Agenda and minutes

Councillor Levy welcomed all attendees to the meeting. The following substitutes were noted:

Councillor Andy Milne for Councillor Lee David-Sanders

Councillor Jim Stevens for Councillor Edward Smith

Apologies for lateness had been received from Councillor Edward Smith who had unfortunately been delayed by traffic.

In view of Councillor Smith’s delayed arrival, the order of the agenda was changed, and Item 5 was taken first. For the interest of clarity however, the minutes are shown in the agenda order.

Members of the Council are invited to identify any disclosable pecuniary, other pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests relevant to the items on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest.

To receive and consider a report from the Director of Law and Governance outlining details of a call-in received on the Portfolio Decision taken on Meridian Water- National Grid Overage (Report No: 177).

The decision that has been called in was a Portfolio Decision taken on 25 January 2019 and included on the Publication of Decision List No: 45/18-19 (List Ref:7/45/18-19) issued on 25 January 2019.

It is proposed that consideration of the call-in be structured as follows:

· Brief outline of the reasons for the call-in by representative (s) of the members who   have called in the decision

· Response to the reasons provided for the Call-in by a Cabinet Member responsible for taking the decision

· Debate by Overview and Scrutiny Committee and agreement of action to be taken

Please also see the Part 2 agenda

The Chair opened this item by making a statement about the call-in process and his observations regarding items coming forward as a lot of the recent
call-ins seemed to focus on what ‘is not in the report’ rather than what is included. The call-in process should not be used for simply seeking information as this could be gained by other means, e.g. talking to officers.

Call-Ins have a very specific function and OSC is not necessarily a surrogate for information exchange. Call-Ins are welcomed as they are very much part of the democratic process. However, the reasons cited for the call-in should be based on information that is deemed weak in the report and not what is thought to be absent. It can potentially make a call-in weaker if using them to procure additional information.

The Committee received a report from the Director of Law and Governance outlining details of a call-in received on the Portfolio decision taken on Meridian Water – National Grid Overage (taken on 25/01/19)

NOTED that this report was considered in conjunction with the information in the part 2 agenda.

All the discussion on this item took part in the part 2 section of the meeting.

To receive an update report on Meridian Water.

RECEIVED an update from Peter George, Programme Director, Meridian Water.

The Leader Councillor Nesil Cazimoglu left the meeting at this point but advised the committee that she was happy to take any further questions from Councillors regarding Meridian Water outside of the meeting and she would respond to them accordingly.

NOTED:

i)             Background information was provided on the Meridian Water project. It will deliver 10,000 homes and thousands of jobs. The council has acquired 35.5 hectares of land within the site to date.

ii)            Following the withdrawal of Barrett and subsequently PCPD (as reserve bidder) the procurement process for a master developer partner was concluded by Cabinet on 25^th July 2018 (KD4022). The Council has since taken on the role of master developer and will lead the development of Meridian Water.

iii)           The Council will lead the phasing of the development by creating contiguous plots of land that can then be developed. The first phase of development is Meridian One on the Willoughby Lane site.

iv)           The new Meridian Station is part of the wider £170m Lea Valley Rail Programme. It is set to open on 19^th May 2019 and will take up to four million passengers per year directly south to Stratford, with onward connections to Liverpool Street, City Airport and Heathrow, and north to Stansted and Cambridge.

v)            Angel Road mainline service is currently 0-2 trains per hour (tph), this service will commence at Meridian Water Station in May following the existing timetable. From September services will commence on the 3^rd track which will layer an additional 2 trains per hour through day service. This will realise a 2-3/4tph. Construction is progressing well, and delivery of the station is on time and on budget.

vi)           The Council has submitted a bid in December for £156M of the MHCLG Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF).  The bid is seeking funding for strategic infrastructure in Meridian Water to unlock the site for housing development. If successful, the funding will provide infrastructure required for the 10,000 new homes in Meridian Water.

vii)          The bids are currently being assessed by central government and the announcement of the schemes that have successfully secured funding is expected in March 2019.

viii)        Procurement of a developer partner for Meridian One is progressing. Tenders are returned on 15^th February and the Council is expecting to enter into contract during the summer subject to Cabinet approval.

ix)           Further information was provided on Meridian Two as well as employment uses. The ambition is to secure two thirds of ground floor space as non-residential space, this is likely to be a mix of retail, community and workspace.

x)            If the Council is successful in securing the HIF funding and delivers key strategic infrastructure, the attractiveness of the site will be greatly increased to developers of employment offers.

xi)           The Council is progressing with its major meanwhile project Meridian Works with support from the GLA. The Council is marketing two meanwhile sites: Teardrop and Stonehill and further information  ...  view the full minutes text for item 960.

This is a discussion item.

The Chair introduced this item and welcomed Councillor Alev Cazimoglu as Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care. He asked Councillor Cazimoglu to give a brief overview of what she considers to be the key objectives and priorities in respect of the portfolio.

Councillor Cazimoglu thanked Members for the opportunity to attend the meeting and felt that it was a good time to come and talk about what she wants from her role as well as providing an update on progress to date.

