Agenda and minutes

Councillor Doolan, Gallagher, Klute, O’Sullivan, Convery and Ismail for lateness

Councillor Hamitouche stated that she was substituting for Councillor Doolan

Declarations of interest

 If you have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest* in an item of business:

§  if it is not yet on the council’s register, you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent;

§  you may choose to declare a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest that is already in the register in the interests of openness and transparency. 

In both the above cases, you must leave the room without participating in discussion of the item.

If you have a personal interest in an item of business and you intend to speak or vote on the item you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent but you may participate in the discussion and vote on the item.

*(a) Employment, etc - Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.

(b)  Sponsorship - Any payment or other financial benefit in respect of your expenses in carrying out duties as a member, or of your election; including from a trade union.

(c) Contracts - Any current contract for goods, services or works, between you or your partner (or a body in which one of you has a beneficial interest) and the council.

(d) Land - Any beneficial interest in land which is within the council’s area.

(e) Licences- Any licence to occupy land in the council’s area for a month or longer.

(f)   Corporate tenancies - Any tenancy between the council and a body in which you or your partner have a beneficial interest.

 (g) Securities - Any beneficial interest in securities of a body which has a place of business or land in the council’s area, if the total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body or of any one class of its issued share capital. 

This applies to all members present at the meeting.

None

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 11 February 2016 be confirmed as a correct record of the proceedings and the Chair be authorised to sign them

None

The Chair outlined the procedure for Public questions and the filming and recording of meetings

The Chair reminded Members that a visit would be taking place to see the Integrated Gangs Team, in connection with the Knife Crime, Mobile Phone theft scrutiny review on Friday 18 March at 11a.m. at Tolpuddle Street Police station and Members were invited to attend

Councillor Joe Calouri, Executive Member Children and Families was present for discussion of this item.

During discussion of the report the following main points were made –

·         It is important to ensure that early intervention measures are put in place to assist in preventing the cycle of criminal activity and the Council had approved an extra £0.5m in the budget for this

·         The relationship with the Police and young people is still a problem and the loss of community policing made this more difficult

·         The poor inspection report on the YOS had highlighted that the co-location of the Police with the service had been a problem and the lack of access to Police computer records is still an issue that needs to be addressed and the Council were raising through the appropriate channels

·          A new restorative justice worker has just been appointed and a Gangs Protocol established and work is taking place on alternative provision

·         There is a need to listen more to young people and understand their concerns

·         Reference was made to the morale of staff in the YOS team and it was stated that this is a challenge and there had been a significant turnover of staff and a new Head of Service is now in place and stronger management and changes to case management should improve the situation

·         The view was expressed that Members should take the opportunity to visit the Youth Offending service to meet and support the staff in the extremely difficult work that the carry out

·         The Gangs Protocol is an attempt to take a more holistic view in relation to protecting the Public and there is a need to communicate more effectively with parents about the risks to their children and of offending behaviour

·         In relation to schools there needed to be more recognition of the problems of gangs and criminality and that every schools should visit the Ben Kinsella exhibition to raise awareness

·         There were discussions taking place with the Youth Council who were keen to raise awareness of the issues of gang culture and to ensure young people are listened to about their concerns

·         In response to a question about whether the voluntary sector could play an increased role it was stated that it was felt that this could be the case in regard to universal youth services and the additional £0.5m monies approved by the Council would be used by voluntary sector providers and the challenge is for them to be more flexible and work in co-operation

·         A Member expressed concern that despite a number of initiatives it did not appear that progress is being made and there is no clear overriding strategy for action

·         Reference was made to the fact that the case management described in the report was lacking and that staff needed proper support and training to resolve this

·         A Member stated that the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee had looked at alternative provision and intervention and early help and had made recommendations in this regard. It  ...  view the full minutes text for item 219.

Councillor Andy Hull, Executive Member Finance and Performance was present together with Lela Kogbara, Assistant Chief Executive Strategy and Community Partnerships.

During consideration of the report the following main points were made –

·         It was noted that there had been reductions in the number of children in alternative provision

·         There had been an increase in the number of leisure visits and fewer late transfers to care and Islington were amongst the top 10 healthy schools boroughs

·         There is a need to increase the number of disabled persons although improvements had been made in the number of BME staff in higher graded posts

·         Partners repair times were still not satisfactory

·         In response to a question as to children missing in care it was stated that a previous report from the Director of Children’s Services had looked at this in detail and that the data around children missing in care is looked at in detail at the Corporate Parenting Board

·         With regard to youth offending there had been previous problems with Police involvement, however there is now co-location of services. There is a need to listen to young people in connection with their relationship with the Police and stop and search to get local communities to support the Police

·         The view was expressed that with the reductions and further proposed reductions by the Mayor in funding for Safer Neighbourhood Policing it is likely that resources would be further stretched

·         In response to a question it was stated that whilst GCSE results were below target they were above target nationally as London outperforms the national results figure

·         Reference was made to the attrition rate in hate crime and that there is a lack of confidence in victims coming forward and that this should be an area of challenge when the Borough Commander comes to PPS in November to discuss the Annual Crime and Disorder report

·         Measures had been taken by the Council to address hate crime and work is being undertaken with a focus on information for the learning disabled and work with the Hate Crime Forum and the Mosque to raise awareness. In addition, the Police are setting up a scrutiny process to enable the community to challenge them

·         In relation to a question on homelessness it was stated that there were some people on the housing waiting list who had no realistic prospect of being rehoused and that demand in a borough in Islington will always be more than that which could be supplied. However the Council did have an ambitious programme of new builds and were trying to increase this wherever possible

·         The view was expressed that there needed to be a positive message given to the Police that they should take all issues of hate crime seriously and that the recent fire bomb incident at the Finsbury Park mosque needed to be investigated fully in order to reassure the community that such acts are taken extremely seriously

·         In response to a question as to the number of BME staff  ...  view the full minutes text for item 220.

Councillor Andy Hull, Executive Member Finance and Performance and Steve Key, Director Service Finance were present for discussion of this item.

During consideration of the report the following main points were made –

·         There is a £3.5m projected overspend which would be met from the contingency reserve

·         Concern was expressed at the overspends in Environment and Regeneration and that this is currently £2.9m. Councillor Hull stated that this was due to an overestimate of possible savings and income generation measures, however this is addressed in the 2016/17 budget recently approved. There are savings however being achieved on the procurement of gas and electricity

·         In response to a question it was stated that it is important that Members supported income generation proposals and that other departments, not just Environment and Regeneration, considered income generation measures

·         It was stated that in regard to the fall in income of building control this is due to the ‘cherry picking’ of certain work by private companies leaving the Council with more difficult work. There is also work going on to see if services could be sold to neighbouring boroughs

·         Councillor Hull stated that changes in the Chancellor’s budget may affect the Council and that he would provide a briefing to Members following the Budget proposals

·          A Member of the public referred to the underspend in certain Education budgets and it was stated that if he mailed his question then these queries would be responded to

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted and that Councillor Hull provide a briefing to Members on the implications of the Chancellor of the Exchequer budget proposals on the Council

The draft recommendations of the Committee were laid round as a matter of urgency given the need for their approval before the end of the municipal year.

The Chair stated that if Members had any comments they should be sent to the Head of Democratic Services prior to the next meeting for consideration.

RESOLVED:

That the draft recommendations be approved and the final report be submitted to the Committee at the next meeting for approval

Councillor Andy Hull, Executive Member Finance and Performance was present for this item and David Daniels, Assistant Director Environment and Commercial Law was also present.

During consideration of the report the following main points were made –

·         It was stated that a report on the Parking data breach would be submitted to the Audit Committee in May

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted