Transcript

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the last meeting of the Homsom Community Screening Committee for 2024-2025, Ministry of the Year. I'm Councillor Jason Jackson, Chair of the Committee, and I'm chairing tonight's meeting for the last time. Please note that we are not expecting a fire alarm test this evening, so if the alarm is sounded, please do evacuate the building. This meeting is being broadcast live on the Council website. However, members of the public are unable to participate online. I'm pleased to turn on your microphone on when you're speaking, and remember to turn it off when you have finished. To make sure that you can be heard clearly in the room, please do speak clearly and directly into your microphone. I will start by asking my fellow members of the committee to introduce themselves, starting from my right. Councillor Hannah McHugh, Vice Chair of the Committee. Councillor Toby North, St Peter's and Canal Side Board. Councillor Michael Sullivan, Finchery Park Board. And our officers, our members, sorry, Exec Number 2, to introduce themselves. Thank you, Chair. I'm Councillor Sheila Chapman. I'm the Executive Member for Equalities, Communities and Inclusion. Dean Donaghy, Co-op Team and Resident Observer. Canals, Officers and Executive. Hey, I'm Councillor John Wolfe, Executive Member for Homes and Communities. I'm Jake Jung, Corporate Director of Homes and Acres. Good evening, Mayor Ream, Matt West, Director of Housing and Property Services. And Stuart Fuller, Head of Housing, Safety and Compliance. Good evening, I'm Akia Ramez, Assistant Director for Community Learning and Libraries. Thank you. Thank you. We do have apologies from Councillor Chinca Ono, Councillor McNerney, and Graham. Yes, right. Sorry, what are your apologies, Councillor Gilligan, for English? Oh, thank you. No, sir. There is no declaration of interest, or any interest to declare. Great, thank you. Minutes of previous meeting, can we agree on those minutes, or anything? Agreed? Thank you. Chair's report. Right, well, for the past, almost the municipal year, we've been looking at our community centre. It's been quite an insightful process. In the last few weeks, there has been, in terms of interviews, about certain representation here for the scrutiny committee going forward, and that might be something that I would probably see implemented in the next municipal year. I probably will use this moment to say, I've been chair of the scrutiny for the past three minutes per year, and it's been really rewarding and enriching to be part of the process, and using this scrutiny to make sure that there's accountability we're delivering better. And I can say, having worked with several officers, we've been critical friends, but I have nothing the respect for the work you do. Eastern Council is a complex space with so many people, but every day we're thriving together. And I'm sure, whoever the next chair will be, that we will continue with that work. So, in terms of report, that's me. So, yes, my last meeting, but we keep on screening until the meeting is finished. Thank you. Thank you. Right. With that, we do actually have an external attendee. We've got a few people. I've got a few people in the chamber here. I actually got my brother sitting in this chamber here today. Flew all the way from motherland, so it's actually a pleasure to have him sit in the chamber observing. Right, so with that, we, members of public, may have an opportunity to ask questions, but that's of my own discretion, especially designing a specific agenda item. But that would really depend on our timing as we plan to have the meeting condition time. So, with that, I will move to the item, men's scrutiny, reviewing to Eastlington Community Centre, the final reports and recommendation. Now, this is just for noting, unless there is any area that is sort of, members would love us to really, really amend, but I think I'm more inclined for us to just adopt and approve this, and happy to hear from members who want to do it with us. Just to say, I think it's a good report with a really strong set of recommendations, so I'm very happy to endorse it. I would just add that I think it's a good report, a good set of recommendations that came out of a lot of really forthcoming and great evidence from the community partners that we work with, so I'm happy that we've got something sensible and hopefully useful coming forward. Thank you. I see Councillor Sheila-Chairman. No, I just wanted to thank the committee for their work, which I found very helpful. Thank you to officers also in the community partners team and in democratic services for supporting the work. I really welcome these recommendations, ten of them. I think they're really helpful. I just wanted to say that, assuming you approve them this evening, I'll certainly be driving them forward. I'm just particularly pleased that the committee has flagged the importance of sort of co-location of services in centres, of partnership working. The committee has taken time to recognise the importance of the community spaces be efficient in terms of usage and costs. That was very helpful. In terms of my priorities, recommendations four, five and eight are the ones I will be cracking on with first in terms of the measurable framework to underpin the work and the stakeholder engagement plan. So, I'm already working with officers on timelines for these recommendations should the committee approve them. So, thank you. Thank you. With that, can I then ask members, we're happy to approve this. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Right. We'll leave that, and I guess in 12 months' time, there's always a look back at this. Okay. Great. Let's then move to our next agenda point here, and I would ask Councillor Wolfe to introduce this, that's Health and Safety Review Report. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, as you're – I think the report is pretty self-explanatory, but just to emphasise from a Council perspective just how important we take building safety, and you'll know in the report that we have close scrutiny of our performance measures through the Safety Board, which has an independent chair. We've seen significant improvements in performance. There's a couple of areas which require some attention, and we've got mitigations in place, and so I'm confident going forward that we continue to prioritise building safety. Thank you. Are there any questions from committee members? Councillor Hannah-Magu. Thank you. Thank you for this report. It's very thorough, and it's good to see that there is so much reporting and data on all of the important issues that it covers. I know at the outset of the report, it says that HESB has moved away from what was described as a formulaic or cyclical approach to the examination of safety topics. Could you say a bit about how that structure change has improved response times and resident outcomes, and perhaps tell us a bit more about how that works? Thank you. Thank you, yes. When we first set up Homes and Estates Safety Board, it had a kind of run agenda of like, we do asbestos one time and then fire safety the next. And we ran that cycle for probably about three or four years of just going around the various safety topics. It was really successful in driving up performance and scrutiny, and a lot of these reports have been developed by that team and the independent chair sort of questions, probing what's going on behind you. You're checking it, but what's happening to the following actions, et cetera. What we found is that as we were starting to get into that third year, there was less traction in terms of things going forward, but there were things outside of those seven key topics that were happening. So, for instance, the High Rise Building Safety Act was coming in. We were starting to be asked for our first sort of certification. So, really, by moving to an agenda that picked up the key issues as they were coming up, so either where we'd noticed problems in performance, rather than waiting for the electrical one, which might be in three months, we could actually get into it, unpack it. Where there was changes in legislation, we could unpack that sooner. So, it's just made it a bit more responsive. And we're hoping in the next year to introduce resident membership on the board as well, so we can be really transparent about how we show that performance outwards. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I wonder if you could give us a bit more detail on the recovery plan, which is in place around asbestos surveys. I think we've talked a bit about it before, but it'd be useful to understand the specific actions in place. And the second question, if I may, I wonder if you could talk a bit more about the process when we do have difficulties accessing the property. Talks about going to magistrates court, but I would like to understand the steps that we have in place to try and access properties before we escalate it to that stage. Thank you. So, in the back quarter of last financial year, obviously, as you said in the report, the asbestos just dipped and we didn't quite achieve the number of inspections. These are communal inspections. Just checking there's been no change in the asbestos within the communal area. So, we have ongoing visits by estate services. If there's something residents can report any detriment, this is our kind of belt and braces approach. We've picked up that issue going forward this quarter. We aim to get to the end of the quarter and have caught up fully and then hit our targets for the quarter coming. We've got weekly updates coming through from our CWB colleagues and their contractors to make sure that we're on target for that. At the moment, we're pretty much on target, certainly on the catch-up on the blocks, which is probably the biggest area and the hardest area for the size of them. It's good progress. Still challenging. High numbers coming through. But, yeah, I'm quite confident that we're heading in the right direction. And we've got a backup plan beyond that if it still continues to be an issue with our contracts in terms of what we could do beyond that. I'll pass over to Stuart to talk about the access. Yeah, just in terms of access, we've been accessing properties for gas servicing inspections for many, many years with a great deal of success, and that's through the Magistrates Court using the Environmental Protection Act. So we initially write to a resident to tell them that a gas safety service is due. There's a number of reminder letters. There's engagement with housing operations to contact vulnerable people. And then there's also a kind of a pre-legal visit as well. So there's a number of opportunities for engagement for us to get in before we go to court. That's where we'll apply for a warrant and discharge. Can I just ask Councillor Hannah McGee to come in first, and then I'll come to you. Thank you. I just wanted also to pick up about lift breakdown. Honestly, I was a bit surprised to see the performance is generally good, but then I guess what we receive in our surgeries doesn't tell us everything about it, so perhaps you could give us more information. Also, you do note that there are issues with old stock. You're working with Zurich to address performance on Loller, but there's slow progress. Maybe you could say more about where we're at. Actually, if you could specifically say what you think would improve the issues we're having with lift, that would be great. Yeah, so the health and safety items in here are more around our compliance and making sure that we operate our lift safely. Some of you will remember towards back end, because this is a two-year report, so it covers last financial year as well. The performance on Loller from our insurance provider was less than we'd expect. We brought in a secondary contractor. That performance bounced back very quickly, so these are our safety checks beyond the monthly and biannual ones that are done by our contractor. Our lift stock is old, and over the last two years we've brought in a five-year program that should address, I think it's our top 15% of oldest lifts. So we've got a rolling program now that's out on Borough doing the oldest, worst performing lifts, and we do a kind of metric between performance, which you'll see in the report, age, and then other issues that are picked up by a contractor. In terms of current performance, we have got some issues with our current lift provider. They're on the improvement plan. They've confirmed that they're going to get better, but they have got a couple of long-running outages, which we're just waiting for those to come in. But yeah, it's a constant thing to try and keep an aging lift stock running while we ramp up that cattle program, because the cattle program will take about five years to go around the worst performing lifts. But the overall performance is really good, around over 90%. But if you're living in one of those blocks with a broken-down lift, obviously, it's going to feel quite uncomfortable and unpleasant. So we try our best, and one of the big things we've been working on is to make sure that our comms out to residents is strong, and if a lift breaks down, or in fact any other whole borough, whole block repair happens, making sure that our support of tenants, particularly the most vulnerable in the block, is as strong as it can be, offering them whatever support they need while we get that issue sorted out. Just on that point, and I'll come to you first, just on the lift conversation, is it possible you can clarify around the compensation around when lifts are out for residents, are there anything of such, what is, are there sort of figures to that, what we're, the lift companies paying out at all? Or, I'm intrigued, or are we actually utilising that power that is available to us? Thank you, Chair. Yes, as with all of our kind of services, we have a kind of pre-programmed and agreed outage compensation that we pay. So if something breaks down for an unreasonable period of time, we have a kind of calculator that says over this many days we pay this much compensation to residents. We do use that. It tends to be at the back end of the breakdown, because we want to do one payment along the lines. I can't tell the Chair right off the top of my head what that value is per day, but I can certainly get it circulated around to school. But I'll get that circulated around to you. That would be interesting, I think, for the committee to pick up on. If I may, just as a quick follow-on from that, one of the things I've noticed as the exec member around lift repairs and lifts breaking is communication with residents, and that tends to cause additional frustration. So we've been looking at proactive measures, both in terms of communication and door-knocking to let residents know and just keep up that level of communication. So only last week we've been going through our protocols around lift breakdowns and lift modernisations, just to make sure we get that comms with residents key. The other kind of broader point here, because we've prioritised through investment lift improvements, it's an exception. But across the HRA account, as you'll note from the report, we have significant pressures. £1.7 billion has been taken out of our 30-year business plan. And as a result of that, we are seeing kind of key components within some of our housing stock. Their life expectancy, we're having to push it because of pressures on the HRA account. So lifts are an exception, and this focusing on 15% lift improvements is welcome, but we are operating within a broader kind of financial constraint. Thank you. I'll go to Dean, and then I'll come to Councillor Mead O'Sullivan. Just three points. On the water testing timing, I'd like to know, where's the last test point? Is it within the household, or is it within the street, or is it halfway up the building? Various reasons