Transcript

Good evening and welcome. I'm Councillor Sayyar Raza, Chair of Oberyn Scrutiny Committee. It's now just gone past 7pm. I would like to welcome everybody to this meeting of the committee, my fellow scrutineers and cabinet members and officers of the council and members of the council. members of the public, whether present with us in Hansel House or watching the committee on council's YouTube channel, our agenda today, the final meeting of the committee this municipal year, sees us consider some substantial topics. We'll begin with an item on our recent scrutiny in a day investigation into neighbourhood enforcement and follow this with a chance to contribute to current housing strategy consultation. our third substantial item is in fact the trio of topics. We will consider the final recommendations from each of the committee screening panels. In addition, we have three shorter items on our agenda. They are an update following the Northwest London Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee. The meeting earlier this month, Chancellor suggests topics of next year's committee to incorporate into its work programme and the final meeting. the meeting. having walked through the content of today's committee, I will now take a few moments to set out the mechanics of the meeting as chair. I will run the meeting and invite people to speak. I hope to combine questions and observations to allow for a fluid discussion. I shall invite our guests to introduce their reports. I will then invite members of the committee to ask questions of our guests. to ask questions of the committee to ask questions of the committee to ask questions of any issues or common ground to know. Every member of the committee who wishes to speak will have the opportunity to speak. Please be mindful of your fellow scrutineers and committee members and our guests to ensure your contributions are permanent and help us frame meaningful recommendations. Having set out the way in which I will chair the meeting, shall we begin? For the benefit of our guests and those who may be watching us online this evening, would you, my fellow committee members, like to introduce themselves? would you, my fellow committee members, like to introduce themselves? Yeah. I'm Emma Yates, Councillor for Brentford West. Councillor Jack Emsley, Councillor for Chiswick Homefields. Councillor Simina Nagra from Felton Northward. Councillor Kuldipchak from Felton Northward. Councillor Gisela from Kenford Ward. Councillor Gisela from Kenford Ward. Councillor Gisela from Kenford Ward. Thank you, committee members. Hi, I'm Councillor Riazgul from Heston Ward. Sorry for late. Councillor Gisela from Kenford Ward. Thank you, Councillor. Okay, so we move on to agenda item number one. So this is the minutes that we have before us for our meeting in April. Councillor Elmsley. Councillor Elmsley. Councillor Elmsley. I know you have a point of accuracy and clarification. So this is the minutes that we have before us for our meeting in April. Councillor Elmsley. Councillor Elmsley. Councillor Elmsley. Councillor Elmsley. I know you have a point of accuracy and clarification that you wish to raise as matters arising. Before we get to that, does anybody have an issue with accuracy with a minute? So this is just a minute. Committee members. Thank you very much. Please, Councillor Elmsley. Yes, thanks, Chair. It is matters arising, really, rather than accuracy, isn't it? Page six of the minutes confirms that we were told by one of our guests at the last meeting that there were a set of targets, objectives, KPIs for the report that we were looking at, that they weren't included in the appendix, but that they would be given to us post-meeting. We obviously subsequently discovered that those objectives didn't exist and that there weren't KPIs and numbers. I think that that answer that we were given sort of set the tone for the recommendations that we made for the line of questioning and for the discussion. So I suppose it's really a question for you, Chair, or for officers. What do we do in situations where a piece of information we've been given in this meeting turns out not to be correct and does materially affect the recommendations that we make? Can we take them back? Do we have to redo it? What can we do? And then, I suppose, as a safeguard, how do we ensure that doesn't happen again? Thank you for that, Councillor Elmsley. So yes, obviously we can't talk about what we've already discussed. The minutes is accurate. So the minutes is already accurate. There is a suggestion. I'll just read this out to you. So whilst the minutes are accurate, I agree, I just want to clarify things for the public record. It is obviously important that the committee can rely on accuracy both of material presented and answers given to us. The officer in question has already apologised to you and to me, yep, and to the rest of the committee for the confusion here may have inadvertently caused. The minute as it stands is an accurate reflection of what was said, but I do recognise the need for additional note to supplement the record. Okay. So I would suggest a form of words that we can add to the supplement, and this is what it is, and this is for all the committee. Subsequent to the meeting, upon receipt of additional material covering indicators and targets, it was realised that some of the statement was inaccurate. The actual situation was that most of the services' current KPIs had targets and services was working towards, having targets for all the new performance indicators. Are we content with that clarification? Can you say that last bit again? I'm really sorry, Chair. Yeah, so the last one. The actual situation was that most of the services' current KPI had targets and services was working towards having targets for all the new performance indicators. I think that's fine. I mean, maybe it would be more straightforward just to say that they don't have them. I mean, we can say we're working towards them, that's what he said in the meeting, and then when questions said that wasn't the case. So maybe we need to just be totally clear that they actually don't have those targets in place. I defer to you, but I think it's, obviously it's important that we have that accuracy in the minute, and also then the subsequent information that we were given. We can still, of course, get that information. So once is there, we can get the information. Yeah, thank you. Again, are we all content with the minutes now? And, yeah, thank you. Thank you very much, Councilor Emsley. Okay, so we move on to agenda item number three then. Scrutiny in the day, neighbourhood enforcement recommendations. As important as meetings in committee is, there is also merit in scrutiny taking place outside of house or house. For two years now, we've undertaken scrutiny in the day of focus session, where over the course of six to seven hours, we get under the skin of particular topics and development recommendations. Last year, we looked at the role of housing association in the borough. Members of the committee will recall that when our housing association partners were our guests last month, they mentioned how impactful a day spent together had been. This year, we look at the council services neighbourhood enforcement. In January, we had expressed an interest in understanding more about how enforcement was working locally. And so on the 23rd of April, a number of members of the committee went out into the borough to find out. We are joined this evening with Councilor Rukwinda Sidhu, Cabinet Member for Public Safety Regulatory Services and Enforcement by Elliot Brooks, Director of Communities, Pamjit Chanda, Assistant Director of Safer Communities, and Lorraine Kerry, Head of Neighborhood Enforcement. You are fully engaged with the work of the committee last month, and I'd also like to thank Jim Jimman, if I spelled it wrong, sorry, Cairo Hamilton and Leroy Phillips from the neighbourhood enforcement team who gave their time to show of the practical realities and challenges neighbourhood enforcement faces. We spent time at the neighbourhood enforcement service base in Trimwalk, and then looked at enforcement challenges in Brentwood and in Heston. Whilst it is always good to receive robust data as a committee, the chance to see the impact of work in local communities is something we should not overlook. With Cabinet having just agreed the Council's wider enforcement activity should be reviewed this year, and next, it was a good opportunity for the committee to involve itself into the policy development. By the end of the day, we had six recommendations. Tonight, we are formally sharing them with Council, City and officers. The report sets out the recommendations. As I run through each, I'd like to explain our rationale. We heard of many instances where effective enforcement was made harder because it was unclear who could be held accountable. The lack of certainty over property ownership can lead to confusion because there's no obvious angle of enforcement. That's why we recommend that a comprehensive picture of land ownership across the borough should be developed. We saw examples of individuals and businesses acting in a way that was making things worse for others. Classic case was just that everyone was just motivated for purely selfish reasons. That's why we recommend that the Council should consider acquiring land in blighted areas. For example, compulsory purchase orders could help make enforcement activity easier and encourage different useful spaces. Whilst issues of enforcement can appear clear-cut, discussions across the day remind the committee that enforcement is not transactional but rather deals with the complexities. As such, we recommend that enforcement review offers an opportunity to bring teams together around a locality rather than a service. Demographically and changes societal demands means that we recommend that neighbourhood enforcement should consider a breadth of responses and ongoing commitments to responsive service provision. Whilst the way in which you take this recommendation forward will be down to you. We touch upon examples of other councils using new technologies such as a variety of service provision, AI, drones and behavioural science to support work in enforcement. Clearly, this would have validity beyond neighbourhood enforcement and informed enforcement review. We know of examples of other local authorities who have already adopted similar approaches. Oxford City Council has used drones, for example, and there are obvious benefits of using this technology to assist enforcement actions. Enforcement is an important universal service. Neighbourhood enforcement and presumably other enforcement teams should consider how it presents its work. We recommend that enforcement demonstrates not just the volume of activity but also the resources required to make difference in local areas. Regular, ongoing communication is key here. Scrutiny in the day demonstrates that a range of actors have a role in making spaces work for people. The shared commitment to place relies on a combination of organisation individuals playing a part and both organisation individuals acknowledging that council business and citizens all have different responsibilities. This is why we recommend that these responsibilities should be made clear. For example, as residents moving to Hounso, we should provide them with the guidance on how they can be a good neighbour. Educating people about enforcement activity and as businesses operate, we should make clear their wider corporate societal responsibilities. Those, then, are the committee recommendations following the screening date. Obviously, it is not the job for the committee to operationalise recommendations and whilst we hope Council City will accept our suggestions, we recognise that worked up proposals would need to be developed and owned by with officers within the relevant services. And, of course, consider legal and financial guidance, as would be the case with any new work. That, though, is contingent in recommendations being accepted. To that end, is there anything you'd like to say, Councilor City? Thank you, Chair, and thank you for having me here. As you said, the report highlights councillors from Overview and Scrutiny Committee spend a day with the council's neighbourhood enforcement team. The committee heard about a range of work carried out by our teams. The councillors attended the site visits with officers to witness first-hand issues such as fly-tipping. Throughout the day, the committee spoke in-depth about the work of the team, including volumes of cases. The interdependency and collaborative work carried out by the council teams and external partners and explore digital solutions. They also identified barriers and difficulties faced by the officers when carrying out the work duties to legal limitations. These are not specifically in Hounslow, but this is a London problem or a national problem. As a lead member of Public Safety Regulatory Services and Enforcement, I am happy to accept the recommendations set out by the committee. And as discussed on the day, the Cabinet agreed a council-wide review of enforcement activities at the April meeting. The recommendations cover key issues which have already been highlighted, addressing such as better use of technology, clarity on ownership of land across the borough, and a locality-based approach to solving long-standing complex problems. I am confident that we will address the recommendations and I look forward to updating the committee in future meetings. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Sidhu. Does any of the committee members want to pose a question to Councillor Sidhu or indeed a scrutiny in day process? Councillor MC? Thank you, Chair. I think these are really interesting recommendations. I particularly like the AI and drones. I think that sounds very sci-fi and cool, but also probably leads to better outcomes for residents as well. And obviously, I'm glad that the Cabinet member has accepted them. I guess my question maybe for you, Councillor Sidhu, is when you come back to AOC in six months' time, what does achieving these recommendations or these targets look like? And I ask that because when we had this chat with the Centre for Governance back in October, one of the recommendations that he made was that when we're drafting recommendations as a panel, we want to set targets that have the correct level of specificity and we want to be able to measure how much of those targets have been achieved. So I suppose my question posed to you, Councillor Sidhu, is what will it look like in six months' time? What kind of measurable targets will you be trying to set out? And what does implementing these actually look like? Maybe that's an unfair question. Like the enforcement review will cover most of the recommendations made by the committee and bringing the different bodies into one regime where we can overlook more effectively and like increasing the fines that should affect the debtor and maybe we can be helpful in the coming future. And so these enforcement review will help us to move forward and we are working on that and that will cover most of the problems which was recommended by the committee. So thank you for making sure that we've done for the conversation. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Scrutini and Adi, we actually focused on a few areas like ASP, a waste and fly taping. I recently has reached out to you about problem in my world where behind the school, there's constant fly taping taking place. taking place. We clear it out, but they feel it again. There's a camera there, signage there, showing there's a camera is recognised, which take out the number plate of each car is dumping there. But I could not see anything there. It's probably the appear now camera, which is not belongs to us. It's probably belongs to the traffic. My question would be, there's a shop who actually are should be responsible to monitor their rear yard. Can you not force them and force them basically put their CCTV cameras so that can be monitored? And there should be some burden as the shopkeepers and the shop owners. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sometimes it's the complexity of legal problems is sometimes things look so simple. But actually, when you got legal complications behind that, that that is difficulty to for the council to pinpoint that this is the person who's creating a fly tipping. And this the responsibility is a whole process in first is issuing the fixed penalty. Then after the steps which has to go forward, are beyond our control, because this is the legal complications, things are happening. But some things you can go to the press and publicize some things we cannot. So sometimes we think that nothing is happening, things are happening. But due to legal complications, we cannot advertise that things. So and some and and some points like there is a shopkeeper, that's private property. And we cannot we have limitations on on private properties, where the health and safety issues there we can go and issues, issue tickets and enforcement in a different way. But like, black bags, couple of black bags, then the fly tipping keep on increasing. And then only at certain age, we can use our enforcement. It's more sort of legality behind it. It's not it's not that there's no will to do it will is there behind it. But it's just the step we take has to be with the legal framework is costing the council money and the time, there should be some sort of accountability and prevention. It doesn't have quantity. Yeah, sorry, I'm just going to stop the debate. Can I just got a legal coming in here to to share a few bits? Thank you, chair through you. So, as the chair noted in the introduction, and as Councilor Sidhu has rightly said, any proposals for looking at the use of technology, including drones for enforcement purposes will have to be carefully considered and worked up, taking into account the legal framework, there are limitations to what the council can do when it comes to use. So for example, if you were to get into the realm of surveillance of individuals, not only do you have data protection issues, but you've also got the regulatory regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. So if we were to carry out covert surveillance, and seek to use that information, we'd be breaking the law. So we do have to be really careful. But I know that it is recognized by members and colleagues that when it comes to looking at future proposals, all of those proposals will be worked up taking into account the regulatory framework. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions? Councillor? Thank you, Chair. Same similar to the legal point of view. Recently, the one of family they were student and then in the Hunslo borough, they left the Hunslo left move to the Ealing somewhere in two months back. And their stuff, the new tenant, the landlord throat side, and they got plenty notice. They clearly mentioned they showed all the new tendency and all the proof that they moved to new property. But still, the council is enforcing, they have no money to the appeal. So what mechanisms you are adopting to deal this matter? Because the new landlord or landlord or the new tenant, they throw his stuff, and they got plenty. Thank you, Councillor. Well, I won't be able to discuss any personal, like this is like, with this is more sort of a case work that can be dealt outside this scrutiny. Yeah, no, that's, that's fine, Councillor Sidhu. Is there any other questions? For the report? Any sort of personal issues? Do please take out of this meeting today, you can get direct to Councillor Sidhu. Of course, you can put an email if there's anything that is a little bit caseworky. Is that all right? Is your question going to be on casework? Okay, Councilor Nauvra. Thank you, Chair. Actually, I have a questions to the neighborhood enforcement. I do believe is a low end. Kelly can give me the best answer. Do you think so as a fortnight waste collection lead to the more flight tipping? Thank you, Councillor. I have to caveat to say that I don't work in the waste and recycling team. So I wouldn't want to say anything that, you know, could impact their services. But I have an element of experience. I introduced fortnightly collections when I was working in Ealing. It's about 10 years ago, so it may be outdated. Short answer, no, I don't think it does. Not the evidence that I've seen, provided that we get collections, right, that we get collections on time. I think a lot of the fly tips or flighted waste that we see on the streets, could be domestic waste that's not been collected. And then there's a sort of debate between is that fly tip waste or is it domestic waste, etc. So it's not a straightforward answer from my experience for on caveat caveating it massively, I would say, not necessarily. I know people used to have a debate about charge bulky waste collections and whether that impacted fly tipping. But I know when we looked at this years ago in, in London, Haringey, statistically was the worst borough for fly tipping, but they had a free bulky waste collection service. So I don't think it's always sort of cause and effect. There's lots of reasons why fly tipping increases. And I would defer to our waste and recycling team to answer that properly. But that's just my two pence on it. It's okay. That's helpful. Sorry. Thank you. Okay, so we we're going to move to the recommendations. Firstly, Councillor Sidhu, thank you so much for accepting the recommendations. So we will formally agree that. And can I have a second there to the recommendations? Thank you very much. That is and can I have a vote for the recommendations? Thank you. That is all passed. Thank you so much for that. And can we ask that? You know, your department can come back in the future to OSCE and give us an update? That'd be absolutely fantastic. We'd love to see you guys here again. Yeah, absolutely. Brilliant. Thank you so much. So thank you, all of you for being here. You're more than welcome to stay, of course, and continue with the OSCE meeting. But this, if you'd like to leave, of course, you're more than welcome to as well. Thank you so much. Brilliant. Okay, so we move on to agenda item number four. So this is the housing strategy 2025 to 2030. It's important that a committee can respond to new issues as they emerge. As such, the launch of the consultation on the housing strategy last month was too good an opportunity that passed without community contributing its perspective. This evening, we have a chance to focus on the particularly important element of the council's work. The council's housing strategy confirms the focus of how house those housing services. Some of the statistics make for somber reading 4200 households on the borough 4200 households on the borough's housing register, spending an average of three years waiting for the home. A troubling of homelessness approaches to the council over the course of 2018-2024 strategy. Perhaps unsurprising when one reads the median wage grew 24% over that period, but rents increased by 46% with an average two-bed home now costing £1,900 per month. Even if Hounslow is more affordable borough than many in London, the report tells us house prices are now considering possible and possibly unaffordable. This is a bleak news indeed. The draft housing strategy puts forward five priorities, tackling homelessness and rough sleeping, ensuring safe and decent council housing, raising standards in the private rented sector, helping residents live healthily, independent and sustainable lives and ensuring more genuinely affordable homes. The committee has asked if we agree with these priorities on which we consider the most important. We are also asked if we believe there are any priorities that have been missed and if we are happy for the overall approach taken with the refresh of the strategy and the drafting of the actions to do with the priorities. Note, we are not going to note, the update of the preparation of the new housing strategy 2025-30, which is currently undergoing formal public consultation as a draft version. Consider and comment on the proposed priorities for tackling housing need in the borough and the nature of sufficiency of purposed arrangements for meeting them. I'd like to welcome our guests for this item. Joining us, we have Councillor Sue Samson, Cabinet Member for Housing Management and Homelessness, and Modesta Uncia, Director of Housing and of course we have Ben Tomlinson as well. Thank you so much for being here. Councillor Samson, may I ask you to introduce a report. Thank you, Chair, but could I hand over to Ben because he can condense it down a lot more than leaving me waffling along? Yes, of course, that's fine. Thank you, Councillor. That's very gracious of you, and thank you, committee. So, very briefly, I'll just go over the presentation that was attached as an appendix to the papers that were circulated, which basically introduces the housing strategy. So, the housing strategy is about what is going to be the strategic direction of this council for addressing housing need in the borough over the next five years. So, it's a medium-term strategy. It incorporates the homelessness, rough sleeping and housing strategies all into one document. It may be for the committee to note, in fact, that there's a further legal requirement that it's now a statutory duty placed on councils to also do a supported housing strategy. It hasn't actually been codified into official guidance left yet, but that was introduced by, I think, a supported housing act last year or 2023. So, obviously, in common with any strategy or policy put forward by the council, needs to be an intelligent-led document that targets effectively our limited, very limited resources into having the greatest impact and helping those in greatest need. To further those aims, we are engaging currently publicly with residents, having conducted an internal consultation exercise with colleagues and select partners, which we have a lot of dealings with, such as the NHS and and obviously our colleagues in social care, which are now reporting to the director. So, just to set out for people what precisely our responsibilities are, preventing assisting homelessness, providing universal housing options