Agenda item

a) An update on East Kent Housing from the Interim Managing Director

b) The 2011-12 Delivery Plan and Action Plan

TO CONSIDER the report of the Interim Managing Director

In attendance for this item will be Brendan Ryan, Interim Managing Director – East Kent Housing

(1) Mr Ryan explained that in ten days time the final setup of East Kent Housing (EKH) would be in operation. This followed the formal decisions taken by the Executives of each of the four participating councils to set up the Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) and delegate their housing management functions to it.

(2) On 1 April, 220 staff would transfer to East Kent Housing and there had been much preparation to ensure that there would be continuity of service from the first day of the ALMO’s operation. This meant that there would be the same officers, with the same telephone numbers on the same contracts. There would be a newsletter going out to all the tenants in the following week to update them on the changes, with advance copies circulated to Members during the current week.

(4) Mr Ryan felt that the ALMO had a strong board in place with lots of expertise. The board included:

o         Representatives from the four councils

o         Tenant representatives

o         Independent representatives, including some from London-based ALMOs.

(5) The board had already started to steer the organisation, including setting procedures for health and safety and complaints. There would have to be further work, since the four councils did some things differently, such as complaints. There had so far been a focus on staffing issues, particularly around ensuring that staff were committed to delivering excellent services to tenants. During several workshops involving the staff and the board, there was general acceptance of what the new organisation was going to deliver and how.

(6) Mr Ryan introduced the Delivery Plan, explaining that there would be a new plan for each year in the year ahead. The stakeholders were the tenants, the board and the four councils, and all had had input into the delivery plan that was in front of the Committee.

(7) Tenants would have a say in how the service was run and would be a major driver for improvement. There were mechanisms in place for tenants to influence the process, including a conference that September which would be attended by tenants from all four areas, and a group of tenants for each area had already helped shape the governance of the ALMO. The board would also have an important role to play and the Delivery Plan would be critical for the four councils, since it formed part of the management agreement.

(8) Mr Ryan stated that the focus in the first year would be setting up the new organisation and merging the four different services, and that efficiencies would be delivered in future years. There was a recognition that the four different services, each with its own culture, would need to be brought into a single organisation, delivering the shared goals of the four councils. There would also be a need to move to an integrated IT system, since the organisation would start off with four different systems.

(9) Mr Ryan then talked Members through the eight objectives in the Delivery Plan, before going on to talk about the Performance Plan. He explained that the ALMO was not promising improvements in the first year, since because of the changes and the transfer of staff the commitment was to deliver to the current standard, but he would be disappointed if there were no improvements.

(10) There was a question about how the EKH Owners’ Committee would operate, since it was another level of governance between the East Kent (Joint Arrangements) Committee (EKJAC) and the board. Mr Ryan explained that since the ALMO expenditure was around £6.7m per year, this would normally mean it would fall within EU procurement laws, but there was an exemption for arms length organisations that were wholly controlled by the council(s). This meant that it was necessary to demonstrate council control, and there needed to be a mechanism for the four councils to come together and make significant decisions.

(11) Mr Ryan added that below the Owner’s Committee there was an officer panel, and if this did not make a unanimous decision it would be referred up to the Member panel. A Member expressed a concern that more and more power was being delegated from Members to Officers, and that there needed to be a way for Members to find out what was happening with the ALMO, since the representatives on the board did not always report back to their full councils. Mr Ryan responded that the actions of the ALMO were still subject to scrutiny arrangements, all minutes were published on council websites and that decision-making was transparent and open. Some key decisions would be referred upwards, such as the potential future admission of another council, but routine decisions would need to be taken quickly. Also, Local Area Boards would include two Members from each council.

(12) Later on in the discussion, more detail was requested around how reporting and scrutiny of the Owner’s Committee would operate. (Note: At the meeting, Mr Ryan suggested that Mr Chambers would be better placed to answer this question.)

