Agenda item

The Homes Sub-Committee is provided with a Cabinet report providing an update on the delivery of the Housing Transformation Programme. The Sub-Committee is recommended to:

1    Review the update report and consider whether there are any areas of the programme that feel may benefit from a ‘deep dive’ to be scheduled on an agenda of the Homes Sub-Committee later in the year.

2    Consider whether there are any recommendations on the Housing Transformation Programme the Sub-Committee may wish to submit for the consideration of the Mayor.

The Sub-Committee considered a Cabinet report, set out in the agenda supplement, which provided an update on the delivery of the Housing Transformation Programme. The report had been included on the agenda to enable the Sub-Committee to review the progress made in the delivery of the programme and to consider whether there are any areas that may benefit from a ‘deep dive’ to be scheduled on an agenda of the Homes Sub-Committee later in the year. The Cabinet Member for Homes introduced the item and summarised the report, followed by some additional information provided by the Senior Strategy Officer.

Members asked how the 67 projects under the eight workstreams would be prioritised and scheduled, and requested a full list of the projects. The Senior Strategy Officer explained that the full list could be provided, but noted that the list was subject to change as projects merged. The Sub-Committee heard that there was close work with a project management office (PMO) to prioritise projects, and that projects featured as standing items at the Housing Transformation Steering Board. The Chair welcomed the use of ‘Red, Amber, Green’ (RAG) ratings, and asked which of the ‘Amber’ actions were at the biggest risk of turning Red. The Senior Strategy Officer explained that these would be the five key risks of the directorate, which were mobilisation of the Responsive Repairs Contract; increased cases of Damp and Mould; risks around Large Panel System (LPS) Blocks; and General Needs Blocks failing to meet fire safety standards. It was explained that actions were defined as Red where it was out of the Council’s control with no plan to bring the action back to Amber.

The Chair asked how interdependencies between projects were being managed, and what the key milestones at risk of slipping were as a result of these. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies (RAID) charts were used, and that PMO colleagues were keenly aware of interdependencies, which were mapped to allow them to be better managed; it was accepted that some interdependencies were beyond the control of the Council. For key risks, there were multiple redundant mitigations to try to alleviate interdependencies and to minimise risk. The Chair asked for reassurance that those who were named against risks were aware and would be accountable. The Senior Strategy Officer explained that there was close work with the Corporate Risk team, and that the CEO and Directorate Management Team reviewed and updated risks quarterly and were named against specific risks. There were quarterly meetings with the Corporate Risk Function to ensure that risks were being properly updated and mitigated using JCAD, which was the risk management software used by all departments to allow for a whole Council approach to risk. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that there were a number of bodies to hold the department to account, alongside regular meetings with tenants, but that it was important that work took place at pace, which could make communication difficult in some cases. The Chair acknowledged that there was a number of Panels and Board overseeing Housing Transformation, but noted that oversight for Members could be difficult, for example, the performance framework for Housing Transformation had not been provided some time after the Sub-Committee had initially requested it.

The Sub-Committee asked if there was sufficient capacity in the service to implement the Transformation programme, how many vacancies there were in the department, and how many roles were filled by agency staff. The Senior Strategy Officer acknowledged that the staffing numbers had been requested before the meeting, and would be provided at a later date. Members heard that capacity and resource needed to be kept under continuous review, but it was accepted that there needed to be additional capacity added in some areas and that this was being accounted for in the departments restructures. The Cabinet Member for Homes explained that the department was still on an improvement journey, and that this was not just about capacity, but also about ensuring staff had the right skill set to take the programme forward; the importance of getting the right directors in place and preparing for forthcoming legislation was also highlighted. Members asked about skills auditing in the department and the Interim Director of Tenancy Services explained that reviewing skills and knowledge needed to be an ongoing process. This had already begun with the provision of internal training and conversations with the Chartered Institute of Housing about qualifications to increase the professionalisation of the service, in line with government recommendations. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained a skills audit had been undertaken in the Housing Needs team and that gaps in hard skills had been identified, but that there were also soft skill gaps that needed to be addressed. Members asked about forthcoming legislation, whether it was likely that this might mean that staff with specialist skills would be needed to be hired, and how this would be managed in competition with other boroughs who would also need to recruit specialists. The Cabinet Member for Homes agreed that councils were looking at this across the country, and that if existing staff could be trained then this would be done, but also that people were often keen to work for Croydon and to be part of positive change to improve services for residents.

