Cabinet - Wednesday 26 November 2025, 5:30pm - Tower Hamlets Council webcasts

Cabinet
Wednesday, 26th November 2025 at 5:30pm

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Thank you.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to our cabinet meeting.

I see some young people who have kindly joined us.

Welcome.

And you will speak on a very important paper,

which is you and dear to me and us too.

We'll hear you out later on.

Let's start today. The usual drills about fire lamps and filming the meeting applies.

Please, yeah. We don't have any public questions from members of the public.

Okay. Let me take some. Any apologies? All the Council members are here.

Yep. All the... Councillor Shafi? Where is he? Plodding along somewhere.

Mr Veronikis, he had a bereavement in the family.

Okay, okay. He should be here for the start of the cabinet meeting.

I see he's ready, sir, from a holiday in the sunshine somewhere.

Too long holiday, Steve. You're going to cut your holiday down to a few days.

You know, like Steve Allsley does, Gilles Itter does, it's going to be like that, yeah?

Simon, no more holidays for you.

Okay.

Okay, now, thank you. Welcome to everyone.

So the snow apologies, Councillor Schaff is joining us.

Any declarations of interest from members at the end of the paper?

No.

Are you okay?

Good.

Can we agree the minutes of the 16th of October, please?

Anything there?

I agree.

Are you okay?

Good.

Announcements.

Over to you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

So I have a number of announcements actually this evening, and I'll get through them as

quickly as I can.

But I do want to spend a moment advising Cabinet about the outcome of the corporate peer challenge

that we have now received the final report thereof.

So just by way of news information update, I'm delighted to report that for the 13th

year running Victoria Park has been voted in the top ten parks in the country.

They're unranked.

But it's the only park in London to be classified in the top ten.

As you will know, there has been extensive coverage of the Council's ambitious local plan,

which was a considerable achievement given the new initiatives and aspirations that it comprises on behalf of the borough,

and there was coverage in several media outlets, including the Evening Standard.

You'll also be aware that on Monday the Town Hall clock was lit up blue for the National Care Leavers Month,

I have noticed that today we are all wearing a white ribbon to promote the vogue agenda.

Thank you for doing that and for your continued commitment to that agenda.

I do want to move on to the corporate peer challenge report that we have now received.

Members will be aware that in September 2023 we had a week -long review from the local government

Association that all local authorities are required to have on a five -year rolling programme

basis. Ours took place in September 2023 and a couple of months ago they revisited and

they reviewed our progress. When they originally visited us in September 2023, they made 18

recommendations and they commented on a number of areas that the local government association

felt that we had to improve on. Their revisit took place, as I say, a couple of months or

ago and I have now received the report.

I just wanted to summarise what the report says and also get cabinet approval to publish

the report in the coming days and to also, given that it's now been formally fed back

to the transformation assurance board by the local government association, I would look

to append the corporate peer challenge report to the council submission to the minister

that we have to make under the best value intervention.

First of all, I would comment that two years ago there was commentary about the perception

amongst partner organisations and some council staff that a two -council culture operated

within the council and that there was a lack of trust between officers and members.

The report this time concludes that there is no longer a two -council culture, that there

There is no longer a lack of trust and that trust and unity across the council amongst

members and officers has improved and that we now have a stable senior leadership team

led by a chief executive that has been here for a number of years.

They also commented on substantial achievements and the fact that we had managed to rectify

a number of what they considered to be legacy issues.

So all outstanding accounts for nearly six years have been resolved.

Annual governance statements that haven't been published for five years have been published.

Children's services were rated as outstanding in January 2025.

We continue to deliver high quality services as appreciated and accepted by the results of the annual residence survey,

including universal free school meals, uniform grants and youth centres in every ward.

The People First programme that you launched two years ago, Mayor, is now found to be embedded

and the staff now not only understand and accept the People First agenda, but it now

comprises important parts of departmental service plans and annual reviews, and that

90 % of staff have received an annual review in the last 12 months, and that 100 % of service

plans have been published.

They are also pleased to note that governance arrangements have improved and that our internal

structures have been simplified and performance management strengthened.

Of the 18 recommendations that were made, 17 have been progressed.

One still remains a challenge, which we are aware of, Mayor, and I know you and I discuss

on a regular basis, and that is making sure that our workforce strategy, of which our

workforce reflects the community strategy as a subset, that the workforce strategy is

progressed at the earliest opportunity.

They also passed comments about ensuring that we continue to evolve our assurance programme

and that we ensure greater enhanced communication in those areas that directly impact upon the

voluntary sector, such as grant giving.

I will circulate the report.

We'll publish it on the website with your Cabinet's agreement, with your agreement

here this evening, and we will include it as an appendix in our report to the Minister

in January.

Thank you. Thank you, Steve. And I thank you and the corporate management team and staff

throughout this Council and the League members for the work and the time and sweat that you

have put in over the last one year to make sure that we actioned all the matters that

were outlined in the recommendations and we are in a far better position in terms of those

recommendations than we were at the beginning, but very importantly to make sure that the

improvement journey is embedded in the Council. So it's a continuous improvement process.

We never end with improvement. It's a continuous process, endeavour. The fact that we've embedded

what is needed to improve and the fact that we continue with that and make sure

on a regular basis a braced reaction and everything else that arises from that.

So grateful to you and the team. I know I've not had a chance to go through the report

but I don't think we should shy away from publicly making the report

available and that if anything arises from the report, we get on with it and sort out

and that needs to be sorted.

Is that okay to cabinet members?

Yes, the corporate management team, you okay with that?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, we will do that.

Great.

I see a lot of other young people have joined us.

What I'm going to do after I do my comments, I'm going to take the chair of ONS then we'll

bring forward the young people's strategy forward, Steve,

so you can do your speech and the young people can have a

chance to speak on that paper.

You say, okay.

Okay, thank you.

Greetings or peace to each and every one of you.

Salaam alaikum.

I just want to say a few words, if you can just bear with me,

please, on one or two of the issues that we dealt with over

the last one month or so, the last few years.

Today, as we endure another cold winter, many of our residents will be feeling the cost

of living crisis at its worst.

Many will have to choose between eating and eating.

Last year, we as a council, we stepped up into plug the gap left behind by the previous

government to a decision to cut winter field payments, we provided over 4 ,000 residents

with a £175 payments towards their bills. That is why we are proud of the great work

being accomplished by our newly reintroduced Mills on Wheels programme. This policy once

again reaffirms this Council's commitment to protecting and giving back to those who

have given so much to our borough, the elderly

and the infirm.

We are grateful to them for their contribution.

We are finalising our initial pilot,

and I'm happy to report very positive feedback

from the residents who are trying the provision.

Hot, high quality meals are being

delivered to the most vulnerable in our community,

not microwavable dinners but fresh meals delivered daily.

I went to visit a pensioner two weeks ago and I was so happy to talk to the pensioner

and waiting for the meal to be delivered and she was extremely happy with the quality

and the fact that it was a hot meal.

So I want to congratulate our officers too and the lead member,

Sibina Akhtar and other officers for the wonderful work that you have done.

Under our administration, our elderly will never make that terrible choice between heating

and eating.

In the coming months, the full provision of Meals on Wheels will be rolled out to all

who are eligible and we will keep monitoring and tracking how we can improve the lives

of all vulnerable people in our borough.

Our vision is to do what we can as a local authority to support our most vulnerable residents.

That is why we have also launched our dedicated drug squad, which is another important step

in building a healthier and more supportive borough.

The dedicated drug squad will have two components.

We have a number of components to its work.

The first is to support the police's drug strategy doing what we can to break this supply

of chain of drugs arriving in a borough.

This will help the police to tackle the problem of drug dealing at its source.

The Squad must target, I believe, drug dealers polluting our communities with poison, which

destroys innocent lives.

as a council, which will also support those who fall victim to the predatory nature of

drug dealing, with treatment, support and rehabilitation. Six officers and a team leader

will tackle open drug use and drug dealing by engaging with residents through community

engagement events and working in partnership with the Met Police. They will work to identify

by prolific drug dealers, which is very important to deal with the supply and delivery of drugs,

and support the facilitation of arrests and refer those involved in drug misuse to appropriate support channels.

This is an approach that fights drug dealing while being compassionate to those who misuse drugs.

Last week at full council, this council passed our local plan and it is now with the Secretary

of State. This plan delivers for our borough 52 ,000 homes with a minimum of 40 % affordable

housing put in residence at the heart of growth. We are prioritising family sized homes and

increasing generally social and affordable housing from 70 % to 85%, reversing the dominance

of one bedroom units and tackling gentrification.

Alongside this, over the next five years, the mayor's accelerated housing programme

will deliver over 3 ,000 affordable homes on council owned sites.

That work proceeds, and I'm grateful to David Joyce, the corporate director, the lead member

of COBRI, Ahmed, and to Jeff Peers for the work that you have been doing today.

We will see that up and running as soon as possible.

We need to reduce the overcrowding in the borough, and family -sized homes are a necessity,

not a luxury in our borough.

In the country's most densely populated borough, space is limited.

We cannot, unfortunately, grow outward, so we will now grow upward, expanding the tall

building zones to unlock height, density and faster delivery.

Our goal is to keep residents in their communities within our borough.

Developments will include cultural, sporting and educational spaces that protect local

identity, promote businesses, create green spaces and ensure a sustainable borough for

all our residents.

And finally, speaking of keeping residents in their communities, we are pleased to give

representation.

I was pleased to make representation at the Truman's Brewery hearing last month in front

of the planning inspectorate.

Alongside residents, stakeholders and council officers, we presented a robust defence of

our vision for Spiritfields and Bangalowtown.

Now I would like to thank the local community and our

visitors for their passionate representation of

the homes and our area.

And I'm confident that the sector of state who has

called in the matter and the inspector will see sense

and keep Spiritfields and Bangalowtown as a centre

for regeneration, community and resident -led

development. Thank you. Now I return to the order of business. I don't believe

there are any scrutiny callings but I see the chair, Councillor Abdul -Wahid of the

urban scrutiny committee is there. You have 10 minutes sir. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Mayor, cabinet. I have various issues to raise. Firstly you would be

aware Mr. Mayor that the overview and scrutiny meeting committee met last night.

Thank you for attending the spotlight session at the meeting. We also had

spotlight sessions on the work of the Women's Commission and the waste

service. Obviously there's no connexions. It was difficult for the committee to

take three spotlight sessions in one meeting.

And we shall have to find a better way

to deal with the range of topics

that the committee members want to discuss.

On other matters, I can report that the acoustics

in the council chambers have now slightly better

as a result of the improvement work

that was organised by the democratic services.

However, it is still difficult for those sat at the back

of the public gallery to hear properly.

One person in the gallery at last night's meeting confirmed,

I can hear, but we have to strain to follow proceedings

and it's difficult to hear those sat on the floor

with their backs to the public gallery.

That person was the government envoy.

He promised not to give us a bad report to the government for the poor

acoustics but I hope this is a signal that something must be done. I understand

that the lead member for equalities is conveying a small group to try and

tackle the hearing issue at the Town Hall and I would welcome to have some

official back in on this. Secondly, I have brought some scrutiny questions to most

of this year's cabinet meetings, Mr. Mayor. I tabled some questions at the

last cabinet meeting and Mr. Mayor, you promised to send some answers to me. This

I have chased this up with your officers to no effect.

One of the members of the overview and scrutiny committee,

Councillor Islam, said that during last night's meeting

that she had gone to the trouble of formulating questions

but had not received any answers.

This is especially disappointing as we have promised

to have some answers sent.

