Human Resources Committee - Monday 8 June 2026, 6:30pm - Tower Hamlets Council webcasts

Human Resources Committee
Monday, 8th June 2026 at 6:30pm 

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An agenda has not been published for this meeting.

Thank you.
Good afternoon and welcome to the human research committee meeting.
My name is Councillor Haran Mian, I am the chair of the committee.
This meeting has been held in person.
Some members may be joining online.
I don't think there is no one joining.
Only the committee members present in the meeting room will be able to vote.
Okay. There is no fire alarm.
Okay. This meeting is being filmed for the Council website for public viewing.
Cameras are focused on those participating in the meeting,
but anyone in the room may be caught on camera in the background.
So do look happy.
I will remind members at the meeting to only speak on my direction and to speak clearly
into the microphones to ensure that their contribution can be properly recorded.
Please can all participants now switch your phone to silent mode
for the duration of the meeting. Thank you.
Apologies for absence.
No chair, no apologies received.
Moving on, item one, declaration of DPI, declaration of
discussion on particular interest. I'll ask the committee members present to introduce themselves
and also please say if you have any declaration of interest. From my right hand side just kindly
just say your name your position and then any interest. Thank you good afternoon good evening
all I'm Councillor Shafi Ahmed Whitechapel Ward no DPI's chair thank you. Good evening
everyone good evening chair um Councillor Mayim Talukda nothing to declare.
Thank you, chair.
Councillor Saeed Ahmed from Canary Wolf Ward.
Nothing to declare.
Okay.
Councillor Mads Churchhouse from Bow East.
Nothing to declare.
Thank you, speaker.
Oh, sorry.
It's okay.
It's not all acceptable.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening everyone.
I'm David Joyce, the corporate director of housing and regeneration and I'm here for
the spotlight on my department tonight.
Thank you.
Ellen Clark, I am the director of HR and organisational development with two papers for the committee
this evening.
Justina Bridgman, Democratic Services Officer.
Okay. Thank you, everyone, for that part. Now, item two, we need to appoint a member
Vice Chair. So can I ask everyone if you have, can you nominate someone on this
room? I can see mine by your hand please. Can you? Thank you, Chair. Excuse me, can I
propose Councillor Shafi Ahmed?
Thank you chair, I second that.
Thank you.
So all those in favour in supporting, yeah, okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
That's unanimous.
Thank you.
So congratulations, Shafiibai.
Thank you for becoming our vice chair.
Thank you, chair.
Thank you, everybody.
Okay.
Thank you.
Item 3, minutes of the last meetings.
The minutes from the last meeting on 12 February have been circulated and we had one meeting
on the 15th, 20th on the AGM.
So can those, I think, those who were at the AGM, I think most of us were here, can you
please say, do you want to say anything or do we accept this as the correct meeting of the last two meetings?
Thank you, Chair. I wasn't present, so I mean, but I'm happy to. I believe it's a true record.
So yeah.
I'm...
Yes, sorry.
Let me get this.
There was a Matthew Menon, he, yeah.
Yes, that's the proceeding, yes.
Okay, that's correct.
Now item four, action log.
Are there any action?
There are no actions, but I just wanted to put the last meeting to an end, so just letting
everyone know.
Thank you, that's great.
Item 5 is reports for consideration.
5 .1, human resources committee terms of references, quorum membership and dates for 2025 -26 meetings.
If you take it from there.
Thank you, committee.
These are the usual terms of reference for the committee.
Quorum, membership, meeting times.
I would like your approval for these.
May I just note that the majority of the reports were brought to the AGM on the 20th, so this
is nothing new but this is just to formally ratify this. Thank you. I think
I agreed. Yeah, thank you. Moving on. 5 .2. You have a question on that? Shall we wait?
I'm just referring back to the terms of references.
So under the, I'm looking at Point 4, Function 4, and it says the monitoring officer is authorised
to make or amend committee, subcommittee panel appointments in accordance with and then nothing
there?
What's the next?
Section 24 of this constitution.
So does that mean that because normally it's in consultation with group leaders, isn't
it?
I mean the monitoring officer can't just appoint members.
I just want clarification on that.
It has to go through the process.
That's right.
Deputy Mayor and the Deputy Mayor, they should be informed or at least consulted upon.
The terms of reference have come from the constitution, so I need to go back to Matthew
Mannion and ratify that.
But what you've got there is what the constitution says.
impractical is behind corporate
trade and could communal
compensation be Quite popular
Thank you for all your
Thank you. Justina, is the presentation going on screen or is it just to talk to the paper?
