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David Amos,зяmi, Stephen Ballard, David Amos, Sean Martin,伊 Bernard, Sir Wallace, Huw Mac Webster, Russell Jeanngewir Sven-Christian E determisings walkthrough, David Amos,将man Sheridan David Amos, Green��ival, Benimuth, Angesthesia Llam nat, David Amos, Amos, Rijon buyers, David Damien H extract, Hon, Daniel R fazer对对对对对 Haha Hacker St Crash,uges 개ontホ ficar na 맞아 David Amos, Cahambr ongoing David Amos, arrange,oned wait online in the room it's probably fine. Okay good. Yes we can. Okay good evening and welcome to this evening's overview and scrutiny committee meeting. I'm councillor Liz Atkins, chair of the committee. This meeting is being recorded and is being broadcast live. In the event that technical issues require the meeting to be adjourned and can't be restarted within a few minutes, further updates will be posted on the council's democracy twitter account which is at LBL democracy. Now the council has a duty to protect sensitive personal data so to ensure such information is not inadvertently disclosed please avoid using full names or any other details that may reveal the identity of others. In terms of fire exits, exit room and go up to street level and there's toilet off on the left if anyone wants one. We've received apologies from Councillor David Amos, cabinet member for finance and from Nabil Khan, the corporate director for climate and inclusive growth. Right let's start with introductions. Let's go left can overview and scrutiny committee members please introduce themselves and declare any interests in this evening's business. Good evening councillor Mariana Masters, Streatham Wells and I have no pecuniary interest to declare. Good evening I'm councillor Ben Curtis of Clapham Corn and Antwerp Ward and I too have no interest to declare. Good evening I'm councillor Nicole Griffith, the Green Party Council in Streatham St. Leonard's and I have no pecuniary in the list to declare. Good evening everyone I'm councillor Deepak Saidi Waal elected member in Hearn Hill and Loughborough Junction and I have no pecuniary interest to declare for tonight. We'll take offices as well. I'm Fionn McKeefe, I'm the Assistant Director Valuation of Strategic Assets in the Properties and Region Division. A long time. Donatus would you like to? Hello Donatus I know I'm the Cabinet Member for Stronger Communities Leisure and Sports. David Oxley elected Labour councillor for Stockwell Western Larkol. I have no pecuniary interest to declare. Councillor J. Rampon-Bornby Stockwell Western Larkol warned no interest to declare. Alison English Jones councillor at Clapham Common and Antwil no interest to declare. Roger Raymond Senior Services Officer supporting this committee. OK, next we move to the minutes of the previous meeting the committee held on the 11th of March. No amendments have been received by Democratic Services. Are the minutes agreed? Thank you. Now we move on to the first item of core business for tonight's meeting. Invoices payable and receivable and debts owed to the council. There's understandable tension between supporting low income households and managing council revenues including debt recovery. Tonight we'll explore how we can ensure our collection policies are fair without an adverse effect on recovery rates. Unfortunately, the Cabinet Member for Finance Councillor Amos is unable to attend the meeting tonight, but I'm very pleased to say that we have Zena Cook, Corporate Director of Finance, who can address the committee. Zena, you have up to five minutes to introduce the report. Thank you. So I was choosing to give a sort of overview and then pass over to my colleague Linda D'Souza who's overseeing the team that actually does this work, if that's okay with the committee. As long as you keep within the five minutes. That is fine. But in effect, as you part of the council's manager position is based on the level of income we are expected to collect and the level of debt we may need to provide for in terms of any bad debt provision. So there is a sort of financial imperative for the council to ensure that it is as efficient as effective as it can be in relation to collecting income. Now clearly there are this income collection in relation to things like council tax and business rates, but obviously there are a whole range of other areas of income that we collect. That includes sort of social care charges for adults in residential care or receiving home care services, but there are also sort of a whole range of sundry, what we would call sundry deaths that are invoices sent out to people from across our services around fees and charges that we're planning. It may be waste, it could be a whole range of those and that is sort of primarily where the bulk of the work around income collection and billing and debt recovery for the purposes of this report will focus. I think it is important to say that within that as a local authority we are expected to and make efforts to identify early a distinction between those who can't pay and those who won't pay, because there is a very different approach to those who perhaps are struggling financially and requiring support from our understanding. So applying sort of national nationally agreed best practice like breathing space for example, where you give people an opportunity to look at how we may be able to construct their debt repayments but also just having more joined up approach across the council and that's certainly something that we need to develop further but it's something that we're committed to do so that one individual who may have commitments that they need to pay across and being viewed as an individual rather than five or six different debts. Absolutely. I'm happy to stop there and obviously take questions but if that's okay with you. Okay we have witnesses too so so. Okay so who's going to take over? I will take over, I'm Linda D'Souza. Just under three minutes. Just under three minutes. Okay so I'll just whiz through, obviously you've read the report so I'll just pick up on the challenges and what we're doing to address those challenges. I think that's probably the best thing to do. So we're obviously addressing the challenges making improvements more immediately in addition to initiating more a complete review further along down the line in the medium and longer term. So I've added in appendix two that you can see a short term implementation plan and that shows the steps we're taking in the short term to address the debt recovery and payments of invoices. So we've made some good headway. We're currently reviewing internal processes, making immediate changes where possible and we've also been addressing and in discussion with key service areas like adult social care etc to move forward in in a more joined up approach, trying to iron out issues with regard to payment of invoices and also recovery of debt and that's working really well. And we're also in the throes of reviewing staff configuration and currently deploying staff to focus on specific debt areas to enable consistency of approach as well as creating areas of specialism where appropriate. And then progress in terms of system enhancements to enable us to work a little bit smarter. For example, we've got an invoice payments portal called Kefron and we're looking at enhancements to better identify CIS and SME suppliers that will give us a clearer categorisation and reporting in Kefron. And then we're dealing with challenges. Sorry, when dealing with challenges of this nature, the key aspects are in my mind is communication. So making sure that all stakeholders are involved to ensure that challenges are first of all understood and that everybody's also on board in terms of making the changes that are possible to be made. I'll stop there because I'm conscious of time. Thank you very much. Okay, we have two requests to speak this evening, one from Helen Griffith and one... oh sorry, we haven't got... just one person, we've got Helen. Would you like to come and join us at the table here? We have up to three minutes to speak. Okay, I'm Helen Griffith. I'm a debt advisor at Centre 70 Advice Centre in West Norwood. So I've just written a short piece which I'll read out. So we're an independent advice agency part funded by Lambeth Council. We offer debt benefits and housing advice to Lambeth residents as well as counselling and wellbeing services. In terms of debt recovery by Lambeth Council, we most often deal with rent, council tax and benefits recovery. So the below thoughts are reflections on our experience in these areas. So there's a few things. One is for us financial conduct authority requirements and accepting the principles of the financial statement. So just hoping that there's an awareness within the council that we are an FCA regulated agency and we have to adhere to the principles of COG 8.53 that offers should... the offers that we make should be realistic, sustainable and have regard to the best interests of the client. So that means affordability, sustainability to repair debt is for us is the most important, not the length of time an offer will take to repay a debt, which is a conversation we often end up getting into, particularly benefits. Standard financial statement is generally used and accepted when dealing with debts. We've put a link on there. I presume you've got this electronically. And we also just need to think about balancing the need for the council to recover overpayments arrears for us with sustainable and realistic repayment proposals because we work with people with no money. So it's quite difficult. Okay. Consideration to writing off debt in exceptional circumstances. I have to say council tax are really good in terms of this. We've got a good, really good working relationship now with council tax and unfortunately we don't have a good relationship with rents or benefits team in that we just have no relationship, which is a shame. And just going back to the communications thing that someone said earlier, it would be really good if we had some communication because it works so well with council tax. Just also highlighting use of bailiffs where there's an alternative. This relates to council tax debt collection and where a client is in receipt of universal credit, we would expect that the council tax department would use that method of recovery rather than bailiffs. Our clients can't afford bailiffs. Just then knocking at the door is £75 for saying hello. Council tax, again, are generally pretty good with that. If we take things to them, they do tend to be quite receptive. Named contacts within the council. As I said, we have a very good working relationship with the council tax team because we have named links there. We don't have this with Lambeth rents or Lambeth benefits. We have no named contacts. Communication is very slow. It usually results in us having to make formal complaints to get responses, which must be very annoying for all concerned. I'm sure it's very annoying for the rents and benefits team. Is that me, Dan? It is, yeah. Oh, my God. We'll give you another couple of sentences and then we have a written statement anyway. Yes. Yeah. Okay. At the back, I've put a couple of examples of bad and good practice, which I would encourage you to read if you want. But the last thing that I will say is we have had our funding cut by Lambeth. We are more stretched than we've ever been. People are more in debt than they've ever been, particularly since council tax support has reduced in not such a favourable way for our clients. So don't forget about us. Thanks very much. Okay. Now we move on to members' questions. I'm going to start off and say, as Helen has just said, Centre 70 has highlighted a good working relationship with the council tax team, but a poor relationship with the rents and the benefits teams. What can we do to improve that poor relationship? Um, yeah. So I'm very happy to take that point away. I would say that certainly from the tax perspective from elsewhere, there's a very clear structure about how we rate the council tax. It's quite a clear process and I think that's really about name. It's really helpful, particularly with advice agencies because it kind of gives you some fast track, but it does allow things that are escalated to be resolved quite quickly. I'm very happy to discuss with my rents and benefit colleagues as to how we might apply the same learning. That's what we're looking to do. So from a cross-counter perspective, we use both our sort of key systems, whether the venture is held, as well as joining up the natural services, the people say that they are more aware. Certainly we're very happy to take that away. Yeah, I'd say I'd urge that 1070, like with the council tax team, should have named contacts in the team and every effort should be made to improve communications and you don't actually have to kind of escalate it and just waste time and waste resources. Alison? Yes, so thank you. I'm at Lameth and Croydon Food Bank working with, I know she won't mind being named, Adoya Reams. Yeah. We could not live, we could not survive our weekly sessions without Centre 70. It simply would not be possible and therefore I will make a plea for any additional funding. We really, I mean, it's just extraordinary. And now, interestingly, just to pick up your point, Chair, so I sit with Adoya and Brixton Advice and myself, we sit in a circle together trying to work out who can best support the increasing number of clients who are coming in. Adoya doesn't have the contacts, I do. So I'm simply able to write those emails, but to have some name contacts, some clear structures. And to have, to be absolutely honest, I think a better relationship between Lameth and Centre 70, in terms of openness and willingness to work more closely together, would be incredibly welcome and would only be of benefit to Lameth residents, in my view. Thank you. I would suggest that in the recommendations, we put a deadline of a time frame for when Lameth should be getting in touch with Centre 70. Sure. Two weeks. Would you like to? Yeah, immediately. Well, yeah. I think within the recommendation, like a specified time frame, I think if we just put in the recommendations, it gets picked up in a year's time. So within what, a month? Yeah, a month. Okay. Yeah, that would be to be helpful. Okay. We can, you know, in terms of improving those relationships, I mean, the good news, obviously, is a good relationship for the counter-tax team, but that should be able to be replicated, we would have hoped, with other teams, especially since council tax presumably work quite closely with benefits, the other teams. Anyway, fine. So I've got Mariana and Nicole, start off with them. I'm going to continue the theme. I've not met you before, but I've heard of your organisation. I deal a lot with marginalised communities and I've got one organisation that I've been that I've been in contact with Autism Voice that advocates on behalf of families, either that have autistic children or autistic adults. And I would say, so the help that you provide is great, but I think from the council's point of view, I haven't heard of any sort of specialist staff that are looking, that are actually dealing with people that already struggle with communication, feel that they're not being heard, they get quick to anger because they absolutely feel they're not being heard. The quality of information that's been given out, you could call up five times and get five different answers. Is there any particular team or...? I think what I've heard is the rent aspect when people are in conflict about rent arrears. That seems to be... And also because from Autism Voice's perspective, the whole benefits issue and people always being in dispute about what they're entitled to. And there's a bigger picture in terms of what sort of additional supports they get and absolutely being broken by all manner of systems of not being able to get the support that they need. So I would ask a recommendation about actually having staff trained about vulnerable communities that need that specialist additional help, clear help, consistent communications. And if we have the internal systems that have been alluded to in the beginning, that there is actually a tracking of what has been said in previous conversations so that somebody doesn't have to start from the beginning and then already that gets their back up. I know that people sometimes come across as being combative, but it's a defence mechanism when they're actually quite a vulnerable person. So especially those people you're talking about with learning difficulties? Yes, absolutely. Okay, Nicole. I'm sure I'm going to continue on to you as well, but thank you for the point you've just raised, because it's just so important, that aspect, actually, that an individual is met at where their needs are and so on. And I know I just want the person to say justice, keep your way for advice. Thank you for everything you need to do. And just two points, picking up on what you've said. First of all, I know that before in one of our recommendations has been that more money goes to advice centres. I think we probably recommended that twice over the years. And to hear that your funding has been cut breaks my heart. So hopefully we can recommend once again that advice centres actually receive the cuts that actually the cuts to funding actually just don't have to be funded. I just wanted to be confident about bailiffs. I know over the years, again, the council said they would not use bailiffs, but that's not the case. They're continuing to use bailiffs. So I'd like to hear a little bit more of that use bailiffs for some of these really quite dire cases. Okay, would someone like to respond on the bailiff's point? I know that we do use bailiffs to recover some debt. We exempt social care debt. Do we exempt people who have council tax support debt or those on universal credit? Do you know? I would need to take that away, certainly, and find out definitively. And planning in general terms is that we do look at cases on a case-by-case basis on the basis of both, I think, the additional cost, because actually using bailiffs does add to the debt. And if there is a likelihood that the debt is going to be recovered in full, we are just simply increasing that. But I think I want to just double check, particularly with colleagues, I think rents being identified quite significantly, obviously, in housing benefit. I'm not aware, certainly within our area, of the sort of the use of bailiffs. So certainly for sundry debt, I'm not aware that we sort of... I mean, you said that the report says that we don't use bailiffs or enforcement agents, what I would call them, for those with social care debt. So presumably we're talking about care home debt or whatever it might be. Because some of the debt that we collect isn't just obviously from individuals. So we do obviously collect debt from those who are businesses, for example, and others who we would consider using bailiffs for. But I could certainly, if the committee are happy for us to come back... Nicole, do you come back? Have you got a particular point that you want to make? Only that there's concern about using bailiffs when people really have absolutely no money, and the stress levels are terrible, and the money is there. It costs everybody to use bailiffs, and it doesn't make any sense. So it would make more sense to me that actually the default positions is to not use bailiffs, but to use every other method that's available you would collect. But actually really... And just to establish much more quickly whether or not people are able to... to bailiffs. And it's not that they weren't bailiffs, it's actually they can't. So it's what you were talking about before in the introduction, ensuring that it's very clear. It's really from a very early... An earlier stage. This step change and the cost of living team have actually been the council, are doing some really, really good work. And I just wanted to make a shout out for them, because they've been really, really helpful with a few residents that I've sent their way. Also, just to remind everybody about the Lambeth Larder website, which has received a little bit of an overhaul I've noticed today, and it's much easier to navigate. David, do you want to have a good one? Well first, just to add in a comment about sort of debt recovery. It's something I have some previous experience of in a large local authority. When you come into enforcement, there are quite a range of different types of enforcement. People always focus on the bailiffs thing, because it has this thing, I can see my big van comes with bailiffs written on the outside, and they're going to take the furniture away at the first thing you do, etc. But that isn't how it happens. Also, there are other types of enforcement that can be more stressful, because you can do what, I use the old name for it, but it's got different, it's got a garnishing order, where you can suddenly find that whatever money you've got left is frozen in your bank account, and you can't afford to pay anything. So I agree very much that when you go into enforcement, you need to do that assessment individually for each particular debt, and decide which method would be the best for that particular business or individual. The trouble you often get is that because communications are broken down, officers often, and the debtor doesn't want to communicate, you don't really know what the situation is. And the first you might know is when the bailiff or enforcement agent knocks on the door, and they find out what the situation is there. Ideally, you would sort this out before needing to send someone to the door, and you'd have communication going, and you'd understand where it was, you could do the installment orders, etc. And you could work it all out. So you need to do this on individual cases, having blank rules saying you never do this, and you never do that. I think each thing in individual cases works works well in some cases and not in others. Anyway, on to the question I was going to ask, which is slightly different, but if I can drag you over to Appendix 1. I might just say side hustle, but one of my other jobs is actually chairming the Children's Services Committee scrutiny. One of the things that sort of gets brought up there occasionally is in the charity sector, there's quite a few charities who provide services for Children's Services. And things like sorts of things anyway, but one of the things that we've seen happen, though here it says the thing is the target of 80% to attendees, would be the case for most of the charities that I know, it's the ones where you say, well we don't, we didn't meet 80%, we got 76% or whatever. But in there, there seem to be some cases where payers were taking like four months to get paid. It was putting some of these organisations to the edge of viability, and they were sort of shouting at Children's Services. Children's Services were going, that was, it's finance, and the old things seem to get stuck for a while, a small number, but the trouble is the impact of a small number of organisations. Not getting paid for months could have a devastating impact. It'd be interesting to know how often this happens and is a mechanism that can actually help in those situations, like making a rapid payment before you do the overall invoice, if there's something blocking it, to actually make sure that we're not sending small SMEs into bankruptcy, because we shouldn't be that type of organ, I mean quite a lot of blue chip comes, but we should try and look after our SMEs and not make sure, make sure that, I don't always make 80%, but we should be, always be, least pay within the month. I mean, that's it. I mean, Xena, is that something which is to be included in our improvement plan? Exactly. So, there are a number of things that are being progressed. So, particularly for what we call a sort of demand-led services by Children's Services, Adult Services, and housing in particular, the payments that we make are related to primarily things like placements or or to landlords and payments are reliant on that information being up-to-date and valid. So, we're doing quite a lot of work working with our services to make sure that we identify, for example, our Call of Meals as businesses, part of those those for a credit payment where we can, so to try and minimize the delay. So, a really simple example could have a change in the number of care hours that somebody's received, and actually that changes the payment that they're due, but because the process to update that might take a day or so while the manager or social worker is updating that, from a financial regulations point of view, we can't pay the figure that, so we're looking at those sorts of processes to sort of streamline them in a way that actually, the minute that information is uploaded, for a better phrase, it feeds automatically, but it feeds in in a way that takes out some of that, as you say, you know, is it us? Have we approved it? Is it us? Have we paid it? But that's the sort of thing that Linda is looking at in that short term action plan, because quite frankly, we want to be as close to 100% as we can, because that's what we should be doing, particularly for SMEs, and we want to prioritize the sort of payment terms, so obviously the standard of 30 days, but when we can, we want to bring that forward, particularly for those small local conditions. And I'd just add to that if I can, we're also having lots of regular meetings with those service areas to iron out any blockages and seeing what the issues really are, so we're really trying to get to the nuts and bolts of identifying what the issue is and resolving it, so it's not just within the APAR team, it's just the service areas that are involved, and it's that's working really successfully. Can I clarify, are we actually taking forward the improvement plan now, or can we expect an improvement plan, you know, to be produced in in kind of the coming weeks? What's the timescale we're talking about? I mean, I can confirm that Linda has been tasked with this and has been, and it goes very quickly, but I think it's been at least a month at least, and that work has been underway. So this is really the sort of the immediate, short-term, high priority work that is already underway that may well lead to, and is likely to lead to, for example, the review that we're doing of the care system used to identify care placements. There may well be system enhancements that we need to make as a result of the work that's being done. That would then lead to further improvements being identified, so I would suggest that my view would be that we're looking at a sort of rolling programme over sort of six to nine months. Okay, okay. To kind of really get under the skin of this, but we would expect, and I don't want to put Linda on the spot necessarily because it has been relatively recent, but we'd expect to start seeing the performance improving quite quickly, and because we report on this on a monthly basis and it comes into Cabinet on a quarterly basis, we'd be able to show that fairly quickly. Okay, well I'll make a recommendation about actually received, but being provided with the action plan and the more comprehensive review that you're engaging with. Can I just ask on that, has there been a sort of diagnosis, you know, as to what, I mean there's quite aggressive fluctuations in these numbers for SMEs being paid out within 10 days. You've got May drops from 76 down to 56, and then from November to December drops from 72 to 57. Is that to do with a specific time of year? Is that lots of payments coming in? I mean, what's, what's the kind of, what's underpinning those numbers? Because it's, it does seem that it's, you know, these, as I say fluctuations are pretty aggressive and it seems to be trending in the right direction, but I just, I wonder whether or not it's a kind of calendarial thing or this, and whether or not that might help streamline the strategy. Historically. But there, there are some tendencies for people to be on leave for a longer period of time, and therefore that can impact. What I would say is, I think it is likely more so that it is the way in which we do our work, rather than some sort of seasonal fluctuation that could be isolated. And I think that's, that's why Ninja and the team are now meeting regularly with the services, because I think one of the challenges is that from the point at which we make a commitment to spend some money right the way through to paying for that, there's, you know, there are quite a few people in that chain. What we need to make sure is that, you know, because one blockage here can impact quite significantly on that, or you can get right to the end. And we are talking about undisputed invoices here. So we're not talking about invoices where we might have a query because we are legitimately able to park those. So I would, I would want to say there is some sort of logical, rational explanation for this. I think it has been primarily also a resourcing issue. So we have had vacancies. We have had to rely on agency staff in sort of early parts of the year. So again, if we haven't got as many people to process the invoices. So we're not going to get very much quickly. And I was concerned to see that we have a lot of arrears in relation to adult social care, that 43% of the 24-25 debts have been outstanding for over a year. And I wonder why that was? I mean, is that because we're being invoicing late? Or would we have probate issues? Or what is it? Why is that particularly bad? Because that's worryingly kind of worrying for an increase in the debts in that area? And you're leaning in the split by director, I just wanted to tell you. That's in the adult social care. That's the top line. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's about 43% of the 24-25. Certainly, as a very general point, we do need to bring that figure down and we do need to highlight how best to do that. In effect, one of the key challenges is in adult social care, the charges are based on an individual financial assessment of individual circumstances, and those are subject to change. They're reviewed annually. What we do find is there can be quite a significant cohort who are unable to manage their own finances. We can be waiting quite a considerable period of time for somebody to be appointed as an appointee. There are a number of occasions where people may have family or no family, but even when they do have family, their family are not keen to be an appointee, so we then have to contact. I think they're known as the Office for Public Guardian now. They used to be in an old language. There's quite a significant amount of work there, so we can be waiting for quite some time. We have no authority to be able to do that, so those debts can build quite quickly. We will also have people who may well have maybe considered what you call asset rich but cash poor, so they may well have a property. We're also working with our social care colleagues so that we can get the financial assessment done as early as possible, because again, if somebody is, for example, placed in residential care and starts receiving home care, the clock starts ticking on their charges the minute that that starts. But if their financial assessment hasn't been concluded quickly because perhaps we're still waiting for some documentary evidence about their private pension or a range of things, that also then means we're not able to issue those bills. But all of that process work is currently part of this improvement plan. In short, it's complex, okay. Can I ask you one other technical question and that is, what is the unallocated debt of which 63% is outstanding over a year? So as far as I'm aware, and I can refer to Linda on this, these are balances that we have had historically that are being brought forward. But Linda, I don't know if you want to explain specifically what they're allocated. Yeah, they're balances that have been brought forward and essentially haven't been allocated to a specific service area. I mean, there are some instances where we have to look into the nuts and bolts to see if they can fit into a certain area within all of these other categories here, but they're sort of sitting, some of them are sitting in the unallocating suspense. Something that's raised that may not have been allocated against a certain Dunning area, we call it a service specific area. So an invoice has come out, has gone out, but it's not been identified within finance or adult services, etc. So it sits in unallocated until that's sorted through. Okay, thanks very much. Okay, let me just get another round. So we've got Carl, we have Alison. Anyone else want to come in? Joe, did I hit that and see you can come in? So I'm going to go with Nicole first. Yeah, so we have established how difficult it is to collect to pursue debt. Resources within the departments have actually shrunk. So given that human resources has been in the issue, are you confident there is now sufficient space to support an action plan and you've got enough staff in place to be able to realistically see it through? And just a question as well about the the Oracle debt, and I haven't quite understood maybe, but is there a chance of that actually being collected or is it going to just continue to grow? If I take the last question first. From the natural point of view, we have to analyse our debt and determine the probability of collecting it. So we see the more secure the debt is, the more likely we are to recover the more recent it is. The older debt gets or the less securities, we have to set aside what is known as bad debt provision that says we have to assume that there's an accepted practice in the way we determine. So, you know, secured debt would have very little, if anything, in that provision, but unsecured debt that perhaps is four plus years old, might be 100% provided. So, so we have to, it's public money, so we have to make sure that we aren't, you know, just simply presenting figures and saying, well, this is, this is the amount of debt we're going to recover. We do have to very carefully assess the probability of that. In terms of, will it just sit there? So Linda and the team, part of what they do and part of what services do is they review that old debt. And if we don't feel that there is a prospect, we've, you know, done searches or we've established that people aren't able to, or a business may have ceased to trade, for example, we would write that debt off and there is an agreed write off process that, depending on the level that certainly requires my sign of cases, you know, I think it's above 10k if I remember correctly, would require a cabinet member and an explanation of why that's being written off. So there might be an example where it's £100 and the reason we're giving them is an economic issue, you know, because actually it would cost us more to try and recover £100. It's actually barred where after a period of time we might have been searching, we might have been looking, but actually the period of time has gone away. So there are, there are categories that are widely accepted across local government that would determine the price that we take. And then on the first point, in terms of staff, I'd say that's a work in progress. One of the reasons that it's been appointed to specifically look at this area is, as you know, we have quite a number of things to get done in finance, this financial year and historically, the team that is responsible for processing invoices for payment, and so for collection has sat within what I'd call the core accountancy function within the Council, clearly, because they've had to prioritise budget setting in year monitoring, etc. I think, without appearing to be critical, I think that the level of focus has been limited because of those other more pressing challenges. Linda has lots of experience in this area from previous authorities, is already looking after pensions and payroll. So there are some similarities around having good financial processes and transactions and this is sort of Linda's top priority. So that's why I'm confident that the work in progress is already starting to show an improvement. Services are responding positively and feedback is positive that the engagement is there and we are looking to recruit where we've got vacancies. Do you have many vacancies? I think it's fair to say we do, we have a number of them covered, but I think over time, partly as part of the financial challenge where we've needed to sort of hold back. But I think we've reviewed the benefit of funding a post that collects income that's going to generate more than the cost of that individual. So we've been reviewing that and that is what is part of the recruiting drive that we've got. But we've used to start them and determine acting ups to to do what we can to minimise those agencies. Thank you, Alison. Yeah, back to point 2.3 on the paper about standard debt escalation process. The people who turn up at the food bank are usually, it's usually probably day 75 to 89, I would say, pre-legal notice issued to customer. I think a lot of people, I really do actually applaud the, I do anyway, the wording of the letter. I think it's as good as it can be. But people are genuinely terrified at that point. And that's when they ask us to, not necessarily counsellors, but just people, Centre 17, myself, Britson Advice to get involved. I wondered, and maybe this is a step too far, but I'm suggesting where people might go in order to receive advice, because I think they just don't want to get on the phone by themselves. And actually, when I get on the phone myself, on behalf of the client, it's usually a fairly straightforward conversation. But there seems to be that barrier for people. And of course, the more they think there is a barrier, the less communication there is, and the less, you know, that the situation deteriorates. I'm not suggesting that you should necessarily put on there, so please contact the food bank or Centre 17, because we'll all be sort of overwhelmed. But I wondered if there was some way of assuring people that they would be listened to, and that there is a real route for a conversation. And the majority, I would say 99% of the people who come through don't believe that the conversation can be had. They think it's already too late, and they're throwing it in the hands of professionals, as I say it's the loosest possible way, in order to try and help. And always we can, but somehow that barrier does need to be overcome, and I don't know how it can be done. Are you talking about referring them to independent advice? Well, I mean, they want somebody who can get on the phone for them, in order to reassure them. They don't want to do it. Okay, so referring the person to independent advice, who can represent them. Yes, but again, we've all got massive, you know, we have, you know, hundreds of people now coming in. I don't know how, we don't necessarily want to sort of sign face people to ourselves, but somehow there needs to be some sort of wording maybe to say, do feel free to contact. Well, Step Changers have taken that role. Yes, or maybe that's. There's sort of the highlighted letters that they listed out to people. Yeah. It just, all I'm really doing is flagging a barrier and wondering if it can be overcome in some way to encourage people to have those conversations, which currently they're not having. It is not uncommon. Authorities to provide, obviously with the consent and agreement, when the automated reminders are sent to have, for example, a step change. Yeah. Depending on the local area. There was some rational. Yes. So the local ones, and actually some of the analysis around debt and debt advice, certainly that I was aware of. The local authority was actually for some people, they prefer it to be on the telephone because actually it's, it's a difficult conversation to have face to face for some people when they're in debt. Yeah. And actually step change. So yeah, a number of local authorities have operated very, very effectively in reassuring people that they should contact the council, that actually the council has an obligation to take their circumstances. And as to give them that independent assurance, certainly from our perspective, and I think, you know, again, taking on board the fact that there are different parts of the organisation that charge people for services and we've got to get a consistent approach. But if we, if we take that as a clear objective that we need to achieve, I think the training point around custom services and how people can speak with those who may be quite worried about what might happen, because it is still a pre-legal notice. It is still a, you know, it's a letter that needs to be taken seriously. Indeed. It's how you do that in a way that doesn't then make them feel that they just don't want to open the envelope. And that's where we are actually. That's where we are. They want to open the envelope and, you know, so there's quite a lot of research around how councils can do that through other organisations. I would, I would agree with Alison in a way that when we're, when we're sending out these letters, you have to get to the back before you, you actually read about step change. And actually, if you're in a bad way, you're not going to read, you're not going to read the letter right through. So I do agree that we've got, we've got great infrastructure to actually help with the outside agencies. But we need to think about, as you just alluded to, how you, how you actually, especially if you've, you've identified vulnerable groups. How are you communicating so that somebody doesn't just read the first sentence and think, I can't deal with this yet? Sorry, can I, as I'm a cabinet member for volunteer and community sector, can I come in there? Sure. My understanding from the service we provide through organisations and the Citizen Advice Bureau is the key referral agent and does the general advice. advice is when letters are sent, it will clearly align to say contact Citizen Advice Bureau for advice. And again, I used to be people, now I used to be Chief Executive of Citizen Advice Bureau. So that is where the key point is, so that the referral can then help, for example, identify independent advice, which one, whether it's a date advice or anything like so. If you're sending the letters, do not say that. And I know in the past, you used to. So that's something that Zina and the team have to take. OK, I think you're making the point, aren't you, that needs to be called for early in the letter? Yes. And also, last time I tried to call Lambert Cab, I held on for 45 minutes. I hate to be disparaging, but Cab is overwhelmed. With Lambert. Yeah, it's not, it's not, it's not great. Yeah. Are we able to, can we hear from Centre 70 again, or is that out right now? OK, yeah. I know you, I know, I just want to say something, please. I'm a bit wary of people thinking that Step Change is a sort of, Step Change is a sort of panacea because it's a remote. And they deal with a huge amount of people. So I just think in terms of really vulnerable people, Step Change is not a sort of golden panacea. They, they give very generalist advice. So that's helpful. And they don't have, whereas we will chip away until we get a response from Lambert, Step Change wouldn't do that. I just want to. Can we just talk about independent advice? That's all right. Yeah, that's very helpful. OK, thanks for that. Deepak. Thank you, Chair. I first wanted to join others in thanking Centre 70 for the valuable work that they do. And I do hope that the Council continues to look at every opportunity to ensure that you are funded at the right level, given the important service that you offer to residents in Lambert. And I've got a couple of questions that don't appendix one page to this table here on accounts receivable corporate director. Am I right that it's saying that there is 63 million pounds of outstanding debt in 20, 24, 25? Yes. That's the 2.7. Yes. Is that correct understanding? Yes, that's the total debtor. Yeah, the total debtor. Okay, fantastic. So I just couldn't quite understand the reason. At the end of 2024-2025? Yes, that's the 2.7. Yes, is that a correct understanding? The total debtor. Yes, the total debtor. Okay, fantastic. So I just couldn't quite understand the reason for the increase. So it's saying it's increased from 56 million in 2023-2024 to 62 million in 2024-2025. The explanation in the comments is that this reflects business growth. I couldn't quite understand that, given the fact that about half of that amount relates to debt over the length of the calendar year. That can't be the sole explanation for that level of increase in the total debtor value across those two years. So anything you could provide to give me some greater understanding on that would be much appreciated. Just want to comment that I think multiple councils phrase in terms of the enforcement process and the communication and the letters and how this can result in a communication breakdown. There could be ways to facilitate that conversation. I don't know whether your team has tried to have a way of getting structured feedback from residents. So having a session where those writing the letters are with the people receiving the letters and having that sort of kind of feedback to consider in a way that's quite tangible and is kind of human-focused. Building in the point that others have made about taking to the fact of particular vulnerability characteristics and how people might kind of receive information in different ways, just as a concrete possible action to take. And then lastly, Centre 70 in their statement, I thought it was quite balanced. They had a scenario where they hadn't been kept informed of an escalation action that the council had taken. So I just wanted to step away from that example, but just to ask, what is the process when you have an authorised third party supporting in rent recovery or action being taken by the council? What is the standard process of keeping that third party involved and informed so that they can do service that they've been requested to do by the resident? So I think I take the last point first. I think that that is likely to be different in different service areas. I think certainly I can check the position with rent. My assumption would be that if an individual has asked for a third party, whether that's a family member or organisation to act on their behalf, then they have given that authority and therefore that response can be provided to the third party who is acting on the individual's behalf. What I can't say categorically that I would need to check is whether that's done consistently. And again, it's an explanation rather than an excuse, but with large volumes, there's a situation where perhaps the individual does contact in addition to the third party contacting, it may be the response is given to that individual without there being awareness or recall that that person has also engaged another party. That doesn't mean we can't look at how we might be able to improve that. So there may be a way of flagging that on our IT systems or something that you know, but I wouldn't want to speculate as to how we do that. It's certainly the principle of making sure that those who require support and have asked for support, it doesn't have to be a third party, it may just be another member of their family, but they want somebody to be there. And in all of those cases, I think we would want to see a consistent approach across all our different services. I think it's less likely in the areas that sort of Linda and the general team cover, apart from, say, social services. I think certain things like that, that's a much more common theme that we feel that they need to be supported because it can be quite complex and it can be quite, quite challenging in terms of how to address some of the debt issues, but happy to take that away and to provide that information to the committee if that's helpful. And essentially what you said is open. What's really important is having a record system so that you can identify whether a resident does have an authorised third party supporting them so that they can then be informed of the process. Intuitively, on the basis that the numbers of people that we have as tenants, or the numbers of people that we have on housing benefit, you know, that volume, you couldn't, you couldn't really rely on a non-systemic approach to ensure that. That's just my, that's just my assumption, but I can, I can certainly find out. And then in terms of the actual debt, you are right, there has been, there has been an increase in the age of the debt. But there has also been an overall volume increase. So if you look at the debt that has been raised but is not yet due, for example, that has increased by four and a half million to seven million in 2425. We've seen an overall increase in the amount we are billing. And as the notes say, there are some, some sort of age debts where we've actually done quite well. Well, I think the point that I made earlier about actually systematically going through those very old debts to determine whether or not we just need to write them off because otherwise we are just showing that figure is as increasing as the time goes through. The key for us is being able to model and check whether debts are simply moving from one time period to another or whether we are seeing a real drop in each of them and perhaps we can look at how we might be able to present that information differently so that you can have that assurance that there is a change in the positive direction in each of those time periods. And then I'm sorry, I think I forgot the middle one. And it was just a thought about. So some councils do have, for example, reading groups where things, but they will have people that are recipients of services to comment on their communication, standard letters, that kind of thing. That's certainly something that we could look at. I don't know, Linda, if there's anything specific that we use. Yeah, I think obviously within the accounts receivable where the sort of conduit of releasing those invoices. So we have useful meetings with the actual service area themselves to ensure that the letters that are sent on their behalf, so to speak, are in the correct language that they would want it to be used in. But that is all going to be part of the review as well. Just to review those what we call Dunning letters to ensure that they're as sensitive as they can be or firmer where they can be, etc, etc. So that is part of the review process, is really reviewing the letters themselves. Yeah, I think that would be really useful because clearly you've got to have firm communication given the task at hand. But equally I've had at least one resident come to my surgery with all of these letters, you know, and I could see there just how that's impacted them on a very personal level. So coming in from that perspective in terms of how can you share, you know, that feedback in a positive way that might lead to kind of rethinking on certain specific points of communication. Yeah, I'll just be quick. Just to follow on from that, one group that I forgot to refer to, the growing number of residents that we have that have mental health issues. I've sat in previous times on the Partnership Board of Black Thrive and they're doing amazing work and work with lots of service users. So again, if you're having a review to tap into groups like Black Thrive that actually have best practice, you know, modus operandi so that you can actually, you know, know how service users respond, especially those kinds of service users that might be, you know, various stages of crisis. So yeah, absolutely. OK, I'm going to attempt to sum up. So provide the committee with the short term improvement plan and details of the more comprehensive review, ensuring that both reviews explicitly cover honourable residents and how they will be supported and communicated with. Asks the council to reduce its use of bailiffs and to exempt those who genuinely can't pay their debts, for example, as council tax support recipients and those on universal credit form bailiff action and agree and seek to agree other enforcement options such as affordable and realistic payment options. I'm trying to cover David's point there. Recommends that the council ensures the rent, rent and benefits teams review their working relationship with advice agencies such as Centre 70, providing name contacts, providing name contacts and improving their communications with them to improve outcomes for residents to see that developed within a month. It was on the council to do what it can to maintain funding to advise centres who support local residents who support local residents with debt. Ensure that residents unable to pay their debts are supported. For example, ensuring early in the in the council communication that they refer the person through independent advice agencies who can represent their interests and the council to seek to help that agency and sorry and the council to seek to keep that agency informed of the debt recovery process. Yes, that makes any sense. And finally, seek to improve the quality of information and this would probably include an improvement plan, but seek to provide the quality of information provided to those in debt. For example, on rents, especially for vulnerable residents. Ensure that staff are trained to provide specialist help, especially for those with learning difficult as mental health issues. And finally, ensure that invoices are paid on time, especially to SMEs and VCS organisations that could fail if timely payments are not made. Yeah, I suggest separate to the recommendations, I mean, I think it's complete wrong because at 1770 you don't seem to have a name to contact. Would you, in your position as chair or Roger in democratic services, try and request that information sooner rather than later? Would that be possible for saying? Yeah, no, no, I'm going to say divide it as a priority. No, I just think it might get lost as a recommendation, if you were able to write to. Yeah, we can we can do that. We can actually make, we can communicate with the officers in the rents and benefits team to say, can you provide 1070 and other similar agencies with name contacts and seek to improve that communication process? Yeah, when I do the recommendations, I can ask that to be afforded, copied in to make sure it's been done. Yeah, to make sure that actually happens. That could happen within the next few weeks. Well, that's right. I mean, we do recommendations and normally there's a kind of six month kind of implementation process, but clearly something like this, so we don't want people hanging around for six months. But I'm sure that Centre 70 will keep in touch with us about progress or lack of it. Hopefully progress. Okay. Were there any additional points? Are people happy with those recommendations? Deepak? Yeah, just a minor point on paying SMEs on time. And we heard tonight that sometimes that isn't the case. So some kind of escalatory process where you're going beyond, say, the 30 day period. The example that Council Oxy gave where one instance where a business is not being paid for a couple of months of, like say, liquidity, they could go under. So, yeah, absolutely. Let's make sure they get paid in time. But where that doesn't happen, there is some kind of process that's activated. It ensures we don't go. Again, I suppose we're talking about maybe, I don't know if SMEs and BCS organisations, again, have a name contact. They can, I mean, I've certainly some VTS organisations I've come across, haven't got a clue who to contact in the Council. It may be their fault or maybe the Council's fault. I don't know. But maybe a name contact will be helpful. Certainly, we will provide a name contact. And just for information, it's payment to SMEs within 10 days and not the 30 days that we're reporting on here. Yeah, so hopefully they would have been, yeah. In terms of your targets is 10 days. 10 days, yeah. But just to confirm, certainly my experience is that, for example, if you're just in children's services, you work with all organisations that they work with and others generally escalate directly to me. If there is a payment issue that I then, not saying I catch them all, but certainly I am notified immediately to say there's a problem, that I then generally refer that through to Linda, depending on where it's stuck in the system. Six months, it's made its way to me. Generally speaking, that seems to be customer practice here. I think we just need a bit more transparency, because I understand 10 days is the target, but there is a bit of a blind spot for the community as to what happens beyond that 10 days, coming from that perspective. Okay, any further additions or amendments? Okay, well fine, thank you very much. I'd like to thank all those who contributed this evening, especially Centre 70 and officers, thanks very much. And we'd be grateful for your time. Thank you. Okay, so now we move to the second item of core business for tonight's meeting. Asset management of third sector and other leases. We'll explore how the council manages its non-residential assets to deliver better outcome to residents, maximise revenue and minimise costs. And we have the Cabinet Member for Stronger Communities to introduce the report. Donatus, you have up to five minutes. Well, Chair, I don't think I will take off to that. People know that LAMBAT assets is a variation of assets. We have commercial assets, we have assets that are sitting with housing and revenue accounts, we have assets that are sitting with children and young people services, and also there are assets that is within volunteer and community sector. So within volunteer and community sector, there are 49 properties within that. So we introduced through working with volunteer and community sector organisations, we introduced the asset strategy and that was 2022 or even this started earlier than that. And within that strategy, it clearly wants us to be fair and transparent and then also making sure that we introduce support panel and then also support officers that are supporting the volunteer and community sector as part of the strategy. So I've got officers here who will take you through the variation of assets and how those assets are being managed, but also how we are trying to coordinate making sure the practices of our asset strategy, which is the volunteer and community sector, which is used as a blueprint for managing our assets. Within the VCAS assets specifically, it also gives us that clear definition of responsibilities and then also introduce period of lease. And then that period of lease is agreed when we worked with funders forum, who are also key to supporting our organisations. They, through the consultation, they tell us the 10 years period is the key for them because they fund organisations other three years or five years and then if they are meeting the performance indicators agreed and delivering the criteria given to them, they can extend it for another five years or three years. So we compromise to bring it to 10 years. However, there's also exception where we agree with organisations if they have capital funding, we will reflect that funding in order to extend the lease based on requirement of the funds. So I can ask Matthew Bibbins and Fiona, who is here as well, if there's anything that they want to add. Matt. Hi, yeah, just to introduce myself, it's Matt Dibbin, I'm the Director of Regeneration and Property. Yeah, thank you, Councillor. I think it was really just when you've covered particularly clearly the VCAS asset strategy, I think really just, you know, the report was intended for information. It's quite a broad, high level summary of a non-residential estate essentially. So I guess just for members' information, the other, we're talking about these kind of broad categories of assets, the VCAS assets is obviously a key category. We've got a wide range of close to 400 operational assets. So, you know, we manage that core estate, including libraries, offices, children's centres, nurseries. We've got 135 maintained schools, so it's a very broad brush of properties that need our attention. And, you know, the role is partly to ensure the condition of those properties, but also to make sure there's legal occupation in some of the properties where we've got letting arrangements, such as in libraries or leisure centres, for example. The commercial portfolio, just to finish some conscious of time and we've got a five minute limit. I think, you know, the commercial assets are less at market rents. We've got a few hundred commercial assets. It's a range of things from aerials and substations to a number of primarily what we'd call tertiary assets, so things like food and beverage and retail units across the borough. There's a gross income from those, which is important to the council, particularly in the current financial context of about 8.3 million, but the net income, once you take into account, particularly our managing agent, we've got