Housing & Regeneration Scrutiny Sub Committee - Thursday 27 April 2023, 6:30pm

Housing & Regeneration Scrutiny Sub Committee
Thursday, 27th April 2023 at 6:30pm

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Twitter

Forums

Speakers

Votes

Speaking:

Welcome to our Webcast Player.

The webcast should start automatically for you.

Webcast cameras are not operated by camerapersons; they are automated and linked to speaker microphone units. The aim is to provide viewers with a reasonable visual and audio record of proceedings of meetings held in public.

Note: If your webcast link appears not to be working, please return to the Webcast Home Page and try again, or use the help email address to contact us.

Start of webcast

Share this agenda point

Webcast Finished

Select an agenda point

Scroll with video

Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Thank you.

Sorry, my name is Councillor Abdul -Mennon. I'll be chairing this meeting tonight.

This meeting is being held in person with some scrutiny members

along with the key participants present in the meeting room.

While others are joining remotely,

only these scrutiny members present in the meeting room can vote.

The public and press can attend this meeting in person

and a limited public gallery has been provided.

However, this meeting has been webcast live on the Council website and in the interest

of keeping everybody safe, the public and press are encouraged to follow the meeting

remotely.

Should a technical error occur that prevents remote attendance from participating, I will

decide if and how meetings will proceed after taking advice from officers.

This screening meeting has been filmed on the Council website for public viewing.

those participating in the meeting will be included in the footage.

I would remind members at the meeting only to speak on my direction

and to encourage and speak clearly into their microphone

and ensure that their contribution can be properly recorded.

Mobile phone please and silence or switch off please.

Okay.

You can just sit down.

Yeah, just right.

You leave the door, I can get sent off an alarm.

Okay.

Okay, um, scrutiny members, uh, from my right, introduce themselves, as I have introduced

myself, so Mark, would you introduce yourself, please?

Thank you, Chair, Councillor Mark Francis from Bow East Ward.

Councillor Esme Islam from Weaver's Ward.

I'm tenant copy

Carol Swift director of housing and regeneration

Counsellor could be our mid lead member for a number of things

Yeah regeneration

Inclusive development and a house building as well as customer service as well

Thank you.

Andrea Baker, I'm here as the chair of the Tahemlitz housing forum, which is the housing

providers in the borough.

Good evening, all.

Councillor Faruq Ahmed, the watchable ward.

Good evening.

Mr Governor, Beto Gil West.

Natalie Bianfo from Bow West.

Thank you, everyone.

Anybody?

There's a few people online.

Please introduce yourself.

Good evening, everyone.

is the council

I'm Una Bedford, senior strategy and policy officer.

Good evening everyone, I'm Shaleem Adim, partnerships officer.

Thank you everyone.

Thank you

And the officers mark evening everyone marks love a koski senior strategy and policy officer

Justine Richmond a Democratic Services officer

Okay, any apology from anyone not attending

No chair have not received any apologies

Susana Cal, she is running late, but I have no apologies from anyone else.

Okay, thank you.

So we move into agenda item number two, the meeting of previous meeting.

Anybody got any question on previous meeting or is there any second?

Someone second approve it please.

Going back on 16 February.

Thank you.

Before that, can I just, before you ask for approval,

like almost all of it, absolutely fine.

And in fact, it's really good to see

such comprehensive minutes of the meeting.

And so on the point two in this,

which was the page eight of our pack,

officers have noted that I asked for a change

on parking on housing estates about Clarion's.

So it says national parking enforcement to manage parking on states and operate the online

telephone service.

So it's not there's no telephone at all.

It's just the online service.

And so that's that's the point I was trying to make probably like pretty pretty confused

with so sorry about that.

But if we could just make that change.

And then I think there was one other thing as well.

Do you want to do all of the actions after this?

Is that right?

Okay.

Then I'll leave it.

I'll change that.

So can I just clarify that the initial wording, that was what I initially put and underneath

was what what the amendment

that's perfect apologies no problem I'm sorry no problem

I am Susana, the leaseholder co -op team member.

I have no interest to declare.

We are moving to item number three, open questions.

Anybody? Do you want to come on open question?

Yes, please on the couple of these.

Let me ask Mark which particular one you want to come in.

