There has been some sterling work by social landlords post Grenfell, sadly nothing can take away the terrible tragedy.

Too much to mention.

Here is a summary of a few we consider worthy of a mention:

2    An independent task force

Communities secretary Sajid Javid announced an independent taskforce will be put in place at the council.

Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, had called for the government to take over the running of the entire council.

Both the council’s chief executive and leader have resigned following the fire.

The taskforce will have a particular focus on housing, regeneration and community engagement, Mr Javid said in a written statement to parliament. It will also consider the governance of the council and the way that it operates “to ensure it is able to provide effective leadership through trying and difficult circumstances”.

It will report to Mr Javid directly and will be made up of experienced and senior people with a track record in delivery, including from local government. The chair and membership of the taskforce will be announced “shortly” and will be in place “as long as is required”.

3    Resurrecting the tenant voice

4    Exerts from the East Midlands Housing Group interview with Inside Housing – CEO

“One of the most telling aspects of the tragedy was during the initial media coverage, when the wide gulf between the authorities and the tenants was so glaringly revealed. On one hand, the authorities were saying that a full investigation would be carried out and lessons learned. On the other hand, a representative of the tenants was saying that they had been warning the landlord of the dangers for months, if not years. Clearly, the lesson was already there to be learned, but it had seemingly been falling on deaf ears.
For me, one of the biggest lessons from Grenfell is that trust in public institutions is generally low, perhaps because we have not been listening properly, particularly to inconvenient truths. We need to work hard to regain that trust, which means engaging fully with our tenants and communities and not just paying them lip service.”

and

We may not always agree, but we owe it to our customers to have meaningful, constructive conversations, particularly as the success of any new venture relies heavily upon their buy-in. As we reshape our services towards a more digital approach, we must also guard against becoming too remote from our customers. I will not pretend we always get it right. Here at EMH Group, we are asking the question about what we need to do differently to get closer to our customers.
The ability to learn from our mistakes and implement service recovery measures is a good tool to regain the trust of our customers. It is ultimately about what we do as leaders and I must admit that every time I receive a complaint on my desk I tend to take it personally. How I choose to deal with that complaint and what we do as a result is entirely in my hands.
Chan Kataria, 

5   Nick Hurd – Fire Service Minister

How could anyone have thought a catastrophic failure was an impossibility following the Lakanal House fire in 2009 that spread more quickly than anticipated and killed six people?

Why did more people not consider the possibility of a terrifying and rapid spread of fire across the structure of a building following the Shepherd’s Court fire last year? (more attention should be paid as to why the lessons of this latter fire were not shouted about more loudly and publicly, with questions for everyone from Hammersmith and Fulham Council, the London Fire Brigade and the London media). Why was the update of building regulations relating to fire safety not prioritised after either of these?

6   Public Inquiry Chair

Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the chair of the inquiry, has been asked by Theresa May to publicly consult on what the terms of reference of the inquiry should be. All suggestions must be submitted by 14 July.

In particular, the inquiry wants to hear the views of those affected by the fire and will be holding meetings with key groups.

7    Hackneys advise to 166 CEOs by letter, wanring about the fire alarm contractor

The letter states that in 2014 the council received “allegations of fraud and overcharging” on the works and, upon inspection, found “incorrectly installed alarms and emergency lighting systems”. It continued: “Hackney also immediately notified the police, and there is an ongoing criminal investigation.”

8     Greater Manchester Fire service advice

9      Landlords need other cladding testing – but its in a queue

10     Great Places FAQ’s – a helpful response from GPHG on their website

Bear in mind this is one example and the advice differs based on your home, your property type and the fire risk assessment for your home.

Ask your landlord what you should do in the case of a fire:

Fire-Safety-FAQ.v2

Housing organisations are being urged to sign up to a new charter on shared ownership developed by CIH and the National Housing Group. The charter aims to promote the tenure and ensure that households which sign up to it have a positive experience. It follows a report by CIH and Orbit earlier this year which revealed shared ownership has become one of the most popular routes to home ownership.

Here is their charter:

shared ownership charter for housing

Here is their earlier report into Shared ownership:

Shared Ownership 2.1

The health of its citizens must be one of the major concerns of any government.
The Local Government Association (LGA) and NHS Clinical Commissioners (NHSCC), have worked together with our members to present, at the start of the new Government’s term of office, a call to action and a set of proposals for strengthening the impact of health and wellbeing boards across the country.

Here is their report:

making-it-better-together-8c9

One Public estate is a useful site of good practice and case studies sponsored by government and the LGA.

www.local.gov.uk/topics/housing-and-planning/one-public-estate

The One Public Estate programme is a pioneering initiative delivered in partnership by the LGA and the Cabinet Office Government Property Unit (GPU). One Public Estate began in 2013 with just twelve areas, but today we are working with more than 250 councils on projects transforming local communities and public services right across the country. In January 2017, it expanded to help almost three quarters of councils to deliver 44,000 jobs and 25,000 homes through property.

The Cabinet Office and Local Government Association announced that a further 79 councils will join the One Public Estate (OPE) programme, bringing the total number of councils participating in OPE to 255 – almost three quarters of all councils in England.

