The Corporate Resources and Economy Scrutiny Committee met to discuss the annual complaints report, corporate performance, the budget outturn report, and a scrutiny initiation document. Councillors reviewed the council's handling of complaints, noting improvements and areas for further development, and examined corporate performance data, highlighting successes and challenges in various sectors. The committee also scrutinised the budget outturn, addressing concerns about planning income, council tax collection, and specific capital projects, and agreed to a scrutiny initiation document, outlining key areas for future investigation.

Annual Complaints Report

The committee reviewed the annual complaints report, which detailed the council's progress in improving complaints management. While there had been a slight improvement in the number of complaints, the majority related to housing, particularly delays in housing repairs. Response times to stage one complaints had improved, but were still not meeting targets.

Councillors raised concerns about the culture of responding to member inquiries, with Councillor Nick Wayne, Chair of Corporate Resources and Economy Scrutiny Committee, noting that responses often did not address the inquiry or answer the resident's concern. He asked:

What is the work that's going on around culture?

Officers acknowledged that it was not just a system issue, but a culture and quality issue, with a need for a sense of urgency. They noted that they were using artificial intelligence (AI) to check the quality of responses, including whether the question at hand had been answered.

Councillor Toby North raised concerns about the number of stage one complaints where the reason for the complaint was not captured, hampering the ability to monitor and have oversight of those complaints. Officers responded that they would need to go through a long-winded process of looking at those complaints and assigning reasons, as part of their improvement plan.

Councillor Heather Staff, Chair of Licensing Committee and Migrants Champion, asked whether the AI also included things like looking at the empathy of a response, as she had experienced dismissive tones in responses to members. Officers responded that they were trialling AI-driven WhatsApp engagement for housing repairs, which was proving to be incredibly sensitive and empathetic.

Councillor Gulcin Ozdemir, Chair of the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee, noted that she had seen an improvement in empathy in emails, with emails now starting with reflecting back the problem and apologising.

Several councillors raised concerns about complex cases and how to keep track of them, with Councillor Dash Doherty saying she used her own spreadsheets rather than the system. Officers responded that they were planning to deliver a dashboard within the system so that councillors could keep track of their own casework.

Councillor Flora Williamson said that she had been a councillor for three years and had spent that time apologising to residents. She found the case system very clunky and asked residents to keep in touch with her in case they did not get a reply from the council. She felt that officers needed to look at cases on a case-by-case basis and tailor their responses to the resident.

Councillor Ozdemir noted that when a casework was responded to and the officer asked to close the case, the resident would often reply back, and it would be logged as a new casework. She suggested that there should be a mechanism to leave the case open if it was not fully resolved.

Councillor Ruth Hayes, Chair of Environment, Climate Change and Transport Scrutiny Committee, raised concerns about the increase in the rate of stage two complaints that were upheld or partly upheld compared to the prior year. She asked what learning there was from this. Officers agreed to take that away and issue a response to the committee in terms of the reasons for the increase.

Councillor Douglas Armstrong noted that the council had invested a significant amount of money in improving the complaints process, but there were still delays. He asked whether the council needed to invest more. Officers responded that they were looking at the size of the team and the throughput of the team, and where there may be efficiencies that could be offered through the better deployment of technology.

Councillor Jilani Chowdhury gave an example of a complaint against a social worker where the manager blamed a third party without discussing the matter with them first. He asked how the council could assure that this would not happen in the future and that the quality of complaints handling would be maintained. Officers responded that it was not appropriate to point to the third party, especially before knowing who was involved or what the issue was.

The committee requested a written update in September on the plan to resolve the backlog of complaints and to prevent future backlogs.

Corporate Performance Q4 2024-25

The committee reviewed the corporate performance data for the fourth quarter of 2024-25. Jan Hart, reported that the council was largely on track and delivering across the delivery plan, with strong performance across missions and delivery plan priorities.

She gave particular examples of doing particularly well in the Community Wealth Building area, exceeding targets by supporting over 5,500 residents into work and over 700 into apprenticeships over the past three years, and securing over £8 million in additional benefits in the past year alone. She also noted that Livable Neighbourhoods now cover almost one quarter of the borough, and the council planned to move 700 new trees, exceeding their ambitions.

She also noted that Islington had just been ranked the top forming single city council in the UK for the whole climate action scorecard.

