsible for all of our. Oh, sorry. I thought this was about FOI. Sorry. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you, Zena. So I think. In response, I would say your observations are reasonable. And I think it's fair to say that the committee can and should expect to see 5% response rate. I think there could be a number of reasons. Um, and obviously Paul and I need to look into this because he and I are only just starting to explore this. And literally these are more explanations or excuses that I have on other basis. Um, experience what I would call optimism bias in terms of sometimes people are very keen to give a date by which they think something will be achieved. So they might say, you know, they received the final report. And they'll say, well, I can do that within three months. And actually that's what will be taking good faith. And actually it's more like it's going to take six minutes. And then if something looks like it's overdue and actually perhaps the original dates that were set, that may be one explanation. I think resource is always a challenge and these authorities about what we're doing or don't respond to. However, as you say, my authority recommendations are made. It's going on by authority and we will. And I'll continue to have conversation with the management of the colleagues who recognize. Um, certainly in the design of the settings, the management board, they recognize the influence of having the rigor of. So we're going to have to bring back, you know, a more specific set of arrangements at the next meeting as part of the progress at the next scheduled meeting, which isn't about without. If that's helpful, we can certainly do some more analysis and let them know how we intend to be well. Thank you. Um, yes, thank you. I just also might continue to have our colleagues with managing here this evening. Um, one of the reports that there was limited insurance was one on disrepairs and obviously they're worse than areas of improvement. I've been there on page 57 of the papers. I'm just wondering if they could update or whatever. But it does have to say management has agreed to exactly what is being done to address them and what the value timescales have got. Thank you for the question, Councillor. And we have accepted all the actions. I'm going to ask. I'm not sure it will start to call you for yourself. Yeah, just. Apologies. David Taylor, Director of Housing. I'm sure my colleagues will introduce themselves as well. Um, but yes, we've accepted all the management actions for this audit. Um, we requested this audit because we were really aware and clear that disrepair was an issue for us in Lambert. Um, and we, as, as you may know, we made changes in the senior leadership in housing in 2023 and change the leadership in the disrepair space slightly later in 2023. So 12 to 15 months ago. Um, and we also were aware, and I think it links to the previous question that there were actions from the previous audit in this area, but we haven't been delivered. And obviously that's quite rightly been picked up in this audit. What we didn't want to do was go back to the 2021 audit. Uh, we wanted a new audit that looked at where we were now, where we were in, in 2024. Um, we, uh, have made a very rapid progress in these actions. Um, and I think if I can bring Phil in, who's been working on these actions since we had the report in November and he's able to report on what we have already delivered. Is that okay, Phil? Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Sophie. I'm Phil Scott. I'm acting AD of Rocares and Medical. So I've been in charge of disrepair since September 24. And, um, we got this, um, draft audit in, uh, November 24. So I've been working with the team and Paul and Paul's team. And, uh, out of the six recommendations that were, that came out in November, um, we've already ticked off, uh, four of them. So we're well ahead in the game in terms of, uh, completing this. And the other two, we have a date of the first of April 25, and we're very positive that we'll be able to deliver the last two. But the one that is actually for, for the legal team, but the rest, we will be happy to deliver by first of April. Do you have any bullets? So, just from, um, education to understand the, at what point something becomes classified as a disrepair? Is that when, uh, Lloyd, where the tenant has got the sort of legal advice or has got solicitors involved? Um, and then following on from that is, I know it may be, people have directed in your remit, but are there things that you can point to for what you've seen when you're handling disrepairs? That you, the wider housing department can look at in terms of how you prevent things getting into that step. Ideally, something is disrepair because obviously if something's gone wrong with repair service and we've got a dissatisfied tenant, then obviously if you can stop there and get repairs right first of all, then you reduce the disrepairs. That's exactly it. You kind of answered your own question in terms of, it's called legal disrepair. So it's, it's when we get a letter from solicitors to say that they won't take legal action rather than we get a lot of information, a lot of complaints through saying our house is in disrepair, our property is in disrepair. It's not actually in disrepair, in legal disrepair until that legal action has been taken. And the legal action is the result of some failure upstream in terms of either complaints or, or responsive repairs or something's happened to the fabric of the building. Yes, that's exactly right. My question was then, how do you, how do you, how do you, how do you, how do we make sure that, you know, you know, you go back to the, say, responsive repairs team to say that this is, this is end up disrepair to cause something specifically done or that could get done instead of that they actually learn these products? So, we've taken a whole more holistic approach to responsive capital works and disrepair. So I've developed, since I've been there in September, I've developed a disrepair strategy that brings in improvements in responsive repairs and improvement in capital works. And we are, we're looking at how we develop our capital works in terms of actual intelligence and feedback from the disrepair cases and from complaints and from responsive repairs data. So it's become much more intelligent. I have a question on disrepairs. I think it's something as councillors that we see a lot of case work on and we kind of see how that plays out in, you know, some case by case basis. Sometimes what I see, and I don't, I don't know kind of if, if this is a cause of some of the disrepair, is often a contractor will go into a house, not be able to fix it, and there'll be multiple moves, multiple, multiple, multiple visits of contractors who, in my view, often it feels like perhaps don't have the skills in order to properly fix something or identify what the issue is. And then it comes into a bit of a cycle of, you know, it becomes an ongoing, a long, long term issue. And often it's people going in that house, it's not being able to, to properly fix something, perhaps