Agenda and minutes

1.1  No apologies for absence from members of the commission.

1.2  Apologies for lateness from Cllr Wrout.

1.3  Officer apologies from Joycelyn Dankwa from Shepherd Fold Ministry

1.4  Virtually in attendance was Cllr Mete Coban Cabinet Member for Climate Change, Environment and Transport, Sam Kirk, Head of Sustainability & Environment and Matthew Carrington, Strategic Corporate Lead Climate Emergency.

2.1  No urgent items or order of business.

3.1  In respect of item 4 on the agenda Cllr Walker declared he is employed in the voluntary and community sector (VCS).  He is Interim Director for Clapton Common VCS organisation in Hackney.  This organisation has received a grant from Hackney’s infrastructure grant program.

3.2  Councillor Potter declared she was recently employed by Hackney Nights a VCS night shelter organisation.  This organisation received funding from Hackney Council.

4.1  The Chair introduced this item and outlined the purpose of the item.

4.2  The Commission is looking at the Council’s work, to reshape its working relationship with the voluntary sector to understand how it has built on the learning from partnerships in the pandemic and how this new way of working will support delivery of the council’s Strategic Plan.

4.3  The information will cover the Council’s Voluntary Community Sector Strategy; the learning from the pandemic and how the council is working in a relational collaborative whole system way.  The council will also outline how this way of working will support the delivery of the Council’s Corporate Strategic Plan.  The presentation will also cover the opportunities and challenges to fully adopting this way of working across the council and by partner organisations.

4.4  To contribute to this discussion the Commission asked HCVS (Hackney’s umbrella organisation for the voluntary sector in Hackney) and two voluntary sector partners to outline their experiences of this new way of working.

4.5  The Commission asked HCVS and the voluntary sector organisations to consider the impact this would have on the commissioning of services, grant funding and how the new way of working would benefit VCS organisations.

4.6  The Chair explained that the aim of this item was to explore if this new way of working would lead to better outcomes for VCS organisations and residents accessing services in comparison to the traditional methods of funding and commissioning for VCS organisations.

4.7  The Chair reminded all meeting attendees that the current landscape not only follows the pandemic but also 13 years of cuts to resources and funding for the VCS and public sector.  As a result, this has led to needing to be extremely creative with significantly less money. 

4.8  The Chair welcomed to the meeting Claire Witney, Strategic Lead (Strategic Relationships) from London Borough of Hackney (LBH); Jessica Lubin Director of Health Transformation from HCVS and Euphemia Chukwu, Director from Woodberry Aid.

4.9  The Strategic Lead (Strategic Relationships) from LBH commenced her presentation and made the main points below.

4.9.1  Following the production of the VCS strategy (produced in 2017) the council identified it needed to do a lot of transformation work to work effectively with the VCS.  It became evident that they needed a different approach to the way they worked with the VCS.  They also assessed that this could mean changing the way the council operated as an organisation too.

4.9.2  In 2018 the council started working with their advice partners to try to move away from the traditional metrics of commissioning and outcome counting (previously they counted the number of people access the services, housing benefit, debt advice and debt recovery).  The aim of this review was to understand what mattered to the residents that accessed the advice service.  The officer pointed out the VCS advice service was often the first point of access for residents seeking support. 

4.9.3  From this work the council learnt that behind a debt issue was a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.1  The Chair introduced the item and outlined that many councils in London declared a climate emergency and Hackney Council made their declaration in June 2019.  Pledging to achieve net zero carbon by 2040.

5.1.1  In response to the climate emergency declarations local authorities have been developing Climate Action Plans (CAP) to take forward their work and achieve their net zero targets. 

5.1.2  Hackney Council consulted on their Climate Action Plan for 10 weeks from 1st November 2022 to 10th January 2023.  In developing the CAP the aim was to work with local residents to create a plan for Hackney borough.  This sets out what we all need to do together to make sure Hackney no longer contributes to climate change to build a greener healthier borough. 

5.1.3  Hackney’s CAP was developed not just for the Council but for residents, businesses, and local organisations to help guide collective response to climate change.

5.1.4  The purpose of this item is toreview of the Council’s engagement and consultation with local businesses in particular Hackney’s CAP and net zero targets.