So in relation to the compensation for heating and hot water and in relation to homelessness applications, please.

please.

Anyone else, any other topic, want to come on open questions?

Yes.

Susanna?

Yes, thank you, Chair.

There was, in the last minutes, there was the major works report for the…

Which particular one?

You just have to be on with the question in there.

I can take a question.

Susanna, you have to be on the, if you look at your script, open questions.

It had to be one of those in there.

If there is anything else, I will take an AOB.

Okay, sure.

But it was in the minutes of the last meeting.

It was in the minutes of the last meeting.

So it is an open action for Tower Hamlets Homes to come back on the reasons for the delay in the major works

and it was minutered that they should be coming back in this meeting

But it is not included in the pack

Okay, because in this minute it says 27 of April which is today so that's fine

I guess we it will be part of the

Years programme. Okay, anyone else at all?

Yeah, let's go. Thank you chair and so in relation to the open action about

Clarion, so there was a note that was circulated by Shalim Odin which was

really helpful to members just in terms of setting out what Clarion does about

this. I mean I've had so many constituents contact me about the loss

of heating and hot water over Christmas. Also like really struggling to get

compensation out of the organisation and what this doesn't say is that Clarion's

actually changed its policy so that it's now only paying off the seven days

without any heating and hot water which is bad enough for any household but for

vulnerable households in particular is really inappropriate so I'm sure that

residents themselves are going to try and find a way to challenge that but it

should be noted really that leaving a pensioner or a disabled resident without

heating for a week before you start compensating them. It's just really not

an appropriate policy. So that's the first thing I wanted to say.

Wasn't your last meeting, not in the previous meeting, they are going to provide compensation.

They did came up on our meeting and did...

So I think that was in relation to a specific block that I raised in the course of that meeting and they

promised and they did, although one of those constituents of mine has not accepted that

offer because she thinks it's inadequate.

But this was about the policy itself.

And I think Natalie Bienfay might also have some experience of constituents being left

for prolonged periods without heating and might have people filling equally strongly

as I do.

The other one was about the note about discharge of duty,

discharge of homelessness duty to people into the private

rental sector. So I said that I was going to circulate something

and I haven't been able to get that but I will get that as soon

as I've got it and I will send it round to colleagues as well.

But I did also separately have a conversation with the mayor

about it after our discussion in the meeting and I think, you

some degree of recognition that the difficulties that homeless families face

when they're put into the private rented sector so hopefully like that might there

might be some more positive needs to come out on that but it would be really

good if we could look at that very early in in the next municipal year thank you

this is Karen on my right yeah

So we have got a briefing on discharge of duty. We're just waiting for sign off and then

What we can do is circulate it as a committee

And then if you wanted to have a further discussion on the back of the briefing paper

Obviously you could agree that but I think we'll get the set we'll get the paper out quite soon

Pass it on to mark. Thanks Karen. So my people that are not yeah

So anyone on nothing no one is online so moving on to next item

Okay, we're simply moving into social and under performance report and can I ask sharing

about the report or if you have any

questions online to do the

presentations or I believe you have a

presentation to show us or something. Thank you.

≫ Good evening, everyone. I'll just kind of talk through the

report as per usual. I don't actually have a presentation.

But I'll kind of start off with hopefully that most people have

managed to see the report at some point. I mean just kind of pick out some salient

points from the report and so starting off with points to further consider.

We can't, you're breaking up, it's not clear it's coming through.

Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

We can, we can, yep.

Q Hello?

MALLABY Yeah, we can hear you, Shaleen.

Go ahead.

Q OK, brilliant.

There must be something wrong with the Internet.

So, yes, starting for points for consideration.

Saya Hamlet's homes received an increased number of complaints from quarter two when

they had 472, and it rose by up to 511 for quarter three.

They also had a spike in member inquiries that went from 312 to 445 in quarter three.

THH stipulated this was down to mobilisation of new repair contracts.

THCH only responded to 64 % of complaints within target time, despite only having 17 at stage

one complaints and three stage two.

