Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the London Borough of the Miriam Overview and Switney Committee. This meeting is live streamed on YouTube, so welcome to everyone viewing online. Members who have joined us remotely will not be able to vote, and your attendance will not be officially recorded, will be noted in the minutes. Can anyone online hear me? Yes. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Concerning meeting etiquette, please direct all questions to myself. May I ask that you indicate you wish to speak by raising your physical hand if you're here, present in the room, in the chamber, or your virtual hand. For the benefit of the present public, when you're speaking for the first time, can you give your name and your role within the organization? May I remind members to speak clearly for the recording and also for the minute and the record keeping so that the clock can record accurately what is being recorded? As I said, I have to say that this meeting of the London Borough of the Miriam Overview and Switney Committee is called to order. Welcome again to everyone present. Can I ask before? There is an agenda change, and that would be the transformation item that we should, that is listed on our agenda, but is before to our next overview and scrutiny meeting, which is in two days' time on the 8th of May. Can I ask that this item be before to the 8th of May? Is that the dream? Agreed. Agreed. Thank you. Thank you. Having done that piece of formality, I now introduce myself to the benefit of the public. I am Anthony McCormick, chair of overview and scrutiny committee, and member for Royal Albert, and I now pass you on to Councillor Masters. Hi, I'm Councillor Masters. I'm chair of health and adult social care scrutiny, and represent East Ham South. Councillor James Beckles from Custom House. I'm on the housing regeneration scrutiny. I'm an observer. I'm an observer and an observer. Councillor Winston Vaughan, the resending force gate South Ward. Mayor Tory. Councillor Greta? Councillor Rita Tratio. Councillor Rita Tratio getting down the. Councillor Findlay Parkway. Let's sé if. Councillor Raouk. Councillor Magaz. CouncillorPI Teindor. Councillor Flyster and South Ward Education c. michael mccoy director of law and governance that is very quiet and um i'm not sure that the required to pick it up but it's rachel our monitoring officer yes okay paul kitson corporate director for um economy housing and culture thank you and present in the room ask miss cassie head of scrutiny and governance and then doors and line hi there chair it's um mayor roxana fiarz for portfolio lead for inclusive economy and strategic housing delivery and culture thank you okay and we have we have another officer thanks cross okay thank you all right what's your role james i'm a senior development manager in inclusive economy housing and culture okay and thanks for that information okay can i now move on to item two which is apologies for absence are there any apologies i have on my other paper here erin kemp and poor leslie and concert terence paul i am believe that we and concert terence paul is there any other apologies counselor joshua godfield okay and counselor joshua godfield are those apologies noted decoration of interest um are there any members wishing to declare any interest the croc would note that there and no decoration of interest minutes of our um a meeting i move for the minutes of our meeting and on the one minute can i come back to the minutes in a few minutes i bet we are um um talking we already done um the transformation uh and we talked about that one so i now spoke to item seven and that's the common board tenure and we have um here to speak to us on this um paper which is our agenda path so um paul um can you take us through we can please yeah thank you for that um i'm assuming that all members have seen a popular short report two or three sides we were asked to provide a report on the new common hold uh consultation and being undertaken by the government uh basically sort of three bits the first thing that it notes of course is that the common hold is a ownership property ownership model has been around for about 20 years but hasn't been utilized that much uh of course it complements the freehold and the leasehold uh which are the other two main property ownership tenures so what does common hold mean it means which is about where you've got multi-use buildings or multi-residence buildings so these are blocks of flats what does common hold mean each resident owns their flat outright uh and then shared spaces which are always um entrance halls rooms gardens are then also jointly owned and it's through a common hold association a company comprising of all unit owners of course that is different from leasehold where uh somebody owns the underlying freehold of the block usually then uh contracts the management company charges ground and so on uh so the common holding in there are several contentious aspects of leasehold no ground rents there's no lease expirations now of course those of you who lived in leasehold properties will know that um you need to renew the lease to an acceptable level in order is under control over the freeholder over the leaseholder no third party freeholder control as well however the report notes that 20 years in the making it's relatively uh underused at the moment so the government has announced just um two months ago a new white paper announcing its intention for a ban on new leasehold flats in england and wales leasehold houses have already been banned for new bills and a reintroduction of common hold is a standard tenure for all new multi-unit residential buildings uh this follows and off the back of many years probably a decade and a half of intense lobbying from a range of different residents and consumer groups across the country who have been rallying about the injustice of leasehold properties in particular management charges and ground rent costs so this is something the government's pursuing the white paper uh it's comprehensive common health reform package has been proposed simplifies governance structures enhance legal protection for owners and improve distribution processes my paper critically also outlines a voluntary path for existing leaseholders to convert to common hold and this is something that the lobby groups have been pushing for most most strongly i think through a simplified collective enfranchisement process so key points of this would be the leaseholders must first acquire the freehold conversion to common hold would follow via a structured legal process and the government aims to make this more affordable and legally straightforward so quite powerful potential quite powerful changes there to uh housing tenure so one of the things we were asked was to really understand what are the implications for councils is a positive thing or a negative thing uh and so what we've done in the report is listed those out rather my colleague in property has lara implications for council strategic and ownership implications the financial implications and some of the legal implications i'm not going to read them all out because we'll go to a discussion in a minute and then some of the operational implications there's a series of risk and mitigation strategies phone from that and then i'm just going to go right to the bottom bit really with recommendations for london council so like many issues that face newham council they're the same issues faced by other councils and so they've been a collective piece of work done uh by london councils of course it's a piece and they've got six recommendations there which we're beginning to work through none of these have been fully implemented yet at all develop a strategy so create a common health preparedness plan across planning legal housing and development functions develop some internal expertise engage developers early public education campaigns so that people understand what's in front of them what what they are possible is create support frameworks and then wider public sector partnerships so and then the paper concludes um this reform is a once-in-a-generation shift in housing law and practice by acting early london boroughs especially those active housing delivery roles like newham can ensure a smooth and informed transition to a system that provides fairer more sustainable home ownership so and hopefully that summarizes the paper fairly briefly but there's quite a lot in there so happy to move to questions thank you any member can i respond chair yes you may so it's so this would be an effort to exempt social housing uh uh can i respond chair yes you may so it's so this would be so uh in new build properties in new build blocks of flats uh common hold would