Oliver Harling was named the winner of Rising Stars 2018.Mr Harling, a trainee surveyor at Irwell Valley Housing Association, was crowned winner of the competition. Mr Harling impressed the judges with his “passion and commitment as well as fresh perspectives and ideas”.
Housing Heroes and runners up
This awards ceremony took place ahead of the CIH annual housing conference.
This year the judges had the unenviable task of choosing 18 winners and nine highly commended entrants from a shortlist of more than 100 organisations.
Winners
Central service team of the year – volunteering, apprenticeships and student placements team, St Mungo’s
Communications team of the year- communications team, Tower Hamlets Homes
Customer experience award -housing management team, Midland Heart
Development or maintenance team of the year (over 15,000 homes) – Repairs and maintenance team, South Tyneside Homes
Development or maintenance team of the year (under 15,000 homes) – Repairs team, Peaks & Plains Housing Trust
Frontline team of the year (over 12,000 homes) – neighbourhood Services, south Birmingham, Birmingham City Council
Frontline team of the year (under 12,000 homes) – housing options team, Stockport Homes Group
Inclusive team of the year – Caritas Anchor HouseInspirational colleague of the year (over 15,000 homes) – Lisa Hopkins, Birmingham City Council
Inspirational colleague of the year (under 15,000 homes) – Margaret Waddell, Grampian Housing Association
Inspirational leader of the year – Faisal Butt, Barnet Council
Lifetime achievement in housing – Ian Munro, New Charter Group (now Jigsaw Group)
Mentor of the year – Michael Bennett, Coastline HousingMentor of the year – Karen Armitage, Stafford and Rural Homes<>Support and care team of the year (over 7,000 homes) – Motiv8, New Charter Group (now Jigsaw Group)
Support and care team of the year (under 7,000 homes) -Ty Enfys team, Taff Housing Association
Tenant innovator of the year – Sarah Hardy, Stockport Homes Group
Tenant lifetime contribution – Joan Goodwin
Highly commended:
Communications team of the year – Communications team, Barnet Group
Development or maintenance team of the year (under 15,000 homes) – Project delivery team, Ashford Borough Council
Frontline team of the year (under 12,000 homes) – Environmental services team, Cube Housing Association
Inspirational colleague of the year (under 15,000 homes) – Jenny Mauger-Garry, Bournemouth Borough CouncilInspirational leader of the year – Ravi Govindia, Wandsworth Council
Lifetime Achievement in Housing – Rob Young, TorusSupport and care team of the year (under 7,000 homes) – Care team, Langley House Trust
Tenant innovator of the year – Janet Mulcock, Rhondda Housing Association
Tenant innovator of the year – Joyce Ward, Sovereign
Big Society and Community Funding update from OCS
1.Pension Funds and Social Investment – final report and consultation
2.Keeping yourself secure from cyber threats
3.Brexit updates
4.Loneliness funding announced
5.Loneliness call for evidence
6.Cultural Development fund
7.Why Go Mutual – free event
1.Pension Funds and Social Investment
In November 2016, the government asked the Law Commission to look at how far pension funds may or should consider issues of social impact when making investment decisions. The Law Commission’s report found there are no substantive regulatory barriers to making social impact investment by pension funds. Most of the barriers are in fact structural and behavioural, including the need for clearer legislation and guidance. on 18 June the Government published a final response to the report. .We also published a consultation on the draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Investment and Disclosure) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 with this final response.
2.Keeping yourself secure from cyber threats
DCMS recently published the ‘Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2018’ report. The report is a quantitative and qualitative survey of UK businesses and this year for the first time it includes charities. The survey helps organisations to understand the nature and significance of the cyber security threats they face and what others are doing to stay secure. It also supports the Government to shape future policy in this area.
3.Brexit updates
Regional Round Tables
OCS’s Director, Georgia Hutchinson, chaired two regional Brexit round tables, the first in Newcastle on 17 May and the second in Birmingham on 14th June. Representatives from local and regional VCSE organisations attended to discuss their views on EU Exit. Some of the key themes the participants told us about were:
– Concerns over potential reductions in access to EU funding
– Insight and discussion about how domestic successor funds could be used to support those furthest from the labour market
– Increased uncertainty about rights of EU nationals, both as employees of VCSEs and amongst beneficiaries
– Impacts on communities, including reports of arise in hate crime
– Potential impact of EU Exit on the local economy
This work is ongoing and If you have any comments or queries about our EU Exit work, please send us an email at ocseusubteam@culture.gov.uk
4.Loneliness funding announced
On 19th June, government announced £20m of funding for projects that build community connections and tackle loneliness. The £11m Building Connections Fund, a partnership between government, the Big Lottery Fund and the Co-op Foundation, will be open for applications from July. Separately, the People’s Postcode Lottery will be awarding £5m of extra top-up funding to some of its grantees who are already working on tackling loneliness, and the Health Lottery will be launching a new £4m fund later this year.
5.Loneliness call for evidence
The cross-government loneliness team, hosted by OCS in DCMS, has issued an online call for evidence to inform the loneliness strategy, which will be published later in 2018. Please provide your views. The survey will be open for four weeks.