I am sure this is just an oversight in your busy office,

where I know so much valuable work is being done.

But could we please know what's happened

to all the points that were formally raised

at cabinet meetings?

We, Mr. Mayor, don't have any formal scrutiny decision

questions to raise today. However, I do note that the scrutiny report on free

school meals is on the agenda. It is an excellent and constructive report and I

hope you will all agree on the action plan. The action plan on the hate crime

scrutiny report is also on this cabinet agenda. It is a mix of work that the

service has already been doing and ideas developed during scrutiny review and I

you will also endorse this too. Thank you very much.

Please, corporate director of Children's Services, you want to comment on that please?

Thank you Mr Mayor and thank you chair. Just to flag up, I did speak to the scrutiny team about particularly those questions that have been raised by Councillor Islam

and I've flagged those with the relevant corporate directors and I've also asked the scrutiny team to alert me as Staff Chief Scrutiny Officer

If there's any delay in future on those sorts of questions to make sure that we get the response.

So apologies to you and the committee.

There was that delay this time.

Okay, thanks Steve.

Thank you Councillor Lloyd.

Thanks for coming today.

It was a pleasure for me to come before you and your Scrutin committee yesterday.

and thank you for those questions that colleagues asked and the courtesy that you extended to me and all the officers.

Very much, as I said yesterday, we very much welcome scrutiny of the Executive by your Committee.

I think it's a good cheque and balance of our democratic process for us to be accountable to fellow councillors, our peers.

that is very important, but also important is that you in your various reviews, your

committee and various subcommittees, you make very strong recommendations of various pieces

of work.

Some of them we adopt, some of them we don't adopt.

However that is a good relationship, partnership that we have, and we very much value what

you've said.

The questions, point that you make, Steve has answered, but we will keep that in mind

for the future.

Okay?

Thank you very much.

Good.

Can we now move on to the first agenda item, please?

It's the Young Timelets Strategy 25 to 27.

The young people who are, Director,

Shafi, your hair, and while you're here too,

the colleagues, the youngsters who will speak,

please make yourself come to, by the mic,

Please take a seat.

Welcome.

Thank you for coming.

Great, yeah.

We have seen all of them before.

Extremely talented group of people who are going to go a long way

and it's the future of this barrow that's going to be in good hands.

You are the future.

Thank you for coming.

Lead member, then I'll ask Steve to talk.

Okay, please.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

It's a landmark moment tonight.

Young people themselves, our deputy young mayor and youth councillors will present a

vision for Thai Hamlets and within them we have 14 young mayor candidates and in the

We have our National Youth Agency and Centre for Young Lives also present.

So this strategy is not just a paper, it's a declaration.

It mobilises a flagship youth service, reversing the years of austerity

and commits to the borough -wide access, inclusivity and quality.

The voice must shape the delivery, not just consultation.

This strategy and investment is evidence of this administration and Mayor's bold commitment

to young people in this borough.

So I would like to, for the young people to go through and unless Steve wants to say anything.

Who's going to speak?

You're all going to speak, please.

Yep, start off.

Firstly, thank you, Mr. Mayor, for inviting all of us to cabinet today and thank you everyone

for listening to us today.

My name is Ifa, I'm the Deputy Young Mayor of Tower Hamlets.

I'm in the cabinet for education.

I study history, politics and religious studies at SICFORM, hoping to study history at university.

And today I'm extremely proud to present the Young Tower Hamlet Strategy alongside the

youth councillors here beside me.

We're really proud of what has happened, what is happening right now and what will happen

in the future, but before I get into all the nitty -gritty of the strategy itself, I'm going

to hand over to my colleague Crystal to go into some of the preliminary details.

Thank you, so yes, my name is Crystal Yatotobio, I'm a Youth Counsellor, I'm a Youth Studies

institution at Morby Academy in Shoreditch and I'm taking a levels in Music, Drama and

English Literature and I'm hoping to take on music in a conservatoire, production in

and theatre as well. So let's reflect back to May 20th and 23 when the Council launched its first

hackathon which essentially is a consultation with young people across the borough. These hackathons

were an essential key to find out what exactly young people wanted and need within the spaces

that is for them and essentially made by them as well. One hackathon took place within each quarter

of the borough, one in Haileybury, one in Osmani Youth Club, Swatlight and George Newton School,

along with an online survey which reached nearly a thousand young people.

Both sought out to inquire what exactly young people do in their free and leisure time,

with results ranging from activities, from communicating with friends online and skateboarding and much more.

This further stressed the importance of youth space, which is highlighted in our mayor's manifesto,

which along with Youth Voice established what townhouse now proudly calls Young Townhamlets.

Since its establishment, Young Tower Hamlets has brought a wide variation of youth ideas and contributions

such as Young Tower Hamlets website and all its social medias which help not only reach as many young people

in the borough in a much more efficient and effective way but brought youth voice from nothing to what it is today.

Young Tower Hamlets has continued to consider and inquire in what kind of space young people would like,

how they want their voices to be heard and represented, how the youth can be influenced or influence others,

and the audience youth centres would bring and are targeted towards.

And it's very clear to see the rise of youth collaboration in the last two years since these hackathons.

And this wouldn't be possible without the Council's driving passion to continue to bring in young people's ideas to full fruition.

So thank you on behalf of young people for investing and believing in young people to make this borough more accessible for young people.

So now I will hand it over to my colleague Daniel who will detail the various groups in which Youth Centre is brought in and continue to celebrate. Thank you.

Thank you very much Crystal. My name is Daniel Momo. I'm a youth counsellor, aspiring commercial lawyer and an avid public speaker who has hosted many award shows and events on behalf of the borough, such as the Education Awards of 2025 and the six year exhibition at the Town Hall.

For around two years now, I've been a youth counsellor and hence a Young Tower Hamlet

service user who has witnessed the service growth from his early days.

And so, to start, I'll begin with the target group focusing on young women and girls.

From the 46 % of females surveyed, a key concern we pulled out was a concern over the safety

of attending youth centres, a point further highlighted by the safe spaces being the number

one desire of all young people.

There's clearly a key emphasis being placed on providing girls with a safe space in which

they can support each other, and by improving our youth services, this safe place can be

our youth centres. Some of the ways young talent owners can improve in are simple. We

simply need to take the step. Providing a safe space could be as simple as providing

more female staff from similar cultural backgrounds to provide a role model for young women and

girls to look up to. It could even be introducing single sex sessions for women and girls, whether

this is for cultural comfort or to aid in confidence to participate in physical activities.

Just a few simple changes can provide so much benefit to the service.

Providing a safer service does support those women struggling with mental health

by preparing them, ensuring that if the time comes, they know what they can do,

they know who they can reach out to, and most importantly, they will take that step to reach out.

Now, moving on to the second target group, that is LGBTQI.

Some of the key things cited from the hackathon included loneliness and isolation

due to things such as prejudice and bullying.

From this, a key solution they raised the most

was having LGBTQ plus friendly policies, staff and branding.

As a strategy, this would be quite a simple one.

It would be Young Tower Hamlets providing more staff

and possibly even children with comprehensive training

to better understand and be inclusive

towards LGBTQ plus issues.

This can help us better foster a safe space for people

from this community, encouraging them to engage more

with the service and ensuring that our youth centres are meeting their needs and providing

support where they need it.

The third target group is Somali Boys.

Similar to issues I've already raised, issues that will continue to be raised if not addressed,

they have concerns over feeling excluded, a lack of work experience, role models and

representation in professional environments.

As long as we can ensure that these boys are provided with the role models they need, they

can develop and one day act as representatives that they once desired.

So just before I move on I'd like to comment on the benefits of one of their actual suggestions

which was to diversify programmes with martial arts, boxing, self defence and career advice.

Such diversification can improve the range of people coming to youth centres and it would

also address many of the key issues that have been spoken on such as mental health, safety

and a lack of interaction with sports,

whilst also promoting positive future habits

such as exercising.

The SCND target group commented on a lack of access,

with 316 other people surveyed

reporting their biggest barrier to attending youth centres

was the lack of access to nearby hubs,

something that has been improving

as seen by the 20 new youth centres

we have recently opened up.

But I think it's important to zoom in

and observe that 110 people have reported

a lack of access due to disabilities.

And for a borough that is so diverse

and prides itself on its tower values, such as that of being open,

something such as access shouldn't be as big of an issue

for those of the SA &D community or any other.

So finally, before I pass on to you, Councillor Nicky,

I'd like to bring your attention back to my very first point on women and girls.

We have just entered into 16 Days of Activism,

a period of 16 days starting today that aims to end gender -based violence

and raise awareness on violence against women and girls.

and I believe such a beautiful display of advocacy should be celebrated,

hence the white ribbons myself and the rest of the youth councillors,

alongside some of the councillors, are wearing,

and in solidarity to raise awareness on violence against women and girls.

Thank you, Nikki.

Thank you, Daniel.

My name is indeed Nikki, and like both Daniel and Crystal,

I am also a youth councillor.

I am currently in Year 13 and I am studying biology, chemistry and psychology at A -Level,

aiming to study psychology at university.

However, my interests don't align only with STEM or psychology as I also have

dabbled in music and art which I suppose leads me to the rest of my section. I'd

say at least a decade of my life has been spent in Tower Hamlets youth

services whether that might be youth clubs like Urban Adventure Base,

Spotlight or the Tower Hamlets Arts and Music Educational Service which I will

be referring to as TEMS for short. All of these services have fostered, oh sorry,

Thames has fostered my love for music since the age of eight. Out of all of these services, however, I've found one of the most impactful to be at an adventure base, which, as you'll probably know, is one of the Tower Hamlets Youth Centres.

Not only was it the place where I completed my very first and most recent DOV certification, it was my first ever encounter with water sports like kayaking and canoeing, which in turn helped me explore more sports, and whilst I'm not exactly the sportiest person to exist,

I can certainly say that it's really helped me improve my overall health and fitness.

These services have been a vital part of my life and I don't think I'd be as receptive or as confident in myself as I would be without them.

Even now, as I approach the age of 18, these services have only opened up new opportunities for me,

such as the Thames Tower Hamlets Youth Orchestra, which I will still be able to attend even when I begin attending university.

Tower Hamlets has not just been where I've lived, it's been where I have and will continue to thrive.

The support I've received on everything from academics to extracurriculars has been overwhelming

and I truly don't think I could imagine myself living anywhere else.

And now I'll hand back over to Iffat to talk more about the specifics of the youth services.

Thank you very much Nikki.

Now before I get on to how we will go from great things to greater, as is the motto of

our borough, let's talk about what the youth service is now, what it has done, before I

get on to the future.

Young Tower Hamlets is a key mayoral pledge and investment, so it really and truly is thanks to Mr. Mayor that we even have Young Tower Hamlets.

Young Tower Hamlets' redesign and new structure was completed in summer 2024, which just so happened to be the first summer of my Young Mayor term.

And the first strategy aims to give our roadmap to provide diverse and inclusive youth work opportunities, including safe spaces, targeted support, integrated detached youth work, sports and adventure learning, and youth participation.

The strategy is driven by feedback from young people, parents and carers gathered during some engagement events like the hakuna that we mentioned

and it was brought to life by tireless nights of work, meeting and discussions amongst the youth councillors.

For context, Tower Hamlet is a mosaic of backgrounds. It's incredibly diverse with 58 % of children from a Bangladeshi background like myself

but faces significant challenges such as high child poverty and overcrowding,

with 27 % of children living in relatively low -income households.

The borough has the highest youth population in London, which I'm very proud of,

but this means that it needs a modern youth service to support their transition into adulthood.

