Transcript

I'm calling you live. Thanks. We'll be live in in five. Yes. I want to give us a chance to come back in. You see the words. That's the bench. I'm calling you live. I'm calling you live. I'm here. Good evening and welcome to everyone attending the London Paralyptineum Overview and Scrutiny meeting here in Eastern Tanghal. This meeting is live stream on YouTube. Can everyone present hear me, and those, especially those online, I should say. Concerning and meeting etiquette, please direct questions and answer via myself as chair. May I also ask that you indicate you wish to speak by raising your hands and those online, your virtual hands. For the benefit of the members of the public and the press who are attending, can we give our names when we're speaking for the first time? May I also remind members and officers to speak up clearly in the chamber so the clerk and the public can hear all of us. Concerning the order of the agenda, I propose taking it as published. And having said that, this meeting of the London Paralyptineum Overview and Scrutiny Committee is now all to order. I will begin by introducing myself. I am Anthony McCormand. I'm the chair of Overview and Scrutiny Committee and on my left is... Councillor Susan Masters, I represent East Ham Southwood, and I'm also chair of Health and Adult Social Care Street. Councillor Rita Shredder from Kenyntown North. Councillor Lee Clark Royce from Southwood. Paul Leslie representing the voluntary community and faith sector. I'm the director of corporate services and business support. I'm Conrad Hall, I'm the corporate director of resources and section 151 officer. Councillor Charlie McLean, cabinet member for resident engagement and resident experience. Dave Gibbs, head of revenues and transactional finance. Rachel McCoy, director of law and governance, monitoring officer. Thank you. Artemis Cassie, head of scrutiny and government. And Petra? Head of scrutiny and scrutiny officer. And I think we have Andrew yourself online. Yes, chair, thank you. Andrew Ward, deputy director of finance. Okay, and that is Albert. And by way of direction, I just for the purpose of the minutes and for the view of public matter, you have the wrong idea. And Paul, I know your day job is a voluntary sector, but you're here as a co-op team and not as a rep of the voluntary sector. Thank you for that clarity. And just for the record, I'm misinterpreted. So welcome again to all of you. And we move on to the first item of our agenda. And apologies for absence. Are there any apologies? Yes. Sorry, chair. Councillor Garfield has given apologies for lateness. Yes. Thank you. Councillor Terry Paul. Yes. And Councillor Morse has emailed in his apologies. So those are for. And Ellen Kim? And Ellen Kim. Okay. So are those apologies noted? Sorry. Yeah, could I add, I know she's not a member of the committee, but Abby Bago, the chief executive, unfortunately, her daughter is unwell, and so she can't attend. Okay. So the chief exec can't be here. Thank you. And the council got three. Okay. Yeah. Sorry, chair. Councillor Zulfi Ali. Also, he's not a member of the committee, but I know that he was due to be here for the agenda item seven, but he's possible apologies. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Are those noted? Yes. I would. Consuming Lee Parkway. Yeah, that almost. Chair, just, just as a way of note, looking through the papers today, there's some inconsistency with whether I appear on the membership or not. If you'd like to note that on two of the agendas, I don't attend on the membership, and then one of them I do. So I'm not just for change, I have asked a few times. Okay. Thanks for bringing back our attention. No. Okay. It's noted. Decoration of your interests. Is there any member wishing to declare any interest? And I've seen the two hands. Consul Lee Parkway. Chair, I'd like to declare an interest in regards to some of the agenda items. I work for a voluntary community faith sector charity within the BUMB. That's mainly in our papers. Yes. Thank you. And the Paul? Thank you. As you rightly pointed out, in my day job, I also work in the voluntary community faith sector, so they're an interest. Yeah. Are those apologies noted? Thank you, Chair. Sorry. Decoration of interest, not apologies. Right. Okay. So, um, we then move on to the minutes. And colleagues, the minutes can be found on the supplementary agenda. I move the minutes of the 3rd of December, 2024, be agreed as a true record of our making. Do I have a second? Do I have a second there? Council Chargers. Thank you. Item five, it's our work program. Colleges, the work program has come here several times. There's no, um, change to it. So can you just, um, look? Chair. Sure. Can I just also reiterate, we did ask at a previous meeting for minutes, some sort of communication around the housing. We brought forward to committees, because given the lapse, because of other pressures, it is important that we are fully afraid. We don't leave it to a committee meeting, um, to be updated on what's happening with the regulator for social housing. Okay. Thank you. Um, we will be having the meeting number two weeks signed. That was in, um, a meeting. Yeah. But that's noted. Can we, um, yes. Thank you. So, um, is there anything else on the work program? Is that, um, is it noted? Noted. Noted. Okay. And now we move on to our substantive items. Which is item six. But before I go on item six, in terms of work programming, there's two items here. In fact, it's not in our work program, but then we are allowed to do this. It's called in. And we are proposing to call in two items. And the two items is the carpenters, um, estate. That would be, um, that project would be called in and the people power places. So those are the two will be called in within the next day or two. The relevant paperwork will be making its way to the executive and the chief exec. And the process would then be kicked off. But that's, that's my way of announcement. Um, Conrad. That's helpful notification. Thank you, chair. I don't know exactly off hand, but I'm sure it could be checked what the, uh, procedural deadline is for submission of the relevant paperwork. Uh, but presumably, I think it has to be, yeah. Yeah. That's what I was slightly concerned when you said in the next day or two, maybe tomorrow. Regarding the carpenters. I spoke with Paul last week and I gave him the answer that that's going to be called in. Um, he was appreciative of that. Um, we have until the 12th to get the paperwork in. So after this, this meeting by tomorrow, the paperwork would be flying its way to the chief exec. Office. Yes. I said, yes. We have until the 12th to get it. Um, done. Okay. Yeah. Can I raise a, another matter actually? Um, now Councillor Melanie Inovo has left the cabinet. She's expressed a desire to return both to health scrutiny and to the inner Northeast London joint health oversight. And scrutiny. And as chair of that committee, I'm delighted to have her back. So can, can we just put that on, on record that I'm not totally sure. At what point period, all the bench post cabinet ends, but, uh, that we will be happy to receive her back on. I smile because I noted that you've taken a seal of march on your other colleagues. No, not at all. Okay. The master's is noted. Okay. Okay. So it could be covered on the appointment, but the, um, the protocol states three months. Um, and that should apply very quickly. Okay. We now move into item six and that is concert tax collection. The purpose of this item is to scrutinize new concert concert tax collection rate from 2017 to present. And compare this to other London boroughs. The report highlights the trend challenges and significant events that have influenced collection rate over the last few years. And considers the impact potential increases in concert tax and economic factors. Such as recession, interest rate fluctuation, and residents volatility, and collection rates. For this, we have, and I do recognize, Congressman Charlie McLean, the cabinet member for resident engagement, President's experience. Conrad All and Dave Gibbs. Councilor McLean, I welcome you and also colleagues to, um, to this meeting. You have, um, no more than two minutes to present. If you want to, I will make a brief introduction. And then we will then, I will then add it over to members for questioning. Brilliant. Thank you chair. And thank you Timothy for me here to speak about tax and tax collection rates. Um, I trust that everybody's read their papers because. You're a diligent committee and I would expect no less. Um, so. That's what it says on the tin. Happy to take any questions. Thank you chair. Thank you. Any questions? Joe, if I may, just while you wait for questions, should I just introduce the officers and their role in this? Would that be, be helpful? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm Conrad Hall. I'm the corporate director of resources. So council tax, uh, sits under me as, as part of that, that department. Uh, you have online, uh, Andrew Ward, uh, who has managed the council tax. Uh, I've seen it for the last 12 to 18 months. I didn't check the exact date. Apologies. It might be slightly longer than that. Uh, also in the chamber, you have Dave Gibbs, who I think may not be so familiar to you. Uh, Dave, uh, works for, uh, for the council, uh, on other debt collection and related activities. And we have seconded him in to, uh, oversee, uh, council tax for at least the next, next six to 12 months. Uh, on the basis, obviously of recognizing, uh, that there are issues there. Uh, want some extra expertise and capacity to help rest. So just a bit, it's helpful to sort of who's who in terms of the, uh, officers chair. Yeah. Thank you. Conrad. Right. And council masters and charter. Okay. Um, looking at the table of collection rates. What I find really shocking is the only council that we have illustrations for that is below us is Hackney and Hackney were the victims of a cyber attack. So that's their explanation. So I'm not really clear what ours is. Okay. So which table is it you're speaking about? I'm speaking about, uh, fig 4.2 on page 22 in our report. Two in yours, I think. Yeah. Thank you, um, for that question, Susan. So, yeah, I mean, it's not great that we are so low down in the rankings for in-year collections. Um, if you look at table 4.4.3, it does show the collection rate for, you know, because at the end of the year we don't stop collecting money if we still continue to collect in the council tax. Um, so we see that previous years the collection rate is significantly higher, but yeah, you're, you're right. The in-year collection rate is not, is not great. Well, in 2023, it says that, um, over 12 million pounds was collected, which seems quite incredible. That's the table Charlene just, uh, sorry, Councillor McLean just referred to. I don't know whether that table's correct, but that does seem like a hell of a lot of money. Sir, if it's a cumulative figure, I take it. Is it not? But 12.7 million. Yeah, Conrad. Yeah. Would it be helpful if I just, uh, gave a little, little bit of a, uh, necessary accountancy about the understanding of the, the figures, just so everyone's, uh, same page, if you like. So there are two measures, uh, that are important in council tax collection. Well, there are lots, obviously, but two sort of fundamental ones. Ultimately, the most important measure issued you eventually collect. Now, clearly it's better to collect it sooner rather than later, but ultimately what matters is how much of the debt you collect. We refer to that as the lifetime collection rate. Uh, and although of course, uh, in a perfect world, one would want to collect everything. You know, the reality is that there's always going to be several million uncollected because that's, you know, 5% million, for example, uh, or 4%, you know, it's going to be 4 or 5 million. Uh, so just given the scale of it, you're obviously always going to have, uh, substantial sums that are never recouped. Uh, and that's just true for all councils. Second measure, and the one that we use because that's the best benchmark level, uh, is the in-year collection rate. So during the, for example, the 2024, 25 year, how much of the council tax that was issued in that year you actually collect. Uh, and that is, uh, what I would call a kind of really important lead indicator. Uh, obviously, uh, you know, if you're, uh, sort of on top of your in-year collection, that also bodes well for that lifetime collection rate. Uh, but to sort of exaggerate slightly ridiculously to make the point, if you collected nothing in the year and all of it on the 1st of April, the following year, that would actually be a fine result. Not that I'm suggesting that would happen, obviously, but you know, there was just this sort of point on timing. But we use that in-year collection rate because it's the most available readily consistent data for benchmarking. But I did just want to make that point on the in-year collection rate, which is, you know, as you see in that table, uh, falling. Uh, no one is suggesting that this is a, you know, a straightforward situation or, uh, uh, you know, the result that people would want to see. But the lifetime collection rates, once you, uh, add up all the money we receive subsequently into 21 and 22, for example, are rather better than those in-year rates. So I did just want to make the point that, uh, collection, you know, there is an issue here. No, no question. Collection is not as good as it needs to be. Uh, but the, the lifetime collection rate that you see at that table in 4.3, uh, shows that, you know, there is a fair element of the problem that is about late collection more than it is non-collection. Uh, it, it, this can get sort of quite sort of complicated. So I'll just sort of pause there and, and check that I've, I've explained that to the committee satisfaction. I'm not suggesting that there isn't a problem. And it says uncollected. Okay. Sorry, that's not uncollected then if it's right. No. So if one looks at, uh, let's take the 2021 year, for instance. Uh, so at the current point in time, there's six and a half million or so. Uncollected council tax that relates to the year 2021 22, which is 94.7 shade under 95% of the total amount due for that year that was collected. That's more or less on the amount that we budget for collection. Yeah. We don't budget for a hundred percent collection because that would just be