Overview & Scrutiny Committee - Monday 12 January 2026, 6:30pm - Tower Hamlets Council webcasts

Overview & Scrutiny Committee
Monday, 12th January 2026 at 6:30pm 

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1 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

I'm Councillor Abdul Wahid, I'm chair of the overview and scrutiny.
I want to welcome you to this evening's meeting.
Just before we start, just to get some of the formalities out of the way,
I just want to remind, this meeting will be filmed for public viewing on the Council's website.
Only the participants at the meeting will be on the video footage.
Also, can I remind everyone who's participating in the meeting, can you please have the mic
in front of you and speak directly to the mic so that we get clarity and we can hear
everyone nice and clearly.
If there is any fire alarm, please do follow officer's direction and vacate the building.
Moving on to the next item, can I ask Naseema if there's any apologies for receiving it?
Apologies have been received by Councillor Sabina -Khan and Councillor Hejimiya will be
substituted.
Thank you very much.
I am sure everyone has heard the sad news of the passing of Simon Baxter, one of our
corporate directors.
I want to acknowledge Simon's commitment to public services and to Tower Hamlets.
He appeared before this committee on many occasions and we could see how passionate he was
about Tower Hamlets and some of the works that he did. On behalf of all colleagues here,
I want to express our condolences to Simon's family and friends and all who worked alongside him.
And I want to mention and I want to say he was missed by us all.
And on the request of members we will have a minute's silence in memory of Simon.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Moving on to item number 2, declaration of disclosure of interest.

2 DECLARATIONS OF DISCLOSABLE PECUNIARY INTEREST AND OTHER INTERESTS

May I ask if any members have any disclosure of interest?
If you could indicate what interests they are.
Just to be safe rather than sorry, because there is some stuff about workforce,
I just wanted to declare that I work for a trade union.
Any other members?
Moving on to the unrestricted minutes for the last meeting.
I want to inform that the minutes for the 15th of December has been circulated.
That would be circulated and given out on the 26th meeting.
That's going to take on the 26th.
Thank you.
Moving on, action log.
Also, just to let you know that this will be also circulated on the 26th at our next
meeting.
Thank you.
Okay.
On to this evening's agenda.
Unrestricted reports for consideration.
discussionary and state...
We're going to take the discussionary and status fee and charges for 2026, 2027.
The main business this evening, just to remind you, is the Scrutiny for the Budget for 2026
2026 and 2027 and the NTFS for 2026 and 29 provisional.
The papers we are looking at went to cabinet on the 7th of January 2026.
We are going to start with the fees and charges which the papers are and the appendix 5.
Can I welcome Councillor Saeed Ahmed, cabinet member for resource and the cost of living and corporate director for resource, Abdur -Razak Karim.
Can I also remind our cabinet members and officers that we are going to take papers
as read, so if you want to add anything before we go into the floor, thank you.
Thank you, Chair, and good evening to the Committee.
I would like to begin by acknowledging the sad passing of Simon Baxter.
Simon was an outstanding colleague and deeply decent person who will be sorely missed.
On a positive note, I am quite excited to come forward to the committee today with this
budget after working for several months.
We have been working tirelessly with the team.
And it gives me great pleasure to present this budget today to the committee.
And before I begin, I want to thank senior officers for joining us today.
As we all know, the Council continues facing significant pressures across several critical service areas,
especially adult social care, housing need overcrowding and rising SEND demands, which are of historical high levels.

3 UNRESTRICTED REPORTS 'CALLED IN'

4 REQUESTS TO SUBMIT PETITIONS

5 UNRESTRICTED REPORTS FOR CONSIDERATION

5 a) Budget Report 2026-27 and Medium-Term Financial Strategy 2026-29 - Provisional

These challenges are further intensified by our position being an inner London borough with high deprivation and rapid population growth.
However, through a dual approach that has been consistently emphasised, fiscal prudence
paired with preventative investment, we have again demonstrated that we can rise to these
challenges.
Since taking office back in 2022, we have embedded a value for money approach, recognising
that every penny counts and ensuring it is spent wisely for our residents.
and this MTFS reflects a continuation of that process,
delivering a balanced, sustainable financial plan for the next three years.
And crucially, it maintains reserves above the recommended minimum amounts.
This year's financial context was shaped by the Government's first major funding review in over a decade.
We engaged proactively in the consultation process,
ensuring Tower Hamlets unique needs were represented, resulting in a positive settlement.
Provisional figures issued in December are incorporated into this budget, subject to confirmation next month.
However, despite these uncertainties, our commitment to protecting frontline services and investing in prevention remains unwavering.
This budget includes a £22 .5 million additional investment into adult social care,
ensuring that our most vulnerable residents receive the dignified support they deserve.
It also includes a £15 million for temporary accommodation,
ensuring we meet our statutory duties while accelerating routes into safe and affordable homes for our residents who are struggling.
Alongside this, we are continuing to deliver London's most ambitious house building programme with over 6 ,000 homes in the pipeline by May 2026,
supplemented by the Mayor's accelerated housing programme, delivering nearly 3 ,500 additional homes on 40 -plus council -owned sites.
We are also significantly strengthening investment in our existing council housing stock,
with an additional £100 million committed over the next five years,
on top of the ongoing plan to invest £140 million to address
damp and mould, decent home standards, fire and building safety works,
bringing the total planned investment to £318 million.
To reach a position where we can sustain these levels of investment
while maintaining a balanced budget, it required
discipline, collaboration and innovation across the organisation.
So a number of key measures were introduced to ensure we maximised efficiencies while protecting essential services.
It is important for the committee to know that we established two strategic fiscal boards,
the Financial Sustainability Forum and the Spending Review Panel.
The Forum shaped the MTFS and identified efficiency and income opportunities.
Its work then informed the spending review panel, which reviewed directorate positions and agreed mitigation strategies to protect frontline services.
Second, we implemented expenditure control panels to scrutinise all spending by distinguishing between essential and non -essential costs.
Through subsidiary panels at directorate and divisional level, we ensured that statutory and vital services were fully protected,
while expenditure that could be absorbed within the existing budget was not progressed.
Third, we implemented strong controls around people's resourcing, which prevented unnecessary spending
and created space for a broad organisation -wide review of spans of controls and staffing resources.
With appropriate safeguards in place for statutory and essential roles, this has contributed significantly to the deliverability of this forward -thinking MTFS.
Alongside these measures, this budget includes transformation savings of £10 million next year,
new savings of £6 .4 million and strategic funding substitution totalling £25 million.
We are boosting the resilience of the Council and its finances by allocating £20 million to a risk reserve,
increasing contingency from £5 million to £10 million,
and setting aside £5 million annually for transformation purposes.
All of this builds up the resilience and the purpose of this MTFS.
However, over the next three years, this is about a budget, a gross budget of somewhat £6 billion of gross expenditure.
This further results in a net General Fund revenue budget requirement of £482 million for 2026 -27.
The General Fund capital expenditure for the year is set at £207 million, while the HRA
capital expenditure will total nearly £1 billion, supporting investment in existing
homes, new property acquisitions, new developments and community resources such as the state -of -art
women's centre, drugs rehabilitation centre and infrastructure improvements across the
borough.
The DSG remains at a deficit which currently stands at £30 million.
pounds, we await further clarity from the government on how this will be treated in
the future years, like do many councils across the country.
However, Chair, I'm proud to confirm that protections for this council's most in need
remain firmly in place.
The local council tax reduction scheme continues unchanged, offering 100 % support, which is
one of the best in the country.
The cost of living council tax relief,
it also remains in place and that covers people
who are not being protected by the council tax
reduction scheme.
