Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors:

·       Nijhar

·       Alexander

·       Tighe

·       Sahota

·       Kohli; and

·       Zissimos

Councillor Hashani was in attendance virtually.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 13 December 2022.

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting held on 13 December 2022 are agreed as a correct record of proceedings.

The Mayor updated Council on important civic announcements. It was noted that:

·       Former Mayor and Councillor Norman Pointing had passed away at age 93. The Mayor paid tribute to Norman and passed on condolences to his family. Council observed a minute’s silence and Councillors Young, Johnson and Ball paid tribute to Norman.

·       Sangha Day, Purim, Holi and Hola Malhalla had all taken place in close proximity to the Council meeting.

·       It was International Women’s Day, and the Mayor had attended an event at the University of West London to celebrate women in policing, as well as the Ealing Expo where she met many successful women.

·       The Mayor was undertaking a sponsored walk to raise money for her charity on 29 March and invited members to sponsor her.

There were no petitions from members of the public.

There were no petitions from members of the Council.

Notice has been given that Joe Stean wishes to ask the following question of Councillor Deirdre Costigan, Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Climate Action:

Will Ealing council follow in the wake of other councils and support Electronic Vehicle adoption by allowing residents to run a 3cm buried cable channel across the pavement? This will:

·       Mitigate health and safety objections

·       Avoid utilities as it will only need to be depth of charging cable (3cm)

·       Be aesthetically pleasing / consistent with existing channels in Ealing

·       And crucially, allow residents to charge from home

Joe Stean asked the following question of Councillor Deirdre Costigan, Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Climate Action:

Will Ealing council follow in the wake of other councils and support Electronic Vehicle adoption by allowing residents to run a 3cm buried cable channel across the pavement? This will:

·       Mitigate health and safety objections

·       Avoid utilities as it will only need to be depth of charging cable (3cm)

·       Be aesthetically pleasing / consistent with existing channels in Ealing

·       And crucially, allow residents to charge from home

Councillor Costigan responded, explaining that there was a limited trial in other local authority areas of this initiative. Ealing would await the results of these trials before committing to any trials locally. The main issue that could be problematic in adopting this approach in Ealing was the scarce pavement space and competition for parking spaces. It was important to emphasise that parking bays were available to all that had parking permits, and not to give the impression of ‘ownership’ of spaces on the road, particularly if a resident had paid for the installation of a buried cable. The concern was that the impression of ‘ownership’ could cause conflict with neighbours. For now the Council was concentrating on expanding the network of vehicle charging points around the Borough to increase uptake in electric vehicle ownership. However it was always open to other initiatives to make ownership of electric vehicles more attractive.

Councillor Brett asked Councillor Manro:

Can the portfolio holder provide an update on how the council is progressing on providing accommodation for homeless households in the borough?  

Councillor Manro responded:

There are too many households in Ealing that are currently homeless, we have over 2300 families currently in temporary accommodation. We as the council are doing everything that we can to ensure that everyone in Ealing has somewhere that they can call home. The impact that homelessness can have on a person’s life chances is massive and as a council, our goal is to help our residents to thrive and achieve their full potential.

Just recently, the Leader and I went to visit the newly acquired 31 temporary accommodation flats at Aspect House in Acton. That’s 31 high quality homes for 31 homeless households, all of whom will now have the opportunity at a fresh start in life. These flats play an important role in ending the council’s reliance on B&B accommodation, which isn’t appropriate for many of the families who find themselves there.

The council’s internal property purchase scheme has helped us purchase over 150 homes, and we expect this number to continue to rise.

The Council has leased modular housing units on four sites in the borough providing over 100 self-contained homes and we are continuing to work on looking at alternative sources to increase the provision of temporary accommodation.

Ealing has one of the highest rates of homelessness prevention in London, helping households at risk of homelessness to either stay where they are through targeted interventions or through finding them alternative accommodation. We know that we have to maintain our focus on this, but we most certainly are proud of our record.

