Thanks to Habinteg for hosting.

Here are the notes and presentations from the meeting:

1            Investing in Involvement Statement

 YD Scrutiny.Net 27th Jan 16

Yvonne gave a presentation on the new report and activities by the Tenant organisations, led by Nick Bliss and the opportunity for tenants and landlords as individuals to complete survey returns.

Yvonne explained she had completed the return and there was no obligation until the last page, to leave contact details for a follow up, by suggesting you would need to think about passing on details.

I encourage everyone to populate the survey – link details on the slides!

A few discussions followed on from this in the first report – including concerns of higher claims of the impact of involvement, which had not been helpful for CI staff in defending their contribution to the business.

There are still dilemmas over the value and measurement of involvement – whilst it would be great if organisations were persuaded to do an annual investment in involvement statement, this in many landlords will simply replace the annual report – but the statement does have the benefit of focussing on VFM and giving staff support with a structure of their annual report to board/committees/councils.

All were in agreement that the real key is buy in at the top level of the Organisation at CEO/Director level and their influence on the way in which the business is run

We discussed the opportunities for customer feedback and whether this should be part of the toolbox for involvement officers – this is often done in separate teams – it is important to follow up surveys with focus groups to help with the interpretation of data.

There was a need for Involvement teams to become more like commissioning officers – asking housing and other patch teams what they needed to know or resolve to meet their targets and then offering services to target those needs – to enable them to realise the usefulness of involvement teams to complement their work and show added value. This supports the developmental role of involvement teams and enables a better understanding of the needs of the different teams in the organisation.

A few ideas of new departures for involvement teams were discussed, including:

• Wythenshawe and Wulvern involve their Service Improvement Manager in shaping the scope of the service scrutiny, where they can explain what the challenges for the landlord are and give a steer on what the landlord knows (which the tenants might like access to) and hopes to find out, from the chosen scrutiny.
• Great Places journey mapping had been a useful aid to scrutiny to show where customers were involve and where outcomes might be required. GP are just starting to adopt lean thinking – Incommunities and Wulvern have for many years adopted lean thinking in their management work – Incommunities have now enabled the scrutiny inspectors to get engaged in that work.

2            Breaking down the barriers of involvement – Habinteg

 Tracy led the discussions on how Habinteg try to break down barriers and involve    tenants nationally who might need different support to get involved and also how they reach very dispersed audiences.

Habinteg have homes in 80 LAs and a team of 2 to deliver the work. They rely heavily on Community Assistants locally to send out messages and to consult with tenants.

Ideas discussed included:

• Habinteg involving tenants in a pay to stay consultation
• Habinteg Housing Managers combined role on involvement locally either scheme based on juts as local managers of adapted homes in the communities.
• Habinteg have developed links with local disability and ethnic groups to support local involvement
• Thirteen had been using google-drive surveys to assess involvement needs in their dispersed stock and have an officer concentrating on the dispersed stock with the whole team supporting door knocking – the plan is to ty to establish links to local groups – including those of other HAs

3            Refreshing the scrutiny model – 3 different approaches

1. Great Places – 3-4 scrutiny pieces a year

Mike and Tracy gave a presentation on some of their dilemmas relating to their approach to Scrutiny – see presentation

MG & TG Scrutiny.net Presentation

In the debate that followed we discussed:

• strong and weak scrutiny pane members and how they worked to gather
• should we have only strong members?
• should we have a set skills et that if not met within x time, should we help that person onto other panels
• the size of the panel – 5 minimum?
• timescales and frequency of scrutiny per year – GP managed to do 3-4 a year which was more than most give the in depth assessment work
• how to involve working tenants
• support required to meet Board standards of report quality – usually supported or written by staff (with SP comments fed in from their pre work as they go along or at the end)
• manager involvement in final reports and the significance of their comments and influence at the end and pre board
• ability of panels pull out key recommendations which are new to the landlord and to see the significance of something which they have just learnt – but is not new to the landlord
• the role of the Involvement team v development of the panel:
  • during negotiations on the report
  • in supporting the panel to spot issues which need further scrutiny
  • in passing on their knowledge to guide the scrutiny to ensure it is useful for the landlord
  • in following up actions promised with managers
  • in serving board who might monitor this progress
  • in having a link lead from the board or from the executive team
• considerations on doing scrutiny faster and involving other tenants and tenant panels in the organisation
• powerful recommendations, well evidenced and understood by the whole panel

1. Thirteen – Customer Service Inspectors, an alternative form of scrutiny

Jonathan gave a presentation on their approach to scrutiny – see presentation.