So residents who are earning less than 50 ,350
household income are protected from council tax increases.
For council tenants, we are establishing a new
400 ,000 pound hardship fund to support those
facing rent increases but who are not eligible for other benefits.
In summary, this MTFS is a robust and forward -looking plan to protect the vulnerable and invest
in prevention, which we have done so from the beginning.
It secures the Council's financial resilience across the board whilst we face national uncertainty.
It reflects on our embedded culture of value for money and builds on three years of disciplined work to maintain healthy reserve and sustainable long -term position where we had to frontload investment to begin with.
Most importantly, it enabled residents to continue benefiting from unique services such as the free school meals, free home care and other vital services, while delivering on the trust people have placed in this administration.
So I thank the Mayor for his leadership, my finance colleagues, the CEO and all directorates
and my cabinet members for the exceptional commitment to a budget that serves today and
safeguards tomorrow.
Thank you, Chair.
I will hand over to Dr Razak to add anything to that.
Thank you, Councillor.
Dr Razak, if you want to add anything to that.
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councillor Said.
Just want to give you a lot of opportunity for the committee to ask questions, so I will
I just had a couple of points.
One is the journey we've been through since May.
It's been a journey of adaptive change,
where the corporate directors came together
as a senior leadership team to work to really understand
our challenges and our pressures and how do we move forward.
And that, as stated by Councillor Said,
was a case of really strengthening our governance,
enhancing our understanding of value for money,
and being able to challenge ourselves and the council
in terms of how we spend every pound.
So this MTFS has been as a result of that,
and the key priorities for us was one,
to really invest in our statutory services,
which are national pressures, like homelessness,
adult social care, and SEND.
Two is to really increase our resilience,
and in terms of our contingency budget,
so that we've increased up to 10 million,
but also have a plan to really top up our reserves.
So you'll see over the MTFS,
we've increased our reserves to about 50 million,
which is topping up 20 million this year and 30 million in future years.
And then to finish off, the other plan was to really now work at pace in terms of our transformation plan,
especially looking at how do we gain efficiencies across the piece.
We've strengthened our governance by turning the budget board into budget and transformation,
and I've got Jonathan Lloyd on the screen today who, myself, and we do chair that.
And the main objective of that board is one, to deliver the transformation at pace,
and also challenge our colleagues in terms of ensuring that everything is on track.
We've set aside 15 million to support the transformation plan
and that will be subject to protocols and processes to enable us to use that money efficiently.
So I'll wrap up there, but if there's any questions, happy to take them.
Thank you very much for that.
Before I go into ask members for any questions, I'll start off.
Thank you very much for the presentation.
In terms of the reserve that we have, can you just give us a bit more in terms of how
that's looking and if we are going into that and using the reserves?
Because like I said, it is ambitious and there is a lot of stuff that is happening which
is for frontline services as well as the residents of the borough, but in terms of how we look
in in terms of the reserves that we have within the councils.
Thank you, chair.
I will go first on that one.
So I think what, like I said in my opening statement, it is really important to know
Initially, over the past few years, we had to front load investment because we know services
are depleted and we had to bring it up to a standard which was acceptable for our residents.
In doing so, we had to invest a lot of money and that meant the use of reserves to start
with in the first year, second year.
So as we stand now on the fourth year of me having the pleasure of running resources and presenting this budget,
this year I'm proud to say that we are actually topping up reserves more than ever before.
And that is to show the resilience we are producing for this council.
So we have an initial top -up of 20 million pounds into the reserves.
That is there for the council to use.
We also have been building up contingencies from £5 million to another £10 million.
So that basically means there's more buffer for the council when we face unknown pressures.
All of that is building the security and the resilience of the council going forward.
So to summarise, what we had to first start with was to build the ground.
Where we have built the ground, now it's about keeping it sustainable and keeping it moving
forward.
That's all from me.
I guess Abdulazak may want to give more clarity on the reserve figures if that's possible.
Thank you, Councillor Said.
So if you all refer the committee to Appendix 8 and also in terms of the main report, I'll just give you the page so you're aware.
It's page 59.
So the key reserves we look at, we've got EMRAC reserves which are usable and EMRAC reserves which are restricted, especially the revenue reserves.
And the ones on page 59 you'll see the analysis we've done.
We've got general reserve, which is our last resort, which is about 25 million
and we are maintaining that over the MTFS period.
And then you'll also see a risk reserve, which is the one that we top up now.
We've created the risk reserve to enable us to respond to pressures that are known
or fluctuations in the market, things that are out of our control,
but also to give us a buffer for if there is anything that is unforeseen
in terms of pressures or demographic issues.
So those are the key results we need to really keep an eye on.
And you will see over the MTFS period, like next year we're putting in 20 million,
the year after that we're putting another 20 million and then 10 million in year three.
So that gives us a buffer across the MTFS of about 75 million over the three years.
Thank you. I'm going to open the meeting for members.
I always look for a way
toelow to the
I'm only happy
to see that the
from the general fund.
On the context 7.
Thank you, the question was around SEND, how do we have the ringfenced.
I think that will form part of the dedicated school grants, the DSG,
and that in itself is ringfenced.
So the SEND money is safe.
If we have on top invested into children's services,
as you can see from the budget, there are growth areas
in children's services, and that also includes
making sure that we have our EHCP plan going forward.
We want to get them on track.
We have Steve Reddy here who has tirelessly worked in those areas
to make sure that those vulnerable children are protected
and we can then report on our plans on time
and get things moving very quickly.
And in terms of DSG itself, we know that there is a deficit on that area,
and that is something where we're in direction from the government,
what happens, and that's not just the Hamlet's Council,
that is across the board, everyone's waiting instructions
from the government what we do about it.
Thank you.
Jahan, then I'm going to go to Councillor Natsali after Jahan,
and then Councillor Abdukal.
Thank you, Chair.
So thank you, Councillor Said and officers as well.
I'm quite interested in the 6 .4 million savings you mentioned earlier on.
And on top of that, the 25 million strategic funding substitutions.
Will that impact any will there have any service impact?
That's the question.
and follow on that sub -question, would there be any gateways or independent assurances
for high value savings?
Thank you for the question.
I'll come in first, Chair.
So in terms of the savings, what we have produced, none of them are frontline services, so that's
one thing that we can assure that these will not impact frontline services.
And secondly, when it comes to substitution, that shouldn't impact frontline services either,
because this is what is strategic financing behind where we have resources available in
different pots of money for the council to use.
But what is allocated by based on the process that we'll go through, we have boards where
in the boards this substitution is scrutinised.
It goes through a process and once finance and legal and all the requirements are met,
that is then moved into how the council sees fit as it's labelled that it can do so.
So there isn't any direct impact to the services.
If anything, it will build resilience going forward.
If I could add a little further.
Thank you.
In terms of your question about assurance of savings delivery, so as I mentioned earlier,
we still got our budget and transformation board which monitors savings on a monthly
basis.
It is not only challenging but also looking at early mitigation.
So if there is any issues with delivery, then we do have a plan of either finding other
ways of delivering that savings, if it is slipping or if any investment is required,
then we do support the budget holders or do challenge in terms of that delivery.
And Chair, I would like to come in just to add one more further point.
Just today I was reading a report where other councils like Lincolnshire have planned
35 .5 million pounds in savings
So that is a great amount of savings where other councils are need to find to mitigate or balance their books
we're not in that position and
We are we worked really hard. We worked really hard to start with before the settlement
So then by the time the settlement was agreed
We were in the position where we had already found a certain amount of money to make sure that we not in a black hole
per se.
So our hard work has resulted in the position that we are able to present today.
