London Councils

Minutes of the meeting of the Leaders' Committee held on 8 July 2008

Cllr Merrick Cockell chaired the meeting

Present:

BARKING AND DAGENHAM Cllr Liam Smith

BARNET Cllr Matthew Offord

BEXLEY Cllr Teresa O'Neill

BRENT Cllr Bob Wharton

BROMLEY Cllr S. L. Carr

CAMDEN Cllr Keith Moffitt

CROYDON Cllr Mike Fisher

EALING Cllr Jason Stacey

ENFIELD Cllr Mike Rye

GREENWICH Cllr Chris Roberts

HACKNEY Mayor Jules Pipe

HAMMERSMITH & FULHAM Cllr Alex Karmel

HARINGEY Cllr George Meehan

HARROW Cllr David Ashton

HAVERING Cllr Michael White

HILLINGDON Cllr Douglas Mills

HOUNSLOW Cllr Peter Thompson

ISLINGTON Cllr James Kempton

KENSINGTON & CHELSEA Cllr Merrick Cockell

KINGSTON Cllr Derek Osbourne

LAMBETH Cllr Jackie Meldrum

LEWISHAM Mayor Sir Steve Bullock

MERTON Cllr Samantha George

NEWHAM Cllr Pat Murphy

REDBRIDGE Cllr Alan Weinberg

RICHMOND UPON THAMES Cllr Stephen Knight

SOUTHWARK Cllr Nick Stanton

SUTTON Cllr Lyn Gleeson

TOWER HAMLETS Cllr Lutfur Rahman

WALTHAM FOREST Cllr Clyde Loakes

WANDSWORTH Cllr Maurice Heaster

WESTMINSTER Cllr Colin Barrow

CITY OF LONDON Mr Stuart Fraser

LFEPA -

MPA -

Ex officio (under the provisions of Standing Order 2.2):

HOUSING Cllr Jamie Carswell

Ex officio (under the provisions of Standing Order 2.3):

TRANSPORT AND ENVIRONMENT Cllr Irwin van Colle

Apologies:

BARNET Cllr Mike Freer

BRENT Cllr Paul Lorber

HAMMERSMITH AND FULHAM Cllr Steve Greenhalgh

HILLINGDON Cllr Ray Puddifoot

LAMBETH Cllr Steve Reed

MERTON Cllr David Williams

NEWHAM Mayor Sir Robin Wales

RICHMOND Cllr Serge Lourie

SUTTON Cllr Sean Brennan

WANSDWORTH Cllr Edward Lister

EQUALITIES Cllr Anjana Patel

TRANSPORT AND ENVIRONMENT Cllr Daniel Moylan

LFEPA Cllr Brian Coleman

Officers of London Councils were in attendance.

None were made.

Cllr Derek Osbourne (Liberal Democrat, Kingston) argued that the minutes of item 11 Freedom Pass apportionment failed to reflect adequately the level of agreement expressed at the meeting for the proposal for any change in apportionment of costs to be damped by thirds. Leaders' Committee agreed to change the last sentence in the second last paragraph of the minutes from:

...there was some possibility of achieving an agreement based on damping by thirds without recourse to arbitration. A number of members felt that there was the prospect of reaching an agreement on this basis.

to:

...there was some possibility of achieving an agreement based on damping by thirds without recourse to arbitration. There was substantial support for the prospect of reaching an agreement on this basis.

With that change Leaders' Committee agreed the minutes of its meeting of 10 June.

Ms Ruth Carnall CBE, Chief Executive of NHS London, gave a presentation saying that NHS London had made a lot of progress over the past few years particularly on financial performance and reduction of waiting times, but .was still not doing well enough in a number of areas. Following on from the Healthcare for London strategy, NHS London had been examining future commissioning arrangements. PCT Chief Executives were generating options for future commissioning plans and were required to report them to NHS London by 23 July 2008

Mr Roger Hampson, Chief Executive of the London Borough of Redbridge also spoke as a member of on behalf of the Chief Executives London Committee (CELC) NHS London Liaison Group.

The Chairman responded by saying that the message that London Councils had given to Ms Carnall was that clarity was all important and that any attempt to change the co-terminosity of boroughs and PCTs against the wishes of boroughs would be ill-advised. He went on to say that there was an openness to discuss how to strengthen commissioning arrangements and an acceptance some support functions could be shared. Overall, however, the importance of the local connection between boroughs and PCTs should not be under estimated.

A number of comments were then made from the floor:

Cllr Clyde Loakes (Labour, Waltham Forest) pointed out that he had just signed his Local Area Agreement which defined his borough's partnership with the PCT and this link was vital. It's borough had been put in a sub-region without any coherence and his borough was being asked to comment on options over the summer when many were away.

Cllr Derek Osbourne (Liberal Democrat, Kingston) asked how could better engagement be achieved? In Kingston eleven options had already been reduced down to one or two and he would have preferred to have been involved much earlier in the process with the Health Service. He would also have liked to have explored other models, such as joint commissioning with local authorities to tap into the expertise in boroughs.

Cllr Chris Roberts (Labour, Greenwich) questioned how personalisation of health services could work if there was not co-terminosity with social services departments. He felt that there had been too much change in NHS London and that the organisation should have been given a chance to settle down. He was concerned that the role of PCTs in directly providing services seemed to be being questioned and he could not understand the rationale for such a distinction.

Cllr Colin Barrow (Conservative, Westminster) argued that the relationship with people and the local authority should remain unchanged whatever happened at a higher level and offered Westminster as a model.

Cllr George Meehan (Labour, Haringey) pointed out that there had been no proper discussion in Haringey about proposals for which there was a deadline in two weeks' time. The approach seemed to have been to convince chief executives and hope leaders fell into line.

Cllr Jason Stacey (Conservative, Ealing) argued that the mood was different from the previous visit by Ruth Carnall to Leaders' Committee because there was a feeling that the process was moving ahead without the proper involvement of politicians.

Mayor Sir Steve Bullock pointed out that boroughs had developed a commissioning and delivery process that appeared to be running contrary to that of NHS London.

Ms Ruth Carnall responded saying that she:

At this point Ms Carnall left the meeting.

Mayor Sir Steve Bullock (Labour, Lewisham) argued that:

Cllr Derek Osbourne (Liberal Democrat, Kingston) saw the argument for smaller meetings at local and sub-regional levels with PCTs. He felt that the arguments about create scale and more work across borders as being different to the argument about co-terminosity. He also wanted the meeting of the Health and Adult Services forum that had been cancelled to go ahead.

The Chairman replied saying that the reinstatement of the meeting of the Health and Adult services forum would be looked at. He went on to say that any timescale that imposed a deadline of the end of July for proper boroughs engagement with NHS London proposals would not be acceptable.

Leaders' Committee agreed to:

The Chairman began by pointing out that his, the Conservative, group would seek to note rather than approve the report.

Cllr Jamie Carswell (Labour, Housing) responded by saying that, if one group wished for more time to consider the proposals then clearly this had to be respected but any delay would only weaken the position in relation to the new Mayor, the Government and the HCA. The Labour group would have been concerned over the disproportionate strain placed on certain boroughs by the unequal distribution of strategic sites.

Cllr Mike Rye (Conservative, Enfield) commented that one point that all boroughs could agree on was their unhappiness that the Mayor would seek to include non-strategic sites.

The Chairman concluded by saying that this was not a matter that Mayor Johnson wished to ignore but, like the Government, he wanted the agreement between boroughs. In voting to note the report, he wished to make clear he expected work to continue to clarify political leaders' views and that another paper would come back after the summer break.

Leaders' Committee agreed to note the report.

The Chief Executive introduced the report saying it proposed changes which flow from previous reports, discussions and analysis of the responses to the Member Roles, Structures and Ways of Working consultation issued after the Leaders' Committee of 1 April. In particular, it responded to points made at the Executive meeting on 23 June.

Cllr Stephen Knight (Liberal Democrat, Richmond) referred to recommendation 8 Portfolio holders to choose how they structure engagement with London local government including elected members leading on relevant policy areas and asked whether this would apply to the Local Government Finance portfolio.

The Chairman replied that the Local Government Finance was dealt with at Leaders' Committee which acted as a source of guidance and challenge to him in his capacity of the Local Government Finance portfolio-holder, he would give consideration to some other form of engagement if there was felt to be a need for it and he would be interested to hear views.

Cllr Nick Stanton (Liberal Democrat, Southwark) expressed his disappointment that the report did not make any proposals for scrutiny.

The Chairman replied by saying that the London Scrutiny Network had always been keen to maintain it's independence , but within that London Councils had offered support to the Network in certain ways.

Cllr Derek Osbourne (Liberal Democrat, Kingston) referred to the lack of any mention of his party's proposal that there would be one key campaign per year and expressed his concern about Equalities issues, the tone of paragraph 11 London Councils should make available meeting rooms and general facilities for other member networks but will, during 2008/09 look to reduce full servicing support for such networks. Discussion with the Equalities Forum will take place as to the inter-relationship with work on `Be a Councillor' to identify ways in which some of this work can best be taken forward suggested that Equalities work was only to do with the `Be a Councillor' campaign, not more generally.

The Chairman responded by saying that there was no intention to downplay the importance of Equalities but paragraph 11 referred to the support that some bodies had been receiving that would be wound down and the Chief Executive pointed out that the subject of major campaigns would need to be addressed through the Business Plan process.

Leaders' Committee agreed:

in addition to its present role in relation to budget, internal management and staffing issues and the consideration, in advance, of matters going to Leaders' Committee.

Following Leaders' Committee's agreement to paragraph 10 the party groups put forward the following portfolio-holders:

Cllr Derek Osbourne (Liberal Democrat, Kingston) pointed out that primary school places were becoming a major issue with far more families presenting children than had up to now and further work on this should be considered..

Leader's Committee agreed to note action already taken and to approve the further planned actions in relation to:

Leader's Committee agreed the four Revenue Grant Distribution work themes set out in the first section of the report.:

Leader's Committee agreed to note the minutes and summaries of the:

Action Points