6.Cultural Development fund
On 21 June Arts Minister Michael Ellis launches £20 million fund for culture, heritage and the creative industries to benefit towns and cities across England.Areas will be able to bid for up to £7 million for a number of projects in a certain area to help regeneration, create jobs and maximise the impact of investment. This could be for new spaces for creative businesses, bringing historic buildings back into use or redeveloping museums and art galleries.
The investment will help to grow local economies and increase access to arts, heritage and the creative industries.
7.Why Go Mutual – free event
Are you a public sector leader who is interested in exploring the potential benefits and process of setting up a public service mutual? Why Go Mutual? is a free event run by the GoMutual Consortium in conjunction with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to help you find out more about becoming a Public Service Mutual and the help that is available.
National Diversity Awards – shortlist
Congratulations and Good luck everyone
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Gender pay gap explained
Here is a helpful report from IPPR:
“The UK has a gender pay gap: within industries, within occupations, and within organisations, women tend to earn less per hour than men. A small proportion of this gap may be the result of unequal pay for the same work within a firm – which is illegal on the grounds of gender and other protected characteristics – but the majority is a consequence of the sort of jobs that women do, their level of seniority, and the impact of having children on their career choice and progression.
New firm-level data, published for 2017/18 to meet new government reporting requirements, suggests that pay gaps are prevalent at the level of the employer, although they tend to be smaller than the pay gap for the industry in which they operate. Closing the pay gap within firms would not, therefore, eliminate the economy-wide pay gap altogether. But employers do have an important part to play, and should make every effort to ensure that their pay, progression and flexible working policies help both men and women to combine work and caring commitments, and do not unconsciously bias the balance of who progresses, and who doesn’t.
It is possible for an employer to have a large gender pay gap and be working hard to promote gender equality; it is also possible for an employer to have a small gap and pay women (and men) poorly. Further, some measures to promote gender equality may actually increase the pay gap in the short-term – for example, the recruitment of more female graduate trainees. We should therefore be cautious in attributing too much importance to the pay gap data in isolation. We would encourage more firms to publish short, accessible narrative reports alongside their pay gap results in future.”
Annual review of social housing – B&S
Health and safety issues are increasingly major concerns for social housing providers after the Grenfell Tower disaster last June 2017. Beever and Struthers’ annual review of social housing ranked health and safety as the second most important risk faced by housing associations, only behind welfare reform.
In the previous year’s review, it was fourth. The survey also found that the sector became much more worried about cyberattacks in the past year after some high-profile incidents – most notably the ‘WannaCry’ hack of the NHS.
Of 100 associations surveyed, 29 identified IT security as a key risk, while it did not appear at all in the 2015/16 review.
The review analysed the 2016/17 accounts and annual reports of the 100 largest private registered providers in the UK.
Here is the report:
Beever_and_Struthers_-_Top_100_Annual_Review_2018
According to Inside Housing:
“This is still a key area for potential governance downgrading due to gas safety and fire risk assessment failures, and in particular reflects additional scrutiny following the events at Grenfell Tower.”
She added: “Given the prominent cyberattacks seen in 2017, in particular the ‘WannaCry’ ransomware that impacted the NHS and others, along with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which comes into effect in May 2018, it is not surprising that IT security should now feature in the top 10 risks.”
The economic climate also featured as a key risk, with 33 respondents concerned about uncertainty caused by factors including Brexit.
Staffing was a new entry to the top 10 biggest risks as 31 told researchers it was a major issue, compared to 21 the previous year.
Other top 10 risks identified by the sector included government policy, development, access to finance, rent reduction and the housing market.
Review of ethical standards in public life
The Committee on Standards in Public Life is gathering evidence for the review on ethical standards in local government have published the following on the government website following their round table debate
LA rebuilding trust with local people – post Grenfell
Over the autumn and winter, the Centre for Public Scrutiny led an independent governance study for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
The intention was to help the Council take the first step towards meaningful governance change – and a renewed relationship with local people.
CfPS made recommendations to the Council in March. They can be downloaded at here.
Accountability, Scrutiny and Local Government
CfPS have just published the annual survey results of scrutiny in Local Government which shows an improving picture.
Here is some further analysis in a 2 part series – please click here for series 1 and series 2.
If you want to know more about scrutiny role and accountability, you can look at our joint publication with APSE available here.
Power to the people – Economic justice
The IPPR Commission on Economic Justice is pleased has announce the publication of a discussion paper, Power to the people: How stronger unions can deliver economic justice.
This paper shows why trade unions and collective bargaining are good for workers and the economy demonstrating the decline of the union movement and its contribution to a growing power imbalance in the economy and to soaring inequality. Those who could benefit most from union membership who are least likely to join.
As public policy – and the hostile environment for trade unions that it has created – has contributed to the decline of trade unions, public policy must be part of the solution. The IPPR paper calls for:
- A renaissance of collective bargaining, with a target of doubling collective bargaining coverage to 50 per cent by 2030, support for sectoral collective bargaining in low pay sectors, and measures to encourage firm-level bargaining, overseen by a new Minister of State for Labour
- Support for trade unions to recruit and innovate, with a Right of Access to workplaces for unions to recruit, a pilot of auto-enrolment for workers in the gig economy, and a WorkerTech Innovation Fund to support unions to embrace new technology
- Trade unions to be embraced as social partners in driving the UK’s industrial strategy and in supporting a managed acceleration of automation that works for working people