The Chair asked if the Council had considered hiring specialist organisations to help with projects in the Housing Transformation programme, and the Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that this was the case and had already been implemented for some projects. The Interim Head of Building Safety and Compliance explained that they had undertaken a gap analysis around building safety to understand what needed to be completed, and had  worked with the procurement team to bring in external resource to support fire and building safety assessments. In response to questions on fire safety from the Vice-Chair, it was explained that there was an effort to understand individual buildings in more detail, as well as the residents who lived in each block and their needs through regular meetings as recommended in the Building Safety Act. Members asked that Ward Councillors be informed when blocks in their area were being visited so that they could attend and promote the visits. The Chair asked if the use of specialist companies on a framework contract was being considered, and the Interim Head of Building Safety and Compliance responded that both recruitment and consultancy would be used in a mix and highlighted the importance of good leadership in attracting and developing quality permanent staff.

Members asked for an update on the implementation of the NEC system, and which functionality had already been rolled out. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that the Council was working with a low quality dataset to begin with, but that the introduction of NEC had allowed all data to be stored in one place, which had not been the case previously. There would be a focus in the next two years on rolling out additional functionality to the NEC software to interface with other areas (such as finance, Oracle, repairs, etc.), but it would not solve all problems the department had. The Sub-Committee heard that there was a programme with a roadmap to rolling out this functionality by priority. The Senior Strategy Officer explained that systems were only as good as the data in them, but that NEC was useful in quality assurance as it could highlight data entry errors, duplications and anomalies. Members noted that they would like to meet with the NEC lead to understand the possible functionality of NEC and the plan to roll this out in Croydon.

The Sub-Committee asked about the Housing Needs and Homelessness service restructure, and whether the new structure would be resilient to expected increased demand. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that the current service was not performing well, but that the restructure would ensure that residents accessing the service would receive a face-to-face meeting on the same day; there would be two officers available each day to provide advice and assistance, and to schedule a further appointment within a week or two weeks dependent on their need. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments stated that the desire was to move the service a proactive footing that was able to enact early intervention and prevention by providing advice to households, with urgent action for those who needed it. Members heard that benchmarking had been undertaken with other Local Authorities and that best practise had been provided by Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). It was highlighted that currently the service did not provide housing advice to residents in fulltime work, and that it was an aspiration that the service would be able to provide advice to these individuals, as well as working with residents in hospital discharge at a greater pace. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments stated that they were confident that the new service would be resilient to demand, and that a new backlog team would be starting imminently, running for around six months and funded by Transformation monies, to allow staff to focus on new cases and prevention work.

The Chair noted that there would be a reduction in staff as a result of the restructure, and asked how this reduced resource would be used to improve the quality of interventions. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that the new structure would allow for immediate interventions, which was not currently possible, which would increase homelessness prevention and reduce wait times for service users. A performance management framework had been developed with staff so that demand could be measured, and the Council was working with ‘LIFT’ and other partners to horizon scan on future demand for homelessness services. It was confirmed that the restructure of the Housing Needs and Homelessness service would be completed by the 18^th September 2023.

Members asked about central government funding, and the Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that funding came from the General Fund and from the Homelessness Prevention Grant. Currently the Council received £7.1 million from the Grant, which was calculated by a formula measuring temporary accommodation placements, and the number of cases of homelessness prevented or relived. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments stated they felt was too low, and that this was a result of Croydon’s high number of placements and poor performance on homelessness prevention. Members heard that until the number of people in temporary or emergency accommodation fell, and the departments’ performance on homelessness prevention improved, Grant funding would not increase.

