Transcript
Commissioner that meeting may be recorded and broadcast by the Council for people present. For speakers to please turn on the mic by pressing the middle speaker icon and speaking into the mic so that the audio will be picked up early. And it's a small change in the audio of the agenda. We will consider agenda item 11 and then item 10 because item 7, 9, 11 all involved discussion of the 20 mile an hour zone policy, so we're doing that first.
Now. Are the minutes of the previous meeting held on the 7th of April, 2025 agreed as the correct record?
The next item is absence of members where there is none, but I'd like to point out that this is Councillor Edwards' last Cabinet meeting and I believe he wants to say a few words which are probably of relief, but we'll find out.
Yeah.
Yeah, I want to say it's my last meeting. It's my last meeting as a member of Cabinet. I'm not planning to make any departures other than that. No, yeah, as you will see in the agenda for the full Council meeting tomorrow, you will see that there's some changes to the size of the Cabinet meeting, Cabinet, and we're going to merge the function of adult social care with the health and wellbeing post. So I just thought, as this was my
last meeting, I wanted just to say a few words of thanks. I'd like to thank the leader, first of all, for having the confidence in me to do this work.
I realise it's not an easy task, but I just wanted also to thank all my colleagues around the table, but particularly I want to thank Dawn and her staff. They've been a joy to work with. As she knows, I have frequently come into the office and I've met with the team and I've met with all her management team.
And one thing I can be certain of is that whilst I might be stepping down from this post as a council, we have an excellent adult social care team under Dawn's leadership and her team particularly.
I hesitate to mention people by name because I know I'm going to miss people. Obviously, Jess Baines Holmes, who's a member of Dawn's team, Courtney, and I'm already forgetting the names on the vehicle, and Darren, who's taken over from James Mass, but also wanted to mention James because I've worked with him for some years.
It's not the easiest department in the council to work with because it's a demand-based service, and we do know that there's a huge challenge to us as an authority for the learning disabilities cohort.
There's a large cohort of people with learning disabilities in Barnet compared to other local authorities.
And obviously, I consider myself to be one of those people. There's an aging population in Barnet, which is significant too, and will continue to grow as the demographics of our country will begin to have a greater number of older people living in our society.
But it's been a job to work with Dawn and her staff. It is, you know, one sense regrettable that I'm going to do this now. But I've enjoyed it. It's been tough. It's been hard work, but it's a great department to be the political leader.
And there's still some major challenges to come. And I'm hopeful of our new government that will eventually we will try to find some more resources for adult social care because it desperately needs it. So thank you, everybody. And thank you, Mr. Leader, for giving me an opportunity to speak.
Thank you. Thanks, Paul. Back to agenda item 3. Any declaration of members' interests?
We will move on to questions. As we should know by now, there's a 15-minute limit for questions from the opposition group members.
So seeing Councillor Zinkinith here,
I presume we have got some questions coming up.
So if you want to come up to the table,
your 15 minutes will start when you ask the first question.
Thank you.
First, I should declare a pecuniary interest
in relation to item 16 in that
I advise the United Synagogue on property matters
and specifically advise them on Canada Villas.
And my wife is a trustee of the United Synagogue.
So I will not be asking any questions
and I will be leaving before that item is discussed.
If I could start with context,
you have a number of decisions to take this evening.
Some of which include spending money.
That's so much of what we discussed.
But since the decision of the government
to allow us to borrow money to balance the budget,
no public financial information has been released yet
because if there is other information of a financial nature,
which cabinet members have in order to take the decisions,
I wondered when that will be made public
because otherwise it's difficult to understand those decisions.
And secondly, given the scale of the borrowing that had to be made to balance the budget,
when the cabinet would expect to see financial information to know how...
Right, it's an interesting one because it's a question about what's not on the agenda rather than what is on the agenda.
So it's playing with the wrongs a bit.
As cabinet members, we do get updates.
Obviously, there's the end-of-the-year accounts that would,
and the external auditor I think is probably involved in doing that work at the moment.
So we're having to wait for the end-of-the-year accounts to be signed off, hopefully, relatively soon.
The...
I don't think we've got a particular item on the budget, but apparently...
Oh, right, the out-turn report will be coming to the Drew.
The next cabinet meeting will have the out-turn report on the agenda.
But that's the out-turn report for last year.
And the question I'm really asking is,
how can you be taking decisions about spending money when there is so little information about what is actually going on,
given the very serious budget deficit?
But every report we get does talk about the financial implications,
whether to save or whether they need about savings in the report.
I think scrutiny...
Obviously, the country goes to scrutiny, and I think in some of the more poorly-returned type things, yeah?
Because I'm really anxious about this, because, you know,
if everything was on an even keel, it would be okay.
But things are not on an even keel.
And I just don't know how you could be taking decisions in the absence of more detailed information.
I think in terms of the sort of...
Councillor Zinken knows I share his concern about Barnet Council's financial health.
In fact, I worry about little else other than it.
I can reveal that since the last published statements, there has been no magic tree which has descended upon us.
No magic wand has been invented.
Everyone around the table very much is aware of the context in which we're taking these decisions
and the fact that the major variables which go into the overall picture haven't changed massively.
Since we spoke last time, interest rates are still what they are.
People are aware of them.
Pressures for adults, children, et cetera.
So I think in terms of whether there's any more specific information which would help,
which would change anyone's mind about any of these situations, they're obviously very free to ask for that.
But I think in terms of the sort of the contours that matter and in terms of the specific aspects of the decision itself,
we kind of have that available information.
I think there's a separate one which Councillor Rawlings has brought up about, you know,
scrutiny and access to the sort of public information.
And of course, that's right and I've endorsed what Councillor Rawlings has said.
But in terms of the general thrust of the context in which we're taking these decisions,
I think it's very well known.
I think I'll add that individual cabinet members have weekly meetings with their directors
of which that is on the agenda.
They're not actually public, but give you an idea of what's happening.
Where I would disagree with you is you're almost saying that if you don't have up-to-date financial,
in public financial information, how do you make decisions?
My contention will be it's more important that we do make decisions.
We're working to a specific plan on making savings this year and looking at decisions for future years and so on.
And those involve decisions.
So the worst thing would be not to make those decisions.
That's the only way I would disagree with you.
I'm not saying we've got every bit of information we need.
But your question was how can you make decisions when you don't know?
I say we do know some things and we definitely can and will and should make decisions because we know what we want.
Thanks, Councillor Zink.
But obviously, as you're aware, a number of items on the agenda tonight are HRA items.
So they're out with the Scottish term outside the general fund situation.
And also, I think there are a number of disposals.
You've referred to one area which obviously are helpful in relation to the financial position.
Changing the subject to something that Councillor Schneiderman said in the 20 mile an hour policy.
We had an interesting discussion at the overview and scrutiny review of the policy.
And one of the questions that I asked was whether, in fact, it would be possible given the complexity of the procedure that is now proposed to achieve a single scheme in a four year council.
Councillor Schneiderman may remember me asking that question.
The executive director for highways responded that he hoped, yes, four years was far too long.
But he believed that it was somewhere between 18 months and two and a half years.
And those were the numbers that were quoted in the meeting.
I was therefore quite surprised in the paper to see Councillor Schneiderman as being quoted as saying that the expected time period for these schemes was 18 months.
And he hoped it could be less than that.
I just wondered whether he's aware of a single scheme proposed by residents in the last decade for a 20 mile an hour limit that has happened in less than 18 months.
I mean, the thing, the point about the policy that we're going to be discussing is not only to have the first time a dedicated 20 mile an hour policy.
And a clear process, but also with the intention that I hope things can be done quicker.
Now, when if after the consultation, this policy is adopted.
Yeah, I mean, some of these schemes, as you know, do take longer than what I would like and residents would like.
But I hope that once we've got this policy in place, it is possible to also to be able to do things a bit quicker.
There are various stages to the policy, but that's because, you know, I think that's an important part of it to mention that the board member involvement, then we need the consultation process and all of that does take a certain amount of time.
But as I say, I hope once it's there, we can do things quicker than has been done historically.
I'm sorry, I was asking a very specific question, which is we had a discussion of an overview and scrutiny group.
And the executive director responsible said 18 months to two and a half years.
But when it's appeared in the paper, it was reduced back to 18 months, there was no mention of the two and a half years.
And there was a suggestion in the paper that maybe it could be done quicker than that.
And I wondered what had happened between the discussion we had at overview and scrutiny and the production of the paper to change a very clear steer from officers to something which gives a completely different impression in the paper.
None of these things were, it's not a, there is not a set time scale.
There was, Mr. Edson gave an indication of how long he thought these things typically take and may take.
I said, I hoped it would be on the faster side of that time scale.
So nothing has changed since the scrutiny meeting.
It was just an indication of how it might, how long things might take.
And I say the same thing again today.
I hope it can be done on the quicker end of that time scale.
Every scheme is different depending on the size and other complexity.
So there are simpler schemes that can hopefully be done more quicker.
If a scheme is bigger and there are more complexity involved, it will take longer.
I mean, I don't think, I mean, I think that.
I understand that.
This is not about the time scale.
It's about the process whereby we have a meeting with officers and they give us an indication of what they believe the facts are.
And when the paper comes out three days later, it tells a different story.
And the point I'm making is that I don't think that's acceptable.
Because the spin that comes out of the paper on the time scale is different than the discussion we had at the meeting.
I agree with you.
We all want it to be done as quickly as possible.
And I'm sure that we will be working with officers to make that happen.
But that's not the point that I'm making.
Which section of the report are you talking about?
In the report, there is a section which discusses timetable and it talks about 18 months.
I haven't got immediately in front of me.
But it is different in tone to the discussion that we had with officers.
But look, I think I've made my point.
And so I'd like to move on to my final question, which is on the subject of libraries.
I've been back and researched what was said about libraries when we did the original cuts, starting in, well, I think the first discussions were around 2014 or maybe a little earlier than that.
And I concede that the cuts this time are only 250,000.
And back then we were attempting to cut two and a half million and closing some libraries.
But the reality is that at the time, the Labour Group were wholly opposed to the cuts that we were making and talked about the damage that those cuts were doing and the access hours.
And yet here we are and the Labour Group are proposing further cuts on top of the cuts that they so fiercely opposed and encouraged residents to oppose last time that this came up.
And I wonder whether this means, first of all, that they now acknowledge that the cuts we made were in fact necessary and appropriate.
The second thing, which I am very disappointed to note, is that although last time there was considerable discussion about the impact of the cuts on students, particularly preparing for exams, as some of them have been doing,
some of them still are doing at the libraries, and the importance for some of them of having access to the libraries over this period, so that they have a quiet space to work in preparation for their exams.
And I note that in the discussion of cutting the hours at which some of the libraries will be available to be open, there is zero discussion at this point.
And it's not even mentioned at all.