advice to anybody who approaches the council, stating that they're in housing need and needs help with that. And then, at the sharp end, we target people who are rough sleeping. We have to maintain the council's own stock of its council housing, of which there are 13,000 so in the borough, enforce standards in the private rented sector, which is under the planning directorate, and also support the vulnerable. So, make sure that people who are disabled care leavers have access to suitable accommodation or adaptations to their property, for example. So, all of this is counted into what we term housing needs, and all of it, which is covered by the strategy in terms of how we intend to meet it over the next five years. So, just to give you a brief outline of what we did, mentioned that there was a needs assessment, mainly looking at statutory, sorry, public domain information, national statistics, et cetera, demographics. We conducted a gap analysis to see how effective the previous housing strategy was in meeting those needs, what the residual gap was, internal stakeholder engagement, and took the paper to Cabinet, I believe, last month in April. It was approved to go out to public consultation, and here we are. So, we are out for a period of six weeks, which is considered reasonable. That is, albeit short, the expected typical length of a consultation that pretty much all the other local authorities doing across London. We will then take the final version of the housing strategy to Cabinet for approval in July. So, just to go into a bit more detail about the kind of things that we've covered, and thanks to the Chair for giving a very good summary from the paper. So, everyone will be aware, things like the grey wave that's happening in the borough, the proportion of people are over 65 and indeed very old is growing. What does that mean in housing terms? It means we need more supported accommodation for people in that age bracket. It means that we need more adaptable accommodation that can take wheelchairs, things like level entry baths and showers to ensure that people's needs can be met, they can remain independent in their homes. Disability increased over the previous five years. It might not sound much, but going up sort of six points is a good 20% of what it was previously, if you look at it as a fraction. So, an extra fifth of disabled people in borough compared to what there was in 2018 is very significant. That again means more adapted properties. And things like during the pandemic, we saw a large proportion of people, they'd be neats if they were younger, but essentially drop out the workforce. And that's a socio-economic pressure on their wages, on their access to other things, which makes them resolving their housing situation themselves increasingly difficult, particularly when you look at what's going on the market and the population, which is, although the borough's population increased, the housing numbers increased, but the affordability, as the Chair mentioned, got significantly worse. Essentially, wages going up on average didn't keep pace with the increase in rents, which have skyrocketed as they have the rest of London. So, it's important to note the housing market, local housing market, isn't just Hounslow. It's a wider ecosystem spilling over the borders into other boroughs and beyond the M25, but all of it's particularly unaffordable. So, in terms of homelessness, again, we mentioned a big spike in numbers during the pandemic, which have failed to go down. They did, in fact, treble in terms of both the homeless approach as people who've been what we'd call traditional statutory homeless, where they're made typically evicted by their landlord and come to us in Access Hounslow, and indeed also rough sleepers, the more stereotypical thing that you'd think of. People with no accommodation out, sleeping bags on the street, although we do stress that we support those people and nobody should be spending a second night out, that trebled over the previous term of the housing strategy. So, where all this led to was our draft ambitions for 2030. We distilled it into five equally important objectives, which are essentially, which are covered in the report. These should reflect them if I've updated the report correctly. Reduce homelessness and rough sleeping tackle their causes and consequences, improve the quality and livability of existing homes and estates, broadly speaking. Secure additional high-quality, safe, green and affordable housing, support residents to live independently, promote their health and wellbeing, and, well, to generally tackle the quality condition of our own stock, including ASB and things like that. So, it's important to note that the housing strategies, the policy sits in the second level of the council's policies below that say the corporate plan, which we follow, but also complements the Hounslow local plan, the spatial planning document, which sets out what we're going to build and where. So, we have to make sure that our housing strategy harmonizes with that, so that it doesn't cause any problems for planning committee and things like that. Again, some of the feedback that we got now, what people are telling us from the internal consultation exercise. So, homelessness, big issue, we need to do more around prevention. The housing supply is going to get tighter, it's going to be extremely difficult, and we're going to see a lot of people who delivered housing, extra, additional affordable housing in the last five years struggle to provide that in terms of our RPs are building less, we're building less because we've got less money. Again, more need to support disabled people, ensure there's more adaptable, suitable accommodation for them, and really work together in partnership with other social landlords, private sector landlords, and people across the borough to include, to improve general housing conditions. So, with all that said and done, I refer back to the questions, which our lead member will be able to assist you with. What would the committee like to advise that we should prioritise? Do you have any priorities for us? What opportunities different from your personal experience and case work do you think we need to do more of or do better? And is there anything that we should stop doing or change our approach of? Thank you, big member. Thank you so much, Ben. Do you want to carry on? No, I'm just happy to take any questions. Brilliant, thank you. Yep, so we'll move to that point of clarification. Thank you very much, Ben, for the report and the strategies moving forward. Okay, so we will go through sort of some of the questions that we have already here, and I'm sure we'll get some clarification here. If I can ask, firstly, Councillor Amesley, just to put his two questions in first, please, if you wouldn't mind? Yes, happy to. We're jumping around in the order of the questions, that's fine. Yeah, I guess, thank you very much, first of all, Ben, for the presentation. I thought it was very interesting. I guess a bit of context for this question. In the consultation draft housing strategy on page three, I think it's rightly stated that there's been a long-term decline in the supply of housing in the borough. Relative to the increase in the population. And obviously the stated aim on slide six is to address that shortage. I went back and had a look at some of the GLA data and Hounslow saw a 95% decrease in affordable housing starts in the borough last year compared to 88% across London. So it's a London-wide thing, but Hounslow's problem slightly worse. It's really concerning that we're not building enough. And I think that's kind of the foundational problem, isn't it, really? That there's not enough houses being built and that's leading on to all of these extra problems. So I guess my question is, what are we going to do about it? I mean, how do we get rid of that long-term decline in the supply of local housing? How do we reverse it? I mean, it's all very well sort of aligning to the local plan, but shouldn't we be banging at their door and saying we need to build more? So, yeah, the first point to clarify, Councillor, is that in fact percentages can be deceptive because we were such a high level of delivery in the previous strategy. That's probably why we've had a higher reduction on average than London. It's not necessarily that we've been clobbered worse, but more that we delivered amongst the top tier of people in London in the previous six years. So it can cut both ways in terms of that observation. But yes, as our lead member will be happy to concur, essentially it's an economic problem in that the interest rates increasing massively raised the cost of lending. There are also inflationary pressures on building costs that made it extremely uneconomical and challenging for any landlord to deliver property. So that affects local government that affects private registered providers of social housing and indeed anybody in the private market looking to make money on construction of residential properties. So it's not just restricted to Hounslow. It's not just restricted to local government. It is a market problem. And in order to make affordable housing work, it has to be subsidized. Somebody I'd, you know, gently suggest central government has to dip into their coffers and liberate funding in the form of grants or cheap loans in order to grease the wheels and let us keep building. Without that money, we have really exhausted the extent of the funding available to us within our housing revenue account because we, as you correctly stated, councillor recognised it as a problem of not building enough. We built as much as we possibly could, but there is a limit to our financial reserves and we are rubbing up against that at the moment in terms of what's available. If I could just come in, I've got some headings here that would give you an example of what we're up against as a local authority. Well, not just us, right across London, higher interest rates on development finance, cost of building has increased markedly, higher sales risks with market uncertainty linked to higher interest rates, constraining people's ability to raise mortgages. Building a safety regulator, the rollout has, the rollout has been problematic and there are significant concerns regarding delays and predictability in the system. Supply chain issues linked to the war in Ukraine and post Brexit. Visit viability issues leading to an offsite monetary contribution to affording housing and schemes increasingly showing only low or even no levels of affordability. Provision as viable as viable. Registered providers and councillors are suffering a lack of liquidity, meaning they are unable to pick up the section 106 affordable sites, which is impacting on both the supply of the new affordable homes as well as overall housing supply. So there's a number of contributing factors to that. So it's not just, it's not just one. I wish it was just one so we can wave the magic one and fix one issue, but it isn't. There's a, there's a, it's right across the board and there's a number, a number of contributing factors. I suppose my question, I completely agree with you. I think that the planning system, the costs, I mean, we're not building enough and there are a lot of reasons why we're not building enough. I suppose the, the question I would sort of slightly push on is what's the, what's the plan? Because we know that we're not building enough. We know that we have to, I think one of the measurements for success for priority five is that we increase the total number of new affordable homes secured. How do we do that? What's the plan? I guess is the, is the, not the crock of the. Thank you, Chair. I suppose the plan is we continue to work with central government, continue to lobby for more money in the grant system and continue to see whether the government is going to put more money into public sector housing, because we can't do it alone as a council. The housing associations are suffering the same fate. The developers are suffering the same fate. So unless the economy improves and it's a whole infrastructure, a whole community system, a whole ecosystem, unless there is a change one or the other, then you can't necessarily build your way out of housing supply. You can build, but it comes to a point where you're so stretched within the HRA. We haven't got any, enough leverage to build anymore. And we rely on a range of partners to help us out. But like you say, we can't do it. We, we physically cannot do it quick enough. And I think that's, that's a fair answer. I'll move on to my second question, which is more about the consultation, because I know this is out for consultation at the moment. And there's a range of really important stakeholders and groups that are being specifically consulted. I guess sticking to the affordability priority and sticking to the ensuring that we're actually building and improving the supply and young people and young families. I think it's fair to say face the brunt of the housing crisis in this city. And is there anything being done specifically to capture their views on this strategy and its priorities? Because I suspect they would say building, increasing the supply, making sure that housing is affordable is their number one concern. Thank you, Councillor. So we are, we are contacting everyone who's on our housing register, which sounds unrelated at first. But essentially, the way that you get on our housing register is either being homeless and in priority needs, which means that you're a family or that you are overcrowded in your accommodation, which again typically means that you are a young family unable to afford larger accommodation. So from a, from an abstract housing perspective, we are targeting that group as closely as we can. We are emailing everybody's on a housing register. We may send them a text message depending on what the perception of how invasive that is to solicit their feedback and find out what their opinion is, what their priorities are, councillors, so that we can address them in terms of housing need. We know the needs out there, as the Ali member just said, it's very difficult for us to, to meet that need. But we still want to hear from people to hear what their priorities are, what they feel we could be doing. And if there's any deficiencies in our current service offer, that should unearth it because it will speak to everybody who's currently registered as homeless with us at the moment, which includes predominantly young families because of how you qualify for that under the statutory assessment. And also similarly anybody who's an extreme housing need and is on the Council's housing register. So we will speak to people most in need in that category. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Councilor Nagra, your question, please. Thank you, Chair. I just have a question. How is the Council ensuring current London Borahanslow housing stock is in good repair? How is the progress since we last discussed this as a committee? Similarly, what progress has been made on empty homes since we last looked at voids? Yeah, hold on. Sorry. OK, the housing. We have an asset, five year asset management plan that was agreed by cabinet. 20. Originally 2017, but then the. The appendix with the housing strategy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a refresh in 20. In April. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, that was approved by cabinet. And just to the draft housing strategy. This set out the approach to ensure all stock is safe and in good repair. And we achieve maximum decency stock condition and data let capital program as well as manage responsive repairs. So, yes, housing management. That's that's what governs our direction of travel and manages how we manage our budgets and the expenditure going forward is through the asset management strategy. Can I just put a point in voids? Do we have updates on voids? Do we have updates on voids? Do we have updates on voids? Do we have updates on voids? Do we have updates on voids? Do we have updates on voids? Sure. Okay. Do we have updates on voids? Yes. Right. The end to end void project has been ongoing to redesign the process for voids to be more efficient and effective. The aim is to reduce the overall turnaround time to relet properties. as the process pilot proceeds there is a risk of a dip in service performance as our teams familiarize this themselves with new ways of working and the transition of responsibilities as well as learning is undertaken this is being monitored closely by the end-to-end voids and repairs project board and any intervention required will be actioned so we set up that board in order to because we knew we we had an issue we we you know that's that's no secret we had an issue and we addressed it and that's how we done it so and we're working through it hopefully we will eventually come out the other end but um but that's where we are at this moment good thank you for the update um can i have uh council girl please in the question yeah my question around the rough sleeping handle recorded about 41 people sleeping rough in a single night which is up from 14 from the previous year that is a significant rise but we are still better off for many other uh virus like westminster they have noted 388 in one single night um my question would be what sort of help council are receiving from local charities and the communities to tackle those issues okay the right we this is an up-to-date report as of today we are currently working with 35 russ rough sleepers on the streets of hounds like okay so um that's the figures gone down which is is good news um they are um that one though yeah well okay yeah so how we support there's no second night out um somewhere safe to stay temporary accommodation supported accommodation private rented sector clearinghouse um we have no dedicated rough sleeper accommodation provision in houndslow however we are hoping to pilot housing first as there is scope within the re commissioning of the supported housing pathway for there to be some dedicated accommodation for rough sleepers we would be in a better position to fund any gaps in service provision next financial year when the government spending review is complete and we know that our allocation is via the rough sleeping prevention and recovery grant thank you council talk please thank you chair um i've got two question or uh maybe some ad hoc as well um how does uh this housing strategy uh align with the current review of our hmos where is it oh sorry the revised hmo licensing proposals are out for public consultation and are coming back to cabinet in august for final approval yeah it's coming back in august um and how does our relationship with other local authorities play out in housing like uh moving residents from one borough or um to to other or from other boroughs to uh london borough of hanslow um so how significant an issue is this in our borough okay there were 1410 placements by our by other authorities into hounslow during 23 to 24 as it is relatively as it relatively affordable hounslow made 782 placements in other boroughs 20 and 24 25 data is not yet available so in those terms we have about 700 net migration coming into hounslow so even if we are building affordable houses they're not going to our residents um no because um they will go to our residents because the placement that other boroughs are making is under the homelessness legislation is temporary accommodation placements and they move the people back they still owe them the rehousing duty equally the people who move to other boroughs who still need to house them permanently so it doesn't mean that when they move them into a building we have to house them no uh and once the um a council house is allocated to a family or a person how often do we review the circumstances whether they still qualify for the council house because the cases are somebody gets a council house they don't leave it for their entire life and even their kids try to claim that we still want to live in the house do we have a mechanism to um yes we do we have we carry out tenancy audits every um unannounced every every year it is every year every year um but where we do come across families that are where the children have left and they're on their own we do encourage them to downsize and we help them through that process um you know and that's you know whether they're eligible for um if they're giving up a three bedroom property they can receive a thousand pound per bedroom they're giving up there's an incentive to do that um along with removal costs and so on um so but yes all of that is looked at on a regular basis annually at least yes that's attack is it just an incentive basis or they are supposed to uh leave the property if they don't qualify anymore um sorry we're having a debate um they they would have only got the property they would have only to get the property they would have had to have qualified if the children then move out and and they're still living in that property there's nothing to make them move on right there's nothing within the tenancy to make them move on um and we can't we we can't evict them we we just can't so that's why we work with the housing officers work with them in order to encourage them to to give up family-sized accommodation to downsize um to free up those houses in order for you know for families that are in more need to take them up so we are quite successful in that because there's good incentives it's not only the money they've in those incentives people wouldn't sort of normally choose where they want to live to a degree you know like if they want to live on a new estate in brentford or something they you know they would they become priority one um you know and we try and enable that as much as we possibly can to free up those family-sized accommodations so at the moment it's still up to the uh tenant whether they want to move or not yes even though they do not qualify in their current circumstances yeah for the house so are we doing something in the current uh housing strategy to address this we can't because that that's we're governed by legislation so is that illegality this illegality yeah we're covered by housing the housing the housing act and the legislation so we are our hands are tied so maybe a counselor maybe if i can understand the question better so if somebody to get a council property you need to be eligible in the first instance and then if your circumstances change and for example somebody has died and the children are not entitled to succeed because we need to go by the 1985 house and that that says are the rules for succession if they're entitled to succeed then they'll be eligible to continue to either remain in the same property or to be moved to smaller property if they are not entitled to succeed and we have the right to evict them we go through the legal process and we evict them so that's the process we have to just go in line with the housing act thank you but i spoke more along the lines of you know if the children had just grown up and moved on whereas modesta spoke about um succession thank you mr give me john's second time so i have just questions do we have an exact number how many properties are vacant in this world yes 287 and do you have any charge sheet or any uh number how many property you can bring next year or the next year because the the housing is a crisis so do you have any charge sheet where you thinking the people will be available for the for the residential yeah we can we currently carry out 600 lets on average 600 lets per year um but there's always that small turn we're always going to have voids so at any point you can't we can't say we've got we've got no voids because we we physically can't because we're getting voids are coming through on average what 12 a week you know so we've always got voids but you know we're cut we're working through to get rid of the you know the voids as quickly as possible because we know these you know there's people in need and we don't we you know we're losing revenue and we don't want that either so you know we're working as fast as we possibly can to get that get them turned around and back re-let can i just uh pull on that point so would you say um as part of the strategy 24 22 to 2030 is that we'd be looking at voids coming down over the strategy yeah absolutely yeah um okay so a couple of questions from me um with with the strategy so just bearing in mind the 25 30 strategy what is and i do know you've kind of highlighted on your pack but what is the actual priority in 25 to 30 we've got we have five priorities but we can't say that anyone any of them is of a less priority than the other they're all they're all equal um which are sorry hold on right so tackle homeless and homelessness and rough sleeping um safe and decent council housing raise standards in the private rented sector residents live healthy independent and sustainable lives more genuinely affordable homes that so that's our top priorities and those are the ones that are out in the out for public consultation um for the strategy for the residents to have their input so but that's you know and that's what we want to hear from that's what we want to hear their views on those those headings thank you um that's great so this could be kind of fluid throughout the the actual strategy itself okay um and um of course we've spoken about the the private sector as well and standards there um are we looking at or could we be looking at amending hmo licensing conditions to make sure that people do have decent homes or do some place to live yeah the the um the consultation out is out at the moment um under the renters rights bill so that's when's that going to be when's that coming back we're expected so i'll introduce a um regulator of private social um private sector housing we're excellent yet sorry cancer so the renters rights bill is um a committee stage in the house of the lords it's expected to introduce a um regulator for private rented sector housing that will then set out what the standards are for us as a local authority to enforce and we're informed by our colleagues in the private sector enforcement team that um there is sufficient powers um set out in our current hmo licensing scheme and in the um proposals out for consultation at the moment that we'll be able to expand and adapt those to implement the new renters rights bill standard so nobody fully knows what the new renters rights bill standard will be it will be things like um having to carry out repairs in time scales a decent home standard which will mean that you have to have a somewhat modern kitchen and bathroom um heating systems that work and and um we are equipped to deal with that council we've been insured by our colleagues in private sector housing pat gilmore and our team thank you for that so but that's not legal requirement not at the moment not yet but watch this space counselor so nobody nobody's committing to a date and it's because of the mechanism like the regulator of social housing bill the renters right bill doesn't actually cover any um specific requirements in the legislation it will introduce a regulator and then that regulator will introduce the requirements of secondary legislation so there's very little information on what the actual uh standards will be it's going to create something that will then create the guidance and that's when we'll know what we're dealing with but um we expect later in this year the autumn counselor will see exactly what the standards are more information in a form of public consultation and then we will as a um authority be drafting plans as to how what our response to that will be can i just sorry can i just add that even though we're not just waiting for that we have our own um private sector enforcement team and um they're exceptional um you know and we i do referrals all the time and like probably most of us in the room we do and that they're they're actioned pretty quick and they the landlords are held to account um and if they're not then they're served with a section notice and and so on there's a whole legal process that's followed so we're not waiting for that bill but that bill will certainly give us more powers to him to be able to enforce that is great thank you very much for the work there do you want to come in yeah thank you chair just um a point of clarification so there was some discussion earlier um in relation to the rights of those people residing in council housing um so i do agree with the points made by ms anucha and councillor sampson but i just wanted to supplement those points so as you as you know if a person is on the housing register and eligible for council housing they may i mean there's not much council housing available but they may secure a property once they have done so they reside there under a secure tenancy under the housing at 1985 so no matter if their financial circumstances change they might earn a lot more money in future years that would not remove their eligibility so they remain entitled to reside in that property for life unless they do something which would enable the council to evict them for example not paying their rent or some other kind of behavior which you know but the council would obviously have to go through the the legal process in order to secure an eviction okay so just wanted to clarify that point and just in relation to the renters right bill as uh mr thompson's has said that's currently in the house of the parliament um and once it's enacted and becomes an act then it will be in force and it may have some impact not only upon private sector housing but also social landlords for example the proposal to abolish the short-told tenancies thank you for that clarification um um okay so um just just a couple more questions from me so with regarding to prioritizing affordable housing and developments how confident are we that sufficient affordable housing can be in place in the next five years i'll never be enough i'll never be enough there'll never be enough um like i said earlier we can't build fast enough financial constraints you know we we are like every other local authority are financially there with the hra up against it so just to confirm we we're still going to build throughout the strategy but it's not going to be enough yeah okay so over the five years we're going to still build but it's just not going to be enough for demand yeah thank you is there any other questions concerns um council yes thank you chair i've just got three specific questions first of all um right to buy is our residents still eligible for that in our borough and if so how many houses are sold off each year um yes the right to buy is still active um but it changed the the the rules to that changed on the 21st of november last year where the discount was reduced by up 120 000 so it's not so um lucrative any more to um to apply it's not it's yeah it's not um a good deal anymore so people we are currently working through i think 700 and odd applications which is pretty much the best part of three years worth of right to buy applications if we were working in a normal that's how long it's going to take us to actually process all of that um a lot of people are not going to be eligible um and for one reason or another but we don't anticipate to sell many properties because of the you need now a larger deposit than than what people could potentially they're going to be losing through that right to buy that makes sense yeah yeah thank you um so these next two questions sort of tie in together so first is there a clear um eligibility criteria to apply for council housing because i often get residents contacting us sort of thinking that they're eligible and then they're told they're not but there's not really a criteria research and then that leads on to the problem that we have if they're not eligible for social housing they don't have deposits or an income to be able to rent in the private sector what help are we offering our residents that are in that situation that aren't eligible for social housing but also can't afford private rental are we working with the private rental sector to get them into these properties what's happening it's on the it's on the website um it's very it's very clear um the is it is laid out very clear but yes we do have um sorry yes we we do have sorry did you know my mind my mind's gone blank sorry am i um my brain's gone blank so i'll just explaining that uh how to apply um with eligibility on the website on the allocation policy it's a public document on the website and uh on a housing advice page as well on the website we do sort of set out basic advice to people on how to assess accommodation and ultimately depends on if you're working you know you could you know apply for benefit if your income is low and then we do give advice and assistance to people who are eligible are set out by law that obviously can't house everyone because you know there isn't enough housing and there isn't enough money out there to help everyone sorry i'll remember the criteria is very clear um but what we find is that when people make an application for housing they automatically want a council house that's not always the case that's it depends on what is available at the time you know whether they are actually discharged into the private sector there's a whole host of um it's all in our policy um how that each case is is treated it's it's it's all fair it's very clear and it's all on the website but i think that's where i certainly with my case works probably the same as yours people are like why can't i get a council house but with the like with the private sector if they are discharged into private sector um we then if they're eligible for housing and they are discharged then obviously the council sort that out but if it is that they're not eligible for housing um then they wouldn't necessarily qualify for the deposit but if they are a family and they wanted to seek that route then we would assist them with the rental deposit so long as they found the the property that they wanted to rent them even if they're not eligible for the deposit are we helping families find accommodation or if they're not eligible it's down to them to find a guarantor or the deposit or affordable housing is there any help that we offer the people that are in that position they can come for housing advice anybody can come for housing advice but if they're not eligible then no we will not be helping them they have to make their own arrangements okay thank you thank you uh for that so uh last question i promise so this is of course we we do have a lot of stock in house over here we have you know 13 000 um housing stock in in here um could one of the strategies be that we can sell some of the property and use um um the revenues generated in that to invest in new developments no because there's so if you're selling a council property okay so this won't be to residents this would be to other businesses or other developers this is a question for tom um i can't answer that that is a question for tom because that that whole lots of things come into play um like estate regeneration um whole it could it could but for housing no we would not be selling accommodation in order to build new um accommodation for the capital or you know even with using the capital uh receipts we know we won't be doing that because the build is actually more expensive than what we would be selling the property for especially if the person is it does qualify for the right to buy thank you chair just a point in relation to the potential for selling council housing council housing is held in what is called the housing revenue account the council may not sell council housing to developers unless they have secret consent from the secretary of state for those disposals there are some general consents and there are limits there thresholds but the default position is that you would require consent thank you uh for that um okay so um thank you all very much for that so i'm just coming back to uh committee now um is there after sort of listening to everything all the sort of questions uh and answers um moving forward with the actual strategy what would you like uh os to recommend say please this is probable council i'm saying yes go on chair i'll bite um i i understand the pessimism around the building and the meeting the demand with supply um for the housing in the borough um i also think though that we need to uh at least have some sort of plan or strategy or target in mind i i i do think that it's positive that um one of the uh criteria for success in the housing strategy is that we have uh more affordable homes secured by the end of those five years i'd like to see a plan for how we do that i take council samson's point it will never be enough um but maybe the recommendation is that we work closely closely with um councillor bruce and his department to ensure that we are boosting that supply in the borough as much as we possibly can maybe that means lobbying governments change planning laws it could be any number of things but i think we need a proper strategy line by line here's what we're going to do to try and increase the supply by as much as possible in this borough whether it's private or public um i think that would go a long way to reassuring people that we are taking this housing crisis very very seriously so would it be fair to say that we add targets in the next five years yeah targets or a plan to work with with councillor bruce and his department to increase that supply any other recommendations from committee members thank you chair in my point of view we're talking about the vacant property the empty property if they make prioritize if they need small amount of investment make investment make it usable get the revenue and i think the empty property can be on four or five phases invest the money use make generation generate the funds and work on other is keep the empty property is not worth it for the council so we can start on their face i think that's my recommendation so just clarify um the recommendation so just so we'll be seeing the strategy that the voids go down so of course you're going to be coming back to us i'm sure um in future osc meetings so um for this or part of strategies that we are looking at voids would you say voids coming down over that strategy yeah okay okay okay any other recommendations from committee members yeah thank you um this housing strategy should ensure that new development deliver uh for affordable homes for local people especially families key workers and young adults trying to remain in the bar thank you thank you very much there then okay so um just um of course we are noting the housing strategy here um so you are urged to to have your say of course i've everyone said it and this is anything else um work cross council um so this is working cross council to boost the housing supply however we can and if that means you you've got to work with with tom's team then you know maybe there's something in there uh that we can share thank you um focus on reducing uh the number of voids uh and uh focus on affordable homes as well so just uh really sort of pushing uh affordable homes for for the people of house um and and and that is it that that is all the recommendations so far we sort of fall in agreement with those recommendations yeah thank you very much that's that's it um if i could just see a seconder uh for the recommendations thank you and just a vote uh of course