be the default setting so that the white paper is saying that that would now be the only option for new build uh where it affects council property so a block of flats where we have some council tenants and we have some leaseholders uh it wouldn't be possible to go to the common hold format anyway because you've had some tenants some leaseholders you'd be able to buy the whole block uh on mass so it doesn't really apply to those sorts of your standard newham blocks where you've got lots of different types of people in there um leaseholders and and tenants so i think that's i think that's what you're getting at so they don't have the same right so if if you're a leaseholder in a council block you couldn't get together with a group of leaseholders and buy a section of that council block so that's a really that's a really good question and i might have to take that away i mean the monitoring officer might have a view on that the white paper of course is after the early stage so actually how the consultation and how that evolves will be quite interesting to see um i think you know on a practical basis it would have to be a very clearly identifiable section of a building wouldn't it to work and you then in order to be able to carve out the costs associated with that and the ownership of it so that could be quite complex still but i think i think there was a certain amount to play for and this is quite a significant move on from where uh we were as a society say two years ago even so it's likely that there's going to be kind of quite a bit of momentum behind this there's such a lot of um public and popular pressure behind these reforms are you saying then that with the new blocks that are being built and i know we're going to get on to the work of the affordable homes program and um you know later in this meeting um if any of those new developments have a homes for social rent element that this wouldn't apply it has to be a building where all the tenure is within the private sector is that what you're saying again that's a really good question and i'd have to take that away and look at how it's evolving because it might be easier i'm just it might be easier to build in the ownership structure from the new build rather historically so it might be possible especially with the housing association for example for them to be as a housing association a part owner of that freeholder that common hold and still rent out the property on social places um just on the back of susan i see you rita coming to you just on the back of it if i were a concept tenant and um i noticed in the paper you said that the um the government is in a voluntary pathway and i know that if i push for the common hold tenure i don't have to pay a service charge i don't have to pay the um um lease orders charges on these so the renewal charges and all of those charges that you know these orders are faced with i can see where these orders would be pressing to be equated with the others who the properties that are being built now because they're going to save and notice on your paper you said them here they would not pay the management charges they wouldn't um pay it for these extension ground rent and all of those so that is a lot of savings to some of our residents and they may be well pushed to that um what is the mechanism and if they do are we are we going to facilitate suppose in the block that we have five or some block may not top five or people wanted to enjoy those rights are we going to suppose susan was actually something similar are we going to facilitate that for them i think this is where we come to those recommendations at the end about developing internal expertise and liaising with councils across london is to understand what the implications are i think every block would be different there could be some blocks which were primarily leasehold where you might you might be able to venture more towards that i must point out though i mean even common hold a collective and you can imagine if i don't know you can pick any number 20 flats they're still going to have to find any mechanism for the common ownership and maintenance of the building so it's not without cost it just means that the costs are more transparent more readily controlled more in the hands of the people that own the common hold rather than managing agents where a lot of the controversial issues have been raised across the country about high levels of service charge high levels of administration fees and so on and so forth which people think is unjust but the private sector has like already where you have you may have a estate we have a lot of flats and just maybe one or two homes houses and they're charging a different and service charge different and i suppose that is for the common orbit like for the gardening the landscaping and so on the public rembit but they are not charged and the flat owners then charge the bulk because they are now charged as lease orders so that's um system exists already in terms of um something similar exists already so i suppose that can be looked at it's operational already um but i'll just ask my question quickly do we have any idea about the number of units or the number of properties affected would we wouldn't have that data already would we so jen do you mean the number of new build properties that will come forward uh we would have uh we would be able to come up with the forecast of the um through the annual monitoring reports with the planning system of what our developers and planning commission say they're going to build over time so we'd be able to say very crudely what we can build that rate of new homes would be in new and therefore through the planning system we'd know what we're going to be flats not going to be houses that would be one way of estimating how many people might benefit from or be or experience this new um property tenure and the paper made several references to poplar is it for people that popular would be are still interviewing in this space or is that is it a proposal at this stage i think it's reflect i think this paper is trying to reflect that popular are building new homes okay yeah and so that they would be subject to the new possible tenure the white paper implications as well as everybody else it it reads like they'll have an active role in working alongside the council in managing that that's how i read it in in managing some of the new relationships that's why i was asking and do you envisage a specific responsible for poplo in this new world order yeah so we do we would expect them to support us but like they do and they bring expertise we've spoken about this before we'll speak about it those in the meeting expertise development expertise that they've got across new people say regeneration someone say yes i suppose they would have a role in that regard but i think really i mean really i suppose the thrust of the paper is a popular be subject to the outcomes of the white paper review yeah i don't consider the property thank you chair um i just wanted you just to clarify i'm not sure if i've misunderstood um just in regards to the question that councillor masters already asked in regards to multi-tenure blocks um um am i correct in saying that a block that has multi-tenant that be leaseholders and maybe social events or shared on um they wouldn't be covered under this so so so i don't think they would be because i think it would be too difficult at the moment to see how you could get collective buyouts off the freehold so i think i'll add standard council a standard council block of fact which have leaseholder and tenanted homes i think the default would be that the council would retain the landlord function maintenance responsibilities and then recharging back to the leaseholder in a quite a conventional way okay so i'm just thinking about our planning policy in regards to um multi-tenure living rather than you know the leasehold block council block whatever it may be um would it then apply to that would we then have are we going to be thinking about changing our policy to meet this what this is asking us to do going forward so the key thing really is about making sure that we're watching the evolution of the white paper and what it really means so it's easy to say the answer was just given on our existing council blocks that we already sort of explored in the conversation on new build blocks where it's easier to start from scratch then we might find ourselves um subject to it and wanted to take advantage of the new legislation should it come through because i think there's a difference between the new stuff that we might build and our existing stock thank you but it's not all entirely clear which i hope the people are going to get through a little bit that