Items
No. |
Item |
27. |
FILMING AT MEETINGS
Please note that this meeting
may be filmed or recorded by the Council for live or subsequent
broadcast via the Council’s internet site or by anyone
attending the meeting using any communication method. Although we
ask members of the public recording, filming or reporting on the
meeting not to include the public seating areas, members of the
public attending the meeting should be aware that we cannot
guarantee that they will not be filmed or recorded by others
attending the meeting. Members of the public participating in the
meeting (e.g. making deputations, asking questions, making oral
protests) should be aware that they are likely to be filmed,
recorded or reported on.
By entering the meeting room
and using the public seating area, you are consenting to being
filmed and to the possible use of those images and sound
recordings.
The chair of the meeting has
the discretion to terminate or suspend filming or recording, if in
his or her opinion continuation of the filming, recording or
reporting would disrupt or prejudice the proceedings, infringe the
rights of any individual or may lead to the breach of a legal
obligation by the Council.
Minutes:
The Chair referred Members present to item one on
the agenda in respect of filming at the meeting and Members noted
the information contained therein.
|
28. |
Apologies for Absence
Minutes:
Apologies for absence were received from Cllr
Simmons-Safo due to illness.
|
29. |
Urgent Business
The Chair will consider the
admission of any late items of urgent business. (Late items will be
considered under the agenda item where they appear. New items will
be dealt with at item below).
Minutes:
There were no items of Urgent Business.
|
30. |
Declarations of Interest
A member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a prejudicial
interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at
which the matter is considered:
(i)
must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the
interest becomes apparent, and
(ii) may not participate in any
discussion or vote on the matter and must withdraw from the meeting
room.
A member who discloses at a
meeting a disclosable pecuniary
interest which is not registered in the Register of Members’
Interests or the subject of a pending notification must notify the
Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the
disclosure.
Disclosable pecuniary interests,
personal interests and prejudicial interests are defined at
Paragraphs 5-7 and Appendix A of the Members’ Code of
Conduct
Minutes:
There were no declarations of interest
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31. |
Deputations/Petitions/Presentations/Questions
To consider any requests
received in accordance with Part 4, Section B, paragraph 29 of the
Council’s constitution.
Minutes:
|
32. |
Minutes PDF 256 KB
To agree the minutes of the previous meeting
on 13th October as a correct record
Minutes:
A section from the minutes of the meeting on
13th October was missing from the version contained in
the published agenda pack. The Minutes of the previous meeting were
deferred to 12th January meeting.
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33. |
MINUTES OF SCRUTINY PANEL MEETINGS PDF 261 KB
To receive and note the minutes of the
following Scrutiny Panels and to approve any recommendations
contained within:
·
Adults and Health Scrutiny Panel – 15th September
2022
·
Children & Young People Scrutiny Panel – 6th
September 2022
·
Environment & Community Safety Scrutiny Panel –
5th September 2022
·
Housing, Planning and Development Scrutiny Panel –
29th September 2022
Additional documents:
Minutes:
RESOLVED
That the minutes of the following Scrutiny
Panels were agreed and noted and any recommendations contained
within were agreed:
·
Adults and Health Scrutiny Panel – 15th September
2022
·
Children & Young People Scrutiny Panel – 6th
September 2022
·
Environment & Community Safety Scrutiny Panel –
5th September 2022
·
Housing, Planning and Development Scrutiny Panel –
29th September 2022
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34. |
CABINET MEMBER QUESTIONS - CABINET MEMBER FOR Tackling Inequality & Resident Services
To put questions to the Cabinet
Member regarding areas of her Portfolio that are the responsibility
of the main Scrutiny Committee:
Local welfare programmes:
-
Revenue and benefits;
-
Council Tax Reduction Scheme;
-
Welfare advice;
-
Haringey Here to Help;
-
Ethical debt policy
Your Council:
Minutes:
The
Panel undertook a question and answer session with Cllr Chandwani,
the Cabinet Member for Tackling Inequality & Resident Services.
