Agenda item

To follow

The Panel received a presentation, which provided an update on progress on working with the social housing regulator, following the Council’s self-referral in March 2023. It was noted that Homes for Haringey transferred back into the Council on 1^st June 2022, following consultation with residents and staff. The Council were particularly concerned about overdue electrical inspections and high risk fire safety actions. In December 2022, Pennington Choices undertook a health check of the Council’s approach to meeting statutory Health and Safety requirements in December 2022. Following the report from Pennington, the Council referred itself to the regulator. In March 2023, the regulator issued its judgement.

The presentation was introduced by Jahedur Rahman, Operational Director for Housing Services and Building Safety, as set out in the additional reports pack at pages 1 to 15. David Joyce, Director of Placemaking & Housing was present. Cllr Sarah Williams, Cabinet Member for Housing Services, Private Renters & Planning was also present for this item. The following arose as part of the discussion of this report:

a.    The Panel were advised that following the judgement, the Council grouped the key compliance risks into six categories: Fire Risk Safety Assessments; Gas Safety Inspections; Electrical Inspections; Asbestos Re-inspections; Passenger Lift Inspections; and Water Hygiene Risk Assessments. In response, the Panel suggested the primary area of concern that they got from talking to residents was around disrepair and questioned to what extent this was a result of how the ALMO was managing the houses, and how confident Members could be of improvements within a 12 month time frame.  In response, officers advised that the three main causes of the situation they inherited were around; issues with governance, issues with data quality and issues with programme management and reporting. Cllr Williams advised that her primary focus had to be around compliance issues, in order to ensure that residents were safe in their homes. It was recognised that compliance checks had to happen over time and that it required a continuous focus.

b.    In response to a question, officers advised that the Council absolutely took the decision to self-refer to the regulator of its own volition. This was done in order to ensure that it created a high-quality housing service. In order to do that, it was recognised that it needed to be open and transparent about where there were gaps.

c.    The Panel noted concerns with issues identified in the presentation about the use of spreadsheets and the need for a dedicated compliance system. It was suggested that this had been a problem for a number of years and questioned whether there was an end date. In response, officers acknowledged that one of the key challenges was around how information was recorded and monitored and that they had agreed with the regulator about the need for a fully functioning compliance system and to move away from spreadsheets. A procurement exercise was due to be undertaken but this would take some time. It was anticipated that the tender process would start the following month and it was hoped that it would be in place by April 2024.

d.    In response to a question around the long term partnership programme to improve estates, officers advised that this related to the contract to get long term partners to do the major estate refurbishment programme, over a ten year period. Officers acknowledged that there had been delays to this and that there had been a significant turnover of staff involved in asset management, following the ALMO coming in-house. The Operational Director was working to recruit a senior team in this area. The Director advised that the service had been working to finalise some of the packages in the background and had also been undertaking market engagement.

e.    In light of the governance issues within HfH, the Panel sought assurances around how the Council could ensure that the in-house housing service was properly accountable. In response, officers advised that there would be an annual assurance statement submitted to Cabinet, which set out progress against the six key objectives outlines in the presentation. External checks would also be carried out by an outside body to verify that what was supposed to have been done, had been done. Establishing a fully functioning compliance system would also help to provide assurance. The Cabinet Member advised, that in addition to the above, the Council had also set up a Housing Improvement Board with cross party membership. Further updates would also be brought to the scrutiny panel in future.

f.     In response to a question about engagement and the need for locality based engagement, the Cabinet Member set out that the Council was trying very hard to engage with residents. One of the first actions taken as part of engaging around the new housing service was identified as ensuring that residents knew who their local housing officer was.

g.    The Panel sought clarification about where the Housing Improvement Plan sat within the overall governance structure and how it could report into the panel. In response, the Cabinet Member set out that the Board was ran by the Chief Executive and that she would have to speak to him about whether it could report to the Scrutiny Panel. (Action: Cllr Williams/David Joyce).

h.    In response to a question around what our work with the housing regulator looked like, officers advised that in relation to fire safety assessments, there were around 80 overdue and that had been brought down to zero. This had been carried out by an internal team but that had been complimented with external support, so it was acknowledged that there had been a capacity issue. In terms of electrical certificates, officers set out that there was now a very good supply chain in place and that they had been tasked with focusing on the 4000 properties that had not had a valid safety certificate for 10 years during January to May 2023. The rest would be completed by December. So there had also been some work around repurposing resources.

i.      In response to a query about what could be learned from the progress made for other areas of the Council such as repairs, officers advised that the Housing Improvement Plan looked at specific challenges within the repairs team and an additional £2.7m had been invested into this service. There was also a very data driven performance culture in place.

j.      The Panel sought further information about the new management structure and governance arrangements that had been put in place. In response, officers advised that there was a Housing Improvement Board, chaired by the Chief Executive which met every six weeks and received updates on overall progress against the Housing Improvement Plan. There was also a building safety and compliance Board and a Capital Board, which looked at brining homes up to the Decent Homes standard. Officers advised that there were also teams that reported weekly into the Operations Director about different areas of compliance. There were also monthly meetings with the regulator.  

k.    In response to a question about what improvements had been made that would explain the improved outcomes since January. In response, the Director advised that the recruitment of an Operations Director was an important factor, to ensure that Housing Services had the dedicated leadership and oversight on issues across the service. The Director also emphasised that the self-referral and appointment of an independent assessor was also a key milestone. There had been some issues with the reliability of data presented to the Homes for Haringey Management Board. It was only when Pennington was appointed as the independent assessor that the service had reliable data and a roadmap on how to take forward improvements.

l.      The Panel sought clarification about electrical certificates and how many required further works. In response, officers advised that there were 4000 cases where a valid electrical safety certificate had been outstanding for longer than 10 years. This figure was down to 440. All of the remaining 440 properties were because the contractors were unable to gain access to the property. Officers clarified that a certificate could only be issued once a satisfactory electrical safety inspection had been carried out, so there were no instances were a certificate had been issued but further works were required.

RESOLVED

That the update on progress on working with the social housing regulator was noted.