JC presentation Habinteg Jan 16

In the debate that followed we discussed:

• the opportunity to spec up scrutiny
• the use of tenants to communicate and feedback from other tenants
• tenants attending local events/having stalls and catching people in the front entrances to quiz them on their thoughts/door knocking
• completing scrutiny faster
• commissioning by lead officers of work
• role of involvement lead to shape the service plan over 5-8 weeks start to finish
• less staff disturbance – tenants to tenants views – little need to interview staff – sets it aside from full scrutiny
• positive feedback from managers – they had commissioned the projects
• tenants love the short sharp work and quick results
• usually takes about 10 days of tenants time over the 5 week project from set up to conclusion – some at home reading
• tenants decided how to execute their research to deliver the feedback that the landlords wants
• short report 3-4 pages of findings for the landlord to act on – including recommendations
• less follow up and action planning – need to tighten that
• intensive work and then other tenants can get involved in the next project – spreads this around
• able to use some experienced and some non-experienced – need to get the balance right to carry others – about 5 people in total
• training basics, including
  • data protection
  • a bit about the landlord
  • reviewing data
  • using customer feedback
  • role of the panel – what is different about this panel
  • managing relations with other tenants and landlord staff
  • mystery shopping and reality checking option and skills
  • training on running focus groups with other tenant
• the opportunity to use these techniques in-between other larger scrutinise to deliver more projects and mix it for volunteers throughout the year
• potential for the future of scrutiny to deliver short sharp focussed projects

1. Incommunities – incorporating lean thinking and customer service requests

Kelly gave a presentation on their approach to scrutiny – see presentation.

KH Incomm Scrutiny PP

KH Repairs Scrutiny Action Plan

KH Excel Flow

Scrutiny – Timetable

Repairs Scrutiny – Timetable

Capture Demand Totals

In the debate that followed we discussed:

• new ways to solve existing service issues
• what do customers want from scrutiny
• what does the customer ring up the office about
• systems thinking – involving tenants in flowcharting the people involve di the customers journey and the internal processes – gives them a great understanding of the service and the tenants rally enjoy this
• how do we capture customer demand for services and use this to improve VFM, service quality and efficiency
• how do we drive up sustainability of the scrutiny panel
• working with their inspectors (their scrutiny panel) to check on service requested/demanded and coming up with issues for staff to investigate
• closing the loop on the staff investigation which follows
• rolling out the improvements and how tenants can engage with deliver of procedure and the end product
• asking tenants on their feedback – if you did not give us 10 out of 10 – what would make the difference and making use an feeing in those suggestions to improve services
• setting a line – a questions to be answered to head up the scope for scrutiny – what do the tenants want from the service and then determining the gaps between where the landlord is and how it can deliver the aspiration
• purpose of the scrutiny is placed on one sheet of paper and confirmed by tenant and landlord
• tenants don’t usually cause change the policy/strategy – usually the procedure operational link to the customers
• use of minimum wage to calculate contribution of panel 736 hours between 10 of them over 12-16 weeks on their last project (110 hours of this were listening in to calls over a 2 week period)

4. Use of Facebook, twitter, live chat and also how organisations have saved money on communication or streamlined their processes in involvement

A number of discussions ensued which generally showed an underdevelopment of the use of social media and e mail to contact tenants by landlords.

Communications teams tended to have the ability to stop or spend to long agreeing messages to customers that opportunities are lost along the way.

Most were moving to on line services for newsletters and annual reports – driven by savings. Most had adopted the – we assume you would rather receive this by e mail – e mail us if you do not wish to receive e mails – rather than let us know if you do!

• Great Places (GP) staff survey had recently surprised them on the number of tenants who appreciated the newsletter and read it – contrary to belief that only a minority read the magazine.
• GP had also found that their website was rarely used with people preferring to phone the contact centre
• Thirteen were cancelling the newsletter altogether
• Yvonne said that Riverside were moving to a digital offer and closing local offices.
• Southway were investigating the provision of more on line services with a massive investment in IT infrastructure – Yvonne had been involved in some consultation of no involved tenants on this

There were some discussions about getting older people into using social media and concerns about them missing out on messages:

• THT produced a few copies just for communal areas in schemes

Whilst Facebook and twitter accounts were used, this was rarely used by anything other than the landlords to push out corporate information. Many landlords were    nervous of public discussions on complaints/ tenant problems.

Many landlord websites were under development to increase the on line services available beyond rent collection/rent statements and on line repair reporting.

Everyone agreed that whilst they may have likes on their FB page, it was not yet a  substitute for phone calls. Many followers were other landlords or partners.

