The Chair introduced this item
and welcomed Councillor Nesil Caliskan as Leader of the
Council. He asked Councillor Caliskan
to give a brief overview of what she considers to be her and the
administrations’ vision, key objectives and priorities for
Enfield for the coming years.
Councillor Caliskan referred to
her party’s manifesto as the steer for delivering a clear
strategic vision for the future. The council’s Corporate Plan
will be shaped by this and would be presented at the Cabinet
meeting in September.
Councillor Caliskan spoke of
her key priorities on the following:
- Crime/
community cohesion
- Housing
- Reduction of poverty/ inequality
- A
balanced budget
Crime/ community
cohesion – Councillor Caliskan spoke of
the increase in serious youth violence as hugely significant, with
an 8% increase in London and significantly a 17% increase for
Enfield. She had recently met with the Mayor for London to discuss
this issue. The council had helped to fund 16 additional police
community support officers (PCSO’s) through match funding
from the Mayors Office for Police and
Crime (MOPAC) and she sought reassurance that this would continue.
This scheme is not at risk. She discussed the pressures of lack of
policing, which is especially challenging given the large numbers
of vacancies that the Met Police have across London. Before police
numbers can be increased these vacancies must first be
filled. Discussions had also been held
regarding a bid for £500k a year for three years to tackle
youth crime and anti- social behaviour.
She also referred to the £100k that the council had set aside
for youth activities over this summer period.
Housing
In the long term the Meridian
Water project should deliver 10,000 new homes.
Development partners are to be
sought to develop the first two housing sites for this project
delivering nearly 1,000 new private and affordable homes built
around the new train station.
It is also intended to continue
rolling out roof top conversion work across the borough.
She referred to the need to
drive up improvements for the day to day housing repairs contracts,
she spoke of the challenges involved with two contracts being up
for renewal in 18 months’ time.
Poverty/ Inequality
The Leader stated that the
objective to reduce poverty/ inequality should “run through
everything we do”. An
equality commission would be set up in the autumn which will have
cross party involvement. The aim is for recommendations to be
formulated within months for the council to take
forward. It was thought much
information already exists, for example in relation to health
inequality which could be used to inform the commission’s
work.
A Balanced Budget
This is the ninth year of
budget cuts with a further £20 to £30 million savings
to be found by 2019/20. A robust budget
setting process is necessary as ‘salami slicing’ for
some services is no longer feasible. We need to ensure our budget is sustainable
and that we support our most vulnerable residents.
The following questions/ issues
were raised regarding crime/ community cohesion:
- Reference was made to money (£100k) being used for summer
activities for young people and how this can be targeted to those
at risk of youth violence. It was mentioned that this decision was
made quickly and as such it was thought better to extend existing
schemes that already work well and continue to work with our
existing partners extending existing programmes and mentoring
schemes. This provision will be for all young people in the
borough. A future project where it is
hoped that £500K would be available for 3 years, would be
aimed at reducing youth crime and anti-social behaviour and will be
targeted at young people who have been identified by schools and
social workers as being at risk of crime.
- Early
interventions are key, and an example of this - funding a worker in
A&E at North Middlesex hospital provides support to young
people. Intelligence to help young
people may be available from different sources for example in
housing services and this needs to be further explored. Councillor
Caliskan said the linking up of early interventions was important,
for us and our partners for example those that may present
themselves at their GP surgery may be having housing/ social care
problems.
- Councillor Bond referred to the need for interventions within
housing and spoke of an evicted resident who in a short time was
back on the same estate causing further problems for residents. He
suggested that we should ensure our legal team are able to help in
these cases. Councillor Smith said it
is often difficult to prosecute individuals and we need to have a
clear understanding of what the authority can and cannot do and to
take a proactive line.
- When
asked when it would be known whether the £500k a year bid had
been successful, it was thought we should hear by September. Many
other boroughs are also bidding for this money and there is strict
criteria in place, however it was believed that Enfield would be
seen as a priority.
- It was
confirmed that the 16 additional police officers which are match
funded have been budgeted for.
