Questions to the Leader of the Council and Chief Executive
An opportunity to question Cllr Peray Ahmet,
Leader of the Council, and Andy Donald, Chief Executive, on the
Council’s priorities for 2025/26.
Minutes:
Leader of the Council, Cllr Peray Ahmet, and
the Chief Executive of the Council, Andy Donald, introduced this
item by setting out some key developments and achievements.
Cllr Ahmet began by highlighting the
administration’s priorities of being competent, collaborative
and radical which were included in the party manifesto and then
turned into action through the Corporate Delivery Plan. Recent
progress had included:
- 1,000 new Council homes will have
been achieved by the end of 2025 and nearly 1,400 achieved by May
2026. This was against a target of 3,000 by 2031 so the progress
was on track. The progress had been delivered through a combination
of acquisitions and direct builds with Haringey being one of the
only London Boroughs to still be building Council homes.
- Preparations were being made for the
London Borough of Culture in 2027, following the award to Haringey
last year. A new charity had been launched to oversee this and
preparations included the completion of 36 ‘school
streets’ which would increase to 40 by next year.
- Children’s Services had
secured its first ‘good’ rating, SEND services had
achieved the best possible rating and youth justice services had
improved to a ‘good' rating.
- A focus on getting the basics right
had included the approach to flood prevention and cleaning gullies
on a regular basis.
- Investment of nearly £2m in
eight parks, seven of which were in Tottenham and one in Wood
Green.
- The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium would
be of the host venues for the Euro 2028 football tournament and the
Council would be working with Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and
external partners on how this could best benefit residents.
- Working with the Greater London
Authority (GLA) and other external partners on policy changes such
as the expansion in the national funding for social housing and the
new Renters Rights Bill which provides new enforcement powers for
local authorities.
Andy Donald summarised a number of upcoming
issues and challenges for the Council:
- In the national policy context,
there were a number of reviews proposed including on adult social
care, children’s social care and SEND.
- The reform of local government
funding was not looking positive for Haringey in the medium-term
and so senior officers and Cabinet Members were working to make the
case for Haringey’s funding needs.
- Rising demand and costs of services
was causing financial challenges with the cost of adult social care
rising by 8.5% and temporary accommodation by 51% in 2024/25.
- Community cohesion was important in
terms of recent events and there had been a lot of hard work to
regain and build stronger connections with communities in recent
years.
- In response to the recent CQC
inspection, an Adult Services Improvement Board had been
established which Andy Donald chaired along with cross-party
membership. An OFSTED inspection on children’s social care
was also expected soon.
- There was a rising number of
complaints against the Council, partly because it was now easier to
do so, and so significant resources were required to resolve these
complaints. There had been ...
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