|
Grants and other useful information for communities and landlords –
|
||||||||
|
Change at the Council post Grenfell Tower
Here is the report from CfPS drawing attention to some of the many things that the council could improve in its own governance and assurance on public service delivery:
Good Governance
Sometimes more than one agency is involved in scrutiny – check this out for ideas for multiple bodies engaged and how you can all work together from our friends at CFPS
Regulator – New Value for Money standard
Here is the new standard, operational for all providers (except councils) of social housing.
The VFM standard no longer requires an annual statement – instead a more embedded approach to VFM is expected in each of the landlords objectives or in a full strategy. Tenant satisfaction is no longer being measures, but there are some positives on reporting and managing performance and measures of the value of housing and community services.
Decision_Instrument_16_VfM_Standard_-_
FINAL RSH_letter_to_providers_-_
VfM_Standard_and_LRO_-_March_2018
Technical_Note_VfM_Metrics_FINAL
VFM reporting will now be in the annual report – specific metrics must be reported on there, with commentary.
Other information for stakeholders can supplement this, in any format the landlords feels is appropriate.
See our recent presentation on VFM and tenant engagement here:
Partnership working
Building Bridges is a report which has been developed by CIH and partners.
It provides a guide to better partnership working between local authorities and housing associations investigates how these sets of organisations can maximise what they can achieve together by focusing on key areas at a time of profound pressure on the housing sector.
It takes an in-depth look at current partnership working, leadership and culture, land and housing supply, housing demand, and affordability and rents. It also makes a series of recommendations for local authorities and housing associations, and policy recommendations for government.
here is a copy of the full report:
Public health and Communities
Welcome to the latest edition of PHE’s Health Matters, a resource for local authorities and health professionals, which for this edition focuses on community-centred approaches for health and wellbeing.
Why communities matter
Positive health outcomes can only be achieved by addressing the factors that protect and create health and wellbeing, and many of these are at a community level.
Community life, social connections and having a voice in local decisions are all factors that make a vital contribution to health and wellbeing. They build control and resilience, help buffer against disease and influence health-related behaviour and management of long-term conditions. Community-centred ways of working are important for all areas of public health – health improvement, health protection and healthcare public health.
If you find this interesting, you may wish to subscribe to the information?
Mayor consultation on resident ballots prior to demolition – latest
The Mayor of London’s consultation closes today on having resident ballots prior to demolition plans
The original proposal suggested that ballots be required as a condition for receiving funding from his office for any estate regeneration project involving the construction of at least 150 homes and the demolition of any homes that have been owned by a social landlord at any point.
In responding to this, the NHF have suggested a ballot should only be required when a certain percentage of homes are to be demolished.
The response they made no recommendation on the appropriate level for this percentage, but noted that the G15, a group representing London’s largest housing associations, has called for it to be set at 33%.
Broadly, the NHF’s response was in favour of the principle of ballots, saying a ballot “helps ensure resident engagement is central to the development of regeneration plans, where demolition will cause significant disruption to people’s lives”.
It had a few suggestions for limiting the proposals though, saying that social landlords could deviate from proposals approved by a ballot without losing funding if they can show the changes were “unavoidable, unforeseeable when the ballot took place, and undertaken with full resident consultation and engagement”.
We await the mayors response to this
The Homelessness Monitor: England 2018
The Homelessness Monitor: England 2018 is the seventh annual report of an independent study, commissioned by Crisis and funded by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, of the homelessness impacts of recent economic and policy developments in England.
Here is the report:
https://www.crisis.org.uk/ending-homelessness/homelessness-knowledge-hub/homelessness-monitor/england/the-homelessness-monitor-england-2018/
here are the key findings
• Homelessness has shot up the media and political agenda over the past year. All of the major party manifestos made mention of homelessness in the snap June 2017 election, and the Conservatives under Theresa May pledged to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminate it altogether by 2027. The Prime Minister has also established a high-level Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce supported by an expert Rough Sleeping Advisory Panel.
• This political attention is in large part a response to the ongoing rise in officially estimated rough sleeper numbers, with the national total now up by 169 per cent since 2010. The more robust statistics routinely collected by the CHAIN system similarly show London rough sleeping having more than doubled since 2010. Latest figures show London rough sleeping involving UK nationals continuing to increase very slightly. However, thanks to a sharp contraction in street homelessness involving those of Central and Eastern European and other non-UK origin, overall London rough sleeping has marginally reduced since 2015.
• At just over 59,000, annual homelessness acceptances were some 19,000 higher across England in 2016/17 than in 2009/10. With a rise of 2 per cent over the past year, acceptances now stand 48 per cent above their 2009/10 low point. However, administrative changes mean that these official statistics understate the true increase in ‘homelessness expressed demand’ over recent years.
• Since bottoming out in 2010/11, homeless placements in temporary accommodation have risen sharply, at twice the rate of homelessness acceptances. Thus, the overall national total rose by 8 per cent in the year to 31 March 2017, up 61 per cent on the low point six years earlier. A continuation of this trend would see placements topping 100,000 by 2020. Though accounting for only 9 per cent of the national total, bed and breakfast placements have been rising particularly quickly, and now stand 250 per cent higher than in 2009. The National Audit Office has drawn attention to a 39 per cent real terms increase in local authority spending on temporary accommodation in the five years to 2015/16, a period when expenditure on homelessness prevention declined.
• All available evidence points to Local Housing Allowance reforms as a major driver of this association between loss of private tenancies and homelessness. These reforms have also demonstrably restricted lower-income households’ access to the private rented sector. The number of Housing Benefit/Universal Credit claimants who are private tenants is now some 5 per cent lower than when the Local Housing Allowance reforms began in 2011, despite the continuing strong growth of the private rented sector overall. This policy has also, as intended, had a particularly marked impact in inner London.
• Alongside the narrowing opportunities to access the private rented sector (see above), there is a growing evidence of a squeeze on homeless households’ access to social tenancies. This arises not only from the pressure on the highly diminished pool of available social rented properties, with an 11 per cent drop in new lettings in the past year alone, but also a reported increase in social landlord anxieties about letting to benefit-reliant households and those with complex needs.
• The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, due to come into force in April 2018, seems to have garnered significant and growing cross-sectoral support. While there remain concerns regarding the adequacy of the ‘new burdens’ funding granted to local authorities to support the Act’s implementation, the more fundamental issues relate to the growing structural difficulties that many local authorities face in securing affordable housing for their homeless applicants.
Grenfell – Governance lessons from CfPS
Following the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea recognised that the authority needed to change the way it worked. It commissioned CfPS to undertake a thorough review of its governance and scrutiny arrangements.
CfPS produced a report based on comprehensive research and surveys; engaging with residents, officers, members and stakeholders; and observing and assessing meetings.
Here is the report and the lessons learnt:
Cities which are skilled
This new report is about Cities, skilled to deliver from Hays and Deloitte
The Skilled Cities report covers the key aspects impacting new location investment decisions, including profiling 13 major UK cities.
Download your copy here from their website
On each city, they have included an analysis of:
- Transport links
- Office market
- Housing cost
- Average weekly earnings
- Talent availability
- Annual salary levels and;
- Percentage of the largest sector of employment.