And also in terms of monitoring and deliverability of the savings, when we look at this year's
savings, we're only reporting a very small percentage of unachievable savings, that's
only £100 ,000 compared to what we had targeted last, well, current year.
So that being in terms of what we can deliver, I have full faith in our team that we can
go ahead, we can deliver what we put down and where there is slippages, we will monitor
that well in advance and report back to the committee.
Just want to remind members, if we can take the questions on fees and charges, because
we're going to move on to the MTFS afterwards.
But if we don't have any questions on fees and charges we can...
Councillor Laveo, Natalie.
Thanks chair and thanks for the reminder about what part of the agenda we're on.
And my question is around the increase of the rents by 4 .8 % I think it is.
I think this is a really hard thing for our residents and I would like to hear from Said, Councillor Said, what kind of calculations went into that, how you're justifying such a hard increase while everything else is going up.
Thanks for your question, Councillor.
I think what's really important to understand is the rent increase is a standard increase.
This is where most councils are going with.
So this is the CPI plus 1%.
We understand that any sort of increase is difficulty on our residents.
and at the same time we have an organisation, we have numbers that need to match,
but this isn't about numbers, this is about livelihood of our residents.
So with that in mind, we understand that people who are on benefits will be supported by the rent increase,
but people who are working will feel the pinch the most.
So for them in mind, Councillor, we have established a £400 ,000 hardship fund
to support those people facing rent increases,
But as they are working and benefits isn't supporting them, this is where we can then
support those residents.
So it's not just about increasing rent and sort of just benefiting from that, it's about
how we can support our residents.
But at the same time, what's really important to understand is that this increases and the
HRA itself is delivering the housing revenue, delivering the housing stock, delivering back
to our residents, making sure that the windows and doors are good, making sure that they
have decent homes, making sure that damp and mould is controlled.
All of that given back, it's not just about the revenue the council is making, and it's
not just about profits, this is about giving back to the community and supporting residents
who are struggling.
Thank you.
Thank you to cabinet and to officers.
So directly on the point that cabinet just spoke about giving back to residents, so I
I wonder if you and then hopefully some officers can talk about the strategy that underpins this.
So I know you've taken the right decision of not increasing parking for example,
but there's other areas where you have taken the decision to increase parking.
So where is the strategy here?
Because there's areas of waste, there's areas of tackling some of our recycling for example,
which you've said is a priority.
The administration said it's a priority, but I can't see in some of the incentives here.
but you wanted to talk about parking in other areas.
So what sits underneath this?
Where is the strategy that determines and encourages
people?
Because for me, it seems that you're given with one hand
by taking away with another.
So I'm really keen to understand.
And I'd say from the cabinet and office, if that's OK.
Thank you, Councillor, for your question.
So I think this isn't about giving with one hand
and taking back the other.
It's more about balancing it.
It's more about making sure that we are sustainable going
forward, that our numbers match, but more importantly it's about where we know
that the rises will happen anyway. It's all based on inflation, there is no
rise there that is above inflation, so everything goes up with inflation and we
know that. So where these critical services, wherever we can protect, we have
done so. In terms of parking, we looked at this very carefully and it was, it went
through a rigorous process and it was a decision that we will look at parking on
own to make sure that because we know our residents are struggling when it
comes to parking because of the way it is because of the new regulations when
it comes to emissions and some residents are very struggling with this process a
lot so I think it makes sense to support the residents where we can first hand
and whereas in other areas where we know that it is of income generation and it
is an organisation that needs to run where we have where we don't have the
means that we can't just give everything on freeze we cannot increase we cannot
increase everything so I think it's it is about a way of finding a balancing
route and finding a way we can support the visitors the most and I think
parking permits comes to one of the first points where we can support residents.
Any other members of fees and charges? Councillor Abdi, are you...
You didn't quite answer my question so I'm asking about, so I take your answer and I think the point of
You've decided to freeze here, but not freeze there, comes from inflation.
I take that point, but what is the strategy that under sits this?
So what is the decision?
So you've decided not to put up fees somewhere else.
Is it purely financial or is there anything else?
Because you've spoken about an environmental crisis,
you've spoken about loads of other points, but it doesn't quite fit.
So I'm trying to understand.
So I was keen to hear from some officers about this.
I know you've given the answer you have, but from officers,
Is it purely financial or is there an attempt to work on a wider strategy?
Thank you, thank you, Councillor Abdi.
So I think in terms of the fees and charges, those were considered line by line on a case by case basis.
But when it came to, for example, the HRRA rent, that's a self -financing account,
The CPI plus one is a standard formula that was applied across the piece to enable us
to have the funds to reinvest back into the stock to make it good basically.
For parking and other fees and charges, we've applied the standard across the piece for
RPI, which is RPI 4 .5 per cent.
Some other areas where there was some benchmarking need and there was consideration for impact
assessment across the piece.
That was also considered by members and officers as well
as part of the process.
Thank you.
Any other questions on fees and charges?
OK.
Councillor Hari.
Oh, thank you, Chair.
Just a quick, Councillor Said.
You know the hardship fund about the rent increase.
Just can you tell us how much is the threshold?
How much does it have to be someone earning before they
apply for HUSHI.
I think we will come back to you on that one, Councillor, but I think the whole pot of money
is 400 ,000 pound and it has got a set of criteria where residents have to meet, but it's not
going to be stringent and it's not going to be red taped.
That was one of the requirements from the Mayor and myself that we want to make sure
is easily accessible and whoever needs that support, they should get it.
Thank you.
If there's no other questions on fees and charges, we will move on to the next item,
which is the budget report 2026, 2027 and the MTFS 2026 -29.
There are various appendix on the website, Council website.
Can I ask Councillor Said and Abdul -Razak to begin?
Also just before we go into the questions, we're going to go and I want to welcome Georgie
and David Joyce and the other corporate directors for joining us.
We will take it, take those in terms of director by director.
So housing and regen, health and adult, children and education, community safety, environment
and climate change will take it like that.
So basically purpose of smooth running of the meeting.
So if Councillor Sayeed, if you have anything to add before we go into it.
Thank you, Chair.
Just before I move on, I just wanted to address Councillor Harumi's question.
I think the criteria is listed on page 55 when it comes to the hardship fund for people
facing difficulties with rent.
There is a list of criteria.
They must have weekly income less than 500 pounds for a family and less than 350 pounds
for an individual.
I hope that answers your question in terms of introducing this part of the paper and chair. I've covered everything
I'm happy to take questions unless anybody else wants to
Thank You councillor
We would any members have any question we'll go into the
Councillor good up kibbe are
Okay
Counsellor Kibbe
Sorry, I'm confused what general questions about a budget general
Yeah, general questions if you can when you ask the questions if you can just specify
If it's not clear
Counsellor could we go down kibbe a please?
Thank you.
Thank you, lead member, for your presentation.
My question is related to adult social care.
Adult social care faces demand inflation, market fragility, and workforce shortages.
Growth needs to translate into sustained outcomes.
My question is how will 22 .5 million adult social care growth address long -term structural
pressures?
Thank you.
I'm sorry, Councillor, you need to repeat it.
I didn't hear the last bit.
How will 22 .5 million adult social care growth address long -term structural pressure?
Councillor, I could just repeat that because the mic wasn't on.
Thank you.
Thank you.
My question is how will 22 .5 million adult social care growth address long -term structural
I think
we have to be very careful about the
Am I clear to you now?
Thank you.
I think I have got the gist
of the question,
Councillor.
You are saying that the
22 .5 million, you want to
understand the breakdown of
that.
OK.
So if my memory serves me
correctly, I think 10 million
of that was towards
demographic growth.