And I wondered, therefore, A, whether implicitly in doing these further cuts, the Labour Group has now bought into what we did in 2014 and thereafter.
And secondly, what consideration they gave, if any, to this issue of students during examination periods.
I was not actually a councillor at that time, but I very much remember my very first meeting with you to discuss the library situation.
I think if we think back to the cuts you were proposing and the cuts you did indeed make, there was, if I recall, you did not find such a solution.
I did read the consultation, or rather I arranged for a summary of the consultation to be produced for me.
And as I recollect, 858 people approximately responded, two thirds of whom responded to the consultation, and one third roughly was the citizen panel.
I do note that although the majority of people did approve, a significant minority of people did not.
But that wasn't the question that I asked you, because we did find ways, and I agree on some of them.
We worked together in Child's Hill because we were unique as a ward in having two libraries that were affected.
And we modified significantly the changes to the main library, and we worked quite hard to get a charity involved, which has continued on in relation to Child's Hill Library.
So we actually preserved both libraries in that ward.
But that's not the question I was asking, because you have not reversed any of the changes that we made.
And in fact, you are now increasing the cost-cutting in relation to the libraries in terms of reducing two of the things which you argued very strongly at the time we needed more of.
And therefore, to me, that is an implicit endorsement of library cost-cutting and no mitigation and no mention even of the issue of students and the problems that they have in the preparation for exams.
Can I just point out two things?
Can I just point out two things?
One is you mentioned your moves in 2014.
Well, 11 years later, another 10 years of austerity, a ridiculous farce of a financial event that pushed up interest rates and inflation, all have changed the circumstances.
And therefore, savings have to be made.
And the savings have to be made because of the mismanagement of the economy by the Conservatives nationally.
Locally, the difference is when we opposed it, we were opposing it in line with what people want and what they said they wanted, representing the people.
Now, you've seen the consultation again. We're doing what people want and representing the people.
And maybe that's something your groups would experiment with at some time, doing what the people want. Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes, I would just venture to suggest, because I realise time is passing, that you can't blame everything on national policy.
Some things are a function of what actually happens in Barnet.
And I go back to my point that nowhere in the paper, and I would ask you to consider this later when you discuss it, nowhere in the paper does it discuss the issue of students in the Easter summer period who are preparing for exams.
And we did look at making modifications to the opening hours and space availability to specifically allow for that issue. And it is not covered in the paper at all. So that is all I would ask.
Yeah, I don't know if you've conveniently forgotten that you did actually close the library in my ward. You closed it. And we actually went to court a number of times, so that the trustees and the volunteers won it back, and it is still now open. But you did close that library. It was absolutely ripped bare of everything inside it.
I am fully aware of that. But all I am saying is, you have been here for three years, and none of those cuts have been reversed.
Okay. Oh, that seems long. Anyway, if we move on the agenda, there are no petitions, no deputations. There was a public question.
If we have.
We have a conversation that you have heard about that. It was to do with an item on the agenda about the 20 mile an hour zone. I don't know if you want to say something counter-side then.
Well, I just want to say, well, I was going to thank Mr. Samuel for his comment. We are going to be discussing the 20 mile an hour policy shortly. So we will comment on it then. But I think that the rationale,
rationale for the way that we're doing the policy in relation to what Mr. Samuel said
is to concentrate on those areas where evidence shows there is a problem and residents are
asking for 20 mile an hour zones. That's the rationale for doing the policy comments as
part of the policy. But I don't know if nothing is sent back, does it, in response to the
public? There's been no matters referred to the executive and the consideration of the
reports of the opening scrutiny committee with the one report is being discussed as
part of the 20 mile an hour policy and after this we'll go to the discharge to
assess. Okay so do you want to introduce the item? Yeah, thank you, Lida. So yeah, it's great to be able to
bring forward the 20 mile an hour policy today. The key rationale for it is the need
to reduce speed. We know from lots of evidence that pedestrians being struck at
30 miles an hour have got 45% chance of being killed compared with and obviously
a higher rate if they're actually exceeding 30 miles an hour compared and that drops
down to 5% at 20 miles an hour. So the overall rationale what we're trying to do
here is to make roads safer for residents and that's what you know residents
residents tell us. The way the way that we're doing this policy is rather than
having a borough wide 20 mile an hour zone is to actually prioritise and focus on the
areas where evidence shows that there is a problem and where residents have
highlighted that there is a problem. This has been to scrutiny on a couple of
occasions and I think we had a very productive discussion at those meetings and there has been
general agreement I think that this policy is a good idea. There was some discussion about particular
aspects of it but the overall policy has been welcomed. In response to the scrutiny comments we have made some
amendments to further it stress the role of ward councillors in the process not only at the beginning but during the process as well as is the case with other
road safety other road safety schemes and we've just amended policy as well to include to emphasise the use of experimental traffic orders alongside
permanent traffic orders which just adds another layer of consultation so that residents are able to comment on a scheme when it's in place.
which is a double consultation because there would still be consultation up front. So hopefully if this is voted through this will go out to consultation and we'll have a clear process in place that residents will be able to go onto the website see the process demonstrate the support and make their application
and that will then be assessed and that will then be assessed and that will then be assessed and we'll be able to prioritise those areas and I hope we can start continuing in our aim to make Barnet a safer place.
