Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed new Members on the Housing Scrutiny Commission.

Apologies were received from Councillor Cutkelvin, Assistant City Mayor for Housing and Education.

The Chair announced a change to the running order of the agenda, with the Tenants’ and Leaseholders’ Forum item to be heard earlier in the meeting.

Members are asked to declare any interests they may have in the business to be discussed.

Members were asked to declare any interests they might have in the business to be discussed.

Councillor Aqbany declared an Other Disclosable Interest in the general business of the meeting in that he had family members who were council tenants.

Councillor Westley declared an Other Disclosable Interest in the general business of the meeting in that he had family members who were council tenants.

In accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct, these interests were not considered so significant that they were likely to prejudice the Councillors’ judgement of the public interest. The Councillors were not therefore required to withdraw from the meeting during consideration and discussion of the agenda items.

The minutes of the meeting of the Housing Scrutiny Commission held on 11^th March 2019 have been circulated, and Members are asked to confirm them as a correct record.

AGREED:

That the minutes of the Housing Scrutiny Commission meeting held on 11^th March 2019 be confirmed as a correct record.

Members are asked to note the Terms of Reference for the Housing Scrutiny Commission (attached for information).

AGREED:

That the Terms of Reference for Scrutiny Commissions be noted.

Members are asked to note the membership of the Commission for 2019/20:

Councillor Westley (Chair)

Councillor Nangreave (Vice-Chair)

Councillor Aqbany

Councillor Gee

Councillor O’Donnell

Councillor Pickering

Councillor Willmott

(1 non-grouped place currently unallocated)

AGREED:

That the membership of the Housing Scrutiny Commission for 2019/20 be noted.

Members are asked to note that the meeting dates of the Commission for the 2019/20 municipal year are currently scheduled as follows, all to take place on Mondays at 5.30pm:

5 August 2019

16 September 2019

4 November 2019

6 January 2020

17 February 2020

20 April 2020

Members were asked to note the dates for future meetings of the Housing Scrutiny Commission for 2019/20 as follows:

5 August 2019

16 September 2019

4 November 2019

6 January 2020

17 February 2020

20 April 2020

All meetings to commence at 5.30pm.

AGREED:

That the meeting dates for the Housing Scrutiny Commission for 2019/20 be noted.

The Monitoring Officer to report on the receipt of any petitions received in accordance with Council procedures.

The Monitoring Officer reported that no petitions had been received.

The Monitoring Officer to report on the receipt of any questions, representations or statements of case received in accordance with Council procedures.

The Monitoring Officer reported that no questions, representations or statements of case had been received.

The Scrutiny Policy Officer submits for noting the Tenants’ and Leaseholders Forum Meeting Notes from 6^th June 2019.

Wendy Biddles, Tenants’ and Leaseholders’ Forum representative, presented the Action and Decision log from the meeting held on 6^th June 2019.

The Commission was informed that the Forum had 14 members drawn from all housing areas across the city. The Forum’s aim was to make sure issues raised were reported to the Council and to help the Council find solutions. The Forum also took part in consultations to help shape services, and to help the Council manage the impact of Universal Credit. Council officers attended in a support role.

The Forum had an online presence with its own web page and held a meeting every two months. The group is an elected group and each member represents a geographical area. This is not a public group. Any vacancies for the Forum were advertised in Housing offices.

The Leaseholder Forum was also mentioned and this was explained to be an open forum which allowed any Leaseholders to attend.

The Chair asked the Director of Housing for a list of all the representatives for the tenants across the city to be sent to all Members of the Scrutiny Commission.

The Chair thanked Ms Biddles for the information.

AGREED:

That:

1.    the Tenants’ and Leaseholders’ Forum Action and Decision Log be noted.

2.    the Director of Housing circulate to Commission Members a list of all the representatives for tenants across the city to Members of the Scrutiny Commission.

The Chair will provide details of the manifesto programme relating to the Commission’s remit.

The Director of Housing provided a verbal update on the manifesto programme relating the Housing Scrutiny Commission’s remit.

The Chair requested that the Vice-Chair of the Housing Scrutiny Commission work with the Director of Housing and the Assistant City Mayor for Housing and Education on the manifesto programme for relevant items.

The Director reported on Labour’s Manifesto commitments.  ‘For the Many not the Few’ contained eight specific sections covered within the document and that the Housing Division would continue to contribute towards many of the broader themes and elements within them. The following information was provided:

The document contained 12 main Manifesto commitments that the Housing Division had primary responsibility for delivering. Most of the commitments sat under the Manifesto section ‘Homes for All’.