Members asked about the quality of temporary accommodation, and the progress on improving this. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that the inherited stock of temporary and emergency accommodation was not fit for purpose, but that the introduction of the dynamic purchasing system would improve the quality of available accommodation while reducing the cost. The review of temporary accommodation and supported housing would also be used to improve the quality of available housing stock; a team would be deployed in the next 12 months to visit and review every temporary accommodation in the borough, and to assess who was living in each unit. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments highlighted a case in the Court of Appeals concerning a woman who had been living in temporary accommodation with a previous ruling deciding that, as they had been in temporary accommodation for longer than six weeks, then they were entitled to jump the housing waiting list and be offered a permanent home. It was the Council’s opinion that this was not correct, and that should the ruling stand, then this would have severe repercussions for all Local Authorities, as well as on Croydon’s Housing Strategy and Homelessness Strategy.

The Chair asked why there had not been a trial of the new Homelessness Service structure, until there was a ruling on the ongoing Court of Appeals case, to ensure that the restructure would be resilient and could utilise learning from the trial period. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that the restructure would be reviewed with staff and unions in six months, but that the Council needed to move at pace to make improvements. The Chair highlighted residents with complex needs and asked how it would be ensured they received good specialist service with the removal of the triage team. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that the front door would be 23 staff as opposed to the four in the current triage team. Members heard that there were specialist staff in the back office who residents would be signposted to, and who could work best with residents to meet their particular needs through face-to-face meetings.

The Vice-Chair asked what the Council would do to ensure that temporary and emergency accommodation in Croydon, where other boroughs were vulnerable placing people, were fit for purpose. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that the placing authority were responsible for these individuals if they were placed under homelessness legislation; if another authority placed an individual into Croydon, but had discharged their homelessness duty, then Croydon would be responsible for these residents after a period of two years. The Sub-Committee heard that the Executive Mayor had written to other boroughs to ask that they reduce placements into Croydon.

The Chair asked why external resources were not being used to conduct occupancy checks, which could free up properties for use. The Interim Director of Tenancy Services explained that there was ongoing work with an external company to look at the Council’s data to see where individuals may have multiple addresses, and to then target these for occupancy checks; these checks would commence within the next three months to try to release accommodation and produce savings. A specialist would be brought in for Temporary Accommodation checks, and internal staff would be used for general needs stock. Members asked if property inspections would be conducted alongside the occupancy checks, and were informed that this would be the case, and that work would be done as part of the restructure to ensure staff had the needed skills.

The Chair asked how confident officers were that the new structure would reduce the Council's legal exposure. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that they were talking to the Council’s legal partner about providing training for staff but that it was unlikely that legal exposure could be mitigated completely as there was not the skill set to deal with ‘pre-action protocol letters’. Members were informed that there were ongoing conversations with the Director of Legal Services about increasing the resources for Housing legal services. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments stated that the pace of legal challenges could be slowed but, unless there was a change in the law, they would not stop.

Members asked what would be done for residents with no recourse to public funds. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that there was a ‘no recourse to public funds’ team, which was likely the biggest in London, which would be reduced by two staff. The Sub-Committee were assured that this would not affect the quality of the team’s work, and heard that this was not a statutory service.

The Chair explained that the Sub-Committee had received a briefing on damp and mould, and were impressed with the progress so far in establishing the new Damp & Mould Response Team, but highlighted that support was needed in the form of recruiting additional surveyors to increase capacity and ensure that change continued to be positive. The Vice-Chair praised the work of the new Damp & Mould Response Team, and the huge improvement the team had made over the work of the previous contractor. Members asked about the total number of damp and mould visits, and the total number of cases. The Interim Head of Repairs and Maintenance explained there was about 1200 cases of damp and mould, and that around 200 of these were ‘Stage 2’, with around five new cases being reported per week. It was confirmed that damp and mould cases would always be addressed as a priority even if this meant that budget would need to be taken from other areas, but that the budget was built with demand modelling.

Members asked how the department was supporting private housing tenants with damp and mould, and how much budget was being allocated to this. The Interim Head of Repairs and Maintenance explained that their team primarily focussed on the Council’s housing stock, but that they were working closely with the private sector housing team to provide support and guidance. The Head of Homelessness & Assessments stated that there was good partnership working with the private sector housing team, and that there were two extra private sector housing posts funded out of the General Fund to do work around damp and mould. The Damp and Mould Strategy did account for private sector tenants to ensure a uniform approach, and ensure that tenants dealing with damp and mould or other hazards could be placed into temporary accommodation when needed. The Cabinet Member for Homes explained that the Damp and Mould Action Team contained officers from both the Housing department and private sector housing team.

