Transcript

We're in tonight's meeting. We're not expecting a fire alarm test this evening, so if the alarm is sounded, please evacuate the building. As it is the first committee of the year, I will ask my fellow members and officers to introduce themselves, starting on my right. Good evening, everybody. I'm Councillor Saikapandor, and my ward is St Mary's and St James's. I'm Councillor Inesnes, you've got a voice, Armstrong, for Highbury. I'm Caroline Wilson, I'm Director of Inclusive Economy. Councillor Blay-Havdash, Highbury ward. Councillor Hiverspull, Slaycock ward. Councillor Toby North, St Peter's and Canalside ward. Assembly Richardson, Committee Services. And I should say that I'm from Cananbury ward. We've had a number of apologies for absence. We've had apologies for absence from Councillor Chowdhury, Councillor Ozdemir and Councillor McHugh. And we've had apologies for lateness from Councillor Ibrahim, Councillor Hayes and Councillor Croft. There are no substitute members. Any declarations of interest at all? No declarations of interest. Can we agree the minutes of the previous meeting? Chair's report, this is the first meeting of CREZ this year. Continuity from last year with a number of members remaining on the committee, but some new faces as well. So welcome Councillor North and Councillor Hamdash to their first meetings of CREZ. It will be obvious to, I think, your fairly light agenda tonight. The hope had been that the annual scrutiny report would be ready for tonight. It's not. There's a lot to pack into that report. And my view as chair is I'd much rather have a proper report to discuss than something that is a rushed report. There's also quite a lot going on in the complaints arena at officer level. And it will be good to have that reflected in the report. So that will come to the committee on the next occasion. Public questions. Don't expect any public questions. And just going forward for really the benefit of anybody watching online. Chair's discretion as far as public questions are concerned. We would very much welcome as a committee any public questions emailed or in writing in advance. It just helps us organise the meeting and have the relevant people to be able to answer the questions on hand. Items for call-in. There are no items for call-in tonight. And that brings us on to the formal agenda. Item C1, Membership in terms of reference report. Report is in the papers. All that we have to do as a committee is note the membership appointments made by the Council on the 15th of May 2025. The terms of reference and the dates of meeting of the Corporate Resources and Economy Committee for the Municipal Year 2526 has set out at Appendix A. I'm assuming that nobody wants to speak on this item so can we just formally approve that. That's agreed. Item C2, the scrutiny review report and recommendations. Those of you who were on the committee last year all made invaluable contributions to the scrutiny review report. The fruits of the scrutiny review are in the agenda papers. And I'd like to put on record the committee's gratitude to Samine for all of her hard work in putting together all of the contributions made by the witnesses and by the committee as a whole into what I think is a coherent report, setting out the evidence, setting out the recommendations of the report. And also thanks to the officer team, in particular Caroline Wilson, who has very much been the lead officer for the scrutiny review. I've asked Caroline to come tonight very much to provide us with an update on the review and talk us through any significant new developments and the next steps arising from the report on the, I suppose, hope and expectation that we agree the report formally tonight and the recommendations. Caroline, over to you. Thank you very much, Chair. So, subject to committee agreement, I would echo the Chair's comments around Samine's compilation of all of the evidence because it's been a really helpful sort of overview of all of the social value and good practice that is out there. I think also the fact that the committee has taken considerable time to consider the evidence and the various experts that we have brought to you, that gives it a real kind of importance within the organisation. and we will use that kind of importance as we discuss with officers in CMT and, you know, in the procurement board. The Chair had asked me to outline some immediate actions that we are taking and then that we propose to take over the kind of 12 months before we come back to report to yourselves. So, in terms of theme one, which covers your recommendations one and two, really looking at how we embed social value in the culture and procurement processes, we have already really kind of shone a light in terms of social value coming through the commissioning board. It's an area of challenge where we really scrutinise what officers are proposing to ask potential contractors for and we are developing, we have an operations group who are kind of a little bit like a dragon's den before they go into the procurement board to really kind of test and stretch what our social value asks are in any commission. And so we're really embedding that into the process of the commissioning board. And we propose our next step really to be around looking at a social value statement. So, to take some of the work from the committee and really articulate that in a very clear and communicable message to suppliers and to the wider community. So, we'll do that quite quickly. And we'll bring that through the procurement board and through CMT for their endorsement and really make sure that it's corporately owned. We're also