Finance Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Thursday 9 October 2025, 7:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Finance Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Thursday, 9th October 2025 at 7:30pm 

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  1. Webcast Finished

Hello, good evening members. Welcome to tonight's Finance Overview and Scrutiny
Committee meeting. My name is Councillor Stock and I'm the chair of this
committee. Welcome to you all this evening, it's lovely to see you. I'm now going to
ask members of the committee to introduce themselves. So, Councillor
Critchard. Hi, my name is Anna -Marie Critchard. I'm a Labour Councillor for
Tootingbeck Ward and Deputy Chair. Councillor Apps. Hello good evening I'm
Councillor Apps I'm Councillor in Shaftesbury in Queenstown. Councillor
Corner. Hello I'm Councillor Corner Conservative Councillor for Nine Elms
Ward. Councillor Fraser. Good evening Claire Fraser South Ballinwood.
Councillor Lecce.
Councillor Graham.
Peter Graham, Wandsworth Common Councillor and opposition speaker for finance.
Councillor Hedges.
Councillor Hedges, Conservative Councillor for Ballum and opposition speaker for business,
the voluntary sector and culture.
Councillor Lee.
Hi, I'm Jessie Lee, Labour Councillor for St Mary's.
And Councillor Richards -Jones.
Good evening, Councillor Richard Jones, Conservative Councillor for Northcote Ward and Leader of
the Opposition.
And I believe at the moment we have apologies from Councillor Belton, but we also have with
us Councillor Akinola, our Cabinet Member for Voluntary Sector Business, Engagement
and Culture.
Councillor Akinola, Deputy Leader and Councillor for Tooting Broadway Ward.
Thank you very much and Councillor Ireland, our cabinet member for Finance.
Good evening.
Thank you.
We also have several offices with us.
Thank you very much for attending and also some residents who are going to join us shortly.
They'll all introduce themselves when they address the committee as well.
So moving on to item one on the agenda, the minutes of the previous meeting.

1 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

So we have two sets of minutes to agree the 25th of February of this year on the 3rd of July
Members have any comments on either set of minutes
Thank you very much are those then both sets agreed
Thank you very much moving on then to
declarations of

2 Declarations of Interests

Interests are there any declarations of either pecuniary or other vegetable or non -registrable interests?
scouts for creature
Sorry, I should have asked the monitoring officer before.
I just need to declare that I am a governor of the maintained nurseries and in the capital
paper something's come up with works that have been done to the nurseries, but those
have been agreed separately, so I don't think this is going to be an issue, but just so
you know.
Thank you, Councillor Critchard.
Yes, Councillor Corner.
Thank you, Chair.
And just in case I do need to declare it, it feels right to do so.
I received free tickets to London Borough of Culture events.
And even, I think, a free London Borough of Culture cocktail at both events.
And I just want to make clear that I did not drink enough of them for
it to impair my judgement in the consideration of this paper.
Thank you very much Councillor Colle, I'm very much glad you enjoyed that.
I think it was called a culture cocktail and I'm sure you can all reflect on your experiences
at London Borough of Culture when we move on to that agenda item.
But I think it's fair to say that I think all members of the committee, and I'll touch
on that in my introduction, have attended events and if there are any needs for that
to be declared we can pick that up.
But I don't think it stands in the way of us being involved in the discussion tonight.
So thank you very much for that.
So moving on then to agenda item three.

3 London Borough of Culture - Legacy (Paper No. 25-339)

This is a paper on the London Borough of Culture, specifically around legacies.
So as members are aware, Wandsworth is almost halfway through our year of delivering at
London Borough of Culture.
So as many, if not all of us, have attended a range of fantastic events within our own
wards, but also across the borough.
And I would like to extend thanks on behalf of all the committee for those who've led
and organised the programme so far.
But as the programme now reaches its halfway point, I think it is right for us as a committee
to shift our focus towards legacy and this item is an opportunity for
members to reflect on the emerging themes of the ELBOC legacy as out in the
paper and provide an input into shaping the framework and the legacy delivery
plan which I think is being worked on at the moment. So we've been joined by two
officers Jamila Mensah and Sara O 'Donnell who are both programme directors. I understand
Miss Mensah, if you'd like to join the table, will provide an initial
introduction. Oh and then Councillor Acunola, would you like to speak first
Councillor Acunola? Councillor Acunola will speak first and then we'll
have an update and introduction from the programme directors but then we'd also
like to welcome to Wandsworth residents and London Borough of Culture champions
Ajit Jangnothu and Tricia Folarin and thank you very much for joining us this
and apologies for my pronunciation, hopefully I can correct that.
And it's proposed that the committee hear from our local residents to give their perspective
on the programme as well as their experiences of being champions and their involvement in
grant funding decision making.
So hopefully they can provide a direct insight and illustrate the impact that the proposed
work is doing and how that can shape under the legacy of people theme that's outlined
in the paper.
So I hope that's agreed, members.
And if so, then I'll hand over to councillor a canola first
Thank You councillor stock you kind of stole my thunder there with your intro
We are at the halfway point and it is very important that we look forward as we start to as we look
We look back as we start to look forward
I think we all agreed earlier that well a few days ago that
This borough of culture so far has been a massive success and it continues to be.
We've all enjoyed ourselves a lot.
Thanks, Councillor Corner, for your kind words about the event we were all at.
It's called a culture twist, the cocktail.
Culture twist.
Very tasty indeed.
Well, we've used this year to trial how we can work differently as a council.
And so our champions, please come to the table, are a really fantastic example of how we've done that and
empowering our residents to actually take charge of decisions that directly affect them.
These two are absolutely great people and I'm really excited about what they're about to tell you about their experiences as local champions.
Thank you, Councillor Acanola.
I'll now hand over to Mrs. Mensah.
Thank you.
And yes, I'm Jamila Mensah, London Biovolecular Programme Manager, and I'd like to thank you
for being here today.
I think the last time we provided a substantive update to the Finance Committee, we were seeking
agreement to the programme structure and governance, so we were getting ready to mobilise, so it
nice to be here halfway through what's considered a successful delivery of a
programme and I think since that agreement at Finance Committee we had to mobilise
at pace and very quickly. It has required a significant change in the way that the
council works. The Arts and Culture Service which are our heads up has more than
doubled in size. We've worked collegially across the council with our
programme management office and just a plethora of departments in order to be
able to deliver at the scale we need. We've also been focused on working with
key delivery partners like Enable who have just spoken about Battersea
Parking Concert and Country in the Common who have supported us in driving
that delivery and we've made sure we've worked with our key creative
organisations such as Battersea Arts Centre and they're pivotal in terms of
programme launch and also in our recent events of the Liberty Festival. So as it
was stated we're now halfway through the programme and we really want to
maximise what we've delivered through this incredible year and look at how we
can leverage and create a sustainable legacy. We have drawn closely and worked
with businesses to kind of leverage support. We've worked in
partnership with established organisations like Apple and Landsat
that have previously worked for the council,
but also started to foster new partnerships.
For example, even Sam Brooks Brewery
crossed the road who have supported
our established Wormsworth Arts Fringe.
And most significantly, we've drawn in residents
into the programme, not just to be active participants,
but to be involved in decision making.
I think in the slides that were shown,
it's just given you a snapshot in numbers about our journey,
but I just want to highlight some key planks that sit outside those numbers.
A key part of our programme, or pinnacle, is about making arts and culture more accessible.
We've had a strong emphasis on building our digital presence,
so through our Welcome to Wandsworth website,
which makes it a one -stop platform for the Burren residents to know what the cultural offer is within Wandsworth.
As part of that, we're also digitising the heritage collection,
so making sure that residents understand and can access our local heritage.
And that focus on local has been quite key as well in terms of Elbok,
we call it Elbok -Londeburgh culture, and showcasing our home -grown talent on a national platform.
We wanted to make sure those talents are recognised and that's through established festivals
like our Wandsworth Arts Fringe, which we emboldened this year,
and also through some of the large events like Strictly Wandsworth.
But with that focus on looking at current talent,
we're also looking at that future talent pipeline.
So we've done a significant amount of work
looking at our skills agenda, working with schools.
We've engaged with 68 out of the 72 schools within the borough,
working both with primary and secondary school
and exposing them to the creative elements.
We think that's really important,
given something that blew me away when I joined the programme,
that one in five jobs in London is within the creative industry.
And I think as part of looking at the statistics,
when we look at Wandsworth from government data,
it shows that just under 10 % of Wandsworth businesses
are classified as creative industries.
So one of the things we want to do is showcase what exists,
attract new talent, but also start to encourage our young generation
to think about going into that sector.
We've spent quite a significant time in terms of looking beyond culture and boosting
our capacity as well as a programme.
And so for our volunteering programme that we've established, we've started from scratch
and have already amassed over 2 ,000 hours of residents engaging in the programme.
And it's not just on events.
I know that's where you've seen them.
We've trialled family volunteering as well, but also, for example, residents have been
engaged in cataloguing items on the museum collection and for the latter
part of the six months we want to start looking at how they can help boost the
creative sector as well. But finally a key focus on the ones worth being was on
health and well -being and using creative activities like arts, music, dance to help
people feel better, stay connected and improve their physical and mental health.
It's about making creativity part of everyday care and well -being especially
for people facing health challenges and isolation.
And so as well as large scale events
like Strictly Wandsworth, which are the ones that you see,
we have over 20 projects that are focused
on looking at health and wellbeing,
such as memory boxes for dementia patients.
We also have residencies at primary care settings,
such as St. George's, Springfield Children's Ward,
and Adults' Ward, and we've also
at grassroots organisations where those artists
are helping looking at art therapies.
So we've done quite a significant amount, I think,
above what you've seen.
And I think expectations were high coming into this programme.
It's quite daunting by that challenge.
But I think expectations will increase now
that we have started to deliver successfully.
So this is why we wanted, as programme manager,
to start to pivot towards focusing on legacy.
We went into the bid with an idea or some aspirations
of what we wanted to look at, but I want to be intentional now thinking about the
next six months, how we maintain momentum and maximise the benefits that we're
beginning to see. We're going to refocus our governance to look at this and
whilst I know in the bid the ideas were un -costed and I know you've got a
discussion later on on the MTFS, I want to make sure that with this vast
breadth of opportunity we can align it and focus it on where the council future
priorities are. So that's why you've started to see we're really at the
infancy of building that framework and we focused it around 4Ps, people and
partnership. These areas have been pivotal in boosting capacity, I think
something that Council's got to be focused on going forward, and also place and
purpose which is ensuring that we can have reach but also look at demand
reduction as well. So I think I've covered enough in terms of what the
has delivered and where we want to start to look towards. I just wanted to invite
our two champions Ajit and Tricia to talk about under the people strand their
involvement in the London Bar of Culture.
Thank you. Who wants to go first? Please introduce yourself.
Hello everyone, my name is Ajit Jugnut. I'm a resident of the borough. I'm born and
I went to school in Putney.
In fact, my journey of volunteering for the council started when I was 14 years old.
I helped hire the first youth engagement manager and was a founding member of the council back
in the early 2000s.
For me, youth advocacy, campaigning, volunteering, citizenship has always been ingrained in my
journey.
I have then gone on to have a career in the creative industries.
I've worked across artists and international music showcasing in film, in design.
I've worked both in the commercial sector and in the charitable sector.
And I'm now probably going to be adding to that statistic of creative entrepreneurs in
the borough and starting my own creative business this year.
So for me, joining the local champions boards just felt like a natural step to continue
that legacy of volunteering for the council.
I am dedicated to our communities, to the borough and wanting to see it succeed.
But then giving my actual professional career in the creative industries, I felt I had something
to offer in terms of how we might approach creative programming and grant making.
That is a bit of an intro to me.
I don't know if there is a particular point you want me to lead on to.
My name is Tricia.
I am a London Borough Culture Champion.
I consider myself to be a Londoner.
Born and bred in London.
Grew up in Battersea.
Went to school in Tooting and studied in Roehampton.
When I saw this opportunity come up, it was natural for me to be able to basically move
across all different areas within the borough
and experience a lot of the events
that I've never been to before, and just broaden my visions
for future aspirations.
And also get my kids involved as well,
because my kids go to school.
Obviously, they've been to school in the borough.
And it just gave me an opportunity
to get them involved in a lot of the events that you have,
and keep the tradition going because we've always gone to lots of events in the borough.
So just being able to give my kids an opportunity to experience what I've experienced over many decades has been brilliant for me.
So there's my intro to why I love being part of the borough and the events.
Thank you very much everybody for the instructions and thank you in particular for the volunteers
sharing their reflections and thank you for everything you've done for the borough so
far and I know that in the future as well.
So we'll move to some questions first of all to the two champions and then we'll move to
questions to officers.
So we are local champions.
So we sit on a board with several other residents across the borough.
And part of our role as a board has been to review some of the creative programming where
some of the grant making has been going and really to kind of advocate for the individual
local communities that we each represent, our villages, so to speak.
And something that's been quite important to all of us is to make sure that the diversity
of our fantastic borough is reflected in that programme.
And hopefully you have been seeing that with what's been programmed.
And so, yes, we've just been kind of acting as one voice to represent that.
Can I just add to that?
We've also, many of us have taken on the opportunity to go to some of the events that we have awarded
grants to so that we can see whether it's working and how they're producing their work
so that we can then go back and tell our colleagues that haven't been able to go.
Thank you very much.
That's helpful.
Councillor Hedges?
Thank you, Chair.
I just wanted to say thank you very much, Councillor Akinola and team, and also a big
thank you to Ajit and Tricia because it must be quite nerve -wracking coming to a council meeting and being on big screen like that.
So appreciate you coming along.
I've been really keen to understand the grant making process for some time.
I think I've probably mentioned it in every meeting when we've talked about the London Borough of Culture, but also in grant meetings as well.
And I understand now that you have actually managed
to award 148 ,351 pounds worth of grants.
So that's amazing.
And I'm just keen to understand what your role is,
how the process is, what the due diligence is.
You've just mentioned you visited some.
But yeah, just keen to understand the process more
because on the grants committee it's quite vigorous
and we go through a number of iterations of sometimes
the grants don't get awarded the first time.
So, keen to understand a bit more on the transparency side.
But I appreciate everything you've done
and coming here tonight, so thank you.
So just for clarification, are you interested
in sort of the mechanics of what we do?
So, there've been various different rounds of grant making.
So, for example, I was involved in,
the first time I was involved in awarding grants
for South Asian Heritage Month.
And how that worked was an initial kind of round
and review from the council team, who then essentially
gave us a short list.
So there were already sort of pre -vetted applications
that were given to champions who decided
to be part of the subcommittee for South Asian Heritage Month.
So that gives us a smaller pool, because obviously,
as well for us, we're working full time.
We've got families, et cetera.
We can't necessarily maybe do the full time job,
but we would like to make sure that our communities are being represented.
So with that kind of short list round, we're able to then in our own time review those applications,
give our own kind of scourings, marking across artistic quality, strategic fit, value for money,
legacy as well as an important aspect.
And then for us to then add our own kind of comments on how we feel about particular projects.
So for example, I was quite interested in applications that came from more from entrepreneurs
rather than your traditional kind of artists.