Okay you've all got copies, yeah. Okay great. So thank you very much for inviting me to
be here today and to give you an update on the directorate. Just to give a little bit
context we're very very busy housing and regeneration director we have over a
thousand staff in the department the largest department by numbers of staff
and that's because we're managing a lot and holding a lot of activity so we've
got 21 ,000 council homes that we directly manage we've got over 3 ,000
families living in temporary accommodation and we've seen big
increase in demands for homelessness and housing options services over the
recent years as you will have seen in a number of authorities and we're building
because of that the the pressure and demand that we've got we're building a
lot of homes as well so we've got over a thousand homes in our direct delivery
programme at the moment either on site or completed and we're trying to bring
forward an additional 42 sites which could deliver upwards of three thousand
homes. We manage a large planning and regeneration department which has over
2 ,000 planning applications a year. We're bringing forward an ambitious
local plan to deliver over 52 ,000 new homes in the borough plus support
economic growth and we've got a private rented sector team which is about
enforcement of private sector landlords and we're trying to be ambitious in that
space, lots and lots of work as well in terms of managing council buildings and
properties. So we've managed all the non housing assets like this building,
community buildings, idea stores and so on. So we have a directorate vision which
is the next slide that you will see and that's that's sits under the strategic
plan of the council. But really this director is here to help every resident
that we can help to have access to safe secure home and who can feel part of
what is a diverse and ambitious and growing borough. Remember that our
population is predicted to reach 2040 by the end of the next local plan
sorry 400 ,000 by the end of the next plan period. That puts us on a par with
cities like Birmingham and Manchester actually and we're already the third
largest economy in the United Kingdom.
So the next slide has my leadership team.
I'm really pleased because when I arrived,
I only had two directors out of the eight positions.
I now have eight people permanently in post
and you can see them there.
Most of you were at the introductory evening for members.
So you've met them all at least once
and many of you have worked with them over a number of years
so I won't go through them all individually
but I'm really pleased about the fact
that we've done that recruitment
and really built that team
and we've managed to attract some really good people and good experience.
The next slide set out the key functions, I've already spoken to all of this.
So, three overseas are planning functions, decision -making around planning applications
and the local plan.
HANA manages our direct delivery housing programme, our estate regeneration schemes like the nearby
scheme in Stepney, which is the Harry Absalom Paterson scheme, over 400 homes, and the non -housing
capital programme as well, so improvements to schools, send facilities and a whole range
of other initiatives like building leisure centres. We've got the employment skills
and growth function in there as well, so our work path service around getting people into
employment. Mayor's priority projects, that's about the accelerated housing scheme that
I talked about earlier, the 40 plus sites that we're bringing forward at PACE, but
also the big projects like Billingsgate Market,
where we jointly own the Landry City of London,
things like the Whitechapel Leisure Centre Scheme,
which it will be coming forward.
Corporate property in the states is about
service buildings like this one,
it's about community buildings,
it's also about our commercial estate.
We go over 600 buildings in the commercial estate
that generate income for the council,
facilities management,
and also health and safety compliance.
And then if we skip on to the next,
we've got the housing strategy policy and regulatory functions which is about
our relationship with the housing regulator in respect of our role as a
landlord it's about a private sector licencing and enforcement teams and
that's stepping up because of the renters reform act also our
sustainability and climate change scheme is and team is in this area as well and
and then we've got very large and busy homelessness and housing options
This is about prevention of homelessness, securing good and long -term temporary accommodation,
good quality and it is about also supporting our rough sleepers in the borough as well
as managing a very large housing register, 31 ,000 families on our housing register.
Then there is the two parts of the service that are solely focused on our role as a landlord
of 21 ,000 council homes. So you've got Stephen Platt in the top right of this slide,
who's housing asset management. This is about housing repairs. It's about the long -term
stock investment as well. The council recently made a decision to invest over 600 million pound
in our council stock, and this area will drive that investment forward. But it's also the crucial
area of safety and compliance. And then Gulam, who's the final director on that slide, is overseeing
Basically our relationship with our tenants and leaseholders, the tenancies, the leasehold
arrangements, our customer service centre, resident engagement, but also our estate services
which cover things like grounds maintenance and the caretakers within the buildings.
I should say that housing associations are within Karen's, are sort of the relationship
with those is overseen by Karen's area on the left.
So they are all about the council's own stock.
I will talk about some of the things that are driving change in the area.
So we are really trying to build the resilience of the housing options and homelessness team
for a transformation project.
The big figure out is that we have calculated that if we had done nothing last year, our
overspend this year would be somewhere in the region of 41 million within this department
because of growing demand and the cost of accommodation increasing but we
haven't done nothing we've been doing a lot and actually the overspend is down
to somewhere in the region of five million pound still something that keeps
me awake at night but it's not as bad as it was and we've done that through
procuring large numbers of private rental sector temporary accommodation
that are more secure than nightly paid or bed -and -breakfast we've done it by
preventing homelessness and by moving people on from temporary accommodation
where they can afford to move into the private sector.
We've also done it through acquisitions and buybacks.
But all of this is taking huge investment.
The stark reality is that if we did nothing
with our workforce and just left it as it is,
we would once again have an overspend of 20, 30, 40,
50 million pound in years to come.
So we need to do a transformation that absolutely shifts
the focus of the workforce more towards
the prevention end of the scale.