a managing agent called Averson Young that manages those market rent properties. So, we've got about 4.7 million net income per year and we've been driving that up over the last couple of years with ongoing income generation targets as part of the medium term financial strategy. So, we've got these kind of three key buckets, if you like, of properties that we have to manage in unique ways. The VCS properties that Donati spoke to, the commercial assets and then this array of operational assets. But we're keen to give space really because this is, you know, we've set it out in a broad way so that people can ask us questions and explore particular areas that we need to take away for any more further detail. Okay, thanks very much. Okay, so we've had four requests to speak and we have three people online and one in person, but perhaps we'll take the in-person council first, even you're here. So we have Hazel Flynn, who's the chair of Waterloo Community Council. Yes, I'm online, so. Oh, sorry, Hazel Flynn, sorry. Hazel Flynn, sorry. Hayley Gay of the Day Nursery. I'm confusing my list, but given you're actually here in person and have also, you know, emailed us some of your concerns and that is really, really helpful. So perhaps you can start off and then we'll go to the online people. Thank you. I feel landlords have to assess their assets, leases and rents on a proportional individual basis rather than a blanket one size fits all approach to rents and support. I work at a preschool with two, three and four year olds where they are not only educated, i.e. holding a pencil, learning to write letters, then words, numbers, including the use of coins, climbing, art, ICT, etc. But more valuably, they learn to share, take turns, socialise and communicate such valuable lessons in an ever-growing technological, non-conscious society. We also support children with special needs and with speech and language issues, helping parents to get the right external support for their children as they approach primary school age. We are located in West Norwood, which is designated by Lambeth a deprived area. We are a charity and our ethos to support those more economically challenged, those needing respite as well as those employed who want to have a preschool with a family feeling, not just somewhere to leave the kids. We have never had to advertise yet whole families, three, four children have come to our preschool over the decades. We employ four people with our funding coming from Lambeth and government under the National Education Fund. We are able to do small bits of fundraising as part of our charitable status. In March 2020, we were forced into a 65-page commercial lease with Lambeth to spend £10,000 a year rent, which is £2,500 per quarter, with no support for repairs and being charged a building insurance of £1,250 annually. Our commercial lease also imposed restrictions such as not being allowed to rent out the building for children's parties and the like, therefore not able to raise revenue and not allowed to have animals, birds, reptiles, because we used to teach the children life cycles like butterflies, cocoon going up to a butterfly. Therefore all of our funds go towards paying rent, bills and small amount of wages and we're not able to provide extra resources for the children, improve the building or the outside area. Yesterday we were told at the Rent Review that the rent will go up from £10,000 per annum to £23,000 per annum. No change in repair support or any terms of the lease. After further discussion with Lambeth's Regeneration Assets and Property Division, they have said they will look into phasing the increase over a few years, which will be vitally important to our monthly budgets, potentially helping with repairs equally as important and reviewing the terms of the lease. It is all up for consideration but is not set by any means. Our point is that some places which bring a vital role to the community, and in this case add value to the generation going forward, need to be considered for the individual value they bring, not being put in a commercial lease but maybe a community type lease and supported repairs, so that funds are able to be used in order that we may be able to thrive and operate for the greater good. I do speak for our preschool but I do wonder, I think there's 19 preschools that are under this umbrella and I may speak for some of them, I don't know. Thank you for this opportunity to talk and for your time. Thank you very much. Okay, now let's move to our online contributions. We have Reverend Gayle Thompson. Josh is here but Adrian who sent a joint statement in. Okay, just check if Gayle is here. No? Adrian Griffiths. Okay, do we have Adrian Harris instead? Yeah? Adrian Griffiths. Adrian Harris. Oh sorry, Harris. Yeah, sorry. So Adrian, would you like to speak to us? You have up to three minutes. Adrian Harris. You're muted Adrian. Yes, would you like to speak? Can you hear me now? Yeah. Sorry about that. Okay, I'd like to thank the Council for putting the voluntary sector policy. Having consistency across the 49 properties has proved to be very helpful. I would like to pick up one point from Donatus. The Council needs to be a bit more transparent and upfront about applying for grants because I appreciate the Council have a lack of money but there are various charities that can apply for monies which the Council can't do. But it's not clear to lots of properties that have a long lease of probably 20 to 25 years is available. Most of them hear that they only can have a 10-year lease so they know that if they approach various trust funds etc for major renovation works they'll be turned down. So if the Council policy is that you can negotiate a 25-year lease, can that be made more explicitly available? I'll call it quits on that. Okay, no I think that's a point that a number of organisations have made which I think is very important because the 10-year lease certainly is, I think a lot of organisations don't realise that is potentially negotiable. Right, let's move on to Stephen Griffith from the Stockholm Partnership. Thank you Jay, it's Steve Griffith actually. So yeah, I'm from, just to give a quick overview of who we are. So we're a community development charity, we've been in the borough operating Stockwell for 26 years and we do a range of sort of community development projects, health and wellbeing projects. You might have heard of the Thriving Stockwell programme with the health sector and local community organisations. We run the Stockwell Forum, we do quite a lot of advice and information and support work with the Portuguese and Spanish-speaking community. A lot of the issues that you were bringing up in the first agenda item were resonant with us. We've got a long history of working with the Council around our property particularly and other properties in Stockwell in fact. But we're in 157 South Lambeth Road and we have been in, we worked in the 2000s on a major European programme with the Council as the main voluntary sector partner and the exit strategy from that was about a community asset transfer to the building to Stockwell partnership. And that's been through various iterations and we now, we became part of the Lambeth Community Hubs Network and then the voluntary sector property group that's been mentioned. We were on that until 2019 when Covid came. So we helped to develop the social value reporting and stuff like that. And we've now signed the lease, the new lease that's come out. So, you know, in terms of what the Council, we think the Council's doing well, obviously this new systematic framework, we were fully supportive of that. It's now in place which is great and it's much more transparent and accountable as Councillor De Donatus was saying. We think the Lambeth Community Hubs Network is worth a mention because the Council has been supporting that. We're a member of that, as is Adrian and Longfield Hall and High Trees Community Development Trust and a couple of others. And that's been really good work for it. It's not only supporting the Hubs Network's community anchor organisations, it's also providing support through the support of the Council to the Hubs Network. It's providing support to the rest of the community organisations in buildings throughout the borough, principally providing template policies around health and safety, facilities management, safeguarding, that kind of thing. But we're also doing direct mentoring support to a lot of organisations as well and that has been really useful for them. There's some very good feedback. So that's brilliant. The other thing that I think has been good, you know, we've mentioned the lease being longer. Actually, ironically, one of the issues for our trustees was the fact that there was no break clause in five years. And we've been negotiating around that for a while with the Council. And the reason we needed to do that, well, one, because, you know, financial stability and all that kinds of stuff. But two, we've been potentially, as part of our Thriving Stockwell Health and Wellbeing programme, there may be a possibility for us to have moved building to be in a health centre. So that's why we needed to keep that option open. And, you know, the Council has, you know, exhibited, you know, good flexibility on that and allowed us to incorporate a break. If you've had your time, thank you very much. Oh, sorry. Okay. Okay. We've got your written statement. So, um, okay. Apologies. Okay. And last but not least, can we move to Hazel Flynn, the Chair of the Waterloo Community Counselling, which I got right this time for. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thanks very much. Thank you, everyone. So my name is Hazel Flynn as the Chair of Waterloo Community Counselling. I have sent a statement in the future which details what we do, so I won't go through that. What I just wanted to pick up in the few minutes that I have was to how we welcomed the asset, the VCS asset strategy, how we have been impressed with the work that Lambert's done around it, that we were very keen on it and we signed our lease. In fact, you practically bit your arms off to sign the new lease because we got it. We did get a big rent reduction, which was a fantastic help to us financially. But also it's meant that funders are far more interested in us now when we're looking for funding because we have a longer, more established lease and we can manage our risk better. It was good to have some contact with the strategic side of Lamberth, because often as residents of Lamberth providing services to residents, we don't see the more senior strategic side. So that was a great thing to see. And we're very keen to be part of the voluntary sector in Lamberth. We were born in Lamberth 30 years ago this year and created by Lamberth Council, actually. So we're very keen to be very integrated in what's going on. A couple of challenges that we've experienced, which might hopefully help to raise the communication throughout the strategy was a little haphazard. There's a lot of staff changes. I do understand that. But we did have to keep repeating ourselves about who we were. The fact we work in an old on a council estate in looks like an old housing office and what we did. So that was a little bit of a challenge. The follow through on repairs and the understanding of the Lamberth staff and how this works and how the assets work and the different relationships between us in the housing world, but not really housing. That's been quite a challenge. And in my statement, I've detailed some repairs that we're still waiting for and there's not a huge amount of follow through on some of the commitments that were given last year around a fund that we could apply for to, for instance, replace our windows that weren't replaced under decent homes for some reason all those years ago. But overall, a bit of recommendation would be to a bit more just a very basic understanding of what the lease is and how it operates, maybe for some of the repair staff and the housing staff. Because when we call, they don't know who we are. And we do get bounced around a lot from department to department. And given that I used to work in housing for 30 years, even I find it difficult, which is quite a challenge. But overall, we've been impressed with what's happened. And we're very keen to be involved and be part of Lambeth. And I'm accordingly inviting any of you to come and visit us and see what we do. Thank you very much. OK, so we now turn to members questions. And I'm going to, I think, start off. And so in spite of the VCS asset strategy, which we've heard has been pretty well received and agreed in

1. There still seems to be a lot of variation in the lease of the greed, as we heard from the Dunbar and Dunelma State Nursery. It seems to be on a commercial lease and is responsible for their own repairs, though it can't raise revenue. I just would like to have a bit of an explanation of why that is, given it's providing such a valuable service to our community. I'm not coming on that. Well, I can say in relation to that, so that is why some of the assets, particularly the VCS assets were moved from commercial assets into VCS. So actually, when I started, I said there were different departments with different assets so hopefully this is what Fiona and Jonathan are doing. You see how we can agree with the variation of our departments to make sure some of those assets become, as you suggested, become a VCS asset and also be treated as a VCS, even though it's children or adult service. So I don't know, Fiona? I don't know if it's an answer. Obviously it's important that we keep leases under review, but it strikes me given that we've just heard from Hayley that yes, her lease is under review, but the rent is being increased from £10,000 to £23,000 per annum, which is clearly not going to be sustainable for an organisation like hers. So it does somewhat, I have to say, horrify me that we're actually in this kind of position, but perhaps someone can explain why we are. Fiona is here to ask. Yeah. So I think obviously there's been something happened historically with, I think, the fact that it's a provision that's within the housing estate, isn't it? And my understanding is from the backstory was that it was asked in my team to try to put it onto a lease, onto a financial footing, and it was absorbed into the commercial portfolio. And as we've been liaising today, we're actually looking at what the options should be for that specific service, because you've been very open with what your books are. And so we are actually working with housing. We haven't got a definite conclusion yet, but we're absolutely aware of the value that you provide onto that estate, that it's very estate-based, it's very focused on the families on that estate, and there's only a certain scope. So you're not a full nursery provision, which is a much more commercial, which is a number of the others within the commercial portfolio. They're, you know, they're fully fledged commercial nurseries, you know, where as you're providing an added benefit in preschool, it's quite a different offer. And so, yeah, can you clarify, I mean, Hayley, what you're providing, is that a fully fledged commercial enterprise? Yeah. It's, it's, it is a preschool. We became a business, I