unrealistic. Uh, so you would expect, of course, to figure for 23 to be lower than that because some people will pay in arrears and only after we chase them considerably. Uh, but I'm just making the point that, you know, the data there shows that we are, uh, collecting more of the debt, uh, than that in-year rate shows. Uh, and that the 2023 figure at 91%, you know, I think the data in that table strongly suggests that it's reasonable to assume that we will collect more of that, uh, over the coming. Um, well, in this year and the, uh, the year following to get that rate up to the sort of 93, 94% that you see elsewhere, which is around about the figure that we budget for. So I'm not, again, I'm not trying to suggest that this is all as one would expect, wanted to see. You know, as, uh, the council tax collection rate isn't as high as we would like it to be, but that the in-year rate, uh, that we referred to earlier is not the only measure. And this lifetime collection rate is an important one to, to, to understand. Does that help? Um, yeah, I've seen members want to come in. I give really, um, to allow council masters and I'm going to ask a question on this. We've got one of the most generous, um, council tax reduction schemes. Um, amongst our neighbouring boroughs. Um, I'm not feeling in this report that there's a real explanation for why we've got this particular issue now. Because when you go back to some of the earlier years, you see, there isn't that difference with our neighbours that we have now. Um, and I'm, I'm just wondering if, is it that there's a kind of cliff edge in terms of the way our council tax reduction scheme operates? And it's a situation where if you're suddenly earning a few pounds over a certain level, then it bounces right up from only paying 10% of council tax to paying the full amount. Or is there some other explanation? Because it, it talks about the transience of the borough housing issues, but those are factors that were there before to a large extent. And you'd think of our council tax reduction scheme, that would be sort of protecting our residents. So is there a problem within the council tax reduction scheme in, in terms of a lack of tapering, say, for example? I was just gonna say, I think it's a, a number of, of things to be, to be fair. I think that after COVID, um, it, it changed people, the way that people pay things. I mean, the energy rebate that we, we delivered in 2022, where we increased the number of people that signed up by, to pay by direct debit. A lot of people don't pay by direct debit, and they see council tax as something that isn't further down the bottom of priorities. Um, so in, in my view, that's something that we're getting better at, as in reminding people to, to pay if they're, if they're slightly behind in their payments. But I think in the scheme of things, it factors quite low down in the, um, rent, food, that sort of stuff. And council taxes just sort of, um, the pegging order. Yeah. I don't have a comment if you. Andrew Ward. Andrew. Andrew. Thank you chair. Um, yes, I, I agree with, uh, council McLean there's clearly a correlation and link, uh, to, with the, the falling collection rate with the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2021. Um, when we've been sort of talking and analyzing about this, I don't think we've considered the council tax reduction scheme so much as having an impact on that. There is a sort of taper rate, uh, council masters, so that you don't suddenly get to a cliff edge and lose, uh, a lot of, um, suddenly have to pay a lot more council tax just from earning one pound extra. But obviously, you know, the taper does, you, you, you will, um, lose as, uh, those tapers are designed to do that. Um, but then the really important point I think was, uh, when we set the council tax base, so that's determining the number of houses, which we charge, which we take into account when setting the total amount we expect to get from council tax. If I can put it like that, perhaps come back, put it better than me. Um, we do, we do factor in that we expect a proportion of the dwellings or houses to fall into the council tax reduction scheme. So that, that effectively means that's accounted for in the sort of denominator, uh, when we're working out that percentage. So I can't see that that's a cause or reason for, uh, well, for the, for the performance. If you, if you see what I mean, sorry, if that's a bit garbled, but I think that just on the maps of it, it probably isn't influencing the rate. I understand. Um, you know, I hear what has been said so far and just, just look at the money. Um, and I know the pandemic came and the pandemic has gone a long time ago. And if you look at the biggest gap between 2022, 23, and those are not the pandemic years to say, because 23 is just out of the day. There's about 4 million or so, um, uncorrected council tax. Um, and that's what the money is telling us on that table that we are talking about. So the question is that we are asking a scrutiny is why do we have such a big gap? What, um, have we been doing in terms of chasing it? Well, there's a lot of mechanism. And why is that here? This question is to constantly as a political lead in this area. Have you been, um, chasing this up? Have you been having meetings with officers? I may talk. I'm finding out what's going on. Yeah. I have regular meetings with officers chair. Um, I took over this part of the, the resident experience side of things in 2022. Um, and in that time, there has been some instability in, in changes within the service. Um, they were originally in resident experience and then they moved over to, to resources. Um, and in that time, there hasn't been a here in between the corporate director and the, um, managers, but the service managers. Um, so Dave has, has come in now to try to help to resolve that. We're going to talk to Dave in a minute. Welcome. Yeah. I'm just saying that David, no, I'm not bringing him in. I think Dave has been brought in to fill that gap. Um, between, between the corporate director and the, the managers, managers. Okay. Thank you. We, we, we, Dave, we know you are coming because we were told that you're coming to fix the problem. So there's no pressure. Um, my question, my, um, what is the executive done about this? Because if you were having meetings, it would have been brief, but the collection rate is low. Is there any actions that the executive has taken and given directions to officers in terms of, you know what? Get this done. Get this right. What have you done in respect of this? What have I done? Well, that would be an operational thing. So as much as I can keep saying, look, we need to get the collection rates up. What are you doing about it? There's not that much more that I can do other than to stress my disappointment. That is low. That we need it to do rates. Did you give them targets, KPIs, et cetera? Did you give them targets, KPIs, said, you know what? By so and so time, I need to see X number of the, the numbers of collections must go up. I need to see this go down. You know, the kind of thing, the kind of conversation that we would have. Yeah. Yeah. And David's here. You know, I'm just saying that I have expressed my disappointment that we are not at the level that we should be at. And just to reassure you, Chair, that there will be improvements in the figures. And we've now added a API to the corporate plan to say about our collection rates. So you'll be there in the public domain, whereas before it wasn't. Unless of the public within A, that I asked you a question about, have you given them targets, et cetera? But I don't think they've heard an answer. Just because I've asked it. Yeah. Did you give them targets? Targets. Yeah. In terms of the collection rate. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. The three concepts started, and Lester and Carleen. You pointed to Lester. Do you want to give away to him? Okay. My questions are a little bit kind of processy. In terms of, and this was a question that we were talking about previously, bailiffs. Does the council have a position on bailiffs? Because I think there was some suggestion that maybe in a previous term, there was a discussion about not going heavy use on bailiffs. I'm just, does that ring a bell in any way? Perhaps I should take that one because I actually manage the internal bailiff service. The answer to that question is no. We, the council are referring cases to the council's internal bailiff service. And we do obviously collect through the mechanisms that we have in place for bailiffs. But yes, we do. The cases are referred to the internal bailiff service. Internal. What about external? Did you ever take a position on? No, that's the same. It's the same. So where the internal service has been unable to collect it over a period of time, that's then referred externally for another for a second sort of crack at it, if you like. Okay. So my other questions are two points. Bearing in mind that some of this is dependent on people's income and benefits go up and down, pension credit comes in and out of scope as well. How agile are our systems to be able to pick up when people's calculation may be reduced or? Because you'll appreciate from a casework point of view. A lot of what we see is people say, I don't owe this. No, you do. And the council saying, yes, you do. And we always seem to be a bit behind the curve. So how agile is the system in managing this? It's probably a bit early for me to comment fully on that. But from what I've seen, I think we are. We are fairly robust and fairly agile in what we do. We are. We do update the system as and when the information becomes available. And does that come from DWP and HMRC? DWP as far as I'm aware. Yes, that's right. And there isn't a problem with? I don't think that's the problem. If I'm being honest, I don't think that's the area of concern that I'd have or I'd be focusing on, to be perfectly honest. So it's your area of concern? Well, I think it has been discussed. I think there has been a hangover from COVID. I think people have been deprioritizing council tax as a debt. I think we need to be quicker and more assertive in our recovery approach. I think that that's where we need to be. We need to be quicker in what we do. We need to engage with residents a lot quicker, be more, have more preemptive action. I think the report mentions about SMS messages. It's not uncommon for people to receive SMS messages to remind people that their instalment is due. We've not been doing enough of that. And that's what one of the plans or one of the actions is to take that forward. And even in the last couple of weeks or so, we have issued a lot of SMS messages. And that's the way we're going to sort of proceed on that basis. And that's a good result with 20% feedback on the SMS. That's encouraging. And my final question. How long have you, no, this isn't my final question. This is a preemption to my final question. How long have you been with the borough? Nearly 15 years. No, no, sorry. In this role. Oh, sorry. About five weeks. Five weeks. Okay. And then, right, because you know the council. One of the challenges for us on scrutiny is often that we're told that data is coming in front of us. And how can we be called? How would you propose to provide quality assurance to the data you present to the council and clean and other people in the context that there are some serious problems with data management in this organization? How would you propose to quality assure the data you've put before committees and the information that we provide is also provided to as part of the QRC return, which means we have to see that data is published. You will see. You will see. You will see. I can't be white for you. To the. To the. It's always. It's a sanctuary return to. It's a government. It's now O8 CLG. Okay. Must be quarterly revenue. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So that information and there's all there's back impact. There's obviously reports from the system that's generated that would reconcile against those figures that we have to submit on a regular basis to central government. Okay. This isn't directed at yourself, but maybe I don't know who can answer this. We also heard similar about the housing regulator when we were told about repairs and fire regulations as well. I'm going to push a little bit further. What quality assurance mechanisms, maybe Councillor McLean or Conrad, are you going to use to test to put in place that the data you're getting is as accurate as it can be? I mean, you can only trust what you're given, isn't it? So I thought we did with a regulation. So housing didn't we? Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I don't have a lot of that to comment. I mean, I'm not aware that there's been, you know, any suggestion or evidence that any of the information that's being provided on council tax collection rates was inaccurate. Or obviously it's a system of, you know, over a hundred million pounds, over 110,000 residents. So there'll be individual cases where, of course, things are not, not quite as they should be and they get corrected. So the normal quality assurance systems that we have in place, you know, would apply. And, you know, as far as I'm aware, you know, have, have worked. When this is, this is not a problem of, you know, that we didn't, didn't have the data or that the data we had was misleading. Uh, the issue was, uh, that, uh, sufficient attention to some of the collection techniques. It was, as we explained, for example, you know, much more emphasis on SMS messaging, uh, haven't been taking place. So, I mean, I hadn't, I hadn't intended to put additional quality control mechanisms in place because I'm not aware that there's a, a problem therefore that needs that. Fair point, but I'll go back to the regulator, social housing, and we weren't aware at that point either. And I'm not saying there is a problem, but what I'm saying is that should we be getting into a mindset where we actually think about quality assurance? This isn't to say that the untoward things are happening, but how do you test the robustness of this data? Uh, it's, it's an abstract question, but I think I would encourage maybe colleagues to go away and actually think about that because this is an issue that's going to come back to this committee. And we'll want to see progress. Well, sometimes the point is not that the data is, uh, inaccurate so much as thinking about different ways to cut it in order to identify, you know, what the problem is, for example, payment from this cohort of residents or non collection during this period of time or whatever. Yeah. So in that sense, yeah. So, and just one final question, is this all wrapped up in the transformation program? Because I have a big problem understanding what's transformation, what's the business as usual that is transforming, and what's actually part of the transformation program? So which, which, which camp are we in on this? This isn't the transformation program. This is nothing to do with, so we're not counting the return as savings or anything else later on down the line. No, this isn't. Thank you. That did bring them. My, um, first follow up and the response. Trust in what we give them. We have to be a learning organization. And Councilor Charlie is absolutely correct. I sat here. We were told stuff about housing. We accepted it. And then it's proven not to be so. So we should learn, and Councilor McLean, you do not want to be caught out, as all some of us and our colleagues have been caught out in terms of trusting what we need. So it comes the farthest correct and right that we must put some mechanism in place to make certain that the data is robust and it's accurate. So we need to move away from trusting the information that is before us that has been given. Thank you, Chair. And just to, to point out, thank you for that, Rita. That was really useful and it will help me to, to think about actually how going forward we can, we can quality ensure the data. But to be honest, Chair, we're 30 seconds in the table. I mean, if, if, if they suddenly said that we jumped from there to there without anything changing, then I think, well, actually the date is a bit, a bit iffy. But how do we, that won't happen? How do we know that won't happen? And I think that's the point that whatever date is there, it could be wrong. We might have, we might be higher. We might could have been higher up, up the table. I think the point is data across this council, and this isn't unique to the council tax services. It's a systematic issue. And I think it is incumbent on this committee to actually ask those questions. Your own safety. How well as anyone else? I think our council just made a point. It's a systemic across the council. That's a couple of questions. First question. What is the in-year collection rate target? The in-year collection rate target? It is, yeah, 96%. 96 point. Three. Three, yeah. 96.3. And if that's not between that, are people to play those? The in-year collection target was included on the sort of corporate KPI and dashboards, and you touched on this, a fellow councillor touched on this slightly earlier. That is expressed as a proportion of the council tax needed to fund the budget. So it's not the directly benchmarkable measure that Comrade spoke about earlier. So Comrade said there were two key, well, Comrade said there were many different performance measures you could apply, but there were two key ones. One was the in-year collection rate, which we've got good data to benchmark against other London boroughs and indeed other councils, and that's presented in the report. And then there is the lifetime collection data as well. But the KPI that is being collected and monitored has been the, I think it's the 96% against the amount we need to raise to fund the council tax budget. And there were some reasons for switching to that measure some time ago, and maybe it gives councillor charter some reassurance as well. It's one of those measures which is slightly harder to game, I suppose, in that there are, for example, a less scrupulous council could stop entering new properties towards the end of the year. So that, so that the in-year collection rate would look better, if you see what I mean. So by not registering new properties towards the end of the year and doing it on 1st of April, you would be able to sort of present a good or a more improved position on your in-year collection. So the KPI that we have been using sort of gets around that and takes a sort of longer term, more holistic view. The disadvantage, of course, of using that measure has been that you can't benchmark against others very easily with that at all. Okay. I'm somewhat confused, but apparently I'm asking my questions. Was there a reorganisation? I'm just trying to work out why the performance is falling off so badly. I'd never say COVID because the reason I say that is that if you look at Barclay and Dagenham and the other East London boroughs, performance has fallen because of COVID and we can all understand that. But if you look at Newham, it's falling off the cliff. It's falling off the cliff. And so I'm just looking at the, now you could say in demographics, Redbridge, Callaghan and the Hawking Forest have got more leafy suburbs. So let's compare ourselves to Barclay and Dagenham. And I wouldn't say that there was any COVID in Barclay and Dagenham. If you look at the fall off in Barclay and Dagenham, it fell by a couple of percent. In Newham, it fell by 6%. So, so was there a reorganisation in terms of past over the period and as a result of that reorganisation and service performance fell? So, yeah, two things happened. So, yes, I mean, you're right. Everyone was affected to some extent on collection by COVID, new and more so. I think it was in late 2020 or 2021. I need to check the exact dates. But yes, there was a move to put the council tax service together with some of the resident access services. That's now been reversed as that. Well, it did not have a positive impact on performance clearly. So, yes, there was also a reorganisation at the time that has since been undone. In reorganisation, were there any, usually in any organisation, there's some key people who actually are very good and do the work. In that reorganisation, were there key individuals who were let go? So, in the reorganisation, as Corred said, and I mentioned before, when it used to be resident experience, there was a director of resident experience. I believe it was a director. I was brought in that sort of customer care centre and cancer tax benefits and a range of things. But then, you know, it's quite a unique position for someone to have the expertise of both council tax and a customer services call centre. That post was deleted and then council tax was taken out of resident experience and was moved back into resources. So there wasn't, so yeah, so there wasn't a reorganisation there. And because that post was deleted, there wasn't that oversight between, as I said before, between the corporate director and the team managers. Yes. Let's be honest, these numbers are dreadful. I mean, everyone wants to spend money, we can all understand that, but if you want to spend money, you've got to collect your taxes. And it's quite obvious, for a number of years, Newham council has been very, very poor in the eight-to-year collections. But because of that, the numbers just said. So my next question is, what are you going to do to improve the council tax collection? What targets are going to be set? Are those targets going to be input in people's appraisals? And what monitoring is going to be done to ensure that usually, what I find, if you monitor numbers, people tend to look at them and people tend to interact. And what strikes me is there's been a lack of monitoring in this area. So how are you going to improve performance in this area? What specific actions, what is the target, and who is going to be responsible? So Chair, I'll hand over to Dave in a moment, I'll just make the point again, no one is defending the collection performance. I have highlighted the lifetime collection rate shown at 4.3, which, as I say, is not fantastic, but does illustrate that part of the problem is more about payment being late than it not being collected at all. And I just think it's important to reiterate that point. I'm not disputing the general thrust of the question. Of course, improvement is needed. Dave, could I hand over to you? Would you like to just explain some of the things that you have in train? Just before you bring down, I do hear your frustrations, Lester, and I share those frustrations. It's not a good look at all that we're so low down in the tables. And, you know, I have said, I really do. Sorry. We really do need to increase the collection rates. Dave, I'll bring Dave in just to speak about some of the things that we'll be doing to improve that. But, you know, you can be assured that it will improve. And yeah, I'll just hand over to Dayton. Thank you. I mean, there is a service delivery plan. There's an action plan going forward to how we bring ourselves back up to pre-COVID levels. We've already touched on some of those. I think from what I've seen, we need to be a lot quicker. We need to be a lot more assertive in our collection approach. We need to use all the available legislative remedies, which is things like making sure that we refer things to the internal bailiff service quickly, that we use SMS messages only in the last two or three weeks. We've now increased that to 7,000 SMS messages have been issued on pre-reminders, pre-summons, pre-final notices. We'll just say there is other work that's going on in terms of bankruptcy and charging orders on properties, that we've identified people that have got properties and large arrears that we're going to be tackling. So going forward, I'd like to think we're going to be a lot more robust, a lot more assertive, and a lot more quicker in the way that we tackle arrears. And that's really, you know, in a nutshell. Yes. Just one question. Is there anything that Barclins and Begum are doing that Newham ought to be doing? I mean, all local authorities will follow the legislative process, which is the reminder, the reminder notice, you know, the demand will go, the reminder notice will go, there's a final notice, a summons, then it's passed to the bailiffs as a general rule. That's how it operates. We just need to be a bit, we need to be a lot quicker in the way that we do that. And we need to be communicating with residents before we issue a reminder notice. So hopefully that nudges them into payment before they actually receive a reminder notice. So it's also about changing behaviours as well, because as been alluded to, is that there is, you know, I don't want to mention COVID again, but there has been sort of a deprioritisation from some residents because of the way, because of the, during COVID, the legislation changed and it sort of, it was a bit of a... I interrupt you, Dave. Sorry, come on. And the question is, is there anything that Barker and Dagenham is doing that we are not doing? So that is the question. So if the public hear the question, they're looking for that answer. What is... I don't, I don't, I don't believe that they are. You know, I speak to lots of local authorities. They all have a very, very similar approach to, to the way that we operate. Albeit, I think they're a lot quicker in what they do. Um, and they engage with residents far further up the chain than we do. So that's, you know, our, our approach going forward. Well, that's what that will be. Could I just quickly follow on from council? Have you got the resources you need to fulfill your ambitions? Yes, I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. I'm completely. Thank you. Um, I've been listening with, uh, quite a lot of, zeal over here. Um, comrades, you, you spoke earlier around the two measures, lifetime collection data and in-year collection rate. Um, but I just want to bring us back to that conversation. It would've been good if we had it when it was happening, but we'll go back now. So if we just looked at 4.3, which is the table, you said something earlier, which was in 2021. You use this example, uh, 6 million, 6 and a half million. Let's say. Wasn't collected. Just a moment ago. You spoke to it. Not that it wasn't collected. It may have been collected late. And I just want to understand. So are we saying that 6.5 million, which was four years ago has been collected? No, let me, uh, let me clarify that one chair so that it's, uh, clearly understood. So in the table above that, we're showing the in-year collection rate. Uh, so yeah. Yeah. So for 2021, for example, uh, we collected 89.48. Let's call it 89.5% of the council text due in the year, in that year. Yep. By the time that we have the data in this table, that figure has risen to 94.66%. So 94.7%, let's say. So in other words, although the in-year collection rate at 89.5% was clearly particularly poor, uh, to some extent, the problem is one of late payment rather than non-payment. Yep. Because total collection has got up to around about 94.5% more, which is, uh, around about a little bit below still. So there's still an issue there when I was disputing that, but around about the sort of budgeted assumption of the amount that we will eventually collect because, uh, although we would like to collect every single penny of council text due, the world's not like that. Okay. So does that clarify that? Sorry if I didn't make that clearer earlier. That makes perfect sense now you've explained it. However, for the layman out there watching this, they don't really care about the percentage. They care about the pounds, the pounds and the pennies. So 6.5 million is still not what we collected. But in 2018, that was at two, well, just under 3 million of uncollected council tax. And that was at that point 97.23% against what was here 96.13. So looking at that, I would say that our residents were paying their council tax. Um, and there was only a small amount that wasn't those figures. I would agree with you. I'm not suggesting table 4.3. Yes. Yes. Everything is okay. Clearly is a performance issue. And lifetime collection performance is not as good as it was in 2018. And that ultimately results in less money coming. But in 2023 comment, we're now saying that our council tax uncollected member in 2025. Now, it's been uncollected at the rate of just under 13 million pounds. And if we go by the same figures you gave us earlier, that was an increase of maybe 2% ish. My maths are not the greatest of what was collected maybe late, but it's still 12. Well, still just under 13 million. Um, which is a lot of money to not have collected for council tax. We've heard some of the commentary around, um, management and so on and so forth. From Dave's here to rescue us off out of this