Issue - meetings

The Board received a report that provided an update on the Common Management Standards (CMS) project.

It was noted that the CMS project aimed to bring together social housing landlords in Haringey to identify and develop new ways of working in partnership. An initial series of discussions would be held with a range of Housing Associations to ensure that the project reflected the business priorities of stakeholders.

The Board was advised that there were two key drivers behind the project; changes sought by the Tenant Services Authority and the current economic climate, which had seen an increase in the number of people applying for social housing.

It was noted that work was being undertaken, in partnership with the Housing Strategy team to map the partnership work that was already happening and this would be used to inform the project.

The Board discussed the report and Housing Association representatives welcomed the project. However, it was noted that anything agreed as part of the project should be not be overly complex as the various Housing Associations would have their own operating arrangements that any commonly agreed standards would have to be integrated into. In addition there were already several rationalisation programmes that being undertaken and these would need to be taken into account.

In response to a query the Board was advised that the Graduate employed to work on project had been selected from a scheme funded by central Government. There was no flexibility within this to specify that the person employed should live locally.

The Board was advised the Community Safety Team had recently undertaken a Needs Assessment and the information collected as part of this may be useful. It was noted that where areas were very densely populated statistics often became skewed.

In response to a query the Board was advised that once the mapping exercise had been undertaken a report would be submitted setting out how this would be taken forward.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.