Commitment to ‘Provide 1,500 more council, social and extra care homes’.

There were three proposed strands to delivering the commitment:

(i)          The first was a new residential acquisition programme involving buying available and suitable properties on the open market to be a part of Leicester’s Council property stock. Work had already started and since May 2019 the Local Authority had purchased or had offers accepted on 84 properties (£15m) with an ongoing pipeline of purchases being delivered during the manifesto term.

(ii)        The second was to deliver new build houses that again would become part of the Local Authority’s council stock. This work had also started, and planning permission and builder were already in place for the first phase of properties on five different sites, with a sixth pending planning to deliver the first new Council properties in a number of years (29 units). A second phase of sites had been identified and work was ongoing to submit planning applications for those sites. (110 units – 3 sites). Work was just commencing to consider an ongoing pipeline of potentially suitable sites to continue to deliver new build housing across the City.

(iii)       The third strand was to build new extra care schemes. The Housing Division had been working with Adult Social Care colleagues whom had recently identified the need for over 630 units over the next ten years. Work again had already commenced, with two specific Extra Care Schemes on Tilling Road and Hamelin Road (155 units) due to commence build in 2019/20. 

Although the full mix of the three strands had not currently been determined to deliver the 1,500 new council homes, work was ongoing.

Commitment to ‘Use our Housing company to tackle housing shortages’ would be met by what had been set out above. In extension to this the house building programme would be used to deliver house types not delivered by the market, including bungalows and adapted properties.

The Housing company will also be used to target hard to use / small and less profitable spaces that the open market did not find appetising.

The Housing company could also be used to deliver private rented sector accommodation (something that the Local Authority could not do).

Commitment to ‘Reduce the number of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

The Director of Housing submits a report to the Housing Scrutiny Commission of progress on rent arrears from April 2018 to March 2019.

The Director of Housing submitted a report of progress on rent arrears for the financial year from April 2018 to March 2019.

Zenab Valli, Income Collection Manager, presented the report. The following points in the report were highlighted and Members’ questions answered:

·         A 4.34% decrease in more complex cases was recorded.

·         Of the 35 evictions, eight were family cases.

·         1,879 council tenants made a new claim under Universal Credit (UC) – 9.32% of all current council tenants.

·         Rent Management Advisors supported the most vulnerable tenants to help set up email and bank accounts to assist tenants with rent payments.

·         Income Management Officers had assisted 704 UC claimants from Job Centre Plus Offices, 46% of which were council tenants. Some claimants had just required advice and signposting.

·         The Housing Online (Rent Self-serve) portal had been rolled out successfully.

·         The Team was maximising rent collection activities despite economic pressures on tenants.

·         For people moving onto UC, there was an initial spike in rent arrears which would in time balance out and stabilise.

·         Families moving onto UC that had not had benefits before could claim for an advance. Also, STAR provided tenancy sustainment, particularly for vulnerable families who could be referred for specialist support. The Chair requested a breakdown of rent arrears by ward to be included in a future report to the Commission. It was noted that there was very little council stock in some wards.

·         It was noted that there would be an additional £25.25 million to be collected, and requests to pay direct to landlords on individual cases not always agreed. Officers were constantly looking at ways of maximising collect and used Clockwise rent payment accounts to promote regular payments. It was noted that rent collection was a ring-fenced account which went to the HRA budget to provide all of the service. A review of arrangements in the Income Management Team was underway to continue to provide effective and strong services

·         If the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) make a negative decision on claims, the Team engage with the tenant to support and could ask Welfare Rights to assist the claimant to make a challenge with the DWP so the claim can be reconsidered.

·         Pensioner couples, where someone of pensionable age and the other not were expected to make a UC claim was also a concern, but no actual details of how many people this affects or consequences  were currently available.

·         GDPR regulations did not allow officers to see private tenants’ rent and UC claims, though the Council did assist private sector tenants at risk of homelessness that required help through difficulties with UC while they are working at DWP offices. There was also the floating support service and homeless prevention officers available in each of the three DWP offices for those potentially facing homelessness.

·         The 500 cases with the highest arrears were hard and complex to manage. A lot of work by the team and combination of factors had brought the total of arrears down.

The Chair thanked  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.