there's a moving picture as well we'll try to sort of set out what the major risks and opportunities are there thank you um mayor um thank you very much um apologies i can't be there in person i just wanted to um help aid some of the discussion the paper first and foremost is primarily about popular living as a development manager in the delivery of our housing unit output there is potentially a role for popular living in the context of its um position because it has a subsidiary as a registered provider and as paul said we need to work through and understand better the implications of the legislation and proposals put forward by government because they will um undoubtedly have both a um positive influence in the wider market as it relates to renters rights and security of tenure uh and also it will help inform some of the policy decisions of the council and the administration and i just wanted to conclude by saying that i welcome uh any any thoughts ideas from overview and scrutiny members in this regard sorry the members of the scrutiny commission in this regard because it will help formulate policy there was a question as to whether or not we know the scale of impact of this policy proposal which is presently out for consultation and once the consultation period concludes we'll then need to wait for government to present um its final position and it may be very different to what's being presented now and in line with what paul has said london councils will take a collective view and we're members of london councils and we'd articulate and lobby our position in that regard but in terms of the data set we would have a baseline of data as it relates to the private rented uh language licensing scheme that we could utilize in our analysis around the impact so i hope that helps i just didn't want to conflate a whole set of really important questions being raised as it relates to this new regime that the government is being consulted on on the paper which is specific to council housing delivery by two you know by a specific part of their living thank you very much thank you um is this directly what the mayor said because that many analysts is waiting to come in is this just okay i just want to state reason i just want to state for the record i'm very confused now completely about what the status of this document i read this document as an advisory note on prospective legislation coming in but that's still being consulted on so we have no definite plans either way so may your comment that this is about poplo if poplo's a feature in this but not not a definite given is it at this stage if i if i may should i should i interject now um no it's okay because i could speak if that's okay with you um apologies my um conflation of two separate papers so there's a paper as it relates to popular living development management which will be coming to but as it relates to popular living and its role in this new regime that the government is being consulted on obviously as a registered provider it will need to be subject to the new legislative regime and we will need to think about the implications and yes it's an advisory note but i'm also interested in the context of lobbying points as we articulate them and surface them in our engagement within the london council's arena and elsewhere i would welcome any thoughts thank you um thank you rita um has got it right we know that this is happening and we just wanted to have the conversation um so it's an advisory note and what's happening and obviously we are concerned because if poplo are going to be building for instance the carpenters estate when all those um properties are going to be um built some of it would be um different for instance in the traditional way before this paper came on stream so basically what's going to happen and i support this where we um as an authority would have to decide on the sport with advice etc and what government may do when this um if it does become law all the legislation is framed to take into account all those um thousands of homes that we are planning um to build now um i'm not even talking about the ones that is already built and we have people living because we have how many disorders that we have in the bar six to seven thousand disorders yeah so with those six to seven disorders who might be pushing collectively to be um to be free from the shackles um so maybe that wasn't the right word but whether they don't want to be paying management fee because this basically is not every resource or the thing that they're getting value for money um and when we show this company to us members they're always something that they're not getting value for money yeah okay i'm gonna come to her i'm sure i'm going to ask about the i think as well um to understand well it's um collective management so they might have a common hold association um to manage uh many shared areas and costs and everything they'll have more control who will happen within that association if there were disputes who would intervene would it be the council or will will there be a different body to sort those problems out it's a good question and i don't think it's clear so i think um when the government say they're trying to simplify the legal structures and the governance structures they're obviously trying to explore whether um templates or advice might be helpful for groups of people to come together to set something up and in doing so there would have to be provisions there for what would happen in facing disputes as well so i think whereas obviously it works best is where the property is quite simple numbers of uh certain numbers of property quite small uh common areas and common responsibilities are quite easily defined they'll be relatively simple but still disagreement because people so um whatever organization you set up as common hold group will need to have provisions there for dispute money but i think that's what the government's working for um because uh but if i just um because i have as i said um personal experience because i'm the community i'm a director or of a residence association that has a mix use where you have to consult my concept you have a block of flats and then these orders they have people who own their properties what they do they charge the houses that are free owed for the security guard service and for the public rem the gardening etc and they pay for that service and there is a management um committee the resident association just for those houses for the bits of service that they receive the only pay for the business that they receive and then the block of flats the iris low rights that get every other thing they pay a separate service charge so you have two kind of tenure if you like and people pay according to the service and i suppose that is what would happen on behalf of board of tenants the residents who manage that bit and oversee that bit so i suppose that might be um a model that most people would want to um adopt in the future um who owns and the free whole and they just pay for the business of they receive because it'll be costed the via proportionately and then that's it that's a model and i suppose because it's something that is going to be in the making not let um set in stone there's a lot of options that might be out there that um we can adopt um so therefore once you reach the end of the values release there's an opportunity to recharge the person for the full value i'm working on the assumption under common hold that opportunity is lost so presumably in any asset any private flat that the council sells would be popular under common common post there will be a loss of value to the council there must be because by implication in the sense that you won't have the opportunity to leave the lease yeah under common hold you still have to there's still going to be shared costs for the management of the property so for that loss do we know what that estimate is going to be for popular because you're developing those properties in the next couple of years and presumably if it's applied to council properties there will be a loss between the hra as well but i'm assuming that'd be much more complicated account but the popular ones i would have thought would be more pertinent one because if you could have been those properties now for settle yeah flats i would have fought yeah if it's under control there must be a loss of of value and you must affect the viability i will afford so just thank you can answer yes you may uh i'm not sure i've got a very simple answer but you're entirely right um in the sense that the if you take a developer that's um built in block of flats and um they're going to be leasehold uh then there's a an income in perpetuity essentially according to the the lease for whoever owns the freehold and that becomes a commercial commodity so they can sell that because it's got a guaranteed return and the leasehold will give it the parameters of how it can be increased over time the income of selling that then is factored into the developers viability so um and therefore so will the uh so will the lease of renewals into the investor who's buying the freehold to get the picture so that will have to flow through as you get into new builds for commonhold that will flow through the viability somehow and it's too early to say how that would flow through in a very simplistic way you could say that developers might choose to then attempt to recoup some of the charge that we normally got through the the leaseholder model and charge a higher premium for the purchase and originally that would be a very crude road looking after but that sort of thing doesn't need to it'll flow through as it's becomes more prevalent but you're right there is a as you change the tenure there is a financial impact to the way that the money moves between developer resident and management company and so on that's been used for the sort of for the assessment of the scheme all the way through to the completion of it yeah you don't know how much that is at this moment off the top of my head no i don't but part of the items at the end of this advisory note obviously do say build up internal expertise need for other boroughs and so on to build up a picture of the different scenarios the way this might work through and that's going to be quite important the reasons you've highlighted so that is a piece of work that is going to be done so uh because it's going to have as comes to us and says it's going to have um an impact on um a negative impact on the ahra and it's going to have uh impact on um the popular um sorry i didn't say it was going to have a negative impact on the hra i didn't say it was going to have a negative i'm saying because i'm from the point of view that and if um the revenue that the hra would have received if this go ahead and people are no longer having to um pay certain charges like the leasehold charges and the management charges that goes into the hra budget isn't it it's unclear at the moment how the money would flow through but it currently goes into the project isn't it into the hra budget yeah income streaming it does so if they're not receiving that that's why i call it a negative impact because i'm receiving x punks today and tomorrow i'm not receiving that then that's a negative impact isn't it if if if if the common hold tenure applies yes yes and there's so there's quite a lot of tips to flow through across the coming months you know we are on certain times because it's a paper that is being developed and so on that people are going to be making their contributions straight but if it does go ahead um as intended then there is going to be a negative impact that's what i'm in prime um but we have to wait and see any other member okay um yeah mayor um thank you very much chair um look just reflecting on the last set of comments that you've made and also the comments made by councillor huston um he's absolutely spot on these are key considerations that we're going to need to consider and the whole point of the season the opportunity now is to elevate um and service to government as part of that advocacy the implications because a number of councils not just newham have invested significantly either drawing down from housing grant or hra monies in order to deliver homes to meet one particular housing needs and yes we understand and recognize the in the context of rights that should be held by those living in um these types of developments and it needs to be enhanced that needs to be improved so how do you square the both so i think this conversation and debate and the questions that you've raised are really pertinent and valuable ones so i just wanted to say thank you yes thank you if there's no other i'm now um i move on and i um recognize comes the mother who just came in and you may want to introduce yourself before i go back to the minutes colleagues thanks for my board members may i um take you back um to the item that i before um the minutes of our last meeting i move that the minutes of the meeting held on the 10th of february 2025 may record it as a correct record do i have a second at that okay i'm constantly parkway second and thank you um colleagues and we now move on to our next item which is the strategic um housing and the purpose of this item is to receive and review an update on the newham constant strategic housing delivery program specifically um this report provide the review and scrutiny committee with an update on all the constant strategic housing delivery through its affordable homes for newham program and sd3 generation and restoration schemes such as the custom house scanning tongue and the carpenter's estate i am looking at the time um now and i would um um advocate about 50 minutes for um this discussion um that is just a guide that openly stick um to that um all right um and mayor fias this is in your portfolio area and you have two minutes to introduce um this item um thank you very much chair i um don't intend to take the full two minutes but i trust that the uh members of this commission found this report useful it sets out um the uh various routes through which we're delivering against our uh corporate plan intent that reflects manifesto commitments as it results in term one and term two and you will have some information concerning the quantum number of homes that will be built there is um level of information and detail that is currently being worked through so that by the time of publication we have the most exact detail that will be contained in a report coming to cabinet in june and as the report sets out we welcome um scrutiny's engagement on um this really important um area of council delivery not least because of the large sums of money involved and the borrowing exposure that this presents uh because i know that that's been um a area of concern among some members on this committee uh but sitting on overviewing scrutiny in the budget working party um but the report sets out um the history around the delivery across the um intent of the administration through its corporate plan a thousand in term one and one thousand five hundred in term two not all of the term two are through exclusively direct delivery through build it's also acquisitions and it also sets out the intended plan for popular living to be the development management uh entity that we will utilize because of the skill and capability that it has developed over the past seven years um happy to take questions we have james cross who has been working on and across a lot of the detail and the report in essence sets out the affordable homes for noon program covers off acquisitions and also talks through our housing delivery as it relates to three of our major estate restoration and regeneration programs carpenters pantom and custom house and we're happy to answer questions i just wanted to say by way of conclusion there may well be information that you would expect in the report but because we're going through the diligence of uh the numbers that won't be contained until the report is published for cabinet and there are further conversations to be had but i very much welcome this conversation with all of you this evening as part of really important pre-decision scrutiny making and one of the things that i am picking well noting is the conversation on the previous paper you know and the implications as it relates to housing delivery and also council borrowing and the position of popular living uh be it popular living core or popular living in terms of its um registered uh provider um status is something that we are working through and then finally yeah finally finally um on the um issue of uh and now i've lost my thought because i was interrupted but um there's one final thought i wanted to add oh the final point that i wanted to make is as you will note in the report there's a section as it relates to learning from our strategic housing delivery program affordable homes for newham to date and um that's something that i um and the officer team um are amplifying as a important area of practice and another reason and justification as to why we want to transfer development management role to popular living more and more i'll conclude there thank you may ask the point of clarification because i'm confused by this report maybe i'm not having much luck this evening um section two so it says it's a recommendation and we're asked to note the key lines of inquiry but section six under which there is a subheading 4.1 says that this is a consultation i know the mirror