Finance Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Wednesday 9 October 2024, 7:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Finance Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Wednesday, 9th October 2024 at 7:30pm 

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  1. Webcast Finished

Welcome to this meeting. My name is Councillor Crichard and I'm the Chair of the Finance
Committee. Members of the Committee, I'm now going to ask you to introduce yourselves,
starting on my left, please.
I'm Councillor Sean Lawless, Tooting Broadway Ward.
Evening, Councillor Claire Fraser, South Ballum.
Hi, good evening, Councillor Jesse Lee, and new to the Finance Committee, so yeah, and
my first meeting.
Hi, Councillor Steve Worrell, Shaftesbury and Queenstown.
Cabinet members go afterwards.
Hi, I'm Councillor Ali Riches -Jones for Northcote Ward in Battersea and I'm the Leader of the
Opposition on Wands of Council.
Good evening, I'm Councillor Lindsay Hedges of Ballum Ward. Thank you.
Hello, Councillor Matt Corner, Ninans.
Councillor Peter Graham, Opposition Speaker for Battersea.
Thank you. We also have Councillors Akinola and Ireland in attendance, if you'd like to say hello please.
Councillor Akinola, Labour Councillor for Tooten Broadway, Deputy Leader of the Council.
Hello, Angela Ireland, Labour West Hill, Cabinet Member for Finance.
Okay, thank you. We're expecting Councillor Gasser later to attend for one of the papers
and Councillor Ambash is in attendance virtually. I don't know if we can't, he hasn't joined
yet. We are hoping he will join.
Okay, I'll sort that out.
Yep, okay.
We also have a number of officers present
who will introduce themselves
when they address the committee.
Any officers participating virtually,
please keep your cameras off and microphones muted
until we have come to your item.
Okey -doke.
First thing is the minutes of the meeting
on the 17th of July.
Are they, they have been circulated already.
Are they agreed?
Agreed. Yes, agreed. Thank you.
The next thing is declarations of interest. Are there any declarations of either pecuniary,
other registrable or non -registrable interests? And if there are such interests, please could
you declare your interests, quote the item in the paper number and describe the nature

1 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

2 Declarations of Interests

of your interests. Any interests to declare? No. Brilliant. Thank you very much. Okay.
And I think I'll now say welcome to Councillor Ambash who is now online.
Hello. Jeremy Ambash from West Partney. Thank you, Jeremy. Okay. The first item we have
is paper number 24281 which is a cost of living support update. I'm going to ask Ben Threadgold

