Members are reminded to consider the categories of interest in the Code of Conduct for Members to determine whether they have an interest in any agenda item and any action they should take. For further details, please see the attached note from the Monitoring Officer.

Members are reminded to declare the nature of the interest and the agenda item it relates to. Please note that ultimately it’s the Members’ responsibility to declare any interests form and to update their register of interest form as required by the Code.

If in doubt as to the nature of your interest, you are advised to seek advice prior to the meeting by contacting the Monitoring Officer or Democratic Services

The Committee noted that:

·         Councillor Bex White had declared an interest in relation to recommendation 3 of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee COVID-19 Report Councillor Bex White indicated she was the Chair of Trustees of a project with LBTH.

·         Councillor Marc Francis had declared an interest in relation to the Item 7.1 Finance Spotlight: Overspends in Children's & Culture and Health, Adults & Community as his wife Councillor Rachel Blake was the Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Adults, Health and Wellbeing.

To confirm as a correct record of the proceedings the unrestricted minutes of the last meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The Chair Moved and it was: -

RESOLVED

That the unrestricted minutes of the meeting of the last meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 27th July 2020 be approved as a correct record of the proceedings and the Chair was authorised to sign them accordingly.

VARIATION TO ORDER OF BUSINESS

It was: -

Resolved

That the Order of Business be varied to enable the OSC to consider next

consider agenda Item 8.2 Review of London Borough of Tower Hamlets’ Response to COVID-19. Thereafter agenda items 8.1 Scrutiny Annual Report 2019-20; 8.3 Review of Overview and Scrutiny Committee 2019/20 and then Item 9 Pre-Decision Scrutiny Questions. Subsequently to return to the order of business detailed in the

agenda.

Please note that for ease of reference, OSC deliberations in respect of

agenda items 7.8; 8.1; 8.3 and 9 and subsequent decisions taken, are set out

below in the order detailed in the agenda.

To receive any petitions (to be notified at the meeting).

Nil items

Noted

Nil items

Nil items

The Committee received two presentations that provided a focus on financial overspends in Children's & Culture and Health, Adults & Community Directorates. 

The main points of the discussion on the Overspends in Children's & Culture may be summarised as follows.

Children and Culture

The Committee:

• Noted that whilst there had been a loss of income from Service Level Agreements (SLA) of £0.7m primarily because of the pandemic there had also been a reduction in spend due a fall in demand for services e.g. Contract Services.
• Noted whilst with increasing delegation and diversion of funding directly to schools there has been a reduction in income for the Councils Traded Services.  However, with the pandemic there has also been significant reduction in income as (i) schools were not operating at the same level; (ii) schools purchase their SLA’s for financial years and the lockdown of schools happened in mid-March and some schools did not take out SLA’s at all; and (iii) Schools are also now looking at increased costs for cleaning and cover.
• Commented that it wished to see a holistic approach to budget pressures by assessing expenses for all organisational activities in a structured and pragmatic way e.g. (i) some schools have delivered food to households rather than provide food vouchers which has meant that they still have had a lot of contact with children and young people; (ii) using equality impact assessment to get an insight into the factors influencing the impact of COVID-19 on BAME communities and strategies for addressing inequalities; (iii) the impact of any delays in restructuring and associated pressures on budgets.
• Noted that the Children's and Culture Directorate management team have today considered (i) how manageable restructures/savings would be; (ii) the impact of such restructures/savings on residents; children and families; (iii) how they can ensure that this was done in a way that maintain the quality and integrity of services.
• Noted that it is an exceedingly difficult situation, but the focus is being maintained on impact of Covid-19 with both rigour and consistency.
• Noted that regarding those schools that have delivered food to households rather than provide food vouchers it is felt they are best placed to decide how to manage within the various demands of the made upon them.
• Noted that equalities impact assessments would always be undertaken as part of any restructure and careful consideration would be given to the impact on any of the protected characteristics for the community and staff.
• Noted regarding Children's and Social Care staffing there are three elements to this (i) it is about recruiting newly qualified or social workers at the beginning of their career and assist in their training and by doing that and if done right they will stay loyal to LBTH; (ii) finding that blend of experienced social workers by using a recruitment company to help the source experienced social workers and now have developed an in-house recruitment programme with advertising that  can be used across all sorts of platforms and that is beginning to prove really helpful  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.1

The Committee received and noted the Overview and Scrutiny’s Annual Report for 2019-20.  It was noted that normally this would have been prepared and discussed earlier in the year, but the pandemic has pushed this back.  The main points of the discussion of the report maybe summarised as followed:

The Committee:

• Noted that the COVID-19 report, together with this Annual Report forms a summary of the Councils overview and scrutiny functions work in 2019/20.
• Noted that there will be a further recommendation regarding the deep dive on Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND) the dashboard at that point had not had enough information and there was further financial budget information that would be required.  Therefore, it was agreed that the Committee would need to see that information prior to any amendment to the Annual Report.
• Noted that the final piece of the Committee's work would take place this week when there would be an Environment Scrutiny Challenge Session, Scrutiny Review and Challenge Session on Wednesday, 23rd September, 2020 10.00 a.m. to consider how the Council applies evidence-based and best practice to influence resident behaviour change to boost recycling rates? Therefore, whilst the intention is to work with residents to change behaviour with a focus on re-cycling it is hoped that the session help to illustrate more broadly how the Council can influence behaviour.
• Noted that all councillors were encouraged to attend the Challenge Session to get the most value from this session

The Chair Moved and it was: -

RESOLVED to:

2.1The Overview & Scrutiny Committee:

1.    Agreed the report for submission to Full Council in the new municipal year.

2.    Authorised the Divisional Director Strategy, Policy & Performance to amend the report following comments by the Committee, in consultation with the OSC Chair, before submission to Full Council.