at the moment looking at identifying social value champions through our category management approach across the departments because we really feel this has to be owned within departments and by the commissioners. So, we'll do that over the next couple of months and really engage that group to kind of tell the stories of social value that we're extracting as part of our commissioning process. In terms of training, you know that we've gone through a lot on the Procurement Act 23. So, we're now in the process of developing e-learning modules around social value and really kind of lifting our game on what that looks like. So, that's kind of a broad area around alignment. In terms of stronger governance, we've reinforced the procurement board's role. We've had a review of the procurement board's role in line with the various constitutional reviews that are happening at the moment and financial regs and so on. But we're really strengthening it in terms of social value oversight as well. We are proposing in the next couple of months to define what KPIs are in terms of social value, really looking at kind of what is the resident impact that has been generated by this scrutiny process. And we've started to develop an asks list so that we have a bit of a kind of ready reckoner of a shopping list that people, when they say, oh, we don't know what to ask for, we can say, well, here are 40 ideas that we can present to you. So, then the kind of really key thing, I think, that has come from the committee is really looking at the robust measurement and tracking of social value so that whenever it goes through in commissioning, that social value is then captured as part of a KPI and then we are able to generate the report that you are seeking within 12 months on all of the value. We're exploring the expansion of the use of social value portal across other contracts. As you know, we use it in affordable workspace and we propose now to use it across higher value contracts within the programme. And that will generate a financial proxy at the end of the year to say that we have spent X as a council but we have generated an additional value of X as well. One of the other recommendations of the committee was looking at a social value fund. So, we will look at the feasibility of that and what that looks like in terms of our governance and the transparency rules around that, which are really, really important, obviously, to us. So, that's a general flavour of what we're going to do around governance. In terms of collaborative working, this is really looking at how we work with our anchor institutions and how we engage with the London Anchors Institution Network, both of which have procurement subgroups within those areas. So, we'll look at how we can engage our anchor institutions into things like the London Responsible Procurement Network, which, again, raises the game of all the commissioners in London. We're proposing to hold a roundtable with local businesses to really look at what are some of the barriers and what are some of the enablers that we can put in place around social value. And then, finally, is telling the good story. So, really around promoting the benefits of social value, creating a communications plan, looking at case studies. I mean, the committee were particularly interested in some of the case studies we presented. So, how do we continually tell that story throughout the year, but also then culminating in terms of an annual report to the committee on the additional social value that has been generated? So, Chair, those would be what I propose as the initial actions. I'm very happy to take questions for further detail. Any questions from the committee at this stage? There's one from me, and it's possibly one for Sammy to answer, rather than you've sort of put you on the spot. But it's really about what happens next procedurally in terms of this scrutiny report. Because, as I understand it, the report goes to the executive to consider. They accept or reject the report. And then it comes back to this committee for a review to see what progress has been made. And just in terms of timetabling, when would we expect the executive to consider this report? Just thinking in terms of, I'm talking a couple of months, three months? Sorry, I'm not sure actually that's what I'm going to have to come back on. But it's just so that we as a committee understand the process. But because the recommendations have been so positively embraced by the Community Wealth Building team, effectively, Caroline, what you've said tonight in summary is, we're cracking on with it. Well, just to say that I have spoken to Councillor Bell Bradford, who gave his apologies for this evening. But he is very supportive of the recommendations, without speaking for him, and without speaking before the executive. Informally, he was very supportive of the recommendations and sees the value of actions around those. And he thinks it's really generated a really positive conversation within the organisation about what we do next, particularly in terms of that robust management and measurement, and ultimately telling the story of what we're doing for local residents and local businesses. Thank you. So unless anybody wants to make any final contributions, what we formally have to do tonight is agree the final report, and agree the recommendations at pages 27 to 30 in the agenda pack. I'm not going to go through them one by one, we'll take them on block. Can we agree the final report, and agree the recommendations? Agreed. Thank you for that, and thank you, Caroline, for all of your hard work in really coordinating the scrutiny for