5.1.5  The information we asked Hackney to cover is:

1.  The Council’s engagement and consultation with businesses during the CAP consultation period.

2.  Information about the economic implications of the CAP on local businesses and economic growth in Hackney.

5.2  The Chair welcomed to the meeting Cllr Mete Coban Cabinet Member for Climate Change, Environment and Transport (virtually in attendance); Cllr Guy Nicholson - Deputy Mayor & Cabinet Member for Delivery, Inclusive Economy & Regeneration; Rickardo Hyatt, Group Director Climate, Homes and Economy; Sam Kirk, Head of Sustainability & Environment (virtually in attendance); Michael Toyer, Economic Development Manager and Matthew Carrington, Strategic Corporate Lead Climate Emergency (virtually in attendance).

5.3  The Economic Development Manager commenced the presentation and made the main points outlined below.

5.3.1  The five themes in the CAP are:

·  Adaptation

·  Buildings

·  Transport

·  Consumption

·  Environmental quality.

These all apply to residents and businesses of various types, size, scale, location, sector etc.

5.3.2  The consultation for the CAP used the following communication channels for businesses. 

·  Hackney Business Network (4000 businesses) a circa of 25000 businesses in the borough. 

·  Hackney Business Network London page. 

·  Generated an email list of local organisations (from the data collated from the business grant programmes to avoid repetition with the HBN). 

5.3.3  They also used a selection of local organisations that either represented businesses or had business members.  The council asked these organisations to share via their networks.  These were:

·  Federation of Small Business,

·  EastEnd Trades Guild.

·  Hackney Co-operative Developments

·  Social Founders Network. 

5.3.4  Despite using these networks and the standard social media communication channels there was a low level of return from businesses.  The council was not surprised by this level of engagement from businesses.

5.3.5  Shortly after they distributed a business survey and received the standard level of business responses (1200).  For this survey they inserted some questions around climate action and perspectives to gain further insight from businesses.

5.3.6  The research showed very low awareness of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.1  The Chair explained that the minutes of the meeting held on 25^th April 2023 were marked as to follow.  The Chair informed the minutes were circulated to Members and tabled at the meeting tonight.  The Chair asked Members if they read the minutes.

6.2  Cllr Premru highlighted that her name was missing from the attendance list. 

6.3  Members agreed the minutes subject to the amendment noted in 6.2.

7.1  The Chair highlighted that the Overview and Scrutiny function conducts a public consultation at the start of the municipal year.  This public consultation closed on 22^nd June 2023.  The suggestions submitted by the public were collated into a report.  This report is included in the agenda.  The Chair pointed out the consultation received 92 responses this year.  The full report of suggestions are reported in the agenda on pages 63-82. 

7.2  The Chair informed the commission that all the suggestions related to SEG’s work programme were collated into a report and this was on pages 83-90 of the agenda.

7.3  The Chair asked Members for their final comments in relation to the work programme to create a final short list of Members suggestions before the items for the work programme were finalised.

7.4  The Chair pointed out the work programme document for SEG is a working document and will be updated regularly.

7.5  The Chair explained that following this meeting the Chair and Vice Chair will review the short list and make the final decision for the work programme items.

7.6  Cllr Symth referred to page 86 for transport and asked for the Cabinet Member’s report on LTNs to be shortlisted.

7.7  Cllr Potter referred 86 to the suggestions from the Cabinet Member for Employment, Human Resources and Equality and the Climate, Homes, Economy Directorate on pages 85 and asked for these to be shortlisted.

7.8  Cllr Narcross referred to the two suggestions related to planning and asked if they could be short listed.  He also asked for the corporate property item on page 84 to be short listed too.

7.9  Cllr Smyth referred to page 85 and asked for Hackney Light and Power to be shortlisted.

7.10  Cllr Walker referred to page 84 and asked to shortlist community assets and school closures linked to looking at civic hubs across the borough.

7.11  Cllr Potter referred to the suggestions by the Cabinet Members on pages 83-84 to look at the Levelling Up Fund and Town Centre Regeneration and asked for this to be shortlisted.

8.1  None.