And the strategy does just that.

It responds to increased demand for youth services due to the pandemic and cost of living prices.

When talking about our vision and our future, it's something that's ambitious, but something that's practical.

It aligns with the borough's strategic priorities and aims to deliver high quality youth services.

It includes a theory of change framework to guide service delivery and collaboration with various stakeholders.

And in one statement, it's all summed up.

All young people are provided with inspiring opportunities, exciting activities and tailored support regardless of background.

In terms of shaping the strategy, the strategy was developed through extensive engagement with young people, parents and community members.

These activities included surveys, workshops, focus groups and film projects to gather input on youth service needs and preferences.

And young people especially were involved in designing the youth service branding and setting priorities and continue to be involved in shaping communications, social media content and participation activities.

I can say first hand that our youth council has been very much involved in comms, making sure that they're all hip with the kids and engaging with the young people.

Now in terms of our delivery model, which is very pivotal to make sure that the Young Tower Hamlet service actually works and functions,

we have very key delivery model strategies, ranging from universal safe spaces, such as the expansion of our youth centres in every single ward,

from our rapid response team, targeted youth support, sports and adventure learning in the form of UAB, as Youth Councillor Nicky mentioned,

youth participation, which is to empower young people to drive positive change, and the Mayor's small grants and commissioning.

Without these, the youth service would pretty much fracture, and without these delivery models,

we would not have a youth service that's able to actually represent young people.

The infrastructure of the youth service is equally important, and it consists of several important parts

to make sure the youth service has the capabilities to represent young people.

It has a sustainable model that ensures accountability and clear expectations for youth service delivery.

It has a diverse and skilled workforce, which develops a workforce that reflects the community

and supports youth development.

Quality assurance is needed to implement a framework

to ensure high quality youth work practise.

We will be using data and insight to collect performance

data to inform service improvement.

We will have a youth work curriculum that standardises

our approach to youth work practise.

We will embrace IT and digital services to invest

in technology to support youth services.

We will use communications and engagement to engage

young people in our rebranding and we will use governance

and monitoring to establish structures that oversee

strategy implementation. Without such, the youth service would very much not be existent.

Our delivery plan is split into two. Year one, we accomplished a lot in its genesis.

We opened youth facilities, we recruited staff, we developed operating procedures and we strengthened

partnerships. And the second area is our priority area, which I did mention earlier, which is

the universal safe spaces, our integrated detached youth work and targeted support.

Now that's what the youth service has done and is doing right now, but let's look to

the future. The strategy sets the foundation for future youth service delivery and it plans

an external review and development of a more detailed strategy for the next 3 to 5 years.

And this is pivotal because the next strategy will consider a national and local development

in youth services and will build on an already strong youth service.

Now to end on a conclusive note, this could not have been possible without the intense

work and the funding of Mr. Mayor and the Cabinet so we thank you all for your work

in actually making sure the youth service comes to life.

I would like to thank all the youth councillors

and the Young Mayor team for making sure

that young people represented, heard,

and their voices were actually, you know,

took shape in shaping the youth service.

And it's quite emotional to see

that in the end of my Young Mayor term,

the birth of Young Tower Hamlets is starting to take shape.

And it's rather exciting that the Young Tower Hamlet service

will continue to grow, mature,

and make sure that young people have a youth service

that aptly represents them, fights for them, and has the capabilities to give them a youth

service that makes them feel safe, inclusive, and is a youth service that they deserve and

have always asked for.

As I go on into my future of being a solicitor, lawyer and a politician, as Mr. Mayor himself

has done, you know, a very inspiring journey, and as well as the other youth councils go

on to their ambitious roles in the future, Young Tower Hamlets will also carry that ambition

forward to and I can't wait to see a young Tower Hamlets that represents and

fights for not just my generation but the generation after us and forever more.

This is a young Tower Hamlet service that I'm extremely proud of and I'm

extremely hopeful for to represent our fantastic borough Tower Hamlets. Thank you.

Thank you for the young and the deputy mayors.

Grateful to your comments and the eloquence with which you delivered your comments.

You can clearly tell you guys are the future of this borough, rightfully so.

I mean, can I just say, I've said this at other forums, when we first came here in May

2022, and before we came here on May day, we clearly set out our stall on young people.

Our stall that, since the time I've been leader of this council, I made it very clear that

Youngsters matter to us, matter to me.

Youngsters need to have a life chance, which is far

better than their parents.

It's so important.

We made it very clear that if we got elected, that we

want to invest a sizeable amount of money, which was

reduced by the previous administration.

But today it's not about politics, it's about you.

It's about you, the young people.

is that we want to invest a sizable amount of money in trying to ensure there are adequate

provisions

for youngsters, youth clubs, youth centres, equipments,

peers, young

youth workers, you know, who are working with the youngsters,

supporting the youngsters. You had a place to go to also people to talk to outside of your

your usual education establishment, so your home establishment.

And when we came here, it was a challenge for us to find the money

in order to deliver the provisions and deliver on our commitment.

We were grateful to the officers that they helped us to find the money.

Some people were moaning that we had to take some money out of reserve.

But what is reserve for?

Reserve, you know, it's no good just keeping money in the bank.

if you don't use the money, to help and support the people of your borough and especially

the next generation.

The elders are extremely important, supporting them is important, they have made such contribution

to our lives, they are making contributions to your lives, your parents, but also looking

out to the youngsters, the next generation.

So for me, you know, getting that, and my lead member, getting that money, putting that

money aside, making sure we deliver on our commitments in

providing adequate youth provisions across the 20 wards,

working with our partner organisations,

and making sure we appoint a corporate director who is

clearly supportive, and a director,

Shafi Raman and the team is supportive of the young people's

agenda, young time agenda, but we roll out the provisions.

I'm glad we've done that.

You know, you need to have all the support,

all the support mechanism in place to make sure you

maximise your potential.

Yeah, get a good education, get a good job,

but also give back to the community who has given

so much to you.

I was grateful when I was a youngster, myself,

your director, Shafi Raman, you know,

We are products and beneficiaries of the youth service.

I'm a product of the voluntary sector.

It contributed to my upbringing and my recreational activities.

I didn't have a well -planned home to do my homework.

I sometimes went to my youth club to do my homework,

went to a library to do my homework after school support.

So I'm glad we're rolling that out.

It will support you.

And if there is anything else we need to do,

we are here.

We know a lot of pressure on money,

on finances, but when it comes to young people,

there will be no compromises.

When it comes to our elders, our women,

there will be no compromises.

I want to assure you of that.

Thank you for coming once again.

Shall we go through this paper?

I will take a photo of these young people

before they go off.

Is that OK?

Steve, do you want to kick off?

Thank you very much.

Mr. Mayor, just very briefly wanted to say obviously as has been said

It's really a groundbreaking level of investment that's helping us make the difference. So we're really grateful

For your support with that. Also, we mentioned the diverse and talented workforce

We've got some of our our youth workers there give us a wave there

So I'm really we're really proud of our youth workers and as you've said our leadership Shafi and Anwar who we've worked so hard

Alongside our our lead member who himself worked in youth work

and made a big difference as well.

So we're just...

One more sec.

I wonder how Keith turned out to be.

But also just to say we're grateful we have got some visitors with us from the National Youth Association and Centre for Young Lives.

So I'm grateful for you attending and your support on the Young Futures Hubs pilot programme as well.

Thank you.

I too want to thank the National Youth Organisation and the Centre for Young Lives for coming

today and also Anwar for the work that you, the contribution that you make in the service

to with the director and the corporate director.

Thank you.

May I understand if you want to ask questions?

Okay, let's get this paper out of the way, strategy, then we'll take a photo.

Any – Kobi, please, I know you asked not to ask your questions today, but I can't

Pass you making a comment.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Can I just start by saying that we have such inspirational and brave young leaders here.

Many have stumbled while presenting in Cabinet, but you've done an exceptional job here today.

That's been fantastic.

Now, can I also just add in terms of the strategy?

It's really important that we understand that strategies can be heartless words on a piece of paper and a tick box

Exercise for a local authority and other service providers, but for us it's a living document. It's a powerful

inspirational tool that is co -produced with our young people and that's the key being co -produced and

Inclusive of those that this document is there to guide and support and put resources in mr.

and it's really important us as cabinet members and the council as a whole with

the backing of our corporate directors we put that investment in and we

continue to provision that investment for our young people because it's not

just a generational thing it's an intergenerational thing as you've

highlighted Mr. Mayor that as a young person you were very active and we

didn't get the same level of provisions then we've got deputy mayor as well

probably a little bit younger, who also worked as a youth worker.

So I want to see our inspirational leaders also go forward and inspire young people further

down that journey.

And it is a journey.

And I think what I want to recall is, I believe, Daniel, last time we met in the mayor's office,

you didn't have the opportunity to let us know what career path you wanted to pursue.

So I want to give our young people an opportunity to inspire other young people as this will be webcast as well. Please tell us

What your career ambitions are?

Thank you very much. As I mentioned at the beginning of my long speech. I am an aspiring commercial lawyer. So thank you very much

If other members of the panel can also let us know I know refact you wanted to be a solicitor

but if other members can also let us know please.

Yeah so thanks to Thames I'm also a cellist, I also play trumpet and piano and I've been playing

cello since year four so I do want to take that into a career and hopefully join a professional

orchestra but recently I did join my school's production academy which is the Morley Production

Arts Academy which is in partnership with the National Theatre so through that I have also gained

a one year work experience, which I'm about to graduate to, in production arts, especially in sound operations.

So I have found a very really good apprenticeship with the Royal Opera House, so I hope to be in work with them as well.

Personally I'd like to be a child psychologist. I say this because my younger brother has ASD,

So I feel like that's been a large motive for me to just want to help people with not only autism

But just SCND in general

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else in the comments anyone else go on side

I think I'll just echo what councillor cabrillo said. I mean I was totally moved

Thanks to young mayor and young councillors for the way you presented is very good for me as a cabinet member for resources

where I find money where the mayor wants to invest.

I am actually proud of the funding that we provided for young car hamlets.

Thanks to the officers for making sure the services run perfectly the way we want it

and the strategy is aligned with our strategy, so that's the main thing.

So I just want to wish you all the best.

Continue what you're doing and continue inspiring the next generation.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Tala.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, young people.

I did want to start off with the context that we're operating in.

A lot of councils across the country, Mr. Mayor, are having to choose between what they're

funding because they're on the brink of bankruptcy.

Some of them are having to just rely on statutory services.

And for us to put in this monumental investment, on average, from what I know, and correct

me if I'm wrong, the average youth service budget in other places is around one or two

million, if not a bit more.

But to put in about 14 million pounds 13 .7 million pounds is

Honestly monstrous and monumental as I said and I think credit has to go to you know

the officers the mayor initially as as the young people have

already acknowledged the lead member and others in

Putting this investment forward as a former youth worker myself and probably the youngest person on this side of the table. I

genuinely value

the work that we're doing.

I saw firsthand the value that young people get

from a safe space, whether it's someone to talk to

because they don't have anyone to talk to at home,

someone to get advice from, genuinely a safe place

because the home may not be a safe place for them.

Somewhere where they have opportunities to play

because of the cost of living,

maybe they don't have those opportunities at home.

There's so many benefits that this service provides

and I'm only touching on the safe space element, and I can go on and on and on about the service.

Similar like the Mayor, my final message would be to you, you're clearly talented.

Everyone here, from what I can see, is going to go on to doing really great things.

But please remember to try and give back.

