Agenda item
TO RECEIVE WRITTEN QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL
The questions which have been received from Councillors to be put at this Council meeting are set out in the attached report. A maximum period of 30 minutes is allocated to this agenda item.
Minutes:
The following questions and in each case a supplementary question were put and were responded to by the Mayor or relevant Executive Member.
8.2 Question from Councillor Oliur Rahman:
What is Mayor John Biggs’ view and stance on academies and free schools?
Response by Mayor John Biggs:
You want to know my stance on academies and free schools. Well the answer is I like you are a parent and my primary motive is to ensure that any child of mine or any child of my constituents gets an excellent education. I would say tribally and instinctively I tend to be not that happy with academies and the free schools programme. But we live in the world that we live in and it is very much the determination of the Government to turn all schools into academies or free schools and my responsibility as Mayor is to work to support school improvement. I think that I would just add to what I have said is there are free schools and free schools, the same way as there are maintained schools and maintained schools. It’s the quality of the education that is really important. I think we need to wake up to the fact that although we may politically exchange barbs with each other and we may disagree with Government policy, as a Local Authority we need to work with the network of schools as they are and we need to attempt to influence and improve the educational outcomes for our kids.
Supplementary question from Councillor Oliur Rahman:
Mr Mayor when it comes to Education that is one thing that everyone in this Chamber would agree that the future of our children is far more important than our political views. However, with the Shadow Education Secretary of the Labour Party saying that she may bring in academies and free schools and, on the other hand, the Leader of the Labour Party saying he opposes free schools and academies and, I think the simple question that I am asking and I would be grateful if you could possible give me a yes or no answer to, do you support academies and free schools - yes or no?
Mayor John Biggs response to the supplementary question:
I support an excellent education for our kids and I think there is a problem actually which is that the free school and the academy programme achieved one thing, whatever your views of it was, when schools could choose to be part of it and a small number did. But the Government’s current determination to turn all schools into free schools and academies will immediately or very rapidly highlight a whole number of problems in terms of support, special needs, admissions and exclusions policy and in terms of whether those schools actually have a connection to the communities they are in. There is a theme running through tonight’s meeting which is that I want schools to be very much part of the communities that they are based in. I am very nervous about schools that are part of multi academy trusts that are national chains, for example, just as I am very nervous about people becoming tenants of social landlords whose head office is in Birmingham or somewhere. I think we need to have public services rooted in our community accountable to Local Authority and we need to have public spirited people running those institutions whether they are schools or indeed housing providers who have very much got their feet on the ground and are dedicated to serving the people of Tower Hamlets. So in that sense, I am a dangerous pragmatist but I don’t think that it is actually dangerous to stand up for the best possible standards to try to work with people to achieve those and to use our influence as a Council and our power as a Council Chamber when we speak with a strong voice to help influence the best outcomes for our kids.
Procedural Motion
Councillor Andrew Cregan moved and Councillor Danny Hassell seconded, a procedural motion “that under Procedure Rule 14.1.5, Rule 13.1 be suspended to enable an urgent motion regarding the UK’s membership of the European Union to be considered”. The procedural motion was put to the vote and was agreed.
8.3 Question from Councillor Khales Uddin Ahmed:
School admission statistics show that many children applying for secondary school are being rejected from schools close to their home and being allocated to schools that are a great distance from their homes – what does the Lead Member think this says about the effect of Tory education policies on our Borough?
Response by Councillor Rachael Saunders Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Education & Children's Services:
The recently published statistics on secondary school transfers show that over three quarters of Tower Hamlets children secure a place at their first choice school, with 95% securing a place at one of their top three choices. These outcomes could be better - it would be great to have 100% but they are amongst the best in London and well above the London average. I am glad that Councillor Khales Uddin Ahmed in his tabled question asked about the Tory education crisis, because we were already hugely fearful at the last full Council meeting about the modelling of approximately 20% of cuts to our schools budget. The government haven’t yet quite had the guts to tell us exactly how much they are going to cut but the modelling has been around 20% which is massively worrying for parents and young people in the Borough. The Deputy Lord Lieutenant mentioned earlier the extraordinary achievement of young people, their teachers, families and communities in terms of educational attainment and how that has been transformed over the last 20 years. That is at risk because this Government is taking money from those who don’t vote for it and giving money to people who do and they should be ashamed. This is no better than the politics of Lutfur Rahman that they so enthusiastically opposed to take money from the poorest children and to give it to children in the leafy suburbs that no doubt deserve it but our children need that support and investment as well.