Mr. Ed sir may have some comment on more detail on the policy but certainly is able to answer any more technical questions but yeah as I say this is something that's very important to residents and we've had some deputations on it as well and I hope if it's approved today it will go out to consultation and we'll get the chance to
Thank you sir.
detailed overview of the the actual policy um as uh other than as councillor snyderman said
we have at both stages overview and scrutiny actually updated the policy including quite
a rapid turnaround um when we had the meeting on the 13th um in order to reflect uh those measures
and because countersink can ask a bit about speed i think there's two things one in
it may well be decided that uh a limit rather than his own is appropriate presumably that
because you don't need the physical uh thing and also the difference between an experimental
traffic order and a traffic order also makes a difference to the level of conservation and time
absolutely uh correct uh leader um essentially just for clarity a zone includes a range of measures
so these could be vertical or horizontal measures and it's one of the outputs from overview and
scrutiny um there was a request to actually enhance the uh the clarity around vertical measures i.e
if you're um promoting it as a resident what does that actually so speed hunt speed cushions and those
sorts of things and the policy actually details those including pictures and the like and would make sure
that all the way through the process that people are very clear on what they're signing up to
in regards to limits ultimately that is signs and lines um the issue we have with signs and lines is
actually people's adherence to 20 mile an hour it's you know people know they're going into a 20 mile
an hour area um it's very clear it's whether they actually did to it because theoretically the idea
around the zone is actually measures i'd find to reduce that speed down to 20 mile an hour obviously
the other thing that uh the the authority is lobbying on as part of london councils is that potential
ability to introduce cameras and actually control and regulate as an authority which whereas at that
moment that is currently sitting with met police
i can say from a london council's point of view london councils are lobbying to have more power over
the feeding i think the difficulty is even like the money but also i think a local authority has the
power to find whether we want to take on the power of points and going to taking people to i i think
that's a contentious point but whether there can be some joint work but if it's purely speeding it could
be a local come on come on cancer's not come to us none of them brought a property wanted to show off
all i can say is there may well be 20 mile an hour side missing from one of our runs
so uh suddenly hands went up i'll do it from that way so councillor who's been radford and more just
my kind of comment as a ward cancer my my experience is actually road changes and can be challenging
because you'll get people on various sides of an argument about road changes you certainly have
those debates with the west finisher ward the one thing i think generally seems to have in mind
experience in my own ward sport is 20 mile an hour zone
you know track humps other things you know a other you know one-way systems all those sort of things
are more challenging but going down to 20 miles does seem to have general public sport an hour
goes to 30 miles an hour it's a real chain a significant effect on on injury and and
and good deaths and i think that's that borrows and i see
i endorse everything councilman just said um i would also add that um no it's not first it's uh um
i'd also add some clarity around the process is very welcome i think um certainly when i started
and people said how do i make my road a 20 mile an hour road um i didn't know the answer and this
is a very helpful thing to point to i should also point out that trying to make my road a 20 mile an
hour road was was the reason i so you've only got yourself to blame really it's why i started i ran for
to be a councillor so i think this is um both for on a personal level and on and speaking for my residents
too i think a big step forward so grateful for the work and yeah that was what was coming to it
i would certainly agree that um the views around 20 mile an hour has changed over the time we've been
councillors but i would welcome the intention to create a clear policy because i think that is really
helpful for residents to understand and um and actually to to have an informed discussion during
those consultations um as councillor schneideman said the 20 mile an hour um date that all the data
on on the impact um at 20 miles versus 30 miles an hour is very clear and it's very well worked
and therefore i think that has played very much into public perception and i would say that at a time
when we want everyone but in particular our children and our older residents to be and to stay active by
walking or cycling or whatever route actually that sense of being safe is a really important part of
encouraging people to do that and therefore i welcome uh this piece of work thank you which are
that cabinet approved publication of the draft barn at 20 mile an hour zone policy set out in appendix a
of the report for public consultation and the director of highways and transportation in consultation with
the cabinet member for environment climate change be authorized to arrange and progress a public
consultation with regard to the proposed barn at 20 mile an hour position then we go to isa 10 which is
the full of the task and finish group on discharge to assess and i believe councillor
uh good evening everybody uh i'm delighted to be here to present this report because i think it's a real
example of where task and finish groups can make a real difference to debate we had an extra review the
discharge to assess model i don't know if you remember but it was presented to cabinet in december
and forward to to the icb for comment and i'm delighted most of the recommendations have been accepted or
partially accepted by the icb where there are readmissions to hospital we're pleased that the icb
has agreed to present further data to this year and i was thinking about readmissions to hospital and
whether there are any analogies between readmissions to prisons but i'll leave that to you to decide
acute providers for barnet are mainly barnet hospital on the world free and step-down
hospitals such as finchley memorial edgware around 600 will go to nhs rehabilitation
2 300 will go home with short-term care and at the 200 weather health watch barnet reported that in
some cases people with dementia were discharged inappropriately and given that this is dementia
action week it's important that we look at that further evidence was also shared with health watch
in england but a third of all patients nationally were unprepared at discharge and this is extremely
important they were unprepared at discharge and there were real cases of problems arriving at that point
and over half were not given control home was an issue that came up several times
the task and finish group found the discharge medal however works well in barnet although and we can
probably agree there's no magic bullet but we want to res emphasize that once a residence has been in
hospital it's not the end of the story we put time for them a poor discharge process can mean at best an
unpleasant experience with long delay but at worst it can be much more serious and as a ward counselor and
looking at the counselors on sitting down i'm sure we've all discharged to assess
barnet has had one of the largest increases in patients discharged from acute hospital