But we can’t lose sight of how we house these families into permanent accommodation in the future.

In terms of building new council homes, we have pledged to deliver 4000 genuinely affordable homes up to March 2026. If we are successful, then this would represent a significant increase on the 2700 homes delivered in the four years leading up to March 2022.

The delivery of the 4,000 genuinely affordable homes in the next 3 years will be through a combination of:

·       New homes delivered across our estate regeneration plan, which is one of the largest in London

·       New Homes delivered by our wholly owned local housing company, Broadway Living

·       New homes built by our partner registered providers

·       The application of planning policy to deliver affordable homes on private developments

The large majority of these homes will be available for let to people on the Council’s housing waiting list.

The Council and Broadway Living together have secured over £143 million in GLA capital grant in the 2018-23 programme for the delivery of affordable homes, which is one of the largest grant allocations made in this funding programme to any Local Authority in London!

The Council and Broadway Living have also together secured £109.5 million for the next GLA capital funding for the next GLA capital  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Councillor Donnelly moved, and Councillor Mason seconded, the Council’s Budget Strategy for 2023-24.

Councillor Busuttil moved, and Councillor Malcolm seconded, an amendment to the budget.

Councillors Malcolm, Young, Baaklini, Kamaljit Kaur Nagpal, Malcolm, Kelly, Haili, Gallant, Knewstub, Ball, Bains, Quansah, Stafford, Anderson, Manro, Steed, Mahfouz, Johnson, Conti and Mason responded to the motion and amendment.

Councillor Donnelly summed up the motion and Councillor Busuttil summed up the amendment.

A recorded vote was taken on the amendment, with the voting as follows:

FOR: Councillors

Gallant, Kumar, Conti, Young, Stafford, Ball, Hersch, Malcolm, Steed and Busuttil

AGAINST: Councillors

Shaw, Mason, Costigan, Mahfouz, Manro, Donnelly, Kamaljit Kaur Nagpal, Raza, Blacker, Gordon, Knewstub, R Wall, Kelly, L Wall, Summers, Rice, M Ahmed, Mahmood, Brett, Dheer, Khan, S Ahmed, Sharma, Rai, P Anand, Kaur Dheer, Johnson, Mohan, Iqbal, Murtaza, Sidhu, J Martin, K Crawford, Dhindsa, Anderson, Haili, D Crawford, Jassal, Kingston, Hamidi, Quansah, Bains, Mohamed, Padda, Kim Nagpal, Driscoll, D Martin, Baaklini, Wesson, Tighe, Tailor and Midha.

ABSTENTIONS:

None

The amendment was duly LOST.

A recorded vote was taken on the original motions and it was

RESOLVED: That Council

1)      Revenue Budget 2023/24 and Medium-Term Financial Strategy 2023/24 to 2026/27

a)      Considers and approves the Revenue Budget for 2023/24 as summarised in Appendix 1.

b)      Considers the advice of the Strategic Director of Corporate Resources (Section 151 Officer) on the levels of reserves and robustness of estimates in setting the budget as required by Section 25 of the Local Government Act 2003 (Appendix 0, section 10).

c)      Notes the financial risks and pressures set out in the report to Cabinet on 22 February 2023 (Appendix 0, section 4 and section 14).

d)      Approves the Parking Account 2023/24 (Appendix 0, paragraph 5.12 and Appendix 5).

e)      Approves the draft Schools budget of £310.595m and agrees that any changes to the budget reasonably required as a result of the final 2023/24 Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) settlement are delegated for decision to the Strategic Director of Children following consultation with the Strategic Director of Corporate Resources (Section 151 Officer) (Appendix 0, section 6).

f)        Approves the Strategic Director of Corporate Resources (Section 151 Officer) to agree appropriate actions to comply with the DSG guidance, including agreeing the appropriate Deficit Recovery Plan (Appendix 0, section 6).

