Agenda item

5.1 In each municipal year Scrutiny Panel holds a question time session with the Chief Executive to ask questions about strategic direction, performance and decision-making within the Council.  This question time session coincides with the one year anniversary of the commencement of Chief Executive time in Hackney, and is therefore a helpful juncture for reflections of the first year in office.

5.2 Following the Panel’s formal invite to this session, 3 topic areas were selected by members which will form the basis of the Q and A session. The areas selected were:

·  How the Council is developing metrics and evaluating the outcomes for all council services / activities

·  How the Council is restoring public confidence in the organisation

·  The methodology and ownership for developing a whole system approach to anti-racism for Hackney Borough.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

5.3 The CEO started by commending the good work of Tim Shields (previous CEO) and the leadership team in maintaining a strong and stable organisation throughout and after the pandemic.  Such was the strength of the organisation, it was apparent to the incoming CEO that there was no need for any wide ranging restructure of the Council.  As the year has progressed however, a number of service areas have been identified for improvement:

·  Performance management - where there is a need for a greater organisational understanding of  how this drives improvement and vision to how services should look in 6 months / 12 months’ time;

·  Human Resources and Organisational Development - to give more support to inclusion and anti-racist action across the council;

·  Climate action and net-zero target - to give greater priority and leadership to this work across the organisation.

5.4 The leadership team was already in transition with two of the Group Directors starting in their role months before the Chief Executive and one starting more recently.  The Head of Legal and Governance was also invited to join the Hackney Leadership Team (HLT) and was very much focused on the work of the Council and the journey ahead.  Both the corporate leadership team and the Cabinet team were now amongst the most diverse in London and across the country.  The new leadership team had brought a wider range of skills and experience to HLT which was invaluable to the organisation.  Further on from this, a more developed relationship was set up with the wider leadership team, including Directors and Head of Services.

5.5 In the first HLT meeting with the Cabinet, the CEO identified 5 key areas for the organisation:

·  Visible Pride and Passion - that the senior leadership are present and prominent within the organisation and who are actively proud and passionate about the Council and Hackney as a place;

·  Inclusive, open and transparent organisation - continuing its commitment address racism;

·  Improving the metrics and data performance of the organisation - with an emphasis on improved outcomes for local residents rather than focus on services.

·  To prioritise improvement in three service areas: adult social care, children's social care and housing;

·  The need for service transformation to ensure that the council was modern outward looking.

5.6  Since this time, the cost of living crisis has come to the fore and there was now an expectation that this would impact a much wider group of residents.  As a result the council would need to prioritise, plan and support residents, business and council staff through this challenging time. The cost of living crisis and more specifically the impact of high inflation, would also impact on local services and the council’s ability to support them.

Trust and Confidence

5.7 This was important as it framed the response to many other concerns raised by members.  The CEO noted that ward walks had been undertaken with most members and there was consistency in the themes raised which would help to improve trust and confidence with the council: improved housing repairs, improved contact and response times and restoring services impacted by the cyber-attack.

5.8 The CEO provided preliminary data from the (yet to be published) residents survey which indicated that overall satisfaction with the council remained consistent at 65% which was above the London and national averages.  This level of satisfaction was slightly lower than recorded three years ago (68%) but was encouraging given the impact of Covid and cyber-attack on the council.  The survey also reported high levels of trust with the council by local residents which was far higher in Hackney (67%) than the LGA average (48%).  51% of residents also believed that the Council provided value for money for the services it provided, which again was higher than the LGA average (45%). 

5.9 The survey also noted that 4% of residents were dissatisfied with the council. It was suggested that this may be related to the impact of the cyber-attack where a small number of residents were greatly impacted by its effect on local services.  It was also noticeable that certain groups of residents were consistently more dissatisfied with aspects of the council service than others these included; residents from Black and Global Majority background, social renters and those aged 55-64 years of age.  In terms of complaints about the council the two most common complaints were Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN) and contacting the council.  This data provided insight as to where greater focus for improvement was needed most.

5.10 The Council had undertaken a range of responses to improve trust and confidence:

·  Future working - expectation more officers would be present working in the council, especially managerial and supervisory staff;

·  Customer service response had improved: 67% of calls now answered as compared to 53% immediately after the pandemic and the average waiting time for a response had fallen to 8 minutes from 33 minutes;

·  42% of all complaints were made by 5 just members and this was being looked into further.

Metrics and Performance Management

5.11 It was apparent even before the pandemic, that the neighbourhood office system to support housing repairs was not working effectively, as attendances were very low.  Whilst a new model was introduced in 2021/22, this was not communicated effectively to members or residents.  The new surgery model expected to operate over 100 surgeries a month and was being piloted to get feedback from Tenants and Residents Associations (TRA) and members.  Directors were clear however, that this new system must have the ability to actively resolve tenants' concerns for it to continue.