Structural deficit.
Sorry, I'm just trying to
find where I am.
So, I've got so many documents opened up.
Five million was for demographic growth, yes.
So, the issues we've got in adult social care,
there's a number of issues.
There's historic deficit in terms of any local authority
in the country.
The adult social care budgets cannot keep up pace
with the growing demand.
So, there will always be some structural deficits.
So, that's one area.
There's also demographic growth in terms of the population size increasing, that's another
issue.
And there's also inflation.
So those are the three main issues in terms of adult social care.
And in terms of the breakdown, sorry, Chris, could you help me?
I just cannot remember the figures off my heart.
Absolutely.
So there's, to cover all those pressures that have been mentioned, there's a 10 million
structural there, there's 7 .5 for inflationary, and there's 5 million for the demographic
pressures which total the 22 .5 million that was mentioned.
Thank you.
Can I say the change?
Thank you.
The local government finance settlement published at the end of last December.
Hang on, just give me one minute.
The local government finance settlement published on the 17th of December last year obviously
brought in a massive, well a very significant uplift to Tower Hamlets and an increase in
the core spending power.
So can you tell me what impact this has had on your calculations and where that new and
previously unaccounted for funding has been allocated to within the budget.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor, for your question.
I think the settlement for Tower Hamlets was based on the formula that we are getting from
the fair funding.
That is based on deprivation, based on poverty, number of children and et cetera.
So I think that puts us in a unique place as we are as a borough.
And although despite having this fair funding for many other councils, it's very important
to note here that other councils have still got big gaps, big holes in their budget.
Cardiff has a 22 .5 million -pound gap.
So I think what's really important is that the work that we have done, it allowed us
to build up our resilience, build up contingency and make sure that our reserve is topped up.
So this is what we've done.
We've made sure we secure ourselves for the future.
Thank you.
Is it related?
Yes, related, yes.
Thank you for that answer.
So the summary of that answer, if I understand correctly, it was used to top up reserves.
there is still £26 million of savings and efficiencies that need to be found as part
of this budget, which is understandable.
But I suppose it's an answer for yourself as well as Mr Kasim as well.
To what extent do you think the Council is, how confident are you in terms of delivering
this, delivering these savings and efficiencies across the year?
Because as we found both last year and indeed historically over the past few years, failure
to deliver these efficiencies and savings as highlighted in the budget means that then
funds have to be allocated from elsewhere in the budget, HRA is an example, SIL and
Section 106 which again we're relying on very much in this budget are being relied on to
plug those gaps where the savings and efficiencies are being delivered.
So to summarise my question, how confident are you that we are going to deliver these
efficiencies?
what new methods perhaps are being put in place to make these actually happen and these
plans actually worth the paper they're written on.
Thank you, Councillor. I think one thing really important to understand is when we set our
self -savings targets over the past few years, we have met them as close as possible, where
there has been slippages, they were not significant, like what we're reporting in this current
financial year is a slippage that is unachievable of only £100 ,000, which we closely monitor,
of course.
I understand that here we have transformation and we have different kind of savings target.
For that, to give you an assurance, I can confirm that we have created boards, we have
Jonathan Lloyd leading on some of them, and it's a lot different from previous times,
because this is driven by experts in the field.
It is not just handed over to departments to go and find that kind of savings.
We are also providing the support to help them find that savings.
That is the most important part.
It is not just about setting numbers, it is about assisting the areas and the departments
to find those numbers.
Abdul -Razak might want to add a little bit more.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor James.
Two things.
One, as I said, because of the late announcement of the funding reform results, we started
our process really early. So the plan was to get to a place where, because there was
a lot of unknowns in terms of how much are we going to get, at the early stages there
was elements of us actually losing money before the consultation and then to a point where
London Councils with ourselves pushing for flooring which is basically protecting our
core spending power. Then the outcome of the consultation we realised that actually the
relative needs for Mila Fattah hamlets put us in a good place.
At that point we were really late in our savings programme, so that's where we had to find
those efficiencies.
As I said initially, the whole objective of this MTFS was one, to protect frontline services
and also put money into statutory services like homelessness and adult social care.
And the third objective was to really rebuild our resilience in terms of our reserves which
which were impacted not just from savings,
non -savings delivery, but more like
those demand -led pressures from the past two years.
And at the back of that, this is the reason
why you will see in the MTFS it's heavily concentrated
on rebuilding resilience.
In terms of delivery of savings,
so you will see the new savings this year
have really minimal impact on frontline services.
And to enable us to really deliver this
and continue delivering, one of the key changes
you've asked is what are you doing differently this year.
As I said at the beginning, it's all about
behaviour change, it's all about corporate leaders coming together as one and enabling
us to really deliver for as one council.
That to me has been the biggest impact on this MTFS, how at the beginning of May and
June we came together, we realised the challenge and we have seen all these pressures as corporate
pressures and if that continues, given everything is based on assumptions and at this point
in time I'm quite confident and we call reasonable assumptions to enable us to deliver.
However, as a section 151, I have to be confident to see what are we doing to mitigate those
risks.
So we have an ongoing budget of £10 million contingency to enable us to actually mitigate
any slippages going forward, but also through the budget board and through the transformation
board is the identification of any savings that are not being delivered.
What do we do?
Take action as early as possible, find other ways to enable us to deliver those savings
going forward.
Thank you.
I'm going to go to Councillor Ahudu Khan, then Councillor Apti.
Thank you, Chair.
My question is, before question, temporary accommodations overspend is 30 million.
The mitigation programme is targeting 27 .2 million in savings but is rated high risk
and 15 million per year growth is intended to fund the prevention and transformation
of the rent that temporary accommodation costs carbon.
So my question is how will 15 million homeless growth delivery, measurable reduction in temporary
accommodation cost and the improving resident outcome?
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor, for the question.
I think that's a very good question.
What's really important to understand at this point is when we know the statutory services
when it comes to adult social care and temporary accommodation, we know that things need to
happen.
So that's why we have made significant investment in those areas.
22 .5 million pounds in adult social care and 15 million pounds in temporary accommodation.
But the way isn't just to put money in services and just to keep it sort of going.
It's about finding transformation and getting things moving, to find efficiencies, find
better ways of working.
And I think that's what we're doing.
Where money is required, we put that money in.
But it's not a sensible way of putting all of it in there and just wait for the money
to work its way through because it's a demand -led pressure counsellor and things can change.
When we know that demand can drop, demand can go up, so we need our officers and the
departments who are expert in those fields to make sure they can come up with strategies
and policies and ways of working that make the numbers match afterwards.
But an initial investment is very important, that's why we put in significant amount in
both areas.
I'll hand over to David Joyce to add a little bit more.
Yeah I think just to add to what the lead member has said, in a way the pressures in
temporary accommodation are threefold.
So costs have increased substantially, demand has increased substantially around 10 % year
on year.
So I think we've now got around 3300 people in temporary accommodation and on top of that
the amount of subsidy that the council can reclaim has been frozen at 2011 LHA levels
and all of those factors together have got us into a position where actually at the start
of this financial year we were overspent by about 40 million.
We've done a lot of work this year to reduce that overspend and some of the actions that
we've taken have reduced the cost of the accommodation in particular that we're getting for temporary
accommodation so getting out of expensive night they paid accommodation. We've had a
partial in year saving this year but for the MTFS the benefit of all of that work is we'll
get a full year saving next year so I think to the point around how confident are we one
of the reasons I am confident that we're going to achieve the cost reductions we've set out
here is that actually we know that where we've secured made great progress towards securing
an additional 500 private rental sector properties that we've now secured them on leases which
will take us through next year as well whereas this year we've only got a partial year benefit.