This authority is trying to give you so much, and in this world and in this time that we're

here, the world's your oyster, you can go and do commercial finance anywhere, you can

and become a politician in America or wherever you want, but I mean I would ask you and beg

you to try and keep a focus on Tower Hamlets and try and get back.

Thank you.

Councillor Shafi, then we will move on.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

So eloquently put, fantastically made sure that, you know, we want to make sure the mayor's

key pledges in 2022 was the work of this youth service and how it works and to identify that

level of investment needed to ensure that the future of this council and this borough's

youth is a matter of concern and is a matter of where we want to go in the future. So looking

forward to this strategy, looking forward to how it's going to work out, the data that

will be collected to ensure that this service goes on to become bigger and better for the future is so encouraging.

I'd like to thank yourselves, you know the hard work that you put, officers, and also the vision that the mayor had from the beginning

and also the pledges that he made this evening to say that he will not compromise when it comes to youth.

I want to be proud to be part of this leadership where the mayor is making sure that the youth

matter and the future is youth.

Thank you very much.

Great.

I'm taking no more from members.

I'll ask Steve to come in to say a few words.

Thank you.

So thank you very much for your presentation.

I won't repeat everything that everybody has said.

I have a slightly different perspective.

It's a wonderful piece of work.

but I'm an officer of the council and I know you understand the difference between members

and officers.

I actually had three questions.

This isn't an interview, by the way.

I'm just intrigued by understanding a little bit more about three areas, if you don't mind.

It's your personal perceptions that I'm interested in.

I was really interested in the comments being made by the council as well about the future

of safe spaces and their significance.

I understand what you said by way of introduction in your opening comments, but I personally

would like to understand a little bit more about that and their significance, particularly

in Tower Hamlets.

I'm also interested in the commitment in relation to the youth empowerment fund.

We have officers here tonight that are responsible for grant awards and we give out millions

in grant awards.

I know the mayor is very keen to direct that to young people as we have the youngest population

in London certainly.

And more of a third point, I think, I don't know who's going to answer these by the way,

the third point by the way was around extracurricular sports activities.

We spend a lot of time talking to schools and we talk to them about what they aspire to do.

There's a lot of investment in those places through schools and through government and council -enabled funding.

I'm interested in where you think the future of that lies and what additionality there could be within the borough.

I know that's a lot, but I think it would be really interesting to hear.

I will tackle your third question first.

It is one that comes to mind most recent

because it is the last question you asked.

As I mentioned, in my opinion,

I believe the future of sports

within the borough is simply expanding

the types of sports done.

So commonly in school, it is typically football,

maybe badminton and basketball.

And those will be the three sports

you usually rotate around.

So during my time at Bishop Challenger,

this was the main three sports that come to mind instantly.

But I feel like the main thing that the youth in the borough want is a more wide range of sports being offered

So that's what I mentioned earlier. That's boxing that's maybe even cycling although that may not be

Plausible it's things like boxing. It's things like tennis

It's just a wider range of sports than what's currently offered

So in my opinion, that's the future of the borough and that's the best way to move forwards

tackling your first question now in terms of

Safety I feel like safety is such a key concern in terms of

Bullying and just not feeling I guess welcome in certain spaces

so for example the SC and the community felt that

They were scared to access some of these centres. Meanwhile the LGBTQ

Plus community felt as in they were being excluded from some of the mainstream youth centres

And so in that sense it's more of a thing of education where the youth and the people

working at these youth centres have to be educated in order to make these people feel

welcome so that they'll feel safe at these youth centres.

Yeah I think just to kind of add on, I mean with safety I know first hand how not being

able to feel safe in a community can feel, it doesn't just make you feel isolated and

alone it corrupts someone it makes them go to other more dangerous kind of

alternatives you know it can make someone go to gangs for example I know

I don't know that's not an issue that's as rampant as 10 -15 years ago but they

still exist I mean that's just a matter of fact and I feel like if young people

don't have these safe spaces we don't just mean safe in a literal sense where

it's safe from you know you know health and hazards and whatnot we're talking

safe in the sense that people feel welcome do feel included do feel seen we

We want people of all backgrounds to actually be able to go to a safe space and feel like they can belong.

We don't want them to feel like we have to be a certain way, we have to mould a certain way.

Because I feel like what's so beautiful about Tower Hamlets is our diversity, not just in terms of national racial diversity, but in terms of our diversity of skill sets.

I mean, just on this table alone, we have so many different career aspects, skills, hobbies, and I feel like that is represented and true for so many young people.

But we need to do our best to make sure that all young people regardless of what they identify as who they are what they?

Like that they feel safe and also seen and I feel like that's something that's been done and we can see that's happening

But I think the future is very hopeful in the sense that I think that's just going to continue

Can I just get your second question? So I was asking actually around the

Youth empowerment grant the process by which we empower young people to access resources, really

I'll talk about its importance really and I think its importance is something that's actually unparalleled in terms of other boroughs.

I mean I go to school in Newham and I actually did try to get involved in the youth services there.

I tried to get involved in their youth services and I just felt non -existent. It was just, I didn't know where to go.

There were virtually no youth centres around. I just, I didn't know where to go. I felt quite invisible.

By contrast I come here and there's like youth services, I know where to go, there's a website where I actually know where to find youth centres.

The fund actually makes sure that there's youth workers that look after young people and takes care of them.

The fund allows, you know, it funds the young mayor programme I assume, it funds so many great initiatives that makes young people feel seen.

I feel like in a lot of other boroughs by contrast, that is a very stark difference really.

And I feel like the importance of such a fund is really seen in our kind of progress.

I mean the young people behind us can also probably speak for the importance of the youth fund.

And yeah, I think that would be my comment.

Third question, that's been answered brilliantly by the youth councillor here.

Thank you. Can you turn the mic off please?

Yes, please.

The final thing I want to say, if it's okay with you,

we have the director of communications here tonight.

This is a remarkable piece of work.

It's unique, I think, in so many respects,

and we really should be promoting it in collaboration

or let the young people do so.

So Andreas, if I can ask you to take that forward.

I think Sabina wants to answer some questions.

Sorry, you want to say something, Sabina?

Sorry, Sabina, is there anyone to say?

Do you want to say a hand?

Okay, you don't have to, you don't want to.

I will be really brief.

Make sure you use the users.

Thank you Mayor, I will be brief.

So very inspirational, very emotional when you guys spoke earlier on.

And it just kind of shows that when I go out in the community, when people say,

you know, what is administration, what are you proud of?

And this is something that we can really tell people, that we are not just saying it,

We have invested a huge amount and we've taken a huge step,

bold decision, bold strategy, kind of shows how important

the young people of this power are.

We have a huge population of young people

and we are dedicated.

And I really hope that you guys move on and continue

the role model that you guys are showing to the next generation

who will look up to you guys.

And we can say one day it's a success storey.

Thank you.

Thank you. Please, Shafi, Shafi, you're on.

Just to add a couple of comments in addition to what fantastic young people have answered already.

So just very quickly on safe spaces and its future, I think so far, like in the last six months,

we've had over 8 ,000 unique young people register and attend across our youth centres and activities.

So these are unique.

In terms of attendance, last year for the 12 months,

we had 90 ,000 attendees.

Obviously, these are repeats frequency.

Our colleagues at the back from National Youth Agency, DCMS,

and Centre for Young Lives have recently,

they're here on a three -day visit

as part of the Young Futures Hub.

We are one of the only eight boroughs or areas in the UK

that have been selected for this pilot programme, Young Futures Hub, and it is really focusing

on safe spaces for young people, but also to bring in employment, mental health, and

crime reduction under one roof. And as part of their initial desktop research, which included

last year's NYA research across the UK, they found the borough of Tohamless, young people

on average accessed youth clubs much more higher than the average across the UK.

So this was within the last 12 months. So we're seeing positive signs, we're seeing

signs to be confident in the usage of our safe spaces for the near future, but

obviously there's always work to be done. Comms, promotions, working with schools

to increase participation. Just very quickly on the sports, we have a

dedicated team of sports coaches, six sports coaches,

who are working with most of the secondary schools

to introduce different sports,

not just the traditional football and the usual ones.

There's also really successful, very young,

kind of under 12s, girls district team.

For the first time,

Tahemles has entered the district league and matches,

and they're working very closely with Charlton FC

to look at coaching, training and for young girls to have a pathway into maybe amateur professional football.

Thank you. I'm going to move on. But before I move on, can I just say that Youth Council are youngsters and are youth workers.

You are a role model. You have a huge responsibility at a young age because of your ability, your talents and your responsibilities

is to mentor the youngsters, the younger ones coming,

and be a role model to them while coming through.

We did that once when we were that generation.

Because at the end of the day, our borough is in our

collective hands, and certainly we all have

a responsibility.

When we talk about giving back, we're not asking you

to give back financially, but give back responsibly.

Be part of the communities of Taheemlitz.

Don't walk away from us.

We want you to be a successful individual, successful commercial lawyer, make a lot of money.

Whatever in music, whatever role you're in.

But don't forget the very borough who's contributed to our lives, to your lives and your parents' lives.

It's very important.

We want us to succeed. We want to be an educated community.

We want our children, our youngsters to go to the best universities,

maybe musicians aspire to be the best, aspire to be good in the respective fields,

whether it's academic, whether it's vocational, in life.

We want to ensure, Steve, whether it's our career service,

and elsewhere to say, young talent, young work part,

whether it's a career service, whether it's the apprenticeship service,

that is serving the youngsters and the people of the borough,

that we take advantage of the very opportunities

that comes our way.

Is that okay?

So thank you once again.

We wish you all the best, all of you, in life,

and all the youngsters, all the parents who are looking

and listening to us.

We want our borough, it's a successful borough,

but we want it to succeed even further.

Okay, thank you.

On returning to your paper, there's no other comments.

Yeah, we can do that in a minute.

Returning to the paper, can we note and approve the strategic plan, please, and provide agreement

to continue to roll out, roll it out in mind with the strategic plan, the youth service.

Is that okay?

Thank you.

Can we just...

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Let's resume our cabinet.

We just had to see our young people off with courtesy and dignity.

That's why we took a minor break.

We are back to our schedule, please.

Can we now return to conscious of the time, agenda item 6 .1,

Hate Crime Reporting Journey, response to ONS,

Scootaloo Challenge Session Action Plan.

Okay, Tala, please.

Thank you, Mayor, I'll keep this brief.

We all know, sadly, hate crime is a huge issue for us,

not only in London, but also in our borough.

So in terms of reporting, it's something that the ONS looked into, because we know once

again that it's an area of underreporting.

So they came up with a bunch of recommendations.

It's something that we review, much of which we will really do, some new and some looking

to further extend.

And I'm hoping officers can just brief a bit more, if needed.

Thank you.

I'm very conscious of the time.

So Simon, welcome, of our colleague here.

Please over to you very briefly. Thank you much. Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. Councillor Chaudry

as the council Chudry outlined there are 16 recommendations in this

Action plan and it's presented to you today for noting and approval just to note mr

Mayor that as well as the action plan from that spotlight session

We have also presented the current annual hate crime delivery plan

which was already in place to demonstrate the level of work which was being undertaken.

And as you can see, this overlaps, complements and underpins the recommendations made by ONS.

This action plan has already been shared with the police as they are a key stakeholder

and with a significant number of recommendations that are attributed to them as well.

We also acknowledge that some of the recommendations, particularly the recommendation to develop an app,

may take some longer time to deliver, but I'm happy to take questions and comments.

Thank you. Anyone please here? Anyone, any members want to comment on this? Deputy Mayor?

Thank you Mr Mayor, thank you to our officers and lead members. I welcome this report and recommendation.