3 Cost-of-Living Support Update (Paper No. 24-281)

to do a short introduction to this before we followed by comments from one of the from
Councillor Aquinoa and then we'll move to questions. Mr Threadgold.
Thank you and good evening everybody. As you say my name is Ben Threadgold, I'm the cost of living
program manager.
In front of you, you have two papers.
This time we have taken a slightly different approach to presenting the information to
you all, one very much focused on the impact and looking to draw out the wide range of
support that is being offered to local residents and to try and make that a little bit more
accessible to you.
So I'm obviously happy to take any feedback on that approach.
Within the content, we have also focused on where we are embedding the recommendations
of the cost of living commission and where that is very much taken forward as part of
the wider program of work, as well as the increasing focus not only on providing short -term
crisis support for people but also looking for the longer -term resilience and how we
can build that into people to be better prepared to manage future shocks.
At the time, last time we came to the committee, we didn't have updates on what would be happening
for household support fund for this year.
We have had two subsequent announcements that have extended that funding through until the end of March
2025 and what again the paper sets out is the the use of that funding and
Other than that very happy to take any questions. Okay. Thank you very much. So first of all cats like Enola
Did you want to say a few words before we move to questions?
Yeah, just as you've heard briefly from Ben
The paper really talks about the ongoing
economic pressures that do exist amid our cost of living challenges.
I hope that you will have read that the team have developed better working with the voluntary sector.
Their team have been innovative. I think you've been very successful in your innovation.
And as was asked in the last meeting last year, we offered our winter grants earlier to organizations in July
So that they were better prepared to actually be delivered at the start of this winter as you ask councillor hedges
Page eight to ten our list of the other projects and their allocations for funding
And I'm especially pleased obviously about the development of the borough wide food plan which is has started
Okay. Thank you very much
So first of all council whirl then
Councilor Graham.
Okay, Councilor Worrell.
Thank you, Chair.
First of all, I'd like to welcome this report.
There's a lot of interesting information here.
I also welcome the way the report has connected
with the previous reports, 22394,
in terms of the thematic areas
that we've identified and agreed on,
and that's carried through
in terms of the reporting structure,
so I do welcome that.
I just wanted to ask one, two questions,
Well, one comment and two questions.
In terms of the impact report, I'd
like to say thank you for the Looking Ahead section.
I think that's really important to know where we're going,
in relation to that.
There's a couple of key areas here
about the Household Support Fund that we're taking forward,
the work around the winter fuel payments that
have been identified in support for pensioners,
and the LIFT campaigns.
That's really helpful as a context for us.
But I want to take us back to the issue of Lyft.
On page 6, paragraph 9, I was just wondering, are you able to identify how many people have
actually benefited from the Lyft program?
And is there any way of calculating the amount of money or an indicative amount of money
that's come in to the borough and to local residents as a result of this program?
Yeah.
Ms. Wilson?
Yes.
So, I think you all know me.
I'm Alex Wilson.
I'm the Director of Revenue Services.
So as you know, we've run a number of campaigns so far.
We've run two pension credit campaigns.
To date, we've had 215 households successfully claimed pension credit following those campaigns,
and that in itself has generated almost a million pounds for those households and significantly
more over the estimated lifetime of those claims. So, you know, significant sums of
money. We've obviously run the free school meal campaigns, which is now embedded into
business as usual. So we've got auto enrollment that happens every time the census data is
updated. We've had an additional 271 children who have now received a free school meals
that weren't before and that generates a financial benefit to those families of six hundred and
three thousand pounds.
We've also used the lift dashboard to distribute nearly three thousand warm packs and again
just taking on the estimated savings, energy savings to those households, it's around about
£560 ,000 in total to those households.
So they're sort of the main areas
where we've made sort of significant financial savings
to really vulnerable households in need.
We've then obviously got another tranche of campaigns,
the attendance allowance campaign that has just gone live.
So the letters have gone out to households
and it will take a little bit of time for that success to come through.
And we are any day now going to be sending out the letters on the Thames Water Social
Tariff Campaign, and then we've also got the third tranche of the Pension Credit Campaign
that the letters are due to go out this week or next.
So lots and lots of work that's happening around the scenes on utilizing the LIFT dashboard.
Okay, thank you.
Sorry, you've got a follow -up, Councillor Warren?
Just as a follow -up question, so from my understanding of LIFT, and I've always been a big supporter
of LIFT and a champion of it, but just for clarity's sake, the LIFT program is actually
actively looking for people who might be eligible for a whole host of different benefits, and
we're actively targeting people through the sexual process.
So it's not people coming to us, but we are actually going out and finding them and looking
for them.
Is that correct?
That's actually right. There's a number of data sets that are pulled together that cover a range of vulnerability indicators, I guess, and you can filter on different elements of that to proactively target different cohorts of vulnerable residents.
Okay, thank you very much. Councillor Graham.
Thank you. The new government promised to reduce the average household energy bill by
£300. However, at paragraph 8B of the report, we see the information from officers that
in fact the average energy bill will rise by £149 from this month and indeed may rise
by over 70 % next year. Can the cabinet member tell us when she expects energy bills to be
£300 lower than they were in July.
First of all, Councillor Graham, I think you might need to specify which cabinet member
you would like to answer.
And I am...
I'd be happy for an answer for either.
And I am also wondering whether either of them has a crystal ball in front of them.
When do they anticipate the government's promise being made reality?
Or do they not anticipate it ever happening?
Councillor
things I do think is probably is going to be difficult for you. Obviously we're
coming to terms with a different sort of arrangement nationally where the
Conservative, it's a different administration. We are expecting a
budget at the end of October. Obviously some of your questions hopefully may be
answered then and some of your other questions asking us to anticipate things
like what might happen in Iran and Iraq over fuel prices, which are a bit difficult.
Councillor Ireland.
Well, Councillor Critchard, just to clarify, I was not anticipating the cabinet members
to have a view on international affairs. However, I do remember many questions from Labour councillors
when our party was in government asking us precisely when we thought certain things would
happen and indeed trying to hold us to account for the things that we had nothing to do with.
So the boot is firmly on the other foot.
I can add that as well as the social tariff campaign that you're doing with Thames Water,
we're also working with Octopus Energy to develop a similar program because some people
think that some of the energy companies might be profiteering here but we're working with
Octopus Energy on a scheme that might allow them to pay some money to our residents but
it's in early development.
Okay, thank you very much.
Councillor Lee.
Yeah, I just want to say thank you for the paper and I for one really appreciated this
this format of having the presentation.
I think one of our administrations, the new administrations, our administration's ambitions
was to open the books and be more transparent about our finances and as somebody who is
not maybe as financially literate as some people in the room. This was really helpful
for me and I know a lot of our residents would also find it helpful in trying to understand the
council's finances. I just wanted to ask is this something that we can do for other papers or
thinking to do moving forward? Who would be best? Yep, Councillor Mckinola. Yes, hi. I'm just going
preempt that some of this paper being presented in a different way partly was because myself and
Mr. Treadgold attended the hardship crisis conference where a lot of our residents said
they didn't know about all the amazing things that we have been doing even though they have
benefited from it. So it is about us communicating these things to our residents so they know what's
on offer even if they've benefited from it they might not have known that it was an initiative
that came from this administration to actually deliver it.
Okay, thank you very much.
Councillor Fraser.
Thank you, Chair.
Referring to paragraph 10 of the report, and thank you again for the presentation of the
discussion, on the Money Advice Roadshow and the pilots, could you explain a little bit
about work that you're doing there and it being done anywhere else in the borough as
a result of the pilots?
Thank you.
So we've spoken a few times about the Money Hubs as an approach and wanting to try to
reach out to different groups of people who perhaps wouldn't otherwise be in contact with
us or to try to find longer -term solutions, as I said earlier, rather than simply sticking
past all crisis grants and so on and so forth.
So we had what the banner of Money Hubs will be used in a number of different ways to try
to try different ways of reaching people.
The first of these was a roadshow,
and we're now going to look at repeating that roadshow
in other areas of the borough.
But also looking where, again, linking to some of the things
that Ms Wilson was talking about in relation to Lyft, where
we might identify people who have consistently come back
for a number of different grants or have different
vulnerabilities, and whether we might reach out to people
to take a kind of almost offer a casework approach,
if you like, a kind of team around the family approach,
if you like, to help them navigate
some of the many internal services and partner services they may benefit from.
Okay, thank you. Councillor Ambasch is next. Let's see if the technology works.
Chair, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Yeah, I'm sorry not to be with you in
person. I'm recovering from knee surgery and I'm not supposed to zoom around but
as soon as I get better, I'll be in. I've got some comments to make and then I want
to ask the officers a question about energy. I'd like to congratulate the cabinet member
and officers for the excellent work to mitigate the adverse effect of the spiralling cost
of the cost of living, particularly for the least well off. And also I'd like to applaud
the new Labour government for extending housing support funds over the whole year. The previous
government couldn't decide whether to have it and then we got it for half a year and
we didn't quite know how long it's going on. So thank goodness that school holiday vouchers,
school uniform grants, crisis grants for children in need and the Wandsworth Discretionary Fund
will continue for the whole year. They're all essential in weathering the economic storm.
So my question is about energy costs. Para 86 says energy may rise by as much as 70 %
on page 28. It talks about the warm homes pack. I think about 2 ,000 are going to be
distributed if I read it right. Could the officers please explain what the warm homes
spaces and packs will do and are we doing enough in relation to the scale of the energy cost problem?
Thank you. Okay, Mr. Threogold. Thank you. A number of the things that you mentioned there,
Councillor, are extensions of things that we've been doing for the last 18 months in terms of the
things like the warm spaces they've developed into community spaces and very much
as set out in the report, taking some of the learning
from the feedback we've had from providers
and from residents to say it's not only about it being
a warm space or just about offering a warm drink
or a warm meal, it's also about the added value
that comes from having wraparound support,
the links into advice services and so on,
or indeed positive activities for people to take part in
at the same time as coming to that space.
So I think that's an example of where we've taken
the learning, as I say, from some of the activities,
some of the feedback and continue to develop it whilst also recognising that there are
advantages for some people to come out to a warm space and just to spend time sitting
in the library or other spaces as it may be.
In terms of the warm packs, again looking to extend the offer for this year and also
to again building on that really targeted approach to think about the people who would
benefit most and be most in need and have the highest vulnerabilities.
So as set out in the impact report there,
looking at targeting for where people have got the lowest rated properties in terms of EPC
and actually taking out not only a warm pack which if implemented properly could save people a lot of money,
but also offering visits from a gas engineer or a boiler engineer or an expert on
to help not only check over that the property is working as efficiently as possible,
also supporting the individual to use the various tools as efficiently as
possible and then to hopefully maximize the benefit in saving their their energy
costs. In terms of the the final point the councillor made about whether we are
doing enough, I'm probably not the person to answer that one, you would argue
there's always more or less we could do in certain things but we're certainly
trying to take us a wide range of activities. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay. Council corner. Thank you chair and thank you for the paper. I was interested in on table one on page eight of the pack the Roehampton University bus for public use proposal under the theme of community resilience costing two hundred thousand pound. I know it does say that it was considered at the housing overdue in scrutiny but it does seem to committee but it does seem to me that it's not
obvious how running a shuttle bus will help with the cost of living crisis or
at least it's not the it doesn't seem to me the most obvious way to respond to
the cost of living crisis. Could we just get an overview as to why that decision
to spend that money's been made? Sorry who? Yeah right.
Councillor Iaconola yeah? Thanks and I think you need to visit
at Roehampton for a start and try to get there
and then try and get back from there.
It's incredibly hard.
There's very bad and bad connectivity
between Roehampton and the rest of Putney.
So to be able to get from the station
to the university to the estates to the shops even,
it's too difficult.
So this will actually allow people
to be able to shop in Putney.
So that's saving them money
because they can go to supermarkets,
go to the ASDA, also just to get out,
even if you need to go to work,
that's gonna cost you money and time to get there.
I think it's a really good use of a bus
that's already running.
So we're not paying for a new bus,
we're just utilizing a resource that already exists.
And it brings the community of Roehampton
a bit closer to this huge institution
that's right there on their doorstep
and they very rarely ever actually step foot inside of.
Okay, thank you.
That's all really good, thanks for outlining that.
So are we subsidizing the bus service?
It just seems that 200 ,000 pound is quite a lot,
although I do appreciate it runs every 15 minutes.
The intention is that it's free at the point of use
for the local residents.
It will then be developed over the next 12 months
to then see about the usage levels
and the alternative ways to fund that.
Okay, thank you.
And Council Corner, obviously there's an opportunity
for you to go and have a ride on the bus in Roehampton?
Okay, Councillor Hedges.
Thank you, Chair. Two questions if I may, please.
Thank you. So the first one is about, sorry, bear with me, the allocation of the 15 million
reserve, given the UK economy is starting to stabilise now, can we expect a freeze now
on that amount or do you foresee more top ups in the future?
Obviously because the energy situation
is unknown at the moment.
And then my second question is to do with paragraph 39.
I realize the commission is,
we don't have anyone from the commission here.
But keen to understand, you mentioned that lessons learned
and you'll be,
and I just keen to understand it what lessons have been learned so far in terms of the council's response. Thank you
Councillor Hedges, I was just gonna say which who would you wish to answer because they seem to be slightly different slants on those two questions
so I guess the allocation first question is to
Councillor Ireland and then I think the second one may be Councillor Acanola, but I don't mind happy to have a response
Okay, Councillor Arlen, are you happy to respond on the future?
Well, thank you for the question. I would say that for a lot of our residents the cost of living crisis is not over.
We have approximately £7 million left in the fund and over the next few weeks we will be costing out some of the recommendations from the cost of living commission,
Councilor Akinola ran, and we will decide how we allocate the money.
But we think the money is still needed.
And to respond to the learning lessons from the Cost of Living Commission, there were
35 recommendations that were made that we're still delivering on now, and we're reviewing
everything that we're doing.
That's why this paper has come here as well, so that you can see the work that we've done,
you know, things that are working, then we'll keep going.
Things that aren't working, then we'll review them.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you both.
So, Councillor Ireland, just to follow up with you.
So, unclear as to whether there will be a freeze
on this 15 million, and also unclear
whether there'll be another top up.
Am I right?
Thank you.
Those decisions have not yet been made.
We'll just have to see how much the recommendations cost,
the ones we decide to go with.
But when we've got more information, we'll definitely let you know.
Okay, I'm just going to suggest now, we've had reasonably good discussion.
I've got a point from Councilor Graham and Councilor Worrell and then, well, you can swap with.
All right, hang on.
Right.
I'll tell you what, as you haven't spoken yet, Councilor Ritchie -Jones, would you like to ask your question now?
and then we'll go to those who already have asked questions.
Yeah, thank you very much.
I've got quite a few questions on this very important paper.
And assuming there won't be any curtailing of questions,
I hope.
My first question, if I may.
It depends if you can be quick.
My first question. And they're simple.
If I can ask my question.
My first question, if I may, is to Councillor Ireland.
What options have the cabinet been discussing
to help financially vulnerable pensioners
who won't get the winter fuel payment this year.
Okay, Councillor Irons, happy to...
Yeah, we're developing a range of options with the officers. I think you're way ahead
of most other councils. I think you've got an excellent write -up, didn't you, on the
LGA website about the work you're doing. We're developing options and we will put them forward
in due course.
Thanks for that. It's just that time is ticking on, so as you're aware, I wrote to the leader
on the 19th of September asking if, in light of the decision of the Labour government to
withdraw these payments, that he could instruct officers to bring options to this committee
so we could discuss them in time and then the executive could approve them.
We don't have any options at this committee.
Time is ticking on whether it could drop, whether it's going to drop at some point.
When do you envisage publishing proposals?
I'll leave the leader to answer your question, but very – she doesn't have to be here
to answer the question. It was a letter. But –
Excuse me.
Very shortly.
Okay, thank you.
Just one more follow -up on that. I mean, that's really not good enough because I think the
The next meeting of the Finance Committee is some months away.
Presumably you're not going to leave it until then because that's far too late.
So what you're saying is that you actually won't, thank you, you just put on the record you won't bring it to the next Finance Committee.
Because what that means is -
Sorry, hang on.
Sorry, Councillor Richard Jones.
I've just noticed that -
The cabinet member said no, so I might have misconstrued that.
But my point is this, and then Miss Merrick can come in.
My point is that time is going on.
You are presumably not going to wait until the next finance committee meeting to bring
these proposals forward.
What that means is this committee won't get a chance to discuss and scrutinize and strengthen
the proposals.
Really, that is down to you because we gave you fair notice.
We raised this issue with good notice and you simply not brought options to this committee.
Mrs. Murray, you obviously would like to come in on this.
So just to make the point that we don't have to wait for a committee discussion and executive
approval to introduce a scheme, we could do that under delegator authority.
So we can do something ahead of the next committee.
We would, as a matter of course, we would bring what we had proposed or what we had
implemented to committee for discussion.
And at that point, I suppose that the committee could always consider that and see if there's any
Amendments that that are approved but we don't have to wait is the point I was trying to make thank you. Thank you
Miss Mary just as we're here
It's been made clear that officers and the cabinet have had extensive discussions about this already
Could officers or the cabinet member probably officers just outline the principles and the general options
that officers have been considering so that the committee can give their input into that?
Yes, so as Councillor Ireland said, we haven't formalised a final proposal yet, but obviously
as the whole of our cost of living response has been targeted at those households that
are in financial need and low -income households, we're looking at potentially something we
can do around expanding take up of the pension credit benefit, which would allow auto enrollment
for the winter fuel payment. So that's one of the schemes that we are pushing again through
the LIFT platform in particular. So we're doing another round of that and we're doing
some very targeted interventions on a case -by -case household basis where we are in contact with
households in that respect. So our financial inclusion team, our income maximization team
and our tenancy support officers are all primed and talking at that detail level with households.
We're also looking at potentially those households that just fall short of pension credit but
are still on means tested benefits and there are people who don't qualify for pension credit
who may still receive means tested benefits.
So we're looking at what we can do particularly with that cohort because we know they're low -income
households.
Beyond that, it starts to become tricky because we don't know the people we don't know.
And that's something that we've, I think, grappled with throughout our cost -of -living
response.
But there's certainly stuff we can do at that pinch point of those just outside the pension
credit eligibility.
Okay, thank you very much.
Can I ask Ms. Murray a question about the funding?
Councillor Richard Jones, maybe that could be taken separately because I've got other
questions and we've had quite a long discussion.
I'm happy to give away to colleagues.
Thank you.
It's just that it's part of the same theme.
It's up to you, Chair, whether you want to take it now or take it later.
Perhaps we can follow that up separately.
Councillor Graham...
Well, no, I'll ask the question, but I'll ask it up to my colleagues. That's fine.
But the whole point of a public forum is to scrutinise in public.
Right, Councillor Richard Jones, yes, but what I do not wish to happen is we have several papers to get through.
They're quite important, OK?
I would like to make sure we have enough time for all the papers.
Obviously if what your idea is that you would like to carry on that's means we're
going to take take a long time getting somewhere. Councillor Graham please.
Right so first just in response to what the deputy leader was talking about in terms
of the Roehampton transport response we're not disputing that that may be a
a good thing to pursue or even a good thing to spend money on.
I think the issue is that the transport issues in Roe Hampton are long standing,
in a large part due to the failings of TFL,
and that this money effectively is something that should be coming out
of the transport budget.
And what it definitely is not is a crisis response.
That's not part of the response to cost of living crisis
because the problem was there before it began.
And so many of these schemes here are now tipping into things that are not crisis response
but are just either schemes that are, you know, good to pursue but don't have to come
out of a crisis budget or are, as indeed was in terms of the cost of living commission,
essentially sort of poverty measures, anti -poverty measures, which again may be good to pursue
but have nothing to do with a crisis.
The fact is that the crisis related to inflation and inflation as this paper says is now under control
Have you got a question coming?
Well I was responding to this and I do have a question coming which is not on that
But I felt it was important to get it on record because I think
Councillor Corners points were being unfairly dismissed. It is tapping into a concern we have had about this money
that it is not being used as a crisis response and
And where it can be used as a crisis response, where a crisis has been created by this new
government is in relation to removing winter fuel payments from over 20 ,000 pensioners
in Wandsworth.
And I say over 20 ,000 because when we asked officers earlier this week for their estimate
of the precise number, they did not have one.
More so, I'm guessing to the question, more so, there is no estimate at all of the number
of vulnerable people as outlined in 8C, the number of vulnerable people missing out on
these payments will be less than 500 pounds above the eligibility threshold and as it
says, could in effect be worse off than those who claim the benefit.
Now my question is how can the cabinet members and the executive be formulating a scheme
to assist here, which we understand may be launched imminently, when they have no idea
how many people they're trying to help?
The cost implications of whether it's a couple of hundred or a couple of thousand are enormous.
Councillor Graham.
How is it possible?
Councillor Graham.
there are pensioners, there are people who would have been eligible for the
winter fuel payment who, like me, like our household, that really did not need it.
And, excuse me, right, sorry, I've asked a question and it was nothing to do with those who did not need it.
It was precisely to do with the vulnerable people identified in this report, made vulnerable by the current government.
Councilor Graham, I think Mrs. Merry's got a,
you had your hand up, Mrs. Merry.
So thank you, yeah, so just to, I suppose,
clarify that we can, we are modeling based on numbers
and data that we do have.
We don't have all numbers and all sets of data,
as I said, we don't know the people we don't know.
So that is always the problem, is trying to identify
those people that are outside of the means tested
benefit data sets that we've got.
So whilst we know that the I know a figure of twenty five thousand one hundred and something was quoted as a number of winter fuel payments
Being lost we know exactly how many people in the borough are on pension credit
What we don't know is how many people are not on pension credit that yeah
They're above threshold and we don't know that and we'll be honest about that
That doesn't mean we can't work up a scheme to help those households that we do know
So we do have some data that we're modeling which is the information that we're using to inform
our discussions with members.
And then just on the point about inflation,
inflation going down, inflation hasn't gone,
you know, inflation has gone up and has stayed up
and there has not been deflation.
So I don't think it's right to say
because inflation has slowed,
inflation is no longer an issue.
And then finally on the cost of living crisis,
we have been really, really clear
and persistently clear over the past 12 months
that we are moving away from a crisis intervention.
We are using this fund specifically
to talk about longer -term resilience and longer -term interventions. So I don't have a problem with
mixing up crisis interventions around winter fuel payments with longer -term interventions
around the cost of transport in one of our deprived areas, which we will then need to
consider going forward. As Ben said, once the pilot has been reviewed, whether or not
that's something that the council wants to continue to fund, but to fund a temporary
measure like that which helps low -income households from the cost of living
reserve the cost of living crisis reserve the cost of living reserve I
think is fine and finally transport budgets cost of living reserve it's all
the same money it's just different pots so you know I think the the intention
behind the spend is what we should be focusing on rather than the particular
pot of money that it comes from. Thank you very much mrs. Murray. I want to come back on that if I may.
So actually, Councillor Graham, I would also like to move, be in a position to move on to that.
I've got two more people who've asked to speak.
It's perfectly reasonable to ask a supplementary question about that, given that I've raised some points,
some of those points have been challenged or at least countered by Mrs. Merritt, and I wish to come back to ask a supplementary question.
That is what we are here to do.
Councillor Graham, can you just be quick about it and then if you get an answer, fine, but
we spend a long time discussing how you would...
Go on, ask it.
Both Councillor Richard -Jones and I would have got our questions done, dusted and answered
in less time than the objections to us asking them.
Ask it.
And I think the delays seem to be coming from the chair rather than from us.
Councillor Graham, ask your question, otherwise I shall move on to someone else.
I will ask my question.
So here it clearly states that at 2 .2%, the annual inflation rate is at a fifth
of the recent peak of 11%.
There's only 0 .2 % off the Bank of England's target rate.
Clearly, the inflationary crisis, which was the departure from that rate
by an enormous amount is over.
That is unquestionable based on what we are seeing.
Now, my point in relation to the winter fuel payment scheme
is that it's simply impossible to design a scheme
without having some estimate of the number of people
who may need to apply for it, because you don't know
what criteria you need to apply.
And also the number of years for which it's applied for.
If we are just talking about easing problems
over this winter, one may wish to allocate the whole
of the remaining cost of living reserves.
and it's anticipating doing it over a number of years,
without increasing the size of that reserve,
it may be necessary to reduce what can be claimed.
Or you're arbitrarily creating a scheme in which it's first come, first served,
and if you don't get in quick, there's no money left.
So it is simply impossible to adequately design a scheme
without having any idea of the number of people involved.
Is that a question or is that commentary on what we might be doing?
I come back to my question, which is how is it possible to design this scheme and know it will work without having the estimate?
No, she's not said that that's the point.
I understand that you're obviously frustrated about this, but it sounds, it seems to me that what we're hearing from the officers is they're going to do their very best to design a scheme.
They haven't done so yet. They will tell us when they have done it and what they have come forward. Is that a reasonable summary, Mrs. Murray?
Yes, it is, and I completely get your point.
We don't know who we don't know.
It doesn't mean we can't design a scheme around the people we do know.
The idea that there will be a limited pot of money that runs out first come, first served,
I don't think that's the intention.
We haven't done that with the discretionary social fund that has been in operation since
2012.
We don't have that.
We don't operate in that way.
We can design a scheme not knowing the quantum of every single person and where they sit
on the kind of spectrum of losing out from winter fuel payments,
doesn't mean we can't design something for the people we know about.
And that will be the starting point.
And then I suppose that's when we come back and we talk about whether that intervention is enough
or whether it's for one year for more years or needs to be expanded.
Okay, thank you very much Mrs. Mary.
My point is we don't have to do nothing because we don't know everything is my point.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Graham.
It relates to our amendment.
If the intention is to design a scheme without knowing the numbers involved, can a cabinet
member explain why the scheme has not been designed and brought forward to this committee?
Other local authorities have already designed and implemented schemes and have people applying
for them.
Councillor Graham.
We are in a situation where the weather could turn cold next week and people don't know
where they stand.
Excuse me.
Councillor Graham.
Right.
What I'm going to make as a suggestion is this.
You have tabled amendments.
I've got two people who have got more questions.
I'm going to take those.
Will the cabinet member answer the question?
Excuse me.
My suggestion is once the amendment is tabled, there may be further comments on that actual
amendment but first of all, I've got cancer.
That question doesn't relate to the amendment directly.
Council Graham.
Council Graham, you don't normally, normally you are much politer than this and you don't
normally talk over the top of me.
So can we go back to the moment, please?
Normally we're in a position where hundreds of pounds aren't being taken off vulnerable pensioners, Councillor Critchard, via Labour government.
I think you've made that point clear.
Okay, Councillor Worrall, please.
For the sake of the mental health of everybody around the table, actually Mrs Mary's answered a lot of my questions, so I will step down from the questions.
Right, okay.
Councillor Lawless, you haven't had a chance to speak yet.
You're okay, are you?
Right, Councillor Graham, we have spent quite a long time.
We spent a good time.
Chair, Councillor Warrell was giving me his question that he didn't ask.
It's going to be very quick.
I've got a question.
What?
Sorry, excuse me.
I think that was a bit of a joke.
No.
Councillor Critchard, it's very quick.
It's on paragraph 25 on page 11.
Right, that's it after that one.
Paragraph 25.
This outlines the allocation of the extended household support fund monies that have been
received from the government.
And Councillor Ambasch outlined a moment ago what they are.
So they are free school meals, crisis grants, school uniform grant and then the ones with
discretionary social funds.
There was a suggestion a few weeks ago from central government when they persisted with
taking away the winter fuel payments, that actually if there were pensioners that weren't
eligible for pension credits, they were just above the threshold, that councils could actually
meet that need from the Household Support Fund.
But what you see quite clearly in paragraph 25 is that the council has already allocated
the Household Support Fund in these schemes.
So it's a two -part question, really.
The first part is, can officers confirm that then the new tranche of the Household Support
Fund can't support this project without taking money away from the other projects that it's
been allocated?
I can see officers nodding, so I can move on to my second question, which is so any
response will have to come from the cost of living reserves.
There is an element of support provided through the ones with discretionary social funds.
So the crisis payments include an element of both food and energy support.
So to say that there's nothing in what we have already
that's come to this committee wouldn't be true,
because it's part of what we already offer as part of the crisis support fund.
OK, but that allocation was made before the government made their announcement.
So, the allocation for the discretionary social fund was not taking into account that some
people are now losing their winter fuel payments.
Office has confirmed that's correct.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
We've had a long discussion about this.
We have an amendment in front of us.
Would I, a three -part amendment, could I have a...
Sorry, excuse me.
Such as?
Well, they got to ask two questions. Why am I being...
Sorry, who's... Sorry, I think...
I should be allowed to ask my question.
Why are questions being curtailed on such an important paper?
You have two choices. You accept what I say, or perhaps you might like to leave.
I'm circulating the amendment now.
I'm sorry, for suggesting that he should be allowed to ask his question.
You're suggesting that Councillor Cornish should leave the room?
I think that is quite...
I shout the question from outside the room.
I mean, you could have asked the question by now.
Councillor Conlon, could you actually behave nicely, please?
I know you're capable of it.
I'm fairly certain that we've had a long discussion about this.
I would like to move to the amendment which has been circulated to all committee members.
Could I ask Councillor Crichard for the cabinet member to provide her response to our suggested amendment
and whether she agrees with it or agrees with it in part or not.
Yeah, okay, that would be great. That was always going to suggest cancer Island
Councillor Graham has asked if you'd like to provide a response to the proposed amendment
Which you've got have you got it. Have you got a copy in front of you?
Yep, thank you. Hopefully it is
Well looking at this overall I think we're way ahead of you we we are developing a response and
And I don't think this is, I don't think any of this is relevant.
I think it's redundant.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
Thank you very much.
Is Councillor Ireland suggesting that she agrees that the council should estimate as
a matter of urgency the number of pensioners who are on low incomes and the number of vulnerable
people in that sub £500 category?
Does she agree that those should be estimated?
And if so, what is her objection to the amendment?
Does she agree that Wandsworth should follow the example of other local authorities in developing an assistance scheme?
And if she doesn't, what is her objection to it?
Wandsworth Council is developing a response to this. You've heard all about it from the officers.
You'll hear about it in due course.
I'm trying to understand whether you agree with what the amendment is calling for. Do you agree?
Councillor Graham, Councillor Ireland has answered you twice on this.
I have not heard whether she agrees with what the amendment is asking for.
She's answered what she thinks.
She's told you what she thinks.
I'd now like to move...
She hasn't.
I'm sorry.
Does she agree that we should estimate those numbers?
Officers have explained they do not have estimates of those numbers.
Does she agree that that should be estimated?
And if she does agree, why does she think this is redundant, given that we don't have that?
Sorry, excuse me, one moment.
I heard and I'm sorry, we weren't quite on the board.
You did have a seconder for the amendment, didn't you, Councillor Corner?
Thank you, okay.
Right, I'd now like to move to the amendment.
No, we would like to take it in parts.
We'll take D, E and F as separate votes, please, because we wish to know where you stand.
and since you won't tell us, your vote is the only way you can indicate.
Right, excellent.
Yes.
Okay, that's...
Taking it in part, the first recommendation is an addition D to the paper.
Okay, all those in favour of this amendment, please raise their hands.
All those against the amendment, please raise their hands.
Thank you very much.
Okay. E, follow the example. That's all those for an addition E. Please raise their hands.
Okay, thank you. That's four. All those against the addition E, please raise their hands.
Thank you. Five. So the amendment that falls. And the last one, F, all those for that, please
raise their hands all those against please raise their hands thank you very
much so the amendment falls so given that the administration councils are
voted against creating an assistance scheme is there any advice to pensioners
over this winter and cold weather to go and see no library
Councillor Graham I have been advised by my committee clerk continuous
disturbance preventing the meeting from continuing is a reason to ask people to
go. I would not like you to go because it is quite, you know, you do occasionally
give us things that are well worth listening to but this I think the point
has been laboured, we understand. We now need to move to the vote on the...
Just on a point of order, are you interpreting asking questions as
disturbance? I'm not entirely sure that that's what you're doing, right. I'm asking you to
move to the recommendation. So A is when we are asked to note the continued response of
the council to residents of business through the ongoing cost of living.
Just to agree to the nating, we are happy to agree it is just nating.
You are happy to agree A to C?
Yes, they are only to note.
Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you very much councillors
Well, I think we voted on it so without sit
Sorry, we've closed the item because we moved to the vote
Okay
I'm sorry. I missed it. It's but I've already moved to the vote and I think then the the item is closed
Okay, we're now moving to Councillor Corner.
Okay, we're now asked to look at our next paper,