has also just stated that this is pre-scruting decision as well i'm sorry maybe i'm not experienced enough to understand never get my way through this what is the status of the discussion this evening okay so if i may chair so it's a response to the key lines of inquiries as best as officers and myself can in the context of um a cabinet report being developed worked through and finalized and the all-important conversations that need to happen as is uh ordinarily the case um as we work on finalizing cabinet reports for publication at the executive level it's also pre-decision in so much as we're providing you information you will have some views as to the direction that we're having and we'll take those into account hence it's pre-decision making and consultation as in we're consulting you on some of our thinking sorry can i just be clear from the monitoring officer if today we formed a conclusion on this paper and cabinet then received a version made that may have included some of our discussion and may not included others does that prevent us to bringing it back and call anything no not at all so even a pre-decision scrutiny because i see the kind of where you're a little bit unclear about it because whether it's a update report or if it's a but um even if it were a previous a pre-decision scrutiny in the whole sense of like that's what you're looking at this whole issue for pre-decision you can still call in it doesn't it doesn't negate a calling a pre-decision scrutiny yeah thank you thank you any other member council masters i'm really confused reading this paper about where we're going with populo and the affordable homes problems there just seems to be a lot of duplication going on in terms of the development role and in terms of what they're trying to do my understanding was that populo was repurposed to deliver homes for social rent uh and yet now we've got the affordable housing program so i'd just like some clarity on the future strategy for both and then the second thing on a different note i was very surprised to see uh the comments on victoria street on page 11. i'm not sure whether this paper's out of date uh and and somebody just hasn't picked up on uh the fact that it refers to the redevelopment of victoria street as far as i'm aware scrutiny never got a response to our calling so i'm not aware that uh any decisions been taken because i would have assumed if it had that that would have been fed back to the chair of overview um and i'm slightly surprised if i'm wrong and this is actually happening that we we're going ahead with demolishing a building and if i remember from the calling correctly this this would leave us with nothing to replace those units of self-contained accommodation for i think it was a four-year uh delivery period um and the costs have gone up to 60 million i'm just wondering whether i've missed something and whether the council's financial woes have ended um or maybe the temporary accommodation crisis has ended and it's no longer important for us to have self-contained units of accommodation rather than paying overnight charges um so i'd like some clarity around uh what's going on with victoria street and why as well okay um council masters and the victoria street the cabinet did come back to us in terms of victoria street and what we know they're going to do meanwhile use as it is currently and that is going to be for three years and with option to extend image for four years and that is how we know that is what we know the position on victoria street to be but i don't remember anything about going ahead of this redevelopment no because that would be taken and three years so maybe another two years because we called in victoria street about a year or so ago isn't it yes so therefore there's another two years and the option was to extend the meanwhile use so for the one year if it's necessary so it's the four years three to four years period and by then the decision would be made on what happens to victoria street okay so it's not set in stone no thank you because i understand it um may have and thank you very much um chair you've accurately described the position as it is and ultimately there is a vision for victoria street which is part of a redevelopment and restoration well redevelopment of the site so it contributes to stratford vision so that's an ultimate end goal but no determination decision has been made i do really want to just pick up on two additional points that you've made and um you know i'm really sorry to have to raise it but make the point um but just for clarification and for the record um the administration and the cap and the council um are acutely alert to the ongoing temporary accommodation uh challenge before the council it's the reason why we've had to set out uh the budget proposals as were and as approved of full council and why we have had to apply for exceptional financial support and why budget setting as it relates to the 2026-27 year is going to be additionally exacting so i just want to for the avoidance of doubt because it's something that keeps on coming up and something that you keep on mentioning um councillor masters and if it um helps reassure or to clarify i'm more than happy to write you a letter to state unequivocally the the council of course recognizes and is responding to a temporary accommodation crisis and the council is of course acknowledging recognizes and is dealing firsthand uh with the budget challenges that it faces but for whatever reasons you're a bit unclear but i'm happy to have a conversation with you in that regard in another place and at another time um all right um any other member okay can i um i see comes to us and put his hands on the cake yes first question wasn't answered about the actual future strategy of popular and how that relates to the affordable homes problem program i was going to um do a follow-up and supplement you but no you go ahead in terms of on no no i just have no i'm mayor do you um yeah so the paper sets out the proposals around the future strategy of popular living and as uh mentioned in one section i'll invite james and paul to elaborate uh there is a proposal that popular living um occupies the role of development management uh or manager for the council given the um enhanced um and um over the years the knowledge insight and expertise which has built up so if you read a particular section and i think uh for the benefit of all members just to reiterate that there is in this report an overview there is further detail to come but that detail is just making its way through our appropriate governance uh decision making process and once that's concluded we will um obviously provide further information to scrutiny so you may not get uh the expansiveness of response or detail that you are used to in this meeting as it relates to this report but please let me assure you that there is a uh live thinking around the strategy which we have touched on um in this regard as it relates to popular living and through the chair it will be helpful if i um through you and your approval of permission um invite either paul or james to talk a little bit to that yeah thank you jess so thank you mayor so in the report there's a helpful paragraph or some page three of the reports because phase two 4.1.5 but it talks about the strategy and the way the housing delivery strategy has evolved to some degree it's about 2021 there being a a program of affordable house building which is partly through housing services partly through the council's community wealth building team and then some sites were also assigned to popular and it's useful to reflect on that because the strategy over time strategy should react and respond to changes in the environment changes circumstances and so four years later popular has built up um more experience a stronger workforce we've spoken about this before in his meetings the council has brought to avoid the duplication issues you've spoken about before and overlap has brought the house building capability into one place within the council and now the strategy leaning forward that james james and the mayor have articulated is to essentially ask popular to do more of the development management for the council and that's the direction of travel we spoke at two popular two we spoke with our own teams about it we haven't completed that but it is a direction of travel so council of masters when you ask about what is the direction of travel that's it uh but we do need to complete that exercise but you can sort of see the evolution of it as over the past sort of four or five years and absolutely right actually it's not anything the council can afford at the moment where we have a pool of particular expertise we should be relying on that more than um other parts of the council's of consolidation and expertise with english um thank you um consular artsen then char then the parkway a couple of questions um the aborted costs i will note that there's a paper which is covering the cabinet in june 25 um on the aborted schemes i don't even put any balance signs about how much that's cost presumably that must be a serious seven figure sign in terms of the avoided costs um i might ask james to come in in a moment but um we had i can't remember whether it was a housing and region scrutiny whether it was an overview and scrutiny or indeed whether it was audit but we had a detailed conversation about cost overruns overall contingency budget around about may june july last year where those figures were made entirely available to scrutiny so we we can make those available again if it would be helpful but certainly we had quite a detailed discussion at the time about those costs and however dealt with uh but i know it was an audit it was audit thank you if the things were available but why are we including the figures in these in this report it'd be more it'd be more comprehensive if we actually saw how much it cost in this overview and scrutiny it's about the affordable housing program and is it actually affordable for the new council given the budget gap that you passed over the next three years given that um the budget gap in the last time that was approved by council it also the cliff the orderly assignment subject two additional government funding but given the level of concerns how affordable is the affordable housing building programs that are going to be less than management maintenance and interest which just adds to your budget gap i wouldn't afford uh i think can i respond chair yeah i think it's i think it's important to know that the affordable homes building program has happened so far all of those schemes have um produced a positive net present value and the reason they've done that because we've factored in the forecast rent we've also been as a paper does outline in some detail success when they're attracting affordable housing grants in order to support financially those schemes the council has borrowed uh in in many cases uh pwlb finance to support the development uh but the cost of that borrowing are offset by the value of the income and so on and so forth so we're borrowing against fixed assets that you're both socially good and produce rent the viability going forward looking forward into the future um has become much harder for everybody across london especially those building affordable homes bill costs have got higher obviously regulation costs have got higher and so on and so forth and interest rates have got much higher over recent years as well we factor all of those into the appraisers that we do for new schemes in addition we've got a particularly strong relationship with the gla and our ability to um utilize their grant funding so each w screen becomes harder and harder councillor hudson to match viability what the council is not doing at the moment is it's not subsidizing through its own cash or it's not funding schemes that are unfunded it's borrowing money against schemes which pay back over time utilizing grant to offset costs and that's the approach that we'll continue to do i can see the mayor has a hand up as well chair chair when i respond to the issue about net prison value a famous economist did say in the long run you're all debt and the nature of net prison value is that if you show future income streams in year 25 year 30 it may show the specific net prison value but the key point is in the next five years the finances of new housing falls off a cliff and the maker of your housing schemes i assume is they're making losses in the short term broadly break even in the median term and make money theoretically in the long term so your metrics of value within the maps shows it to be possible can i respond to me so social housing schemes are i mean they usually have a playback of maybe somewhere between 30 and 50 years they are very long term you are correctly saying that i think the question you're posing to i think yourselves is that although the scheme washes its face in colloquial language and does pay back across that time and therefore is sensible can be viewed as sensible financially there are choices councils make about how to utilize its funding and ability to spend money and so i think what you're raising is the are they the choices the council should be making and the council has made the choice to build affordable homes because they have a housing crisis temporary combination prices and so on so i think actually what you're raising is the opportunity cost of investing in council housing um regeneration and the restoration schemes for custom house and internal and carpenters estates uh when it's uh developed there will be 5000 new homes and within the housing delivery program the objectives set out within the local policy are to ensure there's 50 of affordable homes 39 of it to be family homes and 10 of it to be wheelchair friendly homes so does it mean out of that 5000 it will be the three things that i mentioned uh sorry can you just refer to the paragraph number just so i can be sure oh it's from well i read it on that line so i didn't have a page number on page 15 paragraph number sorry on page page 15 5 mentions the um objectives set up in the local delivering council objectives yeah yeah gotcha um but the other bit i don't know where because i read it online yeah no that's fine thank you that's fine thank you so i can see what you mean so the under that section that's describing what the local plan is aiming to provide through the planning process like all local plans it will say here is our policy and increasingly because of the viability constraints subject to the viability test so in the the 5000 homes that you're aiming to have these uh ones i mentioned which is 50 percent affordable homes um 39 percent family norms 10 percent wheelchair use of friendly is that what it is the reality of where we would want to be so in all of the counseling sites or regeneration sites we would want to maximize the supply of affordable homes as much as we could and if the viability shows that we could do greater than 50 then we would probably want to do that we would probably not want to do it 100 we might want to get some different ownership models in there into an estate or whatever but we would try and expand as much as possible the limiting factor is the viability of the schemes cost of the schemes and how much rent comes back and then the amount of grant we can get in and so sorry to be given a vague answer but that's kind of the reality of where we end up is the reality of it if you took those constraints away you would want to go way above you 50 because we know we've got people waiting on the housing list and we've got a temporary accommodation crisis okay thank you chair just moving on from what councillor shaas speaks about um in 4.25 and 4.26 you refer to the council's objectives and i just wondered how is the performance against the building of fair and newham priorities being measured in real time within the strategic housing delivery program and what are the mechanisms that have been put in place to make sure that targets are not missed i'm really thinking about thinking about some of what's written here in the uh in the document talk about obviously carbon reduction chair accessible properties so and so i might talk on the mayor here i know the building affair in newham targets are recorded and assessed on a quality basis and go to cabinet so there's a regular reporting mechanism they come through to clb and they go to cabinet and they go through to the message as you go so i'm pretty sure the house building targets go into that but i would have to check and come back to you but that's where the building affairs are very new i'll just get reported through do you have one more question you may i think would you call in the man yes okay um and my second question was on was on section five um and specifically 5.4 and just given what's been written in paper around future pipelines and private sector engagement um if the council have intentions of attracting additional investment um through private partnerships how will council maintain their commitment to 50% affordable housing 39% family housing um and the wheelchair wheelchair or wheelchair will come automatically but yeah i'm going to make sure that those commitments we have written into our policies yeah and there's two things going on there at the same time on your question i think but the scheme viability is the scheme viability can you can you get something which watches its face or creates a small surplus and that will be the large factor which then determines including grant how you can maximize our social benefits i think what you're hinting at is that a public a private partnership might come at some sort of financial cost and and that might be but that cost might be slightly greater or slightly lower than the cost of public borrowing or whatever i think the important thing to record is that every council is is asking the same question it wants to build homes it has land it has some sort of degree of credibility around house building but it doesn't want to borrow money but it has a long-term asset with a long-term income and so um rather than i sort of start from the same basis there is ongoing work across london councils and tying with opportunity london for example to explore what works and what doesn't work in this particular area and we're using those forums who are then engaging with institutional investors to see where the happy uh middle ground i guess um arrives long-term patient investments usually pension funds uh where does that match into the aspirations ambitions of councils across london and that work is ongoing and um if it bears fruit and i very much hope it does then obviously we'll come through back to cabinet we'll seek consent to to bring schemes forward uh but but as councils right across the country are trying to crack this particular challenge chair just supplement that those those members in the room that have been sitting on street development for any amount of time we know that the commitment and the question and the challenge that we bring to private developers in that space around 50 social housing 39 family-sized housing is something we take seriously and i just i guess my my my pushback to you paul will be this i understand i understand viability i understand what what what the pressures are around that but surely our own bills uh the programs that are belong to us we should be setting the standards and and meeting what it is that we've got down on paper so i guess maybe i'm looking for insurances i kind of got the assurance you gave me but you did it the caveat of viability is right um i just you know just think if we are to wash our face and what it is that we say to be accurate then we would expect that our own buildings are meeting the requirements that we set out in planning policy um all those years ago so i just you know that i don't necessarily need to answer i understand i guess we would we would expect that we would at least be doing what it is it say we're going to do thank you okay all right um chair may i answer please if that's okay in the portfolio lead because those are really important questions that have been raised by members of ovium scrutiny you may thank you very much so carlene i really appreciate the point that you've raised and absolutely in the context of a policy position and framework we will be looking at maximizing and meeting our 50 but as other colleagues of yours on this various committee and elsewhere on other speaking committees repeatedly and rightly repeatedly point out the risk exposure to the council as it relates to borrowing combined or involving those really key considerations around viability so the reason i wanted to interject and contribute to this part of the conversation was to say two things primarily one absolutely we want to be able to meet the principle of 50 percent and as you're alluding to talk the talk as well as walking the walk but there are really important considerations in the context of a significant financial challenge facing the council and this is something that's repeatedly raised and surfaced at different scrutineers primarily this one and overview scrutiny and budget working commission and we're demonstrating the way in which we've been very responsive to that and equally in the context of best value and us being diligent and demonstrating that we're diligent we are not and cannot be lackadaisical when it comes to those very important issues of viability on schemes on a site-by-site basis otherwise we would be negligent and one thing first and foremost i've made it really clear is that this council under this administration will not be negligent so we've got aspirations we've got intentions we've got a policy framework that has to sit with a very challenging and at times frustrating national planning policy framework and london plan and we're trying to do the best that we can as it relates to what we know is the housing need in this borough which is more than two bedroom homes and family size homes and those with the adaptations to meet the requirements of our disabled residents i trust that helps okay um thank you um paul i um the affordable homes for neuron obviously gets its money from the gla and borrowing against the hra so is there anything stopping us um that's marginate with um a poplo to um give deliver a synergy cause and i know you came here before and you say that some aspect of it is working in collaboration with popular to save money but what's stopping us just you know bringing everything over under one umbrella one cost heading etc or council house building so house because i mean you have um the affordable homes and you have pop blue and then within the pop you have the camiton the customers the carpenters why don't you just bring all our house delivering program under one umbrella i think that's what i was trying to say when i answered councillor master's question earlier about the direction of travel so it's going to be under okay yeah to to to avoid duplication and overlap is to bring that focus of expertise into one place and when you're in position this actually because i remember asking this question some time ago when do you think you might it's a direction of travel when do you think that trap would come to end that we meet our destination instead it's difficult to give a day and that's not being invasive but we have to talk to lots of people and i would think about processes and work out how we best do that i'm still mad i'm giving me i'm having a really bad time this evening and i'm thinking i think okay i'm going to every time to meet him i come back to that concert charter speaking to the point you've just made is that not sections 5.1 to 5.3 in the paper is that not what we're talking about and i'm confused it should that not be discussed under an exempt section sorry that basically that might be discussed as exempt it might be discussed in private because if that's the crux of this paper in the future direction of hotline i don't know if an open meetings the right framework to be discussing this i might be thick tonight or what i just don't get it there's no indication from the executive that this is on green paper so as a re um the result of that it is in the um the paper is there fall is there okay if i may okay so in my introductory remarks to this paper i did um state that there was further work being done there's a cabinet paper that's going to be published um in june um can you hear me chair yeah we can okay sorry i can just hear some other noise um there's going to be another paper with more detail but this paper just provides an overview and a generalized direction of travel in the context um of the question that has been posed by councillor chatter um i don't think there's anything in the paper that requires this to go into private session and at the point of which there is the detail for um this commission to look at i.e relating to the cabinet paper then there's a question as to whether material provided is on green papers or whether it goes into private session and if i may um chair we've got james cross who's been working on a lot of detail on this and he's been um sitting in this meeting with us and i think it would be really helpful to hear from him just come back okay um i just hear from the mountain officer for us before um james come in yes no just to say that's fine there's nothing commercially sensitive in that it's just there isn't any detail there that would have to go into i don't know that couldn't be what's in the public domain isn't it so there isn't anything more detail going into pacific that would affect commerciality or anything issues or workforce issues i don't think so it's quite just broad isn't it it's not going into pacific it's quite high level what's said there it's not going into pacific i mean i understand the broader concern but as stated there that that is okay okay thank you before dreams come in can i just say sometimes when um we press for timelines sometimes things go on and on and on in terms of the development for us on the scrutiny benches um sometimes it gives a win you know what you're looking forward to and when then at least we have an idea that the organization is working um towards this particular outcome and is going to hope to arrive at an outcome position by a certain time it tells us what's happening if not we're going to be coming back again and again and asking the action a question and also it doesn't help us and it doesn't have members of the public oh we also here to solve when they're listening to these meetings and not i'm having an answer in terms of the timeline i know you cannot give anything set in stone but the guesstimated timeline sometimes would be helpful um in terms of guiding our thinking and our work planning for instance because if you say you know what two years time a future committee might say you know two years ago they said this so let's look at it now and now might be the time to look at it without that we don't have anything to go on understood yes so um would you um so i'm asking the question again so we've so we've we've had a discussion about whether that's should be exempt it shouldn't be exempt one of the reasons is because we've commenced to work including some of the more sensitive issues and so we would expect that to happen across the rest of this calendar year uh because it's worked has already started okay so by next year this time you'll be in the position um to give um members overall whether it's executive members councillors um scrutiny a position on what we're talking about here yes yes okay okay so in the year's time some future scrutiny committee may want to look at it again okay thank you all right who else is there any other hands any hands no okay um so that seems to bring us to the end of this um paper so thank you um for and thank you um sorry i did um james thank you all for misreminding james is there any um words of wisdom you would share with us um hopefully the report you know as we've mentioned things will be going to the executive in more detail on this an opportunity for further discussions but um i just wanted to suppose that i've i've worked at newham now since 2020 um on the council side of delivery um we've achieved a lot i'm really proud of what we've done and um in terms of the sort of transfer over to popular uh paragraph 5.1 does talk about a kind of soft landing to that so that collaboration is is kind of happening now um there's further work to be done but we're able to um keep going as we are um keep to the timetables of delivery and improve on how we've delivered so far uh three future synergies with with popular delivering our future targets sure thank you um very much and suppose james as the last word from the executive this thank you james for um participating so um colleagues um i move that we notes and this report is that agreed thank you um all right we move mouth for item nine and that's update so one of the days when we finish at nine the car right before i see comes to try the one to come in and bring this at the risk of prolonging the agony of on this discussion but going back to the point of the original point of this paper was to say that we had been consulted by our own we've heard several times this evening there's not enough detail in this paper so can we just be absolutely clear i don't think this is so we can note the report but we can't actually be consulted on it because we it's not clear and that's not a reflection on officers that's just because of the state of play as it is at the moment i would not wish this to go to cabinet with the third endorsement of overview and scrutiny when we don't know what we'd be discussed but we haven't been consulted because such is when we have a conversation we give our opinion we are the executive desire to present a report and answer our question so we're doing a scrutiny exercise which is different from consultation but the paper says under section six that it will be noted that we have been consulted but this is not a consultation so if we could just okay so can we um load it for the record that we are not um being consulting consulting yeah right and council masters right update from uh health and adult social care scrutiny we held our last meeting of the year on the 29th of april we have now delivered our second report of the year looking at the council's strategy and leisure um and uh issues around uh the depth of data available and some of the trends that we've seen uh relating to inequalities um so we will be picking that up in a series of recommendations a draft report has already been delivered so that's the second report of the year from us um and hopefully that will make a useful contribution to keeping our residents who are notoriously inactive active thank you thank you chair i also held my final meeting two weeks ago we discussed about the um children and young people's um send plan and we've also discussed some of the safeguarding issues in the hour the safeguarding reports from the corporate parenting board which we have and um um looked up for children so we also have produced some of the reports and hopefully what the commission contributed will be like the contribution the commission made i'm hoping that it will have it will contribute to those outcomes for what children and young people yeah thank you all right housing and region we have had our last meeting um this evening um commission at six o'clock and we um got verbal updates in terms of the housing regulators in terms of rms so they um were verbal updates and what's going on in the commission question as you know rms has always been a bugbear of um this authority and progress has been made in some areas and we as scrutiny acknowledge that but there's also areas where they are lagging in terms of um their data and record keeping and in terms of allocating work etc i we are not um quite impressed with that area of work but um officers and the cabinet members taking that on board and obviously we'll be looking into um that area i in terms of overview we have another overview meeting um this week which is in two days time on the 8th in that overview we'll be looking at transformation amongst other things and it will also be looking at our annual reports for the annual report to um full um council so we would be signing that off um um um on thursday the 8th and yes we have also the call in on the 8th that quarter would be on the um at six o'clock and that is the um according to do with the juniper um adventures and that would be um preceding overview of scrutiny at 7 30. so those are the active and and after this week there is um no more um meeting of us and i saw concert chardel in excitement the camera pick you up on that one concert chardel thank you okay right so um that's it so i will say thank you um yes because we are um meeting on thursday so this is a busy week for some of us tomorrow i have the constitutional working group and then thursday um that is our in terms of the scrutiny and then i can thank um members for their um work and their support we've done a lot um this um municipal um year in terms of overview we have um done callings um on behalf of the um committee budget um um scrutiny has been very active then we had in year um budget so those are some of the things that i'm we are proud of and obviously our annual report would um mention some of the work work that is being done across the piece in terms of health in terms of um region and crime in terms of um housing but a lot of work has been done just read our report and you will see all the things that we are proud of that we have um done over the last municipal um year so that will bring us to the um appointment section now there's no more meeting but yet we appointed but some members who are we have to officially um ratify the appointment because they were appointed subject to this meeting so um and they're mostly on councilor masters um with uh comes to the honor of accepted council master you want to yes i'd like to rest by councillor melanie enovo and also uh councillor shaban mohammed they're both joining health straightening yeah um are we agreeing to that thank you um thank you very much and as i said our um next meeting but before i go to our next meeting the forward plan is there any um item members want to raise on the forward plan and this is the council's power plan no okay and our next meeting um is i'm scheduled for two days time the eight um towards the eight it's a 6 30 start before the juniper um for the meetings to allow um overview and scrutiny committee members half now for a free meeting okay so um i've just been corrected this is 6 30 matth is six o'clock there's two meetings the calling and then the overview meeting with its own right so look forward to seeing you there and i'm sure then comes the master would take us all okay freshman factor i think that's the duty of the chair chair okay thank you all for attending um colleagues the time is mark 21 07 21 07