Agenda item

To receive an update on the development of the Housing Needs Transformation Plan and to examine how this is going to be delivered against the pressures of delivering in-year savings. The Housing Needs Service is undergoing a transformation as part of a longer-term plan for full transformation for the whole Department. This transformation will look at Homelessness Services and Temporary Accommodation. 

The Sub-Committee considered a report set out on pages 21 to 26 of the agenda which provided an update on the development of the Housing Needs Transformation Plan. The Chair noted that Members had been disappointed in the lack of detail in the report which had made it difficult to analyse.

The Sub-Committee asked about the suggestion in the report that the service was not currently ‘customer centric’ and heard that the number of entry points to the service led to an inconsistent quality of advice and service for vulnerable people and that this needed to be addressed to ensure they were treated with kindness, respect and dignity.

The Chair asked for information on how many homeless residents were registered in Croydon and how many had been housed in and out of borough. The Head of Temporary Accommodation explained that on homelessness and emergency accommodation there were just over 3000 households but there needed to be data cleansing to verify these figures. This was a combination of households who had formally made a homelessness declaration, who formed the majority, and the minority had a ‘discretionary arrangement’; around 80% were housed in borough and around 20% out of borough. Returns sent to the Government needed to be thorough and affected funding settlements that the Council received. The discretionary placements were largely care leavers who the Council had a duty to support, and the rest had not been supported to leave the Temporary Accommodation system.

On Temporary and Emergency Accommodation placements into Croydon, the majority of these were from Wandsworth, Sutton, Merton and Lambeth. The Council could not stop other authorities placing into the borough as long as they notified Croydon when this occurred.

The Sub-Committee asked about a court case the Council was appealing, referenced within the paper, and asked if it would have been cheaper not to appeal it. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that the Council had lost a High Court case which determined that anyone in unsuitable accommodation must jump the housing queue and be provided a permanent home within weeks; the decision also implied that the financial situation of a council would no longer be considered. Local Authorities across the country were very concerned about the implications of this case as it could lead to significant issues and it was regarded as a test mark case nationally.

Members asked if the Council could only pay landlords a statutory rate and the Head of Temporary Accommodation explained that pan-London rates were agreed to try and manage the market with rates negotiated at the same level. These rates stopped markets becoming over inflated when authorities placed residents out of borough.

The Chair asked why the report did not provide any financial information on the stated workstreams. The Head of Temporary Accommodation explained that the starting position was to achieve savings of £1.8 million in the next financial year; some plans had been developed and some were still at early stages. It was noted that homelessness demand was likely to increase alongside the cost-of-living crisis which would provide some additional budget pressures.

The Sub-Committee asked about the possibility of there being higher numbers of people in emergency accommodation than previously thought and why good data had not been captured previously. Members heard that this was a historical issue and that officers were using five different systems for data capture, with some of these being manual. This was being corrected but would take significant time to fix and was needed to ensure accurate plans to achieve savings and manage demand could be formulated.

Members asked about how vulnerable people in private accommodation were helped and the Head of Homelessness & Assessments stated that currently the service was the last port of call but that the intention was to adopt an early intervention approach so that support could be provided to these individuals through a strategic, comprehensive, and multi-agency response to reduce the risk of homelessness.

The Sub-Committee asked about placements into the borough from other local authorities into substandard temporary accommodation and the possible reputational damage from this to Croydon. The Head of Temporary Accommodation responded that there was a legal requirement on the placing authority to do due diligence and check out these placements to ensure they were suitable. The Council did not have resources to check these placements themselves, but where complaints were received, this would be escalated to the placing authority.

Members asked about data cleansing and heard that analysis was being done across the piece to understand where the issues were in the data. Once data had been cleansed, this would allow for better strategic insights across the service which would then result in different responses such as occupancy checks.

The Sub-Committee asked about how the needs of vulnerable people were being considered when being placed into temporary or emergency accommodation. Members heard that there was a statutory test for vulnerability and that this had a high threshold. Data on needs was now being collected at a person’s first contact with the service to try to ensure the best choice, advice, and outcomes for customers.