4 Q1 Quarterly Monitoring Report (Paper No. 24-282)

24282 is the Council's revenue committee, the position,
sorry again, the budget monitoring position on the general fund revenue budget.
Mrs. Merrie, would you like to do a short introduction for this, please?
Yes, thank you, Chair. So I will just introduce this paper to explain why it's here, because
it's the first time this committee has received a paper in this format. So we're responding
to a number of issues within the revenue budget in terms of the projections for the current
financial year and presenting this paper on a quarterly basis going forward so that the
overall financial position is in front of members for discussion and review.
So this paper shows the general fund revenue position for the current financial year, the
forecast based on actuals to date as at the end of quarter one.
so we project those actuals forward based on estimates of spend and income and create
a forecast for the full year.
Just to be clear that each service committee has received its own detailed report on its
own line and its own overspend or underspend, including the overall position and any management
actions that are proposed in that service committee in order to address any issues within
the forecast. Specifically for this committee, the appendix shows the performance and the
projections of the Finance Committee services, which show an underspend overall of just under
five million pounds, which is largely, as we've spoken about before, largely due to
Treasury investment income being higher than we had budgeted for. The overall financial
position taking into account the inflation estimates that we've included and the allocation
of the service pressures contingency budget that we set at the start of the year, plus
some additional grant around the homes for Ukraine shown overall overspend projection,
which obviously we will keep in keeping a close eye on and we will use that to inform
the overall medium -term financial strategy paper that will be coming to this committee
in December. Thank you, Mrs Mary. And I'd just like to remind the members that
we're seeing all the budget actions, but actually these have been handed.
These have been handled by the relevant committee, so our focus should be on
those that come within the finance ream it.
You don't
okay,
Sorry, could I just, okay.
Councilor Graham, would you like to start please?
Yes.
Well, I don't think we can exclusively focus on just the areas that fall under the directure here.
However, my first question is about that because the appendices show quite a significant level of spending required on agency staff
to address shortfalls in recruitment and change within teams.
I appreciate that recruitment can be challenging,
but are we doing everything we can to get that agency costs down,
given that it is leading to significant expenditure across those areas?
Sorry, Councilor Graham, could you give a page number and a paragraph number, please, just so we can all follow?
It's in Appendix A.
It's the finance directorate
and there are various agency spends
provided under different headings.
Who would, Mrs. Mary?
Yeah, so agency spend is obviously something
that we're very aware of.
We don't go to agencies lightly,
but where there is a significant issue
or a capacity issue, we need to use that resource.
I think probably best to defer to Sam Olsen
when she talks about her change program update,
because I know that will specifically cover actions
we're taking around the great employer workstream,
so she can pick that up there, I would suggest.
Okay, thank you.
Is that okay?
Councillor Fraser.
Thank you, Chair.
My point might then follow,
because actually it's Paris 6 on page 42 just because this talks about the
digitization and assume customer service and IT coming into that and just if an
update you know that's something that's come to many committees kind of in the
past is that a point that's best raised under that as well okay thank you we'll
do that okay thank you counts corner
Thank you, Chair.
My question relates to page 44, the adverse variance for customer experience.
Is this relating to kind of customer service and call centers and so on?
Because I'm sure all Councillors around the table will have plenty of stories of where
residents have told us that it's next to impossible to contact the Council in a kind of satisfactory
and user -friendly way.
So why are we spending more than we expected on that?
Is that because of staff turnover or any other reason?
Yeah, so the narrative in paragraph six shows
that that is largely linked to recruitment difficulties,
which means we're having to use more expensive agency staff,
which the wider point we've picked up in the update later.
Okay.
Paragraph six.
That relates to health.
Okay, are we all okay to get the customer service detail from Ms. Olsen later?
Thank you.
And Councillor Hedges.
Thank you, Chair.
Mrs. Mary, this is more of a general question, because we're talking about the overspend and
as a result of the adult health and social care pressures.
Thinking ahead to potential council tax increases next year.
and obviously the adult health and social care precept point is quite unclear at the moment.
Do you have any idea what the new government's approach is to that? Thank you.
No, but I'm hoping to know more at the end of the month with the budget.
I think we probably all are hoping to know.
Okay. Any more? I'm just going to check on this side. Okay. Pat Scran.
Yes, so following on from that, obviously we were flagging issues in terms of the adult
and health budget from the overspends that were occurring last year and questioned whether
the budget allocation was going to be adequate to deal with that given that they appeared
to be ongoing demand pressures.
Does the variance that we're already showing for this year, which is attributed to precisely
those pressures both in this report and in the separate committee report show
that that concern on our part was correct.
So when we set the budgets back in February we used our best estimates at
that time which did include an estimate of demand pressures, cost inflation and
the difficulties in the care market. What the forecast is showing is that
pressures are more than we anticipated at that time. So yes I think it's fair
to say that our estimates weren't weren't accurate compared to where we
think they are now but we certainly did make sure that we adjusted the budget as
best we could at the time with the information we had at that point can I
just check mrs. Murray presumably this was all fully covered in adults with the
opposition speaker for adults as well assume so I'm guessing a nod over here
from Mr. Riley.
So again, in relation to the information that we received,
but my understanding was when we saw information
on the additional staff being taken on winded housing
to deal with temporary adhesion pressures,
both that the executive's claim at that time
was that it would see the overall numbers
in temporary accommodation brought down,
rather than go up and that it would lead to cost pressures being reduced whereas
we're now looking at what is largely a five million pound overspend driven by
that despite two million and so contribution from the services precious
contingency budget. So what were the claims around those staff correct
because it seems to be the opposite of what was actually promised.
Mr Riley.
Yes, thank you. With my kind of format on or still with that hat on until next week.
Yes, as you would know, Councillor Graham, the members will be very clear on,
this is a time of unprecedented pressure in terms of homelessness demand across the capital
and the trends that we're experiencing in Wandsworth are being experienced everywhere else.
We have used the additional staff effectively.
We've recruited the new teams.
Case loads have been reduced.
Time periods around assessments have been reduced.
But one of the biggest issues that we're having to contend with is not just the numbers on demand.
it is actually the cost of the accommodation itself,
which has gone up at a rate that exceeds
any form of inflation that we've even discussed this evening.
So the costs of nightly paid accommodation
and other forms of temporary accommodation
are simply going up week on week
to a level that is increasing the costs
that we're having to pay for it
in order to discharge our statutory obligations.
So an incredibly challenging time.
The staff that we've got are being put to good use.
The rate of increase has slowed, but the cost of accommodation has increased.
And that's the area that we're now having to contend with in terms of the budget that
wasn't immediately foreseeable at the start of the year, but it's the reality of the market
we find ourselves in.
And there are things that have been looked at across London.
If we can get agreements with other local authorities to try and fix the price without
just simply always going to the highest bidder, that would be a way of trying to control these
prices but at the moment we haven't been able to broker that deal and each
authority is just prepared to pay what it takes and that just means the cost
go up every month.
Okay, so excuse me one minute.
Excuse me, I do have a supplementary on that as possible.
So just Mr Riley, I just wanted to check, presumably this was also handled fully in the Housing Committee when it happened.
Oh, we had an extensive discussion on the very concerning situation around temporary
accommodation and the costs that we are incurring.
Absolutely, yes.
Councillor Graham, given that, and that obviously I hope that your cabinet member for housing
also talks to you, is your supplementary going to be necessary?
It is necessary because it also relates to the next paper, which is simply to note that
there are several hundred million pounds worth of capital spent anticipated in terms of the
building units of accommodation, is there now, given what Mr. Riley said, a case for transferring some of that money into purchasing empty properties
in order to bring, bear down on these costs immediately, not just because that may make sense in terms of the context of the pressures and having units now
as opposed to significantly later and having to pay the difference in between.
But also because what we are increasingly seeing is that the build costs within that
building program are actually showing that unit prices in terms of purchasing as opposed
to building aren't that far off.
Again has that been covered at housing?
To some extent it has been.
I mean I'm very happy to respond if that's helpful.
Well, as you know, this administration has an absolute commitment to increasing the supply
of housing.
And as a consequence of that, we have a very ambitious Thousand Homes Program, Homes for
Wandsworth Program, which I think is what you are referring to.
The costs associated with that relate not simply to the cost of building, because we
also put a considerable amount of money into improving the estates in general.
So any like -for -like comparisons with alternative forms of housing are not perfect, let's put
it that way.
And as you know, we also do acquire housing on the open market, which is often funded
by Mayoral funds or other sources to enable us to have a kind of a varied approach, which
does involve acquisitions of existing property, but crucially, building state of the art new
social housing that people need.
And if we can build enough of it, we will actually start to make an impact on some of
the problems that we've identified earlier by just having more housing available for
people that desperately need it.
Okay, thank you very much.
What I'm not sure I got an answer to was whether it would be financially sensible to do what I suggested.
Right. Councillor Graham, maybe you should be back on housing committee.
This is a financial question, Councillor Critchard. It's a perfectly reasonable question.
I think Mr Riley was willing to answer it in less time than you took trying to block it.
I think it's very good...
Excuse me, Councillor Graham.
I'm trying to do my very best,
But if you keep arguing over here, this is not helpful on either stage, and please do
not start to argue back about whether I should let you speak or not.
Okay, let's leave it.
Are you happy to make a quick answer and then we'll move to a vote?
I am.
It's an inexact comparison, so I cannot give you a clear answer on that.
Okay, thank you very much.
Okay, given that I can't see any more hands up, may we move the – we're asked to receive
this report for information.
Agreed?
everybody agreed on that? Excellent, thank you. We're now going to move to

5 General Fund Capital Programme Update (Paper No. 24-283)

paper 24283 which is the General Fund Capital Program update.
Okay, Mrs. Merry would you like to say a few words about this please?
Thank you chair, so very briefly because the committee sees this report this time
of year every year. So it updates the existing capital programme to take into account the
out -term position from the previous financial year and updates the cash flows within years
of the existing programme. There's also in one of the appendices a short list of new
schemes to be added to the capital programme with the funding sources shown against each
of those. The thing that this paper does which is new I think is it shares some detail around
one of the proposals that we put in place to address what was a continuing ongoing issue
around reporting, monitoring and effective delivery of the capital programme, which members
on both sides of the table had expressed some concerns around in the past. Effectively,
the size of our capital programme, £350 million over the next few years, just in the general
fund alone, you know, involves a significant amount of projects, high cost, high value
and quite complex. So a new approach to consistent project management and overview and forecasting
is being proposed. The introduction of the corporate project office, which we've spoken
about I think briefly before, with a bit of an update on exactly what the CPO is calling
it what their workstream priorities are and how that will then impact on the reporting
and the monitoring of the capital programme going forward.
Thank you Mrs Murray. Just to try and handle this, this paper covers quite a few things.
What I would like to do is I would like to take questions on the recommendations of the
changes to the capital programme and the appendices about what we are doing and the adoption of
it, then I'd like to take questions, try and group questions about the project office and
then the prudential indicators and the capital receipts strategy. So is that clear to everyone,
do it in bits? Okay. Right. So first of all, questions on the capital program itself in
the edition. Okay. Councillor Hedges and I, could you check us one for all? Yeah. Councillor
Hedges.
Thank you chair.
Paragraph 19, sorry, paragraph 9 talks about alternative.
Page please.
Hold on.
Page 49.
Paragraph 9 talks about alternative funding and internal borrowing.
Can you please provide a bit more clarity on that please?
Thank you.
Mrs. Murray is that one for you?
Yes, so there are a number of sources of finance which are listed in paragraph six, so the
kind of overall options of funding, and we will continue to pursue areas of funding from
other sources to fund the capital programme like grants and generating income, school
contributions on school schemes. We've obviously got developer contributions
either via section 106 agreements or community infrastructure levy. We've got
an external funding team. We've got a couple of people that we brought in on a
two -year pilot to maximize external funding opportunities which will include
capital where appropriate. So the comment is really just reflecting the
the fact that with capital receipts at an all -time low,
you know, those other sources of funding become more appropriate.
The reference to internal borrowing is referencing the fact that if and when we do need to borrow,
we have cash in the bank that can avoid us going out to the external market to borrow,
and therefore we would internally borrow if that was possible and then replace any internal
borrowing with external borrowing at a future date if that was necessary.
Thank you Mrs. Merry. Councillor Corner.
Thank you chair. My question relates to paragraph 6 page 54.
There's already been some disquiet during this committee cycle about the
overrun on the budget for the Nine Elms School which we discussed last night at
the Children's Committee. It's 22 .2 million pound over the original
estimate before spades have even got into the ground. But I think focusing on
that specific project which we do support misses the wider point which is
of some concern which is that estimates for these capital projects have been
wildly inaccurate on a number of occasions now including for example with
the Broadwater school scheme that was similarly massively underestimated for
the original estimate. What can the council do to provide more accurate
estimates in future and can we get a commitment from officers and the
cabinet member that councillors will be able to scrutinize contractors and
developers for these projects directly if necessary so that we can and provide
adequate challenge to keep costs under the control.
Okay so and this is Mary and then I don't know if anyone else was is that okay can you that
seem to be in two parts. I'll take the second one first. I don't really think it's appropriate
for members to be scrutinizing contractors. You know, we have contract management built
into our processes and specifically into the corporate project office to provide some consistency.
So I think we need to rely on that as the kind of as the standard process. If that's
not effective, then I think members need to speak to officers about effective contract
management rather than going straight to contractors. We don't put forward as
officers, we don't put forward estimates for schemes that we think
aren't appropriate. I would just say that we don't try and do do bad by the
numbers. So any particular issues with schemes and I know that as you say,
those two schemes were discussed at Children's Services Children's Committee
last night. So I won't go into that in detail. But you know, we do try and put
our best estimates. We find that as pro as just the general process of
of refining a scheme from that initial feasibility study to design to, you know, going to the
market to tenders to delivery and all those different stages, there can often be and there
is often, you know, a price increase, which we try to factor in via contingencies but
isn't always possible.
What I would say is that the new process should help with those kinds of things.
So in the new process which is highlighted in the appendix C, no D, A, B, B, B, sorry.
Defining a scheme in terms of pipeline development pool and committed capital programme will
help with that clarity.
So if we are coming to members with an early view of the cost of a scheme, it will be clear
that that is an early view of the cost of a scheme rather than I think what's happened
previously and is highlighted quite well unfortunately with those two schemes you've highlighted
is where we make an initial commitment to a scheme at the moment or what's happened
in the past is that that commitment that financial commitment gets hard -coded into the approved
budget it doesn't reflect the fact that it's an early start an early stage in the process
So that splitting schemes into those three pots will help with that going forward.
Thank you very much.
We have a question from Councillor Ambash remotely.
Councillor Ambash.
Thank you.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, I can hear you.
So I'm pleased to support the much needed investment in Putney Leisure Centre.
It's been getting rather shabby over the last 10 years or so under the previous administration, not investing in.
is 3F, page 53 I'm talking about, which gives an additional 0 .3 of a million.
But when I see the lines to do with Putney Leisure Centre on page 58 and 59, there are
four items totalling £621 ,000.
So it doesn't quite add up with the 0 .3.
So am I right in assuming that the additional point three covers the item on the play center
Installation and the other items were already agreed previously and could I have some more details on what this place?
Center installation will cover either now or outside the meeting if that's easier. Thank you very much
Mrs. Murray is that? Yeah so I will check for you Councillor Ambash because my
understanding is the additional funding for Putney Leisure Centre is external
grant funding we got for some some green initiatives in Putney Leisure Centre so
I doubt that it's linked to the play centre. The play centre I assume is a
soft play but I'll get more detail for you. Thank you very much. Thank you
Councillor Graham you had a question? Yes I mean I'll come on to Prudential
indicates later in line with your design.
Thank you.
However, just following on from Councillor Corners' point,
I just want to make, first of all,
that I think the idea of the,
more than my idea, that the corporate project office
and splitting up into this sort of threefold criteria,
the capital projects, is a good idea,
and will improve the way in which these things are managed.
However, I do have some strong sympathy
with Councillor Corners point about the way in which the council seems to be
managing architects across different departments and different parts of the
program. I mean we've raised some of these in in private but I would stress
that I think there is an issue in terms of the specifications and then also to
some extent scope creep on on these projects where we end up behaving
perhaps less rigorously towards architects than a commercial client would and they get
away with pushing costs up in a manner that doesn't actually have to occur in order for
us to get a good end product.
So, Mrs. Murray, you were indicating you thought somebody ought to be in a position to answer
R, right?
Well, I'm very happy to just suggest that that may well be a view, but I'm not entirely
sure what it's based on because the processes that we have in place currently and the schemes
that are managed are managed by very experienced and professional officers and I don't think
for a second that they would give architectural firms or consultants or professional experts
an easy ride for their money.
And I think that's true.
There are things that occur on schemes in development and we will all know that, say,
the refurbishment of Tooting, that Lido, for instance, once in contract, excavation demonstrated
that you had loads of pipeword that needs to be replaced due to its age, it's a Victorian
streamline, so that was not possible to forecast or survey in advance of the contract starting.
Those variations on kind of every build contract that you have around contaminated land, utility
pipes that are then located, are fairly standard within construction.
So I can reassure you that this proposal around the corporate project office is about process and program management
Should improve things but but I don't I don't concur with your previous comment. Okay. Thank you very much
I'm full on that can't pick us a point was challenged for the design review panel
I'm simply in relation to the Fitzhugh scheme where the council is trying to grow an extra block the
overwhelming
design review panel's role is, excuse me, thank you. I had a question I'd quite like to get my own.
This is a relevant follow -up to Mr Ryan on the point at hand.
May I make an observation is I think you would find it quite difficult not to follow up. Let me,
I'd like to ask questions, see if there's any others. My question is about the decarbonisation
projects on page 54. Could officers give us a bit of an idea about what we're covering on that,
please. I'd have to get back to you Councillor Critchard. Okay that would be quite
interesting. Any other questions on the capital projects rather than having a
debate with one of the officers? Any questions? Oh Councillor Lawless. Thank you. So it's good
to see the improvements that we're seeing in Tooting town centre and the
pedestrianisation and the three and a half million pounds. Maybe this is a
question for one of our cabinet members, but can we promise to see more of this and
Correctly chronic underfunding that the last administration had in Tooting town center, please. Thank you
Okay
Quite agree
Budgets will be allocated on need
Okay, thank you and also as a Tooting council, I'm very pleased to see more
investment there
Councillor Graham.
Could the cabinet member just confirm that the budget from which she's allocating funding
for tooting was set aside by the last Conservative administration?
We created a budget prior to the election.
Indeed with Councillor Osborne, you've got into this confusion some months ago.
Sorry, is there a comment coming from any of your body members?
There is a comment coming from me.
The budget was not set aside for tooting.
Okay, right. Thank you very much.
Given no further questions on the projects, we've leant into what was happening with project office,
so we've heard a bit about what we hope that's going to improve.
Are there any further questions on the project office aspect of this paper?
Okay, great. So now we move on to the prudential indicators and questions on the prudential
indicators which are to note and the flexible use capital strategy. Mrs. Mary, I'd just
like you to clarify something with the capital strategy. We get that regularly. Have there
been any changes since the previous time. So that is actually just to reconfirm that
it's the same strategy. Brilliant. And the potential indicators, have there been any
changes? No. So we are presenting here the out -term
position for the previous financial year as a statement of fact compared to the estimates
that we made earlier on in the year. What we haven't got here, just to clarify, is we
got the future year projections because the definitions of some of the credential indicators
need to change to take into account the introduction of an accounting standard requirement IFRS
16 and my team was still working through the implications of those. So what I didn't want
to do was present future projections that we found were not quite presented in the right
way so there will be an update to this committee at the meeting in December
which will show the future projections on all of the the prudential indicators
in the appendix okay thank you very much any questions on the prudential
indicators cancer Graham I just wanted a quick question and I definitely have a
follow -up but I just wanted to confirm the intention at the moment is just to
bring revised prudential indicators in December which will show future debt or at least future
external debt up until 2027, 2028, but not beyond.
Is that?
Yes, I think that's the number of years that it would go forward, yes.
Because the point that I would return to, which is one I've made here before and which
which Mrs. Merry has previously indicated would be reasonable for the committee to receive,
is the actual debt profile differentiated between both internal and external debt,
because a lot is currently being borrowed internally and will only show up on external
when other balances are affected in future years, over the whole of the course of that debt.
Now, we put down a, I put down a council question at the last council meeting asking for that debt profile,
and put that question to the cabinet member for finance.
They asked very simple questions asking for financial information.
The cabinet member refused to provide any of that information in her answer and then referred
to updates that will continue to come to the finance committee.
Now, will she accept that the information that we requested
and have repeatedly requested has not been provided, has not been provided in any update
to the Finance Committee and can she therefore explain why she is continuing to refuse to
provide it to us?
Councillor Ireland, are you happy to take that? I mean obviously members can ask questions
about what they would like to see. They don't always get to see them, which I think is...
The Firemark, as I'm aware, this paper refers to the framework period up to 27 -28, so it's
not appropriate.
I'm sorry, but the debt is projected over 50 -year terms.
The paper and the prudential indicators cannot show us what is currently being racked up
in internal debt.
There will only in future years show up on external debt.
And the point is, we asked a straightforward question asking for that information.
Now, can I at least ask, has she seen that information?
Has she either requested it or been given that information on the debt profile over
next 50 years because she said in her answer that the plans are fully costed and affordable.
We have not seen those costings, has she?
Yes, I have and they are constantly updated.
Why did you refuse to provide them to us in answer to the council?
I've never refused.
I did not refuse to provide them.
It's not appropriate to have them in this paper because it's beyond the framework period.
That wasn't my question.
I said why did you not provide that information in response to council question where you were asked for precisely those things?
You referred instead to updates to this committee. Now you're saying it's inappropriate for this committee to get it. In which case, why didn't you answer the question?
Councillor Graham, can I just try and cut through this a bit? You've obviously asked a question to which you have not been satisfied with the answer.
Not had an answer?
Excuse me. Let me phrase it slightly differently. You are not satisfied, you've had an answer, you might not like it that you've had an answer.
Mrs. Murray and the cabinet member, presumably that question is still outstanding and are
we saying that this is something that may come in the future update because this is
looking past or is it something that actually is something that the administration, that
we are managing ourselves anyway?
We are managing it.
This paper refers to the framework period.
Fifty years is way beyond that.
That's why it's not included in this paper.
My point is that we have never seen the projections for more than three years out.
We have repeatedly asked for it and we put a straightforward council question down
in which that information was not given to us and the cabinet member instead referred to updates to this committee
in which she has now said we will not see it.
Why is she refusing to provide this information in relation?
Does she not consider herself obliged to actually answer the questions?
When will we receive it given we've asked for it not got it for months and months and months I
Can't Sir Graham. I think we all understand what your concern is
The cabinet member has said she doesn't think it's appropriate for longer term
I think maybe we just have to leave it as that is your concern and it has been heard by the
committee. Thank you. Okay, any further questions on this paper before we move to a vote?
Sorry, Councillor Cornyn, then Councillor Worrall, then. Thank you, this is on the Appendix E,
if that's okay, the Flexible Use of Capital Receipt Strategy. I don't believe, although maybe I was,
on the committee in September 23 when this was last approved.
I was, yeah.
Could I just confirm the extent to which this has changed?
And then the second part of the question is, at the end
it says that the flexibility can be used to fund IT infrastructure
changes, which makes sense because they could be construed
as a kind of capital project.
But also in the -
corner when I made this introduction the first question I asked Mrs. Mary was has
this changed since last year and Mrs. Mary I remember answered that it's
exactly the same as it was last year and we do it annually but so maybe if
there's something that you didn't understand perhaps we should take it
separately that's fine okay no I accept that and I missed that but the proposed
projects have they changed as well in paragraph six because they appear to
talk about potentially be using the flexibility to fund revenue challenges
in children's and adult social services.
No they haven't changed and I mean ultimately in practice because capital
receipts are running low it's highly unlikely that we would exercise this
flexibility in any event, but what we've always said
every year when we've approved this,
is it's better to have this tool in our toolbox
than not to have it, hence it comes to committee,
but hasn't actually been activated as yet.
So I doubt it will be used.
Thanks for the clarification.
Councillor Ireland had a comment,
and then Councillor Worrall, and then.
Well, just to say that we're discussing here
the General Fund Capital Program.
Now the borrowing to which you refer
is for the Thousand Homes Program.
that's HRA, Housing Revenue Accounts, it's not appropriate in here. Now, sorry, Councillor
Ireland, that's just picking up, that's picking up what Councillor Graham's question was.
Yeah, okay, just to clarify in case. Do you want to carry on your answer?
So, I think several times that the HRA business fund is fully costed and it's affordable,
it's set out in the business plan. Now, we estimate that the income from these thousand
homes will be nearly nine million pounds a year. Now, this will go a long way to helping
has reduced the amount that we're spending on temporary accommodation, which of course
does come from the General Fund and the People's Council tax.
Okay, thank you.
Point of order.
Page 71 of the PAC, Appendix D, Part E clearly shows the debt limit for both General Fund
and HRA and is looking at the combined figure.
If the Cabinet member, as I understood her to be doing just then, was saying that the
The reason we didn't have these figures is it because it only relates to general fund?
That is simply not true.
I think there's been some, right, okay, thank you very much.
But we had moved on and I had a question from Councilor Worrell, please.
It's not a question, it's actually a comment.
I'd like to remind councilors around the table that we also do have a viewing public.
sometimes the fallback on jargon,
if anybody's actually survived watching us this far,
it would be a good reminder that sometimes
we might have to explain to the viewing public
what certain terminology actually means,
or not bury ourselves behind jargon as a wall.
So it's just a general reminder in the level of discussion
that we are also being observed,
and people need to understand the level of discussion
that we're having.
Okay, thank you, Councillor Warrell,
and thank you for reminding me as well.
Councilor Corner, last point and then we'll move to...
Extremely quick, it is still on the policy
on Appendix E, page 75, paragraph six.
Appreciate Miss Mary's comments, the policy hasn't changed.
We don't intend to use this policy at the moment.
But it does say in paragraph six
that wanting to have council intends
to potentially make use of this flexibility.
Could I just confirm that's essentially
the word intention being there?
and that there are no plans to use this flexibility
this year or next?
If we come into a very large capital receipt
in the next 12, 18 months, two years,
then the answer might be different.
So I don't think I can rule it out,
hence why, as I said, we've used it as an option,
but haven't activated it as yet.
Okay.
Sorry, excuse me, I turned myself off.
Approve the additions to the General Fund Capital Program in Appendix A, Power 3.
To recommend the Council adopt the Capital Program, to note the prudential indicators
and recommend re -approve the use of the flexible capital receipts.
I just wanted to make, we will be abstaining, but for the simple reason that without the
debt profile we don't know whether there's improvement.
Absolutely fine.
Right.
are you gonna do you want to take the whole thing or in parts also just
abstain okay so those people in favor of the recommendations please raise their
hands thank you that's fine those against please raise their hands and any
abstentions please raise their hands Thank You councillors okay we're now

6 Change Programme and Customer Service Verbal Update

going to move to a verbal update I'd like from Sam Olson who is our change
director it's the first time Miss Olson has come to our committee so obviously
councillors hopefully if you she's going to give us a short update and then we
can ask some questions and councillors please note that there'll be a formal I
think this is right miss is up miss Olsen isn't there there'll be a paper
coming to counts to us in December but this is just a bit of a sneak preview
for us okay welcome thank you very much it's mrs.
Olsen so I thought if it's okay I'll start with an update on customer
services. So I believe at the last meeting, which obviously I wasn't at,
you asked some questions about customer services response times. Some of the
work is obviously completely connected with the overall change program. But I
thought I'd give you some of the data with regards to that first, and then
I'll go on to talk about the change program. So over the summer, you will
have noticed we did have a unplanned general election. The impact of that on
a customer services team to put it in reality for you is an extra four and a
half thousand election calls relative to the previous year over a couple of
months. It's we do not have the largest call center in the country as you can
imagine and therefore ramping up quickly to be able to respond to that is
obviously quite a challenge for any service. It's also worth noting that we
say customer service calls and I think we can often think that there's one
generic call that these calls are all coming through.
They're not.
The customer services teams themselves answer about 40 %
of the total calls that come into Wandsworth Council
in any particular month.
One of the first tasks I've done since I've arrived
is to create a start to begin to collate
all that information together.
So I now have a, it's not a live dashboard.
I'll get to a live dashboard over the next year
We are now starting to track all the calls
that are coming into the council,
which starts to give us a real sense
of where the demand is coming from.
So customer services
are about 40%.
The rest come through
housing, estate services,
social services,
children's service
and all those go directly in.
When you look at the actual data
in the KPIs of where we are,
we do show an improving trend
and we have seen a lot of changes
against previous years.
We've got a service level target of 70%.
In Q1, it looks like we will have,
of this year, we will have met the 70%.
And the average time to answer fluctuates
on a weekly basis.
Some at best, 1 .1, so that's one, sorry,
one minute, 10 seconds.
At worst, three minutes and 10 seconds.
So that gives you a breadth of how long to get through to customer services.
That's not at the level that we want it to be.
They have been running behind with staff and recruitment has been a challenge and I'll
come on to recruitment in a minute.
The challenge with call centres though, as soon as you can start to drop below the established
level of staff you're looking for and you start recruiting people in, you then need
time to train them up.
So there's always in customer services call centers
a good three to six month lag between once you bring
the staff on before you start to see the improvements
in the KPI.
So we've been running the recruitment recently.
Pleased to be able to say we recruited two all our vacancies
over the last couple of months.
I mean obviously there's an element of revolving door
in any contact center environment.
but I would expect it to take Simon's team
another three to six months before we properly
get up to speed.
I will pause there and move over to talk
about the overall change program.
So Mrs. Olsen, would it suit you better
to take questions on the customer service now
before the change program?
How do you think it would work best?
Well really for the committee,
I'm really comfortable with,
I'll pause there because it gives me a chance
to breathe to get your questions.
but just bear with me because some of the answers might then obviously link straight into the change program which have far more about how we
Start to manage demand in the future and in particular start to think about channel shift. Okay committee members
You what how would you like to do it? Would you like?
Everyone else. Yep. Okay. Okay. Um, so
I've sort of dived there straight into one of my day -to -day responsibilities, which is
customer services, but conscious as a committee, you might, my title doesn't really say what
I am on the tin.
So, as your director of change and innovation, yes, I am responsible for change, the change
program, you've just heard their customer services, but I'm also responsible for digital
data and also our HR services.
Why are those all clustered together?
Partly because of a number of reviews that occurred
and started to talk about what needed to grow
and what capacity we needed in Wandsworth
in order to be able to transform ourselves into the future.
But actually to do transformation, it's all about people.
We can spend and burn our way through a huge amount of money
in the digital technology space,
but unless we actually service redesign
by putting our users, which could be customers,
could be staff, could be businesses,
but putting our users in the center
of how we design services and redesign the process,
there is no point spending the money on the technology.
So that's why we've got this cluster of activity
in change and innovation that brings HR,
organizational design, digital data,
and customer services and change altogether.
And so as you've heard, you will be getting a formal paper
at the next committee cycle.
And in that paper, you will have nicely laid out for you
all the programs that have been delivered to date
and the outcomes we've had to date.
But I can't take any credit for any of that delivery.
That's all of you around this table.
It's all the officers that have been working on it
up until this point.
My focus over the last five months since I've been here
has been a real deep dive into what we're doing today
and what do we need for the future.
How are we ensuring that we're creating the capacity
in the organization to really be able to respond and change
to really, really speedy changes,
particularly in AI and digital,
to ensure that we are really maximizing our investments
and we're thinking about people and process and customer
as much as we are from the digital perspective.
The program as a whole had lots of fantastic stuff in there
that you'd be looking for any change program to have in it.
But it was structured in a way of we had 47 different
projects I think we should have seen here before.
That's quite a lot of projects for an organization of our size, but some fantastic work happening
in there.
And what I've been doing is trying to corral the team around how do we simplify our governance
so that we've got more capacity doing the doing rather than capacity looking at the
governance, but also what are the big high impact areas we need to focus on, and how
do we ensure that all our programs are really brutally focused on the benefits
and the outcomes that we are trying to deliver. So to do that I've moved us from
nine work strands into four portfolios of work. You'll have all the detail of
this in your next cycle but I wanted to give you a flavour of it. Those
portfolios are Great Employer which you'll be used to seeing as the Great
employer work strand.
That's just expanded to ensure that we're
looking at some of the digital capability
and some of the recruitment challenges,
which I'll remember to come on to at the end,
is ill and great employer.
We've then got a digital and data strand, which is,
it has two main elements of it.
One is how do we ensure that we're
maximizing the opportunity of things like copilot, things
like digital devices in elderly people's home
to be able to provide them with ongoing support.
So technology that you can use on top of your existing infrastructure is how I like to talk
about it.
But also at the same time Ian who arrived the same time as me as my Chief Digital Officer
is looking at what infrastructure do we need in the future.
At the moment if you are a family who have come into the borough, you perhaps come in
as a couple, you then got married here, had children here,
you are using our education services
and maybe you are supporting or caring for someone,
we probably hold your data in anything
from 20 to 30 different systems at the moment.
And every time we hold your data,
I'm also your data security information officer,
the more times I am holding the same data,
to the greater the risk, but also the more times
I'm holding your data, I am having
to pay for your data to be stored either in my data
storage unit or in the cloud, aren't I?
So that's the organizational impact.
But the customer impact of the fact
that I've got your data in 30 different systems
is, of course, the fact that I can't give you one logon.
I can't give you transparency of everything that you're doing.
And I can't give you a nice simple customer experience until I can see all that data together.
So that's my non -techy, trying to be jargon free version of some of the tech challenges
that we will have to come to which is, they're the less exciting elements of digital.
It's the real infrastructure stuff that Ian is definitely the expert in.
But what we're trying to do is ensure that we can't just focus on the infrastructure.
We've got to be accepting the new technologies as we go along as well.
So my summary is in a very deep dive that I've done across the program, there's lots
of fantastic stuff in there.
I am as reasonably confident as anybody can be five months into, six months now into a
new role that we will be able to realize the benefits of the program.
There is a lot of work to be done in that and what we need to ensure is that the team
are very focused on the delivery of the benefits that we want to get out of it and that we
focus on ensuring that we've got the people services right as well as the digital services
right.
So a redesign of how we're delivering HR
and how we're doing organizational development
is as crucially important, if not more important,
for the delivery of this program
as ensuring that we've got the right
digital infrastructure in there too.
I will pause there.
Actually, no, sorry, I won't pause there
because you wanted me to talk about recruitment.
So the last element is recruitment.
So we're currently taking quite a data driven lens
on the current establishment of staff that we have.
So our staff turnover is actually incredibly low.
But actually that has the potential of skewing
the way we're looking at turnover.
We have quite a high establishment number of people
who are aged 50 or over and particularly moving towards 60 or over.
So obviously there's a retirement churn that happens there and what we need to be looking
at is particularly with the critical specialist roles that we have if you think around housing,
around social work, around finance, around procurement.
What is the market telling us today about a London borough,
who the reality of our competitors are in the commercial market, and what makes us unique?
How can we ensure that we're looking now at the skill set that Brian needs in housing and
Fenella needs in finance, not just today but in five years time,
so that we're making sure that we've got the right apprenticeship programs in place,
that we have got the right relationships with businesses
and we're thinking about secondments in and out
as people's career progression.
So Matthew, who is currently covering for Nisha
as head of OD, is looking at what those professional
career journeys and those professional job families
need to look like so that we have a stronger talent pool
that we're building from within the organization,
as well as currently renegotiating our relationships with those agency
providers. Okay right thank you very much Mrs. Olsen that's a lot to take in.
Okay now I'd like questions from the team. Okay we'll start with you Councillor
corner. Sorry? Sorry I was expecting someone to tell me, Councillor Ambasch also had a...
Okay. Thank you chair and welcome Mrs Olsen to the role. I'm really excited to see what you do in the
role, particularly as I have some professional expertise in the field of transformation as well.
I think you have some great experience to bring to the role from Whitehall but also the private
sector as well, so really great. And you're also talking about one of my
favorite topics, the call center and customer service. And I'm really excited
to see what might be able to happen in terms of the use of AI and chatbots to
reduce the load on the customer service team, who I do know must be working
incredibly hard and we as counselors all get like you know a lot of commentary on
on how it's going in that respect. So I think there's some opportunities there
and I look forward to seeing how those can be taken.
I'm also really pleased to see that the slightly ridiculous
laundry list of 47 projects has been broken down
into more manageable and kind of scrutinizable chunks.
Council, could we move to the question?
Because obviously, it's an L -17.
Yeah, okay, fine, fine.
There was a lot, and I know this was before
your time in the role, there was a lot of scrutiny
on this previously when the original proposals came forward.
And what we didn't have was a clear view of what we wanted to achieve, what good would
look like, KPIs so that we could measure success and progress towards success.
Can you confirm that as part of the portfolios or the program as a whole, we'll have full
benefits realization work complete.
So that's benefits identification.
So we see what the benefits are planned, measuring of those throughout delivery and then realization
at the end and also measurable KPIs throughout so that we can actually see how on track we
are to realize the benefits of what is a very large amount of money that this committee
has approved to be spent up front.
Possibly one of the easiest questions you will ask me because absolutely a full benefit
realization strategy has been built over the last six months.
I won't go into the minutia of technical detail behind it, but for each strand of work, we
are looking at specifically what the baseline of KPI is and what we're looking for.
I do think it's worth the committee remembering, though, that it's not all about the cashable
services, cashable benefits here.
We've got cashable and non -cashable benefits.
You know, how we ensure that we're a great employer and that we're recruiting the right
people to deliver for the future of Wandsworth is, and how we're ensuring we're delivering
on the priorities of the council are as important for the programme as the cashable savings
as well.
But they've all got KPIs against them.
Thank you.
Actually, I was just going to ask something to Mrs Olsen.
The other thing is, perhaps, if there's something that is likely to come next time, I know it's
bit of a teaser, but we're likely to see in the paper.
That would be helpful if you could flag that for, yeah.
Okay, Councilor Worrell.
Thank you, and thank you for the presentation.
It was really interesting and very exciting.
I suppose it's just a request for the paper
that's coming further on.
We, Wandsworth doesn't operate in a bubble.
We obviously have partnership arrangements
for the integrated care systems, for the voluntary sector.
And I was astounded to hear how many ways our data can actually be stored within the council and all the different systems.
So in the paper that's coming, it would be useful to have some commentary on what work,
when you're realigning our systems, is influenced from our relationships with the NHS, shared care arrangements, etc.
Because there might be aspects of your work that's actually out of your control.
as we know, the integrated care boards
and systems are running slowly
and sometimes they're very confused
about what they're actually doing themselves
in terms of data and data alignments.
So a couple of pointers or some guidance
what's happening around that would be really useful.
Thank you.
So when I first spoke about asking
if I could give you a verbal update,
part of my desire for doing a verbal update
was so that I could get your feedback into it,
so that I could have a sense of what you were interested in
and what was important to you.
There's nothing that I have planned in there
that's specifically about NHS,
but what there is in there,
and I'll make sure that we've got enough detail
in there for you,
is how we design services by putting the customer
at the heart of it,
and that we start at the beginning of the customer's journey
and that's the customer's journey,
not their journey with us.
So the example that I give here is the family
who find themselves talking to children's services about a EHIP plan.
Their journey, sorry.
Oh, yes, you're talking about, I do apologize.
An education, health and care plan, thank you.
Their journey with their disabled child looking for an educational healthcare plan
did not start when they started having that conversation with our children's services
team.
Their journey started when they were probably in a hospital and were told of the diagnosis
of their child or started to see symptoms of the child.
And so a real customer journey doesn't start at the council.
The real customer journey starts there and how you integrate and think about managing
demand through that lens.
We can't influence all the time what happens within all our partners, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be thinking about it.
Okay, right. Thank you very much. Councillor Lawless, please.
Thank you, and thank you so much, Ms Alston, for that update.
Councillor Corner is invited to join me. I went on a shift with the JCC recently.
Sorry.
the Joint Control Center.
I think it's called Joint Control Center.
And I did a shift on a Friday night with the team there
and got to listen in to some of their calls
and respond to some of the call outs that they had.
And actually, it sort of opened my eyes
into some of the calls that we receive
and what we have to do.
And I think part of our, I wouldn't say problem,
But I think one of the reasons why we're getting so many calls might be because we're the only service open at that time of night
So we had people calling who needed help with a nurse at our hospice
for example, and it would be up to the staff member from our team to then
Call a list of five or six phone numbers until they got through to someone at the hospice
We had people calling because of tens of water outages
We had people calling
Because they're waiting too long for an ambulance
So can we, as part of this, and when we're looking at it,
because I know the team there have literally
a number of calls waiting and how long people
have been waiting to sit on the board,
are we making sure, or can you make sure,
that we're looking at the external services
and the work that they need to also do,
or the input we need to put in with them
to try and maybe reduce some of those calls
so that our teams are responding to the council matters?
Cheers.
So you will hear me quite often talk about scope.
It is really, really crucial when
trying to deliver major transformation that we
remember our scope.
And I talk to teams about those three circles of scope.
So the immediately in front of you circle of scope
is about what you can actually influence
and what you can change today within the resources
and capacity and capability that you have got.
Then my second circle of scope is the things that we can do,
but we will need extra skills, extra funding, et cetera.
And then my third level of scope is
what we need to do from a systems leadership change
perspective.
But in order to do it, we need to work closely with partners,
and we need other organizations.
I think what you're talking about there
is obviously firmly in that third level of scope for us.
we need to ensure from a benefits realization perspective
on this program that we're not relying
on the system's leadership benefits
because it becomes a bit too intangible
in terms of your confidence of others to deliver.
So I guess what I'm saying is absolutely
we need to look at it, but I'll be encouraging
the teams to see it through that lens
of the customer journey.
Where do, you know, why are they calling us?
where did their frustration start?
Let's start by understanding that working in partnership
with others though is a crucial part of,
back to my example of the family
with a child with a disability.
It starts at the NHS side.
We've got to ensure that we're working
with all those local partners.
Okay, thank you.
And I'm just going to remind councillors
what Ms. Olsen said about, she's keen to hear
what we're interested in hearing in the change.
Councillor Graham.
Thank you. I just want to echo some of the points that Councillor Cornyn have made.
I think we did have a number of concerns, not so much about the principle of the change programme when it was established,
but simply that a lot of resources being put into it without the objectives and what we were going to get out of it pinned down.
And I think that what's been said about streamlining and simplification of that and trying to pin down the details is very welcome.
And we look forward to seeing that in the paper that we'll get.
One aspect of our concerns was the way in which the funding was operating through an
allocated reserve, which could be used to effectively bypass the normal scrutiny and
visibility act committee.
So could I just ask Mrs. Olsen, at least to the extent that it's possible, that when that
reserve is being drawn upon, we'll get to see that before it happens or at the very
least as it happens rather than after the fact.
So I am absolutely going to take the opportunity to say that I am five months in and as you
all know new to this specific local authority but also local authorities in general and
take the opportunity to say that I am not clear enough yet on the understanding of all
our governance processes and therefore I'm going to request that I don't answer that
right now.
That's a good one to say. I'm not sure that needs to be covered in the paper.
Right, Councillor Richard Jones.
Thank you, Chair. Just two points, not necessarily for our answer now but hopefully they'll inform
them what you're doing and just some of what we'd be looking for. Firstly on chatbots,
I first raised chatbots actually in this committee when I was a bright -eyed and bushy -tailed
new councillor in 2018, and the reaction of officers was a spectrum from just eyes glazing
over, eyes rolling, to active horror that we would bring something like that into the
council.
But obviously now I think the technology has come on leaps and bounds.
And actually I think when, as I know you will, when you look at the council's customer service
interface, you will be comparing it with the best examples in the public sector and the
private sector.
Because there have been many instances.
One of my motivations for standing for council was that when I first moved to the borough,
I wanted to apply to the council central list of when new housing schemes were available
for private buying, they would inform residents.
You had to fill out a form and post it.
You had to make a query to the council.
Somebody would then post you out a form.
You had to post the form back.
There wasn't an online facility for that.
So Microsoft has always been that some things,
the council did really well.
In other respects, it didn't follow even, I think,
the Derrida standard from public and private.
So you'll take that into account.
In terms of the disparate and disconnected sources
of personal data, I think that horrifies many of us
that's all lying around and essentially it's not connected,
it's not providing an integrated customer service experience
and bringing real delays to resolving resident concerns,
but also actually risks, that there's a risk that a real
issue is not being resolved when a resident comes
to the council services.
On the other hand, there is also a massive risk
in merging data.
I mean, when I heard 30 separate sources, I thought,
oh my goodness, because they'll be in different formats
that have different custodians and actually
merging those presents huge risks,
not just in the merging process,
but actually, sometimes there are very good reasons
why data is kept somewhere secure
and hardly anyone is allowed to access it,
because you don't want to go in about, you know,
a concern about your lift not working,
and then all of a sudden, somebody sees
some very sensitive family information, for example.
So I know that in the exercise you've got at the moment,
you'll have that at the forefront of your mind as well.
Okay. Thank you. Councillor, oh sorry, did you want to say anything or was it, I just
thought you were just nodding in agreement.
No, so it's worth saying that we always, organizationally, need to be very alert to digital cyber security
threats. Ian has been doing, our Chief Digital Officer has been doing a lot of work in understanding
how secure and safe our data is.
So whilst we are currently holding data
and a lot of data, it is, we have got a good sense
of security around it.
It's not something that I will ever say
I'm 100 % confident on because that would be
a very foolish thing for anybody to say.
In fact, if you listen to even the Chief of MIFI,
it is always a major concern
because we don't know what's coming around the corner next.
So in terms of keeping the data
as it is in its current format secure,
I'm in a reasonably happy place with that at the moment.
You raise a really good question though
of the importance of how you corral data together
in a way that means that only the appropriate people
see the appropriate pieces of data.
We have very strong data governance
around all individuals' data at the moment,
which has been really, really reassuring for us to see.
And as we move forward, as I would say,
whilst 30 sounds horrifying,
actually it is not dissimilar to most large organizations
who have grown in this way.
So, you know, if you go to the largest, most up -to -date tech companies, of course they
have cracked this.
But they're making money out of data.
It's a very different proposition.
As you know, as somebody mentioned at the beginning, I've worked in the commercial sector,
central government, and now in local government and some of the charity sector.
We are in no different situation to many of them in terms of how data is stored.
And actually the trick now is how you move forward with it.
And if we were sat here 20 years ago,
we'd be talking about big data migration projects,
how you bring all the data together.
That is not how a agile program
transformation delivery now works.
This is far more in the space of every opportunity
that we have to re -procure new systems,
starting to think about how we procure new systems
that can talk to each other.
So the analogy I give you from a home perspective
is you will all have ultimately made some sort of decision
as to whether or not you're going to go Apple or Android
or whether or not you're going to try and do the same.
We effectively, not with those two brands,
we effectively need to decide which platforms
we are going to use in the future.
And I'll stop there before I become too techy.
Right, I'm just going to say is we've had a fairly good discussion on this.
I was just going to allow the people who haven't asked question because Mr.
Salsom asked for our input.
If I've got two, I've got Councillor Lee and Councillor Ambach on the line and then we'll wind up because we're going to get this in the future.
So Councillor Lee.
Yeah, thank you so much for coming.
I think my point was about the customer service looking at the customer journey.
And you said you were gonna speak to get people's input from staff and
residents and so on.
And I wanted to ask how we are making sure that we get a broad view across
everybody who lives in the borough, including children and
young people and different groups that will be able to contribute to that.
So we are not far enough down the line to have a full engagement plan in place yet,
but I'll make sure that when we do that is part of the reports here.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Ambash, who's on the line, please.
This is awesome.
Thank you very much for your presentation and I look forward to meeting you in person.
and it's been going for a year to a year and a half.
So it predates you coming,
but it's great that you're in post.
I'm just responding to the,
what we need in the reports that we get
when we have a written report on this.
And what I recall from our earlier discussions
in this committee was talking about
the seven different areas of programme and particularly I've been involved in partnership
with the voluntary sector and other sectors and particularly interested in what you say
about the great employer. So I'd be quite interested to know the progress we've made
in the programme so far on all nine areas if that's possible, although some of it will
predate you, but particularly about the progress on becoming a great employer, as well as what
the progress we want to make in the next six months and the next year.
Thank you, Mrs Olsen.
Yes, absolutely. And the great employer and partnerships are two of our absolutely core
portfolios moving forward. So as well in the report, as well as having a forward look on
what we're planning on doing, it also has a detailed outline of what's being delivered
today.
Brilliant. Thank you very much, Mrs. Olsen. In the spirit of everyone offering something,
May I add one last thing that I would like to see?
Something that we do is we do actually write to our residents.
And one of the things that would be absolutely great for the program to consider is how we make it clear to the residents,
when we have to send them information in a written form, that this is clear and
understandable for them because we are not great on that.
and I think there will probably be a few people who, and again, if that can be addressed, that would be great.
I was just wondering, Councillor Critchard, if you're alluding to the fact that the Council sent out tens of thousands of Council bills with illegal wording.
Councillor Graham, we were having a nice discussion. I mean, you and I both know that one of the things we both find difficult is,
for example the complexity of some of the papers we get and some of the things
that we get. We're all users of the council service by our nature
and actually I think it's one of the things that we can do is feed back to
officers in a polite and sensible way of areas where we think there might be
improvement. Alright councillors thank you that's it. Thank you. No. Mrs. Olsen
Thank you very much, we look to see you next time.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, we now move on to paper 24284,

