To receive notice of any business not on the agenda which in the opinion of the Chair, by reason of special circumstances, be considered as a matter of urgency.
Minutes:
The Chair highlighted the recent letter published by the Secretary of State for the Department of Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), Michael Gove MP on 20 July 2023, which provided updated guidance on the statutory intervention at the London Borough of Croydon. As this was after the publication of the Committee’s agenda, the Chair invited the Council’s Chief Executive, Katherine Kerswell, to provide an update under ‘Urgent Business’ on the implications of the new guidance and to outline the next steps for the Council. Members of the Government’s Improvement & Assurance Panel were in attendance at the meeting, and the Chief Executive invited the Panel Chair, Tony McArdle, to provide additional insight on behalf of the Panel as part of the update.
It was advised that the letter from DLUHC confirmed that the Council would be entering into statutory arrangements with the Improvement & Assurance Panel. Since the original letter from DLUHC about the statutory arrangements, received in March 2023, the Council and the Panel had continued to work together under the previously established arrangement, while waiting for further guidance. The letter from DLUHC highlighted three previous identified areas of particular concern, namely finance, transformation, and housing. It was confirmed that the Council was not expecting any further guidance from DLUHC.
The ongoing role of the Improvement & Assurance Panel was to guide, challenge and advise the Council on its recovery. If the Panel felt it was needed, it also had the power to direct the Council to ensure its was meeting its best value duty. Tony McArdle would continue as Chair of the Panel, while Jon Wilson and Phil Brookes would continue in their respective roles as leads in adult social care, and commercial and asset disposal. There would be two new additions to the team, with Brian Roberts joining as financial lead and Pamela Leonce as housing lead.
It was confirmed that DLUHC had recently opened a consultation on the Best Value Duty of local authorities, a link to which would be circulated to the Committee following the meeting. This document explained what the Government meant by Best Value Duty. It was highlighted that a local authority was not expected to be perfect, but it should be working towards this and be able to deliver a sustainable budget, which the Council was not able to do until its debt issue was resolved.
Panel Chair, Tony McArdle, advised the Committee that the Panel looked forward to continuing to support the Council with its recovery. Although the Government had put statutory arrangements in place, it was not envisioned that the current relationship between the Panel and the Council would be significantly different. The Panel would remain in Croydon until 2025 and it was their role to provide reassure to the DLUHC Secretary of State on the Council’s journey towards ongoing sustainability.
A requirement of the statutory intervention was to have an exit strategy in place to set out where the Council was expected to be by the time the Panel was due to leave Croydon in 2025. Although, the Strategy was owned by the Panel and would set out their expectations for the Council on behalf of the Secretary of State, there had been conversations with the Mayor, Cabinet and officers as part of its development. It was hoped that the exit strategy would be available within a couple of months.
At the conclusion of the item, the Chair thanked the Chief Executive and Mr McArdle for the update provided.
Actions
Following consideration of this item, the Scrutiny & Overview Committee agreed the following action to follow-up after the meeting: -
Conclusions
At the conclusion of this item, the Scrutiny & Overview Committee reached the following conclusions: -