for that, but I won't go into them. I'd like to know where the last test point is for water testing. Second one, has there been any improvements by the works of the damper mould? Because we've put a lot of money in it, we've invested, you've invested, sorry, a lot of money into it. Are we now starting to see, you know, the peak of the damper mould problem and that starting heading down since we've invested so much money in it? And talk about coming round and visiting people in their houses and things like that. Some of us can't be in at certain times. I have asked this many a time, are we going to stretch it out to Saturdays and Sundays for people who cannot afford to take time off work and have to still pay our rent, whether we do or don't, to get your services completed within the flats? And I'll leave you up for this. Who's going to take those three-day water testing points, damper mould improvement of investment and visiting time? Can that be made flexible? Thank you, Chair. In terms of the water testing, then we've agreed that's probably a more technical one that Colin, our legionnaire expert, would be better off answering. So I'll circulate that round if that's okay, Chair, in terms of the exact end point for testing. We'll get that round to you. It's not something I can answer here. In terms of flexible appointments, we have tried within the limits of our affordability to be as flexible as possible. I think we do offer summer, evening and weekend appointments for gas and our contractors certainly do. They want to get in, they get paid when they do the test. So we do try. There is an increasing requirement for us to get into tenants' properties. We are trying to streamline that process as much as possible. I'm sorry, Dean, your final point? Damper mould, your foreign investment. Thank you. To an extent, I think it would be a reasonable response to that. The Andover capital works that we're doing, which is our first targeted investment on damper mould, is still underway. But we do have public health colleagues in readiness to sort of monitor the impact before, during and after, so we can really see the benefits of that. We've also used our data with UCL to line up the next line of estates that are good for targeting. The problem is that damper mould is not just a construction issue, so it is a feature of overcrowding, of fuel poverty. You know, these are other factors that tenants are trying to live with, that we try to support them across the board with. And no matter how much investment we do in our stock, it's not necessarily going to help all of those. So we are still seeing quite a high risk, I think, I'm sorry, high number of cases. And I think that's testament to how easy you make it to report damper mould. So it is easy for tenants, tenants know where they need to go for help. We've got help with various different organisations, like doctors' surgeries, reporting forms. The years are open, we're finding our silence if people need help with damper mould. We get that help. We're just going through a process at the moment of reviewing our readiness for the Arabish Act legislation coming in October to make sure that our services are fully compliant with that new legislation. Okay, thank you. Councillor Nick O'Sullivan. Damp and mould, are you doing the basics? Like clearing guttering? Yes, I don't think you are. The other thing, do you have procedure worked out so that you look at structural problems with damp and mould first before you sort of accuse residents for breeding. And the final one on damp and mould. When is the handover damp and mould programme going to finish? It's been going on now far too long. And just another one on the CO2 detectors, CO2, carbon and oxide detectors. That's a statutory requirement, not an optional one. Why is it being delayed? Or reconciliation, according to this report? And finally, on lifts. And finally, on lifts. The previous scrutiny looked into lifts several years ago. We made a number of different recommendations. Are these recommendations being taken into account when you're reviewing the lift system? Especially one that comes to mind is the nature of the contracts we have with the lift maintenance people. We looked into it and found an example of where if the contract is designed in such a way that the lift maintenance people get paid for the lift being up all the time and not coming, not being paid for repairs, it resulted in a very much increased performance of the lifts. And they were kept going. So I just wondered whether it might be an idea if you could recycle that report that was done several years ago to the committee and to the officers so that we could see if they conform to it, they might find it useful as well, some of the issues there. Thank you, Councillor Sutherland. And as usual, testing my memory in terms of coming back to you on every one of those points. Starting with the back and working backwards. Yes, the lift report you referenced from a previous scrutiny here has been instrumental in how we've procured back then and going forward in terms of making sure it's an all-inclusive contract. We're currently looking at procurement options in terms of how that's going to work and we're still using those same recommendations. They were and still continue to be very, very useful. In terms of damp and mould and the overall capital works on the Andover, it is a very large programme at £15 million. I know that you're probably referring to the amount of time it took to get the programme on site. We were all along for that particular battle, but we have now got it on site. It is coming to an end this financial year. Although there is some overlap with some BSR work in the taller blocks that might drag a little bit later just because we need approval for that piece of work. In terms of damper mould, the days of Easlington Council in any way blaming a resident for creating damper mould are truly over. We look at the systemic cause, the structural cause of why that is and that could be within the building, a repair, the design. It could be, as I've said already, overcrowding or fuel poverty. These are not tenants' issues. These are things that the Council need to support them on. We really try to look at the key root cause at the same time as mitigating the risk by clearing up the damper mould. Again, the work of this scrutiny in terms of designing that service has been instrumental to our approach and also how we use data going forward. I think, Chair, that's all of Councillor Sullivan's questions. Yes, Councillor Sullivan, any of the areas that you think they've missed out on? No, no, no, no. Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions directly from members of the committee on this? If not, I'm mindful that, again, on my journey here, I've got Councillor Wolfe and Jett to introduce housing performance. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much, Chair. So, I kind of don't want to be the agent of doom, but for context and the avoidance of doubt, we are in a massive housing crisis. As we know, we've got 16,500 people on our waiting list. The average cost of a private rental in Islington is around £2,600 for a two-bedroom property. We are seeing an increase in people using temporary accommodation, which is a huge human cost, as well as a financial cost, too. Across London, we're seeing homelessness rise by 40%. And there's a perfect economic storm of inflation, increased costs of borrowing, the building safety regulations, not to mention us being a high-density borough, which makes building incredibly difficult as well. Also, as a result of years of Tory austerity and Tory decisions, we've seen significant strains on our HRA account. So, it's incumbent on me to be very, very clear with the committee that we're facing really, really difficult context at the moment. Nonetheless, I am incredibly proud of the work that we do and officers do in partnership with residents to seek to tackle the multitude of issues facing the housing market. You will know that we've invested £200 million in homelessness support and prevention. We had 900 homelessness preventions last financial year, which is one of the best performances in the country. We've invested £17 million in over 200 projects across the borough as part of our Thriving Neighbourhoods scheme. We're investing £200 million in decent homes, building and fire safety. And, as Matt has previously outlined, a significant amount in tackling damper mould too. We're also seeking to stand up for renters, private renters, having expanded the selective licensing to nine additional wards, and the consultation has ended there as well. I also want to be clear that with this 16,500 people in need of council houses in Islington, we are pulling numerous levers to increase the supply of genuinely affordable homes in Islington. We have built, we are building, and we will continue to build. We will also buy, and I'm, again, incredibly proud that we are the London borough leading the way nationally on our buyback scheme with about 445 ex-right-to-buy properties brought back into council ownership to be used for temporary accommodation, which is assisting the 1,800 people within temporary accommodation in our borough right now. And by March 2026, we envisage 907 properties brought back as part of our acquisition programme. So we're building and we're buying to increase the supply of genuinely affordable homes. We also, as you're fully aware, have a robust local plan, so 50% genuinely affordable homes as part of the planning process with private development, which has yielded, I think it's around 300 additional homes since 2022. Building, buying, and our local plan. We're also assisting in downsizing, and thanks to this committee, we've implemented a number of recommendations to improve our downsizing offer. And since 2022, we've brought back into council ownership 272 properties, which we've freed up to ensure that we can tackle overcrowding to the best of our ability. Finally, we are seeking to do all that we can to tackle housing fraud in our borough. Since 2022, we've brought back 159 properties into council ownership as a result of the fantastic work of the housing fraud team. It's about 75 properties this year alone, plus £300,000 clawed back in unlawful profits. So we are building, we are buying, we are assisting downsize, our local plan and housing fraud, everything within our power to increase the supply of genuinely affordable homes. So I'm incredibly proud of the work that we do, and we can see across London a 40% rise in homelessness, a 20% reduction in Islington. We are really leading the way here. So I want to put on record, you know, my thanks to the officers who work so hard, and also to reassure the committee that we know we always strive to do better. There's always more we can do. We're always holding ourselves to account, and this committee holds us to account. We're by no means perfect, but we're doing all within our power to deliver for our residents, ensuring our residents are at the heart of our service. Thank you so much, Councillor Wouf. You did start quite gloomed, was a little bit concerned. But again, you've highlighted amazing work there. And before I get the members of the committee to come in, can I ask, knowing you've stepped into that portfolio for a while now, and we can't say new, we've got to assume, yeah, for a while now, are there anything that you think we could be doing better? And you've kind of identified this on the horizon, and you're thinking, right, this is an area that I would like to see a little bit more work done. Could be quite an innovative approach. Right now we're doing a lot, but like you've stated, there's always room for us to think about what we could do differently. So I guess I'm trying to understand what could be your direction, and I guess I'm saying that there's one that might not be here, but I'm intrigued to know where your direction might be for other chairs or the committee members to hold you to that. Thank you, Chair. Really good question. I think there are a number of things. So, for example, I wanted to turbocharge some of the good work that was already happening. So the right to buybacks was a key case in point to ensure that we went out to seek additional funding, which we've secured, to turbocharge that programme. I think housing fraud is really, really important as well. And so I asked officers to go away and do a business case for increasing the size of the housing fraud team, which they have done. So we're beefing up that team. We have a 12-month pilot, and it's another lever, if you like, in increasing the supply of genuinely affordable homes. I think we also have to be very realistic about the pressures on the HRA account and looking at how we can ensure that we continue to build, but that we continue to maintain our current housing stock as well. Now, these are not dichotomous, but I think given the financial constraints and the prioritisation on building safety as it should be, we want to make sure that we continue to support residents in our current estates. I think communications forever is an issue, and there's more we can be doing there. There's kind of three broad brush areas, if you like. I want to see the council more relational in terms of its relationships with residents, and I think the restructure that we're going to do to a much more smaller patch size with one housing officer for 550 properties is going to help with that relational element. The fact that we're setting up the residents and leaseholders forum, so we're actually listening to our residents and hearing their concerns, is key. Data is also going to be crucial, and so next month we're going to be going out and doing a first of a rolling tenancy audit, so we can actually go and do a clear audit of our current stock, and that also includes looking at the condition of our current stock as well. So making sure we're collecting data and using data effectively. And finally, digitisation. I think that's a key element in proactive repairs, and indeed for communications as well. So digitisation, relational, and effective utilisation of data are also going to be key areas. Thank you. A lot of thank you for that. I will do it this way. I will start with Dane, and then I'm going to go to councillor Lucas Sullivan and the company. All right. You're doing a lot of work. I understand it. Great. Buybacks, this, that, and the other. I believe you're building the wrong buildings. If you go to Tottenham Hale, my perspective is to house people, not to make the place look pretty. If you go to Tottenham Hale, tower block after tower block after tower block, and it don't look that bad, I think you're buying back little one bedrooms and two bedrooms, which is great, bringing it back into stock. But couldn't we flatten down about six houses and build a story high enough to house 400 people? Yeah, I mean, I think we always have to be cognisant of the financial constraints. So, you know, flattening down certain buildings in order to build up costs significant amounts of money. The buyback scheme is particularly for temporary accommodation. We do have a number of schemes that are going to planning, so subject to planning and ongoing viability, that are quite diverse in terms of design. And we also have a pipeline planning scheme, which would deliver 570 council homes, which, again, is quite diverse in terms of the types of property. Part of the challenge is we're in a high-density borough, and so finding the right kind of property that works for this borough means that we have a plethora of different styles. But, you know, we've also got restrictions in terms of planning, but I take your point. Thanks, Dave. Thank you. I'm Councillor McSullivan. Can we make it one question? Two questions, I'm afraid. Okay. I'll lay your deck. Right. I know that you have one housing officer responsible for a particular patch 500 units. What happens when