Issue - meetings
Understandign the Impact of Covid in Tower Hamlets Presentation - Layla Richards
Meeting: 22/06/2020 - Overview & Scrutiny Committee (Item 5)
5 COVID-19 COMMUNITY INSIGHT PDF 134 KB
Additional documents:
- Appendix 1 - Tower Hamlets COVID, item 5 PDF 3 MB
- Appendix 2 - TH proposal re testing and tracing 26 5, item 5 PDF 3 MB
- Appendix 3, item 5 PDF 233 KB
- Webcast for COVID-19 COMMUNITY INSIGHT
Minutes:
The Committee continued its review of the Borough’s response to COVID-19 with the aim of supporting Tower Hamlets efforts by:
1. Offering recommendations for areas to be improved.
2. Learning about the work being undertaken to respond to the pandemic; and
3. Reflecting upon local feedback received regarding the plans that have been put in place to support the Borough’s residents.
The outcome of this review being to capture the response in Tower Hamlets (not just the Council’s) and to identify learning and appropriate actions to be taken forward should there be subsequent waves of the pandemic.
The report is intended to cover three key areas:
a. An assessment of how the Council has handled the response.
b. An assessment of recovery phase; and
c. What key challenges remain and how the Council can improve its future Pandemic Plan.
In addition, it will capture the work across all the scrutiny committees and the aim is to agree the report at September’s OSC meeting.
The Committee then heard from the following members from the community and in partner organisations to help provide an insight and to help the Committee get a better understanding of the impact of the Council’s response to COVID-19 on the community. The discussions on these presentations may be summarised as follows:
Pam Bhamra, Chair of Tower Hamlets Housing Forum and Director of Operations at Tower Hamlets Community Housing.
The Committee noted that Ms. Bhamra welcomed the partnership approach which has been delivered and valued involvement in the Pandemic Committee and Community Mobilisation Silver Group. She highlighted the importance of replacing and reinventing community centres with online activities and identified overcrowding in households as a key issue which has had a knock-on effect on people not isolating effectively, allowed the virus to spread more easily, and put a strain on home schooling. She also identified isolation and loneliness as key issues.
The Committee:
1. Indicated that it would wish to see how the Council and housing partners intended to provide long term support for homeless/rough sleepers residents who have been supported into hostels and temporary accommodation.
2. Wanted the Council to review the quality of its short-term accommodation, especially in instances where families with children have been placed in accommodation with shared facilities and amenities; and
3. Noted that the Housing and Regeneration Sub-Committee would be exploring some of these issues further at their meeting on the 13 July 2020.
Ian Parkes, Chief Executive of East London Business Alliance (ELBA)
Mr Parkes provided his feedback on the impact on businesses and the economy. He praised the strong partnership approach and the robust leadership role that the Council has taken. The Committee was pleased to note that ELBA have had no notifications of business closures or insolvency. However, it was noted that the key challenges for businesses are impending as most small businesses will not be able to keep running beyond 3 months if lockdown does not end reasonably quickly. Also, while there has been relatively little feedback from ... view the full minutes text for item 5