increase and harring gave a three percent increase in absolute numbers nearly 30 000 people were
discharged from barnet following acute stay in 2020 given these statistics
the barnet health watch told us about people being left in the discharge lounge for lengthy periods of time
we felt it important to raise awareness among nhs staff that many people need help getting home
with the support they need in place very shortly after their return to ensure a safe and smooth recovery
we heard that forward planning including training for carers and better communication and signposting for
parents parents patient care and does help prevent this type of problem
and we wanted to stress barnet carers and our others are already doing some excellent to improve this
and looking at recommendations i think it's really important the involvement of carers and family members
in taking people home i'm concerned about the lack of transport and thirdly the need for better
interagency collaboration with hospital staff despite the added pressure from high discharge numbers
barnet social care provides good support with an increase in the number of people living independently 91 days after discharge
it doesn't help that barnet is not being properly resolved for its particular challenges
i think i'm echoing i think i'm echoing very much what um the cabinet member for adults was saying earlier
we are pleased to see the teams continue to work as efficiently as they can together and that the voluntary sector
in barnet is well placed to provide services
i really want to thank the partners who gave their time to provide evidence
james mass from barnet adult social care along with the team led very ably by dawn and jess
and i also wanted to thank mike rich from barnet carers helen newman the chief executive of barnet age uk
paul kennedy from the health directorate and jane d'orgia head of service
i also want to thank british red cross and the unplanned care team
in the discharge hospital at home service at barnet hospital and the north central division uh central
london community health care trust this is a very important issue and i think it was an excellent team
which worked incredibly well i'm only sorry that the conservative group weren't able to provide
um a member there and i have spoken to them because i think are we we really benefited by having their
involvement in the gp access report thank you very much oh thank you councillor sergeant um it's really
interesting to read the report i just wondered and you mentioned the numbers in barnet being higher than
elsewhere i just wondered if how how the issues that you know you came across in getting the evidence
compared to elsewhere i mean are there is there evidence from elsewhere are things being done
differently that like we could learn from in barnet and the central region i mean what we did do was
was very useful to hear what else was being done from some of the people who reported the icb
but i am concerned about this 17 increase which is one of the highest in london and i think we
need to use that figure to say really we need to look very carefully at what we can do to improve
discharge because as i said if it's done inappropriately it can lead to serious problems
i'm redwood
my question really comes to sergeant is you you talk about the numbers but the barney barney hospital
covers more than just barney in terms of patients using it so are those figures about barney residents
or are they about the total figures being discharged from barney hospital and if so how are we able to
discern how many are actually our residents i'll double check that figure for you
counselor edwards but even so it is it is very concerning i mean when we looked at the um
the figures for at the the scrutiny meeting that you attended the other night it was interesting to know
that the gps have more patients registered with them than there are residents in barney
i have a supplementary as well um oh yes so my recent experience so an admission into hospital and
somebody in my family is about to go into hospital and these are for day surgery appointments the nhs insists on
having somebody um arrive at hospital after your um procedure to assist you to um to go home and so in
in the numbers that we've got um is this a common practice or do people get discharged on their own
because in my experience is that they're not you you can't really be discharged on your own the hospital
doesn't know let that happen but i might be wrong i think the problem is there is variable discharge
i'm sure there are excellent examples we wanted to say that there are some examples where there
hasn't been coordinated uh response between staff and patients and carers and i know barney carers are
also looking at this as well
first of all i echo everyone's thanks for the work that's evidently been put into this by both
on behalf of members and and officers a slightly sort of orthogonal question to the report itself
i suppose which seems like it's been in the works for quite a long time and obviously a lot of work
has gone into it um reflecting on i guess on the process was it suddenly i guess 2023 at some point
according to the report was there something you can observe in terms of how we can turn around
this sort of thing more quickly going forward a very good question i'm afraid i don't have a brilliant
answer for that one but i think it's important to note that hiccups and the problems in that that is
causing this problem thank you cancer coakley webb that's exactly it and sometimes it works very well
and sometimes it doesn't and it all depends on the training of staff the training and work and that's
why um barnet carers are doing a piece of work on this to see if you can get it better joined up
i mean there are cases of people being ready to go at the beginning of the day and just being left
for a whole day waiting and there are other cases which um councillor edwards where it where it has
worked where it works well it's very good and obviously there's cases which are extremely serious
where it hasn't worked well and we need to get a higher number of it working well and i especially
given the how is that transport operating it varies
thank you i joined i was going to say it when i start i just say a bit about the about the cabinet
report but thank you and all the members of the task and finish group um because it was a very thorough
piece of work and uh this is a really important um area you know supporting effective discharge
where people are supported it's timely they have the right support and and one of your recommendations
that speaks to this and and they're actually discharged in such a way that they have post-discharge
support that means they're not uh readmitted is a really important area but um you've talked about a range of
areas um did you get a sense um did you have a chance to look at or or get a sense of um whether
there were particular groups of patients for whom there were difficulty those um who don't have um
family members you know it is my general understanding that people are are usually asked to have somebody
to come and support a discharge but that may not be possible for everyone did you get a sense of whether
there are particular groups of patients for particular challenges that we might want to be
aware of in future thank you very much for that question i think it is extremely important that um
we mentioned of course of the issue about people with dementia there's a particular issue there and
that's why i mentioned about it being dementia action week and if anybody can go to any of the event
mention action week and mention this it might be quite useful but what was so sad was somebody said to me informally
that they were asked as counter edwards said to bring somebody with them and some people said they had nobody to bring with them