2)      Capital Programme 2023/24 – 2027/28

a)      Approves the updated profile of the Capital Programme totalling £1,296.633m (before additions and schemes to be decommissioned), as set out in Appendix 0 (section 8), Appendix 6 and Appendix 7.

b)      Approves the new General Fund capital programme additions totalling £12.850m and schemes to be decommissioned totalling £12.574m (Appendix 0, paragraph 8.3 to 8.4 and Appendix 6).

3)      Capital Strategy, Treasury Management and Pension Fund

a)      Approves the Treasury Management Strategy including the associated Prudential Indicators and Annual Investment Strategy (Appendix 0, section 9 and Appendix 9).

b)      Approves the Treasury Management Policy Statement (Appendix 9).

c)      Notes the Strategic Director of Corporate Resources (Section 151 Officer) will implement the Treasury Management Strategy under existing officer  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

The 2023-24 Members Allowances Scheme was moved by Councillor x and seconded by Councillor x.

RESOLVED: That Council

1.     Noted and had regard to the report and recommendations of the London Councils’ independent panel, ‘The Remuneration of Councillors in London 2022’.

2.     Approved the proposed Ealing Members’ Allowances Scheme for 2023/24 as set out in Appendix 1 to the report.

RESOLVED: That Council

1.     Approved the attached Pay Policy Statement (appendix 1) and note the supporting appendices 2, 3, 4 and 5;

2.     Approved a policy, for 2023-24, to pay the rLW formerly known as the LLW rate or above to direct employees (whether permanent or fixed term) and to ensure agency workers are paid the rLW. The rLW will be paid for the time periods during which employees are carrying out what might be described as (for example) the normal duties of the post. However, it will not be paid for the time periods on which employees are on a standby shift, or a sleep-in shift, and not carrying out the normal duties of the post;

3.     Noted that decisions on pay grades for chief officers will be determined by Chief Officer Panel, in accordance with their existing terms of reference;

4.     Commended to Governing Bodies of Schools that they consider paying the rLW rate to schools-based employees (whether permanent or fixed term) and to agency workers working in Schools.

There were no appointments to Committees and other bodies.

There were no urgent key decisions exempted from call-in since the last Council meeting.

There were no urgent key decisions exempted from call-in.

RESOLVED: That Council noted:

1. Cllr Lauren Wall resigned her position as cabinet portfolio holder for

Genuinely Affordable Homes

2. The Leader has updated the responsibilities of the portfolio holder for

Genuinely Affordable Homes, in accordance with his powers under Article

7.09 of Part 2 of the constitution. The portfolio responsibilities of that portfolio

now comprise the following:

• The Social Housing Regulator referral and recovery plan

• Housing asset management,

• Fire health and safety,

• HRA including business plan,

• Housing allocations,

• Tenancy management including housing hubs,

• Homelessness & temporary accommodation management,

• Housing strategy,

• New housing supply including HRA and Broadway Living,

• Estate regen / renewal,

• Temporary accommodation (acquisition)

3. The Leader has appointed the following cabinet members to carry out the

respective responsibilities of the portfolio holder for Genuinely Affordable

Homes:

Cllr Steve Donnelly – Cabinet Member for Inclusive Economy & Safe, Secure

Council Homes

• The Social Housing Regulator referral and recovery plan

• Housing asset management,

• Fire health and safety,

• Housing allocations,

• Tenancy management including housing hubs,

• Homelessness & temporary accommodation management,

• HRA business plan (revenue & non-renewal capital projects)

Cllr Shital Manro – Cabinet Member for Good Growth & New Housing

• Housing strategy and policy

• New housing supply including HRA and Broadway Living,

• Estate regen / renewal,

• Temporary accommodation (acquisition),

• HRA business plan (renewal capital projects).

4. The Leader will put in place longer term arrangements in due course and

report these to annual council