Agenda item

F Williamson updated Committee on the quarter two performance report for Housing and asked if there were any questions.

Cllr Hollinghurst queried the 90 people could have been made homeless due to having an order or an action Fire and Rescue Service, of course nobody wants anybody to be temporarily or otherwise put out of their dwelling, there must have been a reason for that and at first sight it would appear that 90 people were judged to be at some additional risk of fire hazard.  Cllr Hollinghurst said that he’s not saying the incorrect decision was taken but he is asking that if during the period it took from the Fire Services order until the work was actually completed, whether any mitigating actions taken by the Council for example, were Fire Wardens provided in respect of those properties.  F Williamson clarified that the Council’s involvement in this was that we worked very closely with the Fire Service because, in terms of our statutory obligations we would be in a position to take enforcement action if the landlord didn’t undertake suitable and appropriate measures to ensure the safety of the residents.  The initial action that was taken by the landlord was to set up waking watches and then the fire alarm system in the block has been upgraded, there were a number of leaseholders within the block so they had to make contact with them to gain access to their premises as well.  The landlord worked tirelessly to undertake that part of the work and also the remainder of the work that the Fire Service have identified is already underway, because they have engaged with us and have put the necessary level of measures in place, we haven’t had to take enforcement action and the Fire Service have been working very closely with us and praised the actions of the Enforcement Team in terms of making sure all actions were proportionate that reduced that risk.

Cllr Pringle said that it was mentioned that an increasing number of people were presenting as homeless and they were increasingly vulnerable and would like to explore the nature of the vulnerabilities, is it particular disabilities or age and is it related to a systemic difficulty accessing  systems, whether it’s applying for houses, applying for universal credit, some people don’t have the concentration span or the ability to navigate complex systems, is it to do with private landlords tenants being more vulnerable, what is the driver and is there anything seasonal about it or is it actually more than what would be expected seasonally.  F Williamson highlighted this is a countywide issue, the reports are showing that a percentage of homeless presentation in various groups, there has been an increase in single people who are presenting homeless, a number of those have either drug or alcohol dependency, a number have mental health issues.  With some it’s a very complex set of circumstances, so it can be a relationship breakdown, a loss of job and therefore income and people can get into debt situations very quickly, so a number of factors make these cases very complex.

Cllr Pringle mentioned that those are sorts of things that you would expect individuals to have, you know there have been drug and alcohol use around for a while, so is there something that has changed that is driving this.  F Williamson advised that it would be useful if Natasha could bring a report to Scrutiny around the findings that came out of the workshop.  As well as the local findings from Dacorum and Hertfordshire, HMCLG had a representative at the event who was able to give the national picture as well, it does vary region by region.  Some of them because there has been a reduction in the funding for some of the mental health care teams and some of the support services, often had there been earlier intervention, then potentially they may not have ended up homeless.  At the point of presentation as the Housing Service, whilst we work with the other agencies if we’re not aware of each individual case, because that would become unmanageable, then we just have to deal with the case as presented.  The duty to refer does provide us with additional information from other agencies as to why they believe that somebody is going to present homeless with us, because they have a duty to refer that information to us and details of the client that they hold.

Cllr Pringle asked if we keep data where the homeless person came from, where their last fixed abode was, or the circumstances were and if it’s anyway connected to pressure and the flexible tenancy for example.  It would be useful to know the route into homelessness and if we have that information can we have more on it and if we don’t can we potentially collect it.  F Williamson confirmed that we collect all of that information in respect of the reasons why people have become homeless and also their last registered address.  Probably best if Natasha provides an update to Scrutiny on the outputs from the Forum, some of the actions that we’re going to undertake following on from that, in terms of recommendations and it’s really just ensuring that we use that data to try and inform other decisions around our allocations policy, around our tenancy sustainment team and understanding also within the private rented sector, we had another case where the Private Rented Sector Team notified us of the fact that they working with a couple who were very vulnerable, living in the private sector but were eligible for sheltered accommodation and as a result of the work with that couple they now have been housed in one of our sheltered schemes.  Because we have the opportunity to work within the private sector as well as the social housing sector with the PRS team, it means that we are identifying issues around potential rogue landlords.