So making sure that we had a bit of a diversity reflection on that.
Scorings as well as that, I think it was out of five, we would give on all of those criteria.
And then we would come together as a big group, including with the arts team and decision -makers,
to have a discussion about that short list of applications and what our scorings were
and negotiate that and discuss that in greater detail,
advocate further if we so wished.
So really enriching conversations
around what projects we felt reflected
the diversity of our communities,
but also our new innovative, creative ways
in which with wider communities can engage in the content.
So another aspect for us also looking at that
was the diversity of artistic forms.
So do we have too many dance projects?
Do we have too many visual arts projects?
We want to make sure we have a breadth and depth
of artistic quality in that sense.
And again, looking at where can we
negotiate on certain aspects.
So is it a case of that project maybe just missed it,
ever since they maybe doesn't get funded,
but we maybe want to commend them for what they've got.
And if they want to look at alternative forms of funding
and signpost them to that, I think
we're encouraging organisations to do that.
but really then come together as those groups to agree on a number of projects that we want
to support.
Once we've got that list, we would then take that to the rest of the local champions and
discuss those projects with them and also get a sense cheque with the wider group.
Do they feel that that's also reflective of the areas that they may be also representing,
the artistic diversity, the strategic fit, the sustainability aspects as well?
And so as a group, then we can make, we can sign off on those projects and hopefully then give those organisations a green light that yes, we'd like to work with them.
Thank you.
Councillor Hedges, was there any follow up or any other questions?
Oh, Tricia, would you like to also add?
Sorry, I'm not going to repeat, but I'm just going to add a lot of the research was, well, a lot of the decision making was also centred around research, doing a lot of research,
a lot of reading, a lot of spooling through their Instagrams, their YouTube pages, their
websites just to see exactly what they are about, what they have produced in the past,
whether it would fit the environment, whether it would suit different communities.
So the research was, it took a long time,
but we had to be very, very thorough and very fair
in how we chose and how we communicated
with the rest of the groups.
So, yeah.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for sharing that.
And in such detail, it really has helped understand
more about what you're doing.
Mrs. Spencer, would you like to come in at this point?
Yeah, I just wanted to come on the transparency point
because I am just in terms of transparency on the Welcome to Wandsworth website, we do have the champions listed in terms of so people
understand who is on the group and some of them have done bonds and profiles and we also publish
the decisions around the grants as well. I mean as we evolve over the next six months
we can also see in terms of what more can be done as well.
Thank you very much. Councillor Lee.
Yeah, I think you sort of covered it a little bit. I wanted to ask about your experience
of the Elbogirr so far, and that was sort of covered in Lindsay's question. Obviously,
we're focusing on legacy. Is there anything that you would particularly like to see continue
at the end of the year of Bar of Culture?
So the heritage, for me, because I have children,
I want my children to be able to look back,
look in libraries and so forth,
and be able to see where we are today,
because the world we're living in now
is completely different to when I was their age.
So I am trying to teach my children that, well,
although this is the environment that you're living in now with lots
of social media, et cetera, et cetera, you need to learn your history.
You need to know your history.
You need to experience, well, not experience,
but just see what your parents and your grandparents went through
and take that with you in terms of your morals and ambitions
and just appreciate what other communities have done for the environment and for our country.
So that's what I'm trying to teach my children, and that's why I take them to many of the events that we have here,
so that they can actually learn and grow and appreciate what we actually have on offer in the borough,
because there is a lot. From when I was four, five, six, we had lots then,
but it's just so interesting to see what we have now.
And my children are enjoying it,
and I want that to continue.
And I want them to be able to,
when they eventually, if they have children,
to pass certain traditions down to their children as well.
So that's where I'm coming from.
I think for me, it's really about,
that this moment is actually an investment
in our creative communities,
in our creative enterprises, in our artists,
in our organisations that are thriving in this borough.
We should support them to continue to thrive.
And as the stats that Jamila shared earlier clearly ladder up into a much bigger picture
of a wider economic benefit.
So I'd like to feel that people who are participating in ELBOC feel like this isn't just a one -off,
that we are going to be supporting them further, that there will be innovative ways to continue
investing in that.
And that doesn't necessarily need to be monetary.
That can be just simply by the buy -in from our communities
to support creative communities.
That would be my hope for that.
Thank you.
Councillor Fraser.
Thank you, and thanks both.
You both talked about, and Ms. Ments,
you've all talked about families and,
sorry, yeah.
You both talked about families and the role of education
and the work that you're doing in schools,
and I think that's really important as we think about that.
that legacy impact and I'm interested, it's probably a question to all of you and Miss Mensor, kind of
what your thoughts are on how we should kind of, if there's more we can be doing to embed those cultural aspects
into schools and then think about the legacy and wonder if you've had any thoughts on that either and I'm not sure if you've
been part of that engagement with schools or whether that's something for you Miss Mensor or, sorry to come to you.
The chaplainess, would you like to say anything just on legacy and education?
I mentioned at the start that I volunteered for Wandsworth Council as a youth campaigner.
Now that opportunity only came to me through my school.
The opportunities, if they're there in your school and you can see that they are there,
then you can be it.
I don't think I'm saying something new here.
I think you're all aware of that.
If you see it, you can be it.
So I think we need to continue finding more innovative ways in which we can access that.
It's a very complicated landscape in education.
We're all aware of that.
But – and I speak from my own personal experience as somebody who wanted a creative career,
was kind of thrown off track during my education from it.
If I'd seen it – if I'd seen myself more in that, then I would have believed it a bit
more to kind of go with it.
I've come to it full circle.
That's fine.
But I think we all know the importance of what these early interventions mean.
Can I just add, I think also when we have children that have special needs as well,
it's very, very important in my opinion for them to be able to express themselves in different ways.
and having the arts and being creative is definitely one way
that children are able to express themselves.
And there are so many role models that we have now
in terms of pop stars, etc., etc., that children are looking up to.
They're looking up to them in the sense that they are able to express themselves
and be creative.
Our children aspire to be like that.
And basically being creative is a form of poetry.
So having this kind of project, I think,
will enable our children to be able to express themselves more
and also come out of their shells.
And it also will help with well -being
of children of today.
And it has worked in the past.
And I'm hoping that in time it can continue.
So Donna, would you like to come in on early intervention and seeing is believing, I suppose, in terms of creating industries for young people?
Yes, I also just want to talk about the breadth of the school work.
So I mean, as Jim Miller mentioned, we're delighted that we've already worked with 68 of the 72 schools in the borough.
And what's really beautiful is that a number of them have already done three, four projects with us.
and things, you know, all year eight pupils across all ones with primary, all ones with secondary schools
are taking part in our journalism programme, so working with the BBC, ITV and Sky News.
So it's really sort of giving them a taster of what it means.
But the other programmes, I mean, we've run a whole range from dance, music, drama, poetry, festival,
starting next week and starting in a few weeks time.
You can see the artwork outside on the on the railing.
So there really is a strong desire to make sure that every young person has a range of
opportunities from a range of art forms to get involved in both in schools but also out
of schools.
We're running a huge out of school programme and again work with youth clubs.
And what's really lovely is actually the special schools have really engaged with it.
So, they've been part of all the schools' programmes, but we've also run a bespoke programme
for them as part of Liberty and the Liberty Festival to ensure that those young people
gain in -depth opportunities and also tasters of different careers in the creative industry
should they wish to pursue those going forward.
Thank you very much.
Councillor corner
I'll meet the councillor Richard Jones and then maybe he might just share his microphone with you
Thank
Thank you chair a question for um miss menza you
mentioned in your opening remarks that one of your hopes for the legacy of the L bok programme was a reduction in demand for
Wandsworth Council Services.
So I'd be interested to know what you think
might be the most promising areas for demand reduction.
So I think from the experience of working on the programme
and also some of the work that was done just prior,
I think there's scope within what they call creative health
but in adult social care.
I think that is a big drive in terms of looking at isolation.
So therefore, engaging with those communities
that are isolated and that kind of has that sense of well -being so there are some proven
academics in terms of like the downstream costs or avoidance costs of then going into
primary care settings.
So I think adult social care is definitely one of the areas in terms of being right for
that and in terms of part of the programme which I should have articulated, we are running
an evaluation and the University of Roehampton is our leading partner and so we will be having
a particular focus around looking at that creative health.
It's something we've been working with
the Mayor of London on and as part of the broader
Southwest Integrated Care Board.
So that is in terms of one of the areas that I would see,
particularly around demand reduction.
Thank you.
Councillor Corner, do you want to use another microphone?
There we go.
Perfect, thank you, Chair.
I'm really really positive to hear this report. I think Elbok has done some excellent things so far
And it's really good to see the legacy being and considered in in this paper and certainly look forward to the evaluation. I think
Adji you spoke
about
Your your role as an entrepreneur
it'd be really interesting to get some more detail about about exactly what you're doing and how
ELBOC has kind of helped you to do that both now and in the future as we
consider the legacy. And then the second part of my question is really to
officers if that's okay. We've received the addendum to the paper tonight on the
the outcomes and measures which we submitted as part of the bid. The
success measures mostly refer to things that I think are happening in year.
Perhaps could you comment on some of those
which you feel have been met and exceeded
and maybe some of those ones where they still work to do?
And could you also confirm whether there will be
success measures set out for the legacy itself,
say over the next five years or whatever timescale
it would be appropriate to attach to it?
and I think that is a good thing.
Thank you.
Thanks for that suite of questions, Councillor.
Firstly, moving to Ajit then around entrepreneurs
and support for entrepreneurs during ELBOT
and potential opportunities.
Yeah, I mean, my decision to set up my own creative business
is circumstantial really.
For my own personal experience, I got made redundant
from my previous job a year ago,
and so it's taken me a while to kind of get to this point.
But what I would say is, you know,
Elbok has filled a space though,
the whilst I was on that kind of journey.
And what it has made me really advocate for
is for creative entrepreneurs.
That is also part of my career.
The last decade has been around supporting
creative entrepreneurs in design and film and music.
And now myself, I'm moving into design.
So I know what the journey is for a creative entrepreneur
who's often on their own doing this at home,
the set up that is required as part of that
and if they ever get to a point where they are growing
and scaling to a point where they can hire,
for me personally, I would absolutely love
that my business is really ingrained in Wandsworth,
that it is Wandsworth, Wandsworth people who I can hire
and I can support and improve, help to improve outcomes.
So I think it's way off there, though that's a 10 year plan.
But I think what it reveals, and certainly with the
the organisations and the individuals who have been applying for grants and who we've
been seeing through the programming, those are all entrepreneurs, those are all contributing
members of our local economy who do need that help and support to be able to take that activity
further.
Personally, I'm of – I'm from the arts and culture sector, so I'm of the mindset
of that we use quite a lot of outdated language.
That's very third sector, which is why I go to the point around we need to think about
This is investment.
This is investing and nurturing and incubating
a lot of new talent, a lot of creativity,
helping organisations to thrive within our borough, who
then were able to showcase and demonstrate
making a wider economic benefit to not just our local economy,
but the national economy.
And that certainly, for me, is playing on my mind
as I start my own business and what
I can see myself contributing.
I just wanted to add that alongside the borough of culture, we also have a programme called
ReCreate, which is specifically about supporting creative businesses in the creative industry,
startups, mainly startups.
And so that's been running alongside so that we are keeping that, you know, we're very
mindful that creative industries need support as well.
So that's running alongside.
I think this is the second, third year?
Fourth year, this is the fourth year we've been running that.
Thank you.
And then just Councillor Cornyn's second question I think was then around success measures and
where we are against what was circulated and perhaps if there is information that might
be able to be circulated after if that's available and then also where we are in terms of possible
success measures with legacy.
So we've only got quarter one data so far.
So it's hard to say where we will be after the end,
but we are well ahead of where we thought we would be
at the end of quarter one.
So we're confident, but things can get derailed.
So but yeah, I'd say the current success measures,
if things continue on track we should exceed them quite comfortably.
For going forward, this Llanowar culture year is happening in year five of a ten year arts and culture strategy.
So part of what was in the bid and sort of in the plan is to roll in to continue to evaluate
and to actually study the impact of the year as part of the next five years of the arts and culture strategy.
And it was one of the things that the GLA were really excited about because from other
boroughs of culture, they've had their year, they've evaluated it three months in, but
it's been very hard to then, or there's been no follow up assessments, so it's been very
hard to see what has been that long term.
So the fact that we have the pre -data, we have this data, hopefully very rich data with
the University of Southampton for the year and then can continue to track it up to 2032
is something that we find and the GLA find really exciting.
Thank you.
Councillor Apse.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for your contributions to Wandsworth.
It's amazing.
and you've both lived here a lot longer than I have, so.
I wanted to ask you about volunteering.
I mean, I'm really hoping that the model that Elbok
has kind of created in volunteering
could actually be kind of escalated across the council
so that we actually sort of unleash some of that potential
we've got in the community and actually use that
to really kind of improve opportunities
but also the quality of kind of what we're delivering
together. And as I understand it, you've been involved in recruiting volunteers
as part of the role, is that correct? Yeah. And so I wanted to ask you a bit about
what you thought motivated volunteers to get involved, and also if you think there
are other areas that people, you know, I'm thinking like, you know, some boroughs
have like street champions, they have champions within some of our community
hubs or libraries, where are the other possibilities and do you see an ongoing role in the arts
too and culture?
I think that in terms of volunteering, as a parent carer, as someone that scores children,
lots of families, lots of parent carers are looking at ways to either get back into work,
this is what I've been told, get back into work.
They're looking at, because they've had to take lots of time
out of work because of childcare,
looking after their children.
Volunteering for parent carers has been a great opportunity
to add something to their CVs,
get them back into a working environment,
get them meeting individuals that are working.
So that's been a positive in terms of my network
of individuals that I've been with.
Also, for the more senior residents,
they're able to connect with communities.
They would be isolated if they were at home
for long periods of time.
So it gets seniors out as well,
which is very, very important for their mental health
and their well -being in terms of the more,
the younger, the teens, et cetera, that help out.
Again, they're able to add something onto their CVs, which is brilliant for them.
It's a great opportunity working for the council.
It's just, who wouldn't want to work for the council?
So, you know, well, okay.
But no, as someone that is just starting their career,
they do admire these kind of, you know, the councils, they do.
So when I was trying to sort of get lots of individuals
to volunteer, I was talking about what
all the benefits were if they were going to volunteer.
And you do have to give some kind of an incentive.
And in terms of how it looks on your CV for someone that's
just starting out, it's brilliant.
It's absolutely amazing for them.
So, you know, I'm keen to hopefully get more younger volunteers because I feel that we need a lot more younger volunteers to help with,
to help create more roles within our borough.
And I think people need to see younger children or younger teens helping out.
Because we see a lot of seniors, we see a lot of middle age volunteers, but we don't see as many.
So I think it would be wonderful if we can have a lot more younger volunteers come on board.
So that's sort of where I'm trying to channel my efforts when I approach individuals.
Yeah, I think I'd add to that.
Again, sorry to make it like personal storeys,
but I absolutely would not have had the career I've had
if I didn't do you volunteering.
And so I think Tricia is completely right
that we need to do more advocacy, more selling of that.