doing something that's sufficient, doesn't get to the cause. Is that, is that something that you've identified as an issue and how's that being addressed? I'm Andy Marshall, so I'm the Assets, Assistant Director of Assets for housing. You're quite right what you're saying there, it's a multiple issues with disrepair. That is definitely one of the issues. Dank mould conditions like that, sometimes overcrowding, lots of things like that can cause a case that turns into a legal disrepair case. So as my colleague Phil has already said, it's about intelligence, how we use complaints, how we use repairs, how we conduct ourselves with contractors to try and alleviate this. It is a particular problem in London, we've got quite an age stop. So some of our, you know, sort of whole bridging and things like that all lead to this issues. It's also increased significantly since its PPP disappeared. So lots of legal firms encouraging residents. And I'm not saying if residents got a disrepair, they've got a right to the council, we've got a duty to repair and do those works. But it's certainly increased since PPP disappeared. And there's lots of legal firms actively encouraging people to bring clances to us. We still have to action once. And it's about that intelligence and trying to reduce those numbers. It's a big financial risk for the authorities. Any questions? Maybe something like health and schools and stuff. But what the council inspector said is about different contractors coming and not speaking to each other. So it's reported someone would say something, but there's no reported evidence. Even their visit or what their initial assessments that they might have done or what their follow up will be. So when you're following somebody else that's going to pick that up, then is there a way of logging? It doesn't seem like these people haven't played, but then there's no... Is that locked? Yes. Because the person doesn't get anything. It is locked. So I'm not getting the information on what their assessments or follow up about this. The report is somewhere so at least they've been tackled. So repairs are locked. Absolutely. And the contractors have access to the same system and should be able to see and can see this repair happened or this was erased or this is the issue that came to the full centre and this is what's happened. And of course, in most cases that that that works and that process follows. And we know in some cases it's not working. And that's absolutely I think it's the previous question about the prevention of this because we need to be getting it right every single time in order to obviously improve the response to our tenants, but also to avoid disrepair cases. I think where we are perhaps behind and trying to rapidly catch up on is our technology and our data collection and not record keeping as a challenge that we're actively working on, but our systems. We've been looking today at some software, I suppose is the right term that looks at repeat call out. So similar to what you're saying, what we can now see is which of our contractors and for which types of work and for which jobs where we're seeing repeat call out. So that's not two jobs. That's two call outs or more for the same issue. We need that data because we're also simultaneously improving our contract management of our contractors and our relationships with them and our expectations with them. But what we need is that data to be able to say, well, actually, we can see you're really poor here in terms of two or three or more repeat jobs for this type of work. So we we've got what we need to do in that and we're not here to say that is working every time if it wasn't. If it was, we wouldn't have disrepair cases. But I suppose in the simple answer to your question, we absolutely have a system where you can see everything that's been raised and everything that's been done. So it shouldn't be happening that contractors are going out and not able to address something. I think the other thing also to suppose digital is diagnostics, which I think is what Councillor Spencer is talking about as well. And we're working with Natasha as well on the future of the call centre, because sometimes what happens is the contractor goes out based on the report that's been made by the tenant. And the information we have is is not not right or not as correct or helpful as it could be. And what we need to look at is developing our diagnostics ability and tools so that the contractors are able to send the right person with the right tools and the right equipment or whatever it might be every single time. So we know there's work to do in this area. We are also seeing improvements in this area month on month on month. And it is that repairs bit that will help us with disrepair. Yeah, the communication side of it. So maybe that's what the procedural stuff that would be sort of about. I think it's something that you've got on the to face the point of it. I think I've got a contractor and it's going to do the work, but some kind of communication going forward. Like someone is going to come on this day. This is what's going to happen. It's just the residents in there do not know that they're going to be a follow up. Are they going to come? It's going to be just not really knowing what's going to happen going forward. And obviously they will have access to the council state that they can't see about jobs, but just don't know. Yes, they should. They should have that appointment. They should receive a text message. There should be a date set. And again, in most cases that is happening. We know it's not happening in every case. Again, we're also trying to look at our options around technology that we can use to be able to do this better. We do 110,000, 120,000 repairs a year. So we're talking on a on a massive scale and we are looking at the options we can have. That is a system where we can move to be more to a place like I'm not allowed to say names of companies. Uber and the other companies that we know so that you can see the drivers on the way that you can see that your appointment has been changed. Technology, that's the space that maybe we're not, you know, as a local authority, we're not over that we need to move to. So we agree with you and we know that that's what's really important to tenants is knowing what's going to happen. And actually we see this in our complaints and tenants are sometimes not, you know, often forgiving if something's delayed and has to change if we communicate well with them. We know that we know that we know that that's what we get that wrong. Actually, that's the cause of a complaint. And so I'm having those conversations a lot with our contractors and stressing the importance of that. It is taking time. Thanks, I'm very conscious. I know this is it's obviously a report with limited assurance, so it's very much of interest to us. But I am conscious that we tend to sort of overlap with, you know, we have now some scrutiny. Yes, I'm sure I do a very good job of looking into this. It clears our attention because it's something that we see very often that we care very much about. Obviously, seeing a report with limited assurance, this is really important to us. I'm probably going to hold it there to finish that. I sort of will count the braille that you still. Just a quick one, which is a matter of interest, really. Paragraph 3.6 about counter-fraud will be supporting housing in reviewing more than a thousand right to buy applications. I mean, this could affect, you know, Lambert's housing policy, as you know. I can understand why there are suddenly these applications. But how is it that all these people, you know, a thousand people suddenly decide that they can afford to exercise the right to buy when they haven't done so in the past? What a great question. I'm not I mean, I think it's an opinion, isn't it? So I'm not sure we can provide that because we don't know the answer. We can start today on the answer. We did have a massive rush as the government made the announcement around reduced discount. I haven't got the figures of hands, I'm afraid, and right to buy, but it was it was significant for my habits. And 1200, I think in four weeks, which was a huge challenge for the team. Counter-fraud for right to buy applications is a standard process for right to buy applications. Every right to buy application has a fraud check. And how did people have that suddenly that didn't before? We can't answer that. We would be speculating as much as you would be. What I suppose I would say is one of the fraud checks is and so it's a lot of adult children making application on behalf of their parents. And that is one of the fraud checks is, you know, who is buying property. So you can take that information first. And have they been resident for a year? Have they, the person purchasing the property, are they resident of that property today? Thank you. And I think just to provide assurance to the committee, obviously there are affordability checks that are undertaken. So the fact that we've been required, obviously, there's still a process that's going through in terms of the property aspect of their applications. And I think, as Sophie alluded to, the number may be different, but I think the experience of what's the country is that the government's move to make it significantly more financially difficult. To be fair, in my words, anyone else is for the digital advantage of the rights by, in fact, with the fact that's what has perpetuated the increase for anyone that converts into that number. When you approve applications, I think it was fair to say, but that's been seen across the country and local county authorities. Right, yeah. Do we have, sorry for this, but do we have insight into how the outcome of the water checks, if they have one sense to work with them? To hand, no. We do. We don't have it. Yeah, absolutely. Of course, yes. No, we can definitely provide it. I just don't have it to hand. And is it a higher proportion than you've sort of used to see? Well, my view, my opinion is that there will be a lot of speculative applications where people don't have the right finance in place. Not necessarily fraudulent. They just put a speculative application in the hope that they can draw up enough finance to purchase the property. There will be people that are taking a chance that we might not run as many checks as we do in order to purchase the property. So, you know, there will be a full range in there, but each one will be checked as thoroughly as if we had one or about. So we'll be going through each check. We're not doing a lighter touch approach. We're not cutting any corners. We'll be making sure that each application is genuine, appropriate. And if it is, of course, you know, the discount that we're awarded, but if it isn't, then the application will have to be withdrawn and resubmitted. And then it will be under the new skits. Yeah. Thank you. I'm going to, I'm going to move forward to the last, the last item or element of your report was in terms of the actions for the corporate committee going forward. I personally agree to all those. I think you mentioned that, you know, attendance of the corporate directors on rotation that we've already previously as a committee and directors to attend, whether it's going to do an assurance report. We'd agree that previously. I think we're quite happy with those. We'll have an update. We'll have an update. I think after on the recruitment of the independent members that are correct. And the only other thing that might be a new suggestion for the committee was the independent effectiveness review. I personally think that would be sort of that would be great for us to carry out. We obviously had the peer review and we had some kind of recommendations and feedback on that. But you have suggested to us that an independent effectiveness review could be conducted. I personally would very much welcome that. I don't know if any of the other candidates. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Yeah. We'll conclude that item and conclude it by most of the recommendations. So we'll move on to agenda item. Sevens, I'll invite Louise Terrell as director of KHR and OD to introduce the report. Thanks, Jeff. See the annual paid policy that we have published under the local amount of 2011. So it's basically follows the same principles as last year. We published the numbers of over 50k, people earning over 50k, people earning over 100k, and the names and the job titles of people earning over 150k. That's all under the local's lab. We also published several payments over 100k that we made. And obviously the pay long to pull and the median pay long to pull. And the data is that it adds up to December 24th. So we take the snapshot in time. Obviously, the court committee purposes endorsing it here. Then it goes to full council for approval. Then it goes on our website as other councils. I'll point you to the probably the most contentious part of this one is we've seen an increase in a week over 50k, which you'll have noted. The bottom of our PO4 grade, which is probably quite a popular grade. We are quite fat in the middle as a council. It's actually just shy of kind of 50k. So it's like 49.638. And actually, given the 2.5% pay increase from the 1st of April, which shifts our grades and obviously people increment. So as soon as you're like one we're in, you're going into that 50k up and then you're going up and up. And I think if we continue to see 2.5%, you're going to see the PO3 grade, which is the one underneath that, kind of move into that sort of 50k. So I think that's that's why you're seeing that increase. So I think I just wanted to highlight that because that's probably the major difference or the major point of interest in this report. I'm just going to ask a quick question. You mentioned the proposition of Serpent's payments over the UK. Do we have any of those? We have two. So we list the job title. We have a few guys. So, yes. 2.9. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I'm not sure. Yeah. No. I'm just saying no. Yeah. OK. Yeah. That's quite exciting. Yeah. Is there any more questions? That's great. Yes. I was wondering what the position regarding agency workers was. Hang on. Let me just find, shall I? Shall I? Yes. Yes. Page 111, paragraph 12, use of temporary and age 111. Paragraph 12, use of temporary and agency workers. Council use temporary agency workers only to provide additional resources and allow for flexibility from time to time. I gather this at the moment we are trying to restrict use of temporary and agency workers. Is that correct? I take that. So yes, absolutely. So we have an exercise going on at the moment where we're reviewing all the current agency staff. And we're doing that with my team and the directors and corporate directors. We're also putting restrictions on new agency staff moving into the council as well. So yeah, we are. There is a real spotlight on existing and new agencies. Absolutely. Thank you. I have a question. It's paragraph 2.6. It says the current pay multiple between the lowest paid employee and the chief executive staff is 8.18. Do you know how that compares to other councillors or comparable organisations? Good question. I don't have that data, but I would provide that. Yeah. Do we have any other questions? I mean, I know this is an item that is often gets in public scrutiny. Yeah, the pay award. Was it backdated? Yes. It's generally late in public sex bodies. So yes. Yes. It's applicable from 1st of April. So it could come. We could get screened sort of September, November, December time. I think we paid out in December actually. We backdated it all. It was awarded in December. So I think that was quite nice. Backdated pay for Christmas. Yeah. So we pay early as well, actually. In future, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think there won't be such a big shift. Maybe. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Well, so I suppose. You can, in a financial context. The 50,000 figure stays the same. So it's a flat figure. And it isn't uprated for inflation in the way that pay is. So because it's really there is a pay up. And obviously some people, they might also be in increment, but for everybody, usually there is a, there is an inflation cost of living. inflation and cost of living, and that will, you know, over time, see that apparently naturally increased because of that cost of living, but because it's being benchmarked against a fixed that obviously has been set some time by its very nature. Eventually you will see more being identified as over 50,000 and I think that distinction what Louise made in the introduction about how many of these are as a result of a contractual pay increase that is nationally negotiated versus employing more people in posts that cost another 50,000. That is distinction. One is a local choice and one is we are bound by those national terms and positions quite likely. It's a positive thing that people are staying. Yes, indeed. So I think you said, I mean you're going to find it, but had the benchmark for actually naming staff paid more, was that new deducted? No, I think last year it was 150 for the naming, so actually they expand their job titles for 150 plus. I think that was the same as last year. Yeah. And I'm going to ask the question that, I think that's Melbourne, Hollywood, so I'm going to ask it for myself and I don't, I don't think this, I don't know how common practice there's anything about London living allowance. Is that, is that something that we still do or is that in full post instead of the London waiting? Yeah. Yeah. So that's, it's all consolidated. It is consolidated. And again, I'm going down a line of inquire, it comes now to the one down, where I don't think that, and I don't think we're a loner's organisation have a strict policy around kind of a flexible work. And I think there's some, I think that's very variable depending on what sort of teams and managers. And I know it's, it's kind of difficult to get by, but there, there will be instances where there are people who are not based living in London, and not travelling in London who will be receiving a London weighted allowance. Do we have any plans to what's going to do with that? So basically there is no additional allowance for the London waiting, it's all consolidated. Right. Okay. So you just get one salary, you don't get the London waiting, you know, in or out of London waiting. Yeah. That's consolidated. So yeah. So in that, in that respect. So yes, I, I, I've heard people ask those questions going after COVID. So yeah, but no, it's all consolidated. You get, you just get the one figure. Yeah. Okay. Do we have any other questions on there? And yeah, I mean, I think it's a, you know, it's, it's different. We look at, you know, and there are some right salaries, but then, you know, as mentioned, we want to attract good people to kind of work at the council and we want people to stay. And, um, you know, we don't, although we don't, people who are here, et cetera, but we have to consider when they make decisions around, you know, where they work. So, um, yeah, I think it, it is difficult. We have to be careful with our spend, um, we have to, yep, but we also have to help with people in the council and that's a really quite balance and a really hard step right. If there are no, um, final customers, I'll thanks, um, Louise, for that report, um, and we're going through the, um, with liquidity on the spine rates and recommendations set out and therefore move to agenda item 8, which is procurement and contracts. So I'll invite, uh, Mark Pearson, the Assistant Director of procurement and contract management to introduce the report. Thank you, Chair. Um, so this report is, uh, an update of the full financial year 23-24. It covers the procurement activity that, uh, the team is on the table in that year. And also this report covers the items that were discussed last year, especially November, um, on the risk spotlight items and contract management issues. And also there's a, uh, an extra, an addition, um, an action log on 28th of November, uh, last year, where we were looking at declarations of interest. So this report covers that. Now, what I've done on this report is I've given a context of what the team does, what the team is achieving, the expenditure within the council. Um, I notes and I apologize that, uh, paragraph 1.1 didn't include the numbers. So what I've got percentages doesn't really mean a lot to do. Um, so just to give some context here, the spend of, uh, 765 million, 37% of that in adults, um, health and children's is 281 million. Uh, property and housing and construction is 219 million. Energy and coal has 197 million and community and environment is 69 million. So those figures have been rounded up, etc. Um, so spend just gone up compared to last year. And that's, that's also because there's, uh, more become activity, there's also the inflation, etc. Um, drives the, the cost of, uh, procurement and services and works to be purchased. Um, and there's some figures in there about the top 25 providers, uh, the number of SMEs that are employed, uh, local businesses, um, and, uh, show you there that if I can see 1.6, uh, it shows that we've got 163 million expenditure to local suppliers. Um, we've got 451 live contracts on our electronic contract