Cabinet - Monday 26 January 2026, 4:00pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Cabinet
Monday, 26th January 2026 at 4:00pm 

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An agenda has not been published for this meeting.

Welcome everyone to this meeting
of Wandsworth Council's cabinet,
our first of the new year.
Are there any apologies?
I think we've got Councillor Ireland can't make it.
And any declarations of interest?
Okay, well if it's all right, I'll begin as usual
with just a run through of what we've been up to recently,
and I think we'll have some slides to illustrate this.
So we continued our programme of community drop -ins,
getting out, listening, what matters to you.
Most recently at Keyes House in St. Mary's,
it was fantastic as usual to hear from local residents
what matters most to them.
So thanks to all the counsellors
and the residents who came along.
It's now been a year since we launched
our seven days, seven rings pledges.
How are we doing?
Well, since the launch, the counsellors removed
100 % of graffiti within those seven days,
fixed 100 % of dangerous potholes,
and replaced 88 % of broken street signs within seven days.
And on average, we've answered 84 % of phone calls
to the council within seven rings.
So not only will we keep trying to do better on that,
hopefully you've all received in the past few days
this through your letterbox.
So this has reminded residents,
as we'll come on into a moment,
that your two free bulky waste collections a year
have reset, but we're also adding extra items
into the seven ring, seven days pledge.
So it won't just be your potholes and graffiti
that are fixed within seven days.
It's now faulty street lights, fly posting,
and hazardous broken pavements.
All will be fixed within seven days,
so we can all have pride in our streets.
As I was saying, bulky waste collections,
again, just a policy that's come in in the past year.
more than 25 ,000 households have taken advantage of that.
If we look now at Access for All,
Britain's best concessionary scheme,
there's another issue that came up at Keyes House.
People were pleased we'd added Go Ape
to our Access for All programme,
adding to other private sector partners such as Lime,
who are providing their services half price
for Access for All residents,
because we want everyone in the borough
to have access to those everyday staples
that many of us take for granted.
If we look at sign -ups for access rule,
again, from a very, very low base a year ago,
more than 10 ,000 people in the borough
are now saving money,
whether that's when you get an allotment with the council,
you can get married at the town hall,
obviously you can get free gym and swim,
a very popular offer,
and thanks to Councillor Gasler, Councillor White,
and others who've helped to make it a reality.
I'd also like to mention Councillor Gasser again
when we talk about Dolly Parton
and how we were invited here in Wandsworth
to kick off the celebrations in Britain
for Dolly's 80th birthday,
which of course is a big deal here
because thanks to her Imagination Library,
every child in Wandsworth under five
gets a free book every month.
They're beautifully presented, lovely books.
We've seen them coming through.
And this sort of smart partnership, whether it's with Lime or with Apple or with Dolly
Parton, is just another reason why we can provide top class services while keeping that
low council tax, which we know you value as well.
And you can see on the slide as well, we actually have the fastest sign up in Wandsworth of
any of the Imagination Library's partners in the country.
So please tell anyone you don't think knows, but more than 6 ,500 children every month,
thanks to Dolly Parton for getting those free books.
And I thought to mark that auspicious birthday,
we could just take a minute to watch a video from the launch.
Hi there, I'm Dolly from the Dolly Parton Experience
and I'm so thrilled for a very special occasion.
Today we're launching the Imagination Library.
This wonderful programme gives every child a free book every month,
right up until their fifth birthday.
And our mission is really simple.
We want to inspire a love of books and reading.
Reading is such an important part of learning
and we want to help families build that love of books
from as early on as possible.
And then she read the Peter Rabbit storey
which we received in the post as well.
So that was nice to hear it from Dolly herself.
I always enjoy events,
so like link books into something fun for kids.
To have the opportunity to, you know,
to get delivered one book and read each month
is the best gift. I'd like to thank the Players and People's Postcode Lottery for supporting
this project and the Dollywood Foundation for bringing it to our borough. If you haven't
signed up your child or children yet, please do and make sure you're benefitting from this
fantastic initiative. That's great, isn't it? So I'd say thanks to Councillor Gassa and
everyone involved in making that happen. It's truly appreciated. So turning to the agenda
today and we have a number of papers around housing and so Councillor Dicodem
do you want to start off with item 2 the independent report into the Fox House
fire great yeah so this is the Fox House fire independent report by Barry Quirk
who some of you you know was it involved in the kind of aftermath of Grenfell
It's a really, really useful document.
It's very thorough and goes through almost like minute by minute, hour by hour of what
took place on the night of the fire and the response, and it has a series of recommendations
as well.