The Chair asked about residents who had been turned away from the service for not having an eviction notice and highlighted that this was contrary to the early intervention approach set out in the report; it was also noted that there was a lack of follow up from the Council when residents had been in touch with the service and it was asked how this culture would be changed. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments acknowledged that staff were still working with antiquated systems and explained that there would be cultural change through workshops and various forms of training. The lack of training had been identified as a barrier to adopting early intervention which needed to be changed to ensure staff were proactive and could work with residents before eviction notices had been issued. The new service looked to ensure that residents met an officer on the day they came to the Council, who would remain assigned to their case and develop a personal housing plan. The Chair asked which workstreams covered this and commented on silo working in the Housing department. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that this was likely an inherited behaviour and changing this sat within the cultural change aspect of the transformation plan, although this was not covered explicitly in the report. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that there was a paper under this, which had not yet been shared with staff for consultation, which contained more detail as opposed to the high-level actions in the Sub-Committee report.

The Sub-Committee asked about the multiple IT systems in use and were informed that these would be consolidated into a single NEC system that the whole Housing department would use, with a planned go-live date of November 2022. The Head of Temporary Accommodation explained that the NEC system was being developed to replace systems across the Housing directorate.

The Chair asked about the timescales for recruitment of posts detailed in the paper and heard from the Head of Temporary Accommodation that the service was currently being restructured to streamline processes and use of resources; the additional resource identified in the paper were short term hires to carry out specific pieces of work for the transformation over a six-month period.

The Sub-Committee raised concerns about the quality of private sector temporary accommodation and asked how this could be improved. Members heard that the Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) would allow temporary accommodation to be procured from specific vetted suppliers, who would sign up to a framework, and would help manage these relationships by monitoring certifications and stock checks. This would hopefully unlock capacity for staff to inspect sites where complaints had been received to gather evidence.

Members asked about timescales and how improvements to accommodation would be measured. The Head of Temporary Accommodation explained that it was hoped the system would be in place in 2023 and scoping work on suppliers had already begun; currently there were around 60 suppliers of emergency accommodation and there was a risk that some of these would not sign up to the new system and framework which would set out standardised expectations of the supplier which would be used to form Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Other authorities had used the DPS, and the Council was in dialogue with them about the benefits of the system and what they had learned during their implementation.

The Chair asked if all future placements would take place through the DPS with accommodation that had been checked in advance and heard this was being done in a phased approach starting with emergency accommodation with other accommodation following later. The Chair asked what quality assurance was being done in the meantime and heard that, for new placements, inspections were already taking place; existing properties were not yet being inspected unless complaints had been received due to capacity issues in the service.

The Chair asked whether the implementation of the new NEC Housing software was on track, and the Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained there had been some challenges for the Housing Needs service; this was the first phase and data would be entered into the system once it had been cleansed. There had been delays to implementation due to diligence being done on risk management and to ensure the system functioned as required.

The Sub-Committee asked how the Transformation Plan managed the risk of increased pressures on the service from the cost-of-living crisis. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that there was also additional pressure from Ukrainian and Afghan refugees and that this would be very difficult to manage. It was expected that the new system would be more flexible to try to mitigate challenging circumstances for customers. The Chair asked if there were earmarked reserves and the Head of Temporary Accommodation confirmed that these were in place to deal with additional demand to the value of around £970k, and that meetings with the Department for Levelling Up,

Housing & Communities and other authorities to horizon scan were ongoing.

The Chair asked about legal exposure and the risks of poor data leading to less grant than needed being claimed from central government. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that there needed to be better training for staff but that judicial reviews would always be a risk. On data quality, Members heard that this was being mitigated by working with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, who were aware of the issues. Currently the grant level received was thought to be too low, but a reform of the Homelessness Prevention Grant, which changed funding formulas, was expected to also negatively affect Croydon’s settlement; work to lobby the government to change this was ongoing.

Conclusions:

The Sub-Committee were reassured by the action already taken and the pace of change in the Housing Needs service. Members agreed that the direction of travel was positive.

The Sub-Committee requested that more detailed versions of the Transformation Plan, that included mapping of the various work streams, were shared once they were available.

The Sub-Committee requested more granular detail on the identified workstreams and the plans for cultural change.

Recommendations:

1.     The Sub-Committee agreed that signposting of Housing Needs services should be improved on the Council website.

2.     The Sub-Committee recommended that the service should commence a proactive communications drive to all residents in Temporary Accommodation to encourage reporting of poor conditions, which ensured that residents were reassured that reporting issues would not result in them losing their homes.

3.     The Sub-Committee recommended that the Housing Needs service ensure that occupancy checks are conducted in line with best practice and trauma informed practice.

4.     The Sub-Committee noted the interdependency between the Housing Improvement Plan work on voids and the Housing Needs Transformation Plan and asked that the directorate look at how the work on void turnarounds affected plans to reduce the time that customers spent in Temporary Accommodation.