She introduced Officers from the key areas of her portfolio; Bindi Nagra, Director of Health & Adult Social Care and Doug Wilson, Head of Strategy & Service Development.

Councillor Cazimoglu highlighted the following:

·         Social Care is under greater challenges nationally and the sector is very much in crisis.

·         There has been some short term, limited solutions however there appears to be no long-term plans in place and there doesn’t seem to be any real solutions or guidance coming from central government.

·         Despite this uncertainty Enfield should be very proud as we continue to deliver very safe and good quality health and social care services.

·         During the nine years of central government cuts and austerity the department has risen to the challenge and been innovative in an attempt to deliver the very best services that it can under the current circumstances.

·         Despite the national picture we are doing very well locally. However, the pressures do not go away, they just pop up somewhere else and therefore this impact is often seen in other services across the council.

·         Lack of sufficient social care funding will have a huge impact on health services. There is currently a lot of talk regarding integration and the possibility of the health service and social care services working more closely together to make the users’ experiences and outcomes better.

Bindi Nagra, Director of Health & Social Care provided some further information on the service highlighting the following:

·         A lot of work has taken place over the past nine months in an attempt to live within the budget set and the service continues to put effort into this to deliver the agreed savings.

·         The values of the organisation and staff here at Enfield are much better than other places. Although money and resources are tight, we continue to do the very best for our service users and aim to continue this.

·         We provide our service users with Direct Payments to allow them as much independence as possible and to make their own choices. This proves the most cost effective and results in better outcomes.

·         Relationships with our health partners is challenging. The CCG in Enfield has been in difficulty for a decade which therefore causes ongoing problems. We are currently looking at how to join up and integrate services at an operational level. We will also continue to work with the CCG on budgets and over the coming year there will be a much clearer picture of the Council’s agenda for working with health services.

·         We will continue  ...  view the full minutes text for item 961.

To receive a report from Clara Seery, Assistant Director, Education, Schools & Children’s Services on the Speech & Language Therapy (SLT) Service.

Clara Seery, Assistant Director, Education, Schools and Children’s Services presented this report which provided updated information regarding the Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) Service for school-aged children in Enfield. It sets out the progress to date in improving the customer experience for responsive repairs and a timeline for a full options appraisal of future delivery models, and a recommendation to Cabinet based on the outcome of that analysis.

The Overview & Scrutiny Committee were asked to note the report and comments were welcomed.

The following was highlighted:

i)             Local Authorities have a statutory duty to work with Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in their local area to deliver the SEND Reforms. This includes Speech and language Therapy.

ii)            Provision of the Speech and Language Therapy Service for Enfield’s school-age children and young people is primarily provided by Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust (BEH-MHT). Enfield Council and Enfield CCG fund this provision jointly.

iii)           The latest (December 2018) figures from BEH-MHT show a caseload of 694 children accessing SLT services as part of their Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) provision. This is a 56% increase on caseload data from 2015 (445 children).

iv)           This caseload is covered by 7.3 FTE therapists for mainstream schools, and 6 FTE therapists for special schools. In addition, there are 4.8 FTE specialist Clinical Leads. Provision is also provided within six Additional Resource Provision (ARP) settings (a total of 0.6FTE) and four Speech and Language Resources Bases (SLRBs) (a total of 2 FTE).

v)            Further provision in Enfield includes the following: Youth Offending Unit, LAC Virtual School, Orchardside School, Early Years Social Inclusion and West Lea School. These are commissioned separately to the local authority/CCG partnership, by the organisations themselves.

vi)           As of September 2018, referrals to the Speech and Language Service provided by BEH-MHT have been accepted for children who meet one of the following criteria:

·         The child or young person has a primary health, speech and language need.

·         A request for a statutory needs assessment has been agreed by the SEN Panel.

·         The child already has an EHCP and has/is suspected to have a significant speech and language need, but no speech and language assessment was carried out when the EHCP was issued.

vii)          In order to support them in continuing to support speech, language and communication needs, BEH-MHT also offers schools a purchasable range of support packages. These may include staff training, support and additional assessments, and are tailor made to the school’s requirements.

viii)        Clara said that they believe there are children who would benefit from the service who don’t meet of the three criteria (please see above). Parents are also frustrated at not being able to access Speech and Language Services.

ix)           She felt that the service was now in a position to know where the pressures are and now need to go back to the CCG and Health Services to look at different ways of working and possible changes to the service.

x)            Overall there has been an increase  ...  view the full minutes text for item 962.

RECEIVED a report from Kari Manovitch, Acting Director, Customer Experience & Change, setting out the progress made to date in delivering the Customer Experience programme and the future plans.