suppose, because we were told we had to be, but it's, there's four staff. All of us have had our children grow up there. We've had our grandchildren grow up there. We cater not to the people on the estate, but we also cater to the surrounding West Norwood and, and places like that. So it's more something that supports people. So, so what fees? Charity, so they're a registered charity. Obviously charities are allowed to operate commercially, but most of our nurseries are not charities. They're pure. OK, but we're clearly, clearly we have a BCS organisation here who, you know, is being charged in effect a commercial rate for doing something which is much more of a community, uh, should be a community lease. And in my view, uh, we should be talking about this particular day now. Should we move from a commercial lease to a community lease? Um, and presumably you wouldn't have so many pages to read through in terms of the lease agreement either. You'd have about four pages rather than 65. But anyway, I'm, I'm sure you're quite capable of looking at 65, but it would be good to, to get this, this sorted out. But we, we can come back to this rather than the application. Chira, I'm officer to protect that. However, it is HROA rather than, uh, VC, I'd say 60 differently. OK, but we need to, whatever it is, we need to make sure that we're talking about a valuable community organisation that providing a valuable service to local residents is not forced to go out of, uh, out of action because it's going to be charged an even higher commercial rate than currently being charged. So, so, so, but there's a general point about a number of pre-school, um, nursery provision in a number of estates which came to agreements with the council prior to the VCS asset strategy that we need to make sure that we, um, regularise that position and make sure that they are recognised as a community asset and providing a valuable service. But we'll come back to that, but we can capture that in, um, the recommendations. So I've got Mariana, Ben, David, OK, Mariana, and then sorry, Nicole. OK. Yeah, just, just really picking up on, on, um, Hayley's contribution and she, she really made the point really well made about, um, so many of the voluntary community, um, service providers that we, we partner with because of their expertise, because they're local and understand the communities and because actually it would cost us a lot more for us to, to actually provide that. So I almost, I, I do also understand the council's position in terms of, um, having, you know, getting a sort of fair rent, um, getting fair, fair leases. However, you know, we, I think that there needs to be a lot more appreciation of the value of these services. I, I, I, I speak to so many small organisations where they feel that, um, you know, because we've got such an emphasis on commercial value now, um, that it's unsustainable and where they are raising money, they're raising money for the, to, to actually service their ever demanding needs. And it seems to them, you know, I don't know if we can taper much, taper much more what we're offering to, what we're insisting on, um, organisations paying, because all, all I'm, all I'm hearing is the pressure of actually organisations saying, well, we, we might have to consider going to Southwark because we can't afford to deal with, to deal in that, you know, to operate. I think we're talking about community leases rather than commercial ones. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, Ben? Yeah, so, uh, the context of my question is slightly different. It's more about, uh, Phoenix House. Uh, it, it just sort of struck me that the deal for Phoenix House seems an unbelievably good deal that Whitbread have agreed. They've got a reduced rent for the first 18 years of just a million quid, uh, on the back of a, back of a piece of paper calculation. If you can fit 300 rooms into the 10 storeys, that's less than 10 pounds, uh, a night per room in rent. Um, you know, just otherwise from the fact of it being, uh, looks like quite a deal for them. Um, I guess that, uh, rent agreement has been agreed because they're undertaking 20 million pounds worth of capital works to change its use, turn it from an office block into a hotel. But I guess what's the plan if, you know, hotel demand drops in 18 years, 32 years at the end of the lease? Um, and we then got a 20 million pound worth of hotel upgrades, uh, on the site. I guess the other questions are, they talk about, uh, five, uh, yearly or within the terms of the rent, five upward only rent reviews. And I, and I guess the question is what's to stop Whitbread just outright rejecting the rent increases. Um, and then finally, whether or not there are any break clauses or options within the lease. The, the, the sort of slightly, uh, worrying thing is that Whitbread look at a million pounds of rent regardless of the capital expenditure. I think that's a fantastic deal for 18 years and then cut their losses and run after 18 years. Um, so, so a kind of answer to those, those three things would be much appreciated. Okay. Who didn't cover that? Yeah, that'd be me. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I mean, to the, just to try and provide some background to the, the Phoenix house deal that we've secured. I mean, it's, I mean, you've, you've rightly pointed out some of the, you know, the issues that there's a large capital investment needed up front, uh, in the building by, by Whitbread. Um, that, that is what leads to this sort of discounted rent period. Um, the five years, but, but only rent reviews, uh, you know, that, that if, if that, that will happen, they, they, they, they have to happen and it's, that's, um, they'll be breaking the law if they don't, don't meet their obligations in the lease. Um, and, and as with all the obligations in the lease, if they break any of those obligations, then we can, um, take legal action as we would, would have any commercial lease ultimately. Um, in terms of number of rooms, I mean, we have detailed designs, um, from Whitbread, which we checked with, um, um, commercial advisors who've also worked with Premier Inn across, um, and, and, and, um, comparable hotels in other parts of London. There's under 190 rooms that'll be provided in Phoenix house. Um, and we know that we had, we had a best value valuation conducted to make sure that we're, um, legally compliant in terms of the value of Phoenix house as well. So we're comfortable and confident in the value that's being achieved. Um, they, they'll be investing that money up front, um, and committed to the building, but obviously there are, um, you know, in the long term, like with any lease, if something goes awry, then, um, at least we have an asset that is compliant with sustainability regulations and it'll be, um, easier for us to, um, relet or utilise otherwise down the line. But Whitbread RI and Premier Inn, um, you know, it's a FTSE 100 company, they've got deep pockets, they've got a strong cash flow, it's a very strong covenant for us as a, as a property letting, uh, which is part of the reason why it makes a, a good deal for the council to make sure that building is utilised, um, and generates an income and also, um, removes the void cost liabilities that we have on any void property ultimately. Um, so yeah, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a commercial lease. We've taken legal advice, we've taken commercial advice. It's, it's, um, a solid lease with a strong covenant organisation, um, and there, there's, I mean, there's steps still to take. So we're in an agreement for lease subject to planning. So just for full clarity, um, you know, I think which is in the report, but there'll be, um, planning requirements to change, change the use from office to hotel because of the, the very, very problematic issues we've had with the office markets outside of prime areas of London since COVID-19 in particular. Um, and yeah, so in the summer we'll likely be in planning committee with Whitbread to make that change of use, but it's a, yeah, it's an important deal for Lambeth. It'll, it'll improve our financial position in relation to that building by about 2.5 million once the lease, um, it's completed and the income starts coming in too. So it's, um, yeah, an important deal. Can you come back? No, no, that's perfect. And, um, and just my kind of second question just about, uh, the commercial manager, Averson Young. Um, obviously they've got kind of 19 performance KPIs and I just guess what kind of enforcement mechanisms are there to ensure that they're hitting those KPIs and kind of what body is, is reviewing those, those numbers and those, uh, targets. I mean, oh, sorry, Matt, do you want to take that? No, sorry, you go Fiona in the room. Uh, yeah, so we have, um, uh, we have two colleagues who work with, uh, uh, Addison Young, uh, in terms of the management of that contract. Um, and, uh, there are, you know, at least three different meetings during a month in terms of reviewing the, uh, list of, uh, rent reviews, rent renewals, uh, the managing of debt and then obviously the, the, the, the, the other, uh, KPIs which aren't necessarily monthly are then taken on quarterly and we then, uh, as I've said in the report, we've increased the, the key, the key, um, KPIs that we're going to be reporting on in terms of the, the land with corporate reporting process. Um, and, uh, there are also penalties within the, uh, uh, within the, the detail of the contract which are financial penalties. I can't remember exactly which KPIs it links to, but it's more than likely the lease renewals and the rent reviews. There are financial penalties if they don't meet those targets. Thank you. Yeah. Can I, uh, if I come back to you, Councillor Masters? Yes. Um, let me assure you, the, the colleagues from SODOC are actually coming to us to learn what we've done in relation to our VCS assets and within our VCS assets we have social value and that social value is where self assessed by, uh, organization themselves, then they submit it to the, uh, social access panel, which again, uh, also they work with Jerry Evans in order to look at what the issues are. Within that, based on the value they bring to Lampard, that reduces their rent based on the social value metrics that they are fulfilling. Another reason why we absolutely bring, which is what still in and talking about when we brought this in house. In relation to instead of commercial. Is actually make it absolutely key that it's lower rent. And also allow organizations if they are struggling. To share their space with other organizations to help them meet their rent where, uh, their lease. And the reason why, again, Steve mentioned about the length of lease. The organizations would think things big. The organization would think 10 years is small. That is why we have the break. And also that's why we, I said earlier, if organizations come with funding and that funding requirement is for period longer than what the lease is suggesting, we will modify the lease to take it to the point of what they agreed. 25 years, we know, some organizations, if they get to 25 years, as Stephen said, if they're not sustainable, that's period, that becomes an issue. Thanks. I mean, as, as a contributor has already said, we do need greater transparency about that process because a lot of BCS organizations don't know that I've got. Can I just come back on that in that great points? I think one of the other things that hasn't been touched on is that we have, um, the Integrate team, um, and, and it's great signposting, but I don't think that, I don't know how well resourced the Integrate team is because it seems to me that they're signposting to grants opportunities and opportunities that will relieve some of the financial pressures, which will then free up money to be paying for for leases. Um, and if we were using all the arms that could help these voluntary groups, then perhaps they could be more financially sustainable as well. So that would be an ask that, um, integrates, um, do a lot more sort of work with VCS. I know that they're really successful in putting, pushing, um, comms out, but I don't know how well the take up is within, within all the, the, the groups that we work with them to, to, to, to, to use there. So, so they basically, um, sort of an encyclopedia of knowledge of, um, whether it's grants that, that, that are available, um, whether they're sector specific or whether it is say pro bono work that some, some corporates are, are offering, um, you know, people like say Lloyd's Foundation will come, will, will be advertised through, through integrates. Um, so they're really good initiatives, but I don't know how it's trickling through to, to, to, to our, to our partners. So again, again, I have, uh, Jerry Evans here. Okay. I'm going to stop you there because I've got, got two people actually waiting to, um, make, make comments. I think we've covered this point already. So I'm going to move to David. Thank you. I've actually got three points to make, sort of three questions, but I'll preface that by saying you're a member of the sort of Springfield Management Committee, which is on Union Road and is heading down to various front. Next chair of the local partnership, who is at bay in the park, I'm also the chair of the services scrutiny subcommittee and subject. They're going to have been discussed quite repeatedly in the past year, but might even still be on the online video. First of all, I actually welcome the actual thing on monitoring. One of my issues has been that the council really hasn't monitored as well as it has done. We make these deals with organisations about the social value they will deliver at that time and the amount of discount they will get. And that may well have worked to start with, but things then move on. That social value declines in value. But if things happen, like rent doesn't get paid, they really don't seem to have been active in actually managing a lot of that. So that when organisations are getting in trouble that we actually go in them. Sometimes it's actually a case for leasing the lease and actually out again to organisations that can deliver. I will then zoom in, particularly on the section on 1.2.1 Youth and Play. As a local councillor, I spent quite a lot of time fighting with the council to actually get a copy of the lease for the One O'Clock Club. I will say the name of the organisations, it was SYCT, it was given out two at the time. And I spent a lot of time trying to work out what was actually going on there. Because the place had been almost closed for years. And SYCT took something on. Because they got a copy of the service agreement, which promised the world. They were delivering, barely delivering the absolute minimum. And yet when I spoke to, sat here was Dan Stoughton, Andrew Carter online, and they said nothing to do with USGUB. It was yourselves who were meant to be monitoring because it was this type of agreement. And we had people from the community here as well, and they felt, well, we're not getting what we thought we would get from these assets. Most of the times the things were shuttered and I've been for years. And so I welcome that we actually do seem to be moving to do proper monitoring and proper, the lease as well. Here it seems to downplay quite