Issue - meetings

[Report of the Director for Housing and Growth. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Housing and Estate Renewal.]

To make the necessary decisions to incorporate Haringey's wholly owned company for housing development.

The Cabinet Member for Housing and Estate Renewal introduced this report which sought Cabinet approval to make the necessary decisions to incorporate Haringey’s Wholly Owned Company (WOC) for housing development. The Cabinet Member noted the Labour administration had been elected on a manifesto which had placed housing at its core. The manifesto had committed to deliver at least 1,000 new Council homes at Council rents by 2022. This was the latest report that had the recommendations to put in place the structures to deliver those homes.

The Cabinet Member referred to the Labour administration’s preference in the Manifesto was to build Council housing directly through a company we fully own. However, this was at a time when the GLA funding was not available and was before the announcement in the October budget of the scrapping of the HRA borrowing cap. The Council had since considered what those changes meant for housing delivery in the borough, and the role that the Company could best play in making that delivery happen.

The Cabinet Member stressed the recommendations Cabinet were asked to approve would create the housing company contained within the Labour administration’s manifesto, to support the creation of new Council homes for Haringey families on the waiting list.

Clerk note - Cllrs Bevan and Rossetti addressed the Committee in their capacity as board members of Homes for Haringey and as Councillors.

Following questions from Cllrs Bevan, Dennison, Williams, Rossetti, Brabazon and Carlin, the following was noted:

• Homes for Haringey (HfH) is an Arms-Length Management Organisation (ALMO). The Cabinet Member noted HfH could be supported to create new Council homes in the future but that was not the commitment the administration had made within its manifesto. The manifesto had made a commitment to directly creating those Council homes, not at arms-length, which is what HfH effectively was to the Council. This consideration was set out in the July Cabinet report on the WOC.

·         The Cabinet Member held frequent discussions with the Managing Director for H4H and discussions had been productive but it was accepted the direction of travel was for the creation of a WOC and for HfH to continue to it’s current role. July Cabinet had considered the option of exploring creating the 1,000 new Council homes with HfH but this was ruled out for the reasons contained in that report to Cabinet

• Officers referred members to the 17^th July 2018 report entitled ‘Setting up a Wholly Owned Company for Housing Development’ to Cabinet where the option to explore creating Council homes through the HfH had been explored as an alternative option but was not pursued for the reasons set out in that report.
• Contractual arrangements would be sought with companies to build any new properties, which would follow the usual tender process. Once built, HfH would be managing those newly built Council properties.
• The Cabinet Member highlighted the Labour manifesto had given the administration the mandate to set up a wholly owned company and this was what the administration  ...  view the full minutes text for item 82