I think there's a lot of, I think we all know that.
A lot of young people don't feel like they have a lot to do.
But in saying that to get them to do you volunteering,
yes, the suite of benefits need to be quite broad.
Because you just don't know for an individual what's
going to stick.
It could be something as transactional
as the incentive of here's a free ticket to a gig.
Or it could be that here is a life skill
that you're going to develop.
Every person is going to be different.
For me, getting involved in youth volunteering
was that, yeah, I developed some skills
that will make me employable.
And it did.
I went straight into working off to A levels.
So it can be beneficial in that way.
But some of my friends will just be,
no, I'm happy with the gig ticket.
So it is understanding what the breadth of incentives could be
and understanding what that level is.
And I think there's been a good mix with when
We've been looking at the volunteering opportunities
and what people could get from being involved in that.
But I think Tricia's completely right
in trying to appeal to a younger market,
and then also just having that breadth
of what the incentives might be.
May I add to that?
Personally, I'm trying to get my children off of their games.
So I think getting children, young adults, in open spaces
is key to a great well -being as well.
And I keep going back to my past.
Back in my day, many, many years ago, we had,
you know, it is, it really is.
I've got makeup on.
No, what it is is we had things like the Harvest Festival
where we had to go and buy fruit and vegetables
and take it round to various homes and so forth.
And those kinds of traditions, I think our children,
I mean, they do do them in school,
but I think that we need to keep those kinds of traditions
that we all know and love,
in the forefront of our children's minds,
because they can, we're living in a world now where
gaming, constant gaming, constantly,
you know, children and teens are constantly on their phones or iPads, etc., etc.
It would be great if we can change that.
And volunteering is such a simple, key way to get them out of the house into open spaces.
And once you do that, the world's your oyster for children.
And I think they do need that.
They really do need that.
So if we can somehow try to keep that kind of legacy and follow that through somehow,
then I think it can only lead to wonderful things for our children.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Graham and then Councillor Critchard and then we'll try and draw it together.
Thank you.
My question on that basis is to officers really.
And we've had an interesting discussion about sort of mechanisms and how things are being delivered.
I wanted to step back a bit to sort of content and what the overall purpose of the London
Borough of Culture is about.
And on page 10 it says, our London Borough of Culture is about celebrating our cultural
heritage.
I mean, to my mind, I think there are sort of two outstanding examples of that in Wandsworth.
The first is the abolitionist movement.
So around Clapham Common, basically most of the leading abolitionists were living in the
as the Clapham sect.
And William Wilberforce was one of the Councillor Richard
James' residents at that time in Northcote,
and used to ride over to Putney Heath
to see Pitt the younger as prime minister
for those early discussions about the campaign
to abolish slavery.
So that would be one.
And the other, which you would have found on that ride,
evidence of, is the borough's role
in welcoming the Huguenot refugees, indeed
our coat of arms, the blue tears, represent the Huguenot refugees and have a huge role.
Sort of a massive proportion of those refugees came locally and were welcomed.
So those would be two, as I say, outstanding examples of what I would regard as our borough's
cultural heritage.
And so have we actually run, or are we planning to run, any events about Wandsworth's historically
significant role in ending slavery and welcoming the Huguenot refugees.
Mrs O 'Donnell.
So actually I was expecting both of them to come up much more often.
We did the call out on different parts of the programme to focus on and one of the grants
we ran was for Wandsworth Heritage Festival.
I was very surprised that actually they've not come up at all.
However, being aware of both of those, we have been as part of the abolitionists, there
has been some programming as part of the Black History 365, running that across the year.
Huguenots we've talked about and we've been as part of the Heritage Network and seeing
whether a project can be developed by that, by one of the heritage groups, but nothing
has yet come forward.
But yeah, those were two things that within the bid
we actually talked about and flagged
as areas that we assumed would be coming forward
from the community.
It does seem to be sort of the very 20th century
and later focused, rather than looking
at some of that deeper history.
And indeed, on the one occasion when we seem to have delved,
we apparently advertised an event
about Thomas Cromwell with a picture of Oliver Cromwell, which is confusing.
Henry the eighth's minister with Charles the first murderer is quite a big mistake.
I did spot that.
I would say that was not a London Borough of Culture event.
As a mediaeval historian myself, I did see it and went back to the organisers and said,
have you spotted that?
But yes, it was not one of ours.
Thank you for the notes of historical accuracy.
Councillor Critchard.
I was about to mention Putney debates.
I think perhaps we shouldn't get into the territory of who murdered whom and what happened in there.
The first thing, if I may do a bit of a reflection here.
One of the things that struck me with, and then there's going to be a question for you, OK?
Struck me is that we often talk about pride in where you live in terms of what your streets look like,
in terms of how you feel about the area in which you live as councillors. What we
don't talk about so much I think is pride in where you live in the sense of
where you come from and what that offers you and particularly Trish you've
brought that to mind and then talks about other history in this area. One of
the things that we can do as a group as a committee is think about
recommendations. Now this may be a bit early but I feel that there's something
around the work that we're doing with schools and young people around and the
history and the pride in where you live and where you come from aspect that would
I would want to see continue. I'm also very interested in the youth
volunteering opportunities. The last person I... right spoiler I happened to as
Councillor Graham knows I happened to volunteer at Oxfam and I was having a
conversation with somebody who was trying to get a young volunteer in and
they used exactly the words you did I want to get them off their gaming. The
other thing I'd say as an older volunteer actually having younger
people in is great. They are such fun. It's so, I mean, and that's a benefit we get as
older volunteers if we can get younger people to come. So for me, that would be one of the
aspects I'd like to pull through from what you've said that I hadn't thought of. And
whether we as a group can do that as some sort of recommendation or if we do further
work we do that. But my particular question to you was this is what lessons
would you have having volunteered with us for us as a council that may be
putting you on the spot and you may go if you said actually can we take that
away as ask all the others and come back but I would be really interested to know
what you can tell us about working as volunteers working collaboratively with
our organisation what we do well and what we could improve on to make this sort of role more attractive.
Specifically for volunteering, just for volunteering.
I'd say to do with what you've done now, there's probably an awful lot you could tell us about how we do it as well.
I mean, maybe that would be also worth doing.
But I was particularly thinking of this role.
It's been unusual for us to have a group of community champions in this way and then have them report back to us.
It feels to me that we shouldn't lose the fact you can tell us about how we are as an organisation as well.
May I just step in there very, very quickly with something.
So I'm the son of a disabled parent who was very prominent in the early 90s with campaigning for the Disability Rights Movement.
and I'm going to take the motto from the disability movement of nothing about us without us.
And I think that remains true and I think that's something that's been diluted over
the last decade in terms of citizenship and citizenship, citizen advocacy in matters around
our local communities.
From my days of being a youth volunteer for Wandsworth Council to now engaging with it
20 years later, that's a good, there's two decades there where I didn't feel there were
other opportunities to really step in.
I've lived in the borough my entire life.
So from the ages of 14 to about 16, I was with you.
You lost me for 20 years and I've come back.
So something has diluted as part of that,
but what I think has reigned true,
and unfortunately I don't know if that's necessarily something
that can come from you,
is around our pride for where we live.
That comes down to our experiences of where we live,
the communities that we built around us.
Obviously, you can support that and can facilitate those spaces for us and continue to those
to thrive.
Something has happened, I think, in the last, possibly from the COVID years, of where our
communities had to come together that I think you need to mobilise on.
It seems to still be reigning true and I think still exists.
But I don't necessarily think that that is something.
It would also seem a bit like, oh, here's funky auntie trying to push something onto
you to do.
I think go with what organically feels natural to the communities that we're in and I think
I think we are a borough that is very unique in London
particularly with what's going on at the moment in the country and the wider discourse around community relations, race relations
I think Wandsworth is in quite a unique spot and I frequently say with friends and family
we're in a bit of a bubble, not just in London, but particularly in Wandsworth
I think we're quite comfortable with our community here. It exists. Don't get me wrong.
The disparities and tensions will still exist here, but we are a little bit unique, I feel.
And I think you need to just mobilise what organically feels natural to the community and find those incentives for people to be involved.
But that other piece that if we're doing stuff for the community, have the community involved in it.
And that's exactly what Elbok champions have been doing and what we've been representing.
You basically took all the words out of my mouth.
No, very well said.
Yeah, I don't know how to add to that other than the fact that I guess the more volunteers we have
and the more younger volunteers we have, I think there will eventually be a snowball effect.
If you see young young children, teens in charity shops, then and I have seen quite a few recently, it snowballs.
And it's for me, I just it's lovely to see because, you know, I'm a traditionalist as well.
And I love seeing all of those kind of volunteering roles that we used to see back in the day.
And this is why, for me personally,
I try to encourage my children to get involved
in volunteering roles or even activities whereby they are
giving something back to the community.
Because we've had so much given to us from our seniors
that I think that our children need to learn how,
and it is a learning tool, how to give back to the community.
London Borough Culture, I believe, is doing that perfectly well.
In terms of my role, I feel as though I've taken my role.
I've given the opportunity to take my role to different avenues.
They've given us the opportunity to have a platform,
encourage volunteers,
just show everyone what London Borough of Culture is.
We do it with the skills that we have, whether that be designing adverts or whatever.
But we have been given that platform to make this role that we have our own.
And that has been good for our skills to take onto other areas within our life.
Whether that's building a company, doing something that you're greatly interested in.
Or just having your children learn from it.
So for me, it's given me the opportunity to have my children learn from me as well and from what I do, which is encouraging for them.
Thank you very much.
Counsellor, just quickly and then I'll sum up.
I think something that we haven't said, actually you haven't said, is that we have two 15 -year -olds
who are local champions as well.
So we do have young people on the panel.
Yeah, I think one of the great things with the champion board is that it's very intergenerational.
And actually, personally for me, a great incentive from it.
I mean, I met Tricia a year ago, but I feel like we're good friends.
I mean, I've met other members of my community that I haven't met before.
and also to learn the experiences of others
from different parts of the borough as well.
So that's just been a tremendous
and really rich experience for us as a board.
And it's been a privilege to be able to represent
our villages as well at that level.
Thank you, thank you.
I was going to attempt to sum up a few points
that I think perhaps from listening to the discussion
and from seeing the slides that have been provided by officers,
perhaps it sounds like from the discussion
we might feedback as areas to think more
about in terms of legacy.
One possibly around creative industries and entrepreneurs
in the borough, and also kind of showing young people
in schools what the opportunity is there,
and really trying to, and I think it is in our growth plan,
it isn't part of our ambition, but really making sure
that's embedded.
This is something that we really want to do,
and it to be a clear legacy coming out of Elbot,
because we've had this moment. And then something around heritage and pride in
Wandsworth, you know, I think we understand that not everybody
necessarily identifies in the borough as a Wandsworth resident, but yeah, it's a
really great borough to live in and this has provided an opportunity for
residents to connect, you know, this idea of kind of our village and how we can
grow that in terms of Wandsworth and celebrate it and celebrate our history.
It feels that maybe there's an interest there from those that have
And then finally that interest around what we've learned here in terms of how it can help with some of the financial
challenges that we're facing and the transformation of the council that's going to lie ahead whether it's demand management or
Volunteering and the opportunity for us to be closer to residents and involve them in that way
But also that kind of community engagement nothing without you know about us without us and how we could embed that more come coming out
of London Borough Culturally, so that would be my attempt of summing up some discussion in terms of
what we as a committee have been interested in.
Yes, Tricia?
Sorry, can I just add one more thing?
Some of my networks also live abroad
and from seeing some of the stuff
that's on social media as well,
they are absolutely thrilled with what London
and what the borough has to offer.
So in terms of tourism, I think it's brilliant, absolutely.
I think that is a fair point, I think.
Sorry, I've really touched on that,
but the opportunity possibly for a tourism strategy,
I think is something that may well be considered.
So thank you very much, members.
Thank you so much to our champions
for joining us this evening for giving up their time
this evening and for all the work they've done
during this year, but clearly,
since they arrived in the borough many years ago,
thank you for your service,
thank you for all you're doing for local communities
and for sharing your experience with us tonight.
It's been really helpful to us to kind of inform
how we can move forward as a council
and embed the legacy of London Borough of Culture.
So thank you.
And this report is for information.
I think we've shared some reflections that no doubt we
can minute and share with one.
We've had the discussion in front of the cabinet member
and officers and ourselves.
So I suggest that we therefore note
the contents of the report.
Is that agreed?
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Have a nice evening.
Then we're going to move on to item four on the agenda, the medium -term financial strategy

4 Medium Term Financial Strategy and Update on the Transformation Programme (Paper No. 25-340)

and update on the transformation programme.
So in this item we have the medium -term financial strategy for this year that's recently gone
to cabinet.
So this is a strategy that outlines the financial risks and pressures that are currently facing
us, but also identifies how we're going to respond to that and also updates on the new
transformation programme.
and this I think does set the scene for the budget setting process that is ahead of us in the months ahead.
So I think we're going to have a short introduction from Mrs. Merry on the medium -term financial strategy
and then an introduction from Ms. Travers on transformation and then we'll move to questions.
So Mrs. Merry.
Thank you, Chair.
Yes, so this is the annual update of the medium -term financial strategy which covers the Council's four budget frameworks.
It sets out the challenging national context that we are currently facing, but recognises
that the Council is in a strong financial position to face those challenges and still
investing in its services to deliver priorities.
In particular, it flags a number of Council services that are suffering from rising demand,
particularly around social care, housing, special education needs provision and inflation pressures,
particularly the past few years have had a significant impact on our finances.
There's also residents' expectations of us which we've seen over the past few years have changed.
The Government also has a national significant programme of reforms which we know will impact
on how councils are expected to meet residents' needs and they're covered in the report.
One of these of particular note, as you'd expect, is the proposal that the Government
has to redistribute its funding across the country, which is called Fair Funding Reforms.
It's referenced in the paper on the back of a consultation that came out over the summer,
which the Council has responded to, and we're currently in a period waiting for a government
to analyse the consultation responses and release their next stage of policy proposals
around redistribution of finances.
So we don't know the full impact yet for Wandsworth, but we do know that there is likely to be
significant impact on Wandsworth as government chooses to change the balance of grant distribution
and council tax across the country. We've been lobbying hard on this and I think there
is some movement on some of the items that are mentioned in the paper, but overall we
won't know until December effectively until what our potential figures will be and the
in the report which I won't go into. There's potentially a significant shift in the Council's
financial landscape as a result of these two pressures and a projected ongoing budget gap.
We do have reserves and we will be expected to use them in a sensible and prudent manner
to plug any budget gap that we have. And in particular we do have a financial resilience
reserve that we've been building up over a number of years and that is exactly the kind
of thing that we should be relying on now. We have also got a service transformation
reserve as part of our financial muscle and the proposals in the MTFS have approved investment
in transformation as one of the ways that we will tackle the ongoing budget gap. So
I am going to pass over to the Chief Executive and he can talk to you about that. Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
I apologise, I'm at a slightly strange angle.
It's a wonderful room, but slightly strange angle, so apologies for that.
Yeah, I just want to, leading on from that introduction, from Fenella, just to recognise,
of course, that the Council faces a challenging position.