- The
£100k being set aside for summer activities will be for this
year only.
- Councillor Caliskan had recently met with the Borough Commander
and held discussions on gangs, drug dealing and the effect of
county lines which has emerged as a real problem. The borough commander also covers the borough of
Haringey and there were concerns that resources may be targeted to
them. Councillor Caliskan was reassured by the borough commander
that this will not be the case and that Enfield is considered a
priority area.
- A
public meeting is to be held on 28 July 2018 at Community House
Edmonton to discuss ways of tackling an increase in youth violence
in the borough.
The following questions/ issues
were raised regarding housing:
- Councillor Levy referred to the different planning policies and
diverse views on housing which often results in the authority being
‘pulled in different directions’ he asked how we can
ensure that we cut through the bureaucracy to ensure the provision
of more housing. Councillor Caliskan
referred to the recent Cabinet decision to change the strategy for
delivering the Meridian Water project.
There will now be a number of developers instead of just the one.
This should help the 20 year project to move forward and give us
more flexibility in dealing with developers and would enable us to
look at issues as they arise on a site by site basis.
£120M is the Housing
Infrastructure Fund bid. This would fund crucial infrastructure,
such as roads, bridges, flood alleviation etc. The first three
sites we’ve identified for accelerated development does not
depend on us being successful in the bid. The Meridian Water train
station is due to open in 2019.
- The
council will continue to work with the managing directors of the
current contractors to drive up improvements on the existing
performance on repairs and maintenance. Councillor Calsikan mentioned that the option of penalties
would be pursued and said there may be a possibility of some work
being brought ‘in house’ in future.
- A
report on Genotin Road car park had
been considered at Cabinet the previous evening. It had been the
subject of pre-decision scrutiny and Councillor Caliskan had been
informed that this had proved to be a very useful
process.
- Councillor Caliskan said she understood that the second
development for Meridian Water would be for 100% affordable
housing.
- A
concern was raised about the large number of day to day repairs and
the backlog of estate renewal projects that need to be done.
Councillor Caliskan said the council is working on this, new
officers have been appointed, a repairs advisor is now on hand in
the call centre which helps with housing repair
queries.
- Councillor Bond said an issue might be that contractors are paid
for each visit which will not encourage them to fix a problem the
first time. He spoke about the heating scheme which is being
progressed by LB Haringey, Islington and Camden, he thought it
would be unfortunate that our scheme was unable to link in with
this at present. He suggested that when heating pipes are to be
installed we should also look to include ‘broadband’
cables. Councillor Bond mentioned that an estate manager had been
working on a bid for funds from the GLA, he felt that it was
important that support and training should be provided for this as
it can be quite a technical process.
Councillor Caliskan agreed and said we also needed to provide
support to members of the voluntary sector in the same way to
support them with training on the bidding process..
- Councillor Smith spoke of his concerns that the new
‘trading companies’ such as ‘Energetik’ did not appear to have a
democratic process overseeing them and he felt that there is a
governance gap. He thought there could
be a perceived ‘conflict of interest’ if a Cabinet
member is on the Board. Councillor
Caliskan said there is a new Shareholder Board which will perform
this democratic process and the relevant Cabinet member would be a
member of the Shareholder Board as opposed to the
company. She said going forward she
welcomed more interrogation/ scrutiny in this area.
The following questions/ issues
were raised regarding inequality:
- It was
acknowledged that there were challenges in promoting public health
equality in the borough and that public health is important for all
departments and must not be seen as a silo department. Instead it
must be weaved into all areas.
- Councillor Levy spoke of the importance of ensuring cross
cutting issues for consideration.
- Councillor Caliskan spoke of two key public health issues - Air
Quality and Decent Homes, she said these two things were paramount
in improving public health for the boroughs’
residents.
Councillor Levy thanked
Councillor Calsikan for attending the
meeting and for giving an overview of her vision, key objectives
and priorities for Enfield for the future. Councillor Caliskan said
she was happy to attend this meeting and would be happy to come
along to a future meeting of Overview and Scrutiny Committee if
required.