the committee. Thank you. And of course, no obligation to stay. I feel like I should stay until half ten. Don't worry, we'll be back to the half ten meetings. Nope. Ten o'clock is the expected cut-off going forward, but we don't curtail discussion here. Do you want anyone to speak to the proposed scrutiny topic? Sammy, helpfully reminds me that the next topic that we're going to be discussing is our scrutiny for next year, and it may be that you're able to assist a little bit with that. Don't feel under any obligation, having let you out of school early, but the next item is the selection of the main scrutiny topic for this year. Each year, this committee, in common with all of the scrutiny committees at Islington, has an overarching scrutiny topic that amounts to a deep dive into an area of work, be it an area of the council's work, or a more broad policy issue. In advance of the meeting, I canvassed with the committee some ideas, and encourage the committee to contribute some ideas to what the scrutiny topic should be for this committee for this municipal year. It's the fourth year of this composition of the council, and it's always the case that because we have elections in May, the one thing we want to avoid is a scrutiny that is half-completed by the time that council effectively dissolves, and we all go our separate ways. So, historically, the scrutinies in the fourth year are perhaps more compact and self-contained because we simply cannot have a situation where the scrutiny is not concluded within the municipal year, and I say that very much for the benefit of the committee. I'm grateful to all the committee members that have submitted suggestions. Broadly speaking, there have been three strands. I'm going to bring Councillor Jekyll, Arthur Salmström, in first because he was fine enough to submit a suggestion in advance around waste management and recycling. The view that I have taken as chair is that that is probably something more appropriately dealt with by Councillor Hayes' committee. Not that that necessarily will be the scrutiny topic. That's very much Councillor Hayes' domain. But the way that we structure scrutiny committees is that there are particular committees focusing in on particular areas of the council's work, and that's where the expertise lies. So, the officers who are most involved on that side, I think, will typically be attending the Environment Committee. But I said I'd give you the opportunity to say a few words. Thank you, Chair, and I take the arguments that you made as well, but I think, just reflecting on that, so two years ago, we did have on the Environment and Security Committee a topic where we looked at the circular economy, and it was very big picture things, and I think that was quite appropriate for that security committee to be looking at that level. I think what I'm kind of asking for here is a deep dive where instead of looking at the circular economy, we specifically look at an area of waste management, which touches every single resident in our borough individually, but also globally in terms of the impact on the planet. And I think we've got the power to bring the right people in. I think we've got the experience here as well to focus on that. And when we look at the areas where the council is underperforming, whether it's five missions or whether it's the delivery plan, it is the greening together, where we're currently underperforming in terms of our recycling rate, and for every percentage that we can recycle more, the council can save £60,000. So when we are looking at the cuts further down the line, well, this could be saving services further down the line or potentially creating opportunities to invest money. So I think, well, I'll take your point, and if we don't choose it here, it would be amazing if the Environment Committee chose to look at this topic, but I think it's a really important topic to get on top of and we've stagnated for the last 15 years. So hopefully we can have a step change in that. I was fortunate enough, as I know you were, to be in a meeting less than an hour ago where the council was setting out its ambitious plans to really kickstart recycling and push forward with the work that we are doing. And it may well be a really good topic to come back to in a year's time once we've seen how the new strategy has played out. And I'm sure on Councillor Hayes' committee, it will be a lively topic of discussion. But that really brings us to, I think, two strands that have come out in the discussions that we've been having. Firstly, I desire to have a good look at what we are doing as a council to tackle, the phrase of ideas is long-term poverty within the bar. In 2022-23, the forerunner of this, the pre-sets of this committee had a detailed scrutiny on the cost of living crisis. But that was very much focused in on the immediate, the consequences of COVID, the energy price shock, and how we could provide immediate assistance to our residents. And indeed, we'll be getting a report back on that scrutiny later on in the year. But as a council committed to tackling inequality and tackling poverty, there has been a groundswell, we ought to be having a look at what we are doing on a more long-term basis to tackle poverty and inequality, very much as a companion piece to the work that we did in 2022-23 and building upon that. There's also a genuine concern around perhaps unrepresented groups and vulnerable groups within society, how they are able to access and benefit from council services. To give some examples, first-generation disabled residents, LGBTIQA residents, elderly residents, marginalised communities, and my thoughts at the moment is that with a bit of compositing, to use a very sort of political word, there's commonality between the two strands and a scrutiny that looks at what we are doing to tackle poverty and inequality. But perhaps focusing in on particular communities may be a way of having a really focused scrutiny that we will be able to complete by March and will be able to shape the thinking of the council, both this administration, whatever administration we have in 2026, and of course the senior leadership team at officer level, in some long-term joined-up thinking about working towards 2030 and making a real contribution of tackling poverty and inequality. So those are my initial thoughts and what I'd really welcome now are contributions from the committee in the hope that we can agree. Scrutiny topic and some pointers for the scrutiny initiation document. Time is short and I'm very, very keen to come out of the meeting tonight with a very good steer for officers around what our scrutiny topic is going to be and what it's going to look like. And what I will do, allow everybody to make a contribution as to what their thinking is and then I will bring Caroline in because particularly on poverty, I know that there's been some thinking already at officer level and I know you're keen to speak to that. So I will take, Barney then, in fact what I'll do, let's take it round the table and I'll start with Councillor Hamdash. Thank you very much. I think that's a really helpful compensating and I appreciate the thought that's kind of gone into that. I wonder whether, just to maybe add a little bit of a build, I wonder whether it's specifically looking at who are, isn't in the most deprived communities and actually identifying what they look like and what their experience of councils or services are because I do think that there will be some communities that are particularly overrepresented and there's a little bit of understanding to understand that and those barriers and those that are in long-term poverty and then to look at the issues that might address those and might be the build and I hope that's helpful. I think I'll echo what Councillor Hamdash has said and I absolutely agree with you, Chair, with the scrutiny topic. I think it ties together very nicely what we've done before as well. So before on this committee, we did the scrutiny into complex antisocial behaviour. We know that complex antisocial behaviour often affects the most vulnerable in our borough, but also are people that suffer the most, whether that's homelessness or whether that's people with mental health issues or whether that's the elderly as well. So I think it actually very nicely brings together what we've been looking at. I also think, particularly when we've been looking at budgets and we've been looking at finance, work around the income maximisation team has been incredibly helpful and the support that I think this committee has shown for that team has been invaluable. So I absolutely agree. I think diving down into who can access our services where, what work has been done around that, why are those communities suffering how they are, why maybe are they not getting the support that they need at the time, what are the barriers there, would be quite helpful within that. But I do think that this ties together very nicely of what we've done before on the committee and it also has, hopefully, KPIs that will go alongside it, which makes it easier for us to also assess. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you, Chair. I think I would support your suggestion around a scrutiny that focused on addressing poverty and action in place there. I think to offer a counterpoint between the work, the good work that's been done by this committee or its predecessor before, which focused very much on a crisis response, I would hope that we could look at actions and initiative to address the financial security of both the most economically deprived groups, but also other marginalised groups in our borough. And I think there's a really good opportunity to look very closely at the data in terms of identifying who those groups are. I suspect we will have a very good idea in our heads, but it's good to test that. Look at the actions across, whether it's early intervention, prevention, direct financial support, all the other areas of council work that interact with those groups and have a focused look at that specifically. But hopefully that would tie together some of the suggestions that have been made. I absolutely support this work. I think it's imperative, it's important. Marginalised groups obviously don't reach out. One of the reasons is under-representation. And absolutely, I recommend it. And I want to see the communities reach out and get the services they deserve. And even when it comes to casework, there's always the same people that reach out to councillors. So where are the communities that don't know that their councillors exist? So absolutely, I recommend it. Thank you, Sharon. I think austerity has entrenched poverty for a long time now. Islington does have the fourth highest child poverty when housing costs are taken into account. And I think I'd like to speak to that point. I think when we are talking about different communities, it would be amazing if we can speak to young people, again, as a child-friendly borough, that we can give them the opportunity to speak up and give them those opportunities. I think with the government's child poverty report coming up in autumn, again, when we are looking at timings of meetings, I think that might be quite in sync to be able to hear from that and then potentially feed into our recommendations as well. Thank you very much, Chair. I would also support this. I take Councillor North's suggestion that we perhaps look at some of the data to identify which of the groups. I mean, children is clearly a significant group with opportunities to hear directly from people. I know in some of the work that was done before, it was identified there was £150 million a year unclaimed, which could be going directly into the pockets of residents. So I'd be very keen. I suspect a lot of that is around disability, but not all. I think I particularly liked Councillor North's suggestion that we use some of this to look at how it might shape priorities for the council, direction of spend, services that we might need to refocus or to look at how we could increase capacity. But I think that would probably also pick up that idea of looking at the barriers that particularly groups face. I'm conscious that, for example, people with no recourse to public funds, you know, will face some very different challenges around poverty and the solutions there might be quite different. It would be interesting for us to look at where there might be some relatively quick wins and where we might need to focus our own resources because there are some more endemic challenges. So I think it could be a very interesting piece of work. I do entirely take the point about our recycling rate. Obviously, the Environment, Climate and Transport Committee will be looking at its scrutiny topic, but certainly that is work that I would be very keen for the committee to have a particular focus upon in the coming period. Thank you all for that. And I'm sensing a great deal of consensus around what we want to look at. I'm going to bring Caroline in now because I think it would be really helpful to hear from an officer perspective where we are at the moment and what perhaps would be useful for us to focus on very much from your perspective, having been doing some work in this field. Thank you very much, Chair. Yes, I mean, it's very encouraging to hear the kind of views of committee regarding this. So we have been doing some initial work. We brought in a series of critical friends where we asked them to critique our approach to supporting residents in poverty. And the good news is they were very positive about the work that we were doing and they really felt that Islington was very much a leader in terms of our approach to really supporting and helping residents into financial resilience. Notwithstanding that, we decided we weren't going to sit in our laurels and kind of pat ourselves on the back. So both with the senior, with the corporate management team and with the executive, we've been looking at kind of what do we do next in terms of how do we up our game again. So we're at the moment looking at a series of priorities around the enhanced resident experience and really, you know, speaking to your comment, councillor staff, around how we treat residents and how one of the reflections from one of the critical friends was around the dignity of enabling residents through that journey of support. And so I think there is something very deep around the resident journey and that, you know, Councillor North's point about young people. I think that would be interesting to hear kind of what their experience of that support is in Islington. We're looking at how we maximise benefits and entitlements and really going after that money that should be in the pockets of our residents. So looking at how we can upscale things like the benefits calculator, but also how do we work with our partners in the voluntary and community sector and really make sure that we're all singing from a single hymn sheet. We're looking at the issues around managing and reducing debt and particularly, you know, where that involves council debts. So how do we support residents and prevent residents getting into debt in the first instance? Obviously, we've got employment support, so we have a large programme coming up this year with Connect2Work and how we support those patients or have disabilities. And that connects to a piece of work that we did recently or two years ago now with London Metc University, which really sought to get under the headlines of kind of our target cohorts. So we had, as you know, in employment support, we target particular groups. So one group was around global majority residents, but then really looking at kind of what are the differential impacts in different groups within that kind of global term. And so, and that helped us look at things like intersectionality in terms of what the experience of Bangladeshi men was, you know, as a difference from Afro-Caribbean men. And so that helps our outreach piece. So there's possibly something around that that will be useful. And then really looking at the food offer and the food partnership. That's a piece of work. So, Chair, I mean, I think it's a huge topic and you have, you know, essentially six months. I think there is something very specific around that customer or resident journey through our services and the different experiences of different groups within that. And are there barriers that we should be really looking to overcome? Because I think there's a real openness to the model of council services and how we really, in terms of that resident experience piece, how we really reach those residents who need support the most. So, trying to pull that all together, if we have the headline of supporting residents to financial resilience as a sort of overarching headline name for the scrutiny, unless anyone can come up with something better. Thank you, Caroline, for that. That was really helpful. I think the clear sense that I am getting is that we want our focus to be on identifying the barriers, identifying those residents, those communities that maybe we could be doing more for and improving our outreach, our offer, and then getting some evidence together for how we can, as Councillor Hayes says, get some quick wins in place. We are not going to be able to sadly take evidence probably from every single marginalised community. What we can, I think, do, just thinking about timetabling, is if we can, over the next few weeks, get the scrutiny initiation document drafted, but also prepare a reading list and get some documentation over for the summer holidays, that way we can, through the summer months, because after our July meeting, there's a gap through to September, perhaps have a conversation amongst ourselves around, okay, what evidence do we want? What do we want to focus in on as part of the evidence process? And whilst I'm very conscious that we do have to line up witnesses, there is an extent to which I think to begin with what we'd want to know about is the research and data that has been done so far internally, because there's clearly a big body of material that has been accumulated over the last couple of years, just in terms of what our current offer is, how are we reaching our communities, what is the evidence so far as to those communities that maybe we are struggling to get the same level of take-up of our offers compared to other communities. And then, over the summer, we can have a continuing conversation, I'll try and work out the best platform for that, around who we actually want to hear on and what we want themed evidence sessions on. We're probably talking about no more than three evidence sessions, plus a couple of visits or sessions outside of this formal committee. So, like with the last scrutiny, where we went to affordable workspaces and had more informal visits as part of the evidence gathering process, we can do as much or as little as that as we want as a committee and I've got no difficulty with subgroups within the review. That may be something that we have to think through constitutionally how that works, but there will be particular areas of interest for members and I think it's really important that we facilitate that within the confines of the resources that democratic services have because we're a formal committee and everything we do has to be recorded and reported. But does that seem like a way forward? Can I stand Dash? Not very good at that. Thank you, Chad. I think that's a really helpful steer and a clear sense of direction. I do wonder between July and September it's a very helpful window. I wonder whether we might be able to ask some of our brilliant VSE sector to maybe submit written evidence in that summer so that when we came back in September if we're asking various community groups what their experience with capital services are, what are their barriers to financial resilience in their communities actually we can come back in September and maybe look at some of that evidence that they've submitted and think about a bit of a deeper dive from there. I think that's a really helpful suggestion and perhaps in advance of the next meeting really to help democratic services with the arrangements for that. if a list of stakeholders can be prepared and I think probably the easiest thing is email them in to me cc'ing Sammy and then we can perhaps agree in advance of the next meeting just a list of people to invite written submissions from. I'm all for written submissions it really helps with managing the evidence load and also means that we can read it all in advance so I'm very happy to do that and if there are any suggestions from the committee of individuals or organisations that would be of value in the evidence gathering process again get them to me and cc Sammy in and we can have a discussion in advance of the next meeting as to okay how we structure this how we make this work would it be helpful to have some particular questions that we want to ask them as well that was crossing my mind at that point as well but yeah again with the email suggestions about who want to ask I'll give it some thought but it would be really great if we can have contributions from the committee and then we'll do some more compensating yes you picked up part of what I was going to say I think just because some of our VCS partners will have very extensive data sets maybe something that not only structures questions so that we can get evidence that we can do something with but perhaps also some guidance to them about what level of detail we're looking at and what they would see as priorities because I'm also conscious that they've got a lot of frontline pressures on them so trying to shape that effectively I think would be very helpful but it would be a great idea so just thinking practically next meeting 3rd of July ideally I think if we can have everything a week or do you need it two weeks before that a week before five work days for the dispatch is like the and then yeah we'd need some extra time building extra time tonight so thinking about that could we look striking while the irons at for everything by the 20th of June into me and Sammy so that's two weeks tomorrow that way we can have an initial look at things and get something into the agenda papers even if it's only a very bullet point this is our thinking but it will also help shape the SID so it's good in the initiation document for the uninitiated but I think that's a sensible timetable and I'd really welcome from the community wealth building team and