Agenda item

The Director of Housing submits a report providing the Housing Scrutiny Commission with an update on the work and priorities of the Tenancy Management and STAR Service.

The Director of Housing submitted a report providing the Housing Scrutiny Commission an update on the work and priorities of the Tenancy Management and STAR Service, highlighting the next steps and improvements being planned within service areas and providing an update on how the service responded and adapted service provision to support the most vulnerable tenants during the Coronavirus pandemic.

• The service provided a social landlord function to council homes as well as managing sheltered housing, leaseholder services and gypsy and traveller sites.
• During 2019-20, 18,972 service requests were dealt with.
• The percentage of new tenancies sustained over a year was 91.1%.
• Fire inspections carried out in communal areas were 99.1%.
• In 2019-20, 1487 Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) cases were dealt with.
• The service had performed well considering the challenges of lockdown.
• Service priorities were: Improving estates and communal areas, dealing with fire safety, tackling ASB and supporting tenants.
• According to a survey of tenants in early 2020, tenants had similar priorities to those that the service had in place.
• Regarding the Environmental Budget, it was predicted that there would likely be an underspend of the £750,000 budget, but 38 schemes were in place, including external painting, parking and bedroom and bathroom conversion.
• The service was looking to spent £5million over 3 years on the St Matthew’s and St Peter’s estates. Initial plans for this had now been agreed.
• The Green Team were working on site and landscape architects were redesigning internal courtyards.
• The service was ensuring that they knew what people wanted in the local area, this was an ongoing project and they would regularly be updating key stakeholders.
• Regarding Supporting Tenants and Residents (STAR), the service was dealing with 500+ cases at any one-time, coaching people in life skills and building trust and relationships with householders. Some of the most complex cases involved tenants who have mental health, substance issues and/or fleeing from violence and abuse. 
• The service was piloting the role of employment worker to increase the number of tenants on the pathway to work, although Covid was presenting additional challenges in this area.
• In 2019/20 1,416 short-term cases were supported, showing the perseverance of support workers.
• During the last lockdown, over 1500 food parcels were distributed.
• Lessons had been learned from the first lockdown.  Offices had been closed and work had focussed on the most vulnerable and essential work such as victims of domestic violence and fire safety.
• Where people had complex needs the service aimed to sensitively let properties to them.
• During the lockdown, lower level requests were places on hold.  Over 6,000 people had been contacted by telephone to see if they needed support (i.e. food parcels) and the same was being done on this lockdown.  The service was in a better position to deliver services this time round as they were better equipped.
• ASB and domestic violence had increased during the last lockdown and as such these issues were being prioritised.
• More entrenched cases of ASB were coming through.  Some of these were linked to crime in the area.  The service was working with agencies on how to address this.
• Issues such as bed bugs and vermin were being addressed.
• The service was looking to enhance the role of Neighbourhood Housing Officers to support vulnerable tenants and the issue of longer-term supported housing was being discussed.
• The service was reviewing STAR criteria to meet the needs of tenants coming through the homelessness pathway.  The need to provide intensive support so that they could maintain tenancies was recognised and as such the service were looking at what could be done to prepare people to take on tenancies.

Councillor Westley thanked the service for the work they were doing in a time of need.

Councillor Aqbany thanked the service particularly for the work they were doing in St Matthew’s and St Peter’s and expressed hope that relationships could be maintained.

Councillor O’Donnell relayed that the situation had been challenging in Western Ward.  He asked what the average time was between houses being bought to being occupied.  He further added that houses bought under this scheme were not of a high enough standard.  He further recommended installing standardized flooring in Council homes.  He further asked who oversaw Community Support Grants and asked whether the incentive scheme for people to move out of bigger properties into smaller ones had been looked into any further.

Councillor Westley responded that there were constant updates on the turnaround of houses.

In relation to acquisitions, Chris Burgin responded that they had purchased 340 properties in the previous year and were in the process of purchasing 66 more this year and there were 67 which were in progress.  When the programme was first started, it took time to get the resources to bring them up to standard.  The level that was normally looked to be let at was no different whether it was existing stock or stock bought in.  He added that it would be useful to look at the cases cited by Councillor O’Donnell to ensure that they were up to the prescribed set of standards.