NOTED:

i)             The Customer Experience Strategy 2018-2022 was approved by Cabinet in September 2018 and sets out how the Council will deliver on its vision of a positive customer experience despite the challenging times faced by local government.

ii)            The strategy recognises that delivering a positive customer experience, the vision of the strategy, is everyone’s responsibility in the council.

iii)           The Customer Experience Programme was set up to implement the strategy and this programme is run by the Transformation Service, but every single service in the council has a vital contribution to make.

iv)           The Customer Experience Programme has initiated five workstreams and made positive progress. The five workstreams are:

·         Customer journey reviews;

·         Developing a learning, development and culture change offer;

·         Improving customer data and performance management;

·         Maximising the roles of libraries;

·         Developing an improved digital offer.

v)            The programme of activities completed and planned is included in Appendix A of the report. This programme is constantly being reviewed and updated as new activities are added. Examples of progress to date were also detailed in the report.

vi)           Kari said that the programme is very broad and ambitious which inevitably presents challenges. She went on to speak about some of the challenges faced in more details and the measures being taken to address these.

vii)          She added that it is important to look at what is our starting point, where we are letting customers down and pinpointing this from a factual perspective. Efforts can then be targeted to priority areas, action taken, and success measured.

viii)        The programme team are working with the senior managers responsible for the various projects to identify how the benefits for the projects can be measured, drawing on data that is included in the new dashboard under development, as well as by collecting data that is less regular and lower volume than performance statistics.

ix)           There is a small, hardworking, committed team in place chipping away at a wide range of areas. Progress is being made but the road is a long one, however the end plan is to achieve a cultural change.

x)            The programme plan will continue to be further reviewed and refined, as will the staffing resources assigned to the programme.

xi)           The Customer Experience Strategy and the activities of the programme are monitored via a monthly programme board and reported to all Council Directors monthly. It is also being communicated to staff via a variety of methods.

xii)          Kari said that progress updates can be reported to this committee on a quarterly basis.

Following Kari’s update the following comments/questions were made:

·         Concerns were raised regarding the ongoing issues within the Council’s Planning Department. Kari advised that Planning is one of the three areas that the team has chosen to focus on in this phase of the programme. The Planning Department recognises  ...  view the full minutes text for item 963.

To note the dates of future meetings as follows:

Call in meeting

·         Tuesday 19^th February

Provisional Call-Ins

· Tuesday 12 March 2019

· Tuesday 26 March 2019

· Thursday 11 April 2019

Please note, the business meeting of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee will

be held on:

· Wednesday 3 April 2019

NOTED the dates of future meetings as follows:

Call in meeting

·         Tuesday 19^th February

Provisional Call-Ins

· Tuesday 12 March 2019

· Tuesday 26 March 2019

· Thursday 11 April 2019

Please note, the business meeting of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee will

be held on:

· Wednesday 3 April 2019

Resolved in accordance with the principles of Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972 to exclude the press and public from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involved the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 3 of the Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Act (as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006

Attached for consideration as part of the Call-in on this item, is the Part 2 Portfolio report considered as part of the decision made on 25 January 2019.

The report should be read in conjunction with the Portfolio report attached at Appendix 1 to the Call-In report on the part 1 agenda.

(This document contains exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 (information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information) of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972 as amended).

Please see the Part 1 agenda.

The Committee received the information provided on the call-in report: Meridian Water- National Grid Overage which had been included in part 2 section of the agenda

NOTED

1.    The information was considered in conjunction with the report on the part 1 agenda.

2.    Councillor Smith set out the reasons for calling in the decision:

·         The report to extinguish the overage is not satisfactory in terms of the information provided to justify the decision.

·         No reference to the original report authorising the purchase of the three sites for the National Grid. No details either of the proposed overage agreement etc.

·         Concern regarding contradictions within the report about the gross development value of Phase 1 of the site.

·         No explanation on how the council will recover the total cost of the site.

3.    The response of Councillor Caliskan, Leader of the Council. She highlighted the following:

·         Details of the overage agreement have been provided in the attachment to the DAR.

·         The gross development value of Phase 1 of the site quoted in the report is an error. The correct value was advised. This does not change the rest of the section or any of the conclusions in the report.

·         An explanation on how the council will recover the total cost of the site is covered in detail in the Part 2 report.

4.    Other issues highlighted by officers in support of the decision included;

·         Further information and clarification on Meridian Water- National Grid Overage deed.

·         Alternative options were discussed and the consequences these would have for Enfield Council. The buy-out of the NG Overage reduces the Council risk and administrative burden.

·         In considering whether to buy out the overage, it is necessary to consider whether the buy-out will be a prudent use of the council’s resources both in the short and long term. The report sets out the reasons why officers are of the view that the buy-out would be in accordance with the Council’s fiduciary duty.

5.    The summing up by Councillor Smith: 

·         He felt that the report was not as comprehensive as it should be in order for the Leader or the Cabinet Member to make an informed decision. He felt that the report lacked sufficient information in order to be able to fully understand the process.

·         Time scales are very limited (5 working days) from when a report is published to address any issues/questions with officers.

·         At this stage he would expect officers and the Administration to have a very clear knowledge of the financial outcome of Phase 1. There is no evidence of the surplus/profit expected to be made. This information could have been included in the report in a simple schedule.

·         He did state however that he did not feel that the decision should be referred back to the decision-making person or body

The Leader, Councillor Caliskan felt that it was a misrepresentation to say that she did not have a clear understanding of the report. This was certainly not the case otherwise she would not have  ...  view the full minutes text for item 966.