So we're bringing forward a large restructure
of the service, we're investing in IT and better customer service. We want a more trauma -informed
approach which actually treats people who are homeless as human beings who have lives
and complex lives that need support from all different parts of the local authority rather
than just sort of seeing their homelessness as a problem that creates a cost for us. And
we've talked a lot and I've heard a lot from members about actually often that first contact
There isn't the level of empathy that they would expect to see if it was a member of your own family
And so we're really trying to change the culture within this service and say a little bit more about that
But we're putting quite a bit of investment in the next slide, which is this slide
Sort of talks about the investment that we are putting in
But it does
There is a clear business case that sits behind it
This shows that we can deliver some large cost mitigation and savings by making this investment to the tune of 28
to 55 million and you know that might sound brilliant it's not going to
improve the council's finances but it will prevent the council's finances
getting worse and the thing that's really critical point to make if demand
and cost stops increasing we can review this we would obviously still want to
make the efficiencies and save other parts of council money but unfortunately
we have no indication that demand and cost is gonna stop increasing so we have
to plan for that scenario and that's why we're doing this transformation programme
in combination with listening to the feedback we've had from a lot of members
about needing to change the culture of the service. And then the next area I
just wanted to kind of highlight is regeneration and development. So we've
moved employment and skills and business growth and back into this team which I
think is important because there's a lot of linkages particularly with our direct
delivery programme and but we're also looking to build the capacity of the
team we've got one of the largest capital programmes in London we've got one
of the largest house building programmes so we need to increase the oversight and
effectiveness of that programme and so we're doing a restructure within
regeneration and development that will seek to achieve that and really build
our capacity so just some other things that we're dealing with and I'm getting
towards the end. So we've got the private sector housing team has got a lot of new
responsibilities because of the renters rights act which places additional
responsibilities on landlords and gives greater rights to tenants but it also
places responsibilities on the local authority and enforcing against those
new powers and so we're building the team around that and we're also doing a
of work around the London remediation acceleration plan which is a long title
but it's basically about tackling private sector buildings with dangerous
cladding on them. Tower Hamlets has more high -rise buildings than any other local
authority in the country and although we have had an excellent record of dealing
with building safety issues within our own stock we have found some of some
private sector landlords have been very resistant to making the changes
required so we've got a team that are tackling that. We were the first local
authority in the United Kingdom to be, uh, to achieve, uh,
something called a, uh, uh, remediation order,
which allowed us to basically compel a developer to take unsafe cladding off
their building and old gate just down the road from here. Um,
and the land deputy prime minister,
Angela Rayner stood up in parliament and actually gave Tara Hammers a lot of
credit for being the first to do that. Um, okay, so I'm getting towards the end.
So just to say in terms of our people survey themes
and actions, so we had a very high engagement score
in the department, which was great.
I think the highlights were that there's a strong
understanding of the contribution that people make
to the council priorities within our staff.
There seems to be a positive management culture
where there's trust, respect and open dialogue
with their line managers, which is positive.
but on the less positive side, there's a real range of perceptions around the fairness,
transparency and responsiveness of decision making and managers.
So some slightly contradictory messages as well within our staff survey results, which
is not unusual, but we're trying to work through those, understand those and strengthen the
engagement that's taking place with our team, putting in place a number of
actions to address some of the feedback that we've had and you can see some of
the things that we're doing here so the newsletters and also I'm
trying to make sure that the team, the senior leadership team are more
visible, more walk -by, it's more getting out on the patch because we've got a
large frontline workforce as well when you think about people like caretakers
and other frontline services.
And so we're in the midst of all of that now.
The next page talks about some of what we're doing,
the engagement in practise.
This is what we've put in place
based on some of the feedback we've had.
So the monthly newsletters,
we've been doing a number of site and bus tours,
which is great because it does get us out on staff.
We've been doing shadowing sessions.
For instance, I went along and spent a day shadowing my frontline homelessness staff
who sit in this building in the resident hub to see some of the challenges they faced firsthand.
But I'm encouraging all senior managers to do that.
We are starting a new podcast as a new kind of accessible platform for staff within the
department to share updates and insights and for other staff to then watch and listen to
that.
We've been having a number of special events.
we had a Christmas all staff celebration, we had an all staff event for Iftar event
for Ramadan, which was about increasing awareness about what Ramadan means to our staff group
across all staff. And today actually we've had our summer celebration that the lead members
spoke at and a scavenger hunt. And the point of that was to get people out into the borough,
out and about, visiting different parts of the borough. It went very well and we gave
our awards out, but it's all about increasing that sense of team and what people are a part
of.
So I'm almost there.
So finally, on inequalities, I think our data shows a number of issues.
I can look at my top team and feel like, okay, I've got some good representation in my top
team of directors, but actually the data more broadly shows that there are a number of issues
that we need to address.
particularly women are underrepresented at senior pay level and also black and
minority ethnic staff are slightly underrepresented at senior pay level
when you compare it to the community as a whole. So we have work to do but one of
the other big issues is that our workforce is quite old and so we need to
address that. I mean that obviously creates issues around succession
planning but it also means that we're not reflective of a borough which is the
the youngest borough in the country.
So how do we change that?
So we've got a directorate equalities action plan.
We've been doing a number of targeted staff
engagement events.
So for instance, the women directors from my team
recently led a leadership webinar that I attended
as a sort of ally, but it was led by women,
delivered for women, and it was great
because it got great feedback about how that inspired women
to think, well, actually I could become a director too,
or I could become a head of service.
and we set up kind of mentoring between members of staff.
We've been strengthening our engagement
with staff networks and inclusion
and really looking at how we can do that.
We've also been looking at apprenticeships,
given the issues around young staff as well.
