Agenda item

Councillor Andy Hull, Executive Member Finance and Performance, was present for discussion of this report and outlined the report for the Committee. Lela Kogbara, Assistant Chief Executive, Strategy and Community Partnerships, was also present.

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

·         There had been good progress in service users who receive their services through a direct payment

·         The number of supported people into paid work was well above target and figures for parents supported into work are also well above target with 312 paid job outcomes for Quarter 3.

·         All services are now being asked to report on sustained job outcomes for those supported into work to ensure that not only people are helped to get a job but to ensure they stay in a job for a reasonable amount of time

·         The figures on missed waste collections were excellent

·         A market supplement factor had now been introduced for ‘hard to fill’ posts and a number of agency/temporary posts in Environment and Regeneration had now been transferred to permanent posts

·         There was a need to reduce the number of face to face consultations and telephone conversations taking place with residents and deal with more on line ín order to generate savings. There had been problems with cavity wall insulation in some small blocks and this work may need to be scaled back

·         Staff sickness was over target and measures were being taken which would assist in reducing this

·         There had been a worrying increase in serious youth violence, culminating in the tragic death of a young person in Caledonian Road and 23 of the 32 London Boroughs had seen similar increases

·         In response to a question as to the impact of reductions in posts due to financial savings targets in the Council, it was stated that the Council did have an employee assistance programme in place to assist staff if necessary suffering from stress or anxiety

·         Members indicated that their casework indicated that there were problems with the new housing repairs service and that there was poor service and lack of communication with residents in some instances. In addition some tenants had complained about numerous visits to complete a repair and some operatives refusing to show name badges when requested

·         Members expressed the view that there should be a ‘traffic light’ system to indicate where there were problem repairs when a repair takes more than one visit to complete so that this could be investigated

·         It was stated that the Housing Scrutiny Committee had requested detailed information to future meetings on housing repairs and that he would take up these issues with relevant officers. The Chair of Housing Scrutiny Committee, Councillor O’Sullivan, indicated that the Scrutiny Committee were planning to undertake a scrutiny within the next few months on the implementation of the new ‘in house’ repairs service

·         Members also expressed the view that it would be useful to establish details of all their specific complaints on repairs in order to ascertain if there was a pattern to the complaints and in future specific complaints could be referred to the Customer Excellence team

·          A Member referred to the problems of anti-social behaviour, particularly on the New River Green Estate and some estates in the south of the borough, and that action did not appear to be taken. The Executive Member Community Safety stated that there were a number of enforcement actions that could be put in place and that there were a large number of cases that had resulted in specific action being taken. Crime was very mobile in Islington and tended to move from area to area and the reduction in mobile phone theft had resulted in increased serious crime, as the offenders had moved back to drug crime

·         It  was noted that there were a small number of families that were responsible for a large amount of crime in the borough and there was a need for smarter use of enforcement powers

·         The number of reoffenders had fallen however a small group of young offenders were committing a large number of crimes

The Chair thanked Councillor Hull and Lela Kogbara for attending