Agenda and minutes

1.1  Apologies for absence from Councillor Will Brett, from the Governance and Resources Scrutiny Commission.

1.2  Apologies for absence from Cllrs: Ben Hayhurst, Rosemary Sales and Sharon Patrick from the Health in Hackney Scrutiny Commission.

1.3  Apologies for lateness from Cllr Laura Bunt.

1.4  Apologies for absence from guests and officers: Professor Tony Travers, London School of Economics and Political Science, Councillor Geoff Taylor, Cabinet Member Finance and Ian Williams, Corporate Director Finance and Resources from London Borough of Hackney (LBH).

2.1  The Commission was informed Cllr Rick Muir had resigned as Ward Councillor.  The Commission was informed the Vice Chair Cllr Rennison would chair the meeting.

2.2  The Commission noted their thanks to Cllr Muir for his dedication and hard work in his time as Ward Councillor and Chair of the Governance and Resources Scrutiny Commission.

3.1  None.

4.1  Minutes of the meeting held on 22^th February 2016 were agreed.

4.2  Matters Arising

4.2.1  Action page 10 - The Corporate Director Finance and Resources to provide an update on council tax collection figures to the Commission.

This is scheduled for update April 2016.

4.2.2  Action page 13 - The Corporate Director Finance and Resources to arrange for the Members of G&R to visit the new temporary accommodation used by the Council.

This is being arranged.

5.1  The Chair welcomed Ben Lucas from Metro Dynamics, Ed Hammond from Centre for Public Scrutiny and Jessica Studdert from New Local Government Network to the meeting. 

5.2  The Chair informed the meeting questions were submitted in advance to the speakers.  The Chair invited each guest to provide their opening statement in response to the questions.

·  What are the most promising areas for further devolution of budgets and powers from central government to London?

·  What areas of service/expenditure should be devolved and to what governance level within London?

·  How will the relationship between the GLA and the 32 boroughs need to be recalibrated in order to make devolved arrangements work?

·  Is there a need for more consistent arrangements to be agreed at the sub regional pan borough level in London?

·  How can we ensure that devolution is supported by strong governance and public participation?

5.3  Jessica Studdert, Deputy Director - New Local Government Networkopening statement.

5.3.1  Devolution is not an end process but rather should be viewed as a means to an end, with the aim of creating better value for the way resources are spent.

5.3.2  Devolution will help to create incentives around spend so it can aligned in a more appropriate way.

5.3.3  It was highlighted that public spend in London is in silos.  The question devolution asks is can London take this spend and use it in a different way to deliver a more effective impact for the local community.

5.3.4  The most promising areas for devolution are the areas where there is spend on quite complex need. Devolution asks if London can take that funding and spend it more effectively. 

5.3.5  Employment support was highlighted as an area whereby there is a lot of spend for very limited results.  For more complex problems that require support the question asked is can spend be devolved to enable services to be integrated services so that services do not work in a different way to each other but blend better together.

5.3.6  One of the key challenges cited by businesses is the skills shortage in London.  However, London has a large number of people unemployed.  Therefore the question is can London devolve spend so that it incentives providers to provide the skills provision that London actually needs.  Also can structures be devolved that will facilitate better discussion with employers to enable them to articulate more effectively the skills needed, to create an effective system that providers are also supported to feed in to.  The current funding system for skills does not work particularly well.  Can it be better aligned to produce better outcomes for skills?

5.3.7  Health spend is another key area.  In London there is a huge pressure on the NHS.  Currently the policy is to cut back on public health budgets, but this is not sensible because it can lead to more spend elsewhere within the system.  The principle behind the Manchester devolution on health spend is to create new structures and new accountability for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.1  The work programme for G&R on pages 27 – 33 of the agenda was noted for information.

7.1  None.