Regarding funding for the Community Support grant, Chris Burgin clarified that there was a corporate pot that was administered by the Housing Benefits section and he would be happy to discuss this outside the meeting.

Gurjit Kaur Minhas further clarified that the Community Support Grants were revenues and benefits and some of the money went on furniture.

Flooring had been discussed as part of the anti-poverty strategy, and it was being explored as to how to prepare people to go into properties, it was suggested that this could be done with the STAR service.  It was mentioned that there was a charity link that would floor homes, but the criteria for their service was high.

Councillor Pickering asked whether the STAR service worked with Public Health as certain types of accommodation may be unsuitable for people with certain physical and mental health needs.  She also expressed desire for the intervention of the Crisis team where appropriate.

Gurjit Kaur Minas reported that Adult Social Care was being picked up, but there were issues where people didn’t want to engage.  She reported that she would be meeting with an officer from Public Health to look into ways to refer people to health services and quicker access routes, for example, if people didn’t want to go to a GP, they could be referred to a central point.

Councillor Willmott referred to the total income maximised and asked whether this included people accessing housing benefit.

Gurjit Kaur Minhas responded that this included multiple sources including housing benefits and applications to charities.

Councillor Willmott asked as to whether there was an automatic escalation process for tenants with mental health problems who had been on the receiving end of Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB).

Gurjit Kaur Minhas responded that with some ASB mental health was an issue.  Some people were perpetrators, and some were victims.  There was no automatic escalation process but there was a referral to STAR.  There were prioritisation and eligibility criteria and mental health issues did not necessarily mean there would be a referral as it was an issue of whether the person was able to sustain their tenancy, if it got to the point where sustaining a tenancy was difficult then an referral would be appropriate.

Councillor Willmott requested that the process be made more transparent to Councillors regarding the thresholds of how people could be referred in and what could be expected back.

Gurjit Kaur Minhas clarified that some people had poor mental health but were still able to sustain their tenancy.

Councillor Nangreave referred to the idea of a ‘Multi-Problem Centre’ known as the Psychologically Informed Environment (PIE) set up in conjunction with the Police, NHS and charities to provide support for people with issues including mental health issues and substance abuse issues.  She also suggested that people downsizing accommodation may also have mental health issues and asked if an agency could be put together to support them.

Councillor Cutkelvin explained that this project was attached to the Homelessness Strategy looking at a ‘housing first’ response for people with the aforementioned issues with ‘wrap around’ support to help get them into long-term accommodation.  This model needed to be co-designed and co-commissioned with partners and it was necessary to approach organisations such as the Clinical Commissioning Group to establish whether they were prepared to back the project.  However, many medical partners had been backed-up by Covid-19 and as such were yet ready to engage.

To further clarify, Councillor Cutkelvin explained that the STAR service was about those already in tenancies and the PIE project was aimed at preventing people from falling out of the system.

Councillor Westley remarked that there appeared to be fewer cases of ASB in Saffron Ward than in Eyres Monsell and New Parks.

Gurjit Kaur Minhas explained that historically New Parks had a high level of ASB and there appeared to be more entrenched cases in the area.  She added that she was looking to meet with a local inspector to discuss how to tackle the issue.

Councillor Westley further remarked that there appeared to be some cases in Beaumont Leys Ward whereby vulnerable people had been the victim of ASB and they could not wait for help, even with Police involvement.  He recognised that the Council could only work with what they had, but he wanted to do as much as possible for vulnerable people in this situation.

Councillor Cutkelvin observed that the ward Councillors for Eyres Monsell had done a good job of engaging with residents.

Chris Burgin added that New Parks had around double the housing stock of other areas and the proportion of ASB cases was actually probably low.

Councillor Westley raised concerns about people leaving food out for birds on estates attracting vermin.

Gurjit Kaur Minhas responded that they were looking to tackle tenant behaviour and that they were looking to give advice to residents on what to do and what not to do.

AGREED:

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That the report be welcomed.

3)    That Gurjit Kaur Minhas send information to Councillor on the referral system for ASB and Mental Health.

4)    That the issue of ASB be added as an item on a future agenda of the Housing Scrutiny Commission.