Issue - meetings

The Leader set out the process for considering the Overview & Scrutiny recommendations and reconsidering the key decision on Broadwater Farm. The Cabinet would first consider the recommendations of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, set out in the second pack of papers, at page 5, and Councillor Ibrahim would provide a verbal response to the recommendations.

After Cllr Ibrahim’s response to the recommendations, Cabinet would then move to reconsideration of the key decision, which was contained in the minutes, agenda item 6, at section 9, pages 5 &6 of the original pack.

The Leader invited Councillor das Neves to report on the outcome of the Special Overview and Scrutiny meeting, held on the 6^th of December 2018 which had considered the Broadwater Farm report following the call-in of this decision.

Councillor das Neves, Chair of Overview and Scrutiny, introduced her report, indicating that the Committee had considered representations from Jacob Secker and Paul Burnham of Haringey Defend Council Housing and the call-in lead signatories Cllr Barnes and Cllr Palmer. She drew attention to the key issues considered by the Committee as outlined in the attached report.

The Overview and Scrutiny Committee agreed that they had received no evidence to suggest that the decisions taken on Broadwater Farm on the 13^th of November were outside the budget Framework nor Policy Framework. The Committee, subsequently, unanimously, agreed that the decisions taken were inside the Budget Framework and further agreed that the decisions were inside the Policy Framework.

Taking account of the key role of Overview and Scrutiny as the advocate for community engagement and the changes required to the Broadwater Farm Rehousing and Payments policy, a Cabinet document, the Committee proceeded to agree to refer the matter back to the Cabinet, as the decision maker, to reconsider its decision of 13^th of November 2018 before taking a final decision with six recommendations.

The Cabinet Member for Housing and Estate Renewal continued to respond to the Overview and Scrutiny recommendations and the Cabinet noted the following:

a)    That section 3.3 of the Broadwater Farm Rehousing and Payments policy is clarified to reflect the right of Tangmere and Northolt resident leaseholders to return to the Broadwater Farm Estate, following a move outside of the borough for rehousing purposes.

The Cabinet Member accepted this recommendation and proposed that Cabinet agree to delegate authority to the interim  Director of Housing, Regeneration and Planning to amend the policy accordingly.

b) That consideration is given to increasing and strengthening the voice of residents on the discretion panel to support confidence in this process and provide a sense that their representations will be fully considered. This will further involve considering the governance around the discretion panel to enable this.

The Cabinet Member commented that the Broadwater Farm discretion panel played an important role in the rehousing process, so it was important that residents had confidence that their case was being properly and fairly considered and therefore accepted this recommendation. She committed to consider the governance process of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 31