Supplementary question from Councillor Khales Uddin Ahmed:
Do you agree with me that it is not fair that only 95% secure a place at one of their top three choices.
Councillor Rachael Saunders response to the supplementary question:
I absolutely agree with you that the 5% that do not secure one of their top three choices remains a huge concern. We will do everything that we can for them. Of course we aim to get to 100%. 95% is pretty good but 100% would be great. But this will get harder because, although as the Mayor described previously, we are pragmatic and we live in the world as it is and academies and free schools are being pushed very hard by this Government. We are absolutely determined to, despite this Government’s approach, to get the best deal for young people in the Borough. The fact that the Government is trying to acadamise every single school, whether head teachers and governors want it or not, puts a further strain on school budgets and on the budgets and capacity of this Council. Capacity, knowledge, time and energy frankly, that would have been focused on school improvement and on broader issues, will be spent on a completely fruitless procedural ideological exercise which does nothing to help children and young people in the Borough. So attainment is at risk, that level of 95% is at risk as we are being cut and we are being driven by a completely fruitless and not evidence based but a purely ideological agenda to transform the way in which schools work in this Borough. The schools in this Borough are spectacular. They do not need this ideological attack from this Government.
8.4 Question from Councillor Julia Dockerill:
Does the Mayor have any comments regarding a recruitment consultancy engaged by the council, under the previous administration, which failed to disclose important information concerning a candidate that could have affected the decision as to whether to make an appointment? It should be noted that this failure resulted in a course of events that cost Tower Hamlets Council thousands of pounds of taxpayers money, therefore will the Mayor assure the council that this will not occur again?
Response by Councillor David Edgar, Cabinet Member for Resources:
As Councillor Dockerill will be aware, it’s not the case that we can enter into any conversation which refers to or implies a particular individual. In terms of the process that we go through in order to get our recruitment consultants, we go through an open tendering process, there is a competitive process and recruitment consultants are appointed at the end of that process, and it is also the case, and I think that this has been made a bit more explicit in recent times maybe as a result of the incident that you may be talking about, that the recruitment consultants, used for senior appointments are required to carry out appropriate due diligence checks on an applicant’s career history and that this information is to be provided to Councillors at the point when they are making their decision.
I have also dug around a little bit on what might be in the background to this question and I am reassured that that requirement is now very clear, if it was unclear in the past, that the recruitment consultants are required to do those sorts of checks and to provide that information. So that when an Appointments Committee makes a decision, it has full information available to it. But it has also become clear to me from some of the information that has been given is that your suggestion that the Council has lost many thousands of pounds as a result of some potential incident in the past is not at all clear. I think there is a view that the course of events would have been likely to have been very similar to those which actually took place and there isn’t the sort of loss of money that you are suggesting that has taken place.
Supplementary question from Councillor Julia Dockerill:
I think there is a probably a problem that we also need to explore about our legal services department in that latter regard. What worries me is that in this instance we went on to use the same recruitment agent again and I just wonder and I probed the Committee about this and was told that there is only one of two people that we can use. I would just like to know whether you would consider widening the field or the pool of recruitment agencies which we use the future as a result of this incident.
Councillor David Edgar response to the supplementary question:
If we go through a tendering process then I imagine that all suitable qualified consultancy firms are able to make an application to be our consultants for any particular point of recruitment. If there is some limit I would be surprised but I would be very happy to look into that and I am also happy to have a discussion with you outside of this meeting as I don’t think there is any more I can say by way of response other than I am reassured that there is a proper tendering process, as one would expect, and that recruitment consultants are in all cases, expected to give Councillors on Appointments Committees all of the information which they might want to have at the point of making the decision about whether to appoint a particular candidate. But as I say, I am happy to talk outside this meeting as, as always, discussions in this meeting are fairly elliptical and we can’t really get to the heart of the issues that you may think are existing in a public Council Chamber.
8.5 Question from Councillor Sabina Akhtar:
Can the Cabinet Member update me on the number of families housed in B&Bs for over 6 weeks at the end of February 2016 – and can a figure for the same period in 2015 be provided for comparison?