How do we get more people to come in at entry level jobs?
I think often we value experience
because we're doing really difficult and complex jobs,
but that can rule out people who may be younger and we what we tend to end up doing is
Recruiting older people from other boroughs that who already have the experience and that's an issue and we need to address that
Okay, sorry, I've covered a lot and I've probably gone way over five minutes
But that's that's kind of an introduction and obviously I can take questions
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that report. Thank you now to members. Do you have any comments or questions my way?
Thank you. You've covered a lot and I think there's a lot of work.
You've done a lot of work, you and your team, and there's a lot of pressure and demand.
We get that.
And you also got a new lead member, so I'm hoping he'll be...
We didn't get invited for today, so I'm going to give you a lead member goal.
Anyway, I mean, obviously it's huge if you look at the manifesto promise and what we want to do,
and also demand and the pressure you're talking about on your presentation.
Do you feel you have enough in terms of staffing?
Is it sufficient enough to meet the demand?
That's my first question.
And what can we do as politicians and how we can support you on that
to kind of make sure that you're meeting the demand
and you have enough support there?
And also, I'm looking at the just the last bit you spoke about on the workforce.
I mean, it is quite bad.
I mean, obviously, you're doing everything possible.
And you have really good ideas when it comes to the action plan.
But I mean, we have a very robust workforce to reflect the community.
And I think there's really some, you know, good work that we've done as cabinet members
when we first kind of went through the draughts.
I think there's a lot of information,
there are a lot of things,
a lot of schemes available that which you can line up
with your action plan.
I think we want to support towards achieving our targets.
That's all I'll say.
Thank you.
Okay, over to you for your comments or answers, please.
Thank you, Councillor Taylor.
So I think all the points you make are important ones
and we, it is an area that is constantly evolving in terms of the staffing requirements that
we have.
So for instance, if we had stayed still at the levels of homelessness staff we have three
years ago when demand has increased 10 % year on year, clearly we wouldn't have enough staff,
but we have been doing a lot to put in extra resources.
So obviously you'll remember a couple of years ago the administration put in an extra two
million pounds.
We have also taken the decisions recently as part of the transformation business case to put in the resources that I outlined in this presentation
And that's part of the business case that then helps deliver the savings. I
Talked about the extra 500 private private rented sector properties that we've procured
That was because you put in extra staff to do the work around finding those properties and negotiating to secure them
So I would say that yes
we have got the resources that we need,
but we have to keep it constantly under review.
Unfortunately, we will always be back year after year,
probably with new demands,
because on things like the Renters Reform Act,
we can't stand still either,
because that's now come in
and it's placed new responsibilities on us.
We've got some new burdens funding from the government,
but we have to recruit.
In the areas of capital,
It's really challenging to get good experienced staff.
We are more reliant on agency than I would like to be,
but we will do whatever it takes
because obviously these are the projects
that build the new homes or build the new leisure centre.
So we absolutely need to keep that under review.
And in terms of what members can,
I mean there's a number of things that members can do.
I mean obviously members have a very important role
on senior appointments.
Members have a very important role in setting the resourcing and workforce strategy of the council.
But also I think just have an important role in telling the storey externally of the great things we do as a council.
Because I want people out there to see Tower Hamlets as a really exciting place to work where you get to do great things.
And although we've got high needs and challenge, we've got a lot of opportunity.
So I think there's something about telling that role externally.
There's probably other things I should say about that that Ellen will comment on and
I
suppose just on the work. I think yeah totally
Accept your point about the workforce to reflect the community stretch
And I think a number of the things we're doing have flowed from that with HR advice and support
So we you know, we get good support from Ellen's team
In all of the things I've been talking about but I will revisit that to see whether there's other things we can pick up on
I would like to add some comments.
Please.
Phil.
I will come back to a couple of points
that David has made.
The workforce to reflect the community has
been built into the new people strategy
aligned to the emerging strategic
priorities.
There is very much a focus there on
addressing some skill shortage areas which
David has alluded to, certainly across
planning and also into those commercial
areas where we will struggle
because we are competing with the
private sector.
I think one of the things I would say to members is there is a lot you can do.
We have such a variety when it comes to David's portfolio.
It's very rare across local governments, so we should be the shining beacon,
and actually how can we showcase that?
But a lot of our activity is focused on an internal first priority.
How do we grow our own talent? How do we bring them in at the grassroots level?
And how do we support that development trajectory?
And that's something we're committed to, not just for David's directorate,
but as part of the emerging workforce strategy.
Okay, thank you for that.
Moving on, we have, I can see Councillor Said,
your question please.
Thank you, Chair.
So I think first of all, I just wanna talk about
the staff awards that you had today, David.
I feel those were very good.
And thanks for inviting me as well.
I think it's really important for the committee to know
that to have awards events like that
and for senior management to be up there
and given the sort of information to the department
and the staff members,
that's a level of transparency very important.
Because with many organisations you have,
a lot of senior management don't really come out like that,
so that was very good.
When senior management come out,
they talk about the departments
and give that sort of awareness to the rest of the team.
That was very, very, very useful.