Barry came and spoke to the housing committee and faced a range of questions from councillors
on his thoughts and feelings around the report, and the report has been shared with families
and sent around to those affected by the fire. The report kind of talks about the stages
of the incident. So what was happening in the immediate response after the fire and
the evacuation where luckily, you know, nobody was seriously hurt, what the council's plans
and actions were in those immediate hours afterwards. It talks about some of the challenges,
the challenges that we all know and have spoken about, which is that challenge of our insurers
struggling to find accommodation on the night because of the tube strikes and lots of the
local accommodation was booked up. And it talks about how sometimes we might have like
a very good process on paper, but some of that kind of pastoral support wasn't quite
there and the kind of lessons learned. It's very, very, I would say, complementary of
the kind of council's overall response in regards to what we did in terms of financial
support and then that rehousing and of course that big political decision that came to us
as a cabinet around the new build homes that were coming online where we made the decision
to immediately place families in secure permanent tendencies. There's also I think a really
interesting and important part around how members can be involved. I want to give a
shout out to Sano Jaffrey and Denise Paul who on the night were just amazing and they
They are mentioned in the report
But also they're like incredible hands -on work of offices, you know, Dave John Chantal they
Driving around early in the morning looking for looking for placements and speaking directly with residents
It's really good that we commissioned an independent report. This isn't you know, this isn't the council officers marking their own homework
It's someone coming in looking doing interviews and and making strong recommendations
So yeah, I think it's a I think it's a it's a really really important that we do this after a major event
In my, I'm coming up to ten years as a counsellor, this is no doubt the largest,
scariest, probably most traumatic event that has been since my time of being a counsellor.
And it's really important that this isn't like closing the chapter on this case.
We've got to continue to work with those families who have been through a very traumatic incident.
Only last week I did a drop in on a family who were on that top floor.
I went and visited them, their new property.
And then they're really concerned about the fact that they still can't get into their property because of the contamination.
We've just contracted, we're just about to contract someone to go in and be able to try and
clean up some of the asbestos that we now know is in those top floor flats so that possibly they might be able to recover some things.
But it's very important to understand that people are still living with the implications of this.
There are passports trapped in those top floor flats.
It has long term life implications.
But the council has continued to work very closely with the families and I think, again,
the ability to rehouse and give permanent settled homes to so many people so quickly
after a fire like this, I think is a testament to how officers moved so quickly.
But yeah, happy to take questions on this and I think a really important document for
us embedding into our processes going forward.
Thanks Councillor Di Cetem.
I just want to thank Mr. Travers as well
for being able to commission and deliver this report
in the timescales we had.
Any comments and questions?
Well, Councillor Henderson, Councillor Gusset.
Thank you for that report, Councillor Dickerson.
And certainly having read it, it does contain
some very significant and positive recommendations.
So it has much wider applicability, I think, to just simply the Foxhouse fire.
So I very much welcome that.
But clearly, it's a consequence of the fire number of tenants, particularly secure tenants
who are obviously displaced.
How many are still displaced, and how many have actually been found in alternative accommodation,
and in what timescale?
So, all secure tenants were rehoused within 16 weeks, and we made it very clear that there
was – it wasn't, you know, that they were allowed multiple offers.
So, people were allowed to go and visit properties, turn down properties.
We wanted to make sure that it was matched.
I think also, in that process, I think it's worth to talk about how, you know, housing
and children's and there was a lot of, it was a really good example of departments working
together closely to make sure that we had a shaped approach.
So it wasn't just housing officers there, you had social workers, you had the whole
council getting involved and doing it all together.
Part of the reason we could move so fast is the new build programme.
We were in a really lucky place because we have invested in new build properties that
We had some properties that were about to come online.
And I think, in my mind, I'm always going to have that in the back of my mind, is to
be ready and be thinking about why it is so important that we continue to build housing.
It's because you never know what's going to happen.
And I think that obviously played a major role.
And when you go and speak to the families, as I have, in those properties, they are starting
to settle and get some normalcy back into their life,
which obviously is the thing you want to give back the most.
You don't want people to be languishing
in temporary accommodation,
unsure of what's gonna happen next.
And we know that the building is gonna be out of action
for a very long time,
so we needed to give them that certainty quickly.
And then Councillor Gasser.
Yeah, thank you.
It's a very interesting report.
I am aware that there's other blocks around there.
I think there's another five of the same design.
So obviously those residents of those blocks are going to be really worried
So just wonder what we're doing to keep them safe and to reassure them that we're keeping them safe
Yeah, so you remember one of the first things we did was instigate wake and watch in those blocks immediately and
We are we have now commissioned
Basically going in and into the roof void and putting in fire breaks in those roof voids and also costing up and doing similar cheques
On any building that might have a similar roof void
challenge in those older blocks where we had gone and done the fire risk assessments in
2022, but they couldn't get access into that void.
