The questions which have been received from members of the public for this Council meeting are set out in the attached report.  A maximum period of 20 minutes is allocated to this agenda item.

The following questions followed by a supplementary question (except were indicated) were put and responded to by the Mayor or the relevant Executive Member:-

6.2  Question from Norma Vondee:

How many residents has WorkPath actually supported into work compared to Skillsmatch?

Response of Councillor Joshua Peck, Cabinet Member for Work and Economic Development:

I am delighted to be able to say that WorkPath has resulted in 416 residents getting into work in its first six months of operation. That’s a 41% increase on what Skillsmatch achieved in the same period last year.

(No supplemental question was asked)

6.4 Question from MohammodRafique Ullah 

How do rent levels at Watts Grove compare with rent levels at Poplar Baths and Dame Collet House?

Response of Councillor Rachel Blake, Cabinet Member for Strategic Development and Waste:

When Mayor Biggs was first elected, he asked us to do an Affordability Commission to get to the bottom of what genuinely affordable homes meant now. We found that under the previous Mayor, rents were set too high for local people to afford, often due to expensive PFI deals that the previous Mayor signed up to.  Rents on new Council homes agreed under the previous Mayor for example at Poplar Baths, Bradwell Street and Dame Collet House were set at expensive framework rents. Our new rent levels which will be social rent and the Tower Hamlets living rent at a proportion of local incomes will make new affordable homes far more affordable to those on low incomes saving residents significant amounts of money. We also took the decision to apply these new rents levels at Watts Grove.

Supplementary question fromMohammodRafique Ullah:

Do you have a limit on affordable rents and what do mean by affordable rents?

Councillor Blake’s response to supplementary question:

Sadly this Government’s affordable rents could be anything up to 80% of market rents. We think that is completely unaffordable for our residents. So for us, we are setting rent levels at social rent and at the Tower Hamlets living rent which is about a third of average incomes in Tower Hamlets. There is still much more to do to make housing genuinely affordable, including encouraging other social landlords to take up these lower rents, and to really start tackling private landlords on their rent levels. Our new rent levels are definitely a big step in the right direction.

6.5 Question from Polly Avison:

How many police officers and PCSOs have been cut from Tower Hamlets?

Response of Councillor Asma Begum, Cabinet Member for Community Safety:

Due to huge cuts to the policing budget from the Conservative Government, Tower Hamlets lost almost a quarter of their police from the seven years following May 2010. Since the Tories took power, there has been a reduction from 818 officers to just 630. Tower Hamlets also lost more than ¾ of their PSCOs. 78% since 2010. More importantly, in the absence of intervention from central Government, we’ve taken steps ourselves to increase the police presence on our streets. We’ve ring fenced funding of £3m for police officers in Tower Hamlets, committing £3m of funding over the next three years to help protect neighbourhood policing. The police officers are tasked with tackling issues that residents told us were their biggest concerns, such as tackling anti-social behaviour, acid attacks, drug dealing and violent crime. 14 officers will be responsible for tackling crime on estates and 25 additional officers will work across the borough. A new ‘Designing Out Crime’ officer will also help planners, housing providers and developers to ensure that future developments consider community safety issues from the outset and design them out before being built. The Government expects local councils to step in to fill the gap – while we are doing everything we can, like funding extra officers, we simply cannot replace every police officer that the Government scraps. The Met has already lost £600 million since 2010 and the Government is threatening to go further. These are not sustainable cuts to the Met’s budget and are damaging frontline policing and putting the public at risk. We are continuing to urge the Government to think again.

(No supplemental question was asked)

Questions 6.1, 6.3, and 6.6 were not put due to the absence of the questioner. Written responses would be provided to the questions.(Note:  The written responses are included in Appendix ‘A’ to these minutes.)