7 Delivering the Cleaner Borough Plan (Paper No. 24-284)

Delivering the Cleaner Borough Plan.
This is a paper that has come to,
it would normally be at the environment,
it's come to us earlier.
and I'm going to welcome Councillor Gasser, who's the Cabinet Member for the Environment.
Thank you for coming along.
And she's going to tell us a few words about this, and then Mr Chadwick's also going to
fill us in.
I think to remember is that this is not something that we normally would expect to see at a
finance committee.
Councillor Gasser.
Yes, thank you very much.
Good evening everybody and thank you very much for inviting me to come and present this paper
It's seeking funding for phase two of our cleaner borough plan
And this is the council is working to make sure that every single resident of every street every estate
Has a decent clean environment, you know the environment that they want and need and deserve
So phase one you remember you may not remember in September the Environment Committee agreed a suite of measures
So we bought a whole new fleet of clean vehicles.
We agreed an extension to our contract with our contractor,
but it's a different way of working now.
We have food waste collection,
we have electrical collections,
and we also have many more mega skips.
Our residents love the mega skips.
They're very, very helpful.
We do now 14 locations per month,
so residents can take their bulky waste to somewhere local.
They don't have to go to the dump.
We're also getting very tough on fly tipping.
So all in all, we are cleaning up the borough.
Our flight shipping rate has gone down by 16%,
which is very good news.
Our recycling rate is up.
There's still work to do.
I mean, I know there are still some problems
with the service, and we're working very, very hard
to everything we can possibly do
to get rid of those problems.
So phase two of the Cleaner Borough Plan
looks at how we can really make the service
the best it can possibly be for every single resident.
So it's seeking funding for some more officers,
for a suite of measures Mr Chadwick will talk about,
and this is how we intend to make the borough the cleanest it can possibly be
so that every single resident can enjoy it.
OK, thank you, Councillor Gasser. Mr Chadwick.
Yes, thank you. To add to Councillor Gasser's point...
Could you introduce yourself as well?
I will, yeah. I am Paul Chadwick.
I'm the Executive Director of Environment and Community Services.
Thank you, Councillor.
So working with Councillor Gasser under her leadership, under her guidance, we've pulled
together for that Phase 2 action plan a suite of offices across Divisional that includes
key offices in my team, the likes of the Head of Waste and my colleagues there who managed
Continental's contract, who manage Circle's contract, including Mrs Sharon Wright, who
many of you will know, who manages the litter enforcement contract, as well as a team of
enforcement officers, all with actions related to fly tipping.
It includes the likes of Lorinda Frond, who many of you will know, and the economic development
team.
They work closely together, Sharon Wright and Lorinda's team, in respect of commercial
waste issues.
It includes our housing colleagues and in particular the likes of Tom Crawley because
we want this to be a seamless phase two action plan that treats the whole borough equally,
no boundaries.
It also includes a central support team, critically there to provide my team with support in terms
of paperwork but also to provide those links to data that ensure our actions are focused
in the right places.
and that team has basically pulled together,
as Councillor Gass has hinted at,
a basket of measures.
We're trying to deliver them at pace.
It's much like the administration's ambition.
We're, they're not all fully developed,
as each individual actually is not entirely
fully developed yet.
There are a range of different stages of development,
And I'll come on to a couple of examples of that in a moment.
But we do want to get on with the actions ahead of what is a late November Environment
Committee because of that desire for pace.
So hence we've come to you for an envelope, really a budget envelope.
That said, of course, it's not an envelope against nothing.
The basket of measures includes the following.
Additional enforcement officers, probably three.
Probably enforcement officers, specialists in waste,
rather than the more generic enforcement officers
we have that have skills that include abandoned vehicles,
potholes, and like these would be officers almost certainly
dedicated to waste enforcement.
We're looking at additional frequency of collections
for a waste, particularly above flats in high -footfall areas, particularly in parts of our shopping
parades.
That's a good example of an option that needs finessing, because we need to carefully work
out how many additional collections make sense, which exactly are the parades that we provide
that additional collection at.
is it, do we introduce new collections
and some parades that currently haven't been handled
as being additional high footfall parades,
then maybe some parades come into that category now.
We're looking at, in specific areas,
additional street cleansing frequency through continental.
Again, a complicated piece of work really needed there
to ensure we do that in the right places
where the extra frequency will have most impact.
We're looking at jet washing.
At the moment we do have a jet washing service,
but across two days a week,
and mainly for the likes of infrastructure like bridges.
We're looking to probably increase that jet washing
to five days a week using those extra three days
for high foot fall areas again.
We're looking at extra lid events,
both in town centres on the riverside, the servicing of those bins is expensive.
We're looking at aligning our street litter collection precisely on the same day thereafter,
the actual residual and recycling collections. So, circa going first, same day, our idea
would be consent to follow.
That's not the case at the moment,
and that needs good planning,
but that's one of our thoughts.
Also, partly related to the need to embed
the major changes we put in place in June,
we do want additional contract monitoring offices
for both CERCO and Continental as well,
but that's looking at the additional contract monitoring
going forward as well as embedding what we've got.
We're also looking at probably working title, some kind of fly tip hit squad.
We do our cage vehicles collecting fly tips quickly, but we want to do it even more quickly.
Well, we think quickly we want to do it even more quickly.
We want to do it with fewer questions asked.
At the moment, we have quite a degree of thought on a lot of fly tip sites,
particularly where it straddles the public realm,
isn't necessarily the council's ownership,
we do go through quite a process of considering,
is it ours, isn't it ours, is that Ali,
is that private Ali?
We want to use that hit score to just go in
without questions asked and get the questions
answered later, that kind of thought.
And probably, finally, as an example,
we, well, related to all of this,
we think we need some extra good comms, plans in a range of different ways for what we're doing
to make clear to our residents and our businesses what our plans are and how they can support us in delivering those plans.
So I hope that's useful.
Thank you Councillor Gasser, thank you Mr Chadwick.
OK now questions from the team.
Okay, starting with Councillor Richard Jones.
Thank you, Chair.
And Councillor Gasser, thank you for coming and presenting your paper tonight.
I know it's a bit late and it's an unusual committee, so we are very grateful.
I think we're four months now into the new waste service contract.
There have been teething problems and there have also been problems that we would argue probably go beyond teething problems.
At the same time, it has been a bit of a mixed picture across the borough, I would say.
Some streets in my ward haven't seen any change in the quality of service.
Others have seen a big decrease in the quality of service.
So can I ask you, how would you think the service is going?
And on a scale of zero to ten, where zero is abominable, ten is the perfect service,
what number would you give the service at the moment?
I'll probably give it 8 out of 10, 9 out of 10 because actually you, well I'm not,
it's not perfect, absolutely not perfect, I know we are getting problems still but
we are picking up from 67 ,000 households every week, it's a lot and we're getting a few
hundred complaints and that's a few hundred too many, it absolutely is, absolutely is,
but on the whole it's going really well but for each and every resident that doesn't
get their rubbish picked up, it's incredibly annoying.
I know that, and that is partly what this paper is about,
is how do we really bear down
and just sort out every single problem?
We need this to be much, we need it to,
I'm not gonna say perfect, that would be stupid thing to do,
we need it to be the best it could possibly be.
Councilor Worrell.
Thank you for that, and thank you for the explanation
and the various actions taking place.
I just want to go, in terms of the paper,
to page 78 and a paragraph for around fly tipping.
As everybody knows, fly tipping is a scourge
of every council, not only Wandsworth.
And it's an ongoing problem.
A lot of the work that's being done
is almost like a cleanup process after people.
And I take on board what you're saying
about how we educate our public about refuse disposal
and everything else.
I was just wondering though, with every intervention that
happens to actually improve the service,
there has to be some sort of compliance process attached
to it, so when people actually deliberately fly tip,
or know that the collection of so and so
and they leave the rubbish out.
And I was just wondering, in terms of your fly tipping
at the moment. Could you be able to tell me how many people have actually been prosecuted
or how many enforcement notices have been actually issued? Because I think this goes
hand in hand. People need to also see that we are taking action against those people
who deliberately dump on our streets and make our lives hell in terms of flights taking
around the borough.
I've got figures for enforcement actions.
So in the last 23, 24 we took 5 ,502 enforcement actions.
I mean that's a lot.
That's a lot.
So that's PCNs and penalty charges notices and fixed penalty notices.
And the fines, we've recently increased the fines actually.
So if you get caught now, flight is being 1 ,000 pounds, 500 if you pay early.
So that's a lot of money, so that should be a deterrent.
In quarter one of this year, we've done 1 ,582 enforcement actions.
So we're on it, we've got officers.
But if we can have some more officers, which is what we're requesting, there'll be more enforcement actions.
So to reiterate on that last point, so we are planning three further enforcement officers dedicated to waste,
specialists in waste enforcement. They'll require training and hopefully we'll actually recruit experienced officers in this respect.
I stress that because they are, you know, it is quite a skill. It's a different skill to issuing, you know,
dealing with an abandoned vehicle in the sense that you know you've got to get
the right balance. Often you have to be hard and issue that FPM but
sometimes you just have to get the right, for example with restaurants and in some
cases you just got to have a bit more understanding of the particular issues
for that restaurant, flex to suit and then issue an FPM if later they don't
adapt to what we want so just stress it specialist waste enforcement officers
that is our outline plan here. Okay thank you Councillor Warr. Hang on I've got let me
tell you who I've got in what order and then you can all understand that. I've
got Councillor Hedges, Councillor Lawless, Councillor Fraser, Councillor
Ambash and then Councillor Cornish. So I've got you sorry I Councillor Graham I
I thought you were just waggling your pencil about.
Right, oh, Councillor Hedges.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Councillor Gasser and Mr Chadwick.
I just wanted to say, I spent my summer dealing with
an influx of emails from residents in Ballum.
I just want to read just a couple of very small quotes
to you so you can understand my pain throughout the summer.
From June, so basically from June onwards,
since the failed food waste roll out,
I like many other councillors were inundated
with complaints from residents, certainly in Ballum,
about the missed bin collections,
failure to collect the food waste,
and also no recycling bags.
That's why I found it very strange
that you said we're increasing more recycling.
To quote a resident on Lakewood Road,
can you please help?
Our bins haven't been collected for two weeks
going on three. I phoned and emailed but so far no success. A resident on Ramsden Road,
can you please help with this madness, with this rubbish collection? Our bins haven't
been collected for two weeks. It's been reported on the phone and online but waste management
don't have a clue. I spoke to someone today and his response was he wasn't briefed on
the three collection crews. And then finally, resident on Calborne Road. Each and every
There were bags of uncollected recycling waste littering our streets for days after scheduled collection day
I counted over 30 bags of uncollected waste on our street alone last Sunday
Two days after they had been collected again. This is a health hazard is
Unsightly and presents a trip hazard by blocking all the pavements and parking spaces. I mean with all the going with it
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. I'm just about to sum up
So, you know, I find it very difficult that you're now wanting to justify the second phase
after the first phase has been shambolic, to be fair.
And thank you for ruining my summer.
Actually, sorry, excuse me, I'd just like to interject.
I am also a Balaam resident.
I hate to say this, but my food waste has been collected properly, my bins have been
corrected properly. I do and ever since it started so I do suggest that there is
a variation in what residents are achieving and one of my friends is just
absolutely excited by it because she's going oh my that bins way less now
because it's in the food waste. The library haven't had recycling bags for
a for weeks and weeks as well so it's not just that it's just the whole the
whole waste collection service. I would just say is I think maybe we should think about as one of your
residents it's been a very different experience for me.
Councillor Chadwick.
So yeah I mean we recognize those stories and and we understand you know
realities that I've seen some of that on the ground myself across the summer
walkabouts, including around the bollam and tooting area.
The reality though is that in early June,
we introduced the most significant change ever
to the waste and recycling service for once.
Probably one of the biggest service changes
across London ever.
And those kinds of changes do take time to embed.
The industry norm for any major change,
the waste industry norm for any major change
is it needs at least three months to settle in.
Actually, I can stretch it a little,
it's probably about three months to settle in.
We're beyond those three months and things are improving.
Mis -collections are improving.
The knowledge base of the crews
who've got new vehicles and new routes,
the use of the IT, new IT by those crews, is improving.
So, week by week by week, through, I'd say, strong contract management by circuit offices
themselves, supported by my contract managers and heads of service and director, it is getting
better.
But it still isn't perfect.
We get that.
Miscollection rates, for example, are still not at the levels of last year and the year
before.
But we are getting there.
I can't stress any more really the reality of the huge change we put in place.
A change that is in a wider strategic sense in terms of our recycling rates etcetera,
markedly or already markedly improving our position within London in terms of performance
in this respect.
Thank you.
Councillor Lawless.
Thank you Chair.
Yeah, very interesting hearing the comments opposite,
and as if time started like three or four months ago,
we will all remember over the last sort of 10, 15 years
that I've known Tooting and the wider area
that our streets have been filthy for a very long time.
And the previous administration refused
on many, many occasions to do anything about it.
the local MP and the local Councillor of some of my predecessors had tidy up
had tidy up to T1
Sorry, Councillor Graham
On a point of order this is a very serious point
Sorry, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me
It's on record, it's on record
Excuse me, Councillor Graham, excuse me, right
I continue, Chair.
Are you going to uphold our standing orders and the law?
What standing order are you referring to?
No, standing order number, please.
We have to ensure that our proceedings are lawful and that interests are declared.
That is part of the standing orders.
That is why we had at the beginning, Councillor Lawless has a disposable pecuniary interest
in relation to the Member of Parliament for Tooting.
He cannot mention it and if that is under discussion, he must leave the room and that is the law
right
Okay
Could you explain what you think the interest is please other than the fact he's a local
Councillor and he lives there and why this would be relevant councilor lawless is
by the member
Disclosed for opportunity interest if you have a DPI you cannot be in the room when the anything to do with that DPI is under discussion
If the Member of Parliament is under discussion in this room, he must leave it.
Let alone not...
It's going worse, he's raising it.
Right.
Councillor Graham.
Let's try and take this slightly calmly. I don't quite see where it's going.
I'm just going to take advice from my committee clerk. Please. Thank you.
This would be a recommendation for a recommendation.
I don't think it is. What was the recommendation?
I have been advised that what I need to know is what you think the link is between the
recommendations and the fact that Councillor Law was employed by the...
He raised the opinions and approach of the local MPs. Is it the DPI?
I think... I don't think so. I think any one of us could
have done that. We're not employed by that MP. That is the
point. I don't know what the relevance is to the
recommendations but for safety you could say you just didn't discuss it and then...
Right. ... considering this might directly include
I don't think it has anything to do with paper.
OK.
You need to get this new word out.
So what was said?
Sorry.
Thank you.
One moment, please.
of senate secretary of State
Okay, brilliant. Right, thank you very much. Okay, I've taken advice. Okay, the advice
is this, a pecuniary interest must be in relation to the information in the paper. For ease,
I think it would be better to leave the MP out of the discussion, but I don't see a direct
link between Councillor Lawless' employment and the recommendations. So, Councillor Lawless,
Obviously, I appreciate that, and as I, as another Tooting Councillor know, and I can
comment that this is something that the MP has raised, if you could confine your remarks
to your role as a Councillor and not what the MP might want to have thought.
Perfect, sure.
Thank you.
So the local Labour team, including Councillors that I currently serve with and my predecessors,
have previously launched Tidyup 2T1, Tidyup 2T2,
and Tidyup 2T3, where we submitted petitions and responses
from hundreds of local residents to the council.
And I appreciate its unnerving listening
for some councils opposite,
which is why they choose to walk away from the table.
But some of the things we have raised previously
are unsightly fly tips that weren't dealt with.
We raised issues of enforcement officers, which we know because we spoke to them under
the last administration.
Instead of actually going out and trying to tackle some of the problems, what the last
administration did was remove all the bins outside Tuting Broadway Station and get some
people standing there to issue on -the -spot littering fines when actually, and actually
you could take proper action.
So I'm pleased to see the new enforcement officers come in.
Can Councillor Gathorn, Mr Chadwick, tell us what improvements Tooting residents will see in coming months from this plan?
Thank you.
Well, as I say, we've not refined the, you know, we haven't got a precise, refined plan as yet.
but I would expect your residents to see
additional street cleaning frequency in places.
I'd expect them to see that street cleaning
following the Serco waste recycle collection
at some point in the next few months.
I'd expect there to be in some parts of your ward,
there to be extra litter bins
and extra frequency of collection from those litter bins.
I'd certainly expect elements of the high street to have jet washing.
I'm very certain that large stretches of the high street,
because they have flats above the shops, we know,
we've experienced on the ground the views of those residents who are only getting
a single collection of their residual of wheat, that that just isn't enough.
They are dealing without gardens, with smelly waste in essence.
Remember they at the moment don't have food waste collection.
It's low rise only at this stage.
So I'd expect there to be for large parts of the property,
be on your ward, there's an additional frequency,
perhaps moving to twice a week, maybe even three times a week,
residual and recycled collection above shops
for large parts of the high street.
Well we're missed, Councillor.