So we're doing the work necessary to be able to get into the void spaces to cheque if there
are fire breaks, and then we'll be able to come up with a costed position that we can
bring back to you all.
The works are already being, we went through a very quick process on making sure that we
can do that to those surrounding blocks, but then there's a longer piece of work of making
sure that we can do that across the piece.
Okay, that's good to hear.
Thank you.
Thanks very much for those answers.
If there's no other comments, are we okay to approve this report?
Thanks very much.
And I say, sticking with housing, we now have item three, which is a review into social
housing improvement.
I mean, this is a slightly different type of report, which has come out of a task and
finish group from scrutiny.
So I wonder if we could ask Councillor Stock to say a few words to introduce the paper
Thank you very much chair and lovely to see you all this afternoon
Thank you very much for having me
So we established the task and finish group in response to the regulator of social housing c3
Rating and that grading matters
But what matters more is why it happened and what it tells us about the lived experience of too many tenants in this borough
For me, social housing, and for us, it is not a technical service, it's not a line in a spreadsheet,
and it's not simply just contract management.
It's about people's homes, dignity, safety, and empowerment.
So over the course of the Task and Finish Group, it's really clear that progress is being made,
and I really welcome that progress.
But processes alone will not fix this.
Culture matters.
Real, lasting change requires a fundamental shift in how the council acts as a social landlord.
putting tenants and leaseholders at the heart of decision -making, valuing lived
experience as expertise and treating our accountability to residents as
non -negotiable. Our systems must work for residents, not the other way around.
And that starts with safety. So we really welcome the acceleration of the stock
condition surveys and the commitment to survey 100 % of homes by the end of this
year. That urgency is absolutely right. But gathering data is not enough. Data
must also drive our action.
So our first recommendation, the report is simple. Ensure there's enough
capability to properly analyse the stock data. So investment is
prioritised around resident safety on impacts
on electrical safety and fire safety. The improvements are acknowledged and
welcomed. But residents were clear with this. Poor communication creates anxiety
for them and trust once lost is hard to rebuild. Which brings me to repairs.
Repairs are the front line of trust between a landlord and a tenant, and
too often that trust has been strained.
Residents told us about missed appointments, repeated visits for the
same fault, temporary fixes instead of permanent solutions.
And that experience is reflected in the tenant satisfaction data.
58 % satisfaction with repairs isn't good enough.
We can do better.
And we're all clear that it's not enough to say, well, that figure is better than last year.
When people are still living with damp leaks and unresolved problems.
That's why we should be unapologetically ambitious about transforming the repairs journey.
So our second recommendation calls for shorter appointment windows,
real time tracking and feedback, and greater transparency and accountability.
If residents can track a parcel to their front door,
they should be able to track a repair in their own home.
But technology alone won't fix this.
Empowerment really matters.
That's why our third recommendation is on co -designing the next repairs contracts
with our residents.
not consulting on the edges,
but shaping the service from the ground up.
And our fourth recommendation is clear,
that residents must be involved
not just in the design at the beginning,
but ongoing, robust monitoring.
Those affected by decisions
should be able to help make them.
As the regulator recognised,
formal structures exist, but they're not enough.
Too many residents at the moment
remain outside the system, unheard,
and without influence.
So we need a cultural shift from paternalism to partnership
from managing tenants to working with residents
not doing to them.
And that's why the next three recommendations
focus on updating the Borough Residence Forum
to reflect the council's new governance arrangements,
embedding tenant and leaseholder representation
into governance, ensuring that the external specialists
that we're commissioning complete their review
of formal and informal engagement at pace before this summer.
Not just box ticking, but real influences
in resident services.
Because when residents do shape services,
services improve, and when services improve,
trust improves.
That's why we think that ongoing scrutiny matters.
We recommended that the tenant satisfaction measures
are reported annually to committee,
and that scrutiny continues to monitor performance
and improvement after the election.
The Tuscany Finish Group and the Housing Improvement Plan that follow this on the agenda both recognise
that there's a distance still to travel, but we are hopeful and the direction of travel
is right.
So this report invites Cabinet to embed the recommendations into the Housing Improvement
Plan and to place our shared values of fairness, dignity and empowerment at the centre of everything
we do, because our tenants and leaseholders deserve nothing less.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Councillor Stock, for that introduction and obviously for the task
and finish work behind it as well.
Are there any comments and questions?
I see Councillor Henderson.
Councillor Stock, thank you very much.
I think that's a very full and worthwhile report.
But I'm just wondering what level of engagement you had in coming to those conclusions and
the various discussions, and in particular what engagement you had with the opposition.
Thank you.
So I think in terms of the review, first of all, we really, I think, as is clear from
the recommendations we made, it was really clear that the review was rooted in the lived
experience of those living in the borough, not just us sitting here looking at performance
and compliance data.
So engagement was built into how we worked as a group, first of all.
So a tenant and a leaseholder joined discussions at our meeting, so that was Mr Glockner, the
vice chair of the Borough Residence Forum, and also Ms Playford, who is the tenant representative
on ARCH, the Association of Retained Council Housing.
And then beyond formal meetings, members also twice attended the Borough Residence Forum
to discuss our work and also attended the well -attended residence conference this year.
So we listened directly to tenants and leaseholders there about repairs and communications and
that informed what ended up in the report.
We also took scrutiny out of the committee room.
So I joined yourself and your fellow ward councillors
on an estate walkabout with councillors,
as I said, staff and residents.
So we saw kind of frontline the service on the ground
and heard from residents about their day to day experience.
We also, I'm very grateful to the parent champion service.
They facilitated us to speak directly to tenants as well
about their experience of navigating the housing service.
And then in the task and finish meetings
we heard from housing officers
and I thank them and service leads and we also looked at the tenant satisfaction data
and complaints data as well.
So first of all I would also like to thank all of those involved for sharing their insight
and experience.
That's always immensely helpful.
Members were engaged throughout the process, towards the end of the process.
Unfortunately there were some opposition members who sent their apologies to the final meeting
of the task and finish group, if that's correct.
Thanks.
Any other questions?
Councillor White.
Thank you, Councillor Stock.
Yeah, and I'd like to reiterate what Councillor Henderson said.
I thought it was a very good report and very worthwhile.
But one thing that I found that wasn't really addressed too much was any understanding about
the quality and level of service over the years from contractors, because we don't have
service that's delivered from in -house and whether that was part of the problem or whether
it wouldn't have mattered really, the service was just not good enough across the board.
Thank you.
So just to be clear on the scope I suppose of the task and finish group, so we really
set up the task and finish group in response to the regulators C3 grading so
councillors were keen to gain assurance that next time when we're expected you
know we're going to do as well as we can because also that matters for residents
on the ground so really that the scope of the review really focused first of
all from what was in the regulators report we were a time limited task and
finish group we probably would have liked to have gone on for longer but we
limited by the election I think that's clear from the final recommendation in
the report say it wasn't a report that was a forensic order of every single
aspects of the housing service and I think you can see that in your your
housing improvement plan that you've next got on the agenda you know there
are aspects in there that that we just didn't have time to cover as a task and
finish group but I think what we were assured to find out about is that there
there is kind of an in -depth review of the repairs service going on and the
opportunity for housing and environmental services coming together
does enable there to be a lot more collaboration across different services
and there is an opportunity for us in the future when we look at the new
repairs contract for us to think more about how we could use our own our own
parts of the service within the council to improve services is for residents I
think that is something that was explained to us but it's not something
that we went into great detail about.
You'll also see in the report that we,
initially there was some work that was done
to understand the housing ombudsman's investigation,
also our engagement with the building safety regulator,
but we were given some information about that in the end.
Again, because we were time limited,
we didn't end up going into too much detail
about the work that's going on there,
but no doubt that will be an important area of focus
for the Cabinet and the Council in the months ahead.
Thanks very much. Well, are we happy to accept this report?
And obviously we've heard the recommendations in it as well, so that's assumed. Is that agreed?
Agreed.
Wonderful. Well, thanks very much. Thanks, Councillor Stott, for being here.
And I think it's very timely that, as you say, item 4 is the housing improvement plan,
because it's now time to carry forward all of the improvements we can make and continue to make in our housing services.
So, Councillor de Koutam, would you be okay to introduce that?
Yeah, and there's a very useful kind of symbiotic relationship between the work of the task
and finish group and the very long and big piece of work that has gone into coming up
with the housing improvement plan following the regulator's judgement.
So I like to see them as things that, you know, what was actually really helpful was
that when we met as a task and finish group on the night, we could go through and make
sure that there were things that weren't in the, you know, that not necessarily weren't
covered but things like the BRF falling on a different date are things that just fall
out of the scope when officers are looking at the, like, very heavy lifting of what it's
going to look like to get the department to, you know, move into that modern era of the
new regulatory framework.
So yeah, I think this is an excellent paper which is a lot of work from officers and yourselves
going through the detail and working out how it is that we can try and on a number of different
fronts get the housing department to start pushing up some of those not just tenant satisfaction
measures but delivery outcomes. And there's also an important piece there about kind of
culture and the historic Wandsworth way of doing things and possibly not moving and adapting
with the times to what other councils have done. And there's a particularly strong piece
in there around digital engagement and digital access.