I think people need to feel safe and they need to feel accessible when it comes to reporting

made and also the action needs to be there.

I think that's important.

I don't have any questions, it's just comments.

But I also want to add that some of the online abuse and racism, we as politicians, especially

the mayor faces. Whenever he's tweeting, whenever we're tweeting or even the council, there's

a tweet of Mayor Speecher, the amount of racism and abuse he faces is unbelievable. Some of

them he doesn't even look or see. We see it, we follow it. And this is totally unacceptable.

And I think things like that need to be noted. Things like that we need to more talk about

things like this because hate crime impacts everyone.

Residents are important, our girls are women,

everyone is important, but when it comes to politicians,

I think sometimes we don't talk about it.

I think that's not even noted as well.

These kind of abuse is going to continue.

Now that election is coming up, it's going to increase.

So, and also, especially Steve, on the council's comms,

Whenever there's tweets or the Facebook posts, there's the amount of comments the mayor gets.

Racism, harassment, abuse is totally unacceptable.

And I think we're willing to do something about this.

And this is not acceptable. Thank you.

Thank you. Before I come in, thank you, Deputy Mayor.

I was listening to a voicemail to Councillor Cobry Ahmed yesterday from, I don't know who it was, shocking.

I don't know where it's gone, telling him, go back to your country, why are you here?

And someone had to address it to leave a voicemail, telling him, the man was born here, brought up here, he's got no country to go to, this is our country.

but telling him, you know, go back to your country.

You know, this is the language that we are faced with here

and that sometimes the dog whistle politics doesn't help.

I'll just leave it there, Steve.

Thank you, thank you, man, thanks Simon.

Couple of comments and then a question.

The comment first of all, I don't know,

you're aware, I drove you in scrutiny last night.

I was asked a specific question about the mayors

and my position in relation to this

and I think we were really clear.

what I did refer to was correspondence,

as I know you know, that I've had with the Home Secretary

about elements of hate crime,

particularly the activity of what are perceived

to be the far right in the borough,

and I undertook to send a briefing, though,

about the council's commitment in that space,

so Simon, and I'd be grateful if you could deal with that.

My question relates to additionality.

So we have an action plan, we have it in the report,

so I'm interested not in a detailed answer,

because I know you could, but in your view,

the additionality that this piece of work

brings to the already existing action plan.

Thank you, Steve.

In terms of additionality, I think one of the key elements

here is just about enabling that third -party reporting

out in the community so residents can access that

easily and provide residents with the ability

to engage in an anonymous setting and give them encouragement and confidence to actually

report the crime.

And I think that's certainly one element that this action plan brings.

Other elements of it are building on probably existing themes of work that already exist,

but I think that is a key element which is really going to add some benefit and value.

Thank you.

Please, Steve.

Just briefly, I want to say having been involved significantly with the scrutiny committee over the last 12 months

to commend lead member officers and scrutiny for what's a really positive piece of work

and we've had feedback from some independent people that this piece of work and one we'll talk about later on preschool meals

are excellent pieces of work, so the partnership work between lead member and scrutiny committee was really positive, thanks.

And one final comment, Steve, just to build on that.

It's really interesting in the conversations that I've had with envoys, looking for practical

examples where overview and scrutiny have been involved in a piece of work that either

creates or impacts upon existing policy is really important and it shows effective scrutiny.

So I think this is a really good current real -time example, so thank you.

Thank you.

And I just want to echo that and say very much,

we welcome this kind of work from over in scrutiny,

welcome the recommendations.

And what I said yesterday at over in scrutiny is this,

that successive leaders in this borough,

my predecessors included, all the predecessors I will say,

since I've been actively involved in politics,

have invested a lot of money into the communities of this

to make sure that we are a cohesive community,

that we have 140 plus languages spoken in our communities.

We have people from all diverse background,

and our diversity makes us who we are.

We're strong.

We are a community that is embedded in the borough.

Our diversity is embedded in the borough.

Cohesiveness is embedded in the borough,

And all leaders before me, and I'm sure those who come after me, one thing that they've

ensured, and they will ensure, and so do I, to make sure we're back as one community.

And the fact that our resident service has 90 per cent of our community say they get

on with each other, that clearly demonstrates how strong we are as a community of Tarah

Hamlets.

and this report is important to us because there is no place for hate in

Tawa Hamlets. Of course we have differences. Of course we have, you know,

we disagree with each other but we also agree, we agree to disagree and our

strength is the fact that we are a diverse community and we respect each

other's heritage and we respect who we are as a community. Yeah, so thank you

Once again, I think that we will go along with the recommendations which are set out

here.

Thank you.

Thank you to the officers.

Good.

Shall we now move on to the next paper, please, if that's okay?

Yeah.

Okay.

the voluntary and community sector strategy 2025 -29 and the compact.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

I'm pleased to present the Tohamans Voluntary Community Sector of Shatardy for 2025 -2029

and the refreshed compact.

First of all, let me thank everyone who contributed in getting together, the council officers,

members, partners and especially our local voluntary community sector organisations.

The sector is very vital to residents and we know that often it's the first point of

contact for many of our residents and this tragedy builds on the cabinet in 2023, the

grants framework that we come up with and reflects on our ongoing commitments where

funds were increased to support the sector and a proper process was put in place.

I'm proud that our partnership with advice agencies during the cost of living crisis

was recognised with a Government Community Impact Award.

And our shared vision for the next four years is thriving,

diverse, voluntary community sector that builds with trust with the Council,

collaborates to meet community needs, strengthens capacity, resilience and voice,

supports independence and sustainability.

We have key actions from this strategy.

Some of them are launching the new compact for partnership working, annual needs assessment,

borough wide capacity building plan, co -design grant programmes, support for funding access

and consortium bids, as well as boosting volunteering.

We have progresses underway in certain areas, including the Voluntary Community Sector Summit

and Awards, which will take place again in January 2025.

We are recommending voluntary community sectors to put in the nominations for different categories

that we have is available on the Council's website.

Also we have other stuff undergoing which is the co -production of the Compact which

is available here, as well as the engagement recognition policy.

This strategy overall strengthens our partnership, aligns with the best value improvement plan

and equips the sector to meet growing challenges.

And the Refresh Compact, co -produced with the sector, endorsed in September, sets out

our shared values and commitments to residents.

It aligns with the National Civil Society's confidence and builds on our strong relationship

with the sector overall.

Thank you.

And Avizul here if you have any questions.

Avizul, please, is there anything you want to add to what's been said?

No, thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you.

You're OK?

OK, good.

Any questions from anyone?

Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

It's not a question, it's a comment.

So I would like to thank the lead member and our officers.

This is a very good, bold strategy.

I think it ensures, it's about building trust

with our sector and our partners,

effectiveness with our partners, I think is important.

We have a very vibrant sector within the entire Hamlets

and your investment and the council's investment

is evident of our strong partnership and commitment.

And I think this strategy will help us bond

with our partners.

So that's all I wanted to say.

And we've seen the work they do when it comes

to critical times, you know, we've seen the COVID time.

Those third sectors were at the forefront supporting

residents, supporting the vulnerable communities,

and especially the small organisations.

They do so much. They don't have enough resources, but when the difficult time comes, they're

the ones always at the forefront helping communities. And as a council, we can't do it on our own,

so we need our partners, and these are our partners, true partners. So I think I welcome

this report. Thank you very much.

Please, Steve.

So mine's a question, actually, after all. I'm interested in paragraph 3 .7 and 310 of

the cover report where you talk about consultation with the VCS and I understand it's a broad

church.

You've commented in 37 that 11 interviews with diverse range of VCS organisations.

I'm interested in the varying feedback that you may have got from different groups.

I understand the overall response from the VCS, it's an informed strategy.

I'm just interested in your perception of whether there were different takes from whether

be by size of organisation or cohort of population that they represent.

Thank you Steve. So I think the overall kind of feedback was a lack of funding for voluntary

groups, all sections of groups. I think for our smaller groups in particular, the challenges

in competing with larger organisations was something a lot of groups highlighted. So

I think things like our small grants is something they really value because it is restricted

to organisation and particularly also accessing funding from other funders.

So we've done two funders this year, bringing in some of our national funders, but I think

that support for smaller groups in particular to access not just council funding but actually

funding that's available regionally and across nationally is something that's been quite

critical in terms of their feedback.

OK, thank you.

Anyone else?

The paper is self -explanatory.

Councillor Sabina,

you want to comment?

Please.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

In town Hamlets,

we have had a good voluntary sector

and community sector

and we know what it means for our people.

I think this strategy is kind of reflecting

the real experiences, challenges and aspirations of our local people.

And it's kind of given a platform where we can listen to residents, to community voices

and to kind of reflect on what's happening, for example, responding to the rising demand

for advice, mental health support, youth services and culturally competent provisions.

My other question only would be, it's a good strategy of thank you to the lead member, the council and the administration.

My only question would be how have we tried to reach out to, for example, some groups that we haven't previously reached out to,

for example, the Somali community.

Sometimes they are seen to be left out.

So how have we reached out to some groups

that we previously haven't been that good

in terms of engagement?

Please, apostle.

Thank you, Councillor.

So I think particularly through the interviews we've done,

we've tried to target to ensure that we do access

a range of groups.

I think through our grants programme,

and particularly this time through the Mayor's Grants Programme.

For the first time we've funded a number of Somali groups

and through our small grants programme again we try to do targeted work and outreach

to really reach groups that traditionally may not access council service

and particularly new groups which are volunteer led.

So we do a lot of outreach work and provide support to groups

to ensure those that may not access council funding

are able to access some of our funding streams.

David, if I could, I know we're talking about community groups and third sector in terms

of our assets and the work that we do with our assets, council assets, community and

the third sector, et cetera.

Do you just want to comment on that?

You know, and I remember we had one or two petitions there for one or two organisations

where we are with the third sector, please, yeah?

Yeah.

Excuse me.

We've been making really good progress with a number of organisations where the Tower

Hamlet CBS raised with us the need to make progress towards agreeing new leases with

valued organisations.

Myself and the Director of Property, Sam Brown, have met with around 10 to 15 key organisations

in the bar of people at Mudshoe City Farm and we've made really good progress I believe

on a number of fronts towards hearing what the concerns are and actually then responding

with a set of proposals and I hope we'll start to see some things finalised in the

coming weeks and months as a result. And also I think what's come out of that is the need

to update quite an outdated policy around VCS leases and I know that...

before our time, our hands that abide with it, previous administration.

Yeah, it dates back to I think if memory is, sorry for me, 2019, so we are looking to update

that and actually deal with some of the issues whereby because of some of the provisions

in that document, it's really led to a situation where organisations can't apply for external

funding and that's one of the main areas in which voluntary sector organisations

can actually leverage in additional resources that organisations like

councils can and but unfortunately our policy is constraining that as I think

there's some really good practical things we can do but in the meantime

we're looking to be as to work as flexibly as possible to accommodate the

needs of these groups and I think we are making excellent progress.

Thank you.

Great for you.

Councillor Corbea, anything you want to comment on?

No?

Okay.

Any other comments?

None?

Can I?

Sorry, yeah.

Go on.

I think, I know there's been a lot of issues raised and we've had a number of petitions

and stuff like that.

I think one thing that's been lost in communication is the current policy we have, which was adopted

in 2019 before we came into office, which is the one we have to work by until our new

one is developed which David has just mentioned. So the new one that's been developed by Sam

and David is more community focused and looks at how we can utilise our community resources

and give them opportunities to use our assets in a strategic way.