So that's one factor we've been doing a lot of work around acquisitions but we've also
been doing a lot of work to transform our systems and upgrade our IT systems particularly
for things like residents making housing register applications so that process is smoother,
less staffing resources are required. I'm pleased to say that we've virtually eradicated
our backlog of housing register applications and we're a long way to eradicating our backlog
of homelessness applications. We've made great progress this year and we've invested in systems
and we are investing in a staffing restructure as well so that the service is much more fit
for purpose moving forward.
Having said all of that though, I am really grateful for the additional funding that our
colleagues have put into this budget because I think it would have been a really tough
ask to buck all of those national trends that I described.
So I think we have a fair balance here between some additional funding and a whole raft of
cost reduction measures.
Thank you.
We go to Councillor Abdi, then Councillor Amy.
And Councillor Natsou, we haven't forgot about you and we will come to you after.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you very much for this.
My question is to David Joyce as you are covering the community safety brief.
and it's around the community safety.
So I'm looking at HRA saving proposal number five,
which is around reducing the police patrols and housing
estates.
So community safety, technical and social behaviour,
is something all our residents continually tell us
they're concerned about.
It comes at the top of some of our resident surveys
and engagement across the council.
And the council has gone to great pains
to tell us about how much money is invested in COs,
So to have its enforcement officers and buying police time
and buying police capacity.
So I'm somewhat surprised and worried
about the reduction in the police numbers.
Just saving 200 ,000 a year, so 600 ,000 over three years.
Reducing the police numbers that we have in Talhamdids
from 16 to 10.
And the justification, the rationale, I think,
is fundamentally flawed.
So it talks about the need.
We have COs, we have 70 plus enforcement officers.
I think you'd agree they don't have like for like powers.
The idea that we're gonna have the same level of security.
A police officer would have six police officers compared to.
The COs do a phenomenal job.
They have gone on to be with them.
I've seen them firsthand and they're really good.
So I wondered if you could talk about the assumptions here
because I don't quite think an enforcement officer,
and I hope you agree,
doesn't have the same powers as a police officer.
so how the assumptions have come about and do you have any concerns about it as somebody
who's covering the community safety brief?
Yeah, I mean I will say that I'm very new into that because it is something that has
just come to me recently and obviously unplanned so I'm not going to pretend that I'm as much
of an expert as someone like Dal Baboo or Keith Stanger if they were here on nowhere
near as much. But just on the general point though, I think it's important to say that
the Tarahumless enforcement officers do have some powers including of arrest and the ability
to give fixed penalty notices and so it's important to say that particularly for anti -social
behaviour they can be often more effective than the police who are often
pulled on to other more serious forms of crime and don't have the resources to
tackle the issues which are causing a lot of problems for our residents and
are sometimes less able to focus on the priorities the residents are telling us
matter to them. So I do I do understand the point you're making but I but as a
general rule I think our Tower Hamlets Enforcement Officers do a really
brilliant job focusing on our resident priorities but as I said I think perhaps just given how
new I am to this era we could ask for a sort of follow up written response from Dao.
That's fine I think I've just got one follow up chair so yep they no doubt they do, I've
seen them for the first time I think they do a great job and you're right they have
some powers so under the police reform act they've got some powers similar to the police
but they haven't got like for like and that's fundamentally my point they haven't got the
to execute warrants or enter properties.
So I think the assumption of this saving,
600 ,000 saving, given it's an area
that a lot of our residents, all councillors across this room,
will know that residents talk to them day in and day out
about the concerns around it.
So I'd ask that something that you look again.
I'm happy to have a written response,
but it's something I think would be really
concerning to residents, given we've gone to great pains
to talk about how much we are as a council investing.
And I know the cabinet member wants to come in, so maybe also
for a political stance, I don't necessarily
know cutting police, because it is cutting police.
From 16 to 10 is a right move for any council
who spends quite a lot of our comes
talking about the great ways we're
supporting when it comes to tackling anti -seism behaviour.
Cabinet member, please.
Chair, thanks for your question, Councillor.
I think one thing is really important to understand here
is about the value for money.
It's not about what it looks like on the packaging, it's what we're getting in return.
Ultimately, for us, this is public money and we need to make sure that it's spent in the right way.
If we think that, I don't know, maybe, Councillor, you would know, how many police officers do you really see patrolling our estates?
Do you see police officers patrolling our estates? Yet we're paying a lot of money for that.
If we are not getting the return for it, but we see Theos are doing that work for it,
It makes sense to make sure where it works, we put the money into that.
It's not just about labelling that we have paid for police.
If we're not getting the return, we should do what works for us.
More importantly, what we're doing around it, the CCTV investment, the empowering the
CEOs more, all of that, if it gives us a better return, it makes sense to invest more into
it.
If it's just for the namesake, this isn't about politics, it's about our residents,
it's about making sure we provide the service that works.
Thank you, Councillor. Before I go to Councillor Nattoli,
Jaha 'id I stopped you last time you had a question?
Did you?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Okay, alright.
Councillor Aiden?
Yeah.
Thank you, Chair. My question is returning to the Fair Funding Review.
And I think some of it was answered in my, in Councillor James King's,
in the response to Councillor James King.
But I would like to just hone in because it's my understanding that the review hasn't been
finalised, the settlement hasn't been finalised. What risk is there that we lose some of the
money that we've been promised up front? And have we built that into this budget or have
we built mitigations into this budget?
target part of its
see any material changes. Year 2 and 3, that could change, but that is depending on the
annual settlement, as I explained. Thank you. Councillor Haynes.
Then we're going to go to Councillor Abdul -Bannon. Thank you. My question is about the I think
it's what we're calling a structural efficiency review.
Just a bit of a mouthful,
but there's quite a significant amount of money
being pinned on this.
It is quite an amount, and I'm just quite concerned,
and I'd just really like to hear some explanation
to go through it, promising a really significant amount
of money in efficiencies here,
but we're also essentially promising no impact
on frontline services and minimal impact on staff.
Those are really, really big promises to make.
I think that's quite bold to put that down in writing, to be honest.
And my concern is that this is a big gamble on the idea that this will all run really smoothly.
I made a declaration earlier about my work and there are processes to be followed and negotiations to be entered into.
I think it's quite a gamble to pin this amount of money on what are essentially staff reductions
and we have no idea how this will play out.
So I just wondered if you could talk me through the thinking here, the question about how
confident are you was asked earlier but it's essentially the same question on this specific
point.
Thank you, thank you Councillor Amy.
I will give you the overview and I have Jonathan Lloyd, our transformation lead, to expand
on that.
The plan on this one is to look at our spans of control and to see how they are aligned
in terms of our target operating model.
This is Jonathan coming in a second.
We have looked at our current structures and we have looked at how many vacancies we are
holding.
There are two mitigations.
Now, with any savings proposals, especially of this type, there will be risk of delivery.
So again, the question that was asked was how reasonable is it for me to kind of
agree that this might be deliverable but there's always a risk with any savings.
So my role was to make sure we've got mitigations in place in case this slips
hence why the 10 million contingents in here and our reserves but I'll get
Jonathan to comment on the process and how we're going to manage that going
forward.
Thank you councillor, thank you Abdulrazak. Yeah I think this is a key element to both
to answer both the transformation in terms of,
so we're confident of the scope
of recognising it's challenging,
but the most important thing is that we kind of know
and learn how we're doing at the earliest possible points.
So just in terms of transformation,
each workstream has a series of metrics
of the measures that we know are going to impact
that kind of savings and improvements,
whether that's the number of people
in high cost temporary accommodation
to the number of people of which we can kind of
support in a different way at the front door around adult social care.
