Apologies were received from Councillor Oliur Rahman and Councillor Muhammad Ansar Mustaquim

To note any declarations of interest made by Members, including those restricting Members from voting on the questions detailed in Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act, 1992.  See attached note from the Monitoring Officer.

There were no declarations of disclosable pencuniary interest.

To confirm as a correct record of the proceedings the unrestricted minutes of the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 20^th July, 2017.

The Chair Moved and it was:-

RESOLVED

That the unrestricted minutes of the meetings of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 20^th July, 2017 was approved as a correct record of the proceedings.

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

Nil items

No decisions of the Mayor in Cabinet 27^th July, 2017 in respect of unrestricted reports on the agenda were ‘called in’.

Nil items

The appendices for this report will be circulated once they are available with the Cabinet agenda for the 19^th September, 2017.

The Committee received and noted an external review of Special educational needs and disability (SEND) and high needs which had identified some support for children and young people with special needs and disabilities is good but there were significant areas in urgent need of review and improvement. Benchmarking showed the demand for Education, Health and Care Plans in Tower Hamlets to be relatively high and growing whilst national funding is relatively static. It was noted that the development of a new SEND strategy is needed to provide a clear and transparent framework to support the difficult decisions we need to make to ensure good value for money, fairness and equity. This paper provides

·           Data on children and young people with SEND and available funding

·           The rationale for the development of a new SEND strategy

·           The proposed structure of the draft strategy and an outline of the development process; and

·           Proposed governance of SEND.

The questions and comments from Members on the report may be summarised as follows:

The Committee:

Noted that:

·         Work is being undertaken to engage families to shape and develop the Strategy and ensure that these children have fulfilling lives;

·         The undertaking of a full strategy review has meant families are now more aware and they are asking for help earlier than before;

·         There has been some concerns raised about the diversity of Free Schools [e.g. the provision in Free Schools; their offer and approach may not be one that fulfils the SEND needs of family’s children] whilst some of the Grant Maintained Schools are doing an outstanding job in supporting the diversity agenda;

·         Some Councils take a different approach than rather than issuing an Education, Health and Care Plan [EHCP] they use funding differently as based on a councils own method of identifying additional support than the EHCP route. Also they identify SEND needs earlier which means needs can be addressed and held at the SEN support stage than through an EHCP.

·         In past the process of producing a Statement of Special Educational Needs (SEN) focused on a Child’s Educational Needs but now the EHCP considers health care and Social Needs as well;

·         That LBTH are confident that LBTH will meet its statutory deadline to convert all statements to EHCP’s;

·         That the DfE very interested in work being done in LBTH to develop children’s EHCPs and they have reported very positively on the progress made and they have been assured by this progress;

·         Felt that the development of this Strategy means the needs of children can be addressed and addressed well against the back drop of the current financial climate;

·         Noted that officers are confident that the Tower Hamlets Educational Partnership will fully support this process; and

·         LBTH is in dialogue with local schools on supporting the establishment of specialist units where they have significant number of SEN pupils on roll needing support.  Plus the development of such units will attract extra funding.

The Committee received a report that provides an update on the Council’s Best Value Improvement Plan 2017-18 covering the period April-September 2017. The report built upon the June 2017 submission to the Secretary of State and detailed the continuous progress against the five areas of Communications, Property, Elections, Organisational Culture and Grants and the 26 actions found within the Improvement Plan. As a result of consideration of this report:

The Committee noted:

·         The preparations for 2018 elections;

·         That the lessons learnt and areas for improvement from the 2017 General Election will be incorporated into poll staff training; 

·         That whilst the Returning Officer was in favour of ID at polling stations LBTH was no longer participating in the Cabinet Office ID Pilot Scheme. It was noted that whilst initial meetings had taken place during 2017 along with General Election review meetings. The next meeting was not scheduled until  September 2018 and whilst it was noted that there had been no clear direction received from the Cabinet Office the view was expressed that this was a miss opportunity to participate in this scheme;

·         That the Revised Register of Electors 2018 to be published in December 2017; and

·         That there will be awareness raising and publicity for 2018 elections;

·         Due to the complexity of the combined elections in 2018, mandatory face to face training will take place in April 2018.