Councillor North asked about the next steps and timelines around DP11, which is establishing a long-term approach to tackling the underlying causes of poverty and economic wellbeing. Officers responded that they were currently working on a poverty strategy with quite a bold ambition, and that the screening review would be really useful as part of that.

Councillor Staff drew attention to DP7 and welcomed the additional grants to work on benefits, particularly the team undertaking case work, the no recourse to public funds team.

Councillor Hayes asked about the 4.2% of Islington homes that do not meet the decent homes standard¹, and whether those homes might be prioritised for funding from the Warm Homes Fund. Officers responded that they were in the process of finalising their big green homes SPD, which brings together lots of thinking around how to decarbonise homes.

Councillor Ernestas Jegorovas-Armstrong asked how the council was progressing in changing the culture within the council where more people are allowed to try things out and take risks to see whether it has an impact. Officers responded that there had been a real shift moving away from just numbers and towards making sure those who are furthest away are the ones they are bringing closest towards the job market.

Councillor Saiqa Pandor, Women and Girls Champion, asked how the council was getting the voice of young people into the indicators and into the change within the portfolio. Officers responded that they worked incredibly well with the children's team to make sure the ideas of supporting people into education is embedded early.

Councillor Nick Wayne asked for some reflections on where the council was with the Islington Working Partnership, and looking forward to next year where they thought they were going to be. Officers responded that they had exceeded their four-year target to get 5,000 people into work, but had not met the targets for this year because of the India program ending prematurely and being in between two programs.

Councillor Pandor said that she wanted to hear the voice of residents that are volunteering in the borough, and would like to have a strong connection with the portfolio with organisations like Parent House and Home Start. Officers responded that they do work very closely with the BCS sector and that they are very good at providing lots of this support themselves.

Budget Outturn Report 2024-25

The committee reviewed the budget outturn report for 2024-25. Rachel Harrison, Deputy Director of Finance, reported that the directorate's position ended the year at £15.6 million overspend, broadly in line with expectations at Q3. There was a favourable change within corporate items between Q3 and the out-term, resulting in less corporate contingency being required to balance the out-term position. The council was then able to transfer £5 million contingency budget into general balances to help further strengthen the council's financial resilience.

Children's moved from a forecast balance position at Q3 to an underspend of £1.1 million at the year end, mainly due to the early year service having increased grant income linked to the new nursery entitlement and young Islington underspending due to staff vacancies, premises reactive maintenance budgets not being required, and additional grant income in that area. Community Wealth Building saw an adverse movement of £1 million, mainly because planning income did not materialise at the rate previously forecast, additional security costs were incurred at council buildings, and there were increased lease costs of buildings.

The end of year school balances position was a £5.7 million surplus, an improvement on the projections that schools provided at Q3. However, the trend of reducing balances does continue, and the council is now in the process of gaining three-year recovery plans from a number of schools.

Capital expenditure incurred to year end was £225 million, including £14 million slippage and £11 million accelerated requested at the turn on Pacific schemes.

Councillor North asked about the planning income pressures, and whether that was down to downturn activity or activity deferred. Officers responded that planning income is quite difficult to forecast because planning applications take a long time to resolve. In a number of cases, the income is just delayed and will be achieved in 2025-26. However, there is obviously risk because ultimately the number of developments is reducing over time.

Councillor Hayes asked about the council tax collection rate, which was lower than the target. She also asked about a favourable variance in rent and service charge income, and whether that was because there were more leaseholders than originally projected. Officers responded that the acceleration of the major works programme meant that leaseholders now needed to pay their share of that cost of that repair work.

Councillor Jegorovas-Armstrong asked about a slippage in the automated toilets project. Officers responded that the slippage was due to parts being stuck in Europe, and that the toilets would be functioning in the very near future.

Councillor Hayes asked about a million-pound underspend on the tree planting programme, and what capitalise meant. Officers responded that trees are now capitalisable, so the budget had been transferred to capital.

Councillor Nick Wayne requested that future budget reports include a more detailed executive summary in plain English, explaining the significant changes and variances in the budget.

Scrutiny Initiation Document

The committee discussed the scrutiny initiation document, which outlines the key areas for future investigation. Councillor Nick Wayne invited committee members to submit any observations on the document within the next seven days, and to provide feedback over the summer break on what they want the scrutiny to focus on and who they want to hear evidence from.

Councillor Hayes asked that the scrutiny include residents that are in debt and debt relief, as it is a key part of addressing poverty.