So we are tracking and understanding that throughout the whole period of the transformation
programme and if things don't go as well as anticipated, which inevitably that might happen,
then we share, we understand and we adapt and we find different ways to achieve that.
But the key is not to obviously wait to know early and understand the trajectory.
And the structural efficiencies proposal is similar.
So there's a few elements to it.
So, and we're putting things in place
to ensure some of those minimal impact aspirations
and particularly around commitments
around frontline staff are met.
So some of that will be,
there's a more significant recruitment freeze in place
now than there was previously.
There's a strong aspiration and tracking
to reduce the number of agency staff.
There is, you know, there is, we're embedding the some of the proposals around structural efficiency and how we might kind of work, you know, how we might kind of design spans and layers.
So the number of people that leaders manage, for example, into the kind of transformation programmes down the line, and we'll be working with an external organisation to kind of help identify those opportunities as well.
So some of those things put in place, obviously, you know, we hold vacancies and things like
that to make sure that the change can be delivered with those minimal impacts.
And we do have a significant number of long term vacancies, particularly in vacancies
outside of, well outside of statutory services, of which we will kind of factor into that
element.
And also, of course, we know we're looking at opportunities where we are making changes
and whether that's existing voluntary redundancy programmes, etc.
So bringing many of those different things together over the long term to ensure that
we can make the change with minimum impact, but recognising that it is going to be challenging,
particularly in year two.
So we're always kind of tracking how many vacancies we have, what is the total number of agency reduction? What are the opportunities around for redundancy?
What are the areas that are going through change and the opportunities for kind of designing that with minimal disruption over the long period of time?
So it's got lots of different work streams of which we'll be able to see where some of our risks are if they emerge over the longer period of time.
Thank you, Jonathan.
Councillor Abbamana.
Chair, thank you.
I've got general questions on adult social care on the finance.
Children's social care faces a lot of insufficient financial pressure
from rising inflation, agency costs, staffing, all of this increase.
My question to you, Said and Steve, is how inflation and demand pressure
and children's service social care will be managed, knowing that in the past that's been
really increased, especially with the people of the same and the same staff and it's inevitable
that way and how would you manage that?
Thank you chair, thank you councillor. The town has traditionally performed particularly
well in terms of social care managing demand. Our teams work really well with
families and with partner agencies to try as hard as possible to keep children
with their immediate family or wider family. The result of that is we have
significantly lower numbers of children in our care compared to all the councils
and then we've also invested quite a lot in trying to ensure we have foster
carers and family foster carers that reduces the number of children in very
expensive residential placements. So that's the sort of position we're in at
the minute. Moving forward there's a national reform agenda called Families
First which is seeking to develop that even further. So use more approaches like
family group conferencing and investing more in foster carers to do more to even
further reduce the number of children in care. But the reality is the
in terms of the conditions in communities and in families because the
cost of living and other challenges means that we do need to work doubly hard to try
and maintain the historically low levels of children in our care. So that's the sort
of social care element in terms of the demand. We've been working really hard on our agency
staff levels as well so this year we had a record number of agency social workers commit
to transfer to become permanent and we've been selling the benefits of being a permanent
members of staff so some of that working really effectively and there is now as
colleagues have said a really tight control on the spend on agency and on
recruitment generally so we keep track on that. In terms of SEND as you know
we've seen a massive rise in demand for SEND services and we've obviously
introduced our new strategy and action plan we had our SEND inspection that was
very positive this year but we are continuing to see a rise in demand and I
think you'll be aware from national reports that there will be a national
programme of send report reform and all councils with their partners will have
to create something called a local area send reform plan to manage that and
again as with a lot of these areas of demand a big emphasis on early years and
focus on early health and prevention plus also looking at different models of
support and children with SEND and a reduced reliance on specialist placements
and more investment in mainstream education to support more children there
but that we've started to do that ourselves anyway but certainly as our
national reform programme rolls out and there will be some funding to support
that, we will have our own plan to tackle that.
Thank you.
Jennifer Lough.
Councillor Aysler.
Thank you, Chair.
Can I just quickly come back on recruitment, if that's okay, savings around that.
So on the back of Councillor Lee's question, I saw an email from the chief exec about recruitment
freeze and I've just heard the explanation around that. What I'm confused about is what
we've got to hear from the Mayor and Chief Exec in the last three and a half years around
safeguarding frontline staff, around savings that need to be made and agency staff was
a big priority for the Mayor in order to be looking at this. We're at this end of the
budgetary year so we're going into a new budget, we're about to pass that next month hopefully,
But yet, this process is at the beginning.
We've got a message that's been sent out to the workforce to say recruitment has been frozen.
I understand how deletion of posts are done, especially in the lines of the budget.
Why is this time round it's done this way?
Doesn't this cause a lot of instability in the workforce?
How are we working with our unions?
Also, this feels really bumpy to go on a ride with staff who hold up this council.
When it comes to the agency staff, some of those agency staffs were made because they
were told they were efficiency savings from other budgets.
So there's a little bit of confusion there for me if you can explain what the strategy
is behind that.
I'm going to pass it over to the
Thank you, Councillor.
There's two things. There's the control of agency in terms of
overspend.
With agency, we don't normally have budgets, so we tend to use
any vacant posts that haven't been filled permanently to
offset that, so there's that one which we started the process in
here to enable us to mitigate that pressure, hence why the
recruitment freeze. We do have a governance on the
challenge, do you actually need this post? Is it statutory? What is the risk implications?
How are we funding it? And if you recall last year, one of the ways to control agencies
was to have a vacancy factor to enable us to actually manage that pressure on agency.
So that's the first thing in terms of that process. This is more about becoming more
lean and efficient council and the plan was to review our spans of control and what that
looks like across the piece, across the council.
And that is the reason why there was a recruitment freeze
to it, if we were to delete any posts,
so we minimise the implications of permanent people.
But that was in a nutshell the strategy, how that was formed.
Yes, Kaza.
I think my concern still remains,
because I get the bit about the agency staff.
But again, there's different agencies used
for different things in this council.
Like I said, we've been told they've been used for efficiency savings in the past. So that contradicts this now secondly
Like waste service. We always gonna need agency staff. That's resilience building in resilience in the workforce
And some agency staff. Yes
I understand where those savings and they're obvious and we've raised them here actually like the mayor's office
We we asked why is the way is three and a half years later. It looks very different. That's a progress, right?
But I just don't understand why it's done now and in this way.
I understand the savings that need to be made.
I understand this council needs to find those efficiency savings, not at the cost of people.
These people are, the staff who work here, they're real life people who are also having
to face cost of living, they're having to face the challenges that everyone else does.
What are we doing all this time if we're still sitting here trying to work out where the savings need to be made, which post needs to be deleted?
Before the budget was published, I just think this work should have been done.
This whole year you're saying to staff this is the work that is going to be done in order to work out what post might need to be deleted,
need, which department might need to make staff efficiencies, doesn't this cause lots
of staff to look elsewhere, or the whole idea of how much uncertainty is going to be placed
on them and their lives doesn't help with their own planning?
This is not helpful.
Isn't there a better way to do this?
Thank you, Councillor Lai.
Let me just come in here at a point.
I think what is really important to understand is the previous, the current financial year,
whatever we sort of, the out turn is, has a knock on the finger of the next financial
year.
So, that's, to deliver that, that is the current, the email that you may have seen from the
chief exec is to see how we can control the spend, right.
Control recruitment and recruitment is quite huge because if you understand we have something
like £250 million just on payroll.
So just 10 % of that is £25 million.
So that is a huge amount of funds that if, although it's not existing, but if it's a recruitment freeze, obviously it's future posts, right?