I might have missed something, I don't know.
Yeah, actually, one I didn't mention earlier,
and I should, is we're looking at a plan
to invest more in our bulky waste collection service.
So starting with Saturday slots
that don't exist at the moment and we're looking in longer term to expand that to being perhaps,
you know, as an example, a certain number of free collections per year for all residents
with a high number of free collections for those who've got access for all criteria matched.
Those are the kinds of things I think I'd expect your residents to see the benefit of
over the next few weeks and months.
Thank you.
Councillor Fraser.
Thank you, and thank you for that update.
I think my first point actually relates back and probably learning some lessons from history as well,
and actually something Mrs Olson was talking about earlier about our first interactions with the council.
When I was first standing to be a councillor, I was looking back at some of my social media,
just checking it was all okay in case anybody decided to delve into it to see what I'd said previously.
and actually my first interactions with the council,
yeah, no one would do that,
was actually in 2010, I probably sent something
that I might, you know, a slightly passive -aggressive message
to say I couldn't get recycling bags
from the library in Ballum, and that was in 2010.
So, you know, these issues aren't new.
And I just wanted to thank Councillor Gasser
and Mr. Chadwick for the update tonight,
and also for their working, you know,
responding to the need in our borough.
Yes, there have been problems, but they've responded to it.
When I raised them, they've looked into them.
And also, they've looked at innovation.
So in my ward, that has some of those flats above shops,
looking at extra bins that they can put in on the side roads
to try and reduce that.
And so I thank them for that.
And also that increased collaboration
between housing and environment,
where we've got some of the mega skips now,
and Sharon Wright and her team,
always smiling and happy when I go down
and go down to the mega skip occasionally.
But so I just want to say, on that point of collaboration,
I know that there have been some pilots on housing estates.
Are they looking to be more of that work
in responding to, you touched on kind of lessening
that divide between what goes on in a housing estate
and what goes on in a road, perhaps.
Is that something that you're gonna be looking
to do more of?
I'll start on that.
So yes, absolutely.
So we did a trial on the William Williston estate,
so we've learned what works and what doesn't,
what interventions.
That will now, those interventions will be rolled out
on other estates.
There's 10 key priority estates.
Don't ask me what they all are.
I know one of them's a Donington.
So absolutely, we will be doing that and learning.
It's not going to be the same fix on every estate,
but absolutely, yes.
And then when Mr. Chadwick spoke about
the no questions asked, we want to call it
picking up fly tips.
So up until now, there's been a divide
between ECS pick up some,
then the housing contractor pick up some.
We're just going to have a contractor
that will pick up any fly tip anywhere
So we don't have to always a jeebajee about whose responsibility is it's everybody's responsibility. We'll go and pick it up
So you'll see all of that more mega skips on the estates with more bin housing new bins
All of that food waste will be introduced
So yeah, I would love to love these states to get exactly the same services the streets
Of course, they should have every residence is a sat
Okay. Thank you now online counselor ambush. Hopefully he still were
Thank you, Councillor Gasser and Mr Chadwick for bringing this report and I support the
plans at stage 2 to deal with the cleaner borough and I'm pleased that you've done it
not in the usual way because it's a matter of some urgency to deal with some of the teething
problems over recent months, including in my ward. Just what got a suggestion really
to do with the section to do with communications, paragraph 12. It seems to me it's really important
when there are problems like missed collections that Mr Chadwick knows very quickly exactly
where they are. Now, certain residents are very good at getting on the council website
and reporting it through that electronic means, but there are residents who aren't really
familiar with doing that and don't necessarily use electronic communication. So will it be
possible for residents to report any problems and mis -collections both by telephone or direct
by email so that those things are picked up promptly? Thank you very much.
Just to stress that yeah absolutely we're keeping all those channels open. Yeah absolutely.
Thank you. Councillor Corner.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the paper. I really appreciate the intent set out within
it. I know residents I represent in Nine Elms will particularly welcome the new bins and
the commitment for the new bins and the new street cleaning, particularly on Riverside
Walk where a petition was presented at the last council about an area of the borough
which is really important for making the borough really kind of welcoming as it's a key artery
into the borough. And of course on Sleaford Street where there's been currently a failure
to clean the street adequately but better and more regular street cleaning there would be helpful and
councillors opposite will not be able to say these issues have always existed because of
course residents have only lived on Sleaford Street for the last couple of years.
On the subject of mega skips, I particularly welcome the fact that they're not being branded as mega skips days, as they always lasted only a couple of hours from my...
Councillor Corner, I'm waiting for you to get to your question.
...and that those of residents who'd reported to me...
Because some of these things obviously we, I've had raised that before.
Could I just, my question is,
could Councillor Gasser and Mr. Chadwick
confirm that they recognize the issue
that some of the mega skips
have triggered their own fly tipping,
both when residents turn up early
and dump their items on the road perhaps the day before,
and after the mega skip is full and has departed,
there's then fly tipping left there
because residents think that
because they've received a leaflet saying
there was a mega skip there,
where it's okay to leave loads of rubbish
and fly tipping in that space.
And can you commit to tackling that problem at source?
Yeah, absolutely, that has happened.
And we've had to have cameras in some spots
where we know that that happens.
Yeah, so absolutely, we're on it.
Thank you.
I think it's a very good point.
I think part of our plan for the additional capacity
for clearing fly tips wherever in the borough
that kind of hit squad that I mentioned
should probably be to ensure that those vehicles, those crews, extend into the weekend and are focused on megascapes of the weekend.
That's not necessarily part of our current thinking, but I'll add it in.
Thank you.
Councillor Cassell would agree.
Councillors, I'm just going to warn you, this is getting quite late, far later than I would have wished.
I'm going to take, I've got four questions left and that then we'll sum up.
Okay, and it was Councillor Richard Jones who actually has been waiting for his.
And can we focus on the question and the comment please?
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks chair. I've got just one very quick bit of feedback on the current
waste contract and then two questions on the phase two and I'll keep it as quick as I can.
On the liners for the caddies, obviously they're biodegradable and that's fantastic.
At the moment they're a bit too biodegradable.
I find that when I line it at the start of the week and then put my teabags in and everything
else, but I'll pick it out.
It disintegrates in my hand.
So perhaps just shop around for a different product, but obviously it needs to be bi -gradable.
On some of the things that Mr. Chadwick has outlined, firstly the commitment to more nimble
deployment of CCTV in flight of the hotspots, thank you so much.
You can't seem to get a mobile CCTV camera for love nor money, you know, in recent years.
And there's a site in my ward of persistent fly tipping.
There's actually one a day.
And so it's great to see that, you know, that there may be some movement on that.
On the really tantalizing detail about the no questions asked removal of fly tipping
in those ambiguous areas where is it public land, is it private land, I mean, this will
as music to ears of most on this committee,
but I am really curious as to how this will actually
work in practice because I've worked with officers
for years and years over this,
and the way I understand the problem is this.
If it's abandoned on public land,
then it's essentially the property of the council,
and that's how the council legally clears it.
It's on private land.
It's presumptively the property of the landowner.
So the risk the council has in not asking questions
and clearing it is actually the council is committing theft.
And there's a huge liability to the council there.
So that's always the circle we couldn't square.
And it might be, actually, Mr. Chadrick,
that what you're saying is, you know what, actually,
my team is just going to take a different approach to risk now.
Actually, this is a, this is a, I will promise.
No, but you might say, look, this is just
a change in risk appetite.
That this is an eyesore, this is a problem.
We're just going to clear it.
And if somebody cared about it, it
would have come forward already.
but that does represent a risk to the council.
So just some insight into how you have perhaps managed
to square that circle, which has defeated so many officers
and members before you.
Well again, we haven't landed the detail
nor the detailed process, but you've nailed it really
by saying it's a different appetite to risk.
Our experience on the occasion we do have that,
so a greater appetite for risk, is that usually it is
related to a landowner who doesn't care.
And actually the bigger issue is about,
the bigger risk is in our not being able to recoup
our costs for that removal.
You know, our plan would still be to have a follow -up
process, but you know, get in there and get the physical
issue removed.
Still have a follow -up process in those cases.
We'd still be pursuing, we're relevant, the landowner.
But it does reduce our chance,
I think you recognize this,
probably that we take that proactive action,
reduces our chance of recovery.
And I think that's just something we're prepared to risk.
I would stress this is one of those areas though
where this is definitely sort of pose and review,
sorry, trial and review, trial, review, trial, review.
It's exactly that kind of point where we feel,
what is why we've, at this moment,
we are thinking in our kind of broad framework
about this being a six month trial and see.
and we'll test that exactly as can be.
But you've hit the nail on the head.
We will have a different appetite to risk
and see how that goes in effect.
I am very conscious that we are approaching 1030
and it would be good to finish.
As quickly as you can please, Councillor Graham.
Thank you.
So Mr Chadwick described this as what happened in summer,
as one of the most significant changes across London ever,
and I would agree to that,
that there's a fundamental change to the basis of the contract.
But that makes it all the more problematic that it was on a contract extension to a contract
extension with no retendering.
We expressed our concern at the time about that, and I think that that concern has been
partly borne out by the problems we have experienced.
I want to raise two questions, and I'll try to be brief, about the inadequacies in this
paper, and we did try to resolve them before the meeting.
The first is that there's simply no breakdown of what, when you include the saving as well
as the additional revenue, is effectively 2 and 1
half million pounds worth of spend.
Now, as Chadwick mentioned, there
will be threats to enforcement officers.
That's not in the paper.
It's simply not broken down.
It's wholly inadequate as a basis for the executive
to authorize spending on that level
when it has not been broken down, not been itemized,
not even been finalized, as we understand it.
And I would like to know what proportion of that spend
is effectively to remedy problems with the contract that were not picked up when it was issued.
The second part of my question is again something we raised, that the council continues to use figures for food waste,
like over 500 tons of food waste have been recycled.
What I say for three to four months, on the equivalent basis,
based on the number of households in Merton where they have a food waste service,
you'd expect it to be well over 2 ,000 tons, if not 3 ,000.
It is simply inappropriate to view...
Councillor Graham, have we got the questions?
I guess your questions are about the funding.
Yes, but where is the benchmarking about what the council regards as tonnage per household,
what percentage of households do it actually collect from, how this is being measured...
Thank you.
Can we ask the questions?
I think I grasped the question quite early on.
Sorry, Mr Chadwick and Councillor Gassell, whichever of you would choose to...
I'll try my best to start.
I think that these new measures do not add up to $2 .5 million.
The set of new measures adds up to the figure
in the report of an ongoing revenue commitment of approximately
$1 .2 million with one -off revenue of something like 200 -odd thousand
pounds and with capital one -off costs, particularly around probable new bins of one type or another
around 120 ,000. So this set of new phase two measures is not the two and a half million.
Just on that point of change, it's explained in paragraph 16 it says the production costs
of 1 .2 million animals have been reinvested.
Now if 1 .2 million has been reinvested plus a third of the investment, 1 .2 million, it's
one report.
I'm stressing that this report is about phase two measures.
All that list I gave you earlier essentially was about the new measure.
does not add up to 2 .5, this set of measures before you adds up to ongoing revenue commitment
of 1 .2 with a higher commitment in this year.
The second point was, sorry I lost my page.
The consequence of the first question was to what extent is it mitigated, given the
extent of what it's on, like for example mitigating the problem in the contract?
So thank you, yeah.
So a second part of the question about benchmarking and why are we using a wartime figure rather
than a benchmarking, what would suit the importance of policy?
So thank you.
So that of these new measures, a relatively low small proportion relates to further work
on embedding the major changes put in place in June.
I've mentioned contract monitoring offices.
Our view at this stage is that we will need three contract monitoring offices, but that's
not just about embedding the changes.
It's about ongoing what we need anyway for delivering a cleanup or a plan phase two as
well as phase one.
So that, I think, is about the only element of these proposals that relates to the embedding.
Of course, the embedding is predominantly about getting our contractor circle to do
what they're contracted to do via our measures that we've already got in place, regular update
meetings, regular pressure on them, regular joint inspections with crews, that kind of
thing is already going on.
So to a great extent, the embedding of the change that was already put in place is rightly
already in train through existing resource.
Sorry, Councillor Gesser, what's the...
I didn't have anything on the bench -
Councillor Graham, if you weren't able to make it clear, did you want to say anything?
So the last point, clearly we have KPIs for the services being delivered through phase
one.
The reality is the way we see the projections coming forward in the next full review of those KPIs,
is there a very significant increase in the right way on each measure?
Okay, thank you very much.
Councillor Lee, you had a question?
I think Councillor Gasser is actually trying to be helpful.
Oh, sorry, excuse me. I do apologise.
Councillor Gasser.
I'm trying to be helpful. I might have to defer to Councillor Ireland there,
But you, Councilor Graham, you were asking about the 1 .2 million of savings.
So my understanding, although the finance people may have to correct me, we are projecting 1 .2 million of savings.
However, those have already been absorbed, if you like,
because the finance team took them off our base budget, am I right?
So about 700 was taken off the base budget because we projected that.
And then, so we're actually going to save some more, another 500 ,000,
which we have already invested back in because actually this service has been
successful. We've had to put on two extra rounds, one of food waste, one of
recycling waste, so that's that's how the 1 .2 that you're alluding to has been
spent already and I know you have all these comments but actually this is a
success so far. We've got pockets of improvement needed but on the whole our
recycling rate has gone from an appalling 22 % which you left us with to
approximately 28 % now with this new service that's a remarkable achievement
that's why we're doing it because we're doing the right thing and then that
saves money.
Could you just give us an idea of what tonnage for household rate would be a successful service?
Sorry, excuse me, Councillor Graham, somebody has had a question.
It is fair that all the members of the committee have some. Councillor Lee and
then I think I've got to bring the guillotine down.
right
?
I can do the
that now.
sci tra
and this is one
.
You mentioned
Council
Gasser and Mr Chadwick about
including more mega skips on
estates, can you please confirm
that the lock and bar estate
will be included in that
because fly tipping, there are
quite a few big hot spots
there, like virtually every
day.
And then also in
paragraph 19, you mentioned
that mega skips contributed
to 16 per cent reduction in
fly tipping.
Since your
administration.
Could you please
provide me with some more
I'm going to ask you to put in some breakdown figures for Ballum, because I can tell you that fly tipping hasn't got any better.
In fact, it's got worse. Thank you.
Lockingvile, we'll ask that to go on the list.
Sorry, Councillor Ireland, you need to put your microphone on, please.
I'm just trying to be helpful. Saturday 16th of November.
Did you have any...
Yeah, on the breakdown, Councillor Richard -Jones asked for a breakdown at the last committee,
I seem to recall.
Yes, that was correct.
And I kind of said to Councillor Richard -Jones, I think we can get that, I was slightly hesitant,
and we have been struggling to get a ward breakdown.
What we have got is a kind of area breakdown, that is the way the teams work, that kind
Straddles Ward, so I can get you that breakdown which would give you a general idea of the
number of instances, but it isn't exactly ward by ward.
What was the balance?
Sorry?
What was the balance?
I think, sorry, Councillor Hages, I think maybe we should take it, yeah, I mean, because
Mr Chadwick did say at the last meeting that he would look into this, so perhaps we could
We also have an update on what you have discovered and how that goes coming to the committee.
Thank you.
Okay.
That was the last question I had on this.
I now like us to have a long discussion to move to the vote on the paper, which is we
are being asked to...
Can I just preface this, Councillor Critchard, by commenting, which normally is allowed for
the opposition to explain why they're going to vote the way they're going to vote.
Can I first suggest we move to the vote, then you can comment on what you might wish or
might not wish to do.
Do that before the vote, obviously.
We can't do it after the vote.
Right, okay.
Let's, yeah, but I haven't said what the recommendations are, okay?
Is that a fair point?
Yeah, that's fine.
Is that understood?
Did you understand?
Good.
Okay, so what we've been asked to do is note the next phase of the cleaner
borough plan and the four pillars within it, agree a positive
general fund capital variation of 120 ,000 for this year and agree a
revenue budget of 1 .5 million this year and 1 .2 million next year. Okay, do you
want a very quick explain? I gather you're obviously not going to vote for this
So just at the point, it may well be that the things that could be covered by this revenue
variation are things that we would support.
But the paper doesn't even explain, although I know it's on communal bins apparently because
of the pre -meet, what the 120 ,000 on capital is, let alone the rest of the money.
We can't just write blank checks here.
I'm surprised the executive is willing to do so.
but it's just an utterly inadequate basis for a decision to have a report that gives no breakdown, no itemization whatsoever.
Thank you for your views, Councillor Lawless.
OK, thank you very much. Let's move to the vote.
All those in favour of the recommendations in this paper, please raise their hands.
Thank you. All those against the recommendations in this paper.
Please raise your hands. None. OK.
All those abstaining.
Thank you very much, councillors.
OK, so that's passed.
OK, right, excuse me.
Right, OK. So after sitting for three hours, including any period of time
the meetings may have adjourned from the time of commencement,
I'm going to dispute, right, sorry, excuse me, let me find this.
We are going to continue our debate because we finished it.
We will then vote without debate on the remaining items for
recommendation and any proposed amendments.