Post-meeting note: Mr Chambers has confirmed that the operating arrangements of the Owners' Committee states at clause 1.4 that: -

"The Parties are committed to open and transparent working and proper scrutiny and challenge of the work of EKHOC.”

Decisions of the EKHOC are sent to EKH and each of the four districts.  The decisions can then be called in in the usual way.  Alternatively the EKJSC could ask to look at items from the forward plan.

(13) There was a discussion around Local Area Boards and Member involvement in them. Mr Ryan explained that that the boards operated at district level and built on existing tenant consultation structures while adding a Member dimension, and that they also performed a scrutiny role. Regarding the Member representation, and whether there was a presumption that any local Member would be in their local board, Mr Ryan stated that it would be up to each council to decide who they would put forward as representatives, but that meetings would be open to all local councillors and tenants to attend.

(14) In response to a query about how the ALMO would deal with Anti-social Behaviour among Registered Social Landlord tenants, Mr Ryan explained that the ALMO would continue to work closely with the councils’ Community safety units.  In the future he would like to see an arrangement where EKH would manage properties on behalf of Registered Social Landlords, since often this issue was not helped by the fact that their management was very remote.

(15) A Councillor suggested that in the past councils had acted as the ‘good shepherd’ for tenants but with no commitment to provide solutions to tenant issues and there had been instances of forms being filled in by tenants requesting action be taken, but then being lost by the council office. In response to a request for clarity on how this would be addressed by the ALMO, Mr Ryan explained that work had been done with the board and staff to develop an ethos to sort out problems without ‘passing the buck’.

(16) Mr Ryan felt that a tougher line needed to be taken with tenants who adversely affected the quality of life of other tenants, and that he would like to see more officers on estates carrying out enforcement, although Health and Safety would need to be taken seriously to ensure staff were not put at risk. A concern was raised that problems often occurred at weekends, but that housing officers did not work at these times and it was therefore difficult for them to gather evidence, and it was asked whether there were proposals for housing officers to work at these times. Mr Ryan said that there was an aspiration for housing officers to work evenings and weekends, and that he would be asking councils how efficiency savings would be used and they may want to use the savings to deliver this.

(17) Referring to objective 1.4 in the Delivery Plan, a question was asked about how councillors could be involved in the drawing up of a protocol for handling enquiries from councillors and MPs. Mr Ryan stated that, although EKH would be an arms-length organisation it would still be accountable to councillors and would respond promptly to their concerns, with a clear expectation on staff to do so. A Councillor expressed the view that effective communications and responses to the concerns of tenants and Councillors would be vital.

(18) Several Councillors congratulated Mr Ryan and his team for what they had achieved in executing a difficult task, but there was a concern that expectations had been raised among tenants, and that in the first few months of the ALMO they would not see any improvements. Mr Ryan responded that tenant groups were sceptical at first, but that officers had won them over by listening and taking on board their suggestions, but he agreed that it might take some time to deliver the improvements.

(19) A Shepway councillor expressed concern that task 9.4 in the Performance Plan had the proviso ‘subject to budget’ when Shepway had received a commitment that it would be carried out. Mr Ryan responded that this had been added because the sample survey would be expensive to carry out and it was not clear if individual councils’ budget allocations for this had come across to the ALMO as the budget was very complex, but the board would be meeting to discuss the budget the following week.

(20) Mr Ryan explained that each council area received a newsletter which contained the performance of the landlord against the standards set by the Tenant Services Authority (TSA) and locally developed standards, known as the ‘local offer’.

Post meeting note: Links to the 2010 newsletter for each council area are as follows:

Canterbury:        http://www.canterbury.gov.uk/annual report to tenants 2010

Dover:                http://www.dover.gov.uk/annual report to tenants 2010

Shepway:           http://www.shepway.gov.uk/annual report to tenants 2010

Thanet:               http://www.thanet.gov.uk/annual report to tenants

(21) RESOLVED: that the East Kent (Joint Scrutiny) Committee note the update report and draft Delivery Plan.