So it's not like people are at risk right now.
So for future posts, you could see how you can slow it down, how you can sort of recruit at a pace when needed.
If it's obviously something urgent, then obviously there's a different route.
But generally to have a control on that spend is very important.
In terms of the future ones for the transformation process, I guess that will go through its own process.
It's something too soon to sort of identify right now when we know that we have a target to achieve.
We set a target, we set processes and we let it go through that route.
But if we think that we can stipulate all the roles now and start producing of it now,
I think it's going to be hasty and not go for the right process.
So I think we need to make sure it's a timely manner and we need to have a lot of engagement
in that process, a lot of consultation we need to go through.
So for that reason, it's not all being stipulated right now, it's to go through the consultation
process.
I will just say one last thing.
It's interesting that the staff survey got done first and all of this came out afterwards.
Just a point.
Okay.
We're going to move on to Jai.
Thank you, Chair.
Just reading the MTFS meeting, I'm going to struggle with, sorry, excuse me.
There are identified several high impact financial risks including adult social care amongst
children placement costs, inflation, volatility, etc.
So could you tell me what specific risk justified the increased reserve to 5, 54 .5 million while
restricted reserves forward.
Sorry, Councillor.
If I misunderstood, sorry, Tahit.
Are you saying what drove us stopping up our risk reserve?
Yes, so a specific risk that justified the increase in the risk reserve.
Okay, so there's a couple.
Our biggest risk is one of the demand and pressures, economic pressures,
and you'll see we've done a scenario modelling
to see what impact it could have
in terms of best case scenario, worst case scenario.
And our role in this MTFS was to make sure
we are prepared for those scenarios
and hence why we've kind of topped up
to make sure if worst case scenario also happen,
how can we mitigate that pressure going forward.
So there was a lot of analysis done behind the scenes
and there's an appendix included this year
for the first time looking at those scenario modelling.
But also we've also recognised, obviously,
as mentioned earlier, in terms of being prepared for any slippages and savings, any slippages
or any risks that could materialise going forward, we need to make sure we've got the
right results to enable us to mitigate that.
Councillor Abdu.
Thank you, Chair.
I wanted to come back to community safety and talk about the savings to the environmental service team.
So my first question was about making the cuts to the police, so moving from 16 to 10.
And then in this cut it talks about reducing the number of environmental service teams, moving it into the Theo team, so it's an enforcement team.
So you're expecting the Theo team to pick up more of what the police were doing on the estate tick.
You're now expecting them to pick up more of the environmental work.
So fundamentally, you're asking them to do a heck of a lot more with fewer people,
because it says you're going to move over and recruit five more new Theos to the general team.
But this team that was originally doing the environmental service and enforcement were eight people.
So you're giving the borough even less capacity in tackling environmental service and environmental
crime.
So again, to you David Joyce, and I'm happy if the cabinet member wants to come in, your
thoughts on this in that you're asking a heck of a lot from the enforcement team.
And I know we're quite concerned actually, the point that a cabinet member made about
efficiencies or the right thing to do is the best thing for the borough.
The comms for the past couple of years from this council has been singing the praise of having police officers and hiring police officers.
I mean chapter and verse or social media are corporate comms and anywhere you look it's talking about the police hiring.
So the alternative now is to have less police and make the Theos do more by attacking on the environmental service.
So I want your thought on the rationale for this please.
David, if we could start.
Can you just refer me to which part of the report you're referring to?
I'm looking at savings 2627 in community savings number 3, which is environmental services
team restructure.
David, I think I'll come in here, if that's all right, the chair.
I think what's really important to understand is yes, heck of a lot more from the CEOs.
also means that we've invested a heck of a lot more in Theos, that's why.
So if we've put money into a service, we expect to get return in service.
If we've got somewhat 72 Theos active at the moment, so if we have 72 Theos active,
I'm sure doing some environmental service work isn't going to break a Theos team.
It's going to make it even more robust, it's going to give it more power, more resilience.
And I think our CEOs work very well. It's really important to understand that.
They work very well and the infrastructure they have, from the drug squad to the community patrols,
the vehicles that you see around the borough, this was never seen four years ago.
This is transforming a borough visually and people and residents are feeling the difference.
It doesn't make a difference by seeing just a police car around.
Sometimes the police, they have priorities in different places.
If they come to a state but they get a call, they will go.
But the COs are here for our borough and they'll stay patrolling our streets.
Yes, we had a campaign where we wanted to recruit police officers,
but the problem with police officers were they, the Met, weren't able to recruit the police officers.
So we could have a heck of a lot of money just stacked away for police officers,
but if it's not being recruited or not utilised properly,
We would rather put it to place where we can utilise the money and get return back for
our visitors.
I will ask Ashraf to come in as well.
When you read the detail in the report around the savings performer, it is partly about
looking at having integrated job descriptions so that basically people will be doing more
a broader range of tasks which is more efficient rather than having people do less things but have more people.
So I think this is part of an efficiency review that's been carried out and which staff have been consulted on.
Ashraf's here and will be able to come in because he's been more involved in this than I have.
If you're okay, chair.
Yeah, sure.
Thank you, thank you, thank you chair.
Just to add an echo to Councillor Saeed and David, I have to take a step back when the
public protection director was created, the model was provided the council would go through
in the process of integrated enforcement directorate and that's why from the previous committee
safety to actually allow the council within the committee's directorate to look at the
efficiency of having enforcement in one place.
And again, going back to what Councillor Saiz is saying,
it's Theos and the environmental services is looking at
all the enforcement powers within that same territory.
So there is about the span of control, looking at that.
There is about looking at efficiency, and that's the model
that Council embedded and tried to actually sort of look at that.
And that's why part of the saving proposal to look at that
environmental enforcement service is to look at that span of control
and look at efficiency within the Theos,
what enforcement that actually can be taken on board.
So it's a wider piece of work that
was done as part of the Public Protection Directorate.
Is it a question?
Directly to that point.
A question, please.
Yeah, to the question of, so the point
you made about consolidating the environmental health
team, the trade and standard team, and the licencing team.
So my ultimate question here is, both I space one for the team,
where there's 60 Theos with the idea of recruiting five, not 72,
based on this proposal, maybe it's wrong.
And I take Ashraf's point, but it still doesn't necessarily answer my question.
You're asking them to do a lot more,
taking on the areas of work and having a reduced number.
So again, it's talking about, is this serving the residents in the best way,
given the amount of savings?
Well I think, and Ashraf just described it, but I think it's about using resources more
effectively.
So as Ashraf described, looking at spans of control, being able to deploy resources where
the issues are and by having broader remits, that is one way of doing that.
It's often a tool that's used in efficiency reviews is to basically deploy staff on a
particular activities all of the time.
So a lot of analysis will have gone into this,
that's been done by the previous corporate director
with his directors, and Ashraf I think has described
some of the areas that have been looked at,
including spans of control.
So it is basically using our staff resources
more efficiently.
Thank you.
Councillor Lachman -Truján?
Thank you, Chair.
I'll be brief.
My HRA borrowing is 241 .5 million rams from 27, so it's increased from 27.
Affordability rates increase if interest rate raise or grant or right to buy received underperforms.
My question is how will the council ensure that affordability of the 996 million HRA
capital programme aimed at raising the interest rate?
Thank you, thank you, Councillor.
So there's elements of how the HRA is funded.
So there's a right to buy which we've taken a prudent approach this year in terms of the
estimates and underpinning the whole capital programme of the HRA is a 30 year business
plan which is really tested and modelled on different assumptions.