• Thirteen had a recent problem in their contact centre, so tenants reported to using FB to report issues and complain – this meant that the query was resolved faster than long waiting call times and so became popular with tenants. All 4 landlords in the group have a FB and twitter account.
• Thirteen – Some Involvement staff are able to post information onto the website for their page only.
• Some tenants groups have used their own FB page to message eachother, but this is not widely used.
• We discussed the merits of insisting on IT ability prior to joining Scrutiny Panels to enable information to be pushed out that way.

Who is ahead of the game?

• Yvonne knew that Bromford had some time ago had tried some live streaming of their Scrutiny panel with someone putting done points discussed and encouraging other tenants to feed in their opinions and ideas – this required support from a members of staff to do this.
• Yvonne knew that Soha scrutiny pane met using skype to debate progress with their scrutiny.
• Yvonne had recently been impressed with the live chat available at Bolton at Home as an alternative to phoning their contact centre
• Some landlords had targets for increased likes etc and quicker response waiting times
• Thirteen Scrutiny panel had used their contact centre to FB out 5 questions over 5 days during the communications scrutiny – to ask what people expected from Social media

We agreed that the key to using Social media more for Involvement teams and scrutiny lay in:

• the appetite of the landlord to enable and allow this
• clarity of the role of the marketing/communications team in this
• clarity on why you would do this and what you might use it for
• clarity on outcomes and problems expected

We discussed the opportunity to gather more information from both organsiations for a future S.Net – YD to follow up

5. Tenants Associations – the role of the landlords and the role of the tenants?

              See Yvonne’s presentation to get the debate going (see also the notes on slides)

 A debate ensued on the number of TARAs, how they were supported by the different  landlords and their links to the landlord in terms of dependency and review of their work. Inevitably there were variations in approach:

• GP had recently had a bad experience with a TARA who had complained to the ombudsman having complained about local issues when an officer was present.
• It was agreed that clarity might be useful to officers and TARAs over what the tenant (s) needed to report through the normal channels of requests for landlord services and what the role of the officer was there.
• Most agreed that the officers role was not to receive requests for services, but possibly they could advise – if the issue was not a personal issue of what the TARA might do to resolve a situation
• Mike is reviewing the officer role and support for TARAs – are they linked and sponsored by GP or should they be set free and what is the officers role in attendance – he will keep us up to date with thinking

We discussed:

• recognition criteria
• standard terms of reference
• role descriptions
• kept details of bank accounts
• expected audits to be carried out of the groups finances by themselves from their allocated landlord budget
• had clauses for claw back at the close of the group, or when it no longer recognised the group
• group links and run off a local community centre (non- landlord sponsored) – a community partners strategy
• initial support for development and then withdrawal to enable the group to stand alone
• landlord support for dismissal of members
• TARAs requiring resources for recruitment and continuance – should they be set free or should there be a limit to annual housing or involvement staff support?
• policies for involvement were generally inadequate to cover the expectations from tenant groups – Mike is reconsidering his

6. Deregulation – what does it mean for involvement?

See Yvonne’s presentation – outlining some of the most recent housing policy changes and the outcomes of the Housing and Planning bill (see slide).

We had a debate about:

• the need to get tenants up to date with policy changes
• the need to discuss with tenants how to get involved in that debate
• the need for tenants to influence voluntary RTB, lifetime tenancies and pay to stay policies
• the move for funders to approve mergers and significant changes in management changes and this to be removed from the remit of the regulator from April 2016 – how would we ensure tenants are engaged in changes
• the merger code from the NHF and landlords suggesting that they were unhappy with having to consider every approach at Board – so the likely hood it would be too onerous to adopt
• increased regulation of smaller HAs and deep dive inspections

7. We agreed to defer these to a survey due to time constraints

• Views – the difference between Engagement, Involvement, Empowerment & Community Investment
• The SEP offer for 2016 – speakers, ideas and suggestions for change
• Forthcoming meetings dates and offers for venues
• Staff and tenant training

Yvonne agreed to survey on this and matters of SEP membership preferences and training for 2016/17

END

Family Mosaic’s final report on its three-year Health Begins at Home study, the findings of which have been seen by Inside Housing, found that its health and wellbeing interventions resulted in tenants reducing the amount they used the NHS, especially planned hospital appointments.

Accoridng to Inside Housing:

“The research project divided 433 Family Mosaic residents aged over 50 into three groups: a control group with no additional support, a group that was signposted to services and another group that received intensive personalised support, including being accompanied to services.

For those that received intensive support, their reduction in their NHS usage – for example, through fewer hospital visits – resulted in savings for the NHS of £63 per person per month.

