Almost a quarter of councils in England have invested £130m in setting up 58 new housebuilding companies since 2012, according to research by Inside Housing.

However, many of these companies are yet to deliver new homes at scale, while only one has paid any dividend back to its council so far.

Responses from more than 200 English councils to a Freedom of Information Act request showed 49 had set up a combined total of 58 companies, subsidiaries and joint ventures since April 2012.

Here is the list of 58 companies:

www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/councils-set-up-58-housebuilding-companies-since-2012-54634?

Guinness Care and Support – an arm of Guinness Housing Partnership – was also found to be inadequate in its running of one of its nursing homes, Greenhill Residential Home in Devon.

The report is here from  CQC  who found the care home that is currently providing accommodation to 31 people was still inadequate, just over 18 months after it was placed into special measures.

INS2-2461117911

CQC inspectors found people “were not safe” at the nursing home. There were not enough staff to care for people with “complex needs and high dependency levels”. The management had not listened to staff when they raised concerns about staffing levels, which had led to “very low staff morale and increasing sickness levels”.

Residents were not able to go to bed when they wanted and could not always get to the bathroom in time. Although staff were found to be “caring and compassionate” the atmosphere was “chaotic, rushed and task orientated”.

The inspectors found there were call bells “ringing constantly, door alarms beeping and noisy ‘walkie talkie’ radio communications between staff”.

The provider had not recognised that people were not receiving adequate nutrition, including those identified as being at high risk. This meant people remained at risk of losing weight and not receiving enough food and fluids throughout the day and night, the inspectors said.

This report sets out three different ways in which ownership can be spread more widely:

The establishment of a national Citizens’ Wealth Fund, giving the public a share of corporate and other assets

The expansion of employee ownership trusts, which give employees majority ownership of companies

The growth of co-operative and mutual firms.

Here is the report from IPPR which recommends a series of reforms to achieve these goals

cej-capital-gains-policy-paper-18-01

IPPR have studied the  problems facing English SME builders, with mutually reinforcing problems: the planning system, the land market, and insufficient access to finance.

Drawing on experience from Germany, IPPR recommend to government a seven-point plan how to revitalise the SME sector in England and create more housing output.

think-small-build-big-december-2017

Also relevant from IPPR is a view on upping the skills of the north:

The north of England needs a skilled workforce and a system for skills development that meets the changing needs of the regional economy.

Read the report on devolving technical education to cities here

IPPR set out here a plan for a new UK-EU partnership that we believe would meet the UK’s priorities and have the maximal chance of securing an agreement with the EU27.

Read the The shared market: A new proposal for a future partnership between the UK and the EU here

CFPS have been exploring emerging trends 8 months on from devolution, including the pressure to commercialise, the trend for increased collaboration between councils at local level and the Government’s renewed focus on delivering policy objectives through LEPS, and the future of combined authority scrutiny.

Some of these trends have been discussed in the latest CfPS publication available here.

Here are some recent articles in the Guardian which explore the situation a little deeper and find that what we see in our cities is also mirrored in rural areas:

www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2018/jan/10/national-strategy-tackle-rural-homelessness-?

www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2018/jan/25/homelessness-soared-government-society?

There is a lot we don’t yet know around the implications of the decision that Carillion are taking steps to go into liquidation; together with £1.5 billion of debts. It seems likely that a few of their key public sector projects will be ring fenced and supported in some way by the government.

it is clear that there will have been knock on effects to other contractors, even if you do not have a contract directly with Carillion.

…..so ask about your supply chain and get it on your risk register

Here are some swapsies and the presentations – notes to follow:

HACT Insight tool

Tenant advisory presentation_Leeds_18th Jan 2018

Resident satisfaction

The report of work on tenant satisfaction will be reviewed Feb/March, when a report of HACTs work will be published.

HACT main focus has been actionable insight and to build trust with the customer base by acting on surveys.

Community Insight

HACT believe that the current surveys do not help landlords to make decisions for the community.

Many landlords employ researchers to gather data from up to 850 data sets and make sense of them, soem of which are by LA or postcode

The tool enables landlords to speed up the research part of the process using trusted data sites and enables you to project outcomes

Information can be mapped into hot spots which can support you to focus budget spend

It requires you to insert your data and that of subsidiaries – you can upload anything you wish – but HACT will advise you of the benefits and limitations of some local data.

Some examples of how the tool has been used:

• A2Dominion – health in areas and focus on loneliness, lone parents, widows, life satisfaction and well being
• What additions could be supported by a HA working locally?
• The-Missing-Million-report-FINAL

21st century Peabody are generous in sharing their research

The tool can support or clarify landlord spending habits

21st-century-peabody-report

HACT happy to talk to anyone about he use of the tool in their organisation

There was a debate about smaller org clubbing together or supporting LAs to buy the tool for multiple use in lcoal communities.

The local partnership with LAs would supply even more local data

With HACT’s support we then went on to discuss local grant giving and how the tool could support this:

Customer Involvement – managing grants to local communities

HACT brought to our attention 360 giving

Community Grants have been reviewed by 360 degree giving – useful grant finder site for landlords and CI staff.

www.threesixtygiving.org

360 Giving supports organisations to publish their grants data in an open, standardised way and helps people to understand and use the data in order to support decision-making and learning across the charitable giving sector.

Trafford HT have a £2m social dividend (9000 units).

Previously they managed this through Community Panel grants of £150k per area and  a separate Neighbourhood solutions budget managed by front line staff.

Current funding is more targeted on the social objectives set by board, including:

• Grants and loans
• business start up
• micro grants to support people into new employment

A virtual group reviews forms and feeds in their ideas into an investment board – who make the decision – this includes a manager and 2-3 staff

The approach is relatively new. THT will host our meeting in July when we can find our more

Connect:

Budget is £20k – the criteria and policy goes through a small committee – the budget is reducing.

