Agenda and minutes

Apologies have been received from Councillor Bryan Vincent.

To receive any other apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from:

Councillor Mandy Anderson (Councillor Pat Brown substituting)

Councillor Natasha Summers

Councillor David Taylor (Councillor Damian White substituting)

Councillor Katharine Tumilty (Councillor Matt Stanton substituting)

Councillor Bryan Vincent (Councillor Jacqui McArdle substituting)

Members are invited to disclose any interest in any of the items on the agenda at this point of the meeting.

Members may still disclose any interest in an item at any time prior to the consideration of the matter.

There were no disclosures of interest.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of the Board held on 30 March 2023 (attached) and to authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The minutes of the meeting held on 30 March 2023 were agreed as a correct record.

The Board is asked to agree any comments to be passed to Cabinet on the following reports which are subject to pre-decision scrutiny:

-       East London Waste Authority – Outline Business Case

-       Procurement of Highways and Street Lighting Contracts

The Board agreed that, having undertaken pre-decision scrutiny, it did not wish to make any specific comments on the following Cabinet reports:

-       East London Waste Authority – Outline Business Case

-       Procurement of Highways and Street Lighting Contracts

Report attached.

The scope of the parking enforcement task and finish group was agreed by the Board. The scope is attached of these minutes.

Attached for noting.

The annual report of the Board was noted.

Report and registers attached.

Each directorate had its own risk registers and the strategic risk register was a standing item at the Governance and Assurance Board, as well as being considered by the Council’s Senior Leadership Team. Access was being arranged for Members to the strategic and directorate risk registers and offices would chase this up.

A Member asked why the entry in the register regarding the risk of being able to deliver a balanced budget did not reference the error in parking charges budget papers. Officer accepted that this had led to a £250k shortfall but this was in the context of a £180m budget. There was also a £2m provision for undelivered savings. Other savings initiatives in parking meant that a balanced budget could still be set. The parking charges issue had not invalidated the budget process as a whole and other Members felt that this was not so much a risk as an issue in the way budgets were prepared that officers would need to resolve. Officers accepted that an error had been made in processing the budget report. The results of an investigation into the parking charges issue could be brought to an exempt meeting of the Board.

Members were pleased at the higher level of detail in the register but noted that some dates were still absent. Officers would seek to confirm the remaining target dates. Review dates on the register were system-generated and officers would investigate those that should have already taken place.

Some risks on the housing risk register were housing-specific, others were more generic. Risks included the increasing demand for homeless services and not enough rent or service charges being received. More generic risks covered areas such as the recruitment and retention of staff, failure of IT systems, adult safeguarding issues and fire and flood risk due to climate change. Officers would look into the risk of the lack of cookers in homeless accommodation etc and whether this should be added to the register.

It was accepted that there were some risks of the property acquisition programme but assessments of each property were undertaken in order to mitigate this. More detail such as control measures would be added to the risk register. It was confirmed that the Council had complied with the requirement all social landlords to install fire alarms in their properties. Fire alarms were also checked annually.

Information on risks was reported regularly to the regeneration officer board and then fed into the regeneration risk register. Key risks included increased costs of climate change, sales values of properties (which were regularly monitored) the need to maintain levels of private rented income.

There were also risks around the cost and availability of construction materials and the lack of well-trained labour. Officers were aware of risks rising interest leading to a lowering of property values but 65 of 71 low cost home ownership properties at the New Green development which had seen good maintenance of value and there was currently no suggestion that values would drop.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.