management system, and that equates to just over 3 billion pounds worth of spend. Um, so the report itself goes into some of the functions that we've introduced, um, and what we carry out, uh, for, for the departments. Um, if you look at 2.6, the procurement hub, this was established purely because of the items that were discussed last year with, um, the committee where we needed a central one-stop approach for information and guidance, etc. So that has been established, uh, and we have got the analytics of people, the operators that are using it and visiting it and some very good feedback. Um, we've also cleansed the procurement plan pipeline. That's taken a long time because the electronic contract management system, um, does need a lot of probing to get the information in, uh, corrected and we also need contract managers to work alongside us. So it gives you some idea about the training that we've undertaken, um, and all this is done in-house. We don't use consultants. I tend to do the training myself with a number of senior managers. Um, and I think I've got here that we've done well over 38 training sessions, um, and there's more for this year as well on the training programme. All were received, um, and well attended. Um, and that was one of the elements on, if you look at, uh, 2.12, the, uh, spotlight risk item was, uh, on train and then before, item 4. So that's what we've managed to do is create that programme and we do actually go to departments to say, well, what would you like us to do as well as what we think you need to know, i.e. the contract standard in order of constitution, uh, et cetera. Uh, 2.13, we've got a procurement board, um, that operates really well. Anything over 500,000 kind of sort of procurement board, uh, and there's good membership there and again, good attendance and well respected by departments. And then I've gone into 2.15 about the new procurement act that's coming into course on the 24th of February of this year. Um, there's a lot of changes and it's unprecedented changes compared to what we do now for public sector. Um, very pleased that all my officers, 17 of them, uh, are fully trained and Lambeth when I published this report, Lambeth was the end of London Bar to have certainly four officers trained at that, that level. So very, very pleased that we are showing department, the departments and yourself members that we are fully confident that when this, uh, act kicks in, we are ready and we're prepared, um, to, to support it. And then 2.19 goes back to the contract management audit, um, and there was lots of, um, lots of issues that we had to, um, mitigate, uh, and to, um, to complete. My apologies, it's not the best way of, uh, when you read it, it must be quite difficult for you to think, skip over all the items that I've looked at and that I've listed out, but, um, we've taken extremely seriously to get as many of these items, um, completed. Um, there's a couple that are still outstanding and that's mainly due to, um, resources that we've been on in terms of the, et cetera. Um, the, let's try and get it. So I won't go into all the, all the detail there, but the risk spotlight items, disaggregation was one of the biggest issues that the committee wanted to try and, um, again, mitigate where officers would, um, disaggregate the contracts to spend to under 100,000. So if they do that, that means that it doesn't come into my area, my remit or my team's remit. It's a self-serve area that they can go for quotations. So, um, we've given some thought of how we can actually approach this and all it was done, um, um, to give us, uh, the information we needed to target certain areas, certain departments. Um, but the relationship at the moment has been really good. So we can see change, um, lots of training in that area and it's an area that we want to start to target, um, more so this year. So compliance, uh, increases. Um, and then we've got the declaration of interest, um, where the response was, um, about officers dealing with procurement activity, um, and where they have to actually declare their interests. So there's HR policy where you've got a code of conduct, uh, and also declarations of interest. And then any officer who is doing any procurement activity over 100,000 will sign a conflict of interest as well. So they'd have to declare that there's no conflict between them as contractors or bidders, uh, when that procurement activity has been overtaken. So that concludes. Thank you. Um, I do have a question, but I'm um, I think there was, um, partly there was issues picked up, that was segregation, but there's also, well, we were sending stacks that were showing that there was quite a low proportion of, um, contracts that had actually have gone through the proper capacity process that either waivers were being used. And I don't know, in the future, it'd be helpful to have that data in this report. And I don't know, I don't know if you can give us any assurance of whether that has now, that percentage has, has gone down to a subject waiver. I could, I could sort of give, give you confidence that anything above a hundred thousand, anything above what sort of it's, uh, the European threshold procurement, um, there has actually reduced. The main area, what we call low barring waivers under a hundred thousand. That's where we still see a push and, um, we monitor that. We have the stats. So what I'll do is I can prepare those stats and then circulate to, to committee later on. So yeah, apologies, I'm sure we didn't let it be. We didn't have to be able to work out. Um, that was great to jump this through. Um, yes, um, paragraph 2.8 on page 121, um, it's talking about insourcing and how insourcing will be, um, uh, given, um, first consideration. Um, I'm just wondering whether you could enlarge on, um, the ability to go for insourcing and, um, you know, clarify some of the terms and so on used here. So the insourcing element starts from the gateway on the business case. Um, and we give advice about, uh, consideration of, uh, insourcing first and foremost. So they have to look at the nature of the service, um, and whether or not it is relevant to bring in-house. Um, and the gateway to the procurement strategy is where they'll actually indicate, they've actually thought about this considerably, but they can actually decide that it's not what, you know, the council needs or the service can't be into it. So that's where it's, you know, go to procurement on the, uh, on marking. Um, but there is guidance from the cabinet office, but a number of steps, uh, and stages you should look at, um, and it's about affordability. It's about the strategic fit of the service within the council. Um, so there are elements that we would give information about, um, that they should consider first, but we haven't made it a policy. But cabinet office, um, I believe this year will have a white paper on insourcing. So that all council officers and amendments will have to follow that protocol. So at the moment it's more about the advice and guidance rules. Insourcing is the very first consideration. Could you, um, give us some examples of. Or something, you know, services, which could be done in, in house, seriously? We've got, you've already got new leisure services. You've got grounds maintenance. You've got, uh, arboricultural works. Um, you could do more consultancy, I suppose. Um, and you could do, uh, SCM transport drivers. Um, so there's a number of considerations there. Um, I've not seen anything come forward to procurement for the insourcing, but they're the ones that you could look at more than doing what the board works. So you wouldn't want to bring in the art of the repair and maintenance. Uh, although we have that idea that the community works, um, but it's more about those services. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I have a question. It's the, um, under 2.35, 2.36, um, and correct me if I've not understood this correctly. So my understanding was there was, um, an issue or concern around contracts that fell onto the value of a hundred grand, which meant they didn't have to go through a lengthy kind of competitive process. Um, but what there was instances of people. Possibly the value is less than that, and then the contract would perhaps get extended or bits added on. So it did go forward to that, that process, which is obviously, um, provides huge risk. And then 2.36 says that all it was conducted in May 2024. It identified that a sample of 40 HPOs with the value of 100k, it found that 33% related to payments, which were actually more than 1,000 grand, and 18% related to 2,000 payments, exceeded 5,000 grand. Does that mean that it's still very much happening? I won't say it's very much happening, but you, you do have certain individuals that will try and serve a better particular policy. So they just keep ordering at 99,000 pounds over and over again. But, um, my commercial team picked that up and they will write to those individual officers and their managed line managers to say, we know what you're doing. Uh, and recently we did have, uh, uh, an issue with a routing company that some kept on bordering over and over and over again, um, and that was raised and we always promised that that will stop. So looking at some of the figures now, uh, it's not as what I called widespread as when I first started, but very, a lot of officers were very complacent about just issuing purchase orders over and over again. Now we've actually put, um, a system in place that's identified and said, right, you must stop. Uh, when, when people are doing that, is it because they, they don't want to go through a long process and it creates more work or are they doing it because it gives them the ability to give contracts to people they know? I don't think it's that they want to give contracts to the individuals they know. I've not come across that person. So I believe it's a bit out of ignorance that they think, uh, one roofing job in one part of the borrower is a separate contract and then another roofing job in another part of the borrower stands alone. But because they're actually doing it at 99,000, you have to speak that something goes on towards that. So it could be again, a little bit of, um, complacency, but yeah, trying to make a workload for them, um, less on and it's easier to see three votes and keep going back to the same three suppliers. I've seen no evidence that it's done for any purpose to, you know, bring people that you know and, um, supply so you're aware of seeing the digital reports out. So I think, um, certainly, um, sort of the whole, um, uh, procurement thing goes to, um, the rules that are coming in, I think there's an opportunity to sort of benchmark where we are and set very clearly where we want to get to and then set out how we're going to get that. And I think ultimately that's for me as the sort of proprietor to be with my management colleagues to work through, um, identifying whether there are training issues, whether there are compliance issues, whether there are, um, really a sort of lack of fuel for the planning, for example, when it may just not be thinking ahead. You know, we, we have very rich data in relation to those contracts when they're up for renewal, et cetera. So how we can use our procurement board perhaps more effectively in relation to those that attend the blocks of cancer. So I think there's a range of things that we can look at. Yeah. But I think the concerns that we've raised as a committee are the work ends and they are for us to take well and come back to keeping the assurance that we need both from a legal and financial perspective as well as an operational one, because we want the procurement and contract management. So we're looking at it in that context. Yeah. I think, you know, for us, it's, it's again and again, this is the procurement and contract management. It's a huge risk area. We've, you know, heard the figures that, um, that we're dealing with. We have offices dealing with, you know, many contracts and high values. We've seen in the past where, you know, examples of where the system's full and down whether that's a siege or more and lack of oversight. And, um, yeah, I think we read it, it's quite a bit of, uh, that we have something. What is the cost, like financial costs. Like, it was, it was, um, it was the cure for other thousands of people in the process, but then we say stop. It depends. If you're in contract, then the contract has to be formed. If the council suspends contract for detourning this contract, there may be some damages to be paid. It depends on the wording within the contract itself. Now, most of the below 100,000 quotations, so it's a quotation, will have very limited terms of reference in terms of conditions, i.e. you do the job, you get paid and that's it. But there's always the ability to terminate, you've just got to terminate correctly so that you don't incur additional costs. Where a contractor says, well, I've been better than this work, just about a start, I'm on site, you know, council. So yeah, these types of works are very short in duration, they're not like measure term contracts, they've got for years. These are quotations and works that will probably be done within weeks or a couple of months. Yes, but they do add up. They do add up, yes, they do, absolutely. And so if it's a public, are we trying to put maybe more terms on the contract to say that I think it is a way of saying this is a person that was given and it has to speak with the enemy, if there is not any consequence on the leaders, otherwise the council does also have to keep enough pieces of incomplete works and the faculty will still not save any money. Well, I think the best way to answer that is the new procurement Act allows us to go right into the £100,000 or the principles of the Act at that lower stage as well. So that's why a number of us are looking forward to it because we can actually start putting those principles in and be very confident that you can start with good practice shared. This £100,000 mark is something I didn't set myself. I know some capitals have now decided to go right down to £10,000. So anything above £10,000 there is a procurement officer, procurement policy that they must follow, but you've got to have officers that want to follow the rules and this is why we do a lot of work on contract standing orders when new officers join their rights and obligations are. So I think it's important that when we look at this in the round, for example, the strength of the contract itself and what decision management is just as important that more than when you think about it sort of penalties or you think about what we want to get out of it. Again, you know, having the right legal advice, having the right contract lawyers looking at it to make sure that what you've got in your contract enables the contract manager to really do what they need to do. So I think, you know, obviously we're keeping this from procurement quite rightly, but from your perspective around assurance, I think that's why I think if we take that away and we look at that across the board, because what you're, I think essentially wanting is to have assurance from the point at which somebody makes a decision to buy something and how we then go about buying that, how we then put the legal arrangements in place to get what we want from that and then how we manage that to make sure what we said we wanted to get, we do get. So I think, you know, I'm sure Raymond's very happy to do the same. We can take that away and look back from an end to end and identify where there might be either risks or internal control issues that we would want to put up. That's important. Can I just ask a question about insourcing? Would this be using an existing service that you have or putting up something new? I think you mentioned SCN transport. So would that be a service that we already have that you would use or would you be thinking about sitting up in there? Yeah, it's a new service. It's been outsourced. Brilliant. So you bring it back in. You want to bring it back in that. Yeah. And with that involved then employing staff and or would you, they exist already? Well, you're a chief of transfer, the contracted staff. Okay, thank you. Yeah. And it's not a procurement. Yeah. You bring it back in the house. So the advice for you give is quite limited in that area. Thank you for explaining this. What is your answer? Just in terms of sort of insourcing. Again, I suppose when you look at what colleagues do, certainly, you know, different colleagues, they will be looking at our needs, you know, what services do you need in order to need food? So in really simple terms, they are making decisions around make by ourselves. So, you know, do we do ourselves? Do we go out and procure it? Or is it something that, you know, there's a new generation opportunity for example? So when a decision is being made, it could be part of a policy decision. It could be a financial imperative. It could be that there's a gap in the market. There are a whole range of considerations that the service will make and that's a process that they will go through. And if they decide to buy, that's when they would come to the procurement team because they need to then do. If there is a decision that says, you know, actually it's currently out, that for whatever reasons, failure of contract or cost, you know, that would then take a different route as much there as that would then have a business case to determine. Because obviously, you can think, I've just got my finance hat on. If you were bringing your service back in-house, you'd have to look at legal information stuff, you'd have to look at cheaper information, the cost implications, pension, you know, there are a whole range of things. So I think the of the law, insourcing, it's good practice to review our best to make your arrangements and insourcing maybe one of those options. Councilor Ryan, I have this as probably the last question. Yes, I've got a couple of questions about the capacity within your team, because obviously the teams, the really important role is only actually policing the system. And just the end of I've noticed there's a cabinet on Monday, had to cause two finance factual forms report and I did notice it did say, buried in there, said procurement is the only director within the finance team currently forecast for underspents. So hats off to you on that, that's like forecasting £178,000 underspents. And I'm just worrying, actually, are you, does that mean you've got vacancies, you're carrying vacancies and are you down on people to do this very important work? Well, look, there's vacancies, but I'm looking at what the teams can do moving forward on the civil acts and what resources are needed. And it's at the moment, it's not what I call the technical knowledge behind it, it's the administration place as well. But that administration element can be shared out. So at the moment, we're not struggling. Possibly we had too many staff at the very beginning when it was first centralised. So yeah, that's where this really comes to coming from for our agencies. I'm not back there with any agency working that's left. So when the agency's work is gone, we don't get through for the time being to see what we can do. But I want to bring the team up to strength. I want them to use their talents rather than being too diluted. So we've got four category managers. I think that's at that level, I don't think it's in any of our interests. But for me, as the director, I'm responsible for what I've said tomorrow, I should be probably for us to have a function that is, you know, as I put all the doors to. So I think, you know, I just want to add that to this, but if Mark were to say, actually, I want to say, you know, whether I'm going to use some of that, I'm just saying, because obviously, it's not being a public position. But going forward, that is not something that we need to continue to maintain if we think that becomes a risk of being left. I think that in the interest of time, I'm going to suggest that it does very further questions from the committee that we conclude item eight by noticing the recommendations, setting the agenda and move on to agenda item nine, which is draft statement of accounts. And I'll invite Robert Browning, acting assistant director for finance, to introduce the report. Thanks. Sorry, very, very quickly, before Robert Browning comes in, and obviously Chardash is here as well, and I've had very little interviews, but I just wanted to formally look forward to the amount of work and effort and energy and commitment that has gone into business from the privacy and policy across the council to get us to where we are. And I just felt it was really fun having seen the end product of that, and just that we really think to sort of put that on record because it really has been set really in the amount of work, though, and just trying to find the English policy to get the same plan. Yeah, absolutely. And I think we recognise that at the last semester. So, yes, thank you again for the advice you've had works. I imagine that won't run long hours and quite intense hours in this, so thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. Just the briefest of introductions from me then on this, because members will be up to speed on the challenges we faced in the last 12 months or so. So