that housing officer goes sick or when that housing officer goes on leave? Would it not be better to look at maybe two to three housing officers running a particular patch so they can each sort of cover for each other and it's still small enough for them to give a personal service to the residents? Next question. I know it was maximizing affordable housing supply. I was looking back at a few records yesterday, and I saw that in 2011-12, housing associations had something like 15,500 units of housing in Islington. And then I looked to the lapse figure 2019-2020, the area did increase to 16,000 approximately. They seem to be, and this is despite numerous developments, where they've got section 106 money, et cetera, et cetera, to expand social housing in other 10 years. I just wonder this, why it seems to me that the council, which is doing everything it can to maximize social housing, is just walking to keep pace. You know, it's really not increasing the amount of social housing stock in the borough because for every one increase, you've got a mixture of buy-to-let, an increase in the amount of buy-to-let properties, and also the fact that housing associations seem to be selling off their street-level properties. I just wonder whether it might be worthwhile to look at these street-level properties and see whether they were granted, many of them were granted by the council, and whether they were granted under a leasehold or a freehold basis. Because if they're granted on a freehold basis, and the freeholds are coming up for a new renewable, we may have a chance to get them back. Thanks, Mac. Yeah, so on your first question, it's an area-based team. So, although it's, you know, one housing officer for 550 properties, it's an area-based team. So, if one was to go off or leave or whatever, there's flex within that team. And then, of course, you've got the deputy managers and the area managers. So, fully take into account that concern, and that's bedded into the structure. And I should say, you know, this whole, the restructure will succeed or fail on the basis of our housing officers. So, making sure we're doing really rigorous recruitment and getting the absolute best is what our residents deserve. On housing associations, you're right, 16,000 properties, roughly, in Islington. We have 43 housing associations. They are accountable to the housing regulator, just like we are, so we don't have any formal levers. We do keep an eye on their disposals, and we do have an option to buy, depending on the particular lease. So, we do keep a close eye on that. And, you know, they are also subject to the tenant satisfaction measures, just as we are. So, making sure, as a local authority, that we're scrutinising those tenant satisfaction measures is a key part of what we're doing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, John. It is a sobering context. It's hard to deny it. And I think you're right to introduce this with a sense of gloom. It's not a situation that any public authority would want to find themselves in, making £43 million of disinvestment from council stock. But I do really appreciate the interventions which you set out, which is having a targeted approach to the residents who are the worst off and need the most help, and making efficiency changes, and looking at more a relational approach. I think that's absolutely the right framework to address these problems. I just want to understand a bit more something which, to me, seemed ambiguous or unclear. It mentions in the report that over the next three years, work is going to be reduced to – we're going to prioritise essential building safety works, key asset maintenance, and essential services investment. Can you tell us, how is this actually different from going to an emergency-only repairs setting? Is it very different? Is it a change in language? And also, how will you then be able to cope with the very likely increase in emergency repairs? So just, can you tell me more about that for me? Yeah, really good questions. And just for the avoidance of doubt, the repair service is fully funded. And, you know, the system was designed initially for about 60,000 repairs per annum. We're now seeing about 130,000 repairs per annum. And we keep a close eye on the measures, you know, our satisfaction measures there, which are increasing, which is a good sign. So, yeah, for the avoidance of doubt, repairs are covered. And then, I think in terms of the prioritisation of investment, we're always put safety first and make no apology for that. Sorry. And just to check, do you expect an increased demand in emergency repairs still? Or do you think it's going to remain consistent? Yeah, for the foreseeable future, then, we will expect to see increase in demand on our repairs. And the lift programme that Councillor Wolfe mentioned earlier is a good example. And, you know, I know we brought it to this committee probably around six months or so ago to talk about. We've got lifts that will operate well beyond their planned lifespan. So, we would ideally replace them around every 25 years. That's the building engineers, you know, recommended periods. And we've got lifts that are in excess of that. And we took a decision to prioritise that investment and to have a programme to catch up our major investment in lift infrastructure. The reality is lots of our building components are being extended beyond their lifespan because of that annual shortfall in investment. So, that £43 million shortfall means that roofs are being extended longer than they're covering should last, but keeping them full longer. And most other major components are having their lifespans extended. So, that does increase a repairs demand. It is a quite difficult balance to be struck. And it's one that we always discuss in kind of managing intelligently and agilely. But, yeah, given the size of the investment gap, we will see that continued pressure. Thank you. I've noticed a brace of hand from the member of public. But before I come to that, if you could just mind, let me just get the committee to get out the questions and I will come to you based on the particular topic of the agenda. Right. Great. Dave, do you just want to follow up on something quickly? With Sadiq Khan trying to buy up the grey – well, not buy up, give up the grey belt and the green belt for extending housing, since we're landlocked in the centre of London, are we going to get any help off of them, like the boroughs who've been connecting onto the green belts and grey belts? No is the very short answer for that, Dave. So, we do have a positive working relationship with GLA and with MHGLG. We do secure grants, so we've got a GLA affordable housing programme grant available to us. And we are under the current formula of a negotiated grant level, so we're always seeking to negotiate a good level of funding subsidy for its intern. In the centre of London particularly, it costs us slightly more. We're very dense, quite constrained to build within, so we are regularly sort of seeking to maximise the level of grant we get. But we do get a positive relationship with GLA, we do get a level of funding support, but no, we're unlikely to benefit from that initiative directly. Thank you. I see the member of the public has a question on this particular agenda. I'm blessed to allow you to do so. Please go ahead. Thank you. I'm glad to pay this as a policy board, just given the existence of this short, the fact that the Council has been struggling to meet its obligations around... Yeah, thank you for your question. I would take exception to the idea that our lobbying hasn't worked. So we joined the 20 largest Council landlords to produce the Southwark report calling for a reform of HRA funding, and that now has the support of over 100 Council landlords. Achievements to date include, as a result of unified lobbying, a new five-year social rent settlement proposal, a significant reduction of right-to-buy discounts, further right-to-buy