I think we could have said that for every year for the last 15 years probably.
But I think fair funding, which is uncertain at this stage, of course, does bring maybe
another level of challenge to that.
And that's why we are thinking about what we're calling a transformation programme, which
is maybe something slightly different to what has been done in recent years.
What I would like to say first of all is that the Council has a tremendous track record
of efficiency, low taxation, and making significant and radical change to deliver over the years
against that efficiency challenge.
And of course, the very existence of the shared staffing arrangement is itself a major part
of that, but there are many other changes that are there underpinning our budget.
And of course, the borough has a very strong balance sheet, as Fenella has also highlighted.
So starting from a real position of strength, but really recognising the challenges maybe
at a different level.
And so when we talk about transformation, I think we are highlighting that we're not
only going to be thinking about what goes on inside the Council's machinery, processes,
staffing, the way that we deliver services and the efficiency around that, although that
of course is an important theme.
But we do need to think more widely about really the whole organisation and the services
we deliver to our residents and the relationship that we have with our residents in delivering
those services.
And also, particularly important, I think, to think about the growth agenda, which is
about, of course, delivering prosperity for the place, for residents, tax base increases,
other financial benefits of growth.
And I think we have to see that wider view of what a transformation programme should be,
Rather than, of course, only focusing on the, or primarily focusing on the efficiency inside
the organisation.
So what we're trying to do is to structure a programme that allows us to do that.
And we've set out on the report and the appendix eight areas that we need to, we think we need
to address.
And they don't completely follow the council's organisational structure.
Because what we're trying to do here is to get beyond that to think more radically and
more profoundly about what we can do to get where we need to be.
Of course, it's a multiyear approach that we're looking at.
We're very clear that this needs to deliver some actionable savings that can feature in
in the budget setting for next year, alongside of you about how we can go further in the
years to come.
I won't go through all of the eight areas in the appendix, but I will highlight a couple
of areas.
Firstly, demand management, because I think, of course, we all talk about that all the
time, I know, and we try to do it.
it's difficult, but we've really got to redouble our efforts around that.
And we're taking that out of the kind of directorate bucket, if you like, because the same challenges
within our community give rise to demand across the main services.
So I'm talking here about adult social care, I'm talking about children's services, and
I'm talking about homelessness and the cost of temporary accommodation.
These are manifestations of demand that come from things that are happening, for want of
a better term, with our residents in our community.
We need to understand that much better, which is why we're trying to look at that, use data
to understand what drives demand, and truly look at what preventative services provide
value for money.
In other words, spending money on those services, we can evidence decreases in demand, which
relieves the pressure on our financial resources.
I also want to highlight the fact that I've mentioned growth, and I think we have put
that in the Transformation Programme because it is so important for the wider picture about
prosperity.
Because of course if you can successful residents who make less demand on state services, council
services tend to have a good home, a good job, good social networks, good neighbourhood.
And that growth direction is about trying to make sure that we deliver that.
And then that third one to highlight is the one about assets.
Because, of course, we do own a lot of assets.
We need to really understand that we're making the best use of them, whether it's for service
delivery operational reasons, whether it's for enabling growth and development, or whether
it's for disposal.
And we want to make sure that we really focus on those areas.
So that's just three I've highlighted.
The only other thing I want to say about it is that it's not only about money.
Of course, we've got to deliver financial sustainability over the coming years, yes,
but there are other objectives of the Council that will need to be taken into account and
will be taken into account as we build the case for this work.
The other thing, Chair, that the reports cabinet have agreed to is to set aside some resources
to help bring the capacity that we need to deliver the programme.
Of course, that's based on the savings from the programme, which over the years will, of
course, far outweigh the investment that we're making in that.
But we expect you to hold us to account for that and to, you know, that's something we
need to demonstrate, the return on that investment needs to be demonstrated throughout the programme.
So work started will obviously be coming back throughout in terms of working towards next
year's budget but then it is about the medium -term position and the challenges
that we face. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Travers.
Councillor Graham. Thank you. Given the scale of the financial challenge it
sounds a bit odd to start with a point about executive summaries but I think
it does need to be flagged. We've obviously had a significant
change in the way that we do business in this council and which papers come to
in which Miele gave his executive.
Clearly, the bulk of what we have here is an executive paper,
not the papers that used to come to us.
But of the papers that used to get
from starting with page 19, it's the cabinet report.
It's not a paper that would have come here,
but for the fact that it was put on our agenda.
In the past, the papers that came to us, executive summaries
were always a pretty good guide to what was in the paper
and quite informative.
Indeed, on a couple of occasions, I can remember,
they were more informative than what
was actually in the paper.
And yet here we seem to have gone to completely
the opposite approach.
Now, that is in part a member for what
the cabinet are clearly asking their reports now to do.
But I think it does the public a huge disservice when
they look at documents and read an executive summary that
tells them nothing.
And it's particularly striking when
in what's basically a one page report on ELBOLC,
the previous report that we had, we managed to get the sentence,
the council faces significant financial challenges next year.
Nowhere in the executive summary will you find that.
You have to read onto page 29 to discover that there is a likely significant drop in
the Council's overall future funding and a significant uncertainty about other aspects.
You have to read onto page 38 that on top of that uncertainty about funding, there is
an ongoing and significant budget gap.
Why is it that that is not in the executive summary?
Why is the executive summary reduced to some PR and generalities?
Mrs. Mary, a question on executive – let Mrs. Mary answer the question first.
Thank you, Chair.
So I'm more than happy to answer the question because I wrote the executive summary.
So I mean, I can only say, you know, we're working with different templates, trying to
approach things in different – but not trying to hide what's in the paper.
I think it's pretty clear what's in there.
And this is a storey that we talk about two or three times
a year, so I'm not sure that the message is hidden.
But I take the point that maybe in the truncation
of the report, I've managed to omit a line that
is elsewhere in the report.
So apologies if that has caused an issue.
So I'm grateful for that answer.
And I don't wish to cast any assertions on Mrs. Mary.
But this is definitely, and it's not just limited to this paper.
across the papers in the PAC, across papers
and under committees across departments,
that the executive summaries are now no longer telling
members of the public, who don't have the time
to read long documents, what they need to know.
And if I can just have one, the executive summary does.
Just take on the executive summary,
I think that's something that we can take away.
I see what you're saying.
It is important that scrutiny is here to add value
and to help residents understand.
So that is something that can be considered.
and we can talk about it outside of this committee.
Because my further point is that having not said those things that you have to read through
the paper to find out, the executive summary does include the phrase about the council's
commitment to making developers pay.
Now, as far as I'm aware, we're now four years, practically four years on from the administration
promising to pay for extra law enforcement officers through levies on developers.
Can perhaps Councillor Arlen tell us, given she thinks it's so important that that's included
in Executive Summary when the financial challenge is not whether we will have a single law enforcement
officer paid for by developers by May.
Thank you for your question. I don't know.
You don't know if the Labour Manifesto is going to be upheld.
I am very confident that the Labour Manifesto will be upheld.
How can you not know?
That was in it.
Councillor Graham, my understanding is that we are using ENSL funding to fund community
safety officers in Battersea.
I don't know if there is an officer here who can clarify that.
Mrs Mary?
Thank you, Chair.
So I can clarify why I have included that sentence in the Executive Summary, because
I do think it is relevant to being able to keep our council tax level as it is.
For instance, you say the NSL is funding posts in community safety.
It's also we're using developer contributions to fund half of our capital programme, which is in the next paper.
Doing that enables us to avoid paying revenue costs of borrowing, which therefore has a significant impact on our council tax.
So, you know, it is relevant as a capital strategy, I think, to reference that in there.
Thank you.
Councillor Critchard.
Thank you.
Councillor Graham, one of the very few things you and I agree about, very few, is the papers.
Now the one thing I would say, it's probably not a discussion for here, but is that something we can take away in terms of clarity and plain English?
And I think we should also think about that when we're writing for our residents.
but I don't think this is, you know, we've now probably spent 10 minutes on it, so it'd be good if we just took it away.
Councillor Goyne, do you have a question?
No?
Councillor Fraser?
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Mayor, thank you, Mr. Chavez.
This might be one for both of you, and I appreciate having read through the paper, you know,
the scale of what you're both working towards at the moment in your various areas.
I'm just wondering, it might be something from both of you, one of you,
If you can just talk about a few of the things that you're actively working on now to tackle
closing that budget gap that we're working towards.
And I'll go to Mr. Chavez.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I think we are trying to run the budget process very closely aligned to the transformation
In other words, they need to be one and the same thing, really.
So what I would say is that in each of the frameworks, in each of the eight portfolios,
there are a range of things.
Let me just pick out some of them without taking up too much time.
I think the, for both adult social care and children's services, these are where the large
budgets are in the council and we have to go through very forensically and think about
what we can do.
And it's so important that we have a clear and credible process on prevention that helps
us with that.
But within that context, we have to look at basically the structures that we have within
the council that understand and manage risk to social workers that we employ, how they
use technology to support what they do to be effective, how we use data to make sure
that we are managing risk effectively.
And then from that basis, are we commissioning services at the best possible value to us?
And we know, of course, that particularly within children's
services, individual commissioning decisions
can make literally millions of pounds
worth of difference to the amount of money we spend.
So across those two services, a real focus
on the staffing teams that we have
and the way they use technology and data
alongside their professional expertise
to manage and identify risk,
and then how we commission the packages
of support and care that are put in place.
I think it's across those things.
I think with resident services,
across the board there's gonna be a particular focus
on what I would broadly term commerciality.
In other words, do we understand the relationship
between the amount of money we're spending on services
and the income we're generating?
Because for many of those services, they do generate income.
And it's really important for us to think about that, particularly when we look across
the next few years.
For example, our leisure services, we need to be seeing our leisure services as services
which are provided at no cost to us, but also generating a surplus to cross subsidise other
services.
I think it's good to look at resident service from that lens of how can we be more efficient
and effective in how we deliver, but also how can we generate income to support those
services.
I think that's a key one.
Place and growth is about also changing the place and the benefits of income generation
that come from that.
It's about tax base, although of course the government's fair funding reforms have wrecked
the incentivization of the system, but we still need to hold onto those ideas about growing tax base,
generating developer contributions, but also the benefits for our residents. I said there's less
demand from residents who are in a good home with a good job, with good neighbourhood, strong social
networks, and I think that's, you may think that's rather a trite analysis, but I do believe it's
something that we should focus on and try and bring forward in that programme.
So I'll probably stop there. I covered the demand management strand and assets earlier, but I think they're the kind of focus at the moment.
Councillor Cornyn.
Yeah, thank you, Chair.
The Council is going to undergo, it seems like actually the Council is just about to enter one of the biggest
upheavals in the financial arrangements for councils in generations
and with a very tough economic background as well.
So I'm grateful for the paper and the analysis on what the council's response will be,
especially given the level of uncertainty.
I'd be very interested in knowing the extent to which the cabinet member for finance
is keeping track of this and whether she has initiated and seen the conclusions of
sensitivity and analysis on the financial strategy and also the
representations she's made to central government to mitigate some of the risks
that the council now faces.
Councillor Ireland.
Thank you. Well I can tell you that I spoke to Steve Reid at the Labour Party
conference in Liverpool about the possibility of cuts to our funding in Wandsworth and explained
why we needed a proper settlement and we'd like a long transition period for any changes
to the funding. We council officers have worked on three models which are plotting where we
think the funding cuts might be. And we are, we've taken part in the consultation, we continue
to lobby with other councils to make sure that the data used to including
index of multiple deprivation properly reflects the pressures on our residents
including in children's services and the high cost of housing in London so we're
very we're very focused on this in fact I would say that this bar is leading in
London and the work we're doing on this. We're taking it very seriously.
Councillor Apps. Thank you so much. And it's good to be able
to join with other members in thanking you for the sensible and prudent modelling that
we've received, which helps us to understand the potential impacts of funding reviews.
So, I really wanted to ask about our assessment of the fair funding, what we think would be
fair and sustainable for our borough, because that's obviously what we're asking for, and
how we can ensure that we get fair funding for Wandsworth.
And I was also going to ask about the lobbying, but I think Councillor Cornyn's got there
first, but perhaps there's other aspects of that we can discuss as well.
So if there's other areas where we've done lobbying that would be good
Thank you so quite tricky question to answer actually, but I'll have a go
So so what is fair? So I think there's a recognition that the current system is well overdue a refresh
It hasn't changed for a number of years particularly business rates actually and there was never an intention to keep the system. We've got now
with the variables that are used and the formula that are used for as long as we have,
but COVID kind of got in the way and then changes in government, etc.
So there is definitely a need for reform and we accept that, we get that.
I think London as a whole has done pretty well actually over that longer period
of keeping money in London either intentionally or unintentionally
because of the delays in the changes to the system.
So actually, the narrative, to some extent,
is not about how much London is losing,
but it's how much needs to go elsewhere.
And that's backed up with some of the data
around relative needs and how needs have changed
over that time nationally.
So I don't think that's an issue.
I think, as Cancer Ireland said,
the transitional protection and the scale
of what is being done, it's a lot to do all at once.
There's quite a few different big changes happening all at once and the quantum of that altogether
I think is causing the particular issue. So a sensible approach to phasing in some of the formulae
Making sure we've got the right data in there as has been said around
particularly around the cost of living in London and that what that does to
households disposable income and that the real the real costs
associated with some of our
our social care pressures, getting those into the formulae
and getting a longer, more achievable transitional
protection, they're the things we need to be focusing on,
I think, rather than trying to say that our figure needs
to be X or our figure needs to be Y,
it just needs to be a bit more manageable.
That said, we are expected to transform,
government is expecting councils to transform
to meet this challenge and that's the part that,
irrespective of what happens with fair funding,
will have to do anyway I think. Thank you Councillor Richards -Tripps. Thank you
chair I've also got a question on the lobbying and given the prospect of the
serious financial grant cuts that Wandsworth is facing, a key test of this
administration is going to be to what extent can a Labour Council lobby a
Labour government to avert what are incredibly serious financial cuts to
Wandsworth residents. Now the Cabinet for Finance was very candid with us and
residents about the lobbying effort she'd made with Steve Reid at Labour
Party Conference and she told us what she told Steve Reid. Can she tell us what
Steve Reid told her in reply?
Councillor Ireland. Thank you. Steve Reid listened very carefully to what I had to
say and he's very interested in hearing more from us. My interest is making sure
that the funding, the change, the funding,
how can I put this, sorry, my interest is making sure
that the decisions made about the funding on occasion
adequately include data from Wandsworth
and the needs of our residents, the relative needs,
and in particular, the high cost of housing.
and he was very interested to what I had to say about that.
He's very sympathetic, he's listening.
So the consultation continues and we will continue lobbying.
Thank you, Councillor Ireland, for that summary.
Councillor Critchow.
Yeah, thanks.
I'd comment, Steve, where he probably's got
a pretty good idea from his own background
what particularly the housing challenges are locally.
But the question I had was sort of towards officers and others is the fairer funding
review effective, the London boroughs are pretty much in it together because the housing
costs affect us all, the special needs transport affects us all.