for the recommendations thank you so much that that moves forward uh with that and to that it comes to an end um thank you so much i'm pretty sure that you'll be coming back to to see and and uh um getting an update uh of how the strategy is going um but wish you well i think is um a very very very good i think you could do really well and i look forward to coming back and telling you we have no voice thank you so much thank you all okay so agenda item number five this is uh the scrutiny panel reports 24 25 deep dive deep dive recommendations we now have an opportunity to review the recommendations emerging from the work of the scrutiny panels we receive regular updates from the panel chairs council city on the work of the children and young people scrutiny panel and the agenda packs council goal on the work of the health and adult care panel and council nagara on the work of the housing environment screening panel today though we have we we are asked to review the work of the screening panels and agree uh all of their recommendations uh unfortunately uh council uh city is unavailable to be with us this evening however i do have councillor yates um the panel vice here will provide a overview of council city does behalf um council yeats council goal council nagara uh we we await uh for your report uh can i ask for councillor cool first yeah thank you mr chair uh first of all to give me opportunity to give me a opportunity to give the update and make a report uh i'm a constant riazgal and the chair of health and adult care scrutiny panel for this year the health and real case scrutiny panel have now concluded of a deep dive into commissioning and contract managing for adult social care that take place in hansalo these recommendations have been shared with executive directors steven forb martin and to the respected cabinet member councillor bath in late april this year these have been considered and appear to have been well received by the directors cabinet members this year the health and real care panels deep dive focus on exploring how london bar of hansalo carried out its commissioning and contract management in adult social care this year the scope of the work meant that the panel engaged with a variety of internal teams that are involved in a relevant process the panel consider how team in the council utilize a variety of different providers to be able to meet its adult social care needs the panel selected to topic after thorough discussions at the first panel meeting of the year while hansalo appear to have been effective at managing providers the continued financial pressure in adult social care made this deep dive timely as a panel over the course of the year number of heard about the overcharging approach of commissioning and contact management this was supplemented by detailed presentations by internal teams on how data was used tend and identified and how cost was controlled the panel also went out and visited bristol court assisted by living facilities and heard from member of the staff about how residents live and how the facilities help the council divided high quality care at affordable rates overall the panel members were provided a lot of important information on relevant process that enable member to develop recommendation the panel identified several key aspects of the process as being key to develop recommendations member found that the process in place for recommend for commissioning and contract management are robust and that council built facilities are key to maintaining good quality of care the panel did note that the financial pressure which currently are impacting the system do not appear to be easier and that recognizing this and focusing on this in ski to ensuring that residents can access the care that they need when they need it by addressing challenging proactively the council can position itself to meet the involving need of residents while maintaining financial sustainability the panels for final recommendation presented to the executive directors and the leader member as well as follows number one the panels agreed the panel calls for stronger reporting mechanism to allow easier identifications and resolutions of contract related issues the panel is keen to ensure greater transparency in the contracting process to achieve this the council will continue to be in complaint with contract decision and to continue applications performance the view that should be made public wherever feasible the second recommendations i create the panel recommend continue investment in care facilities to address the growing demand for support services it is essential the residents continue to have access to high quality care in facilities that remain financially viable both for individuals and the council this investment should focus on long-term sustainability and affordability recommendation theory the panel suggests that the council aims to continue to minimize its investment in early investor and prevention care to reduce long-term pressure on adult social care expanding community-based support and promoting independent living could improve outcome while elevating demand on more in intensive services through these recommendations the panel hopes to continue bc the council carry out effective monitoring of the contracting and commissioning process regarding regarding adult social care the year 2024 and 25 screw tip year has been productive and insightful one of the health social care panel through the focus deep dive into the commissioning and the contact management in adult social care social care we have developed such a deeper understanding of how care is planned purchased and monitored in hans law the year work was important to the panel because it is revealed not only the strength of our current commissioning approach such as contract monitoring and values for the money but also the pressure and the risk that must be managed as demand for the services continue to grow we learned how vital it is to ensure the contract decisions are transparent and accountable and how ongoing engagement with providers and volunteers organization can improve services for more of for most vulnerable residents we were particularly stuck by the council's office council's efforts to invest in its own care facilities like bristol court and to protect prevention services such as floating support these approach help deliver both better outcome and long-term sustainability however we are mindful that the financial pressure workforce challenge and raising demand especially among older adults and the people with the learning disabilities required continued attention and adoptions our recommendation focus on strengthening performance reporting ensuring transparency transparency in contact decisions investing in care infrastructure and depending engagement with the volunteer sectors we also believe formally in the need for the greater emphasize on prevention care and early interventions to reduce longer term pressure on the care system i would like to thank all our members officers co-opties and providers who contributed their time and insight to this process the panel's work was greatly supported by the council officers in the commissionings and adult social care teams whose opening lists and collaborations made this review possible a special thanks to dr vid for assisting me and supporting me for this year as we look ahead to the 2025 26 scrutiny year i look forward to continue our work with focus on how hunslo can further stensing support for residents who need care and those who provide it especially as we seek to build a fair sustainable and person catered care system thank you very much i will be presenting the work we have done for the children and young people's panel deep dive and updating on how the meeting with the lead member councillor samir chowdhury went last week please note the recommendations one and two in the slide deck attached to the agenda of the meeting were presenting as one recommendation to the lead member this is appendix one on the report of the five recommendations that were presented to the lead member two were accepted and two were partially accepted this year the panel was made up of eight councillors and three co-optive members one parent governor one youth worker and one community lead overall we had a good member engagement and everyone attended at least two meetings as shown on slide six we met four times during the year we considered potential topics before deciding what we that we would focus on school engagement and disadvantage at the primary school level this felt like a natural progression from last year's topic which was school readiness we then spent time researching trends in school attendance and going out to local schools to understand their experiences around poor attendance primary school children who are eligible for free school meals have lower attainment and lower levels of attendance attendance affects attainment after the covid 19 pandemic many house low schools reported increases in persistent and severe absence in addition parents attitudes around school attendance in addition parents attitudes around school attendance have worsened the council school attendance support service uses a support first approach and has a good reputation across the borough not all schools are able to support families that are struggling with attendance and engagement and factors that affect attendance include physical and mental health attitudes towards schools accessibility of schools and social social economic background during our first panel meeting we looked at evidence around attainment disadvantage and attendance in hounslow we found that the attainment gap tends to be the largest for those children who receive free school meals as well as those with send looking at attainment we found that hounslow performs well compared to england however the 21 point gap in the share of disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard at the end of year six indicates systematic inequalities we considered this data alongside absent levels showing us that disadvantaged students are also more likely to be severely or persistently absent from school after the first meeting we drafted our terms of reference which included these key lines of inquiry see slide nine what factors contribute to poor school attendance and attainment in primary school what are the impacts on primary school children of poor attendance rates do these differ for children facing socioeconomic disadvantage what is the council's current strategy to support school attendance and attainment particularly for children that are disadvantaged and what support or schemes exist locally council and partners to support good engagement at primary school attendance and attainment what schemes can provide support to schools and parents where engagement is a challenge during the second meeting we received evidence on the council's work addressing attendance covering barriers to school attendance experienced by pupils and their families in hounslow the council's principles around supporting good attendance wider impacts of poor attendance for primary school pupils legal duties of parents and carers with regard to school attendance data on attendance among primary school pupils in hounslow groups that are at greater risk of poor attendance and the current school attendance support service officer offer sorry graham baker head of access to education also shared his reflections for 2025 to 26 outlining outlining some of the services plans these included continuing to run attendance networks for schools which aim to focus on preventative approaches going forward during our third meeting slides 18 to 20 you can see an outline of our findings from the site visits we did across hounslow they're divided into challenges faced by the school learnings that the school reported interventions that the school has trialed and asks and suggestions that each school each school had for the council in the third meeting we also received written evidence on the support available from place to be finally we received a stakeholder map which is slide 22 which outline the services available to support attendance across hounslow this helped us to identify gaps to feed into the recommendations in addition we received further evidence which you can see on slide 23 finally we developed recommendations which have now been presented to the lead member councillor samir chowdhury and senior officer stephen forbes our recommendations are as follows the panel recommends that the school attendance support service collaborate with hounslow's family hubs to run targeted support sessions promoting the benefits of attending school for pre-primary and early primary school age children sessions should occur termly providing educational materials for parents around the possible long-term impacts of absence on children aged 4 to 11. this was accepted recommendation 2 the panel recommends that the communications team and family information service expand current campaign around school attendance using social media among other channels to promote school clubs engagements as part as a key part of school life as well as good attendance at school this was also accepted recommendation number 3 the panel recommends that hounslow schools are provided with a standardized bank of materials for running attendance related workshops for new parents and carers this should include case studies of successful approaches for example incentive schemes and be promoted at least once per term in order to reach parents and carers who may be new to the school mid-year this has been partially accepted and is under the agreement that hounslow education partnership are asked to take primary responsibility of leading this in collaboration with the local authority recommendation number 4 the panel recommends that the council lobbies the department for education for funding to make free before and or after school clubs possible for all eligible reception pupils in hounslow cementing good engagement and attendance for all children starting primary school this could be considered for further rollout if it's successful this has been partially accepted with an amendment to reflect the current government rollout and our final one recommendation is the panel recommends that the council engages in crisis avoidance by developing a survey proforma that can support schools informing evidence based around what enables or prevents children and young people from attending or engaging with school this has also been partially accepted under the agreement that hounslow education partnership are asked to take primary responsibility of leading this in collaboration with the local authority we are now working with philip walker and stephen forbes to collaborate with hep on the recommendations that the lead member would like to their support with thank you thank you uh councillor i'm just going to pause there for a moment is there anything that uh the councillors lead members and officers would like to say at this stage please thank you chair i'll go first um so um actually i'll introduce myself councillor lily bar from the cabinet member for adult social care public health and health integration so um firstly i actually wanted to thank scrutiny um and the chair for doing the deep dive um exercise into um adult social care commissioning and contracting um and um it's always really helpful for me as cabinet member but i'm i hope you got something out of it as well in terms of understanding what actually goes on with commissioning um i i wanted to say i'm pleased that um firstly i accept the recommendations i agree with and happy to accept them that's not a problem at all um but i'm pleased that the some of the things that you highlighted around um some of the recommendations around our process has been really clear and clear and value for money i think is really robust and value for money i think is really important because obviously as your report highlighted there's huge financial challenges for adult social care not just for hounslow but across nationally and we know what the picture looks like in the future i think you know you've you've sort of stressed it a number of times in your report sort of rising demand um aging population and complex needs so we are aware of the challenges and um you know as a council we want to work as as as as hard as possible to sort of address some of the future challenges whether that's through prevention or investing in extra care facilities or improving the health and well-being of our residents so that they um are healthy and don't need that that sort of help later on or they don't reach a crisis situation which costs us a lot more a lot more i'm actually also really pleased that you went to see bristol court because um i remember i opened it in 2019 because i had the housing portfolio then and i thought it was an excellent facility but that's an example of a facility that helps us to provide a really good service for some really vulnerable residents but also helps us to reduce the costs in terms of the sense that we know where it's cheaper to provide a facility like that than rather than residential care so um yeah overall thank you very much happy to accept the recommendations and um i know we're aware of the future challenges it's not going to get easy but um you know there are initiatives and and and and things that we have in place uh whether it's prevention or investing that hopefully will mitigate some of the costs but you know it is it is difficult times as we all know not just for us but nationally yeah thank you thank you thank you thank you yes thank you chair council samir chadri cabinet member for children's education employment skills um thank you so much um council gates i've had a very lengthy meeting with um councillor ramasadu um i think few days back it was last week on these recommendations first of all i think it's really really important that i would like to thank all of you um the panel members who have gone and visited the schools and had a have had a conversation with the teachers um how to tackle this attendance issue and you must have seen up i can see these recommendations they're they're really good one i've already said but when you see with our work which we are already doing we have done the attendance a campaign on the social media previously a couple of months back as well and we're going to carry on doing through work through the comms um and there has been work happening with the family hubs and the children's centers um recently as well but thank you i personally would like to thank all of you and the panel members um on behalf of myself and steven's team um for all the good work you have done happy to accept all the recommendations some partially some we've already discussed thank you chair thank you so much um anything from oh he has to do i think i would disappoint you chair if i didn't take the opportunity to say something um so i live to my expectations um i think just a thank you to um the the deep dive panel in terms of the adult social care thing i think adult social care is always a bit of a mystery in terms of what it does who it services how it operates and i think any um scrutiny inquiry and i think we had some really useful conversations just about what happens in terms of adult social care commissioning and it is a huge area of pressure for us in terms of just overwhelming demand and the financial pressure so i think thank you to the panel for the interest and i think hopefully there was some information flowed that informed panel members i think in terms of the the young peoples when i've spent the afternoon today with ofsted or our annual engagement meeting um attendance as council chowdhury has pointed out is a significant issue nationally unfortunately i think um persistent attendant um on attendance is becoming an issue and the norm in our schools and you know significant and persistent absence is becoming a real challenge not only in hounslow but nationally as well so i think the the focus of the scrutiny panel on what we are doing as a local authority with our schools um and parents on dealing with the absence of children in school is an important one and i look forward to coming back um to update on how we've progressed the recommendations because it's a really vital area that we need to address nationally as well as locally in hounslow the housing and environment scrutiny panel has now concluded the deep dive and flood resilience in hounslow these recommendations have been shared with the relevant executive director jake barkos and to the respective cabinet member council rajavat in late april and has also been disseminated to other relevant stakeholders this year the housing and environment panels deep dive focus on exploring how london borough hounslow as a lead local flood authority has sufficient capacity to meet its flood resilience obligations specifically the panel explored the extent to which fluvial and sewer flooding are problems in hounslow and the extent to which properties residents and businesses in the borough are protected this involved engaging both with internal and external stakeholders to ensure that members understood the problem and how the council were dealing with it the panel selected the topic after a thorough discussion at the first panel meeting of the year while hounslow appears to have been effective at managing some of the key issues as this is in linked to the corporate ambitions of becoming greener and safer borough the deep dive was well timed as a panel over the course of the year members heard about the overview of the subject from key officers and cabinet members this was supplemented with detailed presentations by internal teams on some of the key issues as well as evidence from a variety of the other groups such as hounslow highways tense water and variety of voluntary organizations the panel also went out and carried out a site visit to brentford to meet with local residents to discuss flood issues while walking along the grand union canal overall the panel members were provided with a lot of detailed information on the various challenges and problems the panel identified several key aspects of the process as being key to developing recommendations members found that the council is delivering in its duties as a local as a lead local flood authority and that it is looking to improve flood defense assets there is a strong evidence of the council working with a variety of partners in preparing and dealing with any incidents there were however some suggestions that the council could improve its engagement with local residents on the topic of flood resilience and the and that there could be more than to encourage greater home adaptations of residents and to prevent as much rainwater from getting into drains as a result the panel made the following some recommendations number one the panel recommends that london borough hunts the planning team give greater considerations to sewer network misconnections and require that new flood walls be built or existing flood walls be increased in height for water site developments number two the panel recommends that london borough hunts the planning team encourage the use of permeable surfaces for new developments and ensure greater enforcement of the council's front gardens policy this should be admitted in the local plan number three the panel recommends that the london borough hunts law formalizes its relationships with organizations working on flood alleviation and mitigation to improve collaboration and coordination particularly in relation to the thames 2100 plan and the future of the thames barrier number four the panel recommends that london borough hunts law lead on the creation of an official led coordination group to support cross borough collaboration around flood risk policy number five the panel recommends that london borough hunts law works with hunts law highways to improve maintenance and cleansing cleansing of surface drain covers and gullies both in frequency and coverage to better address surface water flooding number six the panel recommends that london borough hunts the lobby thames water to invest in improved infrastructure including mokdon sewage treatment works and to extend infrastructure to meet demand from new developments and address sewer and surface water flooding number seven the panel recommends that london borough hunts the lobby the canal and river trust to address the decline in water quality in grand union canal particularly the build up of contaminated sediment and salt through these recommendations the panel hopes to continue to see the council carry out its duty as lead flood local authority and deal with emerging issues and at the last i would like to say thank you to it and alfi who's given me support for the whole year and it's brilliant work thank you so much thank you chair thank you for that so um we we now kind of move to the recommendations i mean that there's a lot there of course it's all in your packs um so firstly uh are we sort of uh agreeing them um i do need a seconder to agree order yep thank you uh yeah yeah oh sorry forgive me yeah go for it no no go for it no if you have something new i'm gonna be the mean opposition member of the scrutiny panel sorry um i actually have questions for all three uh panels i don't want to hold the meeting up massively but um just on points of clarification again coming back to that whole conversation we had in october with the center for governance and scrutiny about making sure that recommendations are quite targeted um so councillor gull i had a couple of questions about some of your um recommendations recommendation two in terms of deeper engagement i just wondered how we measure that like what what does deeper engagement actually look like and what does success look like there and then on recommendations three and four um it talks about continued investment are we asking the council to invest more are we asking them to invest differently what what does that actually mean and what does success look like what's the actual target for that investment uh thank you constantly first of all because the panel is going through the details we do understand the constant investing the money but we are saying if we can more invest the money on the fair way for the commissioning and