We are still overwhelmingly phone -based service and that has to change.
So these are the ways in which we can start to slowly and but also I say slowly but very
seriously deal with from the root of the first time that repair goes in through the entire
system and some of the changes that are necessary for that.
And to be frank, this is why the regulator is such an important service, because the
C3 has basically shaken the department into waking up to the new modern standards that
it needs to meet.
And I just can't think of anything that could be more useful for regulators to do, frankly.
I think it's also an important kind of, it's got some very important kind of moves that
we make internally as a department, particularly around setting up our own in -house building
safety team, so it just means that there's much more clear oversight and ownership over
some of those issues.
So, yeah, a very important paper that I think will shape the Council corporately for many
years to come.
Thank you very much.
Other comments or questions for Councillor Dukkonen?
Councillor Yeats.
Thank you very much, Councillor Dickard.
This is a really important document.
It's clear that a huge amount of work has gone into it.
I'm very grateful to you and officers for all that work, which is so important.
Also thank you very much, Councillor Stock, for the report of the Task and Finish Group,
which is complementary and also really important with good recommendations.
And we've got a couple of questions to Councillor Dickerton.
I noticed with interest the recommendation about establishing the housing improvement
and transformation board chaired by an independent chair.
Just wonder if you'd tell us a bit more about that and how you envisage that working.
And then secondly with this whole question of how residents can use an online repair
service that functions well.
I mean obviously there is housing online at the moment,
but as the Task and Finish Group notes,
it doesn't work as well as residents need it to.
And I know that the housing improvement plan does also note
the need for a digital platform for logging repairs.
Now obviously setting up good IT systems does take time.
I know from my experience on transport.
So, but I wondered if you could tell us a bit about the plans for, you know, really
resident friendly, easy to use online repair logging and tracking system.
Yeah, so I'll start with the online question.
So currently around just under or around 10 percent of our repairs are done online.
So we have to change that drastically.
And the way we'll do that is through, we use a system called NEC at the moment.
And we can start to use NEC in more creative ways.
But some of the main things are that, I'm trying not to get too technical for a public meeting, but
the way that when a repair order is put into the system, there are ways of smoothing that out.
And there are ways of making sure that we don't have lots of back and
forward between an estate manager and either a contractor or one of our DLO team on the nature of that order.
and how quickly it is that that can be logged.
And so there's not lots of internal
administration processes to make that smooth.
And then you can build an IT system
which monitors the progress of that repair.
So Councillor Stock hinted to it,
but what we, and the delivery unit,
have done a very large piece of work on this,
is how we would get to a position whereby
it would be very easily for someone on their phone
to log a repair and then be able to track it electronically.
Whereas at the moment, most people are just calling in.
They're calling in to a named individual who is receiving lots and
lots of different calls, then has to field those calls, and
then take notes after the call.
So it's just a very old fashioned way of doing things.
So in terms of timelines, we want to start seeing
major move towards much more online kind of towards the mid and end of the year.
But some of the kind of key blocks of that will involve changes to the area teams and
the way that we do things.
So it's not, it can't happen overnight, but it is something that we want to be able to
see and be piloting at least by the summer in different area teams.
On the independent board, so it would be made up of counsellors and one like independent
chair, and that would go through the way that we are meeting the targets specifically on
the areas that the regulator raised with us, but then also, and that is quite a big chunk
of work, because as the report points out, we've moved pretty fast on a lot of the things
that were raised by the regulator.
The harder and naughtier thing is how we can improve our informal engagement with tenants.
And I think having some independent expertise, looking at our systems, looking at the way
we do things is going to be really really useful for that. Thank you and we'll come
to Councillor White next. Yeah, thank you Councillor Dickerton. A resident involvement
is very much part of the improvement plan. Do you think the current way that we involve
of residents, the various forums that we have, is robust?
Or do you think that there may be other ways that we might be able to engage residents
much closer and get them much more involved in the solutions of the issues that we face?
Yeah, so I'll go back to this point about kind of like a slightly old -fashioned way
that we do things.
So the regulator recognises that we've got formal structures of resident engagement.
We've got residence associations, we've got the area panels, we've got the BRF.
But we all know from experience of going to those meetings, and setting up an RA can be
difficult.
And so if you don't have an RA, you're already in a worse position than a state that has
set up one.
And going to an area team meeting or going to a BRF meeting, again, it's difficult.
If you're just a tenant with a job and a life, how are you going to get involved and be able
to shape the nature of your service?