When it touching the savings and mitigations as well,
I think your savings and mitigations are very good
because given the fact that it was the department
that was put in the council wanted a lot of strain for you to come up with the innovative
ways of coming with the mitigations and pressing that number to the wall.
That was very good.
But I think we still have five million pounds.
I want to work with you to make sure that we can end on a balanced budget or as close
as we can get to it, given that we have huge amount of pressures nationally in those areas.
So that was very good.
And I think I want to sort of thank your team members for coming up with the ideas and delivering
those for us.
Now from a HR point of view, I just want to touch on employment skills and growth.
I know that's under Hannah Dalgish and I think she's very, very good.
She's very good and we were at her appointment as well.
She's delivering very well.
But I just want to make sure that are you comfortable in terms of HR and the resources provided to employment skills and growth,
given that we have a cabinet member, Shinali, who's very much, I've had a discussion with her, she's got loads of ideas.
She wants to do a lot of delivery in that area.
Are you comfortable with the sort of set up you have, or what else do you have in place
to sort of make sure that that doesn't become something on the side and want to give it
a lot of focus?
Because where we have regeneration, where we have redevelopments and all of that stuff
coming along, employment skills and growth is equally important.
So I just want to understand where you are in that.
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
Okay.
David, your input, please.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Ahmed.
So yeah, I mean, I'll probably take most of what you said at the start as comments,
which are helpful, and I'll take those away and share with the team.
But I think on your kind of key question at the end around employment skills and growth,
so I think it is a big opportunity coming back into the department.
I think we can make more of it as a council in terms of the links between that service and HR.
So I think as Ellen builds her team, I'd like to learn more on areas around things like apprenticeships
and also things like employing care leavers. I really want the council to be an exemplar.
Now we have on the work path side services that can help make those links, but it's about then
getting it through all the HR business partners into the service and really utilising that as freely as we can
And I wouldn't say that we have been but I know there's something that we want to look at together
as we both build our teams
but
We do do well this service this service has got really good metrics
We're the best performing council in
Central London when it comes to our employment and skills service and the numbers of people we help in to work in
to secure better work once they're into work.
But there's always more we want to do because again,
we come back to the type of population that we've got.
We've got a growing youth employment problem
in the country as a whole.
So this service is critical for us.
And in terms of savings and mitigations,
yeah, there's still more we need to do.
And I'll definitely work with you over the next six months
to try and close the gap further.
There's ideas that we're working on.
and we will absolutely close the gap because that is what we need to do to get a balanced budget.
Thank you for that.
Mr Shafiibai.
Thank you, Chair.
One of the things I wanted to just appreciate and call out here is,
David, when you came in, it was kind of a difficult situation with the homelessness and with all the others.
and I thank you and now we can see the better picture and the brighter picture going forward
with your directorate and your teams. So I think it's more transparent and clear on
what direction your directorate is going towards in terms of the housing investment, in terms
of homelessness and these are things that have been tackled really well and I want to
show my appreciation here to your team going forward.
And the biggest talk of the town is the 609 million that will be invested over the next decade.
And as long as there's positiveness and there's a little bit of negative within the community,
meaning that some of the lease holders, they're a little bit scared on where we're going to be in regards to service charges.
and also homes people are living in, very excited with the new kitchen and new
bathroom and the new many other things in terms of going forward in terms of
recycling and waste collections and these things will be something that
under my portfolio I would like to see really improved but that's one of the
little grey area where leaseholders are kind of concerned about that what the
impact will be in terms of their service charges bills that's one thing and
The other thing I wanted to just talk about was,
no that's fine, the other one's been answered too.
Thank you, that's fine.
Thank you very much for your question.
Over to you, yeah, for the answers please.
Thank you chair, and thank you Councillor Ahmed.
So, well I think, thank you for the comments,
and I think leadership is critical, isn't it?
And I think appointing that top team of directors
that we did over the last 18 months,
and you sat on quite a number of the panels as well,
has been critical and if I take the example
you gave around homelessness and housing options,
we brought Jennifer Winter in,
who's probably one of the most experienced in the country,
from Hackney Council.
She sits on every MHCOG working group going
because she is an expert in what she does.
But she's also building a team around her
and we've got some really excellent
and committed people in that service.
The stark reality is about 18 months ago,
you know, we had a huge backlog of homelessness,
how's not applications.
We don't have a backlog anymore.
You know, so some of it is about good performance management
and holding people to account.
And that's what she's put in place.
But we need to do that deeper within the department now.
So I think I've very much got it at the top tier,
got it in most places at the next tier
and the next tier below,
but there are gaps and we need to build that up.
So I'm always sort of encouraging the team
to be really on the front foot around building that team. So I think yeah your
comment about the 609 million you described it in a way that I would as
well it is the big game in town you know it's it's gonna be a huge amount of
investment at a level that we've never seen in our council stock in history and
it will have massive benefits from decent homes to kitchens, bathrooms,
windows, doors, replacing leaking roofs, improving thermal sustainability
buildings, all of those things as you say things like the investment in the waste
and recycling facilities on estates. The leaseholder side is a difficult issue
because we have to charge leaseholders an appropriate and fair share for the
works because it is an asset that they own and will benefit from the increase
and value as a result of that investment.
And so we do charge the soldiers
for a fair share of their costs.
We obviously have lots of safeguards in place
to try and make sure the costs are as low as possible
and we don't charge an unreasonable amount.
And also we are very aware of the fact that not,
so there are leaseholders out there
that are like multi landlords
and they own hundreds of properties all over the country
and we don't really do much to support them if I'm honest
because we just need to recover the cost from them
but there are also lots of these soldiers who are
basically people who
bought their own home and
you know our
You grew up in the borough have lived all their lives in the bar are not people with huge wealth
And so what we do with those households who do not have large sums of money to pay these bills is
We have a very wide range of repayment options available
so, you know everything from
you know interest -free periods through to putting a charge on the property and
you know in some circumstances and there are other things that we can do as well
to support people through hardship funds and so on and so forth so we will always
look at the circumstances of these soldiers and and try and take those into
account and I was asked in another forum you know well people have to leave the
borough as a result of these bills I'm really confident no one would ever have
to leave Tarahum this with the range of options we've got available around repayment. Thank you,
does anybody else? Please do feel free to make a comment, a green comment please. Thank you for
the presentation David, really informative. I actually I had like a list of questions but I
don't know if it would be more appropriate to send them over later on. I'm happy to answer.
to the presentation.
Just read, there's like four or five different specific ones, so I just wasn't sure if there's enough time to ask them all really.
Okay, I think my main one was on the page that talks about the transformation, I was just wanting to look into that a little bit more.
Sorry I don't have the presentation in front of me to see what slide it is.
Yes, this one. I was just wanting to look into that a little bit more and was wondering if you could direct me towards
some more informational reports that are discussing that side of things and where that's come from.
Yeah, okay.
Thanks.
Thank you. So we have a transformation, can you remember the full name of it?
Transformation and Modernisation Board that's chaired by the Chief Executive
and which then reports into cabinet
and the Merrill advisory board.
We, as part of that, we brought forward a business case
to underpin this transformation that looked at,
if we put the investment in around overhauling our IT system
so there's much more user friendly
and also means that it's less manual for officers,
so it takes costs out of the system.
We looked at increasing the capacity of the teams
so that they can really focus on making sure
there is prevention of homelessness,
that we are securing the accommodation that we need
either through buybacks or private rent
set of properties and so on.
So really investing in the right areas to avert costs
so that we can move out of expensive nightly paid,
out of expensive B &B accommodation,
but also prevent people from becoming homelessness
in the first place and
All of that was put into the business case that went to the transformation and modernization
Board and that underpins the numbers that you can see here and underpin the restructure that we're bringing forward
To really look again at how we provide these services
Thank you, I think that's I just have a small just just on the figures, you know
housing waiting list.
I remember you did mention it was 29 ,000,
but today you're saying it's 31 ,000.
So has it risen 2 ,000 so quickly?
Are there any special reason for that?
Well, I think it's just really the nature
of the housing crisis in London, it never stands still.
But we also did have a backlog
of housing waiting list applications,
Housing register applications, which we've been working through so the good news is we've worked through that backlog
The bad news is that by working through it. We've added people to the waiting list
but you know, I think
We've got very comprehensive housing allocation scheme in Tower Hamlets
We know that we've got very very severe overcrowding
So that number just keeps growing and growing because of the level of demand
That we've got in this borough and you will all see in your case work when you visit families
in your words, some of the situations people are in are quite shocking and obviously more
and more are there for adding themselves to the housing register and bidding for properties.
That report has been concluded.
Moving on, we have item 5 .3.
We have a report from the committee today, an update on senior recruitment.
I will invite Ellen Clark for your report, please.
You have 10 minutes.
Thank you very much, Chair.
The first report I'm presenting to the committee today is an update on senior recruitment.
It provides the committee with an overview.
There has been significant activity since the last full HR committee due to the PIRDA period.
So obviously there was a hiatus in senior appointments by the HR subcommittee over that period.
So there has been an increase in interim appointments.
So today I'm asking the committee to note the current position with regards to the occupation of senior leadership roles and any interim arrangements in place.
I've brought a specific item in relation to the proposed senior leadership recruitment plan.
This is the first time that the committee has had full sight of the number of vacancies
and the proposals in relation to the order of recruitment, which I would like the committee
to note and to comment on.
And then you will see there are a series of decisions that I have put in front of the
committee today.
These are specifically in relation to the extension of interim recruitment arrangements,
noting that the constitution only allows the chief executive to make appointments on an
interim basis of up to six months and any extensions beyond that period require the
approval of the HR committee which is why they are detailed today. So you'll
see in the paper itself there are a series of tables that talk the committee
through how the appointments have been made and I'm going to go straight to the
decisions that are made or requested of the committee today and then take any
questions if that's okay, Chair, if there are any.
So there are four decisions that I'm asking for the approval of.
The first is to extend the appointment of Richard Ennis as the interim corporate director
of resources for a further period to end no later than 30 December.
This is to allow full recruitment and a competitive recruitment for the permanent position to
take place over that same period.
The second is a mirror of that request but for Gillian Masters as the interim
corporate director of communities again extending that position for a further
period to allow permanent recruitment to the permanent role. The third is to
extend the appointment of Bridget Cameron in the role as interim director
of adult social care commissioning for a maximum of nine month period from the
10th of May and to allow for permanent recruitment to the role for that to be
sequenced after the two corporate director positions and the final one is to extend the appointment of Mark Norman in the
interim director of governance role for a further period to support the council in progressing against the statutory
recommendations whilst a review of the statutory officers is undertaken and any actions implemented.
For those of you that were part of the HR committee previously you'll notice there that I've detailed in section 1 .5
or provided more detailed information in relation to the statutory implications in terms of best value, risk management and safeguarding.
Noting that the extension of a number of the interim positions that are detailed further down are going to be for acting up positions which support us in our internal only or internal first recruitment policy.
Finally, before I pause for any questions and for the chair to confirm the decisions
of the committee today, I'd like to draw your attention to the last page of the report where
you can see that the draught recruitment plan has been presented.
These have been sequenced and taken into consideration a number of factors.
The first is the level of risk that is associated and that may be organisational risk or it
might be in relation to employment risks.
So you'll note that the two head of service roles that report into Jonathan Lloyd are
included in the first tranche of recruitment because they are relative to a recent restructure.
So we need to appoint those roles to fulfil the conditions of the restructure.
And recruitment to those roles is underway.
We have then engaged an executive search agency and have gone through the procurement process
and have received bids which are currently due to be evaluated tomorrow
in relation to the corporate director positions and the director of finance
position. They have been brought into the second phase of recruitment due to the
impact on the organisation and then we've got a suite of social care
vacancies and other roles that we will be seeking to fill. The plan is that we
We will have all of the vacant positions filled or at least offered by December of this year,
but that does place significant demands on the subcommittee and we will be relying on
support of democratic services and yourself as members to support us in those appointments.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for the report.
Does any member wish to comment or ask any question?
I think, member, you are the right person for this.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
I'm not sure if I'm the right person.
I have been chairing for nearly all of the appointments.
I don't know, maybe Pam can say a few good words about me.
Anyway, just on the, I mean, my worry is if we don't meet the November, I think it's November, most of them.
So, I mean, I'm looking at the risk and are we going to be, you know, complying with the
strategy, are we going to meet the strategy guideline or the strategy thing we have.
That's my only worry.
If you can give us some assurance, that's my first question.
And my second question is around, obviously, the hell of a lot of, I think, is it 12, nearly
year 12 overall in terms of you know you're looking at interviews and so on
and before that the work you and your team will do. So I kind of want
assurance I know for some of the markets are very difficult we've been you know
through over the last two years and a lot of them you know the market is really
poor and on the other side is demanding as well. So I mean we've used a couple of
the recruitment companies.
So I just want assurance from you
that we will do everything possible
to get the best candidates out there.
And we will do everything possible
from the recruitment panel's point of view as well
because we have been disappointed a few times
with a lot of the candidates.
I don't wanna name anyone.
So yeah, so I just want assurance, that's all I want.
Because unless, I mean, obviously we don't know
who's gonna be on the panel.
So maybe I might be on the panel.
But these are things we're going to look at.
We don't want a repeat of what happened before.
Thank you.
Thank you, Maima, for your concern.
Would you like to come in?
Thank you, Chair.
So absolutely, Councillor Tulli -Coudel, I can give you reassurance.
I have met all of the agencies prior to putting the bids out for tender.
I've been very clear on my expectations as HR Director and what I expect of them in terms of partnering with me to secure the relevant talent for the role.
They have been sequenced to enable us to test market in a safe way.
So we are working with partners, we are working to utilise our own internal resources and
I have an internal team that I'm building to be able to support with that.
And the intention is that members will be provided with regular updates throughout the
process and we will be able to stress test that.
But that is part of the reason for the phasing.
We need to be able to sequence them and test and learn as we go through this process.
It is a bold set of statements that we're making in terms of our ability to be able to fill those roles
And we are to some extent at the mercy of the market
But that said the market is relatively buoyant for a number of these positions
There are some key roles where there are challenges and we absolutely know where they are and we're working with a range of partners
I've bought in corn ferry
Hey
To be able to support in evaluating our pay structures so we can make sure that we remain competitive
and we absolutely will be doing everything we can to fill those roles.
And if we slip at any point on any of the recruitment,
we'll be able to substitute it with other roles.
So we're going to keep the momentum going in order to fulfil those positions
by the end of the year as the commitment that's made within everything that is within our power.
And we absolutely commit to keeping the committee updated on that.
Okay, that's nice to hear that. I'm sure you'll be happy. Thank you.
Thank you for the assurance.
Okay, that report has been concluded. So finally we are on the last agent.
Okay, so can I ask members to accept the extension? Yeah, okay, thank you for that.
We are on the last item, okay, of tonight's meeting. Yeah.
Item 5 .4, employees relations, casework and policy quarterly review.
Can I once again ask Eileen Clark to please present your report. Thank you.
Thank you very much chair. So this is a standard report that comes to HR
Committee every quarter. It provides you all with a foresight of the level of
employee relations activity across the organisation. You'll note in the report
we provide a trended data and we provide a breakdown of the of the cases that we
have that are there. So I'm going to just provide some high level information. So if
I bring everybody to the attention of point one, when it talks about the level of activity,
it's very important to note that 19 of these cases are in relation to proactive management
of underperformance and attendance issues. But there are a total of 54 cases where there
are disputes, either of a grievance or a disciplinary nature, which potentially impact across the
When we look at where they're distributed, you can see that there is a higher distribution in communities directorate.