indeed across the three directorates that this committee in particular covers any thoughts on a what we should be voting on but also if there is a list of this is the evidence that we've obtained as a council over the past 18 months two years that the committee could draw upon that will be really useful because the one thing I don't want to be doing is duplicating work that's already been done I'm going to turn to is that a good enough steer for what you need and if not tell us now because you're the one who's got to do all the hard work on this and far better would we thrash it out now than in a couple of weeks time yeah I think it would just be a very basic scrutiny initiation document if we've not really framed like a lot of the kind of main points of the discussion and we're still investigating things through the voluntary sector organisations I have no difficulty with it being a fairly concise and very scrutiny initiation document at this stage because I think our thinking is quite nascent at the moment it needs to be really focused so we do get a scrutiny that delivers in March and I don't see constitution there's any great difficulty with it being a fairly concise scrutiny document to be effectively perfected following on from the July meeting and published thereafter if there's a problem with that let us know and we can always put something together probably the two of us for the first dispatch or the second dispatch for the next meeting but I sometimes think we get a little bit too down in the weeds in scrutiny initiation documents and sometimes with scrutinies you have to go where the evidence leads you rather than being too prescriptive at the beginning with that as a plan in action and perhaps if we can pick up next week with a discussion at some point about how it's going to look like and then that way if there are complications that you haven't thought of at this stage I can let everybody on the committee know and we can work on it so that it's all ready to go for the 3rd of July and whilst everything has to be recorded everything we have these meetings in public for a reason I'm a great believer in the committee doesn't just work at its meetings it works through the year and that's the way that we will operate okay so are we all happy with that as a course of action Cass Vandal so you guys are going to create the questions for us to ask organisations what would be really helpful is before the 20th of June if everybody could a provide a list don't have to be everybody but really good a list of A VCS organisations or other individuals or bodies that in particular may have a unique perspective to bring to the discussions that we're having and also questions that you would like answered bearing in mind that any questionnaire we send out has to be A not so onerous that nobody will respond so I think we're looking at no more probably than six or seven questions to go out generally and is universally applicable sorry I'm thinking aloud a little bit here but I'm kind of conscious that there's a number of smaller groups who might struggle to provide in depth evidence but I'm almost wondering whether we might want to talk to voluntary action Islington for example about a kind of multiple choice survey which is kind of what three issues do you think either which three communities do you work with that are most affected by enduring poverty what thoughts do you have about strategies but then invite more in depth evidence from the organisations that are likely bluntly to be better resourced and to have a richer data set and to have somebody who would have capacity to respond and who might have a very specific anti-poverty remit themselves I mean you've got so much experience in the sector and one of the great things about this committee is everybody brings their own individual experience their expertise into it so I think what I'm going to ask is in particular that you give some thought to the best way of reaching out and if you could circulate that to the committee just not picking on you for any other reason than your years of experience in the sector is invaluable in just thinking okay how are we going to get the best range of responses the best quality of responses without overburdening already very busy organisations and I know and I know others on the committee work in the voluntary sector or work in other roles where they have really good access so please any suggestions let's keep the conversation going on that but it is I think a pretty hard deadline on the 20th of June to go and get things in and I'll chase you up I'll probably send a reminder next weekend just to see how we're getting on okay there with the selection of the scrutiny topic I think we've formally got asked does the committee agree for this to be the topic of its 2526 review I think we're there the monitoring of items I intend taking formally but as I said in terms of the work programme work life balance we have to just keep a watch on our programme there's always a temptation to add more and more agenda items we should cover everything that's our role on this committee but equally if there are when you look through the forward plan items that you think why is this on here let me know we'll discuss it we will review it we want to keep these meetings manageable and we want to make sure these are meetings where this law diminishing returns after half ten any final comments on work plan or any other item before we wrap up the meeting no and something anything that I formally need to do before I close the meeting in which case thank you all next meeting 3rd of July and that concludes our meeting this evening you