So we had a very kind of like old -fashioned delegate style model and
Now it's much more normal to have a much wider range of informal
participation channels and I think historically that was seen as like
Weirdly less democratic because it was like well how you know
There was almost you know like that delegate model of containing
Tenants was actually tends to be able to be able to get involved in any way
They want over they just like comment in a Facebook group with we've recently just launched a large
pool, open source, where anyone who wants to feed into any policy can just sign up and
get emails and we'll be sending out questionnaires. We've got 700 people signed up so far. I think
we'll be able to get above 1 ,000 that just tend to want to feed into the service and
be able to do it from their own homes, be able to do it from their phone. We're also
moving away from just the classic residents' association meeting, which are important.
We want to support and encourage them in associations. I think they're an excellent thing. But when
and a state doesn't have that, making sure that we have drop -in services.
So you will remember last year we tested the roadshow model in the area teams whereby they
would choose a certain community centre, they'd be there all day, you could go and talk about
your repairs, and estates from all over the area could feed into that.
So we're testing new and different models.
We have unique challenges in Wandsworth with the level of leaseholders.
So I think we've always noticed that there's getting the balance right between how many
how many police holders involved, how many tents involved, has always been a challenge.
And again, the regulator is acutely aware of that and they want to see us try new things
and different things and that's central to this.
As a particular resident engagement, there is never no bad ideas.
And you'll see that we've grown the residence conference, for instance, from very small
to much bigger in the last couple of years.
We do much more just quite off the cuff responsive in -person events.
So many of you know that if something goes drastically wrong
We just turn up with officers and sit in a room and let people come and speak to us those kinds of things
So just less formal ways of making sure that tenants voice is heard
Thank you and then councillor guess
Yeah, thank you very much. I mean, there's lots of good plans and obviously what you're absolutely determined that things going to improve
There's still something about I think both you and councillor. It's not mentioned about the culture
I mean, so I've been counsel quite a long time now and the residents frustration is often they just don't get any email back
Well, sometimes officers can be a little bit brisk probably because they're so busy
It's just how are we going to make sure that residents when they do have communications from the council?
They're the right communications in the right tone and at the right time
Yeah, so, you know we all took over in 2022 having
being in our position for a long time and knowing our estates and knowing our residents
and knowing that repairs and housing was a massive, massive issue. And we thought, okay,
what we'll do is we'll just hire more estate managers. That was like one of the first things
we did when we took over the council, was just put more money into the service. And
we thought that would pick up the slack because we knew our estate managers had these very
large pack sizes, much larger than equivalent boroughs, and we thought, okay, more people
will do the job. And the problem is, is like it wasn't, it's how the service functions.
It's like those, we could hire even more estate managers, I think now, and their lives would
still be really difficult because of the processes, because of the systems, because of the way
that the, you know, when you get under the bonnet of it. And that kind of, you know,
while it wasn't the focus of the C3, the C3 was on some very specific contract failures
on electrical safety certificates and overdue, you know, the overdue FRAs, in some ways,
like that came out in the wash of learning why is it, why was it that that could fall
by the wayside? Is it because they're juggling so much? But it's also just because the balance
of how it's working is not functioning. And we would see the churn in estate managers
because it's such a difficult job that they're overworked and it's not working for them either.
and that means it's not working for our tenants.
So part of the going beneath the bonnet and looking into the details of what is the repair
journey, is it that someone who's, you know, our state managers, they work tirelessly,
but might be fresh out of college and now has to cover ASP, housing repairs, tenancy
management, is there a way of maybe specialising those so that there's people who have specific
expertise. It's that kind of systemic change that I think is what needs to happen. And
we talk about culture. You know, many of our staff have been through, they started off,
you know, as an area manager and worked their way up. And I think in the past, being able
to do all the different things of the job was what made the job enjoyable. But housing
management and the nature of our estates and the age of our estates have changed and people's
lives have changed. And that model of being a kind of jack of all trades doesn't function
in a modern housing department anymore, I don't think.
And I think that's where this plan, basically,
because this is a plan to really corporately change
the organisation, the way it's structured
and the way the systems work, I think
will move us into a more modern culture when
it comes to housing management.
Because quadrifurcation of housing management
is like tenants realising that this paternalistic way
of understanding how a social landlord operates
doesn't work anymore.
And our stock is old and our stock is going to need more repairs and we need to therefore make sure that that service is very quick and easy and simple.
And people can't wait at home anymore, like a missed two days of work because someone didn't turn up.
You need to have like accountability on the app.
So those are all things that like I think have changed over the decades and we need to catch up with them.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks all very much.
So are we happy to approve that paper?
Lovely.
Thanks very much.
And remaining with papers – sorry, remaining with housing, we now have a paper around housing
finance, the housing revenue account budget, including rents and other charges for council
dwellings.
Councillor Di Ciano.