One of the things that I wanted to bring to the attention of the committee today is I've done some further analysis.
And you will note that the report references
insourced teams and I think it's helpful when we look at the three -year trend analysis
that is detailed in section three that we've in sourced over a thousand employees.
So it's been a 20 % uplift in the number of employees,
but about 100 % uplift in the number of cases.
So it's still a disproportionate increase.
But what we have also identified is
that those increase in cases are related
to the operational nature of some of the roles,
the lack of proactive change management,
so the integration of those teams into Tower Hamlets,
and there is definitely work that my team will need to do
to improve that moving forward.
And the other thing we've noticed is that there are some demographic influences in there that we should also be mindful of.
When we look across the equalities data, you'll see that the distribution is broadly representative.
There are some areas where, again, we're doing further analysis and we're also making sure that we've got close insight
and we will continue to track that in a way that potentially hasn't been presented to the committee previously.
In relation of what we already know, I've referenced the fact that within source large operational services,
we have to recognise that we have a largely unionised work environment and that impacts across the employee relations landscape.
We know that there is a need to simplify HR policies and processes and some of our processes, most notably grievance,
is under review to attempt to streamline that because the time to justice is too long in
too many of these cases.
We know that there is work that we can do to strengthen the support and development
that we provide to management and leadership and I know when it comes to members' involvement
you are also involved in the dismissals appeal process so we are working on additional support
for you when you're involved in those.
and there has been a historic challenge in relation to capacity and capability within HR services that I have been
addressing since I've been in post and continue to do so.
So our key areas of focus are increasing informal resolution so that we can resolve matters proactively
and more quickly,
making sure that we are simplifying our grievance policy and we're doing that in accordance
and in conjunction with our trade unions and our employee networks.
We've started development of a tower management programme,
which will focus specifically on the people management elements in phase one.
We're working on a greater use of automation so we can track timeframes,
identify when things go out of time scale and take action promptly.
And I've secured some investment for some additional resource to help in this area specifically,
So we'll be bringing in a dedicated team to undertake an independent review and to help close the cases that are currently open.
You'll note there have also been a number of policy developments and whilst these are still in discussion,
we have built a new workforce adjustments passport.
So this is focused on really helping managers have meaningful conversations with their employees.
It goes above the expectations of London councils which just looks at disability as the primary factor
and actually covers a wide range of employee preferences including care and responsibilities,
maternity, gender identity and it really is designed to help managers have meaningful
discussions and again start with proactive conversations to avoid issues from occurring.
The other thing we are looking at at the moment is the introduction of a hybrid working policy.
You've heard David talk eloquently today about the power of human interaction and the importance
of leadership visibility. This is still under development, it's still in discussion, but we are
expecting of introducing a minimum number of days, not just in the office, but actually in Tower
Hamlets, working with as teams and with our residents to deliver the right outcomes and we
will keep the HR committee updated on developments with that. Thank you for that report. Does any
I wish to ask any questions or comments. Yeah
Thank you, I mean my question is just comment community seems to be still
One of the top so I mean obviously, you know, you know, you're the we all know the reasons and what's happening
And I'm just looking at I mean, it looks like if you look at page 56
only
If you look at the open open cases and closed cases less than 50 % are being closed
So there is a it looks I mean you've already said it. I mean there are historical issues there
And I'm sure you are you are on the right track of getting it. So it hopefully
But yeah, thank you for everything that you and your team are doing and I think things are improving
and let's see we're looking forward to the
panel again. So, I mean, last four years has been a journey for us, for many of us. And
there have been some point where we had lots of information that came to us last minute.
And it was very difficult for the panel to kind of come to decisions. And so I'm hoping
that things like that will improve. Yeah. So looking forward to both panels, disappearing
Thank you very much for the final comments.
Okay, that has been noted.
Now AOV, are there any other business to consider?
Does the member wish to raise any?
Okay, no, that's fine.
Okay, so thank you, that's the end of the meeting.
Thank you for your time.
And thank you then, Roy.
Do you have any, do you wish to make any comments?
Oh, that's nice.
Okay.
I can say that the previous chair was a very good chair.
There you go.
That was the first thing.
Right, OK.
OK.
Yes.
I can confirm that the previous chair was a very good chair.
Yes, I do have some observations and I'm wondering how best to do that,
because my comments are for members and the questions that you asked of officers from the report,
in terms of how you might want to move forward with your future meetings for the timetable that you have ahead.
So I think the officers' reports are there, and they provide lots of interesting information.
But this is a HR committee panel, and your questions should be really pertinent to the workforce,
and trying to glean from that about how the council intends to move forward.
And that will only work if you ask specific types of questions.
So I'm happy to provide my observations to both yourself and officers in writing,
or to have a meeting with you both that's not part of the recorded minutes, if that's okay.
Thank you everybody for your valuable time.
and the good news is our next meeting will be on Tuesday 13th October. So have a nice time and
enjoy your break. Thank you. Thank you everyone.