The following arose during the discussion of this agenda
item:
- The
Panel questioned waiting times and queried what strategic
performance data was collected in regard to the call centre. In
response, the Cabinet Member set out that the call centre was not
the only place that dealt with people’s issues. The call
centre was the front door for 15 key service areas but that the
other 85 or so service areas were dealt with in a different way. It
was noted that the time spent waiting on hold would therefore
depend on what the issue or service involved was. The Committee was
advised that call centre staff were trained to deal with 90% of the
issues that would arise and that there would always be some complex
multi-service issues that were perhaps not best responded to
through a call centre setting. The Cabinet Member advised that the
three service areas that received the greatest number of calls were
housing repairs, council tax and parking.
- The
Panel also sought clarification about what the average time taken
on a call was and whether comparative data was known about how well
Haringey did in relation to call answering in comparison to
neighbouring boroughs. The Cabinet Member set out that in order to
make a meaningful comparison, it would be necessary to compare like
for like and that, for example, most other authorities did not deal
with housing enquiries directly through the ‘front
door’ call centre. Officers advised that in relation to call
answering times, the latest performance information up to
11th November was that:
·
40% of calls were answered within 30
seconds
·
61% of calls were answered within 5
minutes
·
70% of calls were answered within 10
minutes
- Officers commented that there was generally a single digit
percentage of calls that hit an hour in terms of call waiting
times. The call centre received around 8k calls a week and 70% of
those were answered within 10 minutes. Officers advised that in
general waiting times could vary significantly, particularly when
dealing with complex multi-level issues that related to
residents’ welfare. Staff were encouraged to engage with
these difficult complex problems, as it was recognised that there
were residents with a high level of need.
- Officers advised that in relation to neighbouring boroughs, 92%
of calls were answered and that this was broadly in line with other
neighbouring local authorities.
- The
Committee sought clarification about whether, when people were
on-hold, that they were waiting for a person with specialist
knowledge to become free or whether calls were handled in a more
generalised manner. In response, the Committee was advised that the
customer service staff had a main specialist service area, along
with two other smaller areas of knowledge. This meant that calls in
relation to a particular service area were dealt with by specific
staff and that there could be a high waiting time ...
view the full minutes text for item 34.
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35. |
Update on Intrusive Fire Safety Inspections PDF 316 KB
Minutes:
The Committee received a
report which provided and update on intrusive fire safety
inspections. The report was introduced by Judith Page, Assistant
Director for Property Services as set out in the second dispatch
agenda pack at page 1. The following arose as part of the
discussion on this report:
- In response to a
question, officers advised that the spandrel windows in question
were in the stairwell rather than the domestic areas, so a stay put
strategy was assessed as being safer. Officers emphasised that a
stay put strategy was based on advice that residents should only
stay put as long as they felt safe. Often when there was a fire in
a block, the surrounding units did not realise there was a fire due
to the fire being compartmentalised through the building’s
design. One of the key differences between the two strategies in
terms of the infrastructure works undertaken, was that there was no
fire alarm alerting people to evacuate the building in a block with
a stay put strategy. It was noted that Headcorn & Tenterdon had
moved to an evacuation strategy and that a fire alarm system had
been installed.
- In relation to a
query about the risk of fire spreading vertically up through
stairwells, officers advised that the fire risk assessments were
carried out by external fire engineers and qualified fire risk
assessors, and they had re-evaluated each of the high risk blocks
as part of the fire safety inspection process.
- In response to a
question about building safety, officers reassured members that
there were no unsafe buildings in the borough. Stella House was
deemed as being the highest risk block and work was underway to
install a fire alarm system and a waking watch had been in place to
ensure it was patrolled constantly by staff, since the building
assessment was carried out. Officers acknowledged that there were a
number of fire safety risk assessment actions that needed to be
completed, as did all similar organisations, these actions were
being worked through.
- In response to a
question about the recruitment of a number of fire safety managers,
officers advised that these roles were going out to recruitment
shortly and that this had been delayed slightly because of
insourcing.
- Officers advised that
all blocks deemed high risk would need a building safety case in
place by September 2023. These cases were incredibly detailed.
Officers also advised that they had regular meetings with senior
officers from the fire brigade, which took place every six weeks or
so.