Habinteg:

£11 pp for 2300 homes = £23k – very small grants up to £3k available

Item 4.4 – Tenant Led Improvement Budget Procedure Supporting Documentation

Leeds

£450k discretionary budget

Locality funding

TARA and Housing Officers make applications and a tenant Panels selects

The TP team oversee quality control

From Leeds:

Housing Advisory Panel_

Funding Application Form 2017_

18 HAP Checklist Housing Advisory Panel_

Funding Guidance Notes 2017_18

The ‘checklist’ used for our grants/community fund and copy of the form and guidance notes – and thinking about our enabling role we have customised/branded a standard product from IDOX that we are marketing as www.fundingleeds.co.uk

Information about VITAL (The Voice of Involved Tenants across Leeds) – our strategic tenant body that aims to consider and input into policy and strategy development at the early stage, and help us design our approach to wider engagement. This is being reviewed by the group at the moment, and deliberately trying to keep it informal and accessible. (so less about quorate issues for example, more about getting the right people round the table to influence)

Incommunities 

£40-50k for 22,000 units

This was managed by area panels, now area panels do not exist – a new Community trust panel has replaced this

Tenant group agree criteria and priorities for allocation of funding

TARAs and community grants

Here is some info shared between members:

also see LMH ComMutual website :

www.commutual.org.uk/community-initiative-fund-guidance-and-criteria

Here is some info from their previous work as LMH

New Association Start up Grant

LMH-6 Office Expenditure Grant LMH

LMH funding Monitoring Form

Grant Checklist LMH-5

GRANT APP LMH-1

Conditions of Grant Aid LMH

Task and finish thought provoker

T&F thoughts YD

We agreed this was a successful way of engaging and usefully instant with results.

Some of the uses which we had been tried and discussed included:

• Allocations process review- speaking to those who had recently moved in and those who were leaving
• Supported working with staff in a project team
• A useful and fresh way to engage new service users
• Speaking to tenants who had refused for kitchen and rewire refusals
• Disrepair
• checking out questions which are understandable prior to survey – use of snap survey and support for the Coms team
• Website functionality
• Developing the net promoter score – why would you/not recommend our company to friends and family?
• Sustainability support for tenants – energy efficiency advice

Regulatory advice on the 3 years review – Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Regulatory Standard (TIE)

See one slide above which is a copy of the standard’s requirement.

You may be reading too much into this.

Governance review – should cover engagement and listening to the voice of customers.

Scrutiny by tenants does not need to be a scrutiny panel – how do your tenants apply the cross cutting TIE standard to all other standards? e.g. what tenant scrutiny is there in right first time repairs (the home standard).

Ring me – i have more info for you 07867974659

Complaints

Check list July 2017

Complaints Handling Process July 2017

Complaints Policy July 2017 Approved

The most developed complaint scrutiny by tenants is done at Southway.

The offer includes:

• A customer internal service review group
  • Reviews performance on all complaints within time and trends on complaints in specific services
  • Reviews 6-8 cases of their choice for the detailed outcome based on the complaint and all the correspondence etc to ensure the compliant has been responded to fully, is customer focused and reasonable and report on this
  • Lessons learnt are reported to Executive and captured in you said – we did
• Tenant advocates  – trained to support other customers  who have a compliant and are not able to fully articulate their problem
• Independent Tenant Solutions – a designated panel with other landlords – Salix, New Charter, For Viva etc.

Connect also engage tenants in a similar way in the complaint process

Incommunities use an independent person to review the compliant, tenants review the performance and timescales.

Tenant engagement in Policy

Discussion

EMT are taking an increased delegated policy approval from Committees and Boards due to increased workload for governers.

• Is it the policy or the implementation of this – the procedure which would impact greater on tenants – how are tenants engaged in the process/customer journey?
• It needs to be a quality based conversation – first come capacity building to help the participants understand the service and parameters
• Task and finish is a useful tool for building in tenant opinion prior to reviewing the approach
• Ensuring Board/Council are aware of their ability to challenge and having a special section on customer/stakeholder consultation/opinion in approval papers

Plus Dane send back policies which are not deemed to have sufficient and appropriate consultation – tested at Exec team

Habinteg review consultation prior to approval and call officers to account – Your Voice Panel

Southway Resident Consultative panel reviews policy prior to board

Incommunities Community trust panel review policies prior to approval at Policy and performance Committee – this is changing now to EMT approval

Champions of specific services from Consultation Panels can help at Board – Trafford HT

Tenant appraisals

Habinteg appraise the Chair of their groups who then appraise the other members

PlusDane appraise their Scrutiny Panel

THT appraise their Chair through 360 degree assessment and from this a training plan is developed

Incommunities have developed an appraisal form to go out to members, they are going to appraise their Community Trust Panel and will be collectively appraising their Panel independently. They have amended a form used by another landlord:

CTP self assessment questionnaire 2018

Here is a copy of an appraisal for LMH, at that time the LMH SP Chair also being a member of the Customer Services Committee of Board

Self assessment for LMH Chair

SP Ind Chair role profile and person spec

Up and coming events

Kate Maughen was to attend to tell us about Rethinking Social Housing where tenants and landlords can attend one of their events, or run their won using the CIH toolkit. See NHC website for details of events across the north

Ian shared his notes from what tenants want – fed into national consultation post Grenfell

Leeds Objective Oct 4

This has slowed due to the new Housing Minister appointment – a report is due out soon – no date!

Dates for future S.Net meetings and offers of venues – thanks for the following offers – i will confirm you as soon as we have a room confirmed

11th April – Southway

4th July  – Weaver Vale

4th October  – Trafford Housing Trust

23rd January – Habinteg