Thanks for those comments. Before we move on, I just want to make a general comment

The community sector, the volunteer organisations are extremely important to me and this administration.

You recall when we were here previously and now, I clearly made a manifesto pledge about

the third sector, about the community sector, that we will put the money in to support a

grant -making process that supports the third sector.

And we have done so.

I have seen over the last 30 years or more the contribution

that the community sector have made in the well -being

and the welfare, whether it be the voluntary sector,

sorry, the youth services, whether it be the advice

services or community sector generally, they make huge

contribution in delivering many vital services to our

residents that we otherwise may not be able to do so.

But it's a partnership between the council and the

volunteer sector, and together we deliver

millions and millions of pounds of services.

And the volunteer sector, I do want to thank them for

the contribution that they make to time loops.

Because of them, they're able to, with our

partnership, to lever in millions and millions of

pound to deliver and support the people of the borough.

But we are also supporting the voluntary sector.

Our grant -making pot is far greater, far bigger than the

pot that the previous administration, before I came

in, had delivered.

Some 13 million pound of money, council money, through

the grants process is delivered to our community

organisations of the 30 million pound,

one million pound has been set aside for small grants.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, for small grants.

So we help organisations with small pots between 500 to 7 ,000

pounds, sometimes 10 ,000 pounds.

It was an emergency grant.

But very importantly is this, that the 4 .5 million pound a

grant is helping the very organisations who need support.

Not all organisations can get money that they want,

however, everyone is being supported one way or another way.

And as the Mayor, I delegated the grant making process

to the Chief Executive and to the officers.

We as politicians were not involved in the grant making process at all.

It's done independently without any political involvement from members at all.

So it's officer led, purely officer led process.

The £4 .5 million we believe is going to where it is much needed.

And that's the philosophy, that's the process that we will continue going forward.

Yeah, Saeed, is that okay? Good.

Is there anything else you want to say?

I think I slightly touched on those points, but you've clearly elaborated on the processes and the key investments that we've done,

which is one of your manifesto pledges and it's going in the right direction.

We just want to make sure that the pot of money is gone to the right areas and the assessment continues in the right places.

And on our grants determinations, the mayor, we get them back to see how the KPIs are performing

and we make sure that every fund that we distribute is allocated in the right area.

Thank you.

And I mean my philosophy has been, and that's been echoed through our cabinet paper after we came here,

we want more organisations to benefit from council resources.

We want council grants to be distributed fairly and broadly

so it benefits and touches every corner of our borough.

And that has clearly been demonstrated.

More organisations have received grants through our process,

and more projects have been delivered over the last three

and a half years.

That's how we have worked, and we have delivered the money.

But what Councillor Said has said is very important.

You're doing good work on your team.

We want to make sure performance are at the top,

that the KPIs are delivered and return on the financial

investment are well documented.

Yeah, that's very important to us.

If an organisation is not delivering,

not meeting their targets, so they are supported,

they are worked with to ensure the money is,

it's value for money.

If it's not, you need to do what you need to do.

Okay?

Last point, COVID, then we'll move on.

Yeah?

Thank you.

I just want to also take this opportunity to highlight that transparency is at the heart

of this administration.

So through the grants determination panel, which is publicly webcast, that level of scrutiny

and that information is out there for residents and everyone else to see, and at times challenge

officers on how productivity is and also set tasks and goals in terms of how we monitor

and track how public money is being spent.

Thank you. With those comments about transparency, what they need to support the voluntary sector,

and value for money, can we agree this report going forward?

Thank you. Thank you of us all. Okay. Can we move on to the next?

please

Paper is the digital

Inclusion action plan 25 to 28

Yeah, yeah, okay, please it's quite straightforward you wanna

Yes, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. I am delighted to present the partnership

digital inclusion action plan for 2025 to 2028.

This plan has been co -designed with our partners

and residents insights.

Our annual resident survey shows encouraging progress,

Mr. Mayor, since 2021.

The number of digital excluded residents in Terehambit

has fallen by around 6 ,000, from approximately 16 ,000.

However, the challenges remain.

Those most likely to digital excluded residents who are aged over 55 plus

people with disabilities and those not in work continue to face significant

barriers to getting online Mr. Mayor. National, nationally sorry, the

government published a new digital inclusion action plan in February 2025

setting out four priorities. Number one closing the digital skills gap. Number

two tackling device poverty. Number three Mr. Mayor making government digital

services easier to use. Number four Mr. Mayor enhancing local support. Our

refresh local plan aligns with these priorities. It aims to clear

residents of terror humbleness to have the tools and skills they need to

participate in contribute to and benefit from a digital world

The plan addresses core needs mr. Mayor access to devices data and digital skills support

strong foundations from our first action plan

What's new is a set of specific commitments from key?

public facing teams

to embed digital inclusion in their work.

Bringing these commitments together, Mr Mayor, in one plan,

provides strategic oversight and accountability,

opportunity for cross -departmental collaboration,

digital inclusion must be everyone's business.

This action plan is designed to make that happen, Mr Mayor.

I commend this plan to the cabinet and welcome your support in taking forward this.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Any comments, sir?

Just to apologise, Mr. Mayor, I think we published the wrong version.

On the website there is a correct version of the report, so just to draw cabinet's attention

to that.

It's not Mayne's fault, is it?

He does go to Banga Banga fire.

So we're going to make sure he knows what he's doing.

Okay, please, Kamdul.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Afazal, for this report.

Thanks to the lead member as well.

It's not a question, just a comment.

I welcome the development of Digital Inclusion Action Plan 2025 -22 -28

and its alignment with national priorities.

It's encouraging to see the progress made since the previous plan, but the continued

risk for older residents, people with disabilities and those unemployed, highlights the need

for targeted interventions. I particularly support for the focus on access to devices,

data and digital skills, as well as embedding these commitments across council services.

clear costings and governance will be essential to ensure delivery.

And I'd like to see strong monitoring to measure impact and reduce inequalities.

Thank you.

Can I just get some clarity?

You made a comment that this isn't which report is being published and which one is in the

hard copy?

»» So due to inclusion, there was an initial version published as part of the cabinet papers.

That was the incorrect paper.

But a couple of days ago we have published the correct version.

Both of these are available on the website.

»» So both are available on the website.

I just need to be really clear in terms of process.

Sorry, Mayor.

So the report that they have, that members have in front of them tonight, is that the

correct report that you're asking them to agree?

Okay, so I misunderstood.

That's why I...

Okay.

Thank you, Councillor Baudru, it's always you when it comes to wrong versions, but you've

done the right version today.

I'm very grateful to you.

Grateful to you.

Deputy Mayor?

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I welcome this action plan.

I think it's very good.

I had the pleasure distributing laptops throughout our primary and secondary schools.

I think it makes a huge difference, especially with non -working parents.

And I think one of the challenges we have is non -working parents, disabled residents and also 55 plus.

So I think this will hopefully help.

So I welcome this report.

and also I would like to thank so many businesses out there,

corporate businesses out there, through our tendering process.

Part of the social value, I think we had the pleasure of giving out

digital laptops to children and young people.

So I think that's one of the best things that social value adds to this Council.

Thank you.

And thank you to the lead member.

Thank you.

Just on the front page, please, make sure we are the correct lead member.

Councillor Boddle and Chaudhary are not said.

Okay, it says Said.

Okay, anyone else?

And can I ask you, why did it say 55, age 55?

Why not a bit more younger? Why 55?

I know, but why does it say 55?

Age.

So this is the research we've done on the development of the strategy that we've particularly

found those aged 55 plus and also the intelligence we get from our annual residents survey as

well so we can break down the information from the annual residents survey and particularly

those group. And as part of the development of this strategy we did do a small consultation

and again those over 55 particularly highlighted challenges we've won in terms of skill set

but also being able to get support to get online.

To know the rationale behind the 55, that's very good.

Are we okay?

Can we agree to recommendation?

It's a really good piece of work.

Thank you, Councillor Boudreau.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, great.

Let's move on.

Okay, the next one is the Unresident Survey,

extremely important.

Send. Oh, is it Send 1?

Sorry. Oh, 6 .4, sorry.

Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. So we were going to publish the SEND annual report a couple of months ago, but we had the SEND inspection, so we delayed publication to now,

and you'll see alongside the annual improvement report we published our SEND inspection outcome that we, I guess I would say, and I know we haven't got a lot of time,

but there's a significant improvement in that SEND inspection report and it refers to,

going back to our young people and what they said earlier, it refers to Tower Hamlets as a place

where children with SEND are genuinely valued, which is really pleasing to hear. All I would say

additionally is that we know that there's a lot of demand for SEND support in the borough and we

We know nationally that's a trend and we're grateful for the additional investment that

the Mayor and Deputy have put into SEND services to support our improvement in the last year

or so and additional investment has been provided to support transitions.

So it's a real priority, we've delivered significant improvements but we still know there's a lot

of work to do and that's captured in the annual report and the SEND inspection report.

Thank you.

Thanks, Steve.

Thanks, Mayum.

Anyone in the comment?

Please, Kanbu.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, lead member and officer.

As an administration, we remain committed to delivering on our SEND and inclusion strategy.

This report demonstrates the progress we've made in improving services for children and

young people with additional needs.

addressing offset and CQC recommendations and ensure every child has the opportunity to thrive.

Our focus on equality, safeguarding and partnership with parents and carers reflects our pledge to create a truly inclusive child -friendly borough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Great. Thank you for those comments.

Anyone else? Anyone else?

Okay, is there anything else Steve you want to say before I bring okay

Just really briefly mr. Mayor. Thank you

Particularly for the send inspection just a huge

Thank you to the children of families who took part in the inspection and obviously all our hard -working staff in the council and partnership

Agency schools and health who've supported the improvement. Thank you

Thank you

There's some really good outcomes in here and there's some really good messages around

leadership, around children, young people being consistently heard, but it does also

refer to inconsistencies.

Could I just ask you just to talk a little bit about that?

The inspection regime sort of outcome at the moment for SEND inspections which may be subject

to change in the next year with potential national reforms, effectively there is a judgement

which is either services are well delivered consistently

or the next level down is there's a level of inconsistency

or then there's some significant issues.

I think our last inspection a few years ago

was more in line with the third level

and we had what's called a written statement of action.

So that language around inconsistency is a judgement

that actually you're doing great things

just not doing it a consistent level all the time so that's what our improvement

plan and the additional investment that Mayor and Deputy Mayor committed to will

help us take us the next couple of years from that inconsistent level to being

consistently good. So Steve thank you for that, so for me and I know it's

Austed's report so I'm not, it feels a little bit dual personality a little

bit inconsistent because it talked about inconsistencies but then when you read

it, there's so much good practise in here. And I think, and I know you have commented

on the trajectory and the journey, but Andreas, this is another one I think, Steve, that we

should be promoting heavily. Some might say it's a double -edged sword, some might say,

well, there are inconsistencies and what have you, but for me, the benefits far outweigh

the dis -benefits of all the work that you and your team have been doing and the partnership

has been doing.

Those comments, please, can we note the report and agree the recommendation?

Thank you.

Now can we move on to the under -residence survey?

Please, sir, if you'll come down.

Steve, do you want to say a few words, then we'll get our friend to expand on it, please,

yeah?

Okay, so I'll just say a few words just by way of introduction and I'll let you go into

summarise some of the detail.

From my personal perspective as a chief executive, I'm often accused of being a little bit over

optimistic.

Optimism bias, I think, has been a phrase that's been used, but this is one of the...

I'm proud of that, by the way.

When you're leading an organisation, you've got an excellent team around you, as we discussed

at the Transformation Assurance Board, whenever that was, yesterday.