And my question was how much are we doing with the other London boroughs?
Are there economies of scale we can do?
So can we work with other boroughs to get economies of scale?
Can we learn from other boroughs where areas, things have been successful?
And are we lobbying with the other London boroughs as a group to make sure that also that London itself doesn't lose out, not just Wandsworth?
Mrs. Murray or Mr. Travers, I know you touched on commissioning and procurement.
Who wants to go? Thank you, so in order answering your questions yes yes and yes.
So no, we are doing lots with other London boroughs and we've got shared
services, we've got shared procurements, we work off other people's frameworks.
There's a lot that does go on and a lot of intelligence across some of the
groups like the Central London Forward and we've got the Lottie which is the
IT London, London wide. We've also got London councils who've been fantastic actually in
particularly in this period of the fair funding consultation. There's more we can do and definitely
within the transformation programme we've already highlighted a couple of areas where
we absolutely can look at wider across London and the economies of scale. So I'd expect
some of that to be looked at as part of the detail in the transformation programme. And
and we are continuing to lobby across London.
As I said, London councils have been particularly fantastic on this.
There are some London councils who do very well out of the changes, and that's no shade
on them.
They're still in it and working across London to help all of London get a better deal.
I think there's more to come, particularly on potentially sharing services or activity,
but we're definitely not coming from a position of starting from scratch on that.
Sorry, I can't say Mr May. When you said yes, yes and yes, I thought that was what I was going to get my answer on,
rather than a bit more. That was, sorry, that was what I was like, okay, am I going to hear more about it? Sorry.
I think, Mr Travers, did you want to add anything?
Yeah, I think it's a really interesting aspect of this. I think at the moment, London boroughs,
London governance is totally consumed by trying to stop this happening.
And there'll come a point when we do know the outcome of that, probably quite soon.
And then I think there will be a period within which London governance more generally will
be thinking, I think, really differently maybe about that.
Because if London does lose 700 million, which is the potential downside of this, that's
a big chunk out of the cost base of 33 boroughs, including the city.
If you add that into the kind of other question, which is about what does the reorganisation
and devolution agenda mean in London, which hasn't impacted yet in London, but it's probably
that are gonna come in the next few years.
That kind of big cost -based challenge
becomes really relevant there.
So I think we can see Wandsworth as being ahead of the game
in that it has this link up with another buyer already,
it's sharing costs.
I think potentially one could see a lot more of that.
And I think it's gonna be maybe an interesting time,
Probably as it sinks in post May next year, I think London governance generally is probably
going to be thinking quite hard about that question that you posed.
Councillor Critchard, yes?
So I'm just thinking though, that's interesting because the one thing that what you say gives
me slight anxiety is that Wandsworth is already, you know, 14 years in 2014, because the first
that came when I was a Councillor,
has already done the back office mergers.
And I'm just wondering whether there are,
obviously other boroughs can make that change
and they achieve the benefits we have already,
and the savings.
How much further do you think we can go?
Well, we're gonna be testing that in this programme.
I think that's absolutely at the heart
of what we need to be exploring here.
Yeah.
Thank you, Mr. Evans. Councillor Graham.
Yes, so when the change programme was launched in 2023, the Council's papers described it as the most significant programme of change that the Council has embarked upon.
It was transformational and about cross -cutting enablers and building blocks of an effective organisation with nine work streams to ensure the Council's long -term financial sustainability.
But now two years on, on page 24, we discover that the change programme was merely a series of 35 small discrete projects,
in contrast to the more ambitious organisation -wide transformation now being taken forward.
So my question to Councillor Ireland is this.
Either the change programme has failed or it was never the transformation programme that she and Councillor Hogg claimed it to be.
Which is it?
Councillor Ireland, your reflections on the change programme?
Thank you. The change programme certainly has not failed. There have been many successes.
I mean, I think that we launched the Seven Rings programme earlier this year.
So, eight to ten of calls are now answered within Seven Rings. That never happened before.
We process council tax queries within under 24 hours.
I mean, we've transformed the recruitment process so that we've halved the time it takes to recruit staff.
I mean, we've introduced lots of changes in IT, including in children's social services,
Magic Notes, which saves administrative time of one day a week per social worker, enabling them to spend more time on the task.
I mean, there are numerous savings. We've saved a million pound, I think, on the waste
contract, and more money is coming in from the enable contract. Now, the change programme
is invested heavily in IT. There's much more to do, but it's put us in a much better position
to cope with the changes in funding and also puts us in a good position to commence with
the transformation project. It certainly has not been a failure. It's been a success.
We're now developing onto the transformation project.
Councillor Graham?
This is quite hard to hear and take seriously.
If the change programme was a transformation programme to ensure the Council's long -term
financial sustainability, why two years on do we need now a new transformation programme
to ensure the Council's long -term financial sustainability?
Councillor Island?
I think I've answered that.
The change programme was appropriate for the time.
Things have changed.
It's now developing into a transformation programme.
The long term is two years.
There are a list of successes.
There are far more, which I can give you outside this meeting.
It has transformed the IT services in the council and also our customer services.
As I've told you, residents ringing the council, 80 % of calls are now answered within seven
rings, which is around 20 seconds.
That never used to happen before.
That was a complaint from many residents that they phoned the council and they never get
an answer.
Don't hear that anymore.
We're dealing with different times.
We've developed it into a transformation programme.
Long -term is two years.
Councillor Ireland, you just need to put your microphone on, please.
The change programme was appropriate for two years.
The change programme, some of the developments in the change programme will continue.
The transformation programme is a different programme appropriate for the challenges we
are facing and these challenges made worse by the neglect of the previous administration
in not looking after services.
That's true.
Excuse me.
Councillor Criciak, just in terms of the question of to what extent the change programme builds
on the transformation programme, I don't know if officers are able to…
I think if you look at the archaeology within any council, particularly since 2010, you
will see a cycle of different change programmes, sometimes with different names, certainly
with different aims and objectives.
And I think the fact that that's the reality of how things are and have been.
Local authorities have even forget about fair funding, local authorities have less resources
in real terms than they had in 2010.
That has necessitated a continuing sequence of change programmes.
And you will see this in all councils.
They have been badged differently at various times.
They were appropriate for that moment and for that context.
But you can't stop changing.
You know, you have to move on to the next level with the challenges that you are facing
at that time.
And I would see this in that context, Chair.
Thank you.
I think if we are going to improve services, for instance, we do need to constantly innovate.
Councillor Hedges, I think you were next.
Thank you, Chair.
I just wanted to ask a question about business rates exposure.
I know it's a really complex area in terms of the fair funding review and the point about the GLA funding.
Obviously businesses have already been hit not so long ago by the employer national insurance hike.
Businesses are obviously suffering rising costs because of inflation and rents.
And many of them will obviously could potentially be impacted by the fair funding review.
So, and may not have any buffers to help them get through.
So I guess my question is around mitigation and whether the council have thought about
whether they'll be progressing with programmes like Ignite, which support startups, I believe.
And also, what other reliefs are you thinking about putting in place to help small businesses?
because obviously we don't want to drive people out of Wandsworth and businesses too.
Thank you.
Is that Councillor Akinoda?
So our business support team, most of those won't be affected because actually they're
funded through some of our section 106 agreements.
So we do plan on running them again.
With regards to business rates, we're not in charge of business rates.
We support our businesses as much as we possibly can.
We try and help them reduce other costs in terms of things like energy.
We have a really, a sustainability team that go and actually do sustainability cheques of buildings
so that they can reduce their outgoings in other ways.
And our business team is really pretty great.
and we're trying to elevate the work that they do,
promote them using council comms as and when is reasonable,
attend some of their opening,
actually myself and Councillor Richard Jones
was at the opening of the IV a couple of weeks ago,
which was great, so we do try and show support
for our businesses and help them to generate
as much money as possible.
Councillor Agonola, Councillor Corner.
Thank you, Chair. On the, towards the back of the paper on page 51, I think it details
that the leader of the Council initiates budget reviews. Given the significant risk that the
Council now takes, can we have a commitment from the administration that the Council leader
will come to this committee to present those budget reviews, especially in light of the
changes to governance which mean that a lot of this information could otherwise
be seen only behind closed doors.
That's a request you're making. I don't know if anybody's in a
position to respond to that now. I think I think Councillor Graham raised
something similar about the leader of the council attending this meeting. I
think that is something that we should talk as part of work programme and there's
opportunities in the year ahead for us to think about having an annual report
from cabinet members. I think that is something that all members could consider possibly as
an opportunity.
Councillor Graham.
Well, I very much welcome that. I have a question for Mrs. Mary in relation to page 29, paragraph
So there we're talking about the MTFS period to 2028 -2029, which is also the period covered
by the recent spending review.
And that states, and this is before we get onto the budget gap, that the overall funding
loss to Wandsworth still within transitional funding by the end of that period could be
between 25 to 39 million pounds per year.
Now, I appreciate that the following year, 2029 -30, we don't know what the funding will be,
and we don't know whether there will still be transitional provisions or not.
But in a worst -case scenario in which there was no transitional funding in 2029 -30,
what would the equivalent figures of 29 to 39 million pounds be?
Yeah, thank you, Chair.
Yes, so I mean just to clarify on the transitional protection government has
Proposed an initial three -year term, so we've modelled the three -year term, and that's what we're working to at the moment
They haven't yet gone beyond that and they've linked the
Three -year term to their spending review period which kind of fits quite neatly. I think in somebody's mind not I don't quite think the two are
directly linked but
We can't see how a transitional protection scheme would end as a cliff edge.
I mean, it's never done that before, so I doubt that that will happen again.
The modelling beyond the period of our MTFS is based on figures that we actually,
we know those figures are not going to come to pass now because we know that there will be concessions
on some of the areas that London in particular has been lobbying for.
It is a significant increase if there is no transitional protection, so I mean,
we're doubling that figure at least,
but as I said, the likelihood that that happens
is I think very slim because we've never had
a very defined transitional protection period before.
Modelling it forward, you know,
ones that could do 10 years of transitional protection
potentially and still need some support.
We're currently in a 13 year period
of transitional protection from the last changes.
That's the kind of period we're used to dealing with.
So beyond the current MTFS period, it really just isn't clear, I don't think, at the moment.
So I understand that, and I think you've answered that question.
I just wanted to be clear, given that we are talking about uncertainties and negotiations
with governments and bids for things to happen.
Nevertheless, would you say that the fact that funding will be lower in absolute terms
at that end of the three years is now a certainty.
It's just a question of how much lower it will be.
Mary?
Yes, I think we're all resigned to that factor thing, yeah.
Just one more follow up, if that's all right.
So for several years now, particularly
under the last government, we heard increases
this council's funding dismissed as inadequate.
In fact, one year a real terms increase
to this council's funding from central government
was described as a cut.
We heard repeatedly from Labour members that this council would be financially better off under a Labour government and under an integrated settlement.
And yet now we know that it is inevitable that our funding will be slashed.
Does Councillor Ireland and the other administration councillors, do they regret telling people and advising people to vote Labour to be better off when it's Labour that is going to destroy our financial position?
Thank you.
Councillor Fraser?
Thank you, chair.
I think the residents have an answer.
We had Councillor Ireland and others advising our residents to vote for a Labour government
because this five council were better off.
It isn't.
It's the opposite.
Do they not regret misleading the public in that way?
Sir Island? No I don't. What I do regret... No. Please councillors let's listen to
the answer. Let's have some respect. What I do regret was the hyperinflation in
22 -23. We are still suffering the effects of that. Excuse me.
Councillor Graham please. I don't interrupt you. Please do not interrupt me.
I know this is unpleasant for you to hear because it was your government that
caused this. In 22 -23 we had 10 years worth of inflation in two years. Now we
We are still suffering the effects of that and we continue to.
And also the cost of living crisis created by your government.
I certainly do not regret telling people to vote Labour.
We are supplying a lot of support to residents who are still suffering the effects of the
cost of living crisis created by your government.
Our government increases Council's funding, yours is cutting it.
Those are the facts.
Councillor Crichard, moving on to Councillor Fraser.
Thank you, Chair. My question was, so just thinking about, and I think officers have
noted, you know, some of, and it's something that we all know from this committee, that
some of those key areas are in areas such as adult social care and children's social
care that we're looking to both, you know, plug those gaps, but also, you know, look
at what we can do to innovate in future. And I think sometimes in those areas you've got
staff on the front line who quite often know and have those answers and can help on that
and so just wondering, I think it might be one for you, Mr. Travis, sorry, we're at that awkward angle again,
just thinking about how that dialogue will be created and also to empower staff as part of that,
so that, because sometimes in programmes such as this, they can feel stuff is done to them,
and so how can we can empower staff, but also so that they can feel that their suggestions are shared,
and thinking about their experiences if they've worked in other boroughs,
how we're going to take them on that journey, but also make sure that they're listened to and feel part of the process as well.
Mr. Travis?
Thank you.
I think it's really important that we do that.
We've started that process through our communications with staff, through the all staff team session
that I did with the deputy chief executive.
But the next few months are crucial in getting the engagement that we need so that people
understand the challenge and understand how they can play a part in respect to the services
that they work with in meeting those challenges.
I think there are we have got something in the council, I don't know if you are aware
of it, it is called the think bigger network, it is a network of staff around the council
who are interested particularly in changing innovation in their service area and across
the council.
And that's a fantastic resource.
It's a network of people who are already active and interested in thinking about how services need to change
and how we need to engage the residents to achieve that.
And we recently had a session where the cabinet office came with the government's own reform programme,
which is called Test, Learn and Grow.
And we had a really good discussion about how councils and other public service organisations
can change effectively to meet the challenges that they face and how staff can be involved
and engaged in that process.
So we're going to use that model and that network as a basis for how we involve staff
in this transformation programme.
And I think there's a really high level of engagement, actually.
I was really pleased to hear in the teams discussion that we had and in that session
the other day that people really want to be involved in this process.
Thank you, Mr. Travis.
Councillor Cornyn and then Councillor Apps and Warren.
Thank you.
Looking to the medium term, just in the next five years really, the rate of increase of
council tax that will be required to meet the challenges presented by the government's changes to local government funding are quite scary actually.
Some research, I know the Institute of Fiscal Studies has done some work on this that suggests that council tax may need to go up the equivalent of 10 % each year
over the next few years to meet the challenge.
And of course, we don't know the details yet,
but there is a very clear direction of travel there.
So would the cabinet member for finance like to take
this opportunity to just set residents' expectations
so that they are not surprised when she becomes
the cabinet member for finance who ends
Wandsworth Council's low council tax scheme?
Councillor Island. This is becoming a bit of a ritual isn't it. The decision about council tax will be an informed decision once we have all the facts.
The provisional local government settlement, we won't know that until just before Christmas, we won't know the final until January probably.
We will take decisions when we've got all the facts in front of us and that's in accordance with the Constitution
And I anticipate we will do the same this year. Thank you for next year. Thank you
Thank You council islands a and councillor apps and then cancer creature hard and then we'll move on
Yeah, I have to say that I for one I'm really pleased that we're not standing still and that we're looking forward and and
Developing the transformation scheme to look at new
savings and new benefits for residents
I'm really pleased to hear we're learning
from the test learn and grow,
which I learned about at a conference recently,
I think is a really good approach
about basically starting a development,
looking at where you get to,
whether or not it's working, making tweaks,
testing it again, then doing that again,
going through that process
until you've actually delivered
service improvements and savings,
which of course is the magic that we all want to see.