for the contracting because our debug question is commissioning and contacting we are concerning just on the particular on that part our concern is if you invest the money you need to be just on the fair and need to be clear and the feasible for the public and for all the people and then you have should be a mechanism to check if you have given any services to the provider the providers are providing the proper services that is the first one the second point you're talking about the investment we do understand the council is investing more more money there and we need to make a balance that's why we in our recommendation second we're saying we appreciate about this department and the council they invest in the money but as a balance we need to be considered if you're investing in the right way and the money is justified for the services that is our second recommendations if you have any question or more than don't answer um just just on the investment point so are we saying that they should continue investing what they currently are yeah that's the recommendation yeah okay um and then just on a couple of the other um panels just uh councillor yates um i'm gonna pick on you next because you're a second sorry and can i say i really like the fora suggestion i think it's a really good one recommendation five this fora for um uh parents in a similar situation i guess my question comes around the final recommendation which was a suggestion for the department for education and i have lots of recommendations i would probably make to bridget phillipson um what power do we have as a panel or even as a council to affect that change and if we don't have that power to affect that change should we be making recommendations to government departments and how it in essence progresses with policy and investments so the recommendation and the conversation we had is you know the mayor of london has invested in terms of free school meals um there is a roll out of after school clubs that will that's planned by government and it will carry on i think the discussion we had with um panel was there's still space for potentially further more and different so i think my role potentially is with councillor chowdhury to advise the panel and to consider through council chowdhury's portfolio lead about what communication can be sent to government department in terms of how to progress with that plan you know government has a dfe has a very clear idea how it wants to roll out after schools clubs and investment and breakfast clubs we might be able to shape that a bit so i think you as a scrutiny panel and the council as a whole has an ability to put forward some ideas and more than happy to help the panel and councillor chowdhury and articulate some of that because one size does not always fit all need so there's a local perception here about how we could use some of that money it would be unfair of me not to pick on the final screen panel now chair um but uh it's actually quite a similar um question um councillor nagra on housing and environment i think the final two recommendations are about compelling outside bodies to do something um again that was a discussion we had um with the um sense of scrutiny and governance what power do we actually have to compel these outside bodies to do what we're asking them to do exactly yeah and in terms of targets i mean what what does success look like that they say yes that they do something do we bring them in front of the panel if they don't do it how do we measure success with those recommendations no it's basically um i just to believe you know if just working like with other infection like mock dance sewage treatment works we just do believe is that we will work with the other stakeholders other organization it will be more like we can do the better that can make the infrastructure more than be clean and we can address for the good developments that's why and number seven we're talking about that we have been visiting the canal and river trust so just because and when i just been visited in the brantford area i just checked myself in the canal river it's quite a water quality is not good so that's my discussion with the you know if you just do work with the grand union canal and river trust we can be contaminate this one issues we can be resolved that one i do believe already hanslokons is a main lead local authority if we work with them trust we can be get the more good result that's i was thinking that's why the suggestion if we can recommend the london borough hanslow we can work with them if you have the more good advice you can we're being a little bit optimistic i think it's good i think it's good okay um so let's uh quick uh is it's there of course um i think it's a good set of uh recommendations thank you for for those questions councillor emsley um but um yeah we we move on to the recommendations again it's all there we've got some clarity clarity around those um do do uh do i have a second there for all of those recommendations for the committee panels yeah vote for all of them yeah that's just pass through thank you so much for that um the other sort of recommendation of course uh thank you for the engagement from cabinet members thank you for for being here and sort of engaging on that um and of course i would just like to sort of thank panel for the hard work uh this year as well so thank you all uh for all your input so thank you okay so i mean that that sort of finishes uh that part of uh at a meeting i'm now going to move on to agenda item number six thanks now this is um yeah sorry you you can you can stay or go that's that's perfectly up to you yep yep um so this is northwest london joint health over and scrutiny committee updates um members of the committee would know uh council nagra is the council representative on the northwest london joint health over in scrutiny committee unfortunately she was unable to attend this month's meeting i do though have an update on the discussion from the officers who did attend the committee and it runs as follows members receiving an extensive update on the public consultation and proposed implementation of a new standardized model of adult community specialist palliative care across northwest london two delivery options were presented option a preferred by nhs at northwest london would implement the new model without reopening the pembridge palliative care inpatient unit focusing instead on equitable local provision and financial sustainability option b would include reopening pembroke pembridge but at the cost of delaying implementation and reducing funding to other hospices the consultation is in its final stages and it appears that the preferred option will be implemented at the new model aims to provide consistent seven day week 12 hour community support team expanding hospice at home provision enhanced bereavement and psychological support and the creation of 46 new enhanced end-of-life care beds across all boroughs the committee acknowledged the scale of an engagement 84 sessions and multiple target targeted outreach activities and welcomed the progress made members stressed the importance of continued scrutiny over the equity of the access uh cultural competence and financial viability a final decision by the nhs nwl board is expected in summer 2025 with phased implementation anticipated from autumn autumn 2025 the committee also received an update on the proposed relocation of the mount vernon cancer center to watford general hospital a long debated issue driven by the need of modernized cancer services and addressed among standing safety and infrastructure concerns at the existing site the public consultation has concluded and a decision-making business case is now being prepared the aim is to ensure patients receive high quality safe and sustainable cancer care closer to acute hospital services nhs colleagues have asked the committee to write a letter in support of the move which members agreed to do in addition the committee was introduced to the northwest london integrated care system involvement strategy which sets out the refresh approach of how nhs will engage with residents patients carers and communities in shaping health services the strategy focused on building trust improving transparency ensuring that all voices especially from the underrepresented groups are reflective in the service planning and delivery the committee welcomed their approach but urged that they must be consistent across the boroughs with clear mechanisms for feedback and accountability councils requested that future update reports on measurable outcomes from involvement activity and demonstrate how insights have led to tangible improvements in services finally the committee received a verbal update from rob hurd chief executive from northwest london icb he acknowledged the challenging times and the uncertainty surrounding certain policy announcements while there is currently no clear picture of what might happen to the workforce across northwest london he noted that it will be not easy period and committed to provide a further update to the next josh meeting if members would like to know know more other minutes will be soon available at montenborough of brent's website um okay so we we kind of move on to uh general item number seven uh so this is the work program review um so these are suggestions for 2025-26 and moving forward um on the next municipal years osc um we now turn to working program working program is the way in which the committee and its panels scope their ideas areas of focus for the year everyone here today will have been a part of that process last summer it's an opportunity for members to come together in early days of the community to discuss what should form the basis of the activities across an admissible year of course these things are never set in stone it is good practice to keep work program under review indeed members have before um them current current work programs detailing change of committee focus since we first made in june um to scope the draft we have adapted the work program as new topics gain importance and and as circumstances change today's focus on the council's housing strategy um is the latest series of adaptations we'll normally consider if there's excuse me we'll normally consider if there's any anything we would like to add for our future meetings however we as we approach the final days of 24 25 minutes per year we have instead an opportunity to assess topics um that the next committee might want to consider um under their working program in june um so is there anything that the committee members would like to do next or suggestions for next year we did it okay it was it was carried yeah sorry say anything there we just say we just want to say thank you very much for conducting the chair and thank you for the opportunity i say work with you and thank you very much um i echo obviously what councillor gill has just said um in in terms of the question though um i think that the big issue facing the borough um probably over the next year and certainly over the past year is uh the lambton group um it continues to provide a lot of questions um there are a lot of questions over how it operates over um the financial peril that it is putting the council in i appreciate that there are a lot of changes currently going through the group i'm not sure if those changes are moving quick enough um i think that the services that it provides are questionable as well i think that it would be eminently sensible for this panel to look at how the lampton group operates look at some of the changes that the council has proposed and look at whether it is still fit for purpose as a model um so i would suggest that that should be a priority for the next committee whoever it is is the chair and whoever it is that is on that committee as well no thank you for that yeah we put it down yeah absolutely we would put it down for for uh a suggestion there is there any others no okay so we yeah so we just want to go back to the vote on item number six uh with the recommendations apologies for this so again the the vote we were just going to vote on the recommendations firstly a second there for the recommendation thank you and voting now for for the recommendations yeah thank you very much all gone thank you okay so we move on to uh agenda item uh number number eight any um so this is urgent business any urgent business i i don't have any is there is any no uh moving on to then to agenda item number nine so this is the next uh date of next meeting which is 9th of june 2025 with that uh you know the meeting of the overall scrutiny committee draws to a close um thank you for this um meeting of course everybody and their contributions uh as this is the final meeting of the 24 25 committee i also also like to um thank all my fellow scrutineers for this year uh to all the officers that have been here over the years as well and small and paul here and his team uh supporting osc as well and of course our legals and ncl team as well so thank you all for being here um but the next meeting will be on the night for june 2025 and to that we end the meeting thank you so much you you you you you you you you