The Committee received a report that outlined the recommendations of the scrutiny review on creating a balanced night time economy in Tower Hamlets. The focus of this review being the delivery of a balanced Night Time Economy [NTE] in the Borough, ensuring that the benefits of a thriving local NTE are balanced against mitigating the negative impacts that the NTE can have on local people. The questions and comments from Members on the report may be summarised as follows:

The Committee:

Noted that:

·         There was a need to develop a balance economy and a voice for local people and the apparent failure of the cumulative impact zone. Also it was felt that the value of the night time economy is unclear in LBTH whereas in Westminster there is considered to be a clear understanding of the NTE e.g. the level of ASB in local Accident & Emergency Units and how best to address it and apparent increase in unlicensed guest houses and hotels;

·         The Council should develop a vision for the coming five to ten years for the Night Time Economy in the Borough;

·         The Council should appoint a “Night Czar” for the Borough who is a champion for a balanced Night Time Economy, a voice for all and not just businesses and their customers;

·         The Council urgently needs to review its Cumulative Impact Zone as the policy has failed to control the growth of licensed premises;

·         The Council ensures that if a Late Night Levy is introduced, funds raised by the Levy fund additional activity, clarity is gained about what the 70% of funding allocated to the Police will be used for and explores the Soho model of using the Late Night Levy as a way of bringing businesses and residents together;

·         The Council maps the “customer journey” for local residents through the licensing and enforcement process, with the aim of creating a clear guide for local people on who to contact and when if they are being affected by the NTE, accompanied by service improvement;

·         The Council should review its staffing approach for enforcement officers for issues such as noise nuisance and anti-social behaviour (ASB) to ensure that officers are available at times of high demand such as late night at weekends;

·         The Council should ensure that its skills and employment support provides local residents and young people with the assistance that they need to take advantage of opportunities for employment in night time economy employers;

·         The Council undertakes a review of its Assets of Community Value process, and ensures that provisions in the Local Plan are robustly and consistently applied to save pubs and clubs as community assets;

·         The Council should explore licensing and enforcement options for new, “sharing economy” entrants to the NTE in the Borough;

·         The Council should undertake a review of its approach to ensuring adequate public toilet facilities for those using the NTE and travelling between venues to reduce the impact of public fouling on residents local to NTE zones;

·         The Council should conduct  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.2

To consider and agree pre-decision scrutiny questions/comments to be presented to Cabinet with particular references to the following report.

The Committee received and noted the Cabinet papers for the 19^th September, 2017 and made particular references to those reports set out below. In addition, the Chair asked the Committee to submit any further pre decision scrutiny of the unrestricted Cabinet papers by 12:00 noon on the 15^th September. These submitted pre-decision scrutiny questions of the unrestricted Cabinet papers for the 19^th September, 2017 will then be circulated with the agenda papers for the October meeting.

The Committee received a report that provided an update on progress in delivering improvements to Children’s Services in response to the report published by Ofsted in April 2017 which rated LBTH services ‘inadequate’.   The Council’s improvement plan aims to achieve a standard of ‘good’ by April 2019, which is the minimum our children and families deserve.   

The body of the report it was noted included a commentary on progress in the four themes of our improvement plan, which was submitted to the Department for Education and Ofsted in July 2017.  Whilst some progress has been made in all four themes, this first quarterly report identifies that there remain significant challenges in moving the service towards a ‘good’ standard.

The questions and comments from Members on the report may be summarised as follows:

The Committee:

Noted that:

·         Progress will be monitored by Ofsted through quarterly monitoring visits.  The first of these visits took place on 30-31 August, 2017.  In their informal feedback, Ofsted noted the considerable progress that had been made in improving the management of contacts, referrals and assessments in our Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) and Assessment and Intervention service, which was the focus of their visit.  In their next visit, to take place in December, 2017 they will focus on the Family Support and Protection service where further progress needs to be made.  As this was the first monitoring visit they recognised that it is early in the improvement journey and whilst good progress has been made, there is still a lot of work to do to ensure that improvement is fully embedded and the Service meets a consistently good standard;  

·         Whilst Ofsted feel LBTH are ambitious with the initial targets the longer term aim is for an outstanding service;

·         LBTH is working to ensure that the Service needs to provide early help to families and there needs to be robust measurers in place;

·         After a judgement as received by LBTH from Ofsted the number of referrals a Service can anticipate will increase; 

·         The 3 Divisional Directors will have over sight to ensure the families have the correct offer;

·         The improvement in social work training;