The estimated service cost to Family Mosaic of providing the intensive support was £188 per person per month. This is an indicative figure for the three-year trial and further testing is likely to see this figure come down.

When extrapolated out to all 5,805 Family Mosaic tenants over 50, and accounting for statistical anomalies, the savings for the NHS amounted to £3.4m per year.

For the group that was signposted to services, savings were £1.6m a year.”

The Health & Safety Executive is considering allowing housing associations more flexibility around the timing of gas safety checks following concern in the sector about current rules.

Under the law, landlords have to carry out gas safety checks on all properties every 12 months. However, because housing associations sometimes require time to access a property, they typically carry out their checks a month or two before the deadline.

Currently, if the check is carried out early, the 12-month period starts again. The Gas Access Campaign, which represents 150 organisations in the sector, has argued this is costing landlords tens of millions of pounds a year and has pushed for associations to have the same powers as councils to obtain court orders to access properties quickly if necessary.

Accoridng to Inside Housing:

“The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is now instead considering introducing a system similar to a car MOT, in which the annual check date for a property remains the same each year even if the actual check is carried out early. This means, for example, if the check is carried out a month early, another check is then not required for 13 months.

The Gas Access Campaign today described the proposed HSE change as a “little victory”.

The HSE is understood to be considering allowing checks to be carried out up to a month early to reduce costs for landlords. It is believed it will weigh this up against the risk of gas safety checks happening less frequently than 12 months in some cases. It will be holding a workshop, to which associations are invited, in Bootle, Merseyside, on 2 March, to discuss the plans further.

The change would be subject to a formal consultation and require an amendment to Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations, a statutory instrument ‘owned and enforced’ by HSE. The change would be subject to ministerial approval, but it is understood ministers rarely overturn HSE recommendations.

The Gas Access Campaign is spearheaded by Home Group, the Association of Gas Safety Managers and CORGI Technical Services. It has been backed by 150 organisations.”

MPs have crisised the government’s plan to fund the extension of the Right to Buy (RTB) through a levy on councils, saying it should be financed by central government directly.

The Communities and Local Government committee published a report heavily critical of the government’s plan to fund the extension of discounts to housing association’s tenants through a charge on councils based on expected sales of ‘high-value’ vacant stock.

Accoridng to Inside Housing:

“The report said: “We believe in the principle that public policy should usually be funded by central government.” It said: “If only councils which have retained some housing stock will be required to make the payment to fund the RTB discounts, then the effect on some communities and the financial risk for local authorities will be far greater in some areas than others.”

The report said the policy would make it more difficult for councils to ‘plan prudently’ as they would be exposed to the risk of lower vacancy rates than expected. It also called for definitions of ‘high-value’ to reflect local circumstances.

It said the mechanics of funding the policy contain “too many unknown and unclear definitions”, and that the committee is sceptical that “forcing councils to sell financially and socially viable properties is a sustainable funding source”.

The committee, chaired by Labour MP Clive Betts, said the government should have published its anticipated costs of the three policies intended to be funded by RTB receipts by now. These are RTB discounts, replacement of sold council homes and a brownfield regeneration fund. It also said the government should be clear about how the RTB extension will be phased in.

The report, which follows a six-month inquiry into housing associations and the RTB, in total outlines 48 conclusions or recommendations.

It suggests housing associations which choose to adopt Pay to Stay should be able to set their own thresholds and mechanisms. It also said housing associations “should remain mindful of their social mission and not sacrifice philanthropy in pursuit of surpluses”, and that increasing surpluses and saving money should not be the “sole motivation” for association mergers.

The inquiry received 176 written submissions, many of them from housing associations.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) responded to the committee’s report by defending its funding plans for the RTB extension. A DCLG spokesperson said: ““There are billions of pounds locked up in local authority housing assets. It is only right that when they become vacant they are sold enabling the receipts to be reinvested in building new homes and supporting home ownership through Right to Buy.” He added that further details on the sale of council homes will be set out in secondary legislation.

CLG COMMITTEE: KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

Public policy (ie, the Right to Buy extension) should be funded by central government
Definitions of ‘high-value’ should take into account local circumstances
The government should publish costs of the Right to Buy extension, sale of council homes and brownfield regeneration fund
Starter Homes should not be built at the expense of other forms of tenure, where the need exists
Government should ensure Right to Buy replacement homes meet the needs of local communities
Housing associations should be “mindful of social mission and not sacrifice philanthropy in pursuit of surpluses”
Housing associations should be able to set own Pay to Stay thresholds and mechanism
HCA deregulation should not weaken assurances to lenders
Role of the regulator should be clarified with respect to monitoring Right to Buy replacements
The regulator and the National Housing Federation have a role in ensuring that increasing surpluses and saving money are not the sole motivation for housing association mergers”

In a written statement, housing minister Brandon Lewis said the government will launch a review which would “examine the continuing need for a non-departmental public body”.

It follows a tranche of government measures that will significantly water down the regulatory power of the HCA over housing associations and devolve investment powers to combined authorities.

The review will cover how the agency’s functions contribute to government objectives, whether each function and the body is still required, and “the best future delivery options”.

It also will examine how the HCA can make more savings and will look at whether its governance and management arrangements “are sufficiently robust”.

Ministers will be calling for evidence from housing associations and the HCA itself.

The Housing and Planning Bill, which is going through parliament, will jettison the HCA’s control over stick disposal and ability to veto mergers.

The deregulation drive was triggered by a decision by the Office for National Statistics to reclassify housing associations as public sector bodies due to various regulatory powers of the HCA.

Ministers are hoping that scrapping some of the HCA’s powers will mean they are reclassified once more as private bodies by the ONS.

Other functions of the HCA also face significant streamlining in the near future. A number of devolution deals with the treasury look likely to devolve housing investment powers to the regions.

The government is is considering deploying its housing experts at the Homes and Communities Agency to local areas to help councils design their own housing programmes.

The grading means the landlord is still compliant with HCA rules but it needs to improve its governance.

The HCA said following the completion of an In Depth Assessment (IDA), it had concluded that Magna’s board was unable to “demonstrate that it fully considers, challenges and debates whether it has the most effective strategy for delivering against its purpose and objectives”. It also said Magna had failed to provide a robust value for money self-assessment.

The HCA found failures in the board’s approach to risk, and said it did not show that it reviewed threats arising from welfare reform regularly. Magna retained a V1 for viability – the highest possible rating.

This now includes a new column with judgement under review added.

Regulatory_judgements_2016.02.11_Current

The new London Help to Buy, an extension of the existing Help to Buy scheme, has now opened. This will allow Londoners to buy a home with a 5% deposit and a mortgage of 55%. To date, 130,000 people have bought a home with the support of a Help to Buy loan across England since it began in 2013.

Here is the latest equality update.

HDN-eBriefing-January-2016

What are you doing to ensure your awareness of Equalty, diversity and inclusion in decision making?

Have you checked out some training on unconcious bias?

“The government has promised to convert more maintained schools into academies. The number of academies has increased from around 200 in May 2010 to over 5,000 today; prime minister David Cameron has expressed his desire for ‘every school to become an academy’.

While most commentators have focussed on the implications that ‘academisation’ will have for the role of local authorities in the school system, less attention has been paid to the growing difficulties with the legal framework that governs schools – specifically the fact that an increasing proportion of schools are now governed through individual contractual funding agreements with the secretary of state for education, rather than through legislation.

This may sound like a small technical issue, but it cuts to the heart of debates about school autonomy, and is integral to the way in which the government manages the education system. Contractual funding agreements set out the combination of freedoms and constraints that are placed on individual academies, but have proven unable to provide a consistent set of freedoms across schools, and have a number of drawbacks:

• they don’t always protect autonomy
• they have created a large bureaucratic burden on government and schools
• they have created an inconsistent and contradictory set of freedoms among different academies
• they risk tying academies to poorly performing chains
• they are subject to less parliamentary scrutiny.

A system based on legislation and common statute, by contrast, would have the potential to allow all academies, regardless of the timing and circumstance of their creation, the optimal balance of autonomy and accountability necessary to deliver a first-class education to pupils.

This briefing paper explores these issues in full, and argues that, as it moves towards creating a ‘fully academised’ school system, the government must grasp the opportunity to address the difficulties that arise from the governance of academies through contractual funding agreements. Informed by a seminar on the future of schools’ legal frameworks attended by prominent figures from education law, policy, professional bodies, academia and academy trusts, it presents a number of options for how the legal framework governing academies can be reformed in order to give all academies equal autonomy and make them subject to the same constraints. These proposals include:

• abolishing funding agreements and setting out academy governance through legislation
• retaining a slimmed-down funding agreement that requires academies to adhere to subsequent changes in primary or secondary legislation
• making funding agreements more like standard contracts by requiring them to be renewed every five years, rather than having them continue on a rolling basis as they do currently
• encouraging the creation of school trusts that enable individual schools within them to retain their status as a legal entity, therefore allowing them to change trust.”