reforms are in consultation, allowing councils to keep 100% of right-to-buy receipts, and an AHP grant increase of £2.8 billion. So, you know, we speak up and the government does listen. I would also say with regards to asylum seekers, and we're a proud borough of sanctuary here in Islington, the end to single occupation and the 56 days' notice to reach a decision has been changed as a result of a lot of lobbying by my colleague sitting there, Councillor Chapman. So, you know, we lobby, we continue to lobby, we lobby with other London councils, and the government does listen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Great. I'm glad to move ahead. And, again, thank you to the team for your reports, and for the work you've been doing for the, I mean, you can really see this amazing piece of work you've been doing there, and yes, and I hope the screening team will continue to hold you to account for all the stuff you're saying. Thank you. Great. With that, I'm happy to move on to the next report. I just want the executive member to know that we've seen this report, so if we can keep it quite very high level. And, again, this is one of the annual reports that comes under the screening committee, so we're still working ways around it. I'm sure the next chair might look at things slightly different, but yes, over to you. Thank you, Chair, and I will keep it brief. I will say I'm delighted to submit this report about the performance of the library service over the last 12 months because it's an extremely strong performance. Members will know that we've got 10 flourishing libraries in the borough, which is more libraries per head than any of our near neighbours. I'd like to thank Akil and Michelle for compiling the report, and for all our library staff, actually, for all they do to give us such a great library service. So, you have read it. I won't go over it. I do just want to make a couple of high-level comments. We've got four key performance indicators in the corporate plan that relate to libraries. Library visits, online issues, physical issues, and active members. All the targets that we set ourselves have been exceeded, some of them significantly. What we're seeing is that visits and library service usage is building back very steadily towards pre-COVID levels, which is very pleasing. What's also great is that as we see our demand for online services go up, we're also seeing an increase in physical issues. So, what that means is, you know, you're not seeing that people are using digital services and then not coming to the library. We're seeing that the two offers really complement each other, and people are accessing all sorts of e-books and audio books and online subscriptions digitally, and are also coming in, which is brilliant. I just want to flag that you'll see on page five that PC usage is down. So, we have free PCs for people to access, and you would expect this, because we did a lot of this council did a lot of work during COVID to make sure in particular children all had their own laptops. So, people are not now in the same way as they did a decade ago, needing to come in and use PCs. So, we'll think about this as we move forward, as we refurbish libraries, as we think about the offer, because we don't want to give over space to PCs that people are not using. I want to ask you to have a look at page seven to see that we've got over 62,000 attendees, and remember our borough is, you know, 230,000 residents, going to nearly 4,000 events across our libraries, and I flagged that because I think that's tremendous. The library staff are doing great outreach work. So, for example, Finsbury Library is running a reading group in the Peel Centre, and the library service goes out into schools and community centres a lot, and also do some very, very good work in terms of partnerships working. I think the committee will be particularly pleased on page 10 to see the employment support that the library service facilitates by working with, for example, the youth employment team, who base a youth employment hub at West Library, or the adult community learning team that offers support at Central Library. So, really great work that's going on there. I'd ask this committee to consider the targets for next year, 25-26. What we're proposing, you'll see on page 13, is that we set ambitious targets for ourselves to achieve a 5% increase across all indicators, just with the exception of library visits, where we would suggest a target that's a 3% increase, just because we've seen such a steep sort of uptick in library visits that we, you know, it wouldn't be realistic having seen that to then expect to get another 5% on top of that. The final thing I'd like to say is that our library strategy dates from about 2017. Because we see, you know, the surge of sort of digital, the digital offer, because we see, you know, more people wanting sort of different things from the library service, they want to come in, they want to have workspace, they want to access support, they want to do various different things, we need to look again at our strategy, we need to make sure going forward that it's sort of fit for the future. So, what I'd like to do is sort of lead on a piece of engagement work. Over the next kind of 12 months, I want to go out into communities. I want to ask people when you come in, I want to ask people who use libraries, and I want to ask people who don't use libraries, what do you want when you come into a library? You know, what's a good library service for you? When do you like to use the library? Weekends, evenings? You know, what do you do when you're there and what do you need to do? And that will give us a sense of, you know, going forward, what should we be doing? So, that's all I say. I'm happy to take questions. Thank you. I would ask the very first question. Based on the fact that there's an interesting piece of work that you are going to be embarking on there. And I fully would support that. The committee would really support that. If you were in a situation to build a new library, what does that library look like? Well, what we won't need to do, Chair, is build a new library because we already have 10. And I think of libraries as sort of one of our community spaces. And, you know, as you know well because you've done your main scrutiny on it, we also have our community center spaces as well. So, what we're not short of is physical spaces. But what I would like to see in terms of what the library service can offer is a couple of things. I would like to see us partner. So, my portfolio also includes our Access Islington Hubs. That's where we support adults who may be struggling before they fall into crisis. We've got three Access Islington Hubs across the borough supporting literally thousands of residents with, you know, straightforward to very much more complicated challenges. We're also running a pop-up Access Islington Hub in the Jean Stokes Community Center, which is going tremendously well. So, I'd like to maybe trial a pop-up Access Islington Hub in one of our libraries because then people can go, they can do what they want to do with books accessing digital services and they can also get help from, you know, council officers. So, I'd love to trial that. You will also know that the volunteer and community sector falls within my portfolio and I gave a report to this committee. What we see with our 400 plus volunteer and community sector partners across the borough is that many of them are struggling to continue the work they're doing given the challenging funding environment. So, I would like to see us partner with them to open up our spaces to our VCS partners so that they can deliver services to our residents from our buildings so that where we have libraries that maybe are not open, you know, every day and all day, we could look to working with VCS partners so that we could actually expand the offer, expand the opening times. So, step one, I think, is speaking to people and asking what they want and then I think it's kind of opening up, you know, whether we're working with NHS health provider partners, with the volunteer and community sector, with other partners, so that residents are getting a much broader offer from the library service to what they're getting now. Great, thank you. It wasn't a trick question, but I think it's an amazing concept there that I think even our current libraries could find value in it and I guess that's the way I was trying. So, I don't think you're building new libraries, but we have a few libraries that we can work on, right? Yeah, thank you. I'll go Councillor Anna McKee. Thank you so much, Sheila. I think libraries are something that we all feel very, very proud of, not least because we are one of the few boroughs who have managed to keep so many libraries open and functioning, but because they speak to so many of our goals from digital access, cohesion, inclusion, climate goals, really they are a cornerstone of the kind of community I think we want to be in this Lincoln. That said, I'm curious if you are currently satisfied with the offer we have in terms of opening and staffing in these libraries and particularly in the more deprived wards. Are our libraries really able to deliver on these goals given those parameters? Thanks. Thanks, Councillor. I think that you'll know that, you know, some of our libraries do have truncated opening hours and that was because some time ago a sort of a decision was taken that where you've got to, you know, we're a small, geographically we're a small borough, so inevitably you do have libraries that end up being relatively close to one another and a decision was taken, you know, a library can open here for a certain number of days and then on other days that library will be closed and another library nearby will open. And that has worked reasonably well. As we move into, you know, we're in a very cost-constrained environment going forward and so I think I would like to see libraries as a community space opened up for longer hours but we have to think of ways of making that possible because obviously to open the doors, to staff it, to pay the electricity bill requires money. So I'll give an example of a great partnership, you know, in Central Library where we have Tool Stories who come in and do amazing creative work with children and young people and, you know, they're in there and they contribute financially to the running of Central Library which I encourage you to go to, it's a beautiful space, it's been recently refurbished. But I think that kind of, you know, working with VCS organisations or maybe, you know, NHS partners as well that would bring in some money and would enable us to expand the offer and then, as I say, slot in council services as well like, you know, have a roving housing surgery or whatever it might be, whatever the community tell us that they need. It isn't possible to just say we'll have all libraries open from 9 to 10 every day, all day because the cost implications of that mean it's not doable. But I think if we're imaginative, if we go and see what's happening in other places, we will find a way to expand the offer. I go to Councillor Sullivan and I'll come to you. I've been using libraries all my life. My mum's best friend was a librarian, so I got introduced to them fairly early and I've kept the habit all through my life. I love libraries. I love Islington libraries. They are more than just a book repository. In wintertime, you often see people in there trying to keep warm, trying to, you know, eke out an existence on there. And I think libraries are very effective, so to say refuge, I think, in effectively helping people out who don't necessarily want to borrow books. Just a quick question. Are you looking at expanding the Wi-Fi in the libraries? Because many people who claim universal credit are required to fill in job applications, say, on a regular basis. They don't necessarily have, you know, whatever it is, 90 quid a week, be able to afford to have an internet connection. And I think the libraries there, if publicised more widely, can provide a service to people who can't afford an internet connection or effectively cut off from society these days. And I just wondered, any plans to do that? I do appreciate the opening hours, et cetera, et cetera. I do like what you've outlined in the plans to improve the library service. Thanks, Councillor Sullivan. I'll comment on what you said, and then I'll ask Akil to comment on the Wi-Fi point specifically. But in terms of, I also really love our libraries, and I completely agree, they are a refuge. And I, you know, personally, during COVID, would take my three children to Archway Library. And, you know, there would be books wrapped in brown paper ready for them to collect in a socially distanced way. And honestly, it kept us going for 18 months as I tried to be their teacher. So I absolutely understand that. And our library staff very much understand that they're not just there to talk to people about the lending of books. They do support people with, you know, universal credit applications and signpost people to organisations that might be able to support them into the community and to council services. So we are there to do that. I hear what you're saying about, you know, complicated online forms. And I think we are looking to expand our Wi-Fi offer, but I'll just ask Akil maybe to come in on that. Thank you and thank you for your question, Councillor. So the Wi-Fi access is an integral part of our digital inclusion strategy. We have digital workshops and formal and informal learning at two of our libraries. And that's, you know, one of those is peripatetic and, you know, he moves around. In terms of the digital infrastructure, we did some significant work last, in the last couple of years, I think two years ago, to future-proof the Wi-Fi. Because we were finding that user habits had changed. So, whereas before we noted previously that the PC usage was down, now we're in a situation where residents have the kit, but they're coming in to use the space, either because they don't have space, quiet spaces at home, or they live in enclosed flats, they want to get out and work. And the Wi-Fi connection is more integral for them than an actual physical device. So we have done significant work in the last couple of years to update where we can. And I think all of our ten libraries have easy access Wi-Fi. So it's just, you know, you click to agree and away you go. So there isn't a long process to sign up and we have good feedback. You know, occasionally we used to have feedback that the Wi-Fi was a bit slow, but where we've taken action, it's sorted it out. Sorry, just before I let cancel a little bit, what has actually been done to improve the Wi-Fi itself? So there was work that we did with digital services who manage our Wi-Fi. One of our contracts was coming to an end and we renewed it. The renewal, it gave us sort of greater bandwidth so that more devices could join. So there was less traffic because where we did have complaints, it was where, because the nature of users has changed. Before it used to be just checking email, et cetera, but now people want to watch videos, multimedia, et cetera. Where the old Wi-Fi infrastructure wasn't really suitable for that, we future-proofed it. So there were fewer issues with lagging. So I guess our Wi-Fi is very good now. Yes, it is. Come and test it. Thank you. I'm Castor Turbino. Thanks, Chair. I think I agree that this sets out a really well-run and really well-used service, so thank you for the report. I do find the numbers in terms of PC usage really stark, though. And I'm very mindful that those who are still using those PCs are probably amongst the most digitally excluded in the borough. So I wondered if you could say a bit more about that digital inclusion strategy and how we're making sure that's baked into the refresh of the library strategy as well moving forwards. Yes, thank you for that question, Councillor. So you'll see that on average, you know, PC usage is 31%, which is very low, which means that if you take all of the times, so based on the opening hours, et cetera, that PCs are available, they're only being used 31% of the time. So clearly that's not a good use of space because they take up space. And actually what we're seeing, you see at the central library people and young people want to come in and work, and actually it's getting very full. But what we absolutely will make sure is that whoever needs to come in and use a PC, because they don't have access to one, they will be able to do that. So it's a question of, at the moment, it's very much out of kilter. So going forward, you know, and when we start this engagement asking people what they want, I'm sure because we're already hearing anecdotally that people want workspace, they're absolutely aware that those people coming to use PCs, we find that we get a lot of feedback from people and actually we're able to do work to sort of, we talk about digital exclusion, but I think, you know, we need to shift to talking about digital inclusion, which is when someone for whatever reason, because they might be elderly, because English might not be a first language, is struggling to be, you know, IT literate, finding ways to support them. So whether that's signposting them to adult learning, whether that's getting them some support so they can become technologically savvy, we're really focused on that. And I was saying the Access Islington Hubs, where anyone can come in at any time to get support, a lot of the work that the officers there do is to help people on their own devices, you know, do the parking, you know, go online and get their residence parking permit or pay council tax. So it is about empowering people so that they can be digitally included. Okay. Thank you. Just a few points. Reading, back in fashion, love libraries, I've always been in my kids, everything. You try to go to a bookshop on a Saturday, absolutely packed books, 9, 10, 15 pound, 25 pound, 45 pound, very high rate of cost of them. With children's school books, have you ever thought of the curriculum of the local school and the library, sort of like the school and the library getting together and studying the curriculum and what books these children will need if the schools have not got enough, like, sort of like a balance between the two of you of getting the books that they need for children to pass their education and things like that, because the cost of books are just terrible. And I always remember when I used to go to the library, there was a little collection point. And I used to just put in like the odd couple of coins or whatever it was, years or years ago I'm talking about. Is there no sort of like a box or something where if someone takes out a book and they feel obliged to give you a pound or something like that and you can raise money like that? Thanks for that Dean. So I'll say a couple of things. On the first question, the library staff do work very closely with schools and do go into schools to talk about the library service and encourage kids to come. In terms of buying books, I think what probably happens within our schools is that the schools coordinate bulk buying as affordably as possible of the books that are on the curriculum because they'll all be sort of doing different exam boards and they can, I know from my own experience with my children who've been in Islington schools, you can buy books cheaply through the schools. I'll ask Akil to come in if he has anything to add on that, but I'm not sure it would be straightforward for the library service to coordinate that with all of our schools, colleges, primary schools, secondary schools, work into different curriculums, which change from time to time. In terms of putting a collection box in libraries, I haven't seen that. I think given the cost of living crisis at the moment, personally, it's not something I've thought of before, but before, personally, I would feel very reluctant to, you know, library service is a universal offer for everyone and it's a place where, you know, people from all different backgrounds and income levels can come and, you know, no one needs to feel that they need to make a financial contribution. So that's not something that we, you know, it's a free service, it's for everyone. Akil, I don't know if you have anything to say on the books point yet. Thank you, Councillor. Yeah, so we have, in Islington, we're really proud to have the education library service, which is a traded service within libraries. We service schools across the borough, including in neighbouring boroughs like Camden, where historically they closed down their education library service. What we do is we loan out class sets to schools, costumes, artefacts. We've got an amazing selection of costumes and kind of paraphernalia that aid learning at Central Library. So, for example, if a school's doing the topic of Romans, then there's lots of kit, you know, to dress up as a Roman, etc. One of the best products that we have and we're really proud of is the Reading Roadmap. So it's a kind of an activity that schools can do with their pupils that is a map of books and the books are thematically linked and correlate to the board curriculum. So it's a really unique offer that many boroughs don't offer anymore and it's well used. And like I said, where neighbouring boroughs have closed their services, they're proud of using ours. It's an excellent resource that we have and it really facilitates our relationship with those schools. Thank you so much. Right, again, thank you to Councillor Chapman and the team for their report. Yeah, I think it's quite insightful there and look forward to the ongoing piece of work that you're going to be doing. That sounds interesting. Think about AI too. Thank you. Right. I will move. This is just a work plan for 2025, 2026. I'm just wondering if members are thinking about anything around potential scrutiny topics or next is that something? Yeah, I mean I think there will be a follow-up conversation to follow but I think some of the most interesting and important topics to scrutinise have come up already. Private renters. Private renters is a really crucial set of residents that I think do not get the scrutiny or do not necessarily have the tools to give them as much as we might need to. And an actually connected topic is our work on homelessness and prevention of homelessness. I think it's quite staggering when you see that one major pathway to homelessness actually comes from the private rented sector. So the two have important links and crossover. There's a lot of really good work that we've done there and thinking about questions of how to take lobbying to national government, trying to show why Islington has done very well as well as looking to improve our own service could be very valuable. So thanks. Great. Sounds really interesting topic. Coming your pathway. Or possible. Well, with that I would just like to say again thank you to everyone. I stated at the earlier part of the meeting, this is my last meeting and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the committee, even those that are not here, offices, external partners and stakeholders and the residents for contributions and input during all the meetings. Thank you. The next meeting is on 17 June 2025. I'd like to quickly thank the chair from the rest of the committee as well for lots of hard work and delivering some really effective scrutiny reviews. You'll be missed, but I'm sure we'll see you plenty as mayor, so you won't be missed too much. Thank you. Thank you. Right. And with that, again, a special thank you to the clerk. You've been very, very helpful throughout the period and guides as well, so I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, bring a meeting to the end. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you.