The Chairman wanted clarity on the complexity of people that presenting now are adding to these difficulties in homelessness.  When we had Youth Connections we’ve had a couple of other people that have been, not just funding, but also just the complexity that didn’t used to be the norm say 20 years ago.  F Williamson said that certainly the complexity of people presenting as homeless, but also the complexity of needs of some of the people that we’re housing through our allocations route, the homeseekers, that’s why the work of the tenancy sustainment teams is so important, because they can deal with people who come from fairly chaotic circumstances and really try and support them to get their lives back on track as well as sustaining a tenancy.

Cllr Freedman praised the report.  There was lots of data and really easily you can get a lot through on the challenges, the actions and the strategies, so he thought it was great.  Cllr Freedman felt that the approach to things looks fairly consistent, it looks like you were trying to do more things because you’ve got huge statutory challenges, he couldn’t see any change to bring in the environmental concerns or even beginning on the strategy, would he be correct in thinking that you haven’t started thinking about how we can achieve environmental targets in the Borough, by the Housing Strategy yet, or is there some stuff that you just haven’t been able to highlight in there.  F Williamson replied that in terms of housings approach the starting point is the Corporate Plan and we have just provided the information for the collation of the Corporate Plan which will be drafted to go to this next Scrutiny.  Once the Corporate Plan, which does have a large section in terms of what we are proposing to do in respect of the climate emergency agenda, within housing we have already produced a report that looks at what actions we have already taken, addressing fuel poverty and some of the properties that have a lower energy performance.  I am happy to circulate that to Members of Scrutiny so that you can see the work that we’ve done to date, but obviously that’s going to be enhanced as we look at what else we can do going forward.  We are also making sure that anything we are looking at corporately aligns with the Corporate Plan, which is why that’s the starting point.  The current Corporate Plan runs to 2020 so we’ve just started the draft that will follow that.

Cllr Freedman wanted to make sure he had understood, he said you are trying to provide information to change things on the Corporate Plan, but right at this moment you’re not being able to take any actions, even small ones until that Corporate Plan changes.  F Williamson said that wasn’t the current position, we’ve always, had in terms of managing the housing stock, just the required standards for thermal performance have always informed our decisions in respect of investment.  We’ve looked at external wall insulation projects, where we’ve been able to access government eco funding to supplement our own budgets to ensure that we can roll out as many energy performance and efficiency measures as possible.  It’s always been within the approach that we’ve taken in terms of the asset management element of housing, it’s now around what else we can to support the residents who are tenants and leaseholders so that they have additional information to help make the right choices as well as what we can do to the fabric of the building.

Cllr Mahmood asked about the red indicator for adapted properties, they normally take seven months, obviously that one instance it took longer and wondered if someone is looking for an adapted property, obviously they wait so long that they drop off, he knew someone who waited a year and a half to get into an adapted property.  Cllr Mahmood didn’t understand why it takes so long, we have the same adapted properties, are you re-letting adapted properties and you know if they’ve got a ramp or stairlift or walk-in-shower, so why does it take so long.  F Williamson confirmed that with adapted properties we have a direct offer list and anyone time there’s usually 20 plus households looking for adapted properties, the needs of each of those households can differ greatly, so a property that may be suitable for one may not be suitable for another.  Through the process that we’ve got, we look at the property and everyone who’s on the direct offer list, but we also look at those that have been on there the longest, so chronology is one of the criteria that we would use, in terms of how long someone has been waiting.  If the property just isn’t suitable for their needs, but is suitable for another family, then it does mean that some people have been on the direct offer list for some time.  We are looking at what scope we’ve got to use modern methods of construction and potentially using pods so that we can adapt a larger number of properties, but we’ve also found that where we’ve adapted properties in the new build, we’ve had a few ground floor adapted properties in Kylna Court, and we now have a resident that’s moving into one of those that we’re going to have to almost take out 50% of those adaptations because they are not suitable for that particular applicants needs.  It’s quite a difficult balance to strike and I appreciate there are concerns over the length of time, but we have a limited number of properties that suitable for adaptations and it would be wrong of us to adapt all of those to generic standard because we could find that we are spending more money going in and then making subsequent alterations.