um i mean that's it if that's it that's it can we the recommendation is that company is asked to agree the proposed responses to each of the recommendation
oh care if i may just briefly before the yeah i just to make the comments that all of the six recommendations are accepted um in whole or partially and the only reason for the for the partial acceptance of two of those by the council is just
because there's more work to do on it and i just want to uh also welcome the fact that the icb despite
um their reduct their um task of uh reducing their running costs by 50 percent by the end of the calendar
year have undertaken to bring back follow-up reports on a number of areas thank you thank you with that in mind
uh are we happy to agree the proposed response to each of the recommendations of the discharge to assess
task and finish group as set out in appendix base yep okay thank you and thank you very much it was an
excellent opportunity to speak to you all we move on to item 12 which is the library service budget consultation
um then if you want to introduce it thank you i will um i'll just introduce it by um by thanking all the
residents and the citizens panel for responding consultation to retain the home library service
and we will be able to transition any of those residents who are currently using the mobile library but
feel that they can't reach a static service point we'll try
we almost got away no no i was just going to say you know obviously there's this covers a number of
specific areas um but just want to um note that you will be continuing the the school library service
i assume but yeah the school library service is unaffected yeah and i say that as many of us are
school governors but i i happen to have had a governor's meeting last week at which the um benefits of the
school library service was being extolled by um by the um by the team in in the particularly
challenged school who are introducing a different um scheme and they've been able to access copies
through the school library service and how important that was thank you
i'm sorry councillor houston i just got a comment there that's all the recommendations i'd just like to
point out that recommendation two is also very important the first one might be about the savings
and what the toolkit but the uh uh reinforcement that we see you know a big future for libraries but
that doesn't include librarians not just buildings anyway the recommendations are that we approve the
budget proposal to discontinue the mobile library cease purchasing hard copy newspapers and slightly reduced
self-service opening hours but before core bus libraries and two that cabinet approved further
investigations to how staffed opening hours might be increased in the future okay are we happy to agree
both of those if we move on to item 13 which is the barnet group business plan this is one of three reports
that have exempt sections so i'll remind people that we would we should only ask questions or comments
to note on the public uh ripple at the end of the meeting the opportunity to go into an exempt session um to to note those reports
so with that caveat of um day it's fairly self-explanatory the budget sir goes through the various i mean barnet
barnet group is a complex in some ways uh instead of you know organizations that are part of the barnet group
uh one of those is your choice a barnet which there are elements of that that are commercial so that's
the reason why it's exempt and the rest are all very much around the the houses housing services which a
barnet group it's a it's a cancer very much based on a on a 50 year kind of a time span rather than the revenue
base base a barnet homes operates on a daily as a service a provider a but the group also has a you know
bumblebee and uh and sean is here to answer any questions county members might have a it is tight to keep
service as all council farmers those services within budget and equally as is the investment in new housing
housing and uh and another thing that's also important to point out is that the budget pressures
and the supply and demand pressures that are hitting all london boroughs and i think having
allocations housing not to say that we don't have the challenges still there i obviously this is the
the final year of the 10-year existing contract cabinet is there's there's a view on the way and
houses and actually you know that's a two-way process i'm happy to take a questions i i'm and also sean
is happy to stay yeah i think for me okay any questions or comments um particularly about the excitement
going around the barnet group as the ombudsman um but report maybe haven't you got the left right
um there's a couple of things i want to just on the key assumptions i mean it's one of the things it is
a forecast so you're looking for and you have to make assumptions um but if any of those assumptions
are a fair way out it does affect the overall bottom you know uh so for instance and i know uh pay
increases are down to the ball not down to the local government but the local government offer i know
is 3.2 percent it's not it's higher than that um but if there were concerns the concerns more about
interest rates and boran requirements rather than anything else no there's more than one than the
operating side i think if we sort of split those out so in terms of wage inflation the management
agreement um so the hra would pick up that differential um the interest rate dilemma is much more for
open door homes and would impact the acquisitions program which obviously would impact temporary
accommodation so um the open door business plan it has a maximum borrowing rate and they that board and
the council are aware if rates are above that we could not continue to progress and the acquisition
program the recent spike in the last couple of weeks around public works loan board interest rates
has taken us beyond maximum rate that the business plan actually stacks up so we do need interest rates
to come back down a little bit so that we can progress that
um yeah i mean i think the yeah the open door budget is very different from the other budget
i think one thing that i would say about this say last 10 years is that one of the things that
the good part of that is at least there you know there'll be cabinet cabinets just looking at similar budgets
at this time i've got a basically a lot of compliance issues that we haven't actually funded i and i can't say that
i would agree with them in that one but i think that's that's my impression talking to other
cabinet members so i think that you know we are in a steady position in that it is not
we have to produce a every five years i and obviously because of the local plan
being adopted in a slight delay in that i and we want it very much follows on from the adoption of
the local plan i and it's basically how we can how we consult with and engage with the community
in relation to planning and i and basically this is this is basically a document that we're giving the
approval to that to the public we're more leading planning authority in relation to that i there are some i
that's one of the things we've also looked at and just uh open it up for discussion uh councillor conway
um thank you i wanted to welcome it and also just to make the point that i'd uh emailed councillor
houston about which is just to propose a slight change in the last sentence on 2.9 point 2.9 um just
because it sounds like looking back so where it says the community participation strategy 2022 details for
corporate pathfinder projects etc etc instead of saying we'll explore new ways um just to say is
exploring and embedding or this is the statement of 32 seconds um it's a volume rather than a statement