Just in terms of that, I know that we're bringing in external support on a temporary basis.
How do we foresee that that's going to help with that test, learn and grow process?
And how is that going to help us build internal capacity so we can continue to innovate and
continue to make those improvements like we saw with giving back social workers more time
to spend with their clients and not just spending it writing notes, for example?
Thank you, Councillor Apps. Mr. Travis?
Yeah, by the time we have procured that external support, we will have, I think, a good working
hypothesis from the work we are already doing about what the transformation programme should
look like and the benefits that it might derive for us.
I think there are a couple of stages to go with that extra support and advice.
Firstly to challenge that work, to validate it or to change it if we need to.
So have we got it right?
Are we identifying all the opportunities that are there?
Are we targeting the right areas to get the best return for the investment we are going
to put in.
And from that, we will develop more solid work through business cases that will underpin
decision making for the budget and also how we'll take the programme forward.
Another really important aspect of this is the help that we will need to make sure we've
got the capacity to do this effectively.
Have we got the resources and rigour in the organisation to understand what we are doing
to report on the benefits, to manage the dependencies between the different parts of the programme
which will be quite complicated, to make sure that as we move into implementation we can
deliver the benefits of the programme and prove that the benefits are rising.
Because of course, obviously, one benefit is financial sustainability, but as we've
said, there are other benefits that we're seeking to achieve from this.
So the role of the consultants is that kind of scope in how we got this right, developing
the detailed business case, helping us with implementation, and making sure we're good
programme managers.
Thank you, Mr. Travers.
Councillor Critchard?
Thank you.
Three bits, something related.
The first one is the, what is it, test study.
Test, learn and grow.
Test, learn and grow.
Sounds very much like plan, do, study, act,
which is one that we're doing ages.
I'd be interested if there's possibility
of having some sort of briefing for councillors
about how that works.
And it might be slides or something,
simply because it sounds to me as there might be
a lot more exploratory work before we end up
coming up with a business case.
And that's something we as councillors
need to get our heads around. So that would be an ask from me is if it's only me, that's
fine.
We'll be briefing for one member if necessary.
Fantastic. My second comment is it sounds like Councillor Corner thinks that Councillor
Ireland's going to be the cabinet member for finance for several years to come. I'm just
grateful he thinks that. Now the pick -up question though is the other last one was we've talked
about involving the members, sorry, the resident, start again, I've talked about involving our staff,
but our residents just recently in terms of the L -BOC have said they think it's important to have
no decisions about me without me. Is there anything, and I'm not necessarily looking for an answer here,
is there a way we could look at what the residents expect and how we involve residents in tackling
the changes that we're going to make
and where they think changes ought to be.
And I appreciate that might not be a quick answer,
but it might be something you come back to us with.
Ms. Travers, any initial thoughts
on resident involvement?
Yeah, I think it's fundamental,
and I think if you look at the change,
if you look at the government's Test, Learn and Grow,
there's a huge part of that agenda,
which is about how you actually engage with residents
who are in some way related to the delivery
of those public services,
recipients of them or potential future recipients of them.
And I think for us too, we've got to work out.
What I can tell you is I think it's really important
and we're gonna look at it.
What I can't consider the answer is yet,
but for example, when you're looking at trying
to design services which are preventative in some way
in their nature and help us manage demand,
And I think the basic view is that you can't do that successfully unless you engage properly
with residents who are concerned and consume those services because you won't be able to
design them effectively unless you have that engagement.
And I think as we move towards looking at preventative service which have a return for
in terms of demand management which we can measure,
that has to be done through engaging with our residents
who are involved in consuming those services.
Thank you very much, Mr. Travis.
Yes, I agree that opportunity to engage with residents
and strength faith approach and think about
the various different services that they're accessing,
I think, is going to be important in terms of how we
deliver change and improve services for residents.
So thank you very much, everybody, for that discussion.
I think this report is for information and we can hopefully note the report.
I know prior to tonight's meeting we did have a discussion around fair funding and clearly
there is real interest and there is an opportunity I think for us to have a briefing once we
actually know the position coming out of government.
So hopefully we will try to get that into the diary in early January but I know everybody
will be busy responding to whatever that arrives through the door on Christmas Eve or shortly
before then.
So moving on then to the capital programme.
Councillor Graham, I know you were keen ahead of this meeting to discuss resident services.
I know Mr. Travers is here, Mr. Chadwick, also Councillor Dickardom is here, so there
is an opportunity for it to be discussed this evening if you'd like to answer any questions.
Thank you.
I mean, I think our primary concern is that housing and environment are a huge proportion
of the services that directly affect most residents.
I mean, we know that there's a lot of spend on adult social care and children's social
care, but frankly, most of our residents don't interact with those services.
The services that we have to deal with commonly and that the services that we interact on
residents and that they expect to be provided come within environment and within housing,
broadly speaking, to put all of that under a single council officer
seems like an extraordinary step given the breadth of issues and
the time consuming nature of those issues that come up within those areas.
And it does seem like a downgrade of the focus and
attention being placed within housing, which we have already felt to have been downgraded somewhat by
a political focus from the administration on new build rather than looking after the existing tenants and the problems that
existing tenants have in the existing stock
How is it that?
With all those challenges it makes sense to have one senior officer
Covering the whole breadth of those areas
Mr.. Travis, would you like to provide an explanation on kind of why why we've created this this new directorate?
Thank you, I am just going to show my workings a little bit on this, that is OK.
The thought processes that lie behind it.
When I arrived in April, structurally there was unfinished business.
There was an interim structure in place and I think members will be aware that a place
section, place and growth section had been created in the chief executive service that
had assumed responsibility for new council housing and state regeneration amongst other
things and for the housing regeneration directorate which had lost the regeneration bit already,
there were interim arrangements in place and of course there was something of a moment
when the council had received a C3 score from the regulator and therefore major challenges
that we needed to address as we looked at that structure.
So there had to be some change.
The things that I thought about and the things that I discussed with members and within the
council at that point were what's the logic?
What's the things we need to respond to in putting a permanent structure in place?
Just to highlight what those were, there were four main areas that I thought we had to think
about.
Firstly, a general point about resilience and agility for the organisation, being able
to respond with that resilience and agility in a turbulent and somewhat unpredictable
world.
I think it's really important we think about how we do that.
We talked about the government agenda, particularly the spending review, which we've now had,
which we've forgotten about a little bit, but of course it defines the resources available
over the next three years, and then of course fair funding, which is a layer on top of that
that gives us the challenges we've been discussing tonight.
So a big financial challenge.
Then these reform agendas that we've also been talking about, growth as being fundamental
nationally, within London, the growth strategy of the borough, and the widely defined growth
approach and delivery of that approach was absolutely key to how we operate in the next
few years.
Similarly, the agenda of reform that we've also been talking about tonight features very
clearly within that and that's about those themes about engagement and also about digital
data in AI and how our staff are enabled to be effective in that world.
And fourthly, this question about the future of London governance, which I do believe in
the next few years is going to be very significant for us and other parts of London government.
So those are the four kind of big issues to think about.
From that, what could we deduce about the operating model
that we have, to use probably not a very helpful term,
what's the way of working that we needed to have
to respond to that, and what's the structure
that we needed to respond to that?
And I identified from that that I thought
there were four key areas of focus for us
that we needed to resource and identify effectively
in that structure, firstly children's services,
adult social care, not controversial, no change there.
Then to properly establish a growth and place directorate which had not been established
hitherto in the organisation and to resource that and to recruit to that an executive director
to lead that directorate which we have now done and that person is starting shortly.
And then to bring together housing management strategy homelessness and other resident facing
services within a resident services directorate.
They were the kind of four blocks that I felt we needed to have.
Alongside that, much more effective single interface with residents in terms of how we
relate to our residents.
Single process of effectively engaging with residents and making sure that we manage our
partnerships effectively as a single organisation.
They were the ways of working that I thought it was important that we had and could identify.
From that, as I say, we created the growth and placed directorate and resident services.
I just want to pick up particularly the issues around housing.
This is not a downgrade.
This is an upgrade of the council's response to housing.
It's absolutely fundamental and this is properly recognising that and it's dealing with it.
And simply the fact that we don't have a single housing directorate is not to be viewed as
a downgrade.
It's actually an upgrade.
And I want to set out why I think that is.
Firstly, housing growth is identified as a key priority within the growth in place directorate.
So that is about new council housing.
It's about major state regeneration.
But it's also about wider private sector investment in housing, delivery and new housing in the
borough and how we enable and support that.
So that area is absolutely fundamental and we're resourced to deliver that.
I think the other thing to say, and this is picked up as a key theme within resident services
and is resourced accordingly at director level in the structure, that we have an enormous
challenge around the delivery of improvement in our own council stock.
And recognising that the world of social housing changed completely post -Grenfell,
we're dealing with a completely different scenario and we have to respond effectively to that.
What Grenfell identified was a fundamental
mismatch in how social housing is viewed in this country and was viewed, and a lack of appreciation of the need to respond properly to the challenges that are there,
and to effectively give parity of esteem to social housing tenants.
And all of the post -grantful changes are designed to address those things.
So the consumer standards and the regulator,
the work of the housing ombudsman,
the work of the fire safety inspector,
and the impending introduction of AWAB's law
dealing with serious service failures and damper mould
and processes to address that urgently
by all social landlords.
That has completely changed that world.
And we have to respond to that in a very different way.
And the point about parity of esteem,
I think is really important.
It is really recognising that social housing tenants are the same as anybody else and are
entitled to the same level of service as anybody else across the board.
So the thinking here is about bringing those services together so that we can deliver that.
Now, I'm not saying it's the only way we could do that, but I'm saying that in our circumstances
I think it's the best way of doing it.
And I think one of the challenges of having housing completely separate in the organisation
is that it can become unhelpfully separate
from the wider organisation and how we respond
to what residents are doing.
It can become culturally separate.
And if we are to see that parity with other forms of tenure,
that we have to bring that response within the mainstream
of how we deliver our services.
And that's the thinking behind it.
I just also want to emphasise that
That without management of our housing stock, we do have major improvements to make.
And we, Councillor Dickerton, who is here tonight, has been leading the compilation of a housing improvement plan.
Which identifies the short, medium, and longer term solutions to all of these challenges.
The regulatory environment, but more fundamentally, the quality of what we provide for
our tenants and leaseholders to be clear about the extent of the challenge.
So that improvement plan, we have had additional support to produce that.
That will be coming to cabinet shortly and of course it will then no doubt be scrutinised
appropriately through the committee structure.
I'm happy to come back and talk about it again.
But I think the changes are an upgrade for housing.
Thank you very much, Mr. Travers.
Councillor Graham?
I think in the first place it's helpful to have that on record in the public domain.
Because the problem with a staffing committee taking decisions for exempt papers is that that rationale was not available.
Certainly to most members unless they went and requested it specifically, or to the public at large, including many who were affected by this decision.
Our position is not that there can't be ways to get what were two separate directorates to work together better,
or indeed to get services to the synergies and cross -lovers.
Or that this was done without thought, because as Mr. Travis has set out, clearly there's been a considerable amount of thought put into this.
However, I would make two points in response.
One is, I don't see having one senior officer covering the whole of that,
area rather than two makes us more agile, that sounds to me like a decrease in the capacity
of senior officers at that level to deal with those issues.
And the second thing is that we have an SSA. Every senior officer is answerable to an executive
here, but also an executive in Richmond, except that Richmond does not have council housing.
There is no equivalent in Richmond of Councillor Dickerton, which may be a relief to them.
But is a problem when it's -
Is a problem when it comes to the attention of officers answering to political masters.
There's no, that that in itself will skew attention away from one's housing stock.
So while I'm not suggesting that this was done without thought or consideration or indeed that there might not be benefits in some aspects of it.
I remain extremely concerned that this will prove to see housing overlooked in many ways
when it comes to future arrangements.
Thank you, Councillor Graham.
I think that was a comment largely unless there is any, oh, Mr. Chadwick has come to
the table.
I don't know if he wants to say something.
But I do agree.
I think it has been very helpful, Mr. Travers, you setting out the reasoning and the clear
aspiration in terms of this being an upgrade to council services and that
ambition for the administration to provide parity of services across both
our housing estates and on our non housing estates and on our streets and
that being very very clear and a driver for trying to improve services for all
residences across the borough wherever they live so I think you've got some
specific two concerns that you've raised. Mr. Chaswick do you want to say anything
on those? I think Mr. Travers said most of what I did want to say but just had a couple
of other things. Clearly I am not single directed director and I just offer the confidence that
I feel we are. We do have the capacity to deliver exactly that what Mr. Travers says
and an upgrade of the housing service as a result of the change we've made. Do you remember
So that the then, absolutely this is not,
it's neither a takeover of housing by environment
nor a takeover of environment by housing.
This is a brand new department,
a brand new collaborative department
with that new approach as its overall aim
and using our, the added collaboration
that comes under one single management team
as a means of stepping on, improving,
in fact improving not just everything we do for housing
about everything we do in the wide directorate.
I mean, I do just remind you, in pure capacity terms,
the housing directorate, as of the 20,
what would have been the 30th September before,
this all was put in place on the first of October,
was a smaller housing directorate
than was the case a year plus ago.
Already functions within it had been moved
across to the then -placed directorate.
I remind you that the then -environment directorate
of a year plus ago was that much smaller than it was,
it was that much smaller on the 30th of September
as it was over a year plus ago,
with a year plus ago the movement of the planning service
and other elements related to the then place director as well.
So what we've been combining is two smaller directorates
than was the case a while ago.
So that's that pure capacity point.
But reality is that I can have all the words in the world at the moment,
but we are confident we can deliver improvements for all our services going forward.
I will be changing those words into actions with my team.
It's not just me, of course.
I've got a strong team around me, an improving team around me.
And we've got the support of, when it comes to regulator, of offices used to that regulatory framework
work elsewhere in the council, including support on an interim, seconded basis from the likes
of Michael Hallock, who I think most of you know from the Children's Services Directorate.
So we're genuinely improving a lot of all the services within the Directorate is my
aim.
One of my colleagues always says improvement never stops.
I think she actually says better never stops.
That's the case.
That's our overall aim.
and I sit here confident that we've put in places the changes, the capacity necessary
to sustain that improvement over the coming years.
Thank you, Councillor Churchill. I know we have Councillor Dickadam here, and as better
never stops, why don't we just have more people at the table. He's more than welcome to come
and join us and add anything further. I am conscious that we have got another item on
the agenda that we should give time to and I have got more hands coming up now
say councillor Kritchard maybe I'll gather the questions together
councillor Kritchard and then councillor corner and then we'll have some
responses and we'll...
okay thank you yes I'm just reflecting what mr. Chadwick said about the two
directorates being smaller that merged that had struck me when I saw the
Proposal I think I'd also comment that certainly from many
Councillors perspectives we've felt that
things have been different in
For people who live on estates for example and for people who live on roads
And that's been very obvious recently in changes that we've had through transport where the estate roads are now going to be
resurfaced they were previously in housing and what I'm hoping is that
An example that we've used like that, which has been done sort of more in collaboration,
can also be used for other services as well.