The Chair asked if the department was sufficiently resourced to do education the education piece for tenants around preventing damp and mould. The Interim Head of Repairs and Maintenance explained that there were eight officers in the Damp & Mould team to ensure there was sufficient resource, but that this would be kept under review to ensure it was rightsized. Members heard that communications went out across the department to ensure everyone was involved in identifying hazards.

The Chair highlighted the importance of culture change in the department and asked what was being done to ensure this was prioritised, given the number of projects being implemented. The Senior Strategy Officer explained that this would be delivered alongside other projects and ways of working, and was integral to ensuring that these succeeded. The Vice-Chair asked how resident feedback would be incorporated so that the change in culture was what residents wanted. The Interim Director of Tenancy Services explained that there needed to be good training for staff, but it was also recognised that robust challenge of behaviour would be needed in some cases; it was acknowledged that this would be an ongoing process.

The Chair asked for greater clarity on the customer journey for different areas of the service to better understand the experience for residents and how the ‘resident’s voice’ would be incorporated into culture change and training. It was further asked if officers had looked to incorporate recommendations from the Chartered Institute for Housing campaign ‘It’s not okay’, around stigma for residents living in social housing. The Interim Director of Tenancy Services explained that there were discreet projects, such as a website review, being undertaken with residents as well as projects around reducing stigma for social housing tenants; it was stated that reports on this could be provided for future meetings. The Sub-Committee heard that ‘resident’s voice’ was captured through resident feedback surveys and talking directly to residents, and that officers tried to directly implement learning from these resources.

The Head of Homelessness & Assessments explained that the transformation of the Housing Needs service had been informed by direct engagement with residents and from looking at the feedback from customer complaints. The result of this engagement had been that the transformation focussed on reinstating face-to-face meetings to reinforce the dignity of customers who should be treated with kindness, respect and dignity. The Senior Strategy Officer explained that they were working with ‘Tpas’, who were tenancy engagement specialists, on the best ways to improve tenant involvement structures and develop a Resident Engagement Strategy, alongside the Housing Improvement Board and Tenants and Leaseholder Panel. The aim of this work was to improve how the voice of residents was fed back to the Directorate Management Team to inform decisions, and increase the number of residents who could be engaged, and the ways that they could be engaged. Members heard that the Social Housing Regulation Bill had introduced tenant satisfaction measures, and the department were now looking at tenant perception survey results on a quarterly basis which fed into a performance monitoring report that was reviewed and shared with residents; work was ongoing on an annual performance report that would be shared with residents.

The Chair asked how the diversity of Croydon’s communities would be reflected in the teams engaging with residents, and commented that there were already a number of well organised tenants group in the borough, some of who were frustrated that their feedback had not been acted on by the Housing department. The Senior Strategy Officer explained that this would be addressed as part of the Resident Engagement Strategy, to ensure that recommendations were collected in an auditable way and responded to even where they were not accepted. Members heard that there would be work with existing groups and panels to ensure that their terms of references and governance structures were fit for purpose, and that there would be a broad range of ways for residents to engage.

Actions

The Sub-Committee requested that they were provided with the most up to date structure of the Housing department that included the roles and responsibilities of each team.

The Sub-Committee requested a briefing on the rollout of the NEC system by the NEC lead, including detail on the available additional functionality and which of these would be deployed in Croydon.

The Sub-Committee requested that an update be provided on the Housing Needs and Homelessness service once the planned review had been completed six months after the restructure, including information on legal challenges/exposure to the service and the outcome of the Imam court case.

The Sub-Committee requested that a briefing be provided to Members on the Resident Engagement Strategy before this was finalised at Cabinet in December 2023.

The Sub-Committee concluded that they would like to meet with the programme management team to better understand how the Housing Transformation Programme was structured and how interdependencies between projects were being managed.

Conclusions

The Sub-Committee welcomed the work being done by the new Damp & Mould Response Team, and encouraged officers to continue the work being done with the private sector on this.

Recommendation

The Sub-Committee recommended that, for future updates on the Housing Transformation Plan, a full list of all the projects under each workstream be provided as well as additional detail mapping out the customer journey.