·         Both Staff and Managers are getting a clear message the focus of the changes needs to be what children need in LBTH not just about performance indicators;

·         Supervision audits give social workers the support that they need and the recruitment is in hand to establish a stable work force and to lower of individual caseloads e.g. the volume of caseloads coming through the front door has surged after the Ofsted judgement and that this increase is working its way through the system;

·         Concerning the recruitment and retention strategy LBTH is working to provide incentives for staff to remain with the Council for a number of year’s e.g. Many LBTH staff have a real passion to meet the needs of those families that they are supporting; Need to use the passion of LBTH staff to illustrate why it is the best place to work  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.1

This report will be circulated once it becomes available with the Cabinet agenda for the 19^th September, 2017.

The Committee received a report that detailed the financial outturn position of the Council at the end of Quarter 1 for 2017-18 compared to budget, and service performance against targets.  It also included the quarter 1 position for the:

              I.                General Fund (GF) Revenue Budget Position

             II.                Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Budget Position

           III.                GF and HRA Capital Programme Performance

          IV.                Savings

            V.                Progress delivering Council Growth Priorities, including Mayoral Priority Growth

          VI.                Forecast use of Reserves

         VII.                S106, CIL and Capital Receipts Income

        VIII.                Council Tax and Business Rates Income

          IX.                Debtors & Creditors

            X.                Treasury Management Activities

          XI.                Pension Fund Investments Position

The questions and comments from Members on the report may be summarised as follows:

The Committee:

·         Questioned if the areas to be addressed will make up the ground. In response it was noted that whilst the forecasts indicate underspends it is recognised that there are pressures on the Budget they may have an impact; and

·         Noted that the benefits that will come from the Brexit process will need to be carefully considered against the needs of the communities in the Borough.

The Committee received a report that provided details of the Council’s performance against Strategic Measures during quarter one (April-June 2017).

The questions and comments from Members on the report may be summarised as follows:

The Committee:

Noted that:

·         The Council’s Strategic Plan and Strategic Measures are focused upon meeting the needs of the diverse communities living in Tower Hamlets and supporting delivery of One Tower Hamlets. In particular, strategic priorities include the reduction of inequalities and the fostering of community cohesion;

·         The Strategic Measure set contains the measures “Proportion of people with mental health problems in employment”; “Employment gap for women: reducing the gap between the Borough employment rate and employment rate for women”; and “Employment gap for BME residents: reducing the gap between the Borough employment rate and employment rate for BME residents”;

·         The data for Quarter 1 2017/18 shows that 5.8% of those aged 18-69 years old with an open CPA (care pathway approach) were in employment, just below the Council’s stretch target of 5.9% of people with mental health problems in employment;

·         On the measures of the employment gap for women and BME residents, performance did not meet the Council’s minimum expectation for the quarter, however the Council’s WorkPath service and wider WorkPath partnership continue to support residents into employment and has seen an 87% increase of 93 more jobs recorded compared to this time last year. 133 (85.3%) of the 156 Job Starts recorded by the WorkPath service were for BME residents, 150 of which delivered employment in excess of 16 hours per week. 361 (86%) of the 420  residents engaging with WorkPath were from the BME community. 67 out of the 156 (42.9%) Job Starts recorded by the WorkPath service were for female residents, 50 of which delivered employment of more than 16 hours per week;

·         The Council was also successful in supporting 199 local people into employment during the quarter through the WorkPath Partnership. This is an increase of 93 residents that have been helped into employment compared to the same period last year. The WorkPath service has seen 27 more reported Job Starts for BME residents, 15 more reported for female residents, 18 more for BME female and 9 more Lone Parents compared to the same period in 2016/17; and

·         The WorkPath Service works with key Council services and external partners including the Supporting Stronger Families, Job Centre Plus, Poplar HARCA, Housing Options, the Careers Service, Drug and Alcohol Team, Integrated Offender Management project (Probation service) and Ideas Stores to identify those residents who would benefit most from support, maximising engagement of women, disabled and BAME residents. WorkPath focuses on supporting economically inactive and long-term unemployed groups of residents (Residents furthest from the Labour Market, potentially with multiple barriers to employment), those that require extensive support over a longer period of time to get them job ready and into employment.

The Committee stated that it wanted a quarterly item on OSC agenda for Children’s Improvement Plan

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

Nil items

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

To consider any other exempt/ confidential business that the Chair considers to be urgent.

Nil items