Yeah, so you've got kind of like the plan and now how we pay for the plan and our capital
programme and all the works that we do. This is a massive document with long -term plans
for making sure that our stock is in decent shape, is looked after, whilst also doing
that strategic and financial borrowing to build more social housing. And I think there's
sometimes a false dichotomy between are you borrowing too much to build too much new housing
and not looking after old. That isn't the case. You can just go through the numbers
and look at the figures involved here, how much we, important that maintaining our stock
is.
But also, you know, the Fox House fire paper highlights why it's important that you have
to keep building, that you have to continually build council housing.
And while this is an HRA paper, that helps to benefit the general funds, where very expensive
temporary accommodation and the cost of temporary accommodation seems to have just become a
normal part of council services, and it shouldn't be.
Like, we should be building our way out of that crisis.
So, yeah, a very important document that sets out the strategic and financial decision making.
On rents, that's why CPI plus 1 percent, so covering inflation plus that 1 percent for
any emergencies or difficulties that we face, is the smart, sensible financial thing to
do.
I'm going to talk some politics here.
Historically, ones of conservatives would always freeze rent before an election year
and then raise it above the government guidance in the years in between.
It was not a sound financial decision -making process.
It was always about politics.
We have promised and have continued to do what is in the interests of our tenants in
the HRA, which is a stable and set government guidance, CPI plus 1 percent.
And so we're not playing politics with people's housing stock.
And anyone who is in difficulty, we've been very clear in our housing committee, we went
into all the different ways that we can protect anyone who finds a rent increase difficult.
On average, that rent increase will be for an average two bed in Wandsworth, go from
150 pounds a week to 157 pounds a week. And if you're on benefit, that will be covered
by the increases in benefit that rise in line with that. So we think that this will be,
we'll be able to protect tenants and any tenant who does fall in touch will be able to step
in. And, you know, I say this always, but I always keep saying it in public meetings,
But it is so, so rare that we would ever take tenancy enforcement action against someone
for arrears.
It would have to be so systemic and they would have to have missed so many opportunities
to go onto the plans with us.
So it's a really no tenant should feel fear of their home.
We have a very, very kind of supportive rent engagement team that will support anyone if
they find this difficult.
Thank you very much.
So if it's all right, do we approve that HRA budget?
It's agreed.
And just say thanks, Councillor DiCitano,
for all the hard work we can see there
to think deeply and take action to improve housing
for people in Wandsworth.
It's really appreciated.
We have one final paper,
which is on Public Mental Health Action Plan.
I want to, Councillor Henderson,
if you could introduce this.
Yes, thank you, Eda.
I'm really so pleased to end this plan.
In summary's face, it is a combination of work we've been doing over the past half years.
When we came in, we instituted the mental health needs assessment, and we have identified
where the real issues are in relation to both adults and children's mental health.
and we have been steadily working towards dealing with those.
But this mental health action plan is very much at the heart of prevention.
And again, taking you back to the early days administration,
cabinet members will remember we had a presentation from our director of public health, Mr.
Catillo, in relation to a prevention framework.
This is a mechanism by which we can actually tackle the very significant health inequalities
of Alex's in our borough.
One is in any respects an extremely wealthy borough, but it also has very significant
areas of deprivation.
So this paper is very firmly based around preventing mental health in there so far as
we can.
And it also incorporates the fundamental concept of health in all policies.
And to that extent, I would certainly like to thank my colleagues sitting around the
table because every single council department has actually contributed to the development
of this plan, which I think is an excellent example of the council working together, avoiding
in the silos, which unfortunately we do inherit,
and actually developing a comprehensive plan
of how we can actually tackle health,
and particularly mental health.
I would also like to say that this was great success
in terms of oversight and scrutiny in particular,
because we actually took this plan
to the Health Scrutiny Committee in good time
for them to actually feedback their opinions,
et cetera, and their comments.
And that was also followed by a public consultation exercise.
And that is in a marked contrast to what of course
used to happen where essentially a final version
of a document would appear before the Scrutiny Committee
and they would have very little opportunity
to actually change it.
I'm very pleased to say that the Health and Scrutiny
Committee across both parties were very supportive.
They made some very constructive comments,
particularly around healthy housing,
lifelong learning, a number of other issues as well.
It was a very constructive process
and something which would not have happened
certainly four years ago.
In relation to the public consultation, again, that was very widely supported, very, very
positive responses.
Whole range of comments were made which we incorporated into the final action plan.
I think it's particularly good that we engaged the Youth Council in this process and they
made a number of particularly useful comments, especially around language, which is of course
vitally important. Some of our reports can be a little bit jargon -ish, and it's good
to actually express things in plain English in particularly the way that young people
can understand. So this action plan, as I said, is very much a focus in terms of what
we as a council can do together.
It's not just a health strategy,
it's very much cross council plan.
So for example, in relation to housing,
key components of good health,
particularly good mental health,
our Homes for Wands of the Programme
plays a very significant part in that,
and we've heard from Councillor Dickard
as to the significance of that whole range of areas.
Secure finance is clearly the pressure on people if they don't have enough money.
It's critical.
We have supported people through our cost of living programme,
through financial resilience, signing people up to benefits, etc.,
that they're entitled to.
And of course our commitment, which we introduced at the very least
at the administration in relation to the London Living Wage.
So as I said, the plan is very much to reduce health inequalities in the borough by focusing
on the highest need and those most vulnerable.
And clearly, the earlier we tackle poor men's wealth, the better.
This is not only good for people, it's also a way of ultimately saving everyone considerably
more money.
Prevention is far better than trying to cure or respond to particular problems.
I mentioned the youth councils deliberations comments earlier, especially for younger residents
who intend to expand access to counselling, train our school staff to provide best possible
support and continue to provide innovative policies, break the free books under the E -Tolly
Party Partner Scheme, which will be heard at the very beginning of the meeting.
There are many different aspects to this.
I don't intend to cover absolutely all of them at this meeting, but clearly if colleagues
have any questions, I will certainly answer them.
Thank you.
Excellent.
Thanks, Councillor Henderson.
As you say, a substantial piece of work.
Councillor White has a question.
Yeah, no, excellent plan.
And I was really, really pleased to hear about working across all the departments, because
I think that's something that has been missed in the past.
And on that, I was just wondering whether well -being and access to good facilities and
to improve mood and self -confidence is part of the plan, because that can have, I think
isolation is a really big issue around mental health.
So maybe you could say a few things about that.
Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you and you also heard about our Access for All offer which has been taken up by 10 ,000 people and very often the most vulnerable people.
That is vitally important. Tackling this is obviously quite a complex issue but we have tried to deal with a whole range of different ways.
access rule, keeping people fit,
encouraging physical activity,
supportive generally, social prescribing,
recognising that very many mental health issues
are not actually medical,
but actually need to do with the social environment
and situation actually find themselves in.
Particularly older people obviously suffer from loneliness
and again, at the very start of this administration,
we conducted a review of lunch clubs and lunch facilities
across the whole of the borough
because we know this is a very good way
of getting older people in particular
engaged with other people.
So it was very patchy four years ago,
we undertook a review to ensure that there was coverage
across the whole of the borough.
Whole range of other initiatives,
but Councillor White, you're absolutely correct.
So need loneliness is a key feature of mental health issues,
particularly amongst the older members of our society.
Councillor Akinola.
I just wanted to add to Councillor Henderson's response.
That is, as we know, and Angelo who isn't here as well,
from volunteering with a lot of our voluntary sector services,
they do a really great job at reducing social isolation.
And so that's why we've also invested in them
over the past three years and hopefully we'll continue to do so.
Sorry, Councillor Henderson, if we just hear from Councillor Gasser and then we'll come back.
Actually, just to comment just on that same theme, just our libraries also are really good places for people to go and like this week
we've got a week of well -being so across all our libraries
we've got various different things going on. We've got Knit and Knatter, which is for a certain demographic. We've got Coffee Mornings,
so a nice free cup of coffee, biscuit, chat with people.
What have we got?
Forget Me Not, Dementia Cafe.
We've got a colouring club.
That's for younger residents.
We've got all sorts of things going on.
And the library staff are all trained in every contact count.
So they now will signpost people onto, OK, well,
maybe you'd like to go for a walk.
You know, there's lots of walking groups.
Maybe they'd even encourage two people that have just
met to go together on a walk.
So the libraries are doing everything
they can as well to help with this loneliness problem.
Yeah, thank you.
and you're absolutely correct, Councillor Gassa,
it's a very good example of what your department
has been contributing to this entire process.
And indeed, every department has had has.
And can I thank Councillor Acuna,
and I realise I was incredibly remiss
in not mentioning the very important contribution
of the voluntary and community sector
that they are integral to everything we do.
And this plan is a plan not just across the council,
obviously working with our partners in the NHS,
the on -tree community sector in particular.
I did mention social prescribing.
I should have said that in fact the on -tree and community
sector are integral to the AF -A deliver a considerable amount
of social prescribing, keeping people engaged.
which pays measurable benefits to mental health.
So thank you for that.
Thanks all very much.
If there's no more on that topic,
are we happy to accept that report?
And obviously we thank the Director of Public Health
as well.
And then that is the final item on the agenda for today.
So thanks all for being at this cabinet meeting.