We've gone through a process of identifying that and looking at what the pinch points
are and this year obviously there's been some announcement from government in terms of additional
grants which we are applying for, working with the GLA and in terms of our borrowing
that has been tested through the business plan so that is affordable at this stage.
Just to say as well, when it comes to the capital programme, we have a lot of governance
around this, which both finance and the department sits on to review schemes and their affordability,
and if at the point of agreeing a scheme through the gateway process that we have, we got into
position where you know global events or national events led to a kind of mini
budget with increased interest rates or something we would obviously have to
review that so you know we keep all of these things under review we make a set
of assumptions in this budget and but as and when we implement schemes and we
borrow money to fund those schemes we will assess affordability as part of the
process that we have got and obviously we won't progressive factors move against us.
But we, I will let Abderr's speak to it because it is advice of the Finance Commission but
we have got treasury advice that the assumptions in this plan are absolutely the right ones
according to the market intelligence that we have got.
Thank you.
Councillor Gullan -Kabir.
Thank you, chair.
Sensitivity analysis shows adult social care worst case at 6 .33 million.
Pressure in 26, 27.
Provider cost explanation is a key risk.
My question is what consistency exists if provider cost rise beyond inflation assumption?
Sorry, what provider cost, sorry, Councillor Charlie.
Okay, because the key, once again, key risk is provider cost explanation is the key risk.
And what contingency exists if provider cost rise beyond inflation?
Thank you for your question, Councillor.
It's an interesting question to say
if provider costs rise beyond inflation
because provider costs are made up of
staffing costs and the cost to deliver care.
And depending on the provider,
in terms of their business operating model,
sometimes they can ask for an uplift
that's actually well above inflation.
However, the way in which we work with providers
is we're very clear as a local authority,
and this is not uncommon,
with other local authorities that we only have a certain
amount of money and therefore we undertake a process with
providers where we sit down and we negotiate with providers.
We also use, particularly with support from our colleagues
in finance, we also do some market testing to make sure
that what we are then offering providers to say,
this is what we can afford to give you for inflation
and, you know, and various other things is fair.
We also do some work as part of,
Tower Hamlets are part of the Northeast London consortium
of local authorities.
So we work with other local authorities in Northeast London
like Barking and Dagenham, Redbridge, Waltham Forest.
And again, that's as a way, because the providers that we
work with generally work in a certain area.
So that's trying to prevent providers playing us off
against each other, because sometimes providers say,
I want this from Tower Hamlets.
If we all agree, it means we are not played off
against each other.
It is really a negotiation in terms of
what we can afford.
And also trying to ensure
that we are fair
but at the same time
we don't have
a huge amount of money
to be able to give
providers
possibly what they might expect.
Thank you.
Any other questions
from members?
If we can get
We...
There is everyday questions.
Yes, go.
Sure.
Few questions, everyday question,
which is that when we go to those step,
we face these questions.
So we need some answer from the physicists.
Is about like investing in treating dampened mould,
and is it enough being invested to treat dampened mould?
Second one is decent home standards are below our home, is below decent home standards.
What are we investing in to improve this?
And it is enough.
Thank you.
David?
Thank you, Councillor.
I think it is a very good question.
It is something that we are very much focused on this budget in terms of within the HRA.
We have 140 million pounds set aside for damper mould in decent homes.
So that is very important when it comes to people's living condition.
That money, I could ask David to come into more details, that is there to ensure that
you can reassure the residents at the doorsteps that the council is taking proactive actions
to tackle damper mould.
Although damper mould is very hard to tackle, but we need to make a move on it.
And more importantly, it's about the living conditions when it comes to bathroom and kitchen
and the decent homes to bring that back up to standard.
It's been a very long time since our housing stock had that refresh, so it's very important
that we tackle that.
So this budget does include this, Councillor, so you've got that on your hand.
I'll ask David to give us more details.
Yeah, I mean, we're making steady progress in improving our level of distance as members
recall it was a key issue of the regulatory inspection. We had just over 80 % of our stock
is decent but obviously that means around just under 20 % was non -decent. The 140 million
that Kansas aid has referred to is an initial investment that we will deploy over the next
three to five years which should pull us up to full decency. I should say that we have
already made progress since the regulatory inspection improving our
decency level but we're really committed to obviously continuing that it's an
absolutely key issue that was raised during the inspection. The HRA business
plan is a 30 year plan so not just a five year period and I say the level of
investment that will go into our stock over that kind of 30 year period is a
much larger sum than 140 million so we're making provision to keep investing in our
stocks we don't want to end up back in a position where we have a sort of backlog of investment
as we investment need as we have today.
We have also in terms of damper mould fully invested in the service so that we are able
to deal with the implications of our law in terms of response times.
I'm pleased to say that the service was ready for that law when it came in in October and
have been meeting the standard since in terms of responding within 24 hours.
Thank you for the question.
Sorry, Chair.
So if possible, to let us know how many homes you are expecting to lift up into descent
home standard.
So we've got about 11 ,000 tenanted properties.
So around about 8 ,000, 8 ,500 are decent and obviously the remaining properties are non -decent
so I think it's around 2 ,500.
But as I said we've already started investing to reduce that number of non -decent homes.
An important point to make though is that over the course of the plan some homes will
also become non -decent because of the expiration of time or perhaps components failing.
So it's not a sort of one, you know, you don't just measure it once, we will have to continue
to invest in homes which are decent today, but if we didn't invest would become non -decent
if that makes sense.
And that's all part of the investment plan and asset management strategy that we've got.
Thank you David.
If we, do we have any more questions, if we don't have any more questions I want to thank
the corporate directors, Councillor Saeed, for your valuable contribution to this evening's meeting.
You can leave the meeting once we move on to our next agenda item.
So thank you very much, have a good evening.
We'll just give them a minute to go and then we'll go into our next agenda item.
May I also ask those who are in the gallery, because it's going to be a committee we're
We're going to be discussing some recommendations as a group.
So I believe...
Can you clarify?
You can stay.
We will move to our next agenda item which is scrutiny, summary and recommendations.
If I can ask members if they have any recommendations, if not, yes, so if not I think I'm going to
ask Philip just to clarify what's the process.
Sorry, I've got a recommendation.
So I think as an O &S committee we should absolutely ask them to think again about the cuts to
and that should be a recommendation we should put forward for 200 ,000 a year.
Getting rid of six police doesn't make sense, I think I would encourage them to keep it.
Any other members, if not, for the state?
Just to remind members the timeline, so we will need a cut -off point, it's going to be Wednesday, midday.
Just because the turnaround time and the report has to be in by the 20th
submitted to the mayor so you'll get sight of the recommendation, but if I can have them by midday Wednesday, please
Yeah
No, you've given yours if you have any if anyone else has any further ones if you can bring give it by that
date, please
Also
So, the next meeting is going to be on the 26th.
With this, we are going to have a meeting with the government.
are closed this evening.
Oops, sorry, Jaiid.
Sorry, Chair, just make you aware
that I won't be around on the 26th.
I know I could say that in a different,
but I'd rather say it now,
I won't be available on the 26th.
Thank you.
Council Natalie.
Thanks, Chair, I just want to put in a plug for the report.
If members could cheque the draught recommendations that I've sent round and Rebecca Williams who wrote the report and supported me in the project.
If you could have a look at it and get any feedback to me by the end of this week, so Friday, then that will be incorporated into the report.
but had an excellent meeting with officers today and yeah I'm really confident that this
is a really good opportunity for scrutiny to have a really positive impact on outcomes.
So thanks everyone who's contributed.
Thank you Councillor, I get well soon and with that we'll close the meeting.
Thank you very much for everyone's contribution and see you at the next meeting.
Thank you.
Good evening.