Cllr Mahmood said it just seems to be over the years, these adapted properties have been an issue and you’ve got x percentage of people on that adapted properties list and some of them if they don’t come round they do fall by the wayside, which is sad.  It seems to be a long time knowing these are the people they must be generic adaptations which will work for many, why don’t we go with generic.  You could have something adapted, he didn’t know why we had to deconstruct to the exact needs, it would make the process a bit quicker.  F Williamson said that we are bound by undertaking the work the Occupational Therapist stipulate because they are the medical professionals and if we don’t follow their guidelines and someone was to have an accident we would be liable, so we have to make sure that those adaptations are suitable.  One of the things that we’re currently working on is looking at the disabled facilities grant for private sector, which historically was quite prescriptive, but because it comes under better care funding, there is now some scope to look at that in a different way and to provide grant options for people who are in the private sector.  So it may mean that some of those people who are potentially on the direct offer list we would be able to assist in other ways through the private sector DFG grants.

Cllr England questioned if it’s known how many properties there are in the Borough, which are very specialised adapted as opposed to being generically adapted.  F Williamson confirmed we do not have absolute data on where every adapted property is.  We do have categories of adapted, so properties that we know are adapted, adaptable, these are properties that in terms of the access and leave the building safely and it can be adapted.  Some of our properties the way that the estates were built, the gradient to or from the property is so great that you can’t get compliant ramps, so some properties are designated as not adaptable for that reason.  We’ve got these categories that we are putting in all our property information into, but it’s really a question of when they become void that assessment is made.  We also hold a database on all of the adaptions that have been undertaken to properties, but some of those if they’re a straight stairlift may have been removed when that tenant leaves the property, especially if it’s an old stairlift.  That’s why that record may not have been updated at that point.

Cllr Adeleke asked about sheltered properties and the discussion we had on it, was that more and more tenants are refusing or they are not that keen to go into and he wondered if there was a stigma attached to sheltered accommodation.  L Warden highlighted that Oliver Jackson came to the last meeting to talk about sheltered housing, the main issue is specific schemes, people may be looking for something close to family and friends or support network.  It may be that the actual property itself isn’t quite what they’re after.  It may be that that there’s something not necessarily about stigma but more about people not understanding what sheltered housing is about.  They might not feel old enough to go into sheltered housing and there’s an element of that, but at the moment we are doing quite a lot work to try and understand that demand and that need because it’s more of a complex thing, there’s certain issues around particular schemes where there is higher demand than others and we want to try and understand is that personal choice or something to do with the fact the buildings quite old, they may need some maintenance or actually is it the location, that there’s already maybe three schemes not too far from each other and there’s not enough demand in that particular area.  It’s a combination of things that we’re looking into at the moment to try and get a better understanding and make informed decisions about what we do going forward.

Cllr Adeleke said that we call them sheltered accommodation, what do the tenants call them.  L Warden said that it was a mix, some say sheltered, some say supported, some say warden managed or warden controlled for those that have lived there for a long a time.  Cllr Adeleke said perhaps we should look for a fancy name or an attractive name to attract people.  L Warden advised there is a discussion with Herts County Council at the moment about things like, what’s classed as a residential care home, what is classed as extra-care, flexi-care and sometimes when we are communicating about something in a slightly different way, so it can be understandable that some of our tenants aren’t entirely sure what that means, for them it’s actually about I want somewhere I can get around safely, I can afford to pay the rent and I’ve got the support of the community or someone to help me as and when I need assistance.

Cllr Freedman said looking at the risk registers and there are a number of categories that look a bit challenging, in particular ones where we’ve got recent statutory requirements and they’ve been flagged up as a huge inherent risk, with some small bits of mitigation, it kind of reads that we don’t have that much confidence with what we’ve got in place, would that be a correct assumption.  Do we need to worry about some risks in any of those areas or is it just maybe a more pessimistic person that’s scoring the risk registers.  F Williamson asked if that was specifically on the health and safety.  Cllr Freedman confirmed there were a number of them, the homelessness service and the private landlords, they are ones that stood out to me, the ones where the risk is 12 but you’ve only been able to bring that down to an amber residual by the impacts.  Cllr Freedman asked if this is because we are pessimistic or because we’re just starting out and not sure or are we thinking we’ve got a potential problem.  F Williamson replied that in terms of some of them, there’s the element of controllable and uncontrollable, so that’s where the mitigations are designed to deal with the controllable element of those risks, but some of the external factors that influencing homelessness, whilst you can work with other agencies to try and prevent or to identify earlier on in the process, we are not always able to control all of the circumstances.  Similarly with things like health and safety and changes in legislation and increasingly onerous requirements coming out of things like the Hackett Review, it’s really a question of ensuring the mitigations provide us with an ongoing assessment.  These are reviewed on a quarterly basis, if there are other mitigations that we can implement that would reduce that risk score, that’s what we are always aiming to do.

Cllr Freedman asked if there were any things in place to do that, try to influence central government, if some of these risks around reputational damage to Council, lots of the factors on that are things that we can’t control, surely as well as controlling what we can should be trying to influence other bodies that we can, if we’re looking at homelessness and trying to the government to have less causes of homelessness, would it be able to help. Also in future the Council is not the sole fall guy if there are targets missed.  F Williamson said that we do respond to any consultation on any of our statutory obligations, that’s one opportunity where we can provide the evidence to support any lobbying is made to central government in respect of changes to legislation.  Outside of that some of the officers attend Chartered Institute of Housing regional events and they are one of the professional bodies that also provides information and professional advice to central government.  We try wherever possible to raise the concerns and challenges that we’re facing at local level through the appropriate channels. 

The Chairman mentioned that Elliott Brooks, especially with Cllr Griffiths and myself, prepared some recommendations which we took straight to central office and about 90% of them were adopted at the time, so where we have a voice we will always use it and our experience and expertise of officers to ensure that we’re holding government to account or giving information where it’s lacking.

Cllr Adeleke said that politically you can also get your Lib Dem representative for the Local Government Association who can make a representation to the government, that is what it’s there for.  Cllr Freedman recognised that, he said he used Central Government as an example, and that he was more concerned about the exposure of the Council.  Cllr Freedman was reading the risk report that’s saying there’s lots we need to do but we haven’t been able to do everything we want because some of those things aren’t the remit of the Council.  Not all of it’s going to be Central Government, there’s other things and he was nervous because with those numbers it almost makes me think that eventually if something is going to go wrong because we haven’t been able to cover the risks and mitigations so far, just trying to get some reassurance that I’m being pessimistic or if it’s something else.

Cllr Griffiths sympathised exactly where Cllr Freedman was coming from but she has learnt over the years, because these scores have come down, not necessarily on these particular ones, but on the general risk register because things have changed, you do realise that a lot of bucks do stop with us here.  For instance every time at Full Council I used to read out the percentage of the gas certificate, that’s because as Councillors we are all corporately liable for that information, so if something happens to one of our residents because we haven’t got the certificate and haven’t kept it up to date, we are liable.  All the risks are tried to be mitigated by the fact that we have a contractor that goes out making sure that everything is done.  With people where we have difficulty getting into their property, they are able to put in a device that turns off the gas in future if the certificate is not renewed, so because sometimes it’s access that’s the issue.  There is always a chance that we won’t get access and something will slip through the net, so there is always a risk, some of them you can mitigate, some of them are totally outside your control and you can’t, it’s a case of balancing that between, is this a fair assessment of what’s been written, it’s very much do you view it as a positive, half full or half empty.  It’s important that Members get to grips with the risk register because a lot of them the buck does stop with us, it’s a case of are you able to sleep at night.  Cllr Freedman felt that was a pretty good summary of things, there’s definitely a few things that does make me slightly worried.  Cllr Griffiths said if any Member wants to go in and speak to the department or the people that are pulling this together, they would love the input because I know when they come to Cllr training before, a lot of people have glazed over when they are doing it, but it is important and I’m sure any department would value any Cllr wanting further information, coming in doing a 1 to1.  Cllr Freedman said that while he’s asking for information he can’t offer any suggestions.

