Agenda item

The Housing Review Board received a presentation from the Assistant Director Housing, along with a report and action plan in order to provide the Board with an update on the preparations that were being made to ensure compliance with the up and coming Social Housing (Regulation) Bill.  The Bill provided the legal basis for many of the measures set out in the 2020 Social Housing White Paper.  The intention was to deliver transformational change for social housing residents and fulfil the Government’s manifesto pledge to empower residents, provide greater redress, better regulation and improve the quality of social housing.

The Assistant Director Housing’s report aimed to summarise the Charter for Social Housing Residents (Social Housing White Paper) and consider how EDDC fared against its demands as it currently stood, and set out recommendations on what steps needed to be taken in order to prepare for its full implementation. The Consumer Standard would be given greater focus and status, elevating it to be in line with the Governance and Finance measures. The proposed new regulations also set out wide-ranging proposals to transform and strengthen the regulatory regime based around new consumer standards and a code of practice with increasing powers of intervention to ensure it held all landlords to account for the services they delivered and drove good services for tenants.

The new transparent approach would bring a fundamental change to social housing regulation.  The legislation would set new expectations on the services that landlords needed to provide for their tenants.  There were new consumer regulations and standards.  There would be reactive inspections every four years considering feedback from tenants, board reports on service performance and evidence from the Housing Ombudsman.  There would be new tenant satisfaction measures and the Bill would look at the assurances councillors were getting about the quality of homes, service performance and their engagement with residents.  There were stronger powers and harsher penalties on landlords if things went wrong, and a very transparent approach with the publication of conclusions from individual consumer inspections.

The Charter sought to deliver transformational change and respond to the lessons learnt from:

·        The Grenfell Tower tragedy.

·        The views of residents on the Social Housing Green paper 2018.

·        Views on how social housing was regulated, including complaints.

·        The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the importance of people’s homes, communities, neighbourhoods and green spaces, social isolation, support for the vulnerable, wellbeing, mental health, crime and anti-social behaviour.

·        To address energy efficiency and building safety.

The new Charter for social housing set out what every social housing resident should be able to expect from their landlord in seven chapters:

1.     To be safe in your home.

2.     To know how your landlord is performing.

3.     To have your complaints dealt with promptly and fairly.

4.     To be treated with respect.

5.     To have your voice heard by your landlord.

6.     To have a good quality home and neighbourhood to live in.

7.     To be supported to take your first to home ownership.

The Assistant Director Housing explained that EDDC’s action plan provided details of where it did and didn’t meet the proposed Charter requirements and any further actions it needed to address these areas.  It also set out where Charter requirements were yet to be determined/developed by the Regulator and notification was awaited.  It was noted that the themes of the Charter could be seen throughout many of the agenda items for the meeting and emphasised the importance of the role of the Housing Review Board.

RESOLVED:  that the Housing Review Board note and agree the report, action plan and content of the presentation.