I think the issues with the waste services on council estates is something I would really like to see.
That I would love the residents on council estates to have a much better service in terms of clearing fly tipping.
in the speed of how their problems with rubbish and litter are dealt with because also that
all brings us back to that idea of pride in the place you live.
And if you live somewhere that is not tidy, you don't have that pride and hopefully the
changes and the learning from the Environment Directorate can be reflected over towards
the housing.
Absolutely.
Councillor Critter, I thank you.
Councillor Corner.
Yes, thank you, Chair, and it's really good to get these explanations from officers to
kind of really get under the skin of why this decision was taken.
As Councillor Graham points out, it is concerning that none of this information was actually
made available in advance of what is a very significant restructure of these key services,
in my view.
There was a brief discussion of it at Housing, which didn't go to the detail of what we're
discussing now and before that it was only at the staffing committee where it
was part of a paper that was not available to the public so I think that
was regrettable but I'm grateful for the information this evening. What I'd like
to know though is what other options were available to the council when
looking at the options for this this restructure and how were they assessed
And I'd also like to understand, perhaps from Mr. Chadwick and
Councillor Dickerdum as he's here, how the apparent
reduction in the number of senior roles looking after housing
will contribute to a better service as required in light of the regulator's report.
And the reason I ask that is that when you do a mapping of the roles from the old
structures to the new structures it seems like there are fewer director
level staff looking after housing topics in the new structure compared to the old
one and that would seem to be certainly at first sight a cause for concern for
those of us who want to see a better housing service in this borough.
Thank you Councillor Corner. I'm going to gather up the questions. Councillor Apps.
Thank you so much.
This has really made me reflect on my experience as a Councillor since I first became a Councillor
in 2022.
And I think the thing that most surprised me, first of all, was when I arrived, apart
from some of the very good officers, excellent officers, is the fact that it was so siloed
so that different parts of the organisation, there might be some good practise there, but
it wouldn't necessarily be experienced by other residents living in other areas.
And in fact, when it comes to, when residents fill in the app and sort of say where there's fly tipping,
they actually get a different response depending on if it's in a housing estate, as if it's on a street, as Council Critchard was discussing.
So I suppose for me, it's really about kind of making sure that we have that consistency and where good practise can kind of be shared.
So that's very welcome.
So I really want to ask about how the creation of the new resident services directorate will
help improve services for residents.
And like Councillor Critch, I am very passionate about waste services and fly tipping and those
things.
And also like where are residents going to notice it and sometimes like where are the
sort of joins that they used to notice going to be gone?
Where will there be seamless services where there used to be a difference in services?
Thank you. Thank you. Can't something Councillor Fraser
Thank you, and I think my question thinks bit more broadly about place and growth and you know elements that we've touched on
I think the benefit of doing something like this is is
And I think it touched on the point about pride in place and something we've touched on this evening and quite often is is community
safety and those elements
Because I think if you think about community safety quite often if there is that that that pride in place
and it's something we've definitely seen through COVID,
through the emergence of more WhatsApp groups,
more residents are now taking pride
and taking care of the area that they live in.
I guess, interested to understand
whether it's through housing or from that wider growth
and peace and thinking about,
you know, it could be anything from putting planters in
to how we design parklets and things,
how that can then link up with increasing kind of measures
that improve resident safety
or that sometimes it's that perception
of people taking pride in their area and then actually then it feeling safer as well.
So actually just thinking about placing those broader terms and whether it might be Mr Chadwick
one for you, how you see that kind of marrying up with the ECS side and bringing your new
housing hat into that as well.
Thank you.
Okay I'll come to Councillor Dickerton, cabinet member for housing first.
And so there's a question on what other options were available and how were they assessed?
A question on there's an apparent reduction of senior officers, how will that contribute
to better services and the response to the social housing regulator report?
How will the creation of the director improve services for residents?
Where will residents really notice it?
And how can we think about this as breaking down those silos
across the council and improving place -making
and improve residents' experience at street level
and having pride in their streets?
Yeah, so I'm going to focus.
I'll try and cover as many as I can.
Some of them are probably better answered
because they're staffing questions.
But the first is like emphasising
that housing remains probably an absolute political priority
of the administration.
And the purpose for this new residents service model is to try and build in the seamlessness that everyone is talking about
So, you know, where are the challenges where are the things that we haven't seen improvement on faster?
It is where there are siloed arrangements. So on rubbish collection on roads and
On repairs and repairs is a massive challenge because of how so much of it is contracted
But also we contract with ECS, you know
We have our own DLO and so building an arrangement in which there's one port of call and one front entrance is part of that
Seven days seven rings, you know one
Experience for all residents in the borough and I think you know
It is a change and it's and it's a change that at time sometimes might feel uncomfortable
But it's one in which you've got to test these things and there are some of the changes that we've made that had amazing
Amazing impacts at the time. We thought well, you know, is this going to work out?
And so I think all of this is about chasing the best possible resident experience.
And sometimes you have to try new things to do that.
Now within that is the very serious regulatory framework that we operate within.
And I give you a commitment here that that is fully resourced.
That remains an absolute priority and fits within the system that we're building.
And in many ways, cuz there's two pieces of work here.
There's the outward facing everyday experience of the resident.
And then there's our corporate responsibility with these new regulatory pressures.
And so I can give my commitment that those, this is not a cost saving measure in any way.
That will be fully resourced because that is a very serious priority of the administration.
But we can't just descend into that and leave residents on the frontline service.
And so that is kind of the balance that has been sought here.
On alternative models, I mean, you know, in theory we could have continued with the similar
housing department model.
But I think there's experience in the room when
new officers arrive.
When Andrew arrived, he's seen this model work in practise.
So it's an opportunity to try something new.
And I try to be as frank and honest.
Things don't work out.
We change them again.
The council has to be dynamic, has
to be able to move and adapt to the changing environment
that we face.
This whole committee meeting that I've been sitting through
has been about new challenges that turn up around the corner
that we couldn't have planned two years ago.
So a council that is dynamic, that can move, that can shift, that can try new things is
nothing to be afraid of.
I feel like Wandsworth has maybe shied away from that in the past and we don't want to
shy away from that.
We want the best possible service for our residents.
Thank you.
Councillor Dickerton.
Mr Chadwick, do you want to come in and then I'll come to Mr Travis.
Just a couple more comments on the collaborative.
This is a start, isn't it?
So we're how many days in?
Seven, eight days in.
So I haven't got all the answers there for.
But I've got views on the process by which we can get those answers.
So for example, we've talked about waste.
Waste is a good example where there's already been collaboration across the directories
and we're really – the old directors were really building on that some more.
Mr. Crawley, many of you will know.
Mrs. Epstein, many of you will know.
Already working closely.
This is another chance to step on a pace and improve our waste and frankly litter picking
and street cleaning facilities for all of our services for all of our states, some more,
moving on a pace by being in the same team now, by having even more moments together
for those, generating those ideas as we do that.
And another feature of that will be engaging with our residents some more, our tenants
some more in this case, on how we improve.
And people like Mrs Epstein, people like Cindy Gardner have already got really strong tools,
us to how they engage with our residents in terms of testing the things that they have
delivered in the borough, and we'll build in that some more.
As Diggin mentioned, the DSO work, the repairs work, and the ECS have in effect been a contractor,
and a very hardline contractor in terms of there being a hardline between the client
and contractor.
That I want to blur, and rightly so.
use the contractor in this case as an intelligent contractor, use that contractor in terms of
advising the client on where their own processes are a little awry on occasion, and in that
way build improvements.
And again, use our residents' feedback to improve the repair service in a way that perhaps
hasn't been done before but has been done within ECS.
So there are examples of kind of building on the collaboration that's already there
that are pretty obvious.
There'll be other less obvious ones that will pop out as we work together in the coming
years.
Perhaps an example of one that's in my mind at the moment is, you know, are beyond the
blocks, the estates themselves, the design, the hard and soft landscaping.
I think you touched on it, Councillor Apps.
Why don't we use our parks team as the expert that our housing estate officers turn to in
terms of how they might develop that into proper desire lines for walks through the
proper use of hard and soft landscaping in a way that doesn't fit the way it feels
often to me at the moment.
It is just the way it was when some of our estates were built in the 1950s.
The question about essentially three to two,
and it's a good question.
I'm confident that the way we are arranging
the job descriptions is there is capacity within
to deliver all that we need to do within,
with two offices at director level rather than three.
That partly comes from a confidence that we will attract
high calibre candidates to the post that's currently vacant anyway.
We've already, are going through a recruitment process for that appointment on an interim
basis with some really strong candidates, I haven't even had a conversation with you
about this, can't stick in, but with some really strong candidates seen today that are
clearly of a mindset of delivering immediately as they arrive strengthened support for the
colleagues already delivering the housing improvement plan.
So ultimately the three to two has to be tested but it is partly not a numbers game, partly
it's about calibre and I think I've proven in recent years that attracting higher calibre
directors is its own call it for what it be it has happened I think you've you've
all experienced Matthew Edie will experience the skills that Natasha
Epstein's brought said their areas not you know kind of I'm pretty confident
that that that can be replicated across all the divisions in the new director
thank you mr. Chadwick miss Travis and then we'll move on the options point I
I think we did not write down a series of options and rank them and score them and pick
the one with the highest score.
However, I am well aware of all of the options which are out there as to how councils structure
themselves.
Yes, of course, there are differences.
Also, of course, that has changed over time from what was in vogue maybe five, six, seven
years ago with very small top things, much smaller than the one proposed here or the
one in place here.
So numbers, roles, the way you break it up, I had all of those options in my head, but
what I was trying to do here was to pick the correct approach for the hearing now for these
two councils, let's remember.
And it's a combination of that analysis about what the task is, what's the context, what
have we got to do, what are the key challenges we need to face, and that is specific to a
place to our places and to make sure that we've got the right resources to take that
on.
The other thing, though, is to use the change to provide the right tilt and nudge in terms
of organisational culture to sit alongside that analysis of what the task is.
It's a combination of getting the right structure for the task at hand.
It's also about using that process of change to nudge us in the right direction, culture
and capacity wise.
Those are the two things I looked at in making the recommendation.
I think really good points about agility and that have also been made.
We need to think in terms of if we need to tweak as we go along that we do that and it's
not bad to do that, it's not wrong.
This all evolves and we have to get our heads around that kind of ability to evolve alongside
the challenges.
Thank you, Mr. Travis.
We are going to move on then.
Could I just thank Councillor Dickardam for attending this evening.
Of course.
I mean, we don't always agree on everything.
Sometimes we have very significant differences.
But in his willingness to engage and answer questions, I think he's a model for others
to follow.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for everybody to attending and that we've been able to deal with this item.
I think it has been helpful to shine some light on that publicly.
So thank you.
So I think we've already noted that the MTFS paper is for information and we're noting
the report.
We're now going to move on to the capital programme paper.

5 Capital Programme (Paper No. 25-342)

So again, this item includes a paper that's previously been agreed at cabinet in September,
where we've got a committed capital programme of 261 million as part of the council's Decade of Renewal.
So investments in roads and pavements, libraries, waste services that we've touched on, and leisure centres and open spaces.
So I think under the discussion of this item there's an invitation to members to consider the current approved programme
How it aligns with council priorities and opportunities to consider how we make sure that the programme in the future
Really is shaped around resident priorities. So I think
Given the time I don't think mrs.
Mary necessarily has anything further to add by way of introduction so we can move straight to questions
Councillor Cornyn.
Yeah, thank you.
And this is really just to repeat a theme that we've discussed at Housing, and I know
it has been consistent across the OSCs, but this paper is largely a copy and paste across
the OSCs, and I think there is substantial work to be done for this committee to influence
what's brought before it.
There was a real issue with this committee previously.
when I was it last year we had a meeting which was about 20 items long and there
was you know no you wouldn't cover all of those in a month of Sundays you'd
need additional meetings set up for that purpose so so I'm not saying we should
go back to that but what we do need is more detail in the papers and we need
the whole committee to be involved in the shaping of the agenda going forward
I have a view of what papers should look like.
They should contain the problem statement,
the options, the assessment of the options,
the decision, and also why other options were discarded.
And that's a good framework for scrutiny.
I think that it has been done well in the past, actually.
So, Councillor Stock will recall from Children's
and others who are on Children's around this table
will have experience with that committee.
Under the old regime at the children's committee meetings,
over, you know, I was on that committee for three years
and I gained a really deep knowledge and understanding
actually of what was going on in that directorate
and that was due to two things.
I think firstly, the officer team were always kind of
present at pre -meets in the committee itself
to answer questions.
But secondly, and perhaps most importantly,
the papers were of sufficient detail.
It wasn't, not saying they were perfect,
and it's a complex area, but they did largely get it right.
And the papers were the right mix of kind of
the prose format that we're used to
and the kind of more graphical communication
that a PowerPoint deck enables.
So perhaps I would suggest to officers
that that could be used as a model
and we could go from there.
But I really just wanted to get the response to that point
and encourage this committee to really drive that better quality of paper for future meetings.
Thank you, Councillor O 'Connor. To a certain extent, those comments I think perhaps fall under
the next item on the agenda in terms of work programme, because I think under that item
I really was going to encourage us all to make sure that we can get in the room. It is difficult
with everybody's diaries, not least because we have a large number of exec directors whose
portfolios kind of are covered with the terms of reference of this committee.
We've got two cabinet members and we've got ten busy councillors so I think we
do, I accept we should work hard and we will work harder to make sure that we
can get a date in the diary where we can do that work programme session, really
prioritise what we want to look at and we can really, once we do that piece of
work, we can then understand actually under each of those items actually what
we want to look at. But it does require us all being more active in terms of
scrutiny and really understanding what we're trying to get out of it and I
think there are some challenges around timing and making sure that when we're
getting involved in decision we can really add value so I take the points
that you're raising and I think we need to take that away in terms of work
programming as well I don't think that's necessarily directed at the directors
because I think at the moment that the papers the two papers that are before
the seeming are really reflecting on decisions that have gone to cabinet
really. Mrs. Barry, I don't know if you want to come another or we'll move to Councillor
Critchard. Councillor Critchard. Thank you. Okay, on the cabinet, on the paper itself,
one of the things I do welcome obviously is all the investment in the leisure centres,
but then we've heard from Mr. Travers, who's vanished, who's not here at the moment, we
We've also heard about how we should be trying to develop our leisure centres and
that offer to drive some sort of income.
Now I can see, obviously, we probably wouldn't want to raise prices, but
I'm wondering how much we can assess what we do with the leisure centres to make them more attractive.
I've known people say to me, well I wasn't to go to Virgin because it's nicer than the council one.
is how we can actually pull those people away to come to us.
We may not have an answer.
Is there any way we can start to look at that as a measure?
Sorry.
Mary pointed at Mr Chadwick.
Patrick, I think the question is kind of to what extent in the capital programme
Are we thinking about potential income generation, I suppose, in our assets and how is that feeding
into our decision making?