8 Budget Variations (Paper No. 24-285)

And if either relevant direction of the section 151 office, head of paid service,
or monitoring office, or their representatives,
are of the view that the committee must receive the advice before the committee
votes they may address the committee with the chair's permission. Members may
ask questions for clarification only on advice given by officers but not
debated. Any other matters will be formally noted. We have now moved to
final item which is the budget variation.
Excuse me. That is paper 24285 and I gather there is amendment to this paper which was
about the variation in, sorry, excuse me, to me it is a paper.
Should I read it for the benefit of those listening?
It was about the general agreeing the change was except for the variations under the revision
to the arrangements with enable and leisure and culture.
Okay, all those in favour of the amendment please raise your hands. All those against
the amendment please raise their hands. No, you're not allowed to vote, cabinet members.
Okay, so that means we move to the substantive measure which is to agree the budget variations
that are covered in this paper. All those in favour of the budget variation...
Oh, do you want to take it separately?
OK. All those in favour of the budget variations detailed in this paper, please raise their
hands. OK. All those against?
I'm very happy to have a sort of slightly varied vote, Councillor Richard Jones. I mean,
I don't know if your team will follow your lead. Okay all those against, all
those abstaining. Thank you very much. Okay that ends the meeting. Thank you
Councillors, thank you officers. It was I was taking