The Chairman reminded everyone to put their microphones on otherwise it will not be recorded accurately and the meeting minutes will reflect that.

Cllr England wanted to mention the information that Members see when they come to Scrutiny.  It would be absolutely fair to Cllr Griffiths as Portfolio Holder for this service over a long period of time, for at some point when we come to Scrutiny for Members just be surprised by a longer look so that we see what you’ve just said that these numbers were higher in the past.  Cllr England has been a Cllr for three years and I haven’t seen that information yet, I know it’s available to me if go and try and compile it, but the day job gets in the way.  It would be really good for Cllrs if at some point in the future we looked at this.  Cllr Griffiths said the historic information is on Dennis and you can go back over the years.

Cllr England said that if there’s historical context to this then I think it’s really important that we have that when were at the meeting.

Cllr Mahmood said it was a good point, the risk perception of change over time as well, what was risk now with risk in the past.  Cllr Mahmood mentioned HMO’s, we had 13 people last year came on to the register and we did a lot of legislation in the previous years, BRE’s report said there is 100’s we don’t know about and queried how these people are coming forward.  F Williamson replied that in the main people are applying for their licences, the majority of the licenced HMO’s have come to us, some of them are re-licences and we’ve also been doing work with the landlords forum, raising awareness and we’ve done some publicity, central government also did some publicity about the changes in the definition of HMO’s.  We do have some that are reported to us, neighbour concerns, number of cars, number of individuals going to and from a property, Members have reported potential HMO’s.  Linked to the licensing of HMO’s we’ve also been working with Environmental Health on a premise that needs a food inspection, if they have any concerns about people living above food outlets, so we get it from a number of sources, then it’s really about trying to ensure the officers time is spent wisely because private rented sector team is also dealing with other enforcement activity as well, such as the fire risks that were identified.  There is a variety of methods that we are identifying HMO’s, in terms of the BME we think that it is probably somewhere between the number that have been stated by central government for a district of our size and the BRE’s assessment.  We are in the process of getting a private sector survey undertaken which again may provide further information in respect of the whereabouts of any unlicensed HMO’s.

Cllr Mahmood said if there was an incident with an unidentified HMO would we be liable as a Council for not actually seeking it out and doing some work, where would we stand legally if there’s an incident and what our risk is.  F Williamson replied that in terms of statutory risk, if we’re not aware the onus remains with the landlord to get the property licensed, legal action would be directed initially at the landlord.

Cllr Mahmood asked if they can plead ignorance or say that the Council didn’t do enough to publicise.  F Williamson said we have done some work around ensuring people are aware of the changes in legislation as did central government and we continue to work with the landlords forum so that we can ensure that we are promoting the support that we give to landlords because this isn’t just about enforcement, the team do a lot work to actually work with landlords to provide advice.  That’s not to generate a fee, that’s based on the fact that we want to ensure that across all tenures the quality of accommodation within Dacorum is as good as it can be.  It’s trying to ensure the resources are targeted.

Cllr England said that he had corresponded with F Williamson about the BRE numbers because certainly looking at the implications for what that would be in my ward, it seems incredibly high and I personally wont be asking Cllr Griffiths in Full Council about this until we’ve seen the new numbers because my suspicion that those numbers is probably very high over estimate.

The Chairman confirmed the recommendation to note the report.