I'm proud to be optimistic and I can be optimistic because of the data, because of the members,

because of the council, because of the senior leadership team and also throughout the council,

but then every now and again you get a report like this.

And this report clearly establishes the residents' perception of the services that we offer.

So yes, there are some challenges, there always will be.

I'm interested in some of the community safety issues that may come out of this.

I'm interested in the night time economy in those respects.

But in terms of front line service provision and in terms of community cohesion, this is

excellent news.

And I'm really proud of it, Marin.

I know that you are as well.

And just whatever the conversation is tonight, Andreas, this is another one that we need

to heavily promote.

And there are four or five pieces as we come towards the end of the calendar year of issues

that we should be extremely proud of and we should promote.

But I'd like to hand over to Martin if that's okay to pick out some of the highlights.

Thank you very much for having me.

I'm aware you've got the slides that I've prepared in front of you, so I will give you

a very brief overview.

The Annual Residence Survey, as you can tell by the name, is annual.

It has been run since the 1990s, which means we've got a vast store of data potentially

going back several years. It was a statutory requirement up until around 2010 -2011. It

is therefore something that this Council chooses to do. It is also something that this Council

chooses to publish. And I can tell you that that is not the case in every Council.

So this is the 2025 edition, the third since lockdown finished. And that's relevant because

it's face to face. It is a gold standard. It is what's called stratified random sampling.

That means it is not just about the people who answered the survey but the views of all

residents across the borough. Fieldwork took place in spring of this year. It covers the

residents' views of the council benchmarked against the LGA. Those eagle -eyed amongst

you might see that we've done rather well compared to the LGA levels in the perceptions

such as overall satisfaction with the areas of place to live, how much residents trust

the council, satisfaction with how the council runs things, the value for money, etc.

We can also look at how much these have changed over time and there's been increases in overall

satisfaction of 8 percentage points. A year ago 61 % of residents said they were

satisfied with how the council runs things. It is now up to 69 % of residents.

There's a lot here. There's satisfaction with services, of service use and

satisfaction with services. So we can see that for example 76 % of residents are

satisfied with the waste service, 72 % satisfied with road maintenance, 83 % of residents are

satisfied with their parks and open spaces.

There is an enormous amount here.

There is more that we have than is presented here, because otherwise we would be here all

night and I've got kids to get home to.

So I'd be happy to leave it there and take any questions that anyone has at this point.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Okay. Let me ask members if not, but Steve and I got some suggestions, please

Thank you. Mr. Mayor. I mean, this is really amazing

Thank you to our officers and everyone involved. I think this is a

outcome for the whole council. I mean if you look at the benchmarking and it's LGA

I mean with surplus, every one of them and I think this is excellent

ambitious investment from the Council, from the Mayor and everyone else.

We think to congratulate every one of you, every one of our officers for this.

And in terms of perception, I think unfortunately for some people,

no matter how well we do, how outstanding we are,

for some people we're not going to get, that perception will be there, as always.

Because we don't have Joe Blogg as mayor, we have Luthur Rahman as mayor.

And for some people it doesn't matter.

The perception will always be negative towards this council.

So I think we can't really do much about that, but I think we just need to continue serving

the people of this borough and hopefully one day it will change.

Thank you.

Please, Shafi Dhanabrim Talerin.

Thank you Mr Mayor.

One thing comes to mind when Councillor, Deputy Mayor speaks about perception

and a quote comes in my work hard in silence and let success make the noise.

And this is truly the data that is here and it's presenting itself

is truly making the noise of success.

And the last three years face to face we can see the improvement that it has made

and it's a direction of travel for this administration, for this council to ensure that we, although people paint a different picture,

whether it's from parliament to the streets, by groups of people who want to incite hate within the borough,

This is the results and this survey is that benchmarking that proves that we are better than they think we are.

We are better than they think we are. This shows going forward, especially your investment Mr Mayor in public services and public realm,

The 83 % agree that my council is making the local area a better place for people to live.

And that's an improvement of a massive 22 % point since last year.

And I'd like to congratulate every single one of us in the council and every single

officer going forward.

We are moving in the right direction and I look forward to many more continuous years

of success.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Please, Tala.

Thank you, Mayor, thank you, colleague, for presenting to us.

I think as people that work in the public service,

opinions of a lot of people obviously are important,

but most importantly, residents are important for us,

especially as elected members, and for them to overwhelmingly tell us

that they're quite happy with our services,

and we're well above the benchmark,

like your benchmark as the Deputy Mayor has said,

is a testament to the great work that officers are doing here,

some of the policies that you've introduced Mr. Mayor and cabinet.

I think some of the trailblazing stuff that we're doing

is showing through what residents think about us.

And from a community safety perspective,

sadly, the perception of crime and anti -social behaviour

has been number one, except for a time during the cost of living crisis,

when that picked crime and anti -social behaviour.

But it has been number one and that's mainly because of the drivers of crime as opposed to crime itself happening

And we know to address those drivers where they be housing where they be poverty where there be some other drivers

They don't get fixed overnight. So that being said although it is number one

I'm really pleased to see that it's gone down. So there's some positive news there. So resident perceptions have gone down by 6 % and

and that must correlate with some of the investment that you're putting in,

whether that's nearly 20 ,000 uniform patrol hours that our extra enforcement officers are doing.

That's additional hours that's leading to results and perceptions of crime.

Whether that's additional CCTV that we've invested in,

whether that's an additional dog unit that we've invested in,

whether it's all the additionality that we're doing, it is affecting the perceptions of crime.

I do want to touch on during this white ribbon campaign the feelings of safety for women.

So that has actually gone up according to the most recent resident survey.

It's gone up by 6 % to 64 % and that is pleasing but obviously it just goes to show there's

a bit more work to do as well.

But there are still another 30 % odd that maybe don't feel as safe as the 60 % that do feel

safe but we're on the right trajectory.

And I think one other point I wanted to mention was from the resident survey it shows that the public do want to access

And do want to engage with the mayor and members more

So that's something that they're showing through the resident survey

So as a council, I think if there's anything that we can do to promote our accessibility more

I'm happy to be contacted and I know everyone here and you are to be contacted

let's try serve the very residents that you know put us in this position and

And it's with those comments that I finish.

Thank you.

Please, Councillor Sabina.

Hector, then I'll bring you back.

Okay. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

So I think the annual resident survey is just valuable.

It's essential.

And kind of gives us that guideline

for the continuous improvement plan that we have

for the residents of this borough.

Just pleased to see that majority of residents in this borough

feel that this is the community and they feel safe and this is where they belong, they feel

homely. We've seen over the years the feedback and the reviews, how we can take that into

consideration to really improve, because at the end of the day we're here for the residents

and it's really pleasing that they can have that opportunity with us to engage and it's

our responsibility and I know as administration that we value this and we will continue to

kind of work for the residents of this borough.

Thank you.

Saeed.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to pick up on the costs residents are concerned about and I think this is a

very good point to understand that residents are six points more likely to report not being

concerned about the cost pressures compared to 2024.

So that's really, really good.

And then the next part says, residents

are five points less concerned about paying

for food, groceries, and three points less concerned

about credit cards, and four points less concerned

about other bills and costs.

So with my cost of living hat on, I think this is really good.

And I think this is the support that we provide on other areas

as prevention methods, including free school meals,

the free swimming, free home care,

EMA, university bursaries, so all of that,

first time contributes to people not being concerned

about paying bills, giving the residents extra cash

in their pockets, and also when we do

a household support fund, that again,

supports our residents with their bills.

So all the initiatives that we do is evident

on our annual resident survey that it is helping

our residents financially.

Thank you.

Councillor Mustak, then Coby, then Steve, I'll let you sum up and I'll say a few words afterwards.

Please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I welcome the findings of the annual residence survey.

This survey gives us a clear picture of what residents think and where we need to improve.

I believe using this evidence to shape our services is essential for delivering better

outcomes and maintaining trust.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Sir Kalp, I'll pick up.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

So there are four areas within my portfolio that are covered in here.

So homelessness is indicated in going down by three points.

Overcrowding, however, has gone up by four points.

lack of affordable housing has gone up by two points and quality of housing has gone

down by two points. So going down is a good thing. But I think it's important to highlight

in the context of the national and the regional situation around the noise that's coming from

the Secretary of State and the Mayor of London in terms of the reduction of social housing

to 20%. This is an evidence -based document, so it's important to highlight that our need

for Tower Hamlets and this document will strengthen our challenges to both the Secretary of State

as well as the Mayor of London in relation to those proposals that our need is around

affordable housing because there is a lack of it and that is the residents' perception

of that and also overcrowding being one of the key drivers for that.

So thank you very much for this survey.

As always, I'd like to have an evidence -based approach in sort of challenging and addressing

issues and it's important to understand that how our strategic plan is delivered also aligns

with the needs of the residents of Tower Hamlets.

Good.

Steve, please.

Thank you, Castle.

and that's really helpful.

So we can celebrate what's in here,

but there are areas where we need to use the data,

the information that's available,

to look at how we can potentially improve things.

So I think page 233 of your pack highlights

some of the really positive stuff

about how this organisation is perceived,

how it's trusted by residents,

how we are considered to offer value for money, how satisfied people are with the way that

we run things.

We are a minimum of at least 10 points above the LGA average, so we should be really proud

of that.

However, as the Mayor constantly tells me and we discuss we should use data, we should

use it to focus on those service areas where we can improve.

So, for example, when we look at page 244 and we look at the reduction in relation to

council tax accounts or we look at relation to parking services or we look at a considerable

reduction in satisfaction with pest control, these are front line service areas that impact

upon residents' perceptions.

So what the mayor has asked for and I have supported and I agree is that, Martin, it

really helpful to bring a report back that probably explains in a little bit more detail

the factors that influence, and there's a myriad of data and you've taken me through

it and I just appreciate how complex it is.

But I think after that piece of work has been done for corporate directors to include in

the same report action plans that they already have in place, because they have service plans,

they have annual reviews, they have discussions that support the delivery of the strategic

plan to bring back a report that explains where the areas have perhaps where satisfaction

is reduced, explain why that might happen in process terms and for corporate directors

to explain what they're doing about it in a report that we should commission to come

back in January if that's okay.

Thank you.

Thanks Steve, that's very important.

Martin, thank you to you.

Oh sorry, David, you come in and I'll come back afterwards.

Yeah, please.

Can I just make one small point which is that only 23 % of the respondents who answered the

question on council housing are actually residents of our stock and we have another more reliable

source of information which is the tenant satisfaction measures where we do survey our

own residents and where I do think we get a correspondingly much higher response rate

from those who actually live in our stock is certainly not where I want it to be or

where we want it to be when we're still on an improvement journey but I think it is a

more accurate measure than asking people who don't live in our stock but I just thought

I'd make that clarification.

Thank you David, thanks for pointing that differences out between our tenants and the

private landlord tenants or RSL tenants. I mean thank you to you and your team

for this annual resident survey. It's extremely important. So we you know we

want to we don't want to be in a bubble in a false world where we think that

we're doing so well or the council thinks we're doing so well. We want to be

measured by our residents and compared to what the LGA target is and benchmarked against

other boroughs. So rightfully so, external scrutiny is extremely important to us. And

as a Mayor I do, I've always done surgeries twice a week, so I get feedback through my

people I see in surgeries, also all of us are doing door locking for the last one and a half years,

twice a week, to get feedback, exactly where our shortcomings are.

And sometimes, you know, we do get criticism, there are one or two areas who are not doing very well,

and they've been reflected here.