this report is presenting the 23-24 draft accounts. We're obviously working to very tight timelines now due to some backstop regulations which were introduced, which have created effectively dates by which we must publish a statement of accounts, a final set of audited statement of accounts, regardless of where we're at. So it's been incredibly tight to to get these published on time. And members, I'd be the first to admit that there are one or two bits and pieces which weren't quite finessed as we would have liked them to have been when that draft set of accounts were published. But needless to say, we'll make sure everything's sorted by the time the final accounts are presented to you. The auditors are currently working hard as well to try and get everything done by the end of February. I don't think I mentioned in the report actually, but just to clarify that the pension fund audit, the intention there is to undertake a full normal audit and that's underway at the moment. Hopefully it will be complete very soon, but it will be the council audit which will be extremely limited in scope compared to the normal course of events. And as a result of that, and again, this isn't a Lambeth specific issue, it's nationwide because of these backstop dates, the auditors will be issuing us with a disclaimed opinion on the 23-24 accounts, which basically means that they can't give us any assurance on the accounts because of the reduced scope of the audit, the limited time available to them. I did actually include in the appendices here the cover of reports which came to November's meeting, but we didn't have time to touch on because we were focusing on last year's accounts and they just set out the sort of scope that both of those audits for the pension fund and council will work through. But I'll probably leave it at that and just hand back for any questions. Thank you. Any questions from the committee members? Do we know where MASRs are in terms of their audit of these accounts and are they confident that they will complete their work by the 20th of February, doesn't it? Because we have an extraordinary meeting of this committee next month to actually approve this account and approve the final audited set of accounts. Will MASRs have completed their work by then? Yeah, I'd just like to again put on record my thanks to the committee for being flexible and agreeing to that extraordinary meeting so we can get these accounts approved on time. We're having regular daily updates with MASRs at the moment. At present, so effectively they've got about a week and a half because of the deadlines we have to get reports presented and prepared for members. They've got effectively a week and a half left to get the work done. We're confident at the moment that we can address the concerns they've got outstanding and get them everything they need. But as I've said, this is a fairly high level audit at the moment. So most of the things they're focusing on are things like our internal controls, how we address monitor fraud, do we adhere to laws and regulations as opposed to the specific drilling down into the numbers within the accounts. So it's fairly high level. Obviously they'll be doing some value for money work as well. And again, we've been working on that and feeding back where we can. It is important for the committee to know that there are some discussions between section 1.5-1.5-1 certifiers, that beingحarse presented through the fairieltinton E some of the proviso just mikesam! um how we were summing and so because ordinarily what the board has done uh and certainly brings us to keep in foreign and we've got something that we normally and you'll see this in our same accounts it talks about the section 5-1 certifying that the account is a true repair view now that is generally done in relation to the fact that we are able to say definitively that the editors have done what they need to do and they can give us position because they are disposable clearly there is a there is a discussion being about how we reflect to be usual um and we will keep you posted as a person to your most special yeah but clearly it's a failure we've got such a sentence yeah i think we're fortunate and i certainly don't want to get ahead of myself but we are um planning to do whatever we can so that the 24-25 which is we'll get back to a person in the position as possible so this is just the only year where we are we are in the situation for we don't know about the problems i think she would be the one centuries over for you to agree with the importance of this position sorry rob i didn't know if there was anything you wanted to add to that uh not not particularly on that point no zina i there was just one thing i forgot to mention briefly um in my introduction about the public inspection period which is one of the reasons why things have been so tight so so that 30-day working period is now open um when we come back to you in february we'll we'll give you a more fuller update on the queries and our responses um that we would have received up to that point up to now we've only had one one um individual submit some queries um but we would expect to receive some more over the coming weeks and survival yeah just going back to pick up on zina's on there um about the disclaimer or whatever and then future years um my understanding is that actually effectively you had the draft accounts were ready by the 31st of may last year which is the normal business government deadline but obviously it couldn't be published because we still have prior year accounts that were unresolved so just moving forward assuming we hit its backstop date on 27th of february 28 february this year are you confident that the draft accounts for 24 25 will be completed by the 31st of may this year yes so we've actually got a bit longer uh for the next few years the deadline is the 30th of june um so we've got a bit of extra flexibility but yes we are we are confident um obviously because of the nature of this audit um there will be things that the auditors need to to go back to 23 4 and look at to give them what they need for 24 5 so we can probably say it's fair to say the audit might be a bit more painful for us as a finance team for four or five um but there's no reason as far as we can see at the moment why we can't publish a set of draft accounts um by the by the date that we need to thank you i'm um i will stop you there because we're one minute to eight um and i um i'll quickly ask if anyone has any further questions and if so we can invoke some more steps and meet i think where we have the extraordinary meeting next month we we have the time to ask more questions exactly um so in that case i would be very happy to um conclude the meeting so we now close the meeting of the talk committee um thank you to um oh i'm sorry can we um conclude the item by noticing the recommendations okay thank you in that case we will close the committee so thank you seven for attending uh members officers and the production team for making this happen um thank you thank you such a该 a chair of audience you've i think you're so much so nice to do but