Agenda item

The Panel received a report which provided an update on the Council’s preparedness for the Regulator of Social Housing’s new Consumer Standards. The report was presented by Jahedur Rahman, Operational Director of Housing Services and Building Safety and Nimisha Patel, AD for Housing Management, as set out in the report pack at pages 17-26. The Director Placemaking and Housing, as well as the Cabinet Member for Housing Services, Private Renters and Planning were also present for this item. The following arose as part of the discussion of this report:

1. The Panel queried what kind of weighting was given to the new consumer standards and what the repercussions would be for non-compliance. In response, officers set out that the governance arrangements would vary from authority to authority. In response to a follow-up question, officers advised that they were confident that, if the authority was inspected today, it would meet the standards on safety and quality due to the work done in the past 12 months. Compliance with some of the other standards still required some more work.
2. The Panel sought clarification on whether the new approach would give the Council more teeth in terms of enforcing against cases of poor quality housing. A Panel member gave examples from their casework of CPNs not being actioned and cases taking a very long time to progress. In response, officers acknowledged that the Housing Enforcement Team had been very reliant on issuing CPNs, and that one of the things the AD for Housing Management would like to see is use of other powers, such as injunctions which carried more weight. It was noted that discussions were taking place to ensure that the Council was using all of the remedies available to it through housing legislation.
3. The Panel sought assurances about whether the Council received sufficient support from police colleagues to deal with significant breaches. In response, officers acknowledged that there was a case for needing stronger liaison with police. The Panel were advised that there was an internal partnership problem solving group where high level cases were discussed and where officers tried to get a commitment from police colleagues at a senior level. 
4. The Panel set out that it was very difficult to tackle ASB cases that involved drugs without police support, but that the police didn’t always have the resources to help. They queried what enforcement measures could the Council put in place to tackle identified cases of ASB. In response, officers advised that they recognised that the way the authority exercised its landlord function could improve, and that there was a number of powers available to the authority to enforce against tenants who were causing ASB. It was commented that the Housing Service was working with colleagues to ensure that the authority maximised the use of the enforcement tools that were available to it.
5. The Panel sought assurances, that following the roll-out of the safer estates programme in 2018, that all of the estates had adequate CCTV in place. In response, officers advised that there was a capital budget allocation every year to support the roll-out of improving CCTV on estates. The Cabinet Member advised that CCTV was improved in areas where there was a known issue and that this was a targeted approach. The Cabinet Member suggested that she did not believe it was desirable to have CCTV covering every corner of the estates.
6. The Panel raised concerns about the fact that most tenants did not know the name of their housing manager and it was queried how this would impact the new consumer standards. In response, officers advised that as part of the Housing Improvement Plan, all residents were written to and advised of the name of their housing manager. Officers advised that they wanted to move away from having a single named point of contact towards a single mailbox that was monitored by multiple members of staff. In response to a follow-up, officers advised that residents should still know who their housing manager was so that they could join them on estate walkabouts, for instance. However the service wanted to move away from a single contact for emails as this could be a single point of failure.
7. The Panel sought assurances about placing residents with support needs in general housing and the extent to which support was offered. In response, the Panel was advised that there were a lot of different pathways into housing and that ensuring that the right support mechanisms were there was key. The Cabinet Member provided assurances that this was something that was considered. Officers advised that there was a growing trend nationally of increasingly vulnerable people being placed into general needs housing, due to the acute shortage of housing.
8. In response to a question around ASB and how we prioritised door entry systems for particular residents, officers advised that as part of the safer estates schemes, it was based on intelligence and knowledge of ASB taking place. Officers clarified that door entry systems weren’t always the answer as they were often vandalised. Instead, CCTV could be a far more effective tool for dealing with ASB. In cases involving severe issues with drugs, the Council had also installed 24 hour dog patrols in some locations.
9. The Panel queried about the repairs service and communicating the work that was done, it was questioned when major works and repairs would be prioritised over compliance. In response, the Cabinet Member acknowledged that the initial focus had been on compliance and that there was a limit to how much the Council could focus its efforts on. The Cabinet Member set out that a lot of additional resources had been put into the repairs team and that as the Major works programme came online, the demand for reactive repairs should decrease. The Cabinet Member advised that it was anticipated that the partnering contract for major works would be in place soon.  Officers acknowledged that the repairs service was not where it needed to be, but by way of context it was noted that the service carried out around 55k repairs a year and around 1% of these resulted in complaints.
10. The Panel sought clarification about the number of ASB cases in social housing dealt with by the Council’s housing enforcement service. In response, officers advised that about 50% of the cases dealt with by the enforcement team were housing related. Officers advised that they were in the process of revisiting the SLA that they held with the housing enforcement team to agree a revised model and to look at whether the recharging mechanism was fair and accurate.
11. In response to a follow-up question, officers advised that examples of the types of things that constituted high-level ASB were drug dealing, threats of violence, criminality and persistent offending.
12. In response to a question about housing association tenants, officers advised that the report in front of members was specific to Council tenants. Housing associations had their own ASB reporting mechanisms and that residents should complain to their Housing Association in the first instance and then the Housing Ombudsman.  
13. In the context of the existing SLA, Members commented that housing contributed 90% of the funding for the housing enforcement team and that it seemed as though they spent 50% of their time on cases involving social housing.
14. The Panel requested a future update around the revised re-charging model/SLA between housing and housing enforcement, and what additional services residents would be available to residents. (Action: Jahedur/Barry Francis)

RESOLVED

That the report was noted.