a lot of these leases were fully permanent leases, which to me seems like extremely optimistic that we would never expect any of these organisations to do that. I will finish by saying that the request for leases, that's 1.2.24 requests for leases of longer term are considered case by case, which is great, but it seems to take forever to respond to these requests. We need to have a more slick response. I mean, let's just play. They really needed an extension because of the project they were doing and the funders were not willing to get the money. And it took months, even my intervention, to actually get any sort of response. Initially they said no, and then they found out that it was a dedicated thing anyway. And then they said yes, but it took months. These things need to take longer, it's like a lot shorter really. And that's it. Okay, thanks very much. Nicole? Sorry, did someone want to come back on that? Oh, right. Yeah. Anyone want to come back on David's points? I could come in. I mean, yeah, I think they're important points, actually. I think the the work that Gerry on the call and others are doing on the social value monitoring, and I know that's happening with the sector, which is important with the voluntary sector partners to make sure we are improving that, but not just for our VCS asset portfolio. I think youth and play assets that were mentioned, yeah, are a unique set of assets themselves. And Dan Stotten and Andrew Carter and ourselves are looking at that actively now. We need to make sure there is clear monitoring in place. I think it's a recommendation well made to make sure that we're taking a good practice from the VCS asset strategy and making sure that is applied consistently across the youth and play assets. I think we've now got, I say this is the mention of sort of chairing of staff earlier, myself and Fiona both relatively new to property portfolio in Lambeth. But yeah, there are cases now where we've got a much stronger precedent for offering longer terms, where there's a really clear business case, where there's a really clear link to the necessity to raise capital funds, where it makes sense for a particular asset that's being managed. So I think we need to be clear in how we communicate those principles and actually how people can actually engage with us and request those longer leases where it's appropriate, even if the outcome isn't that we can't offer it, but just to be really clear what the process actually is. So I think they're good points well made actually. Okay, before we come to Nicole, we're clearly going to go over at nine o'clock. Can we suspend standing order until 9.30? Nicole? Thank you. I'm just going to ask a couple of questions about the VCS and then I'm going to move on to operational assets. I'll talk and I'll be really quick. So I've just got questions about 0.1.29. So we can just say that again. 0.2.9, which is the Capital Maintenance Programme is in development to deliver a five-year planned level of essential maintenance across the portfolio. That's all it says. There's no detail at all, so it would be really helpful if the committee members to be given to know actually what's the timeline, what's the cost of the works, whose monitoring is, if it's being monitored. So the timeline for what? So this is the land level of essential maintenance across the portfolio. Okay, for essential maintenance. Because, yeah. So it's a five-year plan and there's no time as to who's monitoring it and if there's a target. And is that related from the VCS or that's from the VCS? Yes. The other question is also related to VCS. And that is, so there's a mention at 1.3.10 about the VCS asset strategy and the assets panel, which I think was mentioned earlier. It would be really interesting to know how they're getting on and if there's plans for it as a panel to actually review the strategies of progress outcomes. So four years down the line, you know, how are they doing? So this is the VCS panel. So, yeah, so it's the assets panel. Yeah, so those are my questions about, yes, about that. But moving on to the operational assets, which is, I mean, this is a, it's a, it's a massive portfolio, isn't it, for Lambeth? And yet we've got this very tiny little report, I understand that, you know, it's been described to be kind of as well. I'm a bit concerned that there doesn't seem to be an overarching strategy. So I'm just wondering, is there one person who has oversight of this area? So is there one directorate or one officer who actually has complete oversight and is therefore accountable for how these operational assets? My question. And so, so it's, I think it would be helpful to know what financial investments the council is making in maintaining some of these assets. And we know from our inquiries that there's unspent developer funds for parks, play spaces, and the Carnegie Library, and it'd be useful to have more information about the balance. But also, what are the plans, what are the plans, the council plans for vacant buildings from closing schools? We've got a few schools closing. It'd be useful to know what the plans are for those closing schools. And of course, there's many of the operational assets used for short-term commercial purposes, such as, you know, particularly parks. So will the council review its events policy in light of what's recently and also ensure that all of these operational assets are being managed in a way that provides the highest social value to residents? And David was mentioning about social value as well. So, are those questions clear? Can I just add to that? Because I mean, certainly I've had both commercial and voluntary sector organisations who are leaseholders raising their frustrations in getting repairs done to their buildings, which adversely affect their operations. You know, I have a case which I've raised actually with offices before about a restaurant on Streatham Hill, which is attempting to get repairs done via housing. Above them, they had council tenants and leaseholders and they spent a year, chefs trying to cook with pans on their kitchen floor, catching drips. And despite spending a year trying to get things sorted out, I finally stopped getting kind of urgent responses from the restaurant in question, then later discovered, talking to some of the council leaseholders on slightly separate matter, that actually a leaseholder had actually gone and got the gutter fixed, so that the water going through their flat to the restaurant was actually stopped, without any intervention from housing at all. I just think that is an absolutely appalling indictment of what the council is doing to support commercial assets. But also, equally, in terms of BCS leaseholders, I think they find it very difficult to understand what they're responsible for and what they're not. And one of our contributors talks about the need for a simple guide for leaseholders about what they're responsible for, you know, what is a different responsibility to leasehold and freehold, you know, having contact details or named officer, you know, going back to the old theme, making sure that staff know what they're responsible for what they're responsible for as well. And knowing, making sure that particularly the BCS, that people know what money available is for capital works, because we know we've all faced cutbacks, but it is important, again, that we're transparent about what money is available and what can be done in terms of capital works and repairs and what the criteria is for actually applying for money for capital works, or for repairs for that matter. And I think the lack of transparency and the lack of urgency is frankly exasperating, which David has raised as well in terms of, you know, extension or whatever. It's just the lack of information and the, I don't know, we're just not maximising, I think, the potential of either our commercial, operational or leasehold assets in a sufficiently kind of robust way. I've had rant over, but I'm well. Shall I come in on a few of the points? There's quite, there's quite a lot there, but I can take a few of those questions. I mean, I think the, I mean, the capital works program was the first one that was picked up. I think the most substantive works are listed at, sorry for the numbering, 1.2.6, where some of the buildings that have been identified for more significant works are already planned and due to be underway soon this financial year. I think for the remainder of the BCS asset strategy portfolio, the condition surveys have all been completed, so this year there'll be a clearer five-year maintenance plan that will understand the full cost of that as a council for the first time, which will be helpful. I think the other, there's a question about the overall, I mean, you're right, this report has a very, very high level summary of the operational assets, which of course very complex across the piece. We are going to be working this year with Councillor Amos who couldn't make it today, but he's got the overarching cabinet member responsibility for property and we're going to be working on a new asset management strategy for all our non-residential assets because there isn't really one that's anywhere near up to date. So that is needed at least to give, to deal with a number of the issues that we've been grappling with today. Ultimately, there isn't that level of clarity on what our principles, what our objectives are for our estates. So putting that into practice through a strategy would be helpful just to set the what in terms of what we want to achieve. But yeah, I mean, in terms of a single officer, I don't think there is one. I think it's, you know, the estate is managed by more than one team. You know, we work as currently as we can. I think there's learning coming out of today, which will be helpful to inform what we do next. But, you know, I'm probably the only director of property in my job title, but it's slightly beyond that. There are services across the organisation that have different roles and responsibilities that have a part in this. I come back to housing repairs because that's obviously one issue that's came up very clearly. So if we have a BTS organisation or an operational asset organisation and they need to get something done and they don't know who to contact. So what do they do? Do they write to the chief exec or do they write to you? I mean, it's... Just to build on that because I was just going to come on to that because it's a good book. You're going to contact the council and feel they're being listened to. Sorry. Yeah, no, I did hear you, sorry, apologies. It was a bit in my foot on my headphones. I think there's good precedence that we need to work from. So for example, the maintained schools have a very clear handbook which advises on the roles and responsibilities and how they access services from particularly our facilities management colleagues and that works well. And we seem to have a good, there's clear points of contact, there's clear communication channels. The school seem pretty comfortable with that approach. We've developed the same for the VCS portfolio which is currently going through sort of final stages. There's a bit more work to do on that but we're trying to replicate that precedence. There's kind of, you know, that clear handbook for tenants that you described, understanding what their roles and responsibilities are and how they engage with us. I think, you know, the commercial estate is managed by a managing agent, Averson Young that started in April. You know, there are clear points of contact with them. I think what's particularly worrying for me, which we are going to take away and I'm sure will be a recommendation, not for me to say of course, but the issue of repairs where we have properties that are attached to our housing estates and making sure that we deal with those at pace and much more effectively. I mean, I think you made the point as powerfully as can be done. So that's something we clearly need to deal with. How did you ensure that that happens at pace? Because I must have spent 18 months trying to get a simple repair done. So how do you actually then change that culture and actually make sure that we actually do get some repairs done? When it comes to housing and then some of those housing, even the assets that are commercial below it, it has to be, Matt is absolutely right. He is a director that has got property attached to it, but each directorates also have their own responsibilities. It is often the coordination between Matt and the access team and other divisions within the council and they're just getting that. And this is what we as a whole ask councillors often is irritating to say, how do we, do you want to centralise something or do you want each divisions to have their responsibilities? It's just for Matt and the team to work on that. In relation to VCS, we're getting there. Each VCS, when they stand their lease, the lease closes what their responsibilities are and what responsibilities of the council in relation to where the capital work is. Internal repairs is their responsibilities. Again, again, it's not always clear, but we have different VCS organisations. It is clear. Well, okay, I'll give you Woodlawns. It's a massive example. Yeah, Woodlawns, okay. Woodlawns Centre would be an example where they're not clear about whether they are responsible for their repairs and it's something I have raised prior to this committee meeting, but I declare an interest of someone who sits on the board of Woodlawns Centre. But again, there's no clarity and we need clarity. That's what's really important. I give history here because when Woodlawns, and that's what we need to go back, we need to go back. When Woodlawns was given, at that time, I was also a government member for Adel Social Care, which were some of these seats with at the time. When Woodlawns get their 99 years lease, they were clear understanding, that is why they got the 99 year lease, that the repairs and management of those is their responsibilities. I have to ask the officer to go back. That was there. That is the reason why they got the money and they got the 99 years lease. Okay, so I have reviewed that lease. And yes, so I think that the first thing to be really clear is that when we're talking about the VCS strategy assets, we're talking about the 49 that historically sat within the commercial property. When we start talking, when we begin talking about the youth and play and indeed Woodlawns and other assets that are still delivering directly or indirectly through community service level agreements, etc, those sit across directorates and we are fully aware that there is a myriad of different lease arrangements with different roles and responsibilities and indeed even within the youth and play ambiguities about who does what. So that is why that is a really important piece of work that we're doing as part of the asset review, believe you be. Those of us who have just come into the council were as frustrated as well. We want to be really able to say this asset has got a lease, this is what the responsibilities are, this is what the condition survey, this is where we've got condition surveys, this is where we don't have condition surveys and so that we can clearly see what our liabilities are as a council but also we're working with our core cabinet members who have interest across the directorates and very specifically communities and and indeed Council Amos is to be able to start to look at a strategy, a reality about what we can afford and also how we can make sure that we have an equity of approach, which we're not going to start to look at a strategy, a reality about what we can afford and also how we can make sure that we have an equity of approach, which we're not going to be able to change over tomorrow because we have some arrangements in place which are anomalies or indeed arrangements in place which are peppercorn for a long time and others who are paying rent etc etc. So there's there's there's there's there's a big piece of work that I can absolutely guarantee you we're trying to get stuck in. That's reassuring but unfortunately the report gives the impression that there's much more uniformity of approach than in fact there is. So that is good that you are looking at that and committed to that transparency. But you know, for example, I would like to see and it has been raised by some of our submissions that that we should make sure that we check the condition of the lease properties before we actually commit to an agreement with any kind of organisation, whether it be commercial, operation, or or VCS organisation or or VCS organisation and so that we don't have a situation where, for example, a small VCS organisation takes on a property and hasn't had a condition survey and is then kind of lumbered with huge, huge repair costs, which is not it's not, you know, it's not possible for for them to sustain it, a building in a decent state. Just to say that is something that whilst Fiona and I are relatively new to this in number three, that is something that we do look to ensure in every VCS lease that we enter to make sure it's a condition survey prior to the lettings. We know what we're responsible for as council before letting to an organisation is to say we don't want to lumber people with repairs they can't afford. Do we have a kind of condition survey before each new lease agreement? Yes, we do now. We do now and historically there has been as well, but ideally you do condition surveys every five years with your assets. So do we? We don't. I think again, it depends on the different portfolios. So facilities management definitely did condition surveys across youth and play and with the commercial portfolio, we were doing it across the commercial portfolio, including the VCS pocket that sat within that. So again, it's about trying to be able to be consistent and make sure there aren't any other properties like woodlands that may well be falling between the gap because they don't sit in a particular bucket for want of a better word. Okay, so we're playing catch up basically, but the report doesn't really give us that. Let me correct there. What you are saying is, in relation to VCS, before the lease is signed, we do the survey. And then also that is why at the beginning they gave them head of terms. And then we do the survey, we come up and the lease is signed, with the understanding in relation to what the survey says in relation to, responsibilities and repairs. So I just need to say that in relation to VCS, other portfolios might be different. Okay, so fine. I have got Marianne. I just wanted to follow on. I mean, I know with the lawns a lot, very well. And you've got organisations like the Lunch Club, the refugee, South London Refugee Association. We've got really good partners that are based there. So I would ask in the recommendations that we fast forward and we actually give a time of reporting back on, on, you know, closing the gap for these kind of anomalies that you've, that you've identified. Because it is a centre that is absolutely used, you know, could be used a bit more. But there, there, there is, there is real, you know, there's need for repair. A lot of repairs have taken place. A lot of spaces, you know, weddings take place and all sorts. So it's, it is a wonderful space in my ward. So please, yeah, let's sort it up. Okay, so. Thank you, Marianne. Sorry, Chair. Thank you, Marianne. Again, what we need to do is go back and look at what that is. However, again, as someone who has got historical knowledge, they signed 99 years list, including the heritage money they got, including an agreement they made when that was given to them for that 99 years list, which is Fiona's talking about because they are moved out, because they've taken responsibilities of that length of 99 years list, including their responsibilities of management. I will stop you there because you already made that point. So, okay. So does anyone else want to come in before I, okay. We're going to have Deepak, then Nicole. Thank you, Chair. I think as a committee, it's important that we have kind of a balanced conversation. So I want to guide feedback, positive feedback that I've heard from some of the representatives, witnesses that have spoken, including around Lambeth Community Hubs, and in relation to this baby reunion in her organization, and the facts that there is a portfolio that pacification needs to be changed. I hope the Assistant Director and her team will look at that tomorrow morning to resolve that. In terms of my question, it came out earlier that there can be a length of time for a new lease agreement to be agreed and signed, and that could be longer than any variable. Is there a target within the Council of the time at which a party initiates a conversation on a new lease to agree? Is there a target that the Council works for? And secondly, just very quickly, the lady in the room mentioned that she's unable to rent out a building for a birthday party, for example, which would generate an income stream that the Council could potentially take into consideration when it negotiates the rate. I just wondered what was stopping that from happening. Yeah, that that could have been the housing costs available. So that's what we're also going to look at is the lease to allow that because we have with our VCS strategy, the 49, and indeed across the youth and play leases, the ability for them to to hire higher out, not subletting significant. We have we have sort of criteria that we don't want to have a peppercorn or or reduced rent and then find that is being sublet out. This is hiring. We just need to change. We either need to put a side letter in immediately or we're looking to review the lease and where it sits in any case. Coming on to the point about target, I would love to have a target when we're actually fully resourced. We have a we have a very small team with, as you can see, a significant portfolio. We have a lot of organizations on what's called tenancy and wills, which are not not which is not appropriate for either party that we're moving people on. So we are currently recruiting. It's a challenge in our industry to recruit. I've just been up for five weeks or three three positions and only been able to fill one. So I mean, absolutely. We totally cognizant of the fact that it takes too long. There's too many of them and it takes too long. So, you know, we are we're really trying to get ourselves into position where that isn't that isn't the case. And at the minute we're prioritizing those on tenancy at wills or where there isn't a lease in place. No, I totally get that in terms of, you know, to achieve a target, you need to have the resourcing in place to do that. I completely understand. But believe we having a target helps give direction and focus. So you can also have targets in relation to the resource that you have now. If you have this resource in a year's time, this would be the target. Because if you're not working towards target, the risk is you get to a point where you don't want to be. So it's just a reflection based on what I heard in relation to the length of time. My only reflection, someone comes to someone on screen, is I think, you know, most at least is where we have a good relationship. And there's kind of clear understanding from both parties at an early stage. You know, these things can progress quite quickly. But, you know, sometimes these things have a history to unpick. Sometimes they have buildings with condition issues to unpick. So I think that the idea is is not a bad one at all. But we just need to be cognizant that there's every situation with these leases can be unique, essentially. And the majority actually pass through relatively straightforwardly. But then there's, yeah, there's a number that obviously have a level of complexity that the ones that tend to take longer. OK, Nicole, I'm running out of time, so I'm going to have to get. I just wanted to say that I would have personally found to be really, really helpful if what we've been talking about. And that we had, that there was an understanding that we came into the meeting with an understanding that there was no strategy currently, and that there's no staff involved, and that actually we're looking to create a strategy. And perhaps that strategy presumably will come with targets, will come with the resources needs to be, and so on and so forth. Just a request from me in the future to have a thought that actually reflects the state of play, really. Well, we can actually come back when we've got the idea of space. I just realised I didn't get to answer the question about vacant schools. OK. May I have just one second? So there is a, so there's a, there's a process that we go through, which is any school that comes vacant. The first stop is to identify whether or not there's a viable education use for that. And that's, and that's really the, where we're at currently. And then subsequent to that, then if we cannot evidence and there is not a viable use for it, then we start to look at it more corporately in terms of what could be used for that site. And then alongside that, however, we also have to get Secretary of State approval. But again, that circles back round to there being the evidence base, being able to demonstrate that we looked broadly to identify and work with our educational service to identify whether or not there was appropriate use. So again, it's, it comes back to Secretary of State provision approval for us to do something different with the site. Okay. We're running out of time, so I'm going to quickly summarize the recommendations. Sorry, can I quickly? No, sorry. Sorry. We're running out of time, so I'm going to. I needed to answer an issue about Integrate. So I've been sitting here for about two hours and I just have to say my word. Look, Integrate is not only providing advertisement at written people. They also have, you know, computer writing. And then also somebody like Julie. Yeah, I did. In relation of order, the VCS team do also assist in relation to that. Thank you very much. Okay. So in terms of recommendations, so. To review the leases of VCS organisations that are being charged commercial rates and consider moving them on to community leases. Ensure that VCS agreements are kept under review and changed if circumstances change. Be more transparent about VCS leases and. Provide VCS organisations which need to fundraise, especially for capital funds with leases longer than 10 years and explain the process to VCS organisations for achieving that. And work with VCS to keep. To enable them to access support such as grants and pro bono advice. Integrate. And it's obviously one of the questions that I did ask was whether Integrate was fully resourced as to provide for the for the needs, because they do amazing stuff. But then are they reaching all the VCS? Probably not. Yeah, exactly. So. Absolutely. So in terms. Okay. Okay. Sorry. No time. Please stop. Please. I'm chairing. Thank you. I was just asking a question. The question. I didn't know. So in terms of. Repairs. So to provide a simple guide for non-residential leaseholders, which sets out who is responsible for what and the different responsibilities of leasehold and freehold. Provide the contact details of named officers who are responsible for non-residential leasehold repairs. And. Provide guidelines on how to report such repairs and who to contact if they're not carried out. And ensure staff know how to respond. So. Council to monitor the social value provided by VCS organisations more closely. Ensure that they are delivering against their objectives. Provide the committee with the annual social value performance report, which I understand is being drafted currently. To the committee when it's when it's committed, when it's completed. Provide the committee with a timeline for essential, essential maintenance plan for VCS. And tell us how the VCS panel is doing, whether it is improving outcomes. Ensure that the operational and VCS assets are managed to maximise social value. And finally, set clear targets for asset management performance. OK, was there anything else that people wanted to add to recommendations? OK, well thank you very much everyone for your contributions. Really appreciate that and thank you for those online. Really useful. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So finally we move on to the work programme. We have had recently a work programming session, not everyone could actually attend that. But if you have further recommendations for the work programme, then please. Provide them to me and one, Chuck. Can I just ask, Chuck, can I just ask what happened about planning applications? Whether we were allowed to look at not obviously the rights and wrongs of individual planning applications, but simply the process. I think you were very kindly going. I think Victoria. I think Victoria is looking at that. I'm not sure we're allowed to, but I thought. I think her reaction was probably not, but just checking that out. OK. But yeah, it's on our list. Thanks very much. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And so our next meeting is on the 22nd of July. The main item will be the condition of our highways and payment pavements. And we're looking for an additional item, which. Which. Um. That's a good question. So I think you were very kindly going. I think Victoria. Victoria. Victoria. I think Victoria. Victoria is looking at that. And has the issue. I'm not sure we're allowed to, but I thought. I think her reaction was probably not, but just checking that out. But yeah, it's on our list. Thanks very much. Thank you. And so our next meeting is on the 22nd of July. The main item will be the condition of our highways and pavement pavements. which. I took some. Yeah. It is a possibility that we'll look at the management of the housing revenue account assets. But let's wait and see what's what is available and what time scale is. OK. And Nicole. We had said that we would wait until the September meeting to talk about the parks and the use of the pill and so on. And it's not listed. So I just wanted. Oh, right. OK. It's listed. It should be listed at the bottom. Yeah. It's listed on the list. But we didn't agree. We said after the summer, we didn't agree. Yeah, no, we can pencil it in for one of the autumn meetings. OK, can we just add that to the minutes? OK, so are the recommendations of the report agreed? Agreed. OK. Yeah. Thank you very much. That concludes the business for this evening. Thanks. And good night. Thanks Jeff. Are you OK? Are you OK? Oops. Thank you.