Yeah, massively so.
I mean, you'll listen, I'm sure the papers on the new contract with Places Leisure, which
has as a big feature further capital investment, a combination of our own capital and Places
as ledgers on capital, and that will drive an improvement in the buildings, which in
turn is bound to, by our predictions, drive an ability to increase our income, including
by there being more users, including obviously over time by our ability to increase our rates.
So I think that is an example of – actually, there is a link to the transformation programme.
It is an example that we should build on for all the services.
It's an example where we will test and review that.
We will test and review how well that's worked in our leisure buildings that are currently
targeted and whether that can be explored more for other leisure buildings.
But certainly it's I think an example of how we might develop that approach.
It's clever use of capital to generate income across other areas.
Thank you, Councillor Chadwick.
Sorry, Mr. Chadwick.
It's getting late now, yeah.
Councillor Apps.
Thank you.
One of the things I'm particularly interested in, because I think it's something where there's
some areas where we could improve, is how we make sure that the Council takes into account
the views of residents and that that actually helps to shape how we respond to different services.
So that we're sort of finding out from residents not only what are their priorities but
also how well resourced they think those priorities are and
where they think there's gaps and what those gaps look like.
And we've obviously done lots of really great stuff like using commonplace,
which is a web based technology which allows people to input.
There's been really good input from the leaders' road shows, but I think we could look at other
ways to make sure that residents' views sort of drive forward decisions on things like
capital projects, and so that they're brought into that sort of corporate planning and that
corporate priority -making.
So I really want to find out what's the baseline at the moment in terms of the capital programme.
How at the moment do we take into account the views of residents when we're looking
at the capital programme and how do we feed back to those residents too?
It would be better if Matthew Eady were here to answer that in detail but I do know that
That is another good example, and perhaps it isn't there across the piece of where we
are genuinely engaging with our user groups for the centres to explain at the outset what
our proposals are, try to shape them.
There have been user group discussions about the precise shape of the investment that we
want to make, and we are certainly along the way using those user groups to test the result
of our investment and potentially therefore to,
if the result isn't right, to reshape how we handle things.
So that's probably the best I can do without colleagues
like Natasha and Matthew alongside me
in terms of environment projects.
But there are examples of that also emerging
pretty that way for how we're handling housing projects
as well.
Thank you, Mr. Chadwick.
I am beginning to get conscious of time and I have had a number of councillors put up
their hand.
Councillor Acanola?
I just wanted to draw our attention to the work that's been done on the Falcon Road underpass.
You can speak on it.
It's your project.
Well, yeah, okay.
I mean, that's a significant project, of course.
A transport project that all the time will move away from it, but yeah, we did great
engagement on the designs, particularly of the murals, the panels in that underpass.
I think terrific work with our residents on the range of options we had.
That's now, of course, being delivered, and we're on the ground with a target of completion
in December, and it's going really well.
So again, it will be an example where we turn back to those groups of residents we consulted
with and say, well, what do you think about the result?
And again, we hope, of course, we got it right.
But going forwards for other projects, we'll learn from those views in terms of other works
of that type as to how we might adjust if people don't like it.
But I'm pretty confident they will.
Thank you, Mr. Chuck.
And as we go around with questions, I am interested in members' views on this issue of how we take into account the views of residents in the capital programme.
How do we have that dialogue with residents about you said we did?
Because I think there is an opportunity either for us to make a recommendation that more thought is given in this area or for us to pick it up in terms of a future committee.
Councillor Fraser, did you want to come in on this or shall I come to Councillor Graham first?
It is a slightly linked point to that but another one that does fall into Mr Chadwick's
area is, it is alright because I will talk about it so you don't have to, is the work
that you are doing in Triangle as well.
So one of the ways that you are seeking, the council is seeking user's views there is
members might be aware and there is a particular area where the boxing club is and the children's
playground that floods every single winter so that is an element that is taking into
account, there's some of that that is belonging to Network Rail, then some of the examples
that are being used from Falcon Bridge are going to be used on the bridges there, which
are, they're not particularly nice at night, the lighting's not great, there's issues of
pigeons, all that kind of lovely stuff, but actually what they're doing there is seeking
views on, and having, I think they're like webinars and taking residents' views into
account that way, which did then, so I wanted to bring in on that point, but then also linking
that to community safety, I think kind of what opportunities are we looking for in the
capital programme to link that to? And it might be to my earlier point on how we shape place
to look at how we can improve safety. And that might be, you know, elements of the underpass
on Falcon Bridge. You know, a big element of that is people didn't like it at night.
And actually that hopefully will, whether it's actually real or perceived safety concerns,
I think it would be great to think about that community safety element in all of our, or
as much as we can in our capital programme.
I plead from Councillor Fraser for us to think more about opportunities for community safety
in terms of capital investment.
Councillor Graham?
Yes, I wanted to ask about the table on page 58 of the pack.
The most eye -catching aspect of this table is the £134 million worth of borrowing on
the general fund, obviously part of the more 900 million that's so far planned by the council.
However, to my mind, the more alarming aspect is the combined level of
still in section 106 dropping from over 70 million to less than six over that period.
Now I appreciate that it's always been the case that it tends to dwindle a bit as you go forward.
Because you can't anticipate what's going to come in until schemes start to get built out or consented.
However, we know that over the last few years, this council has consented far fewer schemes than the previous administration.
And we know that building starts have totally collapsed across London.
The things that have been consented, unless we are building them, are not being built.
So it strikes me that that is a significant issue in relation to borrowing,
because it is not clear where that revenue will come from for the foreseeable future.
And indeed, if we work to continue to get new homes bonus, we might not be getting it for very much longer anyway.
Thank you.
Councillor Graham.
Mrs. Mary would you like to come in in terms of
Future CIL and section 106 receipts
Yes, thank you chair
Yes, so so just to clarify the table cancer grainies is the use of those
Cilin section 106
Receipts to fund the programme at the top of the table. It's not actually our forecast of Cilin section 106
So just to make that clear, I was just checking actually where we are in terms of our committed
schemes against the SIL and Section 106 receipts that we have received and we are pretty much
– sorry, I'm just scrolling down – we're pretty much break even in that all the SIL
– sorry, specifically talking about SIL here – all the SIL receipts that we have received,
actually received, we have committed into the capital programme.
So I think that's the first thing to say and you're seeing that there in the next couple of years
because the schemes that we're doing and that we've committed to are the ones that are frontloaded.
We have still got a significant amount of civil receipts in our forecast,
but as we all know, the forecast only becomes something that you can rely on in cash terms
when things have progressed to the stage where that actually starts to become payable.
but there is a pipeline whether that's a pipeline that's as healthy or less
healthy than previously I think you know that that's part of the kind of ebb and
flow of economic cycles definitely. New Homes bonus falling away is definitely
something that will hit Wandsworth because we not least because we did so
well out of New Homes bonus relative to other councils and the fair funding
review does confirm that New Homes bonus won't continue so that is definitely a
Revenue impact of that change, but I would expect there to be more schemes coming through
That will be funded by section 106 and and still receipts because we do have a pipeline and some of that will definitely come to fruition
Thank You mr. Murray council Kritchard
Thank you, I'm actually a bit surprised that I haven't heard from council corner on this but
Pay 61, the Nine Elms Linear Park.
Now, as Councillor Belton isn't here,
I am now the longest serving Councillor on this particular team.
And the Nine Elms Linear Park has been going since I started in 2014.
When is it actually going to be completed, please?
Residents of...
Yeah, I thought you might say so.
I was giving you the opportunity to ask it, but you didn't.
But, yeah.
And obviously if that if you have to go away to get the answer that I would really appreciate it because
What we're not getting at the moment is we don't get the board report from the nine Elms board
Which we would have normally had
Yeah
Looks like we might not be able to give a response on that this evening Councillor Critchard
but I think we can take away as an action that we will share an update on progress for the Nine Elms linear park with
all members of the
Committee any other questions on the capital paper or Councillor that British strength?
Thank you chair and mindful of the time
I'll make this really quick, but it goes to the point that Councillor corner made at the start of this discussion about
how clear the papers are in terms of enabling us
to scrutinise what it is they're putting forwards.
And I want to make a specific point
about the capital programme paper,
which, and this is a long -standing thing,
but actually I think the capital programme paper
is always a very difficult one for counsellors to scrutinise
because it's actually very hard
to bring to life the capital programme.
The current paper, it's been like this
since I've been on this committee, I think.
It starts off as sort of a preamble on the finances.
There's then a long list of programmes, which is just a short description and a monetary
value, and then there are some annexes that I think are boilerplates.
And going through the programme, you can't tell from the list of programmes against their expenditures
what's on track, what's on not, what's a reasonable expenditure, what's not a reasonable expenditure.
I think this is probably something to take away, not one we can solve now.
But basically, how do you enable the finance committee
to really get a proper sense of the capital programme
as it is when the paper lands, rather than just what
we tend to do is kind of pick out our pet projects
and go, oh, how's the Nine Elms linear park doing?
And that's not a slight, but it's
what you default to when you don't
have a handle on other schemes not in your ward,
and the paper that doesn't give you anything to go on.
Mr. Murray, I'm kind of strategic over something.
Yeah, well, I mean, it's a really good challenge.
And I think that's something that we have definitely
been working on behind the scenes over the past 12 months.
So I think the point there is we need
to engage with this committee to share some of that work
to see what extra we can add in within the resources
that we've got available.
But definitely willing to share some of that.
Thank you, Mrs. Murray.
I'm going to wrap up the discussion here, Councillor Corner, if that's okay,
and move on to the next item on the agenda just before the guillotine.
So this paper is for information.

6 Work Programme (Paper No. 25-341)

Does everybody note the reports?
Thank you very much.
So moving then on to the work programme.
As I have said, I think at page 88, paragraph 23,
we've listed there some of the work programme or proposed items for this
committee in the coming months. I think there's still more work to do in terms
of whether that is an accurate reflection of members interests
particularly in terms of the moving position whether it's fair funding or
other challenges or opportunities that are coming the council's way and then
also I think more work needs to be done to really think about prioritisation.
There is the opportunity for us to do task and finish, there is an opportunity
for us to think about budget scrutiny in the months ahead. I think that's already listed.
So as is set out in the paper, there are a couple of things. One, I think we should all
get together as members. If it needs to be that officers are not all able to attend,
we might just have to accept that. We might have to have separate meetings with separate
officers. I appreciate that's a call on everybody's time. And then I would welcome members contacting
me or the vice chair or Miss Ritchie directly in terms of any areas of
interest. It would help me if you could think about adding some words as to
actually what area you are interested in because I think some of these areas can
be quite broad when we talk about economic development really actually
where do we think this committee can really add value or any other suggestions
that come forward. So I'm happy to just receive the suggestion but if it's also
accompanied by some thoughts on what areas you're particularly interested in.
And equally the same with data or information that can help us make a better decision about what we would like to focus on.
I'm happy to receive those suggestions outside of a formal work programme so we can start to do that work as well.
Councillor Corner?
Yeah, thank you, Jan, that's encouraging and thank you for that, for getting out of that.
As I mentioned, the housing actually, one of the, they're called overview and scrutiny committees.
And you can't really scrutinise if you don't have the papers that go to cabinet coming to the committee.
So I think part of the work programme has to be the substantive decision making papers that
the cabinet scrutinised coming to the next committee afterwards that are relevant to finance, obviously.
I think that would help us be able to do that scrutiny function.
Councillor Cawley, I do hear this request and I have heard it come up at other committees
and I understand that there is effectively a request for members to be spoon fed in the
way that we were in the previous system.
Cabinet papers are still public.
I think it probably is our onus as scrutiny members and I appreciate we are on numerous
different committees and it is difficult for us to look at those cabinet papers properly.
what we've sought to do to assist with that is to put the forward plan for key
decisions within the agenda pack so hopefully that should assist members to
really understand what is coming up on the cabinet agenda so if there are areas
again that members are particularly interested on the forward plan please
share that with me with us and we can think about getting that information
possibly ahead of cabinet if that is something that's possible so hopefully
that I take the I understand the point and it's come up in other committees I
I think it's not just an issue that this committee can grapple with.
I think it's probably, council -wide, how we approach that information sharing.
And I take your point about overview.
Councillor Graham?
Yes, so one of the reasons that was given for
changing what was coming to this committee and the other committees was to create the time for
us to engage with policy decisions before they ever got to the stage of a paper or appearing on a forward plan.
so that we could actually, well allegedly,
help to shape those things and influence discussion.
So far, we've actually seen the opposite,
where we've had a big change to staffing directorates,
where it didn't go anywhere at all in advance,
and we're discovering it after the fact.
There is nothing I've seen so far
that allows us to actually do what this change was purported
to be allowing us to do, which is to engage earlier
before it's got formalised,
and that the forward plan is after it's been formalised.
So how are we actually going to start doing that?
The only thing I can see coming up that we can predict
is budget setting, and it doesn't seem that we're going to get
anything other than the normal process for budget setting.
It is a challenge, I accept that,
and I think it's a challenge when we're running towards
the end of an electoral term.
I think that is probably a reality that is a struggle.
I think, again, I think if members could share
what areas of council policy they were interested in,
then I think we can begin to then ask for information
from council officers or prepare some briefings
to actually understand whether actually this is something
we want to delve into further, maybe it isn't,
or what opportunities there are
and whether there is scrutiny at this point is timely.
So I think we need to come together,
we need to have some suggestions
and then we can find out from officers
where, or cabinet members, where they are
in terms of policy making or emerging policy
to know whether our scrutiny can be timely.
So I think a good place for that
is a really effective work programming session.
And I think I'll bring Councillor Acanola in.
I think she may say we've had the opportunity
on Elbot Legacy possibly to feed in.
But I'll let Councillor Acanola.
Well again, you've actually just said
what I was gonna say.
So I don't need to say anything.
I'm being told that I've reached the guillotine.
So I am going to wrap up the discussion if there's anything else and we'll come back
together.
I think that's right.
I do welcome your approach as chair in engaging us on these matters.
You alluded to something I was going to say earlier, which is that one of the other things
that the whole changes to committee structure was intended to do was to implement the peer
peer review, LGA peer review recommendations.
What they said was that our council was unusual and
indeed deficient in putting scrutiny on the leader of the council.
And since the first summer of this administration,
we have heard from him once, and that was without warning, and it was only on a limited item.
We've heard far more from members of the public and had the opportunity to ask questions to the members of the public,
when we have the leader of the council.
And I think that needs to change,
at least not asking too much to do two evidence sessions
in four years.
Your point's noted, Councillor Graham.
Councillor Apps, do you want to come in?
I am, yeah.
Yeah, just very briefly, just to say,
I think the sooner we can have a meeting,
sort of of all the committee members,
to kind of go through what we'd like to see on the agenda,
the more time we can focus on productive things
that we actually want to achieve as a committee.
So, but we need to put that time in.
Thank you.
I suppose I'll just come as members
to be a member's happy to meet with our officers,
because that might mean finding a date.
OK.
Let's try and find a date on that basis then,
and then we can understand who we might
need to bring in afterwards.
OK.
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you for your patience.
The meeting's now finished.
Thank you.