Agenda item

An internal audit of the Lettings process was carried out by Mazars in February 2023, resulting in a report in July 2023. The audit provided adequate assurance but made a number of recommendations. The Audit Committee has asked for an update on the progress of actions resulting from the recommendations of the audit. 

Ms Denise Gandy, Assistant Director for Housing Demand, introduced the report.

The meeting heard:

·           Internally, additional checks had been introduced to make sure that the Council was complaint with the recommendations. The plan was monitored in relation to its delivery. As the lettings process was linked to housing improvement, the process would also go through to the Housing Improvement Board. Lettings would be reported on including the audit.

·           The audit on voids not having been completed was disappointing. There were some factors which caused this issue to occur. There would be a separate audit of the voids process. From the time the property becomes empty to the time it became lettable. The conclusion of the audit would be submitted to a future meeting of the Audit Committee.  

·           Although the report was concentrated on lettings, there were some recommendations that were more widely applicable. The report would be submitted to the Placemaking and Housing Board in January 2024 so that a link could be made across services on the recommendations and this could be part of the audit.

·           In relation to issues regarding bypassing, the Council had a policy regarding which individuals would be bypassed. For example, those with certain levels of rent arrears or if a resident had bid for a property which did not match their medical recommendations. The audit appeared to reveal moments where a member of staff was with the auditor, they could show that the recording on the system had been complied with. However, the audit reported appeared to suggest that issues had not been recorded on the Northgate system. Residents also bid for homes through the Home Connections website, but there were inconsistencies in the recording. Some were on Home Connections and some were on the Northgate system and Northgate needed to be the central point for all records. 

·           It was important to ensure that residents were not being bypassed unfairly.

·           Certain special cases would ordinarily end up being dealt with by the nature of the situation and were often dealt with by the team manager. Individual cases would be specifically given attention based on the decisions made about them.

·           In relation to ensuring that the right decisions were made, people had the right to a statutory review in terms of banding and suitability of offers.

At this point in the proceedings, the Committee queried having a system in place to ensure that the decisions relating to lettings were being made correctly. In response, the meeting heard that an option for an additional check could be explored further. 

The meeting further heard that:

·           It was important to distinguish between cases which needed particular attention and the transparency of the lettings process.

·           The Placemaking and Housing Board was an officer board. The Housing Improvement Board was attended by senior managers and some councillors. There was always robust challenge on a range of issues.

The Chair stated that applications relating to Northgate had been mentioned several times throughout the report. The Committee had also commented on monitoring, tracking and capturing data. Data did not appear to have been captured properly and although there was a system, it had not been in operation effectively. There were a few possible reasons such as staff not having been trained properly, or that multiple systems had been in place which did not communicate with each other. If a synchronised system was in not in place, it was not possible to have the data which was crucial as it would point out issues for improvement and it tracked the progress of the service. It was important that that the issues be resolved as soon as possible. Once a standardised system was put in place, answers to any questions could be provided effectively including questions regarding risks. Tracking and monitoring was essential for most services. 

The meeting further heard that:

·           Some of the issues related to staff confidence around the system. Since the audit, each team had done a review of their use of the system with Northgate and IT to examine if staff were making full use of the system. Some staff had been retrained. There was a plan linked to this, but Northgate needed to be the one system where the centralised data was located so that reports and spreadsheets could be generated from it. 

·           Work was being done currently around the allocations policy which would be about people who were prioritised for housing and an approach to appeal. Currently, the Council had a decisions panel, but it was an officer panel so it was possible to explore options in relation to bringing in more transparency given the importance of the subject matter.

RESOLVED:

To note the progress to date and the further actions planned to ensure that all of the recommendations of the audit are addressed.