5.12 In relation to housing repairs, the CEO, Mayor and Cabinet member had been meeting with senior officers monthly to review performance data. Since November 2021, over 7,000 cases from the backlog have been cleared and currently 87% of  work was being completed on time.  Whilst it was encouraging that satisfaction with the repairs service had risen from 57% to 67%, this was some way off the target of 80% resident satisfaction.  It was noted that other social landlords across London were experiencing similar levels of satisfaction with their repairs service, and that Hackney was far from an isolated case.  There was however still a long way to go for some housing issues with further work needed in relation to:

·  Void property turnarounds;

·  Contract management;

·  Timeliness and satisfaction for work completed

·  Lifts - balance between capital management and ongoing repairs;

·  Leaks and mould strategy.

5.13 The Panel noted that whilst dissatisfaction with the Council in relation to the cyber-attack was recorded to be low (4%) in the resident satisfaction survey, judged on their engagement and feedback from residents this was possibly an underestimate.  Panel members noted that there many vulnerable groups of residents who were likely to have been greatly impacted by the cyber-attack, but perhaps were less likely to engage with the survey.  Similarly, there were many hidden impacts of the cyber-attack which were less well known among residents (e.g. children's social care records).

·  Rather than being Hackney wide, the impact of the cyber-attack has been felt more keenly by particular groups of people which engage with the Council.  The impact on these different groups will of course be very different, depending on the nature of the interaction with the council and the services that they are using.

·  For the resident survey itself, the researchers made sure that the correct weightings were applied to reflect local demographics (e.g. on age, ethnicity and tenure etc.) to ensure that results produced the best representation of Hackney.  The survey was still being finalised but would provide a rich source of data to inform service planning and delivery.

5.14 In terms of benchmarking could further consideration be given to how the council assesses the impact of its spending and investments? 

·  This was critical as there were very important cross cutting issues for which the council needed to monitor and review the impact of its work which included climate change, inequality and inclusive growth.  Current performance data presentation was generally limited to past performance comparisons rather on where the council needed to be in terms of its key policies and service objectives.  It was a leadership priority that performance should be used to demonstrate the trajectories hat services were on to reach their ambitions.  There was also a need to improve comparative assessments of the council’s performance with other boroughs through such data platforms as LGInform.  It was noted however, that there is just a 0.5 w.t.e. officer in the council supporting performance management in the Council at present.  It was emphasised however, that the issue was cultural to the organisation rather than one of resources.

·  With such prominence given to housing repairs and benefits, other services tend to get lost in performance data and analysis.  Children’s Services were performing well, a position validated by a recent assessment by Ofsted which noted the quality of self-assessment process within the service. Similarly, the recent advancements made by Adult Services (doubling of care assessments made with the same resource and reduction of the backlog from 125 to 23) may also be lost against higher profile performance data.

Anti-racism

5.15 In terms of anti-racist action planning in relation to the outcomes of Child Q Safeguarding Practice Review (SPR) it was clear that local agencies needed to seize the moment and utilise the political consensus and community momentum to achieve necessary changes.  The council was also mindful that it would need to embed any gains and ensure that progress was sustained.  Within this it was important to understand that the experiences with Black and Global Majority community were very different and a more granular understanding was needed to progress.

5.16 In response to Child Q, the CEO chaired a weekly cross council meeting to support the implementation of the SPR and system wide issues it identified.  It was clear that the council had an important system leadership role in the response to the Child Q.  The key themes for oversight were on Child Q and her family, the community, the police and education services.  There were a number of priorities within this work:

·  Holding local systems to account;

·  Protection and Prevention;

·  Addressing Bias and Discrimination;

·  Leadership.

5.17 In terms of leadership, there was some instability within local systems with a number of high profile job changes in recent months at the Homerton Hospital and BCU Met Police Command.  It was clear however that the Council had set the systems and framework to address racism across the local partnership and was actively leading in this work.  It was acknowledged however that this approach was new territory for some agencies within the local partnership.

5.18 Against a backdrop of key race milestones (Scarman Report and Macpherson Report) and given that racism still exists even in such in a diverse and welcoming place such as Hackney, the Panel enquired how the leadership was going to measure progress against tackling racism locally and how local agencies would be held to account? 

·  Racism exists at both the individual and organisational level.  Progress always leads to further questions, for example from the Stephen Lawrence case, one of the areas of focus was why proportionally fewer children from Black and Global majority backgrounds were accessing university but this subsequently reoriented to why was there such high levels of Black graduate unemployment.  Professional curiosity was intrinsic to this process and the same can be applied locally, for example, why is the permanent exclusion rate in Hackney so high?  This curiosity will be important to the approach of the local leadership team.

5.19 Are local agencies sufficiently joined up to address racial disparities in local services?  For example, are children’s social care working with local health partners to address the disproportionate number of black and global majority children which are taken in to care locally which may in part be a result of poor perinatal mental health outcomes?

·  As the case example highlighted, it was apparent that there were a number of foundation areas where it was necessary to achieve change to ensure progress in other areas.  It was important therefore that the organisation is reviewing and monitoring the performance of the right areas.  It was also suggested that the council has focused on the experiences of black people using other services rather than its own and this balance needed to be addressed.

5.20 The Chair thanked the CEO for attending and responding to questions from members of the Panel.