Response by Councillor Sirajul Islam Statutory Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Housing Management & Performance:
You want to know the number of families housed in B&Bs over 6 weeks in February 2016 and comparatively for 2015. In February 2015, we had 92 families living in B&B over the 6 week period and the same for the end of February 2016 - we had 13 families in B&Bs exceeding the 6 weeks. These figures relate to family households with dependent children and pregnant women.
Supplementary question from Councillor Sabina Akhtar:
How many families were placed in B&Bs for over 6 weeks since Mayor John Biggs has taken office.
CouncillorSirajul Islam’sresponse to the supplementary question:
When Mayor Biggs came into office, we had 154 families living in B&B exceeding 6 weeks. As I said before, this figure has now come down to 13. That is due to the strong leadership of this Mayor and working very hard with Council Officers to make sure we have a responsibility to people living in B&B. The previous Administration did not take very much notice at all of this issue. They just left people there and they still think that it is funny and it is not. People live in very difficult conditions in B&B hotels. So through our commitments and continued commitments we are able to bring that figure to 13 and we are very committed to bringing the figure to zero
8.6 Question from Councillor Maium Miah:
Will the Mayor agree to look into and personally intervene, wherever possible, to ensure that the terrible traffic chaos and gridlock faced by the residents of Isle of Dogs in general but particularly between 5 & 7 March are never repeated. Will he confirm that robust and proactive measures are in place by the Council which has the responsibility to oversee agencies, contractors and developers to ensure that the essential needs of the local residents and local businesses - their ability to travel/move and go about their daily life without unnecessary, non-compliant blockages and obstructions – are paramount in planning and risk assessment of such activities, issuing of permits, deployment of enforcement action together with consultation and communication with the residents?
Response by Mayor John Biggs:
I spoke about this briefly in my report and have written on it in my report as well. I think the events between 5& 7 March should not be repeated and we need to ensure that we better manage the road restrictions and closures on the Isle of Dogs which is incredibly sensitive to them. For that reason, I have undertaken to hold a meeting with all the Councillors on the Isle of Dogs and I am happy for us to do public meetings if there is demand for that. But we need more importantly to get a proper response from our Officers. We have a new Service Head of Public Realm starting who will have responsiblity in this area, and as I said earlier, we need to look also in terms of our developing Borough plan whether there are others things that we can do that will improve the capacity of the road network on the Isle of Dogs because we can’t have people who live on the Island held to ransom by closures. Leaving aside road works and crane removals, the Canals and Rivers Trust has the ability to open and shut the blue bridge more or less at their whim and that does create a problem and uncertainty in the Borough that we need to manage better as well.
Supplementary question from Councillor Maium Miah:
It was a disaster for the residents of the Isle of Dogs. Will you apologise for turning the Isle of Dogs into the Isle of clogs and ensure that this won’t be repeated again.
Mayor John Biggs response to the supplementary question:
I am tempted to answer by saying that the day that you apologise for your conduct as highlighted in recent legal action is possibly the day, when I should consider reflecting on this. I regret that this happened and I think that it highlighted that within part of the Highways Department we didn’t seem to have the communications in place to ensure that it did not happen. Further to that, we have done a lot of work to identify whether we can push back the road encroachments from developments particularly City Pride. I am very anxious that the Canary Wharf development has led to one of the access roads from the Isle of Dogs being closed now for many, many months, and will continue to be closed although it is on private land. Like I say I think the best way of dealing with this is to learn from it. To sit down with local residents and to be honest that we did not get it right but in some ways due to factors outside our control.
Extension of time limit for the meeting
The Speaker of the Council, Councillor M. A. Mukitmoved, and Councillor Rachael Saunders seconded, a procedural motion, that “under Procedure Rule 15.11.7 the meeting be extended for 10 minutes, to consider and vote on the reports for consideration (Items 9.1,11.1-11.3). The procedural motion was put to the vote and was agreed.
Question 8.1 was withdrawn as the issue had already been dealt with at the meeting. Questions 8.7- 26 were not put due to a lack of time. Written responses would be provided to the questions. (Note: The written responses are included in Appendix ‘A’ to these minutes.)
Supporting documents: