Agenda and minutes
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Contact: Tracey Anderson
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Apologies for Absence Minutes: 1.1 Apologies from Ian Williams, Group Director Finance and Corporate Resources.
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Urgent Items / Order of Business Minutes: 2.1 The Chair proposed an amendment to the order of business and advised the minutes would be taken at the end of the agenda.
2.2 The Chair informed the meeting a journalist was present and may or may not be recording the meeting. The Chair asked members of the public in observation to please take this into consideration if they wished to participate in the meeting.
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Declaration of Interest Minutes: 3.1 The Chair declared an interest in relation to item 7a. The Chair works at the Department of Works and Pensions and will not be in the room for this discussion item.
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Minutes of the Previous Meeting Additional documents: Minutes: 4.1 Minutes of the meeting held on 19th October 2019 were agreed.
Matters arising 4.2 The Group Director, Finance and Corporate Resources to include an update on the financial implications of the Council’s new Waste Strategy in the next finance update.
This action was missed off the list sent to the Group Director. The information request has been rolled over for inclusion in the next finance update.
4.3 The Head of Business Intelligence and Member Services to provide a breakdown of the following: (a) the percentage and number of complaints which relate to traffic schemes (b) for the most recent period, the number of complaints going to stage 2 which are then upheld (c) further detail on what additional compensation is being paid arising from Ombudsman complaints (d) further detail on why the number of days taken to resolve ASC complaints is high.
The update has been provided on pages 1-3 of the agenda.
4.4 Head of Procurement to provide examples of how they have worked in the last year with local SMEs to seek delivery of wider sustainability benefits particularly relating to contracts valued at less than £100k
4.5 Head of Procurement to share with the Panel Members the draft version of the guidance given to Heads of Service on examining the viability of in sourcing which they utilise when assessing contracts that are coming up for renewal within the next 2 years.
Information for the above 2 actions was circulated to Members on 22nd October 2019.
4.6 Head of Scrutiny and Ward Forums to collate a list of issues to be raised with the Director of Communications, Culture and Engagement at a future meeting.
This item has been scheduled for the next SP meeting.
4.7 Head of Scrutiny and Ward Forums to add to the work programme a briefing from Group Directors/Directors on how the learning from Complaints is cascaded down within the service area and used to help make service improvements.
Members to discuss and confirm the service areas they wish to receive as an update. This will be discussed under item 8.
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Mayor's Cabinet Question Time Minutes: 5.1 The Chair welcomed the Elected Mayor of Hackney, Mayor Phillip Glanville to the meeting.
5.2 The Cabinet Question Time with the Elected Mayor of Hackney covered the following areas: 1. Devolution and Policy – local government requests to the newly elected government formed in December 2019. 2. Brexit – The Council’s preparation for exit from the European Union 3. Climate change – the Council’s response to the climate emergency and how it is being co-ordinated and monitored 4. Organisational Development – Update on the Council’s work in response to the harassment and bully claims within the workforce.
5.3 In reference to the questions above the main points from Mayor Glanville’s opening statement were noted to be.
5.3.1 In relation Devolution and Policy this work covers an enhanced public affairs piece of work looking at the Queens speech and thinking about the impact the new legislative programme will have on the borough. The council identified 11 priority bills they will focus on such as EU withdrawal, building safety, fire safety, NHS funding, NHS long term plans, and Wind rush compensation and expenditure bills. This work is being led by the Mayor and Cabinet Office in the council conjunction with officers from across the council working in partnership with London Councils and Local Government Association.
5.3.2 The overarching priority is securing a funding settlements for local government. This follows local government experiencing a loss of approximately half of the local government grant income. Mayor Glanville highlighted this amounts to a £520 loss per Hackney resident. This is in addition to the costs pressures across the council s(social care, homelessness and no recourse to public funds) which exacerbate these challenges. The key priority for the Mayor is lobbying on these issues. The Council’s aim with its lobbying on the fairer funding review is to ensure they secure the best possible deal for Hackney.
5.3.3 Mayor Glanville pointed out the housing crisis was absent from the Queens speech. Local Government had hoped there might be some propose changes in relation to the type of home ownership but the housing crisis remains a key challenge for the council.
5.3.4 In relation to Hackney’s request to local government they are lobbying for investment in social and council housing. It was pointed out any reversion to that funding back into home ownership products would be a backward step. The Mayor of Hackney acknowledged the Mayor of London has secured some funding for councils and affordable housing and that the work to date was good.
5.3.5 Mayor Glanville highlighted specific local concerns in relation to the Government’s consultation on right to buy. The Council is fearful of any redefinition of affordable housing and the impacts. In regards to welfare reform there is concern about the LHA caps challenges and the private rented sector continues to pose challenges too. Although it was acknowledged there has been progress in this area in relation to the new renters’ rights bills on affordability and sustainability, Hackney’s view is these changes do ... view the full minutes text for item 5. |
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Single Equalities Scheme Update Additional documents:
Minutes: 6.1 The Chair welcomed to the meeting Cllr Carole Williams Cabinet Member for Employment, Skills and Human Resources and Sonia Khan Head of Policy and Strategic Delivery.
6.2 This is an update on the Single Equality Scheme for Hackney 2018 -2022 covering the priorities and progress of the scheme. The officer commended by providing some background information about the scheme and its development. The main points from the presentation were:
6.2.1 In terms of the Council’s response and its approach to promoting equalities. The officer advised they want to ensure equalities is embedded and delivered in all services and engages residents in a business as usual way.
6.2.2 The Council’s Single Equality Scheme does not articulate everything they would like partners or services need to do in relation to promoting equalities. For example this scheme would not outline the work schools need to do to ensure children have the best education. The scheme outlines how they wish to proactively tackle specific inequalities. From the Council’s assessment a main stream approach for all services would not be enough to shift the borough’s complex inequalities. This is because it may be that there are external factors and structural inequalities a group faces that leaves them more disadvantaged than others. Through this scheme the Council aims to proactively eliminate discrimination and disadvantage that may be faced by certain groups.
6.2.3 The scheme sets out the key objectives and associated actions they wish to take. It also shows how the Council meets the Equalities Act and its public sector equalities duties.
6.2.4 The scheme was developed drawing on the insight gathered from the Community Strategy and produced an equalities evidence base - this is publically available. This information was reviewed alongside other sources of information (resident insight, staff surveys, assessment on progress and scrutiny reviews).
6.2.5 The objectives in this scheme look at both work to tackle poverty and tackling discrimination and disadvantage linked to protected characteristics. This recognises socioeconomic disadvantage as a key driver. However, there are other drivers too and the scheme acknowledges the relationship between them. The third objective is about building a cohesive and inclusive borough.
6.2.6 The officer referenced the objectives in the scheme. There are 2 enabling objectives. a) Embedding prevention into service delivery - the Council has done a lot of work to trail preventative approaches. The Council has a body of work it can use to share across the council to look at how they tackle root causes. b) Promoting a culture of inclusive leadership and developing a more diverse workforce – this aims to have a more diverse workforce that thinks diversely in terms of inclusive leadership. A diverse workforce better represents the demographics of the borough and helps to address some of the inequalities.
6.2.7 The scheme has overarching measures of success that are being monitored for key inequalities and gaps. To ensure that inequalities in education, employment and health do not worsen and if possible are narrowed.
6.2.8 In reference to the resident’s ... view the full minutes text for item 6. |
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Quarterly Finance Update Additional documents:
Minutes: 1.1 The Chair welcomed to the meeting Cllr Rennison Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Finance, Housing Needs and Supply and Michael Honeysett, Director of Financial Management to the meeting.
1.2 The Chair referred to items 7a in the agenda and explained the Director of Financial Management in attendance was unable to provide any further update on the information provided in the agenda for Universal Credit (UC).
1.3 The Chair proposed they moved to item 7b and postponed item 7a until the next meeting.
1.4 Members agreed. The Chair will not leave the room for item 7a as this discussion was postponed.
1.5 The Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Finance, Housing Needs and Supply informed a drop in about UC will be running in the spring. This will provide an update on the position post the general election.
1.6 Member proceeded to item 7b finance update.
1.7 The Director of Financial Management referred to the report as set out in the agenda on pages 89-105. The officer advised the Overall Financial Position (OFP) report is as laid out and assumed read. The key points from the finance report highlighted to the Panel were:
1.7.1 The Council is forecasting an approximate £6 million overspend. The major contributors to the overspend are adults and children’s services in the areas previously discussed e.g. adult social care and for children SEND provisions etc.
1.7.2 The officer pointed out they are managing the overspend in a couple of ways. At the end of the year they use one off resources to apply to the overspend in addition to the planned reserves. To manage the budget deficit they set up planned reserves know to have budget pressures.
1.7.3 In relation to the financial settlement set out in the report this has been confirmed for 1 year and this funding is the dame as the current year.
1.7.4 The Council had forecast a £30 million deficit of which savings of £13 million have been found for the 2020/21 budget. The deficit has been pushed back by 1 year with the roll over financial settlement. The officer explained the council has acquired extra funding but that changes to funding formula have been delayed by 1 year. The Council is expecting the fairer funding review to come into effect for 2021/22 budget.
1.7.5 The main factors they are expecting to affect Hackney in the fairer funding review are: deprivation, area costs adjustments and population. For Hackney the council is expecting to lose funding in the areas of deprivation and cost adjustments.
1.7.6 In relation to the deprived areas they do not have the same deprived areas they had back in 2014/15. For area costs they are talking about including rurality and travel time. This will go against areas like Hackney.
1.7.7 The Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Finance, Housing Needs and Supply advised this is expected to ... view the full minutes text for item 7. |
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Work Programme 2019/20 Additional documents: Minutes: 8.1 The Chair introduced this item and asked for an update from the Head of Scrutiny and Ward Forums about the budget scrutiny task groups’ process for this area of work.
8.2 The Head of Scrutiny and Ward Forums explained the budget scrutiny task groups commenced in October 2018. The budget task groups were established as sub groups under the Scrutiny Panel and these have concluded and provided recommendations to the relevant Cabinet Member for the topic area reviewed.
8.2.1 The officer pointed out the majority of the task groups had to develop the area for review at the first session. In some cases this extended the number of meetings originally planned. The recommendations made were to feed into the budget decision for 2020/21-2021/22.Some saving proposals, if implemented, have moved to the relevant scrutiny commission for monitoring and update if required.
8.2.2 The process for some task groups morphed into a scrutiny review, conducting a number of site visits and bringing in external witnesses. The process was larger than originally planned and impacted on the work programme of the 4 main scrutiny commissions.
8.2.3 The budget task groups were Member led and each group had an independently selected chair. Each task group was supported by the Chair from one of the main scrutiny commissions. This process was viewed as very useful for Councillors (not part of the executive decision making structure) to understand the financial context to budget decisions.
8.2.4 The Head of Scrutiny and Ward Forums recommend Councillors continue with some form of working group to review budget savings proposals. However conducting this process in tandem to a full scrutiny commission’s work programme had significant impact on the scrutiny work programmes for municipal year 2018/19.
8.2.5 In discussions about the process Members made the following key points. a) Setting up a process that operates outside of the scrutiny function. It could be a working group led by the Cabinet Member with a membership of interested Councillors who work with the Cabinet Member to challenge and review proposals put forward.
b) There needed to be more structure coming from officers in relation to the proposed area for review. Particular if the topic area was broad and they needed to decide on the focus. In the current process this was left to the working group to decide and it was challenging.
c) This process should continue to be led by non-executive Councillors. Members commented having the process led by the decision maker may not provide strong independent challenge to the proposals put forward.
8.3 The Chair of Scrutiny Panel moved to the work programme and provided the following updates:
8.3.1 As a result of the pending GLA elections purdah is due to commence on 23rd March 2020. Therefore the next SP meeting was moved from 27th April 2020 to 13th May 2020. Members were asked to note the date and the Scrutiny Officer will send out notifications.
8.3.2 The items for the next SP meeting are: 1. Quarterly ... view the full minutes text for item 8. |
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Any Other Business Minutes: 9.1 None.
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