And I've said this to corporate directors when we met them in other forums,

that your resident survey more or less mirrors what we have picked up on the doorsteps or

in our surgeries. So I'm grateful to the Chief Executive. We don't just want a resident survey,

just leave it there. We want to analyse where we're not doing too well. We want to understand

the underlying factors behind that, which we have some ideas for some of them, but we

want to see action plans from corporate directors how we're going to improve on it. That's very

important to us. As a local authority, we have invested additionally each year some

45 million pound into the communities of our borough. We're leading on some policies that

no other authorities in the country are doing so. And that's also reflected in the residence

survey where our investment is paying off, we are in a far better position as a local

authority now than what we inherited in May 2022.

The failures that we inherited, the improvements that we have put in place, we have put in

place.

As I said in other forums, I very much welcome the Ministry Envoys who are here in one or

areas that we need to improve on, whether it's governance, whether it's financial

sustainability, which we are very good at, but there were some governance weaknesses

that we inherited. There are one or two areas in the financial governance that we witnessed

is that we inherited example six years of accounts were outstanding when we inherited

it from the previous administration, all been sorted out. We've strengthened our governance

or we're doing so as we go forward, we want to embed the improvement in the way we run

this council, the way we deliver services going forward.

I honestly believe we are far better council than we were in May 2022 when we inherited

that council.

and the residents survey absolutely reflects that.

But the one or two areas there are some weaknesses

we want to improve on that Steve and improve on it rapidly.

But as some one or two of the council has said,

despite the improvement, the misinformation,

the lies, the some people pushing

a view of our council is about us. It's sad. It is unnecessary. But that is political.

There are some people out there, it's in their political interest to continuously keep on

complaining about us, either to government or to other agencies, and pushing certain

agenda about this council. And what I say to them is that stop pushing your misinformation,

stop pushing your false narrative about this council. We have a fantastic corporate management

team, we have a fantastic staff force. I and my councillors, we're public servants, it

gives us a lot of passion to serve the people of this borough. What we say to them is look

at the staff survey, this is who we are as a council.

We are a good high -performing council.

There's one or two areas we do say put our hands up,

that we need to improve on.

We are improving some of the weaknesses in our governance

that we inherited, and we have made huge strides.

Stop your misinformation, stop your lies,

stop your false narrative about this council,

stop your false complaints to the government or to other authorities and

look at this survey. Look at the resident survey. End of the day is the people of

this borough should be really judging us and they judged us in 2022 and they

will judge us again next May, May 2026 and I strongly believe they will judge

us fairly on our delivery, on our good service and our willingness to listen to our residents.

And they are the people who matter, our residents. They matter to us. I just want to leave it

on that note. Let's get another paper back to cabinet on how we will improve the one

or two areas that we need to improve on.

Thank you.

With those comments, please, can we note the resident survey?

OK, thank you.

Thank you, Martin.

OK, can we now move on to...

We've done 6 .1, haven't we?

OK, can we move on to now 6 .2, please?

No, not 6 .7.

We've done 6 .6.

6 .7, I'm doing a board rule today.

6 .7, free school meals action plan.

The approval of urgency.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Following the Children's Education Subcommittee,

free school meals,

scrutiny challenge undertaken in January 2024,

A report of findings and nine key recommendations were made.

An action plan in response to the report has been developed,

which addresses the Council's recommendation and ambition,

which is straightforward.

Every child every day should receive a meal that is nutritious

and reinforces the healthy eating habits.

It served an enjoyable and positive environment,

backed by transparent data, fair employment,

and the culture of readiness and improvement.

Mr Mayor, I would like to thank the scrutiny members

and our partners and our schools.

I think everyone came together, including some parents.

I had the pleasure of meeting many parents at an event,

at Grocers Wing, so it's a good report and good recommendation.

I will pass on to Steve to add.

Thank you.

I won't add a great deal other than to say I think it's obviously a reflection of the investment that Council has made in free school meals,

which is significant over the last couple of years.

And also to say again just to recognise the work of the scrutiny committee and the chair,

it was a really positive piece of work and we've had an external trainer working with our members around scrutiny

and that external person has said that this piece of work should be submitted for an award,

this piece of scrutiny, because it was such high quality,

which again goes back to what Chief Exec was saying earlier about how far we've come in our work around scrutiny.

So yeah, and I think the recommendations which have been discussed at your advisory board, I think are positive. Thanks.

Thank you.

Please, Councillor Campbell.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

2014 introduced free school meal for primary schools.

It was the first borough in the country at that time.

In 2022, Mr Mayor introduced free school meal for the secondary school.

Till today, we are the only borough in the whole country providing universal school meal

for the whole, both schools and every children in our borough. And these changing, if I don't

say changing, it's helping so many families. I know families without these preschool meals,

Some of the child, either they have to have a bread at school,

piece of bread, or maybe they have to go hungry.

This helping not just the family, giving these young kids

a better life chances, better chances to study hard, work hard,

because they don't have to worry about the food,

they can only worry about the study or progressing in their lifestyle.

Why Mr. Mayor, residents of Tower Hamlets are so grateful to the Council, to you providing this service.

Sometimes, you have mentioned so many times Mr. Mayor, sometimes there is a, people have had to complain about the portion of the size or quality of the food.

And I think this action plan will help deter these things and this will ensure the food provided to the school is not only nutritious, it is tasty, eatable and everybody likes it.

School needs to take their part as well.

School and caterers.

This way we can make sure the school takes their part

and ensure every meal is nutritious, healthy and tasty.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Chancellor.

Chancellor Sabina Khan, please.

So be the actor, so you forgive me.

You can be Khan for a night, can't you?

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

It was an absolute privilege previously to work with the Children and Education

subcommittee where we had the opportunity to go and taste some of the

free school meals provided in the borough and recently with the DiEM and the World

Councillors in Whitechapool we had the privilege to actually taste the food

again there. We know what free school meals in secondary and primary school

has really impacted people in the borough, especially, you know, far too many families

are still struggling with the cost of living crisis. But the work that we have done to

kind of go back, take reviews, take recommendations to kind of improve, you know, the quality

of the food being provided in the school. And I'm really proud to see that the new

the entire Hamlet School food accountability policy which really ensures that the council can really hold schools and caterers to account

to make sure that quality assurance is there and as an administration that's really important to us that when we are providing these free school meals

that quality is there and the children and the parents are actually satisfied as well.

So I'm really proud of the work that we continue to keep that monitoring on.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms Koubir.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

I'd like to start off by thanking Councillor Mannan and the Overview and Scrutiny Committee

for combining this report together.

And I think it's equally important that as an administration we go through these learning

curves and we try to improve our services and sometimes it needs that investigative

approach in order to better the service.

Can I just draw everyone's attention to page 421 of the report to the iceberg analogy?

And I think it's so important.

So when we were first discussing issues around free school dinners and those nutritious meals

and so on and so forth, we kind of pick on the tip of the iceberg when we're discussing

all of those issues.

And sometimes it's really important to get underneath

and see what are the causation factors,

what are issues that then impact on the child's living standards

and the quality of living.

And so you can see there is a whole range of stuff

that impacts directly on having those free school dinners.

And with that I think it's important and, you know,

It draws the rationale why we prioritise to fund free school dinners.

And I think, you know, going forward that's really important.

And equally I just want to say the Deputy Mayor seems to be on bang, bang, fire, fire

in reacting to this and adopting the recommendations that are there.

So yeah, just wanted to highlight those areas.

Anyone else?

Please, Steve.

Really briefly, Mr Mayor, just to place a record, our thanks to Jenny Pittam and the contract catering services and all our staff in the council who deliver food to some of our schools as well. They work very hard, thanks.

Great, thank you. Thank you for this paper and I do want to convey our gratitude to ONS

Council of London and the subcommittee of the ONS. This is a good example how ONS and

the Executive Working Partnership, you know, they're doing work that we otherwise would

have to have done, helping us to make sure the free school meal offer, accountability

And the ability is there, the offer is nutritious, it's diverse and it's doing what it's meant

to do.

And I'm really grateful to the ONS for the work that they've done and they're all sensible

recommendations in the financial implications we picked up within the existing resources.

There's no additional financial commitment from us that is required.

However, can I just say, so grateful to the staff, Jenny and the team for the work they're doing too Steve, I agree with you.

But can I just say at the same time, the take up is some 70%, some 25 -30%, I know you could never get 100%,

I just don't understand where we're providing something for free.

We're providing a nutritious hot meal a day to our children both in primary and secondary

school.

Why the take -up is still so low?

I'm a bit surprised.

Obviously food should be nutritious but it should also be diverse, it's so important.

And also cater to the taste buds of those youngsters.

We're not eating that, they have to eat it. I know that the teachers do buy the food,

but at the end of the day it's the youngsters.

They've got to like the food to eat the food.

I want to see a piece of work needs to be done. I'm sure it will be done through this Steve and Mayung.

To find out how can we push up the take up to 85 or 90 percent if not more.

It's very important if that piece of work can be done please.

What else do we need to do as a catering service, as a council or the school to make sure that take up is far greater than what it is.

because I believe some kids are still a bit surprised,

going hungry or eating somewhere else.

If they're eating somewhere else, that's fine.

But if they're not eating at all during the day,

that's a bit worrying when we're putting on hot food for them.

The free school meals is something that's excellent

for our kids, for our parents.

One of the kids, they get an offer of hot food,

hot meal during the day.

But very importantly, a family with three kids in the secondary school, potentially

they save in this cost of living era and crisis some £1600 between three kids, some £550

per child they save. That's also us putting money into people's pockets. That's also important.

Providing food, absolutely important.

Looking after youngsters when they're growing is very important.

But also helping families during difficult times.

So we're doing our bit.

Please, Steve.

Just to add to that, the really positive take -up on the free school uniform again

is helping families massively.

And certainly there's a variation across schools.

The schools take -up is very high.

So we are trying to work with the people who are doing that quality assurance

to talk to those schools with a lower take -up because there is a difference across some schools.

I'm glad you said that.

When we have the paper back before us, Steve, can we have the schools listed

and want to see what it is, please, and what else we can do with the schools to support them?

Maybe we need to have another drive, promotional drive etc.

Change the menu or vary the menu and make it more diverse.

We can do that in schools.

Okay, please, yeah? Thank you.

Can we agree to this report?

Yeah, okay. Thank you.

Okay, the last piece of paper is 7 .1.

The reasons for the urgency set out in the body of the report.

It's gone out, obviously done a good job.

It's been consulted on.

Unless I'm very conscious of the time, you have any burning questions or comments, please.

Can we agree this report going forward?

Is that okay, Said?

Yeah?

Okay, we're done.

Okay.

On AOB, Andreas, if we, with the number of papers we requested you and your team for

a comms plan, please. Can I have that by Monday, please? If that's okay. Steve, is that okay?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, please. Yeah, I and Steve have that. We're very, sort of a good pieces. If you

can do it beforehand, it's fantastic. We will need to promote this council in the positive

things we're doing in terms of delivering services. Steve.

Can I just add to that, Andreas, because we, you know, there are some areas we need to

clear about. We're asking for some comms activity in relation to the annual resident survey,

the Yonge -Tow hamlet strategy. I think there's some information in relation to the spending

review that the government have just concluded that the council will want to comment on in

that same time period. The corporate peer challenge report and any other announcements

that might be made over the next few days that are significant for the borough.

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Cabinet - Wednesday 26 November 2025, 5:30pm - Tower Hamlets Council webcasts

CabinetWednesday, 26th November 2025 at 5:30pm

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Cabinet
Wednesday, 26th November 2025 at 5:30pm