Agenda item

This item is to update the Board on a Scrutiny Conference visit taken by some members on 6th December. Members will give a verbal update at the meeting.

LW gave an update on the Scrutiny Conference which was attended by OG, SB and PM. LW explained that the conference had been productive and gave an insight into how other organisations worked. It was felt by all that attended that the way the Tenant Scrutiny Board work is positive.

LW explained there were various workshops which could be attended by delegates and we chose which ones would be best considering the position in Leeds. LW explained the attendance and presentations were done by both Councils and Housing Associations.

WORKSHOP 1 - New co-regulation Community Trust Panel and our Tenant Inspectors, by Incommunities (a Social Housing Provider from Bradford)

Incommunities is a Housing Association made up of Bradford Council stock transfer and Sadeh Lok. Involvement pre 2016 was made up of four local management trusts (made up of independent people and tenants), a combination of scrutiny and neighbourhood work, a centrally located involvement team, customer inspectors.

For 2015-18 there was a commitment to review the Involvement strategy. No Councillors are now involved as they were generally only interested in their own local wards and cost efficiencies.

The drivers for a new scrutiny approach were due to

·  Waste, cost and duplication,

·  Unclear decision making roles

·  Legacy of former approaches

·  Evidence of true co-regulation

·  Future proofing the organisation

Their 2015 July budget brought a 1% rent cut, staff restructuring and voluntary redundancies, reduced involvement resource but scrutiny, inspectors and equality groups were retained.

The organisation now has a functional split of Community Trust and Neighbourhood groups, both focusing on different areas. The Community Trust focuses on more strategic matters, whereas the neighbourhood groups focus on local issues. All areas of the service have work plans and this is the link to all parts of the involvement service.

LW explained that training needs of tenants was done in house and all members of the Board went on training even if they had been on it before to ensure a level playing field. Board members were also required to have a review and the Chairs review was done last so that things which were raised at the other members reviews could be linked in to the Chairs as appropriate.

LW explained that Incommunities approach is to use customer intelligence to identify customer expectations and by focusing on common issues which are occurring rather than focusing on one offs.

Customer assurance can be done through

•  Involving customers in development – not just at sign off

•  Agile training programme

•  Issues are logged

•  Sound agenda planning linked to organisational and customer priorities

Workshop 2 - Modernising your Tenant Panel Methodology (Yvonne Davies, Scrutiny and Empowerment Partners Ltd)

LW noted that from this presentation a key theme was that it is important to do what suits the organisation, and gave an example that whilst digital approaches can work they are not always for all situations.

LW explained that the presentation focused that good practice is to move away from standard meetings. A key consideration should be meeting people who have recently experienced the policy in action and how it can be improved. LW explained that the following were good method of gathering evidence and it can be seen the Board are already doing some of this work.

·  Task and finish groups

·  Consultative panels

·  Online commentary (Facebook)

·  Online discussion forums

·  Use of transactional data such as incoming calls, reception etc

LW noted that from the presentation it was important that performance should be on the website and any newsletters for tenants to see. Where documents are only provided online then a few copies should still be made available in the office. Where performance has slipped then task and finish groups should be set up to look into this, both available at home (online) or in person.

Timely responses to scrutiny are important, and a move away should be planned from service specific groups. It is important that tenants are involved in procurement exercises. LW noted that the Tenant Scrutiny Board have this already with their structured approach to responses to their work from Housing Leeds.

Training and support is important in order to build tenants capacity to be more effectively involved.

LW noted that an online presence is important, given that this helps get a wider opinion on matters and this is something which could be developed for this Board. OG agreed with this to enable wider audiences to be involved with the work of the Board.

Workshop 3 - Northumberland County Council and Tenants Voice

Northumberland had to think about how they engage with tenants after the bringing back of the ALMO into Council control.

This meant that their framework had to be changed, along with ways of thinking, and look at what we had what we needed to change to fit in with our new regime. The solution had to suit as many as was feasible and meet the requirements of the national framework. They also had to revisit our tenants training needs. 

The Tenants Forum looked at what was working well previously and take those parts and incorporate into the new ways of working.

A Tenants Forum (known as Tenants Voice) was established with representatives meeting every two months with representatives from Councils Cabinet Advisory Group. Tenants Voice has six Councillors who are also members of the forum. There were many tricky conversations, historical issues, learning from each other and also a need to move forward. The forum met with officers of the Council to understand how they work and had training session to ensure all were able to carry out the role on the forum effectively.

There have been two projects the forum have worked on, one about the proposed integration of Council and Housing Customer Services teams. On this a service development group was formed to ensure this is done in a logical way and tenants can have their say in the work. The second project was about the merger of Council and Housing income management teams. The forum had concerns about support for tenants who were in genuine arrears and giving a tenant perspective has meant the Council have paused this merger until more work is done on it to ensure it works for everyone.

Because of this it was felt important to tell everyone what the forum are doing and hear what other people have to say. LW explained that this has been done in Leeds by having the work done by the Board in the annual report to tenants.