The Director of Housing submits a report to update the Housing Scrutiny Commission on the work that the Empty Homes Team are doing to bring long term private sector homes back into use.

The Director of Housing submitted a report which updated the Commission on the work that the Empty Homes Team were doing to bring long-term empty private sector homes back into use.

Simon Nicholls, Head of Service, presented the report, and the following points were made:

·         The process of bringing empty homes back into use was a 20-stage process, with compulsory purchase being a last resort.

·         Empty homes were often notified to the Council by members of the public. Only domestic properties were dealt with under the process, not commercial or second homes. Most properties were brought back into use by working with the owners. There were currently seven cases being considered for Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO).

·         During the CPO process the owner of a property could put in an appeal which would halt the process. If the council did CPO the property the owner received compensation.  Upon successful completion of the CPO process the council put the property into an auction.

·         The Council received a New Homes Bonus payment from central government for bringing empty homes back into use.

·         There were currently 50 properties empty for longer than five years. Figures for Leicester compared favourably with other authorities in bringing private sector homes back into use.

·         Flats above shops were currently not included because a property was mixed use. Housing were looking at applying for planning permission to get a change of use for commercial to residential and adding it to the caseload.

The Chair thanked the officer for the report.

AGREED:

1.    That the report be noted.

The Director of Housing submits a presentation to the Scrutiny Commission on the ongoing work to implement to the Homelessness Strategy 2018-2023 since the last report to Housing Scrutiny in November 2018.

The Director of Housing submitted a presentation for noting to the Commission on the ongoing work to implement the Homelessness Strategy 2018-2023 since the last report to the Commission in November 2018.

Caroline Carpendale, Head of Service, delivered the presentation, and the following additional points made:

·         There is a legal duty to produce a Homelessness Strategy every five years.

·         The strategy was a public, working document, and regularly reviewed to fill gaps and confirm progress. It included a set of actions, objectives and action plan. A smaller presentation would be arranged to be delivered to new Members of the Commission on the Homelessness Strategy.

·         One of the priorities within the action plan was to increase partnership working and a Homelessness Charter was launched with partners in October last year.

·         A re-directed giving scheme was to be launched in the city scheme to enable the public to donate to specific themes around homelessness. The Charter also provides information about the many services available to homeless people.

·         Another strand of homeless prevention looked to help those who were facing homelessness and there was also the provision of an emergency duty team for those who were homeless and out of hours services.

·         The My Home (Housing Options Made Easy) app was now interactive and details steps to assist people facing homelessness, available for Android and Apple devices.

·         The Homeless Reduction Act 2017 had been implemented successfully, including the duty to refer. Additional homeless prevention officers had been recruited.

·         The service was seeing more families, through the termination of assured shorthold tenancies. Landlords are nervous around UC, and a Landlord Forum was held recently to try and look at putting different incentives in place, for example, Home Come – where the Council lease property from landlords for a fixed term. The Council was looking at incentives for landlords to reassure them of rent payment, to try and stop notices being served.

·         There were currently four families in B&B. Families were moved out as quickly as possible into temporary accommodation, and Leicester worked hard to not have any families in B&B for more than six weeks which was the government target. The objective was to have no families in temporary accommodation but move on was an issue due to the number of families requiring accommodation and the lack of homes available.

·         The duty to prevent homelessness in singles was as important as families. There we 14 available spaces in the Safe Space at Andover Street. Another Safe Space in the city was being considered.

·         The Dawn Centre had 45 bed spaces and was a multi-disciplinary centre, including health teams.

·         There were 30 units for offenders, which had high-level support, as well as lower level, step down accommodation. Surgeries were held at Leicester Prison for planned discharges into units.

·         The new single person service offer was ready to procure. It was recognised that one size did not fit all, and different types of accommodation for different, sometimes complex needs was needed.

·         As part of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13.

Members are invited to propose topics for review.

Members were invited to propose topics for review.

The following items for review were suggested:

·         Private landlords and the licensing regime – to be led by the Vice-Chair.

·         Lettings and voids – to be led by Cllr Aqbany

The Scrutiny Policy Officer would design the Terms of Reference for the task groups.

It was confirmed that the Vice-Chair would look at the manifesto ongoing.

Members of the Commission will be asked to consider the work programme and make suggestions for additional items as it considers necessary.

AGREED:

That the work programme would be amended to include the manifesto commitments.

There being no other urgent business, the meeting closed at 8.13pm.