£3.6 million has been allocated to councils across new and existing partnerships on the programme.

The latest funding round means that by 2019 to 20 the partnerships on OPE expect to:

• create 44,000 jobs
• release land for 25,000 homes
• raise £415 million in capital receipts from land and property sales
• cut running costs by £98 million

The funding will support public sector partnerships to work collaboratively on land and property initiatives, generating new jobs and homes, creating more joined up public services to local communities, and delivering savings for the taxpayer.

OPE remains firmly on track to achieve the ambition of 95% of councils on the programme by 2018, with 72% of councils across England now delivering through OPE.

If we are to see stronger, more empowered and more resilient communities, then there will have to be a re-balancing of the relationship between residents and public services.

Across the country, local councillors are at the front nline of redefining traditional service delivery. Ways of working are becoming more collaborative and preventative, and will rely increasingly on democratically elected councillors in their role as community leaders.

The best councils have been doing this for years, and we continue to learn from their experiences.

doing-something-big-0f2

Here is the report summary from IPPR:

Today, what we now consider ‘best use’ is changing from an approach that sought to maximise extraction (or use) for economic gain to one that recognises extraction has impacts on the locality and on the wider environment. This short paper, prepared on behalf of the Northern Energy Taskforce, considers what might be described as the next generation of geological resource technologies, i.e. Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS), and Shale Gas recovery through fracking.

CCS and shale gas fracking both have the potential to offer some economic benefits, and benefits that could be realised in and for the North. But each runs the risk of being presented as a panacea and needs to be considered in a wider context. If the government is to retain its manifesto commitment to pursue onshore shale gas extraction, then the Northern Energy Taskforce calls on the relevant secretaries of state to do four things:

1. Re-instate or update support for CCS technology, to include consideration of a CATAPULT Centre for CCS in the North.
2. Lay out a clear, consistent and universally applied regulatory framework for shale gas extraction, under the auspices of the Environment Agency.
3. Ensure that shale gas use displaces, rather than adds to imported gas consumption, as argued by the Committee on Climate Change (2016).
4. Establish a Sovereign Wealth Fund to ‘bank’ the benefits of government revenues on shale gas and use them to forward fund the continued development of the energy system of the North, as well as offering individual and community benefits.

Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) – which are local health and care reform plans, authored jointly by NHS and local government leaders to improve outcomes and drive greater efficiency in their local area – are one of the government’s main responses to this problem. These plans rightly focus on decentralising power within the NHS, investing in leadership and relationships to drive improvements, and on local health and care organisations coming together to overcome the silos created by the 2012 Health and Care Act.

This report looks at the most promising reform solutions that have been correctly identified by STPs, and also sets out the range of challenges that stand in the way of them realising their vision for improved health and efficiency.

According to IPPR:

We publish now, immediately after the General Election, having postponed our original launch which was planned for early May. The housing crisis and the importance of building more homes has been a prominent issue in the election campaign with something tantamount to a bidding war between the parties as to who would build most. We would stress that it is not just the number built but also the balance of tenures and affordability which need to be thought through for an effective housing strategy. All of the major parties have, at last, recognised that there is a bigger part to be played by local authorities and housing associations in commissioning the building of new homes. We have also seen a number of individual pledges which we would like to see included in future housing policy (including the Conservatives’ willingness to reform CPO powers and Labour’s commitment to suspending RTB unless the homes sold are replaced).

Our overall impression is that parties remain too strongly wedded to owner-occupation and particularly to the belief that they will be able to provide a significant response to the aspirations of first time buyers. We strongly believe that Britain’s housing crisis cannot be solved by too narrow a focus on owner occupation. It is, we recognise, the tenure of choice for most of our fellow citizens but it simply cannot provide the number of homes needed or at a price which can meet this aspiration and it is time to be honest about that. All manifestos place greater emphasis on homes built to rent together with greater encouragement for the role that can be played by housing associations and local authorities as well as institutional investors. We believe this is a key development in beginning to provide homes for all circumstances and to relieve the pressure on rents and house prices.

The incoming government has an opportunity to demonstrate the positive impact that government can have in a modern market economy. The prime minister has made clear her willingness to intervene in markets where they are dysfunctional. Nowhere could this be better demonstrated than in the land market. There also needs to be a focus on the long-term objective of rebuilding the capacity of the housebuilding industry and especially its supply chain. We need to recognise a broadly based industry that includes the traditional housebuilders, but it must extend well beyond them if it is to maintain its efforts over the economic cycle and the most certain challenges of Brexit. Government can do more than just offer encouragement. It can spread its available investment with more precision; promote research and development; and support the risks that will have to be taken in board rooms, council chambers and in personal lives. Building confidence that we can and will avoid the stop-start experience that has been the cause of a housing crisis, where our homes have increasingly become assets for domestic and international speculation rather than the foundation of our own security, health and economic wellbeing. Most of all, government must be determined, for there is no more fitting subject to an industrial strategy than rebuilding this almost entirely domestic industry.

The publication was kindly supported by LGIM Real Assets and PwC.

Sir Michael Lyons,
June 2017