‘Rebuilding trust’ after cyber attack is council’s biggest challenge, says Hackney Mayor

Hackney Mayor Philip Glanville says “rebuilding trust” after the costly cyber attack on the council is one of the biggest challenges facing the borough.

Criminals hacked the council’s computer systems in October 2020 when it was focused on supporting residents and businesses reeling from the pandemic.

The attack has cost the council more than £6m and the data loss has led to disruption, even to this day, with many public services.

The borough leader told a Town Hall scrutiny committee that “trust is absolutely crucial” and said winning it back is one of the key challenges over the next four years.

Glanville, who became directly elected mayor in 2016 and was re-elected four years later, said the effects have created challenges.

Residents will go to the polls in May to elect councillors and a mayor to serve them over the next four years.

Glanville said: “It is really, really important that getting the basics right of your customer interaction, whether a resident or business with the council, is not only fully restored  – and it largely is for the first transaction that you are making right now.

“But there’s obviously a backlog of people who have been trying to change circumstance and council tax, that have moved into the borough, that are updating their housing register.

“All of those interactions we need to make sure are as high quality and as accessible as can be, and we need to ensure that that is the basis of trust people have in us as a public authority and I think that is absolutely crucial.”

Among other challenges facing the council over the next four years, as the community recovers from the pandemic, are “headwinds” of the poverty and cost-of-living crisis, with fuel and food prices set to rise further.

The number of people claiming  Universal Credit leapt from 13,700 in March 2020 before the first lockdown to 34,250 by September 2021 – with 40 per cent of them in jobs.

The mayor said the council is also looking at adult learning and not just investing in good school education to help “lift growth” in the borough.

“We need to do more about job skills and employment,” he told councillors.

He said the impact of Covid had brought lessons for the council: “We have learned so much about ourselves during the pandemic – how the council , health and voluntary sectors worked to support the most vulnerable.”

It comes as the scrutiny panel heard that one in three Hackney households, or 39,000 homes, are in poverty after they have paid for housing. This means nearly half of children are living in poverty in the borough.

The mayor said the council also faces challenges in tackling the climate crisis.

“A failure to act will condemn Hackney residents to the worst aspects of extreme temperature, the worst aspects of air pollution,” he warned.

“We’ll see them not skilled for the jobs that are coming, we’ll see them not supported to retain the jobs that they have, with skills gaps and shortages in the council, and that will have an economic impact and a poverty impact further down the line.”

He added: “A failure to get to grips with how we heat our homes affordably will condemn Hackney residents to fuel poverty and long-term climate impact.”