um i don't know if any officer wants to add any comments on that
no further comment we're here for questions if you have any uh
uh
and there's offices who stayed up
welcome back to cabinet so we'll come back to cabinet it's a consultation council sniderman go on
thank you thank you um it's in it i mean obviously it's a very important document i wonder to what
extent do we think will any government that the changes that we believe government are making to
the planning process affect this document will we need to we need to make any changes to take account of
that um not in so far as it relates to consulting on policy documents or the planning applications
there might be some bits in the description on how we make decisions internally with our planning committees
that might need updating because the government will be consulting on amending um or actually
introducing um a national scheme of declaration that sets the type of applications going to committee so
that might need to be updated in the future but in the main no the planning reforms concerns other areas
of the service
and not go with the recommendations that uh company knows the contents of the draft
statement of community involvement appendix a approves the draft uh sci as the basis for public
consultation will return to the cabinet with the consultation responses
and delegates authority to the executive director for growth in consultation with the cabinet member
for homes and regeneration to make any necessary non-material changes to the draft sci in consultation with
the leader prior to public consultation that's quite a planning comment isn't it any non-material
anyway are we happy to agree those recommendations we are thank you
we move to item 15 and as previously this does have an exempt item uh and exempt appendices um
which are appendices d and e so if there are going to be questions could be on the public part
and this is to do with the uh coppies group yes the the the block house is at the top of coppies grove again
this instruction from council houston who we're keeping busy
yeah this is uh the the proposals on on the large panel system that there are there there's fire risks
and the the large panel system they need to be replaced that's a health and safety issue
uh but we we've had you know the the finances have been challenging so we've taken an approach over
the years to to take this forward bit by bit and get you know basically at each stage get the funding
in place to take us to the next stage and this is really the final stage before we put together a full
business case i and uh and i think this has been a real success story i think there's a number of
things about this report which uh which i would want to highlight but i think one of the things i would
say is that the a there is grant funding involved from the gla to social housing element of this we've also
from one public estate you know the demolition which do need to come down paid for so i one of the
things that we are looking at is to you know take this to the stage we need to go to planning go ahead
with this teamwork we've hopefully worked out that the final finance is found we paid for it is an hra
scheme i there's been a lot of you know good good cross council working i think on this and it delivers a
number of significant that that's been put in place on this scheme to help fund that because this is
not the final stage one of the things we can look at is flipping some of those units of the finances work
out to be better a when we come back to cabinet on this hey we can flip some of those units without
going back to planning and that's something we've done elsewhere so it is necessary now to go to the
demolition that's necessary now to go to planning i but the planning will be on the basis outlined in
the business the business case in front of cabinet hey but it is it is a you know we are able to push
the number of units up if we have the resources to do that it has been linked to the muscle site
and that's potentially one way to fund or subsidize a what we want to do at copies grove it could be
used by the provision housing in the bar one of the really big games of this you know basically the
these social rent units at the moment and five leasehold the necessary demolition of these blocks
has allowed us to look at increasing the density as well as a lot of you know significant
environmental improvements and the current proposals that will go to planning are for 37 social rent
so 10 and 20 made shared well one of the one of the existing leaseholders all five leaseholders have
agreed sale prices one of the existing leaseholders is actually going for our shared ownership option
which is a very i think a very innovative way of actually encouraging these holders to agree and be
comfortable with generation schemes they all of the all of the one of the really good pieces of work
that's gone on here is engagement with residents five the tenant properties still to decant or move the
tenants out of those decants have all been agreed so we're in a position where we're going to have a
vacant site and it's appropriate to obviously move in that brand hey so i'd really a what i think the other
thing that needs to be said about this the design of the site is that we're in order to questions and i
don't know for cabinet members but i think it's a let's say the full business case will come back to cabinet
anything you'd like to add or
uh no comments i think uh council houston is something very well
uh i have to be so we have to have started or got planning permission and it hadn't started by march
next year
yes it's basically yeah i don't know another thing to point out is there's no budget
uh at this stage there's no this to move to the next stage is fully fully budgeted and paid for
and also the other thing i should add is that the hra has built into it and that sean had a
there's no budget but when you're sitting next to council right but it's a bit of a risky game
down there the expenditure has already been approved and as say demolition is being paid for about one
public has been paid for not by the camp within the papers it talked about having uh contracted a
designer for muscle growth so are we going to be involved in the construction and then selling it
privately or working to develop or is that still one of the decisions to be made uh still under
consideration part of the options appraisal we've just brought it to cabinet for because we've discussed
it for consideration that we may uh sell the multiple growth site in order to be able to cross
subsidize the uh the redevelopment and the funding can be direct can be reserved to be used for the
copies grave or is it just that these things are going on at the same time um if there's a full up
there's a full business case to be brought back to cabinet so when we bring that back
be able to set out before you we are going to arrive at the funding in order to redevelop homes
bale and stanhope no decisions have been made as yet we've just set out in the paper some of the
options that are available to us at the present so it wasn't our property anymore which we don't know
so would the development at coppice grove actually increase the number overall but would they have the
option then to move back um so yes the number of units that we're going to redevelop will take into
account there's 32 at um copies at the present time we're proposing to build 57 there was four units at
moss hall grove three of them were tenanted and one of them at post-completion
the minute this is outlined that we need to get things moving because of grants and the demolitions
that basically okay now i've got that problem so i just say recommendations as on page or sort of
