Agenda item
Reference from Council - Watts Grove Depot Project and financial mechanisms for Dame Colet House and Poplar Baths projects - Draft OSC report to Council - To Follow
To consider the information presented in the draft OSC report and endorse the findings/ recommendations contained therein for onward reporting to Council.
Minutes:
The Committee was advised that no paper could be circulated prior to the meeting and therefore it was proposed to have an informal discussion with a view to reporting formally to the Council meeting on 22nd January 2014.
The Chair felt that it would be useful to have a discussion prior to Council. The final report would contain the Committee’s comments from previous discussions on this matter and read out some proposed recommendations for the report as follows:
· The decision to use the model selected for the Watts Grove Depot redevelopment was flawed, and vulnerable to potentially foreseeable changed. The consequence of those decisions has seen the Council incur costs of approximately £308,000 (as of 5th November), and lose out on the opportunity to provide 149 affordable homes. A partnership with an RP would have been a better option, but to pursue this now would involve starting the full and costly procurement process again from the beginning.
· Whilst the Mayor is entitled to make certain decisions in private, doing so makes it difficult to ascertain the full rationale for these, and for the Committee to discharge its functions (as was the case here). The Committee therefore believes that decisions such as these should be made in public unless absolutely necessary, and that where decisions are made in private, the Mayor should make himself available in person to justify his decision when requested by the Committee.
· Related to the above, the Mayor and Cabinet Members should adhere to the Council Constitution and attend the Overview and Scrutiny Committee when they are required, rather than leaving officers to defend their decisions. The absence of the political leadership of the Council from meetings has obstructed the Committee from fully carrying out its role in scrutinising their decisions.
· Where the Mayor rules out working with RSL partners on a project which is otherwise financially unviable he should justify his reasons for doing so.
· The Cabinet Member responsible for housing should provide accurate figures when commenting on the number of homes built by the Council, so that Members and residents can be confident that these are reliable.
· Cabinet members should be fully briefed and should have all the information they need before they attend meetings of the Committee, so that the Committee’s discussions, findings and recommendations are based upon the fullest and most accurate information possible.
· Reports should be unrestricted in the interests of transparency, with exceptions for restricted papers only where absolutely necessary (such as commercially sensitive information). In this case, the Committee believes that more of the reports should have been unrestricted.
The Chair then asked Members for their comments on the proposed recommendations and they made the following comments:
· The first recommendation be amended to read “…A partnership with an RP or another more economically viable model such as council housing, would have been a better option.”
· The second paragraph be amended to reflect that where decisions must be made in private, the basis and rationale for these should be clear and available for scrutiny just as for decisions made in public.
· Concern was expressed over the lack of transparency and the Chair concurred that the decisions should be on unrestricted papers where possible.
The Chair then Moved and it was
Resolved
A report be presented to the next meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 20th January 2014 including the recommendations above, as amended.
Action by:
Louise Russell (Service Head, Corporate Strategy and Equalities)
Frances Jones (One Tower Hamlets Service Manager, Corporate Strategy and Equalities, CE’s)
Mark Cairns (Senior Policy and Performance Officer, Corporate Strategy and Equalities, CE’s)
Louise Fleming (Senior Committee Officer, Democratic Services, CE’s)