ACTION BY: Sharon Godman, (Divisional Director, Strategy, Policy and Performance)

The Committee received a report that focused on Overview and Scrutiny’s Review of the Council’s Response to COVID-19 which was a culmination of the Committee’s work over the last 6 months in relation to the response to the pandemic in LBTH and to reflect local feedback on the plans in place to support residents.  The Chair thanked Committee Members for their contributions; the officers for all their hard work; and all of those who had participated. The main points on the discussion maybe summarised as follows:

The Committee:

• Agreed that the report provides a particularly good summary of the work undertaken in providing an overview and scrutiny of the Council’s COVID response.
• Recognised as with any unprecedented event, we can learn from it, and hopefully the report can add to that learning.
• Noted that the recommendations are intended to build on the Council’s pandemic response, review issues revealed and improve outcomes for residents and stakeholders in the borough’s ongoing recovery.
• Noted that with regard to Recommendation 7 of the report concerning  support for market traders to ensure (i) that they are provided with business development support to increase their resilience; and if future grants become available better support market traders to ensure their COVID-19 costs are covered in the same way as was offered to other businesses.  The view was expressed that compared to some other London Boroughs Tower Hamlets needed to be brought more into line with what other councils offer. However, the Committee was pleased to note that this has now been addressed.
• Noted that there had been an underspend of £1.5m sum on the original £3.7m but this underspend has now been allocated and it shows the value of the Committee asking questions about it over the course of the past three to four months.
• Noted that several queries had been received from businesses that are currently not paying rates about the process for review or appeal and that they would some clarity around this.
• Noted that the £1.5m that was underspent has now been allocated and that includes another payment to market traders so in the first round of the grant market traders those that were full time were paid £720.00  and those that were part time were paid £300.60 and those eligible market-rate from the second round were paid another Same amount again. Therefore, in total full-time market traders were paid £1,480.00 and those that part-time in total were paid £612.00. Accordingly, it was agreed that the report needs to be amended to present the most up to date position.
• Agreed that this recommendation should stand to ensure that market traders to get fair; equitable and reasonable support at the time that it is available. Also, the Committee wanted clarity from the Council as to why it had not been set at the higher rate. As this meant that market traders had been expected to live on £720.00 over a six-month period and that clearly was not sustainable.
• Agreed that there was also an  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.2

The Committee received a presentation from Afazul Hoque, the Head of Strategy and Policy at the feedback from all Councillors and Co-optees on how scrutiny performed as a function in 2019-20. The main points of the discussions on the findings as outlined below:

The Committee agreed:

·         On the necessity for more “Horizon Scanning” looking at the big issues that the Council was not currently picking up (e.g. Housing Allocations) and that scrutiny could have been offering better value by providing an outline for the Council as to why it should be looking more closely at a certain topics.

·         On the prerequisite to work on how the Council and the Council's Executive develop its relationship with both residents and the voluntary sector.

·         On the need to develop better relationships with the scrutiny sub committees and the main committee e.g. sub-committees feeding back issues or escalating issues to this Committee or this Committee asking the sub committees to look into more detail of those issues that it does not have oversight of.

·         That the scrutiny function needs to show more of an impact with improved questioning and a greater focus on the topical issues of the day and performance.  The Committee recognised that whilst significant improvements in the development of scrutiny have been made this progress needs to continue.

·         That that there still was an issue in regard to the responsiveness of the Executive and officers to the queries that are raised by scrutiny as illustrated by the support for market traders to ensure that they are provided with business development support to increase their resilience during the pandemic.

·         That there remains an issue which requires further consideration when it came to the identification of behavioural patterns in the use of online services and the difficulty that some residents are having in accessing services that is really critical and is going to be even more so in the future.

The Chair Moved and it was: -

RESOLVED to note the presentation and ask that the points raised where appropriate be included in the work programme.

ACTION BY: Sharon Godman, (Divisional Director, Strategy, Policy and Performance)

To consider and agree pre-decision scrutiny questions/comments to be presented to Cabinet.

(Time allocated – 30 minutes).

The Committee agreed that those questions attached as appendices to the minutes should be submitted for a response by the Mayor in Cabinet on the 23^rd September, 2020.

To consider any other unrestricted business that the Chair considers to be urgent.

Councillor King formally placed on record his thanks to Members and Officers for their invaluable help and support over the past year.

In response Councillor King was thanked for all his hard work as Chair through the Municipal Year.

As the agenda circulated contained no exempt/ confidential business and

there was therefore no requirement to exclude the press and public to allow

for its consideration.

Nil items

Nil Items 

Nil items

Nil Items 

To consider and agree pre-decision scrutiny questions/comments to be presented to Cabinet.

(Time allocated 15 minutes).

Nil Items 

Nil items

Nil Items