pit of hell that we're all in of unpaid council tax. But my problem is, is in our next agenda, right? And we're talking about raising the council tax, but yet we couldn't collect the council tax in the first place. So I wonder, and my question is, so those that are paying the council tax are residents in the borough that pay their monthly instalment or pay their council tax on time are being penalized because of people that are not paying the council tax. Because actually the outcomes of the council have still happened. And we still need money in to provide the services in which they're paying for. Their, their roads still get cleaned. Well, sometimes, uh, their bins get collected. The police have paid for adult social care and the rest of it. So I, I just wonder, I know when we talk percentages in accounting terms, that's great. But for the resident watching this, this is millions of pounds of money that's not been collected that rightly should. So if this was a mobile phone contract, you'd be cut off. True. If this was a creditor for a HP vehicle, the car would be taken. But because this is council tax, we're just going to let it go and, you know, and chase them for the rest of their days. I don't quite understand. And I hear what you said, Conrad, in regards to things are now being put in place. Um, but it doesn't, it doesn't bring us to any kind of, actually, this is going to work out. And this goes to my next part. I appreciate, Conrad, you might want to answer, but if I can just finish what I'm saying, then you can let yourself out. Um, what I don't see in this document, and I appreciate this document is part of a suite of documents for the budget. What I don't see in here is a no equalities impact assessment. We don't have any reasons. We don't have any understanding of what the demographic is, why it's happened, why people are not paying their council tax, why we haven't collected it. Has the person died? Have they not died? You know, are they living in a different country and the house has been submitted to somebody else? We don't see any of that in this document. And is that something you may consider going forward to bring a little bit more narrative as to why this hasn't been collected? Because at the moment it sits at mismanagement. Officers haven't been doing their jobs. So thank you for that. There's quite a lot there, Chair. Let me try and take it in the round. And then if I miss parts of that out, someone will remind me. So I agree with your point that percentages have at best a sort of limited function. And I agree with your point that reminding people about pounds and pence is important. So I absolutely agree with that. I think what Table 4.3 does show you is that you would have, if things carried on as they are, you would have reasonable grounds for confidence on the basis of what happened in the past is, you know, then, likely what will happen in the future if nothing changes, that that figure for 2023 will rise to around about, you know, 94, 95%, or doing some quick mental math, something like 8 million odd would remain uncollected. So, you know, obviously, we are looking to, to improve that. But that's why that table is there to try and provide that further, further data. It is also worth making the point. And, you know, I appreciate, again, we're getting into percentages here, aren't we? But the net liability is rising substantially each year, as that table shows. And there are two reasons for that. One is that council tax has been increasing as an absolute rate. One is also, you know, the number of properties in the borough are rising. So there are more properties on which, which taxes pay. So, you know, although the consequence of that is even if you keep your collection rate at the same percentage, of course, you know, the pounds uncollected will rise in line with that. You know, I agree with you. It would be great if we could collect everything we can't. Nobody does. We have to be realistic that there will be a number of cases that are, you know, being uncollected despite all efforts. And that, you know, the data shows that even when Newham's collection rate was better a few years ago, you know, it still didn't benchmark particularly highly in London. And perhaps, again, that's not surprising given the demographics and the economic circumstances of some of our residents. You know, it will be different to, you know, if we... Are we ranked up here responsibly? Yeah. Different to some other parts of London where there are, you know, many more residents happy to pay by direct debit, for example. So that's always going to be an issue for Newham. We can, of course, you know, provide further information on this where helpful. Just the last point. I mean, of course, you're right. If this was a mobile phone contract, we would cancel it, but we can't. You know, if a resident chooses not to pay their council tax, that doesn't give us the right to refuse to provide services for them. So, you know, I entirely understand the point you're making. It is not the case that, you know, when a resident doesn't pay, pursue them by whatever means we can, but we still have to continue to provide the services to them that they are due. And that is just just the way the law operates. Thank you. I have a couple of others. You said a couple of others. Yeah, well, I have waited all this time, so I might as well. I want to understand, Conrad, or maybe Andrew, actually, how much money has been lost? How much are we actually losing out on? Is it the 12 million? So, no, I mean, the way the accounting works is when we set the budget, we assume a lifetime collection rate for the council tax, typically around about sort of at the moment 94, 95%. So fact that in 2023, we are currently below that rate does not have any immediate financial consequence for the council because of the way the accountancy works on that. If that figure was unchanged sort of three, four or five years down the line, we'd hope it won't be, but of course, if it were, that's when we would suffer the loss. It gets quite technical into something called the collection fund. I'm happy to go into the detail if that's helpful. But the point is, it's only after several years that if you're below that lifetime collection rate, that the loss actually sort of hits the council's accounts. And the other question I had for you, something you said, Councillor McLean, you said, we're 32nd. And I read this as, okay, that sounds good. But then I thought, well, what part of that scale is good on which part is bad? Is one being the best and 32 being the worst? Well, then are we not the worst? So that tells me, I don't, I didn't quite understand. Sorry, maybe it's just me being fit. No one's saying that this is a good performance. And we have, you know, tried to set out the steps being taken to remedy it. And the one last thing, sorry, one last thing. Dave, you spoke earlier, and you said an action plan is being put in place to make this better. A lot of conversation earlier around how can we, how can we trust the data? How do we know it's working and the rest of it? I guess I wanted to ask you, would you be willing to share the revenue scrutiny, that action plan, so we can then also hold you to account the way in which you'd expect us to? What I'd say is the action plan is a very much a working document that I'm working with officers, my colleagues to implement. So it sort of changes and it's very, it varies depending on the circumstances that we find ourselves at that time. So I have no real, real objections, but as I say, it's, it's a working document. It's a document that changes and that will be what we will discuss it at the management meetings that we have been discussing. We have those regularly. And as I say, it very much evolves as the circumstances change. Can I? Just on the back of that, we see quite a lot of working documents within overview scrutiny. We even have task and finish groups that go on for absolute a lifetime that have no actual end because they're all working documents. I guess the question I may be asking if at all possible is, are you able to report back in, it may be in quarters, around how the collection is growing? So then we don't sit here next year saying, well, why is it we're now 25 million uncollected? Um, because actually we, we don't see it again until that point. So is there an opportunity to, you know, wash our faces in this lovely detail, um, going forward? Yeah. Not a problem. I mean, it's just a matter of a few of your agenda planning to ever last speak on this point. I was going to pick that up because what we said, you've got a service delivery plan. I suppose that is what you're referring to as a working document. Yes. Okay. So if it's a service delivery plan and we are scrutinizing this and so on, whatever you get that you're working with, I suppose it would have been a strategy or something. Can I formally request that we see that, um, if you're working to, it's a working document. We get that. We know what working documents are and can we see these and how soon can we see it? Yeah. Yeah. Seven days. Yeah. It's not a problem sharing. I mean, David's just making the point that it's not a set of actions that are done and then the matter is closed. It changes on a regular basis. Okay. And that's the last speaker. I have a question. I forgot to comment to that from the Council of Electronics. Um, it's not like, as you said, cutting off people's phones or there seems to be a marked reluctance in this council to make private decisions. I think there is a perception maybe out there that New England Council is a soft watch. They never ever make any hard decisions. And if you string New England Council along, they will fall. They will fall. And it's really a, it's really a free loop to the next paper, which is on the, which is a working paper parties report. I mean, the hard thing, well, do people believe if they didn't pay their council tax, they will end up in court and they will apply to their tax. Now that makes it very, very unpopular with residents. And residents will come complain to councillors. I think there are a number of councillors who appreciate that, you know, if you don't collect your tax, you can't provide social workers in children's services. You can't provide adult social services. You cannot provide a subsidy in order to build and develop social housing. You have to collect the taxation in, in order to reduce for any distribution and provide services. And maybe the thing for the executive is not to be such a soft watch. You have to make hard decisions now, very, very hard decisions. Not only in the collection of council tax, but in the budget. Thank you. I'm fine. If I'm just to sum up and I'm looking at the table, this table must be the 4.3. And whatever we do, the figures are dreadful, as has been said before. In 2018, just under 3 million of our money, we want to collect in. A few years later, we are collecting, it's 30 million more or less. I'm not collecting. So we're sure that we are doing very badly. And when I look at it in terms of today's money, and today's percentage, that is equivalent to 8% of our council tax. And we are just about to go to the residents and say, can you pay us 8.99%. So that is now 8.33% of our council tax that we haven't collected. So we do need to improve the situation. I got the impression from the conversation that we've been having here, that we are not monitoring this very well. And Dave, we now look to you that you've been brought in to make sure that the collection rate goes up. And when we have this conversation again, because it will be coming back to us and to monitor, that we see a marked improvement. Gradual marked improvement, but the collection rate is going to be going up so that we can be collecting the monies, especially in this climate, financial climate that we are at. And I'm now told, or we are now told that the collection of the target is 96.3%. So from 89% as it is now to 93%, we should be seeing incremental steps and growth. I'm tempted to ask Ben, but I'm not going to put you on the spot yet. But when you come back with the service plan, if you can say, because unless you have targets, as I asked Councillor McLean and my colleagues have said it, unless you have KPIs and saying, we're going to get there by then and so on. We won't get there. Councillor Hudson, I mentioned putting into people and appraisals, et cetera. Anything that we need to do to get the figures up. And the impact assessment, which is missing. That is an important piece of work or document that you, because not just us, but the council need to know what's going on there. So we do need to see that. And that's it. I think in terms of some of my notes that I wanted to run and measure. Oh, and the data, because you don't want to get the data. It's not, you know, what's getting because this has come back to bite us. I suppose we in scrutiny have a broadside view. The amount of time data has come to us from across the council and is not correct. So we can give you advice. It's good advice. Take it. Don't just depend on what is given to you. Cross check and do whatever we need to do. Yes, Chair. Thank you. That's been very useful. But just a couple of things I just wanted to point out. So in 4.3, when you talk about the difference in uncollected, you've got to remember to look at the column four, which is the net viability. So it was 128 and it's 145 in 2023. Hence why there's the big gap. Number one. Number two, Councillor Hudson, if I could just request that you have a look again. Actually, when I sum up. Yeah, no. When I sum up. It wasn't a time for you to. Just. Up on my seminar. Councillor Hudson, just to read again number nine about the proposed strategies for improvement. And you will note that at 9.3, it's a more assertive legal enforcement approach. Yep. Thank you. Okay. Um, so you know what? I don't have the time to do it now. But if I do, if I've done 96.3% of 145 million, um, then we would have seen. Um, we have seen that it's. Was much, much more. It won't be 10, 13 million on collective. If we stick to the targets. So our effort goes up. If you stick to the target, we still get a better collection rate. So that's what we need to stick to. Okay. Thank you. For the last lecture. Thank you. Yeah. No. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Okay. Uh, I move back to the key observation. the key observations um and being noted that notion no changes now we move on to the next and substantive item on the agenda which is the budget report it's now 15 more or less and if we can do this in uh 45 um minutes because there's no way basically questions and answers and we're just presenting our project um report um chair with respect who are we presenting to well there's no things not here so so conrad is in this chair i take it because conrad is the one i can advise the committee and provide facts and whatever i can't uh answer for the executive that's fair yes i assume that the um current number for finance was invited to the next thing he was did they opt to send someone to deputize in their place to represent the executive which is minutes and strict criticism of that given the news about how dire the budget is for the barracks and noted i appreciate you coming from that of course but they're eliminated and i'm just reminded that you just have a deputy but the point is not lost because the executive has a lot of executive members and someone responsibility and in fact the very senior executive members have just left and deputized so the point you're making is not lost um thank you colleagues we have had um just on the mantra so just about a month to have um scrutinize the mayor's uh proposed project project that is um the mayor would be taken to a cabinet later the um the end of this month and i should thank you all for the work that has been done and for the recommendations which we will be going through very shortly that has um arrived at miriam council finances is not in an lg state as we all will see from the report we are running very huge um deficit or overspend currently it's 45.5 but this year next year at least it's 84 million but when we take into account um efficiency savings which is 32 million and when we take into account the concert tax we would be um about 51 million deficit that's 51 million and i suppose for the dream public it's money is that it's in our budget but we don't know it's going to be coming from yet that is what this basically means so we know the two million is going to be coming from savings some is going to just under six million it's going to be coming from constant tax increases and the rest we have to find and i suppose we have to find it in here because we can just back it down the road savings we don't have a good track record in delivering savings when you look at the moving average i know it's we're improving as a council but we are not there yet so that 22 million or that um over the mtfs um period i think 71 million seasons we have to find am i correct conrad if 71 million over the three years period we'll have to find and we because we do not have a track record of even collecting 90 percent um this year is 85 percent that means we're not going to collect if we continue at that rate we're not going to collect that 75 million and the face is going to be coming from is reserve reserves that we do not have usable results that we do not have because currently from our calculation in the budget scrutiny our usable resolve is teetering around 54 million and we have a budget gap of 51 million so therefore we don't have the money and we'd have to be very um innovative and do stuff to find um the money to be providing the services the government is going to be hopefully we've gone to the government asking for 50 million or there about i'm not sure and this is a question i need to ask conrad is it for the 6 million or 50 million of exceptional financial support and when that comes in that hopefully would us take us this year hopefully to prevent a 114 imminently and for the general public 114 is when the government sent in commissioners professionals and they come in and they take away elected members the mayor and us councilors um ability to control our finances and to decide where we spend our money and they just do the statutory spend services and that's it so we are not in a good place financially and hence we need to be tightening our belt and some of the things i wonder things i have when i thought about it it's our discretionary spend and even we might come to the stage where we even have to look at some of our capital spend but we are and deciding upon now one of those capital spend that came to my um notice recently is the bridge across the docks which across the docks and the royal victoria bridge that is the capture spend that was going to settle future councils for years to come with just under a million pounds per year for the next 50 years or so okay a bridge was going to be there nonetheless so those kind of stuff that we need to do and those are the kind of stuff that this council need to pause and think carefully in what kind of capture spend we need to be getting into and victoria street was one of those that we said to our i said to the mayor when i presented why not keep victoria street and if you don't need to spend that money build another property and maybe you have two the executive saw good nonsense and decided to give victoria street the reason of life over three years with the possibility of one year we hope they would keep it a repurposed building um in some way we don't have the money we have to be thinking smartly and i would just um say that so thank you all thanks officers um um for the work that we have done and so far right so council's hope he's not here so conrad um although we supposed to be presented this to a politician um you the section 151 officer so you the next best person we have and i am i've noticed comes the masters and i've been given and just i've been given advanced notice that comes the master need to uh and brought to our attention some recommendation issues correct just to clarify i think the budget working part is presenting to overview and scrutiny it's work so in a sense it's a conversation for members obviously if there are any clarification questions they're not right around i'm here okay thank you thank you chair would you like me to uh add some sort of factual points that might be relevant to your discussion yes you may and then we bring in susan with um the recommendations um issues okay so uh the first point just you asked me to clarify uh the numbers on exceptional financial support so uh just for the avoidance of doubt there are two aspects of the application council tax uh a call technically a bespoke referendum limit the ability uh if members so vote for it to raise council tax by nine percent next year has as members know uh been agreed the second part of it uh is what's called capitalization so the ability against normal accounting rules to use the proceeds of disposals of our surplus assets to cover day-to-day expenditure rather than to fund new capital uh investment uh and that has not yet been uh agreed uh as i think we've set out throughout the process uh we didn't expect to get a decision on that until pretty close to the council date of 27th of february conceivably even after that i do not know whether that will be agreed but i think it is is clearly more likely now that it will be that it will be agreed than was the case before we knew the decision on council tax it would be i think curious of the government to agree the uh request on council tax and then not agree the capitalization part of it so i think you could reasonably say as an absolute minimum that is now more likely to be agreed than was the case you asked me to clarify the numbers on that chair uh so we put in the application for 50 million uh you're correct that the strictly speaking required figure was 46 million you know the difference was just just some contingency built in to allow for whatever may happen in the year uh we have subsequently changed that figure to 51.2 million because that was based on the requests of council tax at 10 rather than 9 percent 0.2 million is the difference between those two so that just just explains those uh those figures i do not know the figures for the sector but as i've said consistently uh and this is you know backed up uh more and more by conversations taking place within the sector we know that they'll be in this position this year than were the case last year i'm aware of seven including newham within london so 20 say one in five london burghers uh which does make the point and sip the chartered institute of public finance and accountancy and others have made this point that this is becoming normalized for the sector uh and speaks to significant funding issues for the whole local authority sector uh rather than uh you know just actions that newham has or has not taken uh section 114 was uh was mentioned so again just to be clear on that uh if the budget cannot be balanced i would be under a duty to issue a section 114 notice but i do need to be very clear about what that what that is and what it isn't so firstly just for the avoidance of doubt uh the minister of housing communities and local government have made it very clear that they regard provision of exceptional financial support as obviating the need for section 114 notices to be issued and might even argue that that's part of their policy intent uh in uh using it a section 114 notice strictly speaking what it does is require the council to hold a meeting to consider the report uh it does not it's not like for example when an administrator goes into a company that's in bankruptcy and the administrator in that situation can choose to break contracts or do all sorts of things that couldn't ordinarily done uh so you know issuing a section 114 notice would in no way affect our statutory obligations in respect of for example homelessness or social care which is significant financial pressures so i don't want anyone to sort of think that somehow that would be a solution to the problem uh it would not be chair says uh rightly i think certainly experience has shown that when councils have issued that in the past it has led to commissioners being appointed it is less clear that that is the case or would be the case in the future uh the councils that have issued it in the past thurk broiden slough working you know there are clear issues of financial failure uh whereas uh you know the situation for new and increasingly more and more of the sector uh is that there is simply a mismatch between the funding i did uh and the responsibilities uh on uh on councils uh you know what the what the future holds for that we will have to wait and see what the funding spending review and local government finance review bring i can't say i'm terribly hopeful on that if you look at the economic situation and growth it doesn't speak to uh the likely provision of sufficient funding for the level of services that local authorities are currently uh required to carry out and that is why the draft budget report uh to cabinet in january explicitly said this is not a sustainable financial strategy uh and that is repeated uh in the report that's about to be published for cabinet uh on the 18th of february uh the fact that it is not a sustainable financial strategy does not mean that we have identified uh an alternative that would be sustainable and again this varies to the whole point financial sustainability of the sector so i do think that is very important uh context lastly if i may chair uh just on the recommendations that the committee have made uh i think there are likely to be significant practical issues with the proposal that all discretionary expenditure above 50 000 pounds should be approved by council i think it may need some clarification of that because the recommendation appears to be referring to things that are outside of the budget of requiring approval by council sort of by definition once the budget is set that legally is called the budget and public part of the budget and policy framework cabinet can't take decisions outside of that so i think it might be helpful to have a discussion on what the precise intent behind that recommendation was to make sure that it it reflects what you need the other point that i would make uh is that there was a detailed commentary provided on a number of the individual savings proposals uh some of which uh over the exclusionary committee is entirely within their rights to do so they disagree with those savings proposals others also that uh a review of those was recommended clearly given that the budget will be set in the next few days it's not possible to you know conduct a fundamental review of those proposals so i i think it would be helpful to kind of confirm what the intent of that was the way i read it you know your current position is that those should not be included within the budget but i may be mistaken in that certainly if one adds up all of those proposals i think they get somewhere over six million pounds of savings that you said either should not be taken or should be reviewed and it would be helpful to understand exactly what the intent of that was so that we can uh respond accordingly i think that probably deals with the factual points that i'm able to but i'm obviously here to assist uh as may be necessary thank you um you're saying that you're now trying for 51 million that's for this fiscal year um for the next fiscal year what about for this fiscal year the 16 million yeah what's perspective of that that that was always part of it yes you're correct that should be added to it yeah so so the total amount that you're applying for is uh 67.2 um yes we were told that at the budget attendance gathering session as i understood it though the 16 million was a sale of assets are we now converting it into um efs or it's going to be still for the sale of assets same thing same same thing it's just efs is the route by which we are uh or we ask to be able to uh apply the receipts from the sale of assets to cover day-to-day expenditure so the 16 was always part of it but yes happy to clarify um thank you then um carlina thank you um i have a question in regards to your commentary work barred in section 114 um what criteria is used not to call a section 114 this is a uh very live debate uh and uh you know matter of considerable concern within the sector i mean fundamentally the legal test is the judgment of your section 151 officer which i appreciate it is not a terribly precise test but but there we go uh the strong advice from the minister of housing communities and local government and sitfa is that exceptional financial support whether in our case by flexible use of capital receipts or indeed borrowing uh is being provided or at least has not yet been rejected and there would not be grounds for a section 114 report to be issued on the basis that there was a prospect that the budget will be balanced this is where we get to the point where i describe the the strategy is not being sustainable uh you know if you look at uh some of the neighboring boroughs also requiring exceptional financial support uh they're they're beyond the point of asset sales so they're in effect being required to borrow to cover next year's budget and the year after that they'll borrow even more to cover that year's budget plus the interest on the previous year's borrowing and so on uh and you don't need to project that too many years forward uh you know a decade or so uh until you probably get to the point when more than 100 of their budget will be consumed by interest payments nonetheless even under that sort of rather extraordinary position providing government is still providing that funding uh it's not at all obvious that a section 114 notice would be required and it is worth making the point that local government is actually relatively unique in in uk uh public services you know the nhs ewp you know all the others so they're just funded by borrowing each year uh so local authorities are in a sense you know this is a slightly different situation there uh in my view would be uh that government either needs to you know grasp the net and just say we'll fund local authorities differently although i think that would then personal view that would give rise to significant issues about local democratic accountability because in effect if the funding is entirely central it does raise a question doesn't it about what the role of elected politicians would be uh or it needs to provide funding to match the duties that it places on local authorities or perhaps a more difficult conversation yet that you know which is much much bigger question than newham someone is going to have to pay sooner or later uh is to start looking at the nature of those duties uh and whether they are ones that as a society we can afford now those are bigger questions than for me or or for you uh but you know it seems to me those are the three three sort of plausible ways out of it i suppose the fourth of course is to review taxation levels thank you and it's not lost to me you asked about the 50k um discussionary spend when the cabinet and retail i'll come on to that as well chair if i may but a couple of other things um in response and i think after this chair if we can go through the 10 key recommendations conscious of time um you you you mentioned the fact that uh this group had or the the budget commission had in some places in the detailed recommendations around people places and resources asked for things to be paused um or reviewed and i think one of the challenges and this is my third year on budget scrutiny is that the quality of information that comes before us often leaves us having to ask more questions and can i pay tribute to officers who've gone back sternly to try and chase up information in that and noting that this report again is a qualified report because we haven't got all the information we need i think there is a whole issue here that we haven't got this whole process in terms of budget setting corporately quite right yet and that's the rationale behind thinking many of this and one classic example is libraries i cannot for the life of me and i have discussed this with the cabinet member as well understand why it takes a year to review libraries any statutory consultation period is 12 months uh is uh 12 weeks so the kind of push into the long grass of some of these is really worrying because some of these decisions could be taken earlier it also begs the the question how soon in the planning cycle are cabinet colleagues actually taking some of these uh discussions earlier ahead and that's obviously not for officers but i do think there is something there about timelines chair may i respond to that i think there's a couple of important all important points of course but a couple of important clarifications i'd want to make so you know certainly uh you know out of all the many budget proform was provided uh you know i'm uh recognizing of course uh that there's always scope for improvement in at least uh some of those it is important i think to remember what those are doing and libraries is actually a really good example of that so you know one might argue for instance if you don't mind my saying counselor chela that the fact that it enabled you to see that uh proposal need not take this long to implement means that the information was there in the open to enable you to form a judgment on on that but perhaps more importantly still there is budget for the budget needs to be thought of as as is described in the legislation part of the budget and policy framework there are some proposals in there that will just be implemented you know a proposal to delete x-ray compost to make the simplest possible example uh you know council approve it let me just do it the next day sort of thing one takes something like the library's proposal that's setting out if you like a policy direction with some financial targets attached to it no decision will be taken on that without a further subsequent cabinet report that would have a lot of the detail that you're then expecting to see yes those performers should not in all cases contain all the information necessary to take the decision because there would be a subsequent report before they were actually enacted and the libraries one is perhaps a good example of that so i do think it is just important to kind of emphasize this point about how much information one should reasonably expect to see in each of those performers i'm not saying they were all as good as they should be clearly there's always scope to improve and some were not of the quality uh required but i just think hopefully that's a helpful clarification may i come back to you yeah that's the last time back i can i can i can see where you're coming from conrad then look at in it from a scrutineer's point of view how can we actually help shape a recommendation if we don't know the pace if we don't know which libraries if we don't know the job of it it's the same with the children's centers but i do not for a minute believe whether it needs to go to cabinet or whether it's a policy discussion that it takes a year to decide which libraries to reconfigure in whatever shape or form so i think the issue is in some of these places it feels like we're not making and it's it goes back to something that councillor hudson said before we do need to make difficult decisions and i'm not saying it's not with officers officers have clearly made some very clear recommendations but the political will has to be there to see through on some of these uh policies and procedures and it doesn't take a year to decide how to reconfigure libraries um thank you um thank you um could we now move into um our recommendations and we um um on page of our book it's page 14 and 15 which we have 10 um overarching recommendations and then later on in the report there um there are um other um um other chapters there that seek these recommendations council master i do recognize you because you wanted to and raise some issue on recommendations that you thought that we've missed yes i did um when we announced our recommendations last thursday we know there was a technical glitch so they weren't actually sort of posted to uh the saturday um there were a number of very specific recommendations made so we went through each proposal and came back with a very specific uh response we realized officers have only really had the weekend to get the support together which is a ridiculous timeline um but one of the things we we we found and we raised was that when it came to the umbrella uh recommendations those are all in but in terms of the specific recommendations requiring a specific saving or a specific further dive into uh getting more money out of a service those parts have been left out so before the meeting we've gone through and we've tried to put those back into the report so for example on recommendation two in terms of um making further substantial savings in discretionary spending three areas where these could be made were recommendation b15 around sort of speeding up the library's review which could get small money in year which uh council colleague councillor child has already referred to uh and also uh recommended uh savings b5 and b6 which relate to the review of the events cultural and heritage budget and then the heritage archive and local studies resourcing uh we think extra money should be found there then uh lower down um um um it's b15 is it no it's recommendation nine uh in terms of we also sort of wanted to put in there uh to reverse a 14 the recommendation on removing street lights and uh street decorations but on the understanding that going forward this would be funded through sponsorship and that the community wealth building service would sort of pivot and be more focused on delivering that sponsorship and then under recommendation 10 um there's a reference to the pest control subsidy so we want that specifically to be listed so that's a 12 and one of the most important things though that we wanted sort of definitely restored was our new money it seems absolutely crazy that we're reduced we're removing a service that supports residents so they're not drawing on other services but equally sort of brings in about five million pounds worth of funding which is a lot more than the uh just under a million pounds we're saving by accessing it so so that was a very specific recommendation we had and i think that covers members oh yeah and and then generally as well we we felt that members allowances should be frozen and we feel that in terms of um the administration we should look to uh either end the existence of deputy cabinet members or drastically reduce the number in line with other boroughs in line with other boroughs chair may i may i follow up yes um and i think council masters you also mentioned re-pivoting community wealth building oh i did i did when i was sort of talking just now about um the um bringing back in the the funding of um the street lights and street decorations uh recommendation a14 but on the understanding that the money for this would be found from sponsorship which would be generated through a re-pivoted community wealth building service thank you chair may i just bring in a point here um events have been drawn to our attention today that one of the proposals in this and forgive me i don't have it to hand is that the voluntary sector youth services provision the decommissioning of that would take a year and then the cuts would happen in the next financial year i'm led to understand that actually that's been brought forward today um for the cuts to happen presumably this year the coming financial year i think we heard budget scrutiny quite clearly that a lot of time was being invested by the director and at that time the cabinet member in talking to voluntary sector colleagues i think to do that this late stage in the day but also to provide um colleagues with false hope by saying around that actually they may apply to national government for funding when there are no published programs available at this stage i think is a real travesty it speaks again to the optimism bias of this administration um but i think it's just i cannot understand why that was brought forward it would be helpful if we could ask the mayor that um but essentially i think we have really badly treated the voluntary sector considering they were a pivotal pile a partner during covid that stood by this council to now treat them this badly is quite appalling um which is speaks a lot to seven but could we add to number seven wording to reflect our disappointment in the in this budget and that we still oppose the um bringing forward of cuts to the voluntary youth sector that's six organizations expected so basically that has to be a recommendation saying that adding to number seven not to go ahead not to go ahead please all right have you got that thanks um josh thank you chair um i i think i think the recommendations are are very good and obviously as a member of lns i commend by the scrutiny for their work once again um i think the strongest recommendation is the second by either following the details in the report of the the matter the political man administration of the finances quite some time and as cancer teller has pointed out the optimism bias which has led the administration to always believe a solution will be found of the 11th hour having full council be required to approve the expenditure of 50 000 pounds i think is a measure the authority is worth considering but the if my correct recollection serves me well and the paper doesn't does mention that all the budgets written the commissioners recommendations were adopted last year they were all um by the by the main uh political group by the labor group and this year it's right that many of the recommendations um though incredibly strong i think perhaps could go further in their specificity of what parts of the budget we're looking to make serious amendments to given that the report is quite clear that though officers have been more helpful i think than than they have in previous years and not of course to dispel anybody and make them think that i'm criticizing the officers in fact it's completely the possibility i think of uh the administration to ensure that that information can be made available and that has happened from from from comrade tonight and many meetings prior i think it's important that we actually highlight what changes need to be made both this year and as chancellor hudson has talked about future years because at the moment the only saving grace for this budget to be balanced as conrad has rightly pointed out the section one officer is through emergency financial support from the government and a humongous council tax increase which again puts the burden on revenue something that has happened has mentioned in this report because the earlier warning signs made by this committee last year the year before and the year before and indeed by cabinet colleagues which conrad will recall for some quite some years now each year has been has been frankly ignored to the point where we're now requiring 50 million pounds of government and nine percent counted i think so i do think that the recommendations could go even further to make clear what we think the administration should adopt what we what discretionary spending we think that they should stop in order to ensure the book is balanced for the rest of the year and i believe councillor martin what point is someone's on help to me now uh i guess actually i'm quite amused you said that because i just specifically went through and in terms of the discretionary spend uh i specifically sort of referenced which savings that that should be relating to and in terms of money i'd even done a grid for officers compiling the report which went through the actual costs involved and how it would end up being cost neutral by taking more money from some of the discretionary areas but putting back in other areas that i think are really important so so we really had we learned from last year with i mean last year i agree with you was an incredible success um and we we did do that it's just unfortunate that in the speedy writing of the report the specifics got missed out and hopefully are now back in okay and last year we did um and we did circulate it um uh the various um how we follow this our report in terms of um the monies where we want money to be taken away what money to be added etc and we have it in time for the other place when we had that discussions and so on apologies i saw you the listing and they were all very good recommendation additional recommendations as opposed to one that had already been considered like this no they said they they were considered they were put on record last thursday but they just have not been listed in the final report will they be in the final report and the only two recommendations here that we didn't read into the record last week is the freezing of members allowance which i must say um we are um there's a caveat there that um is it our role to do that but at least we're suggesting it and it is for others to take it up in other places uh whether they agree with us to freeze members um and also again in terms of deputy cabinet if the mayor doesn't want to get rid of it because some of this obviously has a huge workload for one person actually there's a reduction in the number of deputies and that wasn't read into the record last week but hopefully it's here now this is where we can make changes other takeaway and we've seen it now so now it's in the on the record i agree chair well i think you're right on the first point the allowances legally it has to be made in a separate vote by the full council but on the number of sras we can make a recommendation because mainly boroughs like walsham forest were able to make a strong accommodation to reduce the total number of sras and given that a recent sra has only drawn on for six weeks i don't think that there's been evidence from the administration that increasing the number of sras is improving services at all so we can definitely recommend that they're perhaps half in total number which doesn't of course affect a recommendation financially until they're heavily calculated by the administration but we can still do so okay thank you and i just had a question um chair don't mind so thinking about thinking about the budget recommendations i'm simply looking at recommendation eight and the commentary around temporary accommodation i guess my question chair would be in the budget setting process are we have we worked for detail through in the budget working process for the increase in persons presenting in the temporary accommodation cohort what is that for me or to conrad i'm the i think okay conrad so i mean all of your recommendations sorry not all of them some of your recommendations are proposals to change what's in the draft budget family of course you're perfectly entitled to do that and uh you know if you like uh so i know this is sort of oversimplifying slightly but you sort of don't need to concern yourself too much with uh where the decision on that finally gets made around members allowances for example you're just saying we think you should do this uh and then you know other bodies take take take those decisions uh as needed uh i mean i do still have an and you want to kind of highlight this concern from the list of all of the detailed uh individual proposals that you've uh commented on to the effect of sort of disagree with or review and of course you're perfectly entitled to do that uh but that adds up to some 6.4 million so for example you know to pick out the big ticket items of that reducing the council tax reduction scheme support available to residents 2.9 million comment on that was to disagree uh or uh our new money service which we've discussed a million pounds there or thereabouts uh you know various others i'm not sure i've heard at this meeting where you've proposed additional savings to balance that now of course you're entitled to suggest a budget that you know has fewer savings in it than than the administration's proposed budget uh and but what will happen is the administration will consider this it will decide which if any of these individual specific proposals to adopt and amend its budget accordingly or not as a case you may be in council we'll vote on it but i just think it is important to emphasize the point that from the information provided to me it seems that you've been specific about certain proposals that you would not adopt and you've suggested as you're perfectly entitled to do that you would go somewhat further in other areas but i've not been able to see that those sort of balance off against one another one another okay um thanks i wouldn't i would yeah go on let's go um i don't think conrad you've got the latest draft of of the recommended budget changes um my understanding is that it is cost neutral it's not really being cost neutral but in summary the areas that are looking for budget reductions will be the cultural services one area um a substantial reduction in the mayor's office reinstating um the budget reduction that was agreed last year and completely ignored and i think there was one other area i think maybe marketing and that's from my memory but i understand that there is a detailed paper which is floating around which actually provides a um shows that um the changes are budget neutral and our quality i mean it is a somewhat um truncated budget period that we're working in but our apologies if you haven't received that information no no i'm sure you're correct councillor you you you always are on the numbers like that i mean if it is available being able to see it i might be able to advise the committee better if there is a copy available for this meeting access to susan just picking up on the point you were making conrad in terms of the council tax reduction scheme i think the point that was made very clearly in the meeting was that this would be financed in terms of improved collection of council tax relating back to the last item uh but just to be clear again these are not new recommendations we're bringing to the table they're recommendations and and we literally went through the individual proposals one by one on the thursday when we returned our recommendations and we asked at the time because uh councillor charter had actually done a brilliant grid going through every proposal divided up in the way we'd looked at the budget along people place resources lines and asked that all the comments be recorded into that and that then would have helped feed into uh the actual final report but unfortunately it's just it hasn't been reflected in the recommendations that were pulled together this weekend but it is there and hopefully after this meeting that work will be done and yeah um thanks sir um back your observation and if i get it right you said it's six point four nine million uh you crossed our recommendation at six point four nine million number six six point four i mean you know i can read it out if you want but i'm not convinced that actually sort of trying to reconcile two sets of figures in the meeting is the best use of our time i haven't got the other schedule that's referred to because obviously we would we would be looking at this i just want to your headline figures okay thanks um for that um feedback um conrad and wise i would say we would try our utmost to make certain our recommendations are of course neutral and in fact um add and in terms of um to the mayor's um finances but it's not our responsibility to do that but because when we as budget scrutiny is looking like this we're looking at what is better for the people of new for instance our money is one of those things that we think our um the residents of our barrier um needs because of this um the demographic and everything else in um the barrett hey what you say is good practice and we will try our utmost but it's not our responsibility yet um what i will say is that in any recommendation that i make of a working party to change the body it will be neutral um see you have an assurance i just want clarity conrad on what you said on recommendation on number two about um new discretionary spent over 50 000 i mean what we're trying what we know that the financial situation is absolutely desperate and what we're trying to do is prevent capitalists and the executive to produce new applications to spend money in the next fiscal year which will make the budget um we're trying to help you couldn't make which will make the the budget that because if we have to change the constitution if someone can provide us with wording to change the constitution and we can ensure that um another place um can get agreement to that okay can i perhaps i think i just want to be really clear about what what the recommendation is and what it isn't and although we can make changes to our constitution we can't make changes to the legal framework so when you set the budget that forms part of what is called the budget and policy framework and the way the law works is that provided it goes within you know due process and schemes of delegation all the rest of it cabinet can then take whatever decisions they want to do within that budget and policy framework obviously you have the right to call them in and so on uh and so but they therefore do not have the right to do anything which is outside of that now obviously yeah one doesn't take these things to extreme i mean if they wanted to spend tough and safety that wasn't in the budget policy framework obviously that would be ridiculous to sort of say they couldn't do that but you should take the take the point so if you're saying you don't want cabinet to be able or you want council to review any proposed expenditure of 50 000 or more that is not within the budget framework that is already the law cabinet cannot do that uh if you're saying you want council to review uh and authorize proposals to spend to undertake discretionary expenditure that is within that budget and policy framework then obviously that that is a matter for the council to determine it could choose to do that but you see that very important distinction and i'm trying to talk to what i'm trying to understand the recommendation it seems so part of which is trying to to solve an issue that the law already provides i'm just trying to find an example and the example is the bridge to nowhere um which wasn't included in the budget in this fiscal year and it appeared as a cabinet paper and we called it in i don't believe that the bridge to nowhere or for me to be more accurate for victoria they're all victoria they're all victoria bridge i don't believe there was budgetary provision for that in the budget was there yeah kind of right there was because the capital program uh included an unallocated amount to enable decisions to be taken as and when they arose during the year that would therefore be within that budget and policy framework now clearly that still leaves plenty of legitimate debate as to whether that was a good decision or not just for the avoidance of doubt for the the proposed decision was law this is a lot for another i'm really i'm really worried by your last comment here on that because that was a bucket of capital um the situation the financial situation is absolutely desperate and what i have what we haven't seen is a detailed capital budget which shows unallocated capital amounts and i don't want us to be in the situation i will have a real problem um if there are unallocated capital amounts where the executive can come out with new projects which um while they have the capital but in terms of revenue expenditure it makes the revenue budget worse if you see where i'm coming from i i i mean the issue is i'm more we don't have capital budgets and it's more detailed so that members of council but back they should have very little discretion about these things and if we don't see it we can't question it and with the best example i'm sorry that's what i'm inventing on it um the 130 million pounds um where there were six words to um for that two years ago in the budget was probably the worst example of course obviously and giving them your financial situation that's that's where we're coming from about 50 pounds a pound so again i just make the point chair you know if what you want is oversight of council oversight of items that are within the budget you know you can clearly do that i mean i think there are administrative issues in that but you could choose to run the organization that way that's law uh where it is expenditure that's outside of that budget and policy framework the law already provides that council would have to take those decisions on a particular point about royal victoria bridge for better or worse budget that council voted for included an unallocated capital sum to enable things to be brought forward uh expeditiously where it was thought advisable to do so and provision uh for the interest costs on those so that there's not a question as to whether that proposal was lawful but i'm well aware that it's a matter on which there is considerable debate as to whether it's a good idea okay thank you and i've seen your calling and i will bring you in and conrad you set it out clearly thank you basically what you're saying to us it is not in the framework it's illegal and it can be done anyway what you're saying is that the bridge was in the capital framework and therefore it was lawful to have gone ahead however script we called it in and since we called it in all those 30 months ago um i think a baby would have been born by then um it hasn't gone forward but just let's look at it or this was in the framework but this was in the framework members of the time think that you know what this was money we shouldn't spend and this was money that we could better spend elsewhere and in fact and as we've noted today is that it's just under million um pounds for the next 50 years we'd have been we if it goes ahead in that way we'd be paying and that would be on the revenue project it's things like that members want to stop happening and we say 50 um and again it would be for the politicians to make that decision whether it's 50 000 40 000 100 000 or whatever but members made my point chair about explaining but clearly that's why you can choose to run the organization this way i think you may find it administrative members just want to say that discretionary spend we need to pause we need to look at it and we need to stop some of those discretionary spend because we don't want to at least the revenue budget with interest or as concert also say we do the capture spend and then the revenue budget have to come to run the thing and we don't have those money right now thanks absolutely may i perhaps just make one more point i'm really not trying to be awkward you know to say you know choose to try and run the organization this way you know if council agrees with you then you can do so i've always found this discretion this discretion this difference between statutory and discretionary spend somewhat awkward let me give you a really practical example uh so uh you know all expenditure at much lower levels uh you know within my department for example i see in either authorize or don't uh so not very long ago uh there was the extension to an agency member of south contract in the finance department now you could have just about sort of managed without that i think it would have been a very bad idea to do so uh but you you could sort of make the argument that that was discretionary spend because we could have just about chosen not to not to do it or you could sort of argue well it's in finances therefore statutory surrounding there's quite a sort of ambiguous line on there if you say council has got to approve everything over fifty thousand pounds it's got any sort of element of discretion yet this is why i'm then anxious you may find lots of things don't happen without council approving them i think there would need to be some very clear ground rules about what discretionary really means in that context for you to be able to operate it that's the point that i'm concerned okay come back um in my back and then not bring her carly because she's been waiting for a long time okay so i i think we're talking semantics here aren't we in the end of the day we can't live the life of of being on a champagne budget when we've only got bare money it's as simple as that so yeah not even that yeah government juice the fact is is we don't what what we see here and it goes down to what you said earlier in some commentary that you gave earlier comment which was my question around what not um what not what's the criteria not to to have a section one one four and one of the things that you said was duties there may be a conversation around what duties we do as a council and that's the whole government thinking about it's a national if we just think about the conversation we're having today and i i can see and understand your your anxiety around what's being proposed but we have to almost put our big girl pants on and say we are where we are in regards to the financial situation we're currently sitting in the conversation i you know since i've been in the council since 2018 this has got worse we have to make a decision around what we need what we want and what we just can't have so for instance the overspend in victoria the overspend in carpenters it wasn't budgeted for full stop end of story we can put it up however we like but it wasn't budgeted for and it's growing and growing and growing and the money that we borrowed is growing and growing and growing at some point we have to say well actually that's not a priority against social workers for adults and children i appreciate it's difficult decisions and things are ready in trade and money has already been taken out of which we're paying but we have to get to a point where we say we just can't afford it and if we're going to justify raising council tax we're going to justify making savings and closing things we also have to be very clear about not allowing money to be spent when we don't have the budget for it so i think that's where we're as much as the example you gave just a moment ago around um personnel employees of the council i see that as a abby job you get a paid service that's what she's responsible for and she's able to make those decisions the decisions here are not about the organization making decisions these are about political decisions you can't speak to that because you're not a politician so that goes back to we haven't got no politician in the room to stand account for these decisions and conversations so my point still remains the same is difficult decisions have to be made how are we going to how are we going to fund the exponential extra bothering how are we going to do that without any money if we're asking the government for a bailout of some sort whether you like that language or not but yet we're still trying to protect the pennies that we have they don't they don't match um i'm mindful of the time um conrad i see that you want to come back in and this is something no i heard what you said about for instance if you had to get a staff in your department etc i know you understand where we're coming from in terms of discretionary spend and we picked a figure that is in line with the nhs which is 50k etc we are going to stick to our recommendation of having some limit on discretionary spend but ask to come to the cabinet because that is what um scrutiny um think is necessary if i were to ask hypothetically if you think 50k is too low what my issue chair i i'm in no way trying to take away the right of politicians you know as you know to to take political choices and my issue is not with you know 50 000 it's not that it would be okay if it was 100 or okay if it was 25 it's not the it's not the level that is my concern it's without some description or agreed working of what is just what we actually mean by discretionary and that's why i gave the example that i did without that no one in the organization is going to do anything because in my example there i could extend that agency workers contract and then be censured by council for having done something i didn't have permission so if you are to make this recommendation i think you must put some more definition so so for example you've helpfully said this doesn't apply to suffering yeah but that's the sort of things i mean because otherwise the organization will not be able to function but none of that takes away the right politicians to make decisions thank you gunro i think there's a very important point here that um new council hasn't got the money and what i am the last typically minutes have accidentally terrified me in terms of the budget gap getting bigger what we were trying to prevent was a situation where members of the executive would add to the liabilities and add to the budget gap by making decisions in the next fiscal year and what we're trying to do is come up with a form of wording so that from the point of view of new council he understands that you know there is no more money i mean i i am you can tell i am absolutely um flutter blasted so that's where where we're coming from conrad that's where that is where i am coming from because your financial situation is unsustainable it is absolutely unsustainable yes i know i said that in writing for a number of years and there's something culturally blocking the organization where people feel they can continually spend the money they haven't got okay i've said my piece thank you um so um what conrad is suggesting um in terms of this recommendation is that we need to define it um a bit more we are saying that we need to put some kind of cap in terms of it coming to cabinet for approval and so we hear what you say and we're going to um we can insist here in in finding it together so make sure that we refine it that it's workable so that it's um we get what we want in terms of i'm the discretionary spend and something that you understand what it is we want i hear that um thank you so um in terms of what um council masters read out and um to add to number one to ten uh we agree those yes it was a long time ago at the recommendation about the voluntary sector yes um we agree those there's a moment into the records um we've got this before us so can i now ask um us to um agree um these recommendations changes depending on the changes yes but we have yes so the changes that um we've um and do we have dedicated authority to work on refining the recommendations in line with what conrad um says about that one one point that's been raised that i think it's a very good one is the idea of actually including a table in the report that proves that our recommendations are cost neutral as far as far as we can because i think you know we would all agree that when we were sort of looking at the numbers there were some gaps where the information had not always been sort of included and we just had to sort of take a vague guess at things i think and that's good and i suppose for future um like a scrutiny yeah it's something that should be a standing item yeah that we do that it was done last year after this time i remember offices worked and we had permitted those costs in in terms of what we were suggesting etc so that is um a good idea okay okay so i was just reminded about the uh we have a recommendation about hotel taxes etc but also um and there was um obviously going to be something that we put in if the executive takes that up there should be some income coming in from that also okay so i need to um move on okay i just have a point of clarity so once this is all written out and it's correct what's the timeline that it goes to the executive member that's responsible okay so um because the process is for overview and scrutiny to um shall we say transmit the report of the budget scrutiny commission onto cabinet um the cabinet at which that will happen is the 18th of february so uh we have we have until close of play on the 12th to make the amendments that um have been discussed this evening so that it can move on to the next the next stage and then of course after cabinet um well we'll get the executive response uh it's to be hoped this week and and then of course it's full council thank you but things have been shared along the way in formula it's not just thank you yeah thank you and yeah so after last week we did send um the rock and ready recommendations and there's nothing stopping by sharing this even before we present it it to the cabinet actually um and so that um the executives can do some work so um colleagues um if there's no other contribution can i um formally um sorry is that aob can i say something no this is um we're still on oh sorry okay okay i will bring in i'm not closing the meeting just yet okay and i am saying corrected before we used to present it to the cabinet member but this is but just scrutiny now so i'm gonna i'm just good to meet share presenting to overview our report and our recommendation um so do we accept and agree maybe yes okay am i the only one that's gonna answer so thank you very much okay um we now move on to um appointments well council garfield has been appointed to this um committee some months ago many months many months ago and it's a period here and i think that was an omission it wasn't properly noted so what we're going to do is now do it again for the records so now you are reappointed you were here it wasn't done it was done it does that there's no record of it because i remember discussing it with yourself and tell me who goes to budget scrutiny and who comes here we should find out that we lost that record no so do we um agree um comes a graphic appointment to this um committee thank you and um is there any contribution any um item on the forward plan that's item nine i've moved to this is a council's forward plan and the time is far absent and there have been lots of well what has been going on recently is more or less is budget scrutiny and the council masters have had um an else scrutiny but most of it has been budget scrutiny and now this overview so can we just before that this item can i move that this item be deferred which is item 10 agreed great and the date of our next meeting is 4th of march and we have discussed that there might be a possibility of this moving but can we agree the fourth of march and before i um i'm very sorry to interrupt just just as a reminder we do not know for certain whether we will get the uh approval needed from government for exceptional financial support before the council meeting of the 27th of february the 4th of march is the reserve council date so i mean i there may be nothing you can do about that that is why i said what i said just now but i'm sorry i didn't misunderstand you ma i'm not discussing it but for now we're going to agree and if we have to move it we move it my apologies to move it it's going to be the 18th of march that's the date that we pencil in so we need to keep that data also um free if we don't do what you should mark and before i bring the meeting to a formal close and the monitor officer indicated it is to speak yeah it's just um chair to advise yourself in the committee constitutional working group uh on tomorrow is look is considering members allowances it's just i mean obviously you've got your recommendation but i'm just saying because it's on the agenda just solely for that meeting i know yourself and counselor child are on that anyway but i just thought i'd raise it because it's we considered it at the last one and brought it back to a special meeting to be held tomorrow with a view that that comes to full council on the 27th so just sequencing i just thought i'd raise it because it's okay yeah thanks for the information information okay thanks very much indeed and the time is now 9 25 and i firmly bring things to a close and thank you all for being able to thank you again to the project members um for your sleepless nights and weekends etc thank you all thank you thank you um can we um members just stay back for a short while please mute mute