The Leader of the Council, Councillor Colin Smith, attended the meeting to respond to questions from the Committee. Councillor Smith gave a brief introduction highlighting the following issues:

• The Leader was proud of the performance of the Council over the past four years.
• During the course of the last Council, the Borough had gone through unprecedented times.
• The strength of the residents of the Borough as a whole was remarkable with a number of residents stepping up to fulfil voluntary roles.
• In addition, departments across the Council had continued to deliver strong performances with a number of initiatives being nationally recognised.

The Leader then responded to questions, making the following comments:

• Moving forward there would be increasing pressure on budgets and the role of the voluntary sector would be crucial.  As yet, the impact of commuters returning to central London was unclear, but it was important to maintain the interest in and ethos of supporting the community and it was believed that the steps and measures put in place by the Council would be sufficient.
• The last two years had delivered learning around agile and flexible working and the view was that some form of split between office-based and agile working was beneficial.  Through the offer of flexible/agile working the Council had been able to attract candidates to positions that had previously been hard to fill.  In addition, it had been possible for the Council to retain more permanent staff and this had provided continuity for services.  Any decisions around agile working would come before Members early in the new 2022-2026 administration.
• There would be a single point of contact for any Member queries regarding support for Ukrainian Refugees coming to the Borough.  Members would be notified as soon as these arrangements had been confirmed.
• With respect to supporting refugees arriving from the Ukraine, the Council remained in contact with the Government and as policy was updated the information on the Council’s website would be updated.  The Council would be responsible for undertaking checks on safeguarding arrangements and the accommodation offered by sponsor families. 
• The funding being provided by the Government will be used to ensure that the infrastructure was in place to facilitate the necessary checks.  Families coming in would be required to register with the Government and provide notification of their destination in the UK.  The Government would then instruct local authorities to carry out the checks.  Members noted that processes needed to be expedited and there was a clear coordinating role for the Council.  This was likely to be labour intensive.  Policies would evolve and improve overtime and all Members would be kept informed of the changes via a weekly email as well as updates to the website.  The Chairman suggested that it may be helpful for a briefing providing answers to frequently asked questions to be circulated to all Members.
• It was agreed that it would be beneficial to enable incoming refugees to make contact with existing Bromley residents who spoke Russian and Ukrainian as this may help with feelings of isolation.  It was noted that there was a Facebook group for Russian speakers in Bromley and details of this group would be circulated to Members.
• A few years ago, Bromley had been found to have one of the best waste systems in London.  Policy continued to be reviewed and evolve and with an increasing number of people working from home more waste was being produced and this is something that the Council would look to address.
• By proven measurements, Bromley had amongst the best air quality levels in London.
• The issue of electric vehicle charging points was being overseen by the Environment and Community Services PDS Committee.  There was a need to roll out electric vehicle charging points where they were needed and required with the situation evolving very quickly.  Developments around hybrid charging points afforded further opportunities.

The Committee thanked the Leader for his update.