read them out i suppose i've read the others out of their reading that always happens with the
housing recommendations cabinet approves the outline business case for stanhope and holmesdale houses that
the copies of the coppice rover appendix i approves the submission of a planning applications for those
for those blocks the replacements delegates authority to the executive director of growth
in consultation with the cabinet member for homes and regeneration to authorize the commencement and
carrying out of the demolition work for stanhope and holmesdale house under the demolition contract
through a dedicated decisions report delegates the authority to executive director for growth in
consultation with a cabinet member for house and regeneration to instruct barnet homes to undertake the
procurement of the procurement of a delivery partner or a contractor to undertake the proposed delivery
options as set out in section 3.3.3 of appendix a to this report approves the recommendations to bring
forward a business case for disposal of the muscle growth site medicine contract and stonehope
also has been signed and entered into note the muscle grove options appraisal appendix two
and note the addition of 641 367 pounds the hra uh 25 budget funded by one public estate funding
brownfield releases fund phase two for demolition work so the recommendations are longer than the report
are we happy to accept those recommendations and i'll test that you remember okay if we move on to item 16
which is the disposal council and there's two here this is canada village young people's activity center
in the west engine regeneration carve out land the carve out refers to the land at first put aside
on the assumption of the school yeah okay
okay briefly and then you can correct me so i'm going to try to remember now the west ended site in the original
planning application action plan and all that had the provision of a school
of a school you can talk about introduce me every time i speak
not until i point it out yeah yes um
you know it's been decided that the the school well that the land there isn't either big enough or
suitable for uh uh uh to a full-time equivalent of two level cut couldn't fit in that site
uh the idea is to place it at that site to the residential provision uh for barrage
seeing it's within the the whole action plan so carve out is putting it back into the barrage
there are options to how of the buildings there but again it's quite a large affordable and social
housing element canada village is separate canada village um children except was was the library
uh central finisher library on hand and lay made the difference is canada village is one bus that
maybe goes near it exposures have i missed anything out there no thank you very much i think that's a very
good very good summary for something that's taken uh quite a lot of work and a bit of which is
they're not an insignificant number of social right homes as well as 118 new homes so that's 50 percent
and that's a real gain a for the borough and so i think it's a sensible it's by far the best use of
this land hey one of the options obviously is a big win i mean in relation to canada mother i think
he was a leader that's a very good way and i'm so very glad to see that you know the united synagogue
well i think i've visited them in the past and very clearly well used and well loved by them so it's
very good to see um are you ready i will be uh asking you later what i said right the recommendation
we're sent on the west engine regeneration the carve out notice to be served on bm llp in accordance
with the pda so we've got to go through to enter into an options agreement with bm llp to allow them
to acquire the school site subject to planning the purpose of delivering a mixed tenure housing scheme
including a community facility on the following basis that they will deliver about 118 new homes
with 50 being social rent so around 58 they will pay to the council a financial consideration for the site
went into a deed of variations of the pda master plan and the master program clauses as follows
a take account that the school site will not be developed for a school and would instead be
developed for housing and potentially community use as part of the existing regeneration of the west
end in the state decouple the timeline dependency between entering into the school site option
agreement and serving the phase three acquisition notice and i think that's important because
the school in some of the official documents to extend the period currently 30 days that the council and
bm llp have to enter into the options agreement following the issuing of the carve out notice to allow
sufficient time to prepare and finalize the agreement and also consider any objections in connection
with the intended proposals and to dedicate authority to sign off the deed of variation to the executive
director of growth in consultation with a covenant member for homes and regeneration
then to dedicate authority to the executive director of growth in consultation with a cabinet member
to take such actions community facility within the proposal subject to ongoing and future discussion
for various stakeholders and community groups to sign up the option agreement and any ancillary documents
that are required in order to give effect to the arrangements described in this report to apply for all
required statutory consents to appropriate the site to plan on canada billas the shorter one is that
cabinet approves to declare the site surplus and to dispose of canada village young people's activity
center firstly road mill hill nw7 2bu to united synagogue on an unconditional basis and to delegate
authority to the executive director of growth in consultation with the leader of the council to sign
up the contract sale transfer and any ancillary documents
the cabinet we know the cabinet forward plan which is key decision you then go to urgent business and
there is an urgent business which is item 17. yeah on the front it said there's an urgent item which
which is authorization to commence procurement of external passenger assistance for children and adults
yeah thank you um yeah you'll see from reading the paper that in order for the timeline that this is
urgent to come through this time for the procurement of external passenger assistance for children and adults
we need to make sure that we hit the time scale to listen forwards to the learning
centers that they go to one thing that i would like to point out though that was omitted and we
didn't really spot it until last minute now need to get it underway quickly
yes it's come to this meeting because the decision has to be made now in for the procurement timeline
you look like he's studying us very very hard um do we have any questions i mean in a way this is
a continuation of what's been going on but the previous contract is is going to run out and it's the
contract will be with bells but without without permission to go ahead uh is there any so you're
quite happy for us to keep neil there for a couple of hours and then not ask him anything okay well i'm
sorry i apologize for that um i'm just pleased it's a very short recommendation though later it is indeed
but if you could have a word with colleagues in housing about recommendations i'll be glad i'll be
very glad the recommendation that cabinet approve bills to commence the procurement of passenger
assistance for children and adults on behalf of the london barrow barnet agreed thank you
uh now in theory in theory we now move to the exact papers uh three often noted if people read them
and they're happy just to note them then we don't have to go into private session are we happy to know
exactly uh so you're all ecstatic so okay we'll come back on you okay well then um meeting's done thank
thank you