- Members sought
clarification around the fact that the report identified one block
as being high risk and that a number of other blocks were
identified as substantial and manageable risk. In response,
officers advised that ‘high risk’ blocks were
identified under the Building Safety Act 2022 and the Fire Safety
Act 2021, as being above 18 meters tall. These would always be
deemed as high risk due to the specialist equipment needed by the
fire brigade to tackle a fire in buildings ...
view the full minutes text for item 35.
|
36. |
Pilot building safety case - Update
Minutes:
The Committee received a verbal
update from Judith Page in relation to the pilot building safety
case. It was noted that:
- A pilot building
safety case was underway in Kenneth Robbins House in Northumberland
Park, however the implementation of this had been delayed from
November to February due to IT issues.
- As part of this
exercise, it has become apparent that a lot of the original plans
were missing so a lot of survey work was being carried out to fill
the gaps in information that was missing. The surveys were ongoing
and would continue until the relevant information needed to meet
the building safety case was available.
- The building safety
case required a resident engagement strategy for each building and
the Committee was advised that workshops had taken place with
residents in Kenneth Robbins House. The building safety managers
would act as champions for residents in each of the relevant
blocks.
The following arose during the
discussion of this agenda item:
- The Committee
requested a report on the residents’ engagement work that was
taking place. In particular members were keen to understand what
had changed following those resident workshops and what the
building safety managers had done to improve resident engagement
following the engagement work. In
response officers advised that they would bring an update on the
building safety case to the March meeting and would include an
update on resident engagement and how this changed the
Council’s approach. (Action: Judith
Page/Clerk).
- The Committee noted
concerns with fire safety assessments being done in the east of the
borough and questioned what was happening at Edgecot Grove. In
response, officers advised that they had reviewed the fire safety
risk assessment for Edgecot Grove prior to the meeting and that
this was up to date and did not highlight any major issues. In
response to a follow up question, officers set out that just
because many of the doors and windows were made of composite
materials, this did not make the blocks unsafe. Similarly, fire
extinguishers fire buckets had been removed as residents should
call the fire brigade, rather than try to tackle any fires
themselves.
- Officers agreed to
share the fire safety assessment for Edgecot Grove with the
Committee and also agreed to send an officer to attend a future
resident meeting to discuss fire safety. (Action: Judith
Page).
- The Committee noted
concerns with the fact that the link for residents to report fire
safety concerns was quite long and not easily accessed on the
website. The Committee set out that the Council should be making it
as easy as possible for residents to report concerns about fire
safety, particularly given the learning from Grenfell. The
Committee requested that the link was made shorter and more
prominent on the website. In response, officers advised that they
would pick this up during their next meeting with Comms and would
also include the link in the resident newsletter that was due to go
out before Christmas. (Action: Judith Page).
RESOLVED
Noted.
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37. |
Work Programme Update PDF 321 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Committee received a report which provided an
update on the work plans for 2022-24 for the Overview &
Scrutiny Committee and the four Scrutiny Panels.
The Panel noted that there were two evidence
sessions lined up for the Scrutiny Review into VAWG, one on the
9th December and one on 21st December. After
a discussion Members agreed in principle to having one session in
person (daytime) and one session online (evening), depending on the
availability of both officers and members.
The Committee also noted that the Cabinet agenda had
been published for 6th December and on this agenda was
the Cabinet response to the mini Scrutiny Review on Gambling. The
Chair agreed to pick up who was best place to introduce this report
with scrutiny officers outside of the meeting.
RESOLVED
- The current
work programmes for the Overview & Scrutiny Committee and the
four Scrutiny Panels were noted and any amendments, were agreed as
appropriate.
- The Committee
gave consideration to the agenda items and reports required for its
next meeting on 12th January 2023.
- The scoping
document for a Scrutiny Review by the Housing, Planning and
Development Scrutiny Panel on Landlord Licensing and Renting in the
Private Sector was agreed.
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38. |
New Items of Urgent Business
Minutes:
|
39. |
Future meetings
·
12 January 2023
·
19 January 2023
·
30 March 2023
Minutes:
·
12 January 2023
·
19 January 2023
·
30 March 2023
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