CHCH, Clarion, Notting Hill Genesis all achieved under 70 % for percentage of complaints responded

to within target time for Quarter 3. Clarion were unable to provide re -let times and emergency

repairs data as they were using an interim system due to their cyber attack set -up as

they're still kind of catching up with a lot of things from that episode. In terms of repairs,

Providence Row has been low for both Quarters 2 and 3. For Quarter 3 they only managed up to 33 .6%.

They explained that they've been involved in a tendering exercise to replace their main contractor

over the past several months and they hope that once a new contractor is appointed then they will

hope to see better improvement in terms of performance. IT issues have caused popular

Harker significant problems in obtaining accurate figures so they were unable to provide these

for their quarter three submissions. LNQ managed 77 .3 % and Nottingham Genesis managed 72 % in

terms of lowest of percentage of repair appointments kept. In addition LNQ only managed about 70 .5 %

and had, he probably had the lowest satisfaction for percentage of repairs. In terms of re -alerts

voids. LNQ reported that their relets was 304 and Poplar Harco witnessed a decline since

the last quarter going from 162 to 202 days. East End Homes reported one of the worst figures

which was 123 but didn't provide any data from the last quarter so we couldn't really

queued more than doubled from 19 to 40 for this quarter in terms of voids. In terms of

progression and better points to kind of mention repair appointments were kept by ARPUs and

displayed exemplary performance for THCH and East End Homes both coming in at 98 and 97%.

Satisfaction of repairs for East End Homes was 96 and Providence Row came up at 94.

The better kind of performance in terms of relay and void turnarounds was

Tarem Litz -Holmes and Peabody. Tarem Litz -Holmes had 21 days and Peabody had 16.

Notting Hill Genesis also improved in their relay times for major works as they went from 178 to 77

days and Providence Row also reduced the turnaround times from 108 to 77 days.

So one improved on every elect and void turnarounds by going from 12 down to two for quarter three.

So that was kind of most of the a few stats kind of pulled out from the table.

I think Susanna back in the January meeting mentioned about the TSMs. Hopefully Susanna

you've managed to see the report I've included a table of the questions that the TSMs the 22 kind of

question is that the TSM will be covering and I've also included a table of how they'll be captured

whether it be a tenant perception or learning landlord management information.

Yes thank you. In terms of the council as well I'm sure some of the members would be interested

to know that obviously the council's condensation damper mould working group is still very much in

flow. There was a meeting back on the 27th of March working alongside health

colleagues who specifically work with obviously people who suffer from

respiratory conditions. We had good discussions about how to kind of move

forward especially where they have patients who obviously are concerned

about their living conditions and want to kind of progress into more suitable

accommodation or actually have repair work carried out obviously because it's

affecting their health. One of the actions was that we would share landlord's contact

information which has been done. So now hopefully they have direct contact information should

they have any concerns and urgent queries they want to follow up on. And we're also

kind of exploring ways to kind of improve awareness with the masses in terms of the

borough residents. So we're thinking instead of having pamphlets and so on, we were thinking

more along the lines of like a video and also using people who have kind of utilised their space

very efficiently, space champions, to kind of give advice and guidance to people on how hopefully

they can minimise the risks of the increasing levels of condensation, damp and mould. I think

THCH we're exploring about moisture monitors within properties so we're looking to hopefully

you get more information on the pilot of that

and that hopefully other landlords also looking

to invest into new technology

and manage condensation at MOLDA.

That's it for me.

I'm sure everyone, someone will have questions.

Thank you, Shadin, for your report.

Questions from the floor.

I'm going to take two questions from the list, then ask them to question it rather than take

individual.

So, Natalie, you've got a question on this, and who else is…

Map of second.

Then mark. Number third.

Okay.

Do you want to go ahead with your question, please?

Sure. Thank you, Chair.

So I have a couple of questions and a couple of, I don't know, just general, general, yeah, I have a couple of, one, one general question.

The dampened mould section, I think this is a really,

it looks like there's some really great work being done

on the dampened mould, so it's really great

to hear about that.

I am struck though that it's the difference

between the actions being taken to implement

the tenant satisfaction measures as opposed

to the condensation dampened mould.

So I'm just interested to know whether there's any,

and maybe Andrea Baker could answer this,

whether there's any scope or work looking at

how registered providers can work together

on condensation, dampen, mould to share information

and what kind of work is being done around that.

So that's one question.

And then the second question is about the fact

that Southern Housing Group hasn't got data

on are we are we taking questions on the detail of the spreadsheet as well yeah

yeah it's just this is my final question so they've got no data on the percentage

of repair appointments made and repair repair appointments kept and it strikes

me as quite surprising you know this isn't the first time we've asked this

question so it's quite surprising they haven't got their got this in place I

I don't know whether they had it in place last time,

but if there's some way of asking them to,

of looking at changing that data management system

to try and capture that data, that would be really great.

I'll just come into -

Do you wanna come along on this, please?

So just to kind of,

I'm sure Andrea probably won't add to this,

but the actual condensation that Mould Working Group

within the council does have actually

RP participants on board.

who are actually part of the group,

actually when we met last time.

And we kind of discussed that how, as I've said,

what RPs are doing to kind of educate,

support and update their residents

and what things they can do collectively.

So sharing best practise.

As you know, I'm sure you might have heard Councillor Penfay.

Some RPs have also kind of produced pamphlets

and produced documents onto their website,

giving tips and tricks,

just kind of for daily living for people to you know things like not to dry

clothes indoors or run the cold tap in the bath before the hot tap when they're

running a bath so the ERPs are definitely on board but I think for us

in terms of the working group it was quite interesting to hear how a lot of

the health colleagues didn't realise that damper mould was kind of from an

environmental health perspective lower down the line compared to other things

like pest control and so on.

And they were quite,

I think they were under the impression that

there's not many cases, so it's a question of

why can't we just get through to the RPs

and have the repairs or whatever needs to be done

and carried out, which was quite kind of interesting to hear.

But as I've said, we've kind of spoken to them.

And the RPs also gave their kind of perspective on,

from a housing perspective,

what residents are obviously experiencing

on what they're doing to kind of battle this.

Angie, I don't know if you want to add to that.

Yeah, so the executive of Tuhuf have got subgroups.

One of those subgroups is specifically on asset management.

And that group had already identified condensation, damp and mould as being an area that we could

work more closely together to share what works.

We've got very specific similar archetype buildings where some of the knowledge from

very experienced people can be shared around.

But also, as Shalima said, I think a lot of it is around making sure that there is a consistent

message that goes out to residents so they don't feel that they're getting played off

against each other or people have got different thresholds, different rules.

So all of that is all in hand.

I think I'm to...

Sorry, I'm just going to jump in again.

I think the second question was about Southern Housing.

Just to touch base on that,

Southern Housing have recently merged with Optibo.

So I know there's been a lot of kind of changes going on

in terms of their management, their processes.

The current set of KPIs actually weren't collected by me.

they were collected by another analyst colleague.

It was his first time doing so.

But I know that from my previous conversations

with Tony Hughes at Southern,

he's kind of said that they're looking to retrospectively

provide the data over the coming months,

but that's obviously once things have settled on the arena

in terms of the merger.

Excellent, thank you.

Thank you for answering this.

My next is Mahbo.

Thank you for the report.

A couple of questions.

One was around kind of 4 .1 complaints and regarding THH.

You mentioned there was a huge spike in member inquiries.

I think it would be quite useful to know what the member inquiries were.

It does say mobilisation of the repairs contract, is that due to complaints or member inquiries?

Complaints are from residents, member inquiries are from members.

and and so like for example in T H I know like there was a lot of spike due to dampen mould so

it's just kind of useful to know what some of the T's at some of the data the second thing that I

want to ask was actually 3 .4 which mentions that six of the 14 RPS provide bar specific data and I

I think, and it might be something for Andrea, which is around kind of appreciate other RPs

might be kind of have housing stock around different parts of the country and so on,

but I guess if they can't provide the data, I think in terms of some of our priorities

and objectives, how are they kind of reporting and some of the issues and challenges, it'd

be useful to have some information that also comes here rather than saying that they don't

provide no data at all.

So I think that's, yeah, if you could perhaps work with some of the RPs, all those operating

in the borough and gather some of the information that is relevant to the priorities we set

out here.

Who is going to come and take that question and answer it?

Shalim or anyone else?

In terms of the member inquiries and the complaints, we obviously have member inquiries officers

who process this.

I don't necessarily get that level of information from our member inquiry officers.

and obviously Tower Hamlets Homes received their complaints and their eminies and they

asked to answer to them. I can obviously try and find out the sub agendas as you requested

as to how many were maybe regarding condensation, damp mould or if it was around repairs. I'd

have to find that information out for you and send it over to you if that's okay. In

kind of provide borough specific performance. You are correct in terms of obviously there's a lot of

RPs who hold stock outside of the borough nationally and sometimes obviously it's been

quite difficult then for them to drill down to borough specific data. It often requires them

having to manipulate systems already in place, NumberCrunch and try and give an average and not

a specific set of figures for the borough. However we're hoping obviously that's going to change once

the TSMs come into place because as I've kind of mentioned previously as well, some RPs

obviously don't necessarily capture information as the other RPs do or ask that specific questions.

So it's kind of trying to, hopefully when the TSMs are in play and the RPs are collecting

the information, it levels out the playing field a bit more and we are comparing apples

with apples instead of a Pez.

Yes, I think just in terms of probably future scrutiny meetings and I mean I appreciate

Nick's not here to talk about for example MEs today but maybe if we just liaise with

CTH staff around maybe just high level data so it doesn't necessarily have to be every

single ME but say a few high level data on some of the themes.

Same thing with the kind of the KPIs you know, if you could just perhaps if it's possible

just to kind of some high -level information that's incorporated for future scrutiny meetings.

So what we're doing, we've kind of run an exercise looking at the TSMs and we've asked the RPs

to complete a survey and let us know which TSMs they can report,

quarterly, annually, six -monthly, and if it will be borrower specific,

it will be if it will be kind of all their stock which is outside of the borrower.

So we're obviously collating which RP can do that and in terms of what intervals and to be able to provide that to us.

So going forward I think back in January, Susanna asked this question whether we're going to continue with the current RP's, I mean KPIs,

or are we going to adopt the TSMs and we're going to fully adopt the TSMs because we obviously can't ask the RP's to do one set of KPIs for us and do the TSMs at the same time.

would be unreasonable. So once we can establish for example at the moment let's just say we've

got 17 KPIs if we can establish that every quarter we can firm our piece can report firmly on seven

say for example those are the seven that hopefully we can kind of go into more depth and bring back

to scrutiny or whether that be six monthly or annually so we should be able to hopefully as

you say kind of drill down into more depth and should level the playing field. Thank you Shaleen.

Mark, I know we've got we I want to pursue no more than two question mark please.

Okay I'll do my best. Okay so first of all on Tower Hamlets homes and about the increase

in small increase in complaints and bigger increase in members inquiries in Q3 and this

down to the mobilisation of new repairs contracts. So my recollection is that those contracts

were procured at the start of 2022 and in early 2022. So for that still to be the reason

for problems in quarter three of the year is a bit worrying. I guess it would be if

an argument could be made that that was tailing off in November and December but was still

problem in October I might be more persuaded but I think it is about the

nature of the way that some of those contracts have actually been procured

and I've had discussions with Town Hamlets Homes about the way that

contractors are essentially managing themselves on and also responding to

complaints which hopefully will mean that there'll be some change there but I

just don't think that's the right way of going about things I think there has to

you have to have the social landlord, whether it's a council or anyone else,

actually monitoring the performance.

You can't have the contractors monitoring their own performance.

That's the first thing I wanted to say.

The second thing, though, is about Clarion, which is inevitable,

given that they're the biggest landlord in the ward that I represent.

Sorry, Mark. I think your first question is long,

so let them answer the questions before we go to the second one.

We want to take Mark's question first, please.

I'm not sure there's much of that much of a question in it I was making a point

really but I mean it's a statement but anybody want to make a comment on that

but that is a very vigorous statement you made. Andrea? Just a suggestion chair

obviously there's some concern raised by my Bovine, Councillor Francis. Maybe we

could ask colleagues at Tareh Homes to circulate just a brief in terms of what

the themes were and what they've done to put them right.

Thanks, yes, I think that would be helpful, thank you.

So on Clarion, so it says here 124 Stage 1 complaints, 159 MEs, and it says here that

they're not providing data just in relation to Tower Hamlets, but I thought that they

actually had, that they'd drilled it down quite close to being just Tower Hamlets.

So if that's kind of over 300 or nearly 300 complaints or inquiries in the space of one quarter,

that represents about a quarter of all the residents of Clarion Housing in Tower Hamlets.

So I think that's a really worrying trend and then obviously you go on to the next lot

and they just can't give any data at all about actual performance really, it's just about the numbers.

and from a ward perspective like this organisation services are really really in a bad shape

and you know you see them on the news like a couple of times every month amongst all

of the big housing associations that are shown to be failing their tenants consistently and

I think this really kind of points towards whatever the good work that's being done individually

by local housing officers, managers and those and people at that level, this

organisation and others with similar problems here are clearly just not

delivering the level of service that tenants have a right to expect but also

that we transferred these council estates to them to deliver and you know

I think that puts an obligation on us as a local authority to be more

interventionist in what we do about it so maybe we'll talk about that a little

bit more when we come to the thing about regulation in a second but some

obviously welcome comments of anything that's being done in relation to this

performance here so what is you saying that our cell not respond not doing what

they're supposed to do so would you suggest put some sort of mechanism in

place in the future to make sure we monitor them I would suggest that the

government should never remove regulation external regulation in the

first place, but also that we should use whatever powers and influence we have as a local authority

to hold social landlords to account, in fact as we should with other parts of the public

sector.

But the problem is that good organisations, some of whom are represented here this evening,

are being cast in the same light as some of those whose performance is utterly woeful,

and not enough is being done about that nationally.

But also at other levels, you know, we collectively need to see a much better level of service here.

And, you know, sorry, just for the record, because people outside can't see it,

like the organisation is not able to say the total number of non -emergency repairs completed,

not able to give the performance in terms of percentage of appointments made,

nor those kept nor satisfaction with repairs and that's because most of the constituents that I speak to and I'm not just waiting for

People to come to me with complaints are utterly fed up with the performance of that organisation and some of the others, too

Thank you mark

Thankfully statement I think next in line is Asma

I see an divisions which is a concern for pose of the comh

we have with all the other RSLs in Tahemetz and that's just maybe a way of looking at

it.

I wanted to touch back on members' inquiry by Mahbub and Councillor Francis as well.

It will be really good and helpful to be able to have another column that tells us how many

MEs are a repeat of the original.

So if you, as a Councillor, if you've had to raise an ME again for the same thing, that

That will give us an indication on the quality of response or the way that the resolutions

are coming from MEs.

If we could do that, and also because some of the RSLs aren't putting commentaries on

there, that's an indication as to what's happening, along with the fact that if we can have topics

what the MEs are raised on, emergency, non -emergency, repairs, whatever it might be.

So then it's just not stats that we're looking at.

we're able to provide context even when they don't give us commentaries.

And can I ask a question to Andrea about speaking of mergers,

do you get a like a say or does like possible mergers that come up,

does Tahemla's housing forum get a chance to look into it, discuss it, how does it work?

I know the national ones are probably harder but the more local ones.

No, it's not a matter for the joint RPs to get together to talk about.

It's a matter for the individual organisation's board to come to a view on that.

But how do you get to know about it? How do you get to know about the emergency?

We get to know about it at the same time as the rest of the public does.

Yeah.

Thank you, Asma. Karen, do you have any response to the statement made by the Asma?

Sorry, it wasn't, it was on the Clarion point, if that's okay.

I mean, we know that Clarion had a very severe cyber attack.

and I asked Shalim whether the data, the lack of data this time was related to them trying to recover after the cyber attack

and he's indicated that it was and that they would be getting back on track for the next report.

I just wanted to mention that, I mean it was a very severe cyber attack.

Can I respond? So I accept completely that that's what Clarians say but they kind of

would, wouldn't they? Yeah. The point is that there is data out there about this and you

know whether they're even sharing it with their own board I don't know, whether they're

required to share it with the government I don't know but like I don't think that

it's fair to say that there isn't data around repairs available for quarter

three following a cyber attack that took place in May or June 2022 I think like

they had like largely got these things resolved by by September time

Thank you.

Anybody online?

Suzanne, you go.

Very quick.

Thank you very much, Charlene, for presenting the update.

It's very good to know you actually sit in the page, what we know and what you currently do not know.

There's a timeline, however, for everyone to, the RPs to eventually sign up for the update.

submit the final report in April 2024.

So before they submit the report,

I think it's quite important that we get together again

maybe six months from now to know how each of them

are going to collect the data, because it's not just reporting

on the parameters, but how the methodology use.

Because otherwise, like you say, not comparing apples to apples,

comparing apples to pears.

And then we can't, again, we come back to the situation.

We can't understand the findings.

And the TSM's are very important because they form the crux of how we measure the performance of each RP

So I think I think this this team should review

Together and constructively critique the methodology as well

So I think that's the request if we can look at it again six months from now

Maximum because if they have to report in April, so we we can't wait until the report comes out and then we query it

Yeah, so that's the request

So Andrea yeah just to let you know that the regulator is issued what's called

technical guidance in a lot of detail about the methodology sampling what's

acceptable what's not acceptable so actually all the RPS are very clear

about how to collect the data and how to make sure that that is representative

data so all of that is already part of the planning in each organisation

Maybe at some point we can see it as well, so we understand it as a team, as a sub -compact.

Yeah, of course Shalem, I'm sure you can circulate the, it's all online, so yeah, it's in the

public domain.

Thank you everyone for moving on.

First time we are ahead of our time, couple of minutes agenda.

That's good.

So, moving on to change the social housing regulation.

So we've just put together a couple of slides that talk about what's coming our way in terms

of the changes to social housing regulation. So there is a step change, we've already touched

I think there's also something for the committee to consider and take away, Councillor Francis

is already mentioned, this change in landscape and I guess it's something for democratic

services, Mark maybe to take away to think about how in this change in landscape what

would be, what's the suitable role for scrutiny as this new world of regulation starts to

kick in. So with, there's a social housing regulation bill in parliament at the moment

and that's building on a white paper that came out in 2020. The white paper had a very strong

emphasis on empowering residents, providing greater redress, improving social housing

regulation and improving the quality of housing. So the social regulation bill in Parliament at the

moment, the three key aims of the bill are to make changes to the consumer regime, strengthen

the powers of the existing regulator and strengthen economic regulation. So I think it's really

important to say that, to emphasise, these are significant benefits to residents and

in a way it's a force for change. So these are to be celebrated because they will enable

residents to have more say but also to hold the registered providers to account.

So it's good news for residents. So it'll empower residents, it'll make all

social housing animals more accountable, greater transparency, maybe make tenants

and leaseholders feel safe in their homes. The housing provider will have

to be led by a professional qualified housing professional and it will

hopefully improve the quality of residents home and they'll see

continuous improvement. So for residents, I mean people here today said it's longer

waited but it's coming and it's certainly going to sort of be good news

for tenants and leaseholders. So what we do know about what's in the bill and

what's proposed is that the regulator will be more proactive. At the moment

they're solely reactive. There will be six consumer standards, at the moment we

have four. The regulator is setting up a annual national residence panel of 250

residents who share their views with the government on a regular basis. That

panel is already set up and Councillor Aman on my left is a member of that panel.

I'm sorry, your turn to come up to you. You're already a member of the panel.

He's already a member of the panel. It'll make it easier for residents to make complaints,

so the House and Ombudsman Service will talk more closely to the regulator.

And the tenant satisfaction measures have been introduced, which consist of 12 tenant perception survey questions

and 10 management information performance questions.

and I guess the thing that's a significant step change is that will be four yearly inspection

regime which will be introduced for social housing landlords of a thousand properties

or more. So most of the registered providers, there are some small registered providers

in the borough that wouldn't be captured by that, but registered providers over a thousand

properties that would be subject to a four yearly inspection regime.

There are some things that we don't know, probably come out in secondary legislation,

so there is a requirement in the bill for a named health and safety lead and a named

responsible person. In the council that could be an officer or it could be a politician,

a member. We're waiting to see what comes out of secondary

because there may be some requirements for at least one of those persons, perhaps the health and safety need to have some particular qualifications.

But these will have to be named individuals in the registered provider and in the council.

There will have to be professionalisation of housing managers, so all managers at all levels will be required to have a Chartered Institute of Housing level 4 or level 5 certificate in housing.

Towards the end of last year, the government introduced an additional clause in the bill around AYAB's law,

which says that all social animals will be asked to fix damper mould issues within strict time limits.

And the regulator will also be able to issue uncapped and unlimited fines for any contravention.

So those are the things that we know, but there are some things that we don't know.

So we don't know, those are the things that we know, but there are also some things that we don't know.

We don't know the details of the six consumer standards. Obviously there are four that already exist,

so we assume that there is some sort of alignment with those, but we don't know what the two new standards are going to look like in terms of the detail.

We have some idea of when it's going to get royal assent, we think it's going to be Easter.

And with a fair winged with secondary legislation consultation in the summer, we think it will be in full force in April next year.

We don't know what the trigger points are for the regulators interventions.

And we also don't know what will happen if housing managers don't have the level of qualification,

whether there be a time period for when they can get their qualification.

And we don't know the format of the new inspection regime.

And we've had some additional money made available to us, new burdens funding, but we don't know

whether any more will flow to us for this particular work.

The next couple of slides are very simple sort of tables which show the comparison around

the as is, so this is how the regulatory framework works at the moment, particularly in relation

to the standards.

And the next slide is the to be.

So this is where we're moving towards this new regulatory framework.

So I just wanted to say a little bit about THH's, the Council's preparedness alongside THH for this new landscape.

So we have a cross department group called the Social Housing Regulation Bill Group,

which I chair, which has very strong THH presence.

We're undertaking compliance cheques against the current customer service standards, those

four customer service standards that we know, checking that we're compliant and our activities

are compliant with those standards.

We did a dry run survey of the tenant perception related TSMs and we're analysing those results,

which might point to areas of performance that we need to improve.

And we're taking stock within our staff groups in THH and the Council

of what qualifications staff hold in relation to housing management.

And obviously keeping updated when the changes to the bill emerge as well.

The next slide just talks a little bit about the two roles that are required

and what the council considerations could be for those two roles.

So I think the secondary legislation will probably provide us with some good information

in terms of how we as a council might appoint one of these leads.

As I said, for the health and safety need, there may be a requirement for a particular technical qualification.

We're anticipating some additional costs from the new regulatory regime.

So we talked about the professionalisation of hazard managers.

There obviously will be some hazard managers who may need,

may have some qualifications but may need to take them to a higher level.

There may be some who've been in the profession for a long time who don't have any.

There will be additional costs of running tenant perception surveys.

If we're not getting our strict time limits correct on damper moulds,

there could be increased compensation payments.

There could be increased repairs that we'd need to carry out anyway because of the strict time limits.

And obviously there's potential fines from the regulator, uncapped and unlimited fines for poor performance.

In terms of the key risks, I would think some of the key risks for the Council is the timing in relation to bringing THH back in house.

So we're bringing THH back in house at a time when this new regulation is coming in force.

I guess what we don't need to be doing, we don't need to be on the back foot in relation

to those two massive pieces of work that are happening around the same time, so making

sure we're properly resourced so that there isn't a drop in performance, that we're

retaining as much staff as possible, that the transition in house is as smooth as possible

the regulator will be coming in quite soon after the insourcing has happened. So that's

a risk around staff retention, morale and all of that impacting on service performance.

So there may be, in terms of risks, obviously making sure that our complaint systems are

robust enough, and we talked earlier on about how THH was struggling to deal with an increase

in MEs, but we could see much more complaints being made to the housing ombudsman if we

don't get that sorted. There could be some financial pressures on the housing

revenue account in terms of reactive repairs and also there's an issue around

I think the professionalisation of the housing managers. There may be some staff

who feel that they don't want to undertake a retraining so there's an

issue possibly about staff retention but also about recruitment of qualified

staff. If we have vacancies, the qualified staff just may not be out there. There's a

lot of other legislation that's going on at the same time, so the Building Safety Act,

the Fire Safety Act, and there's a lot to implement. So it's making sure that we're

aware of all of those requirements in the next six months. So really just a sort of

whistle -stop tour of what's coming. I think once the secondary legislation is underway,

we'll be a lot clearer about some of these things. So we certainly could come back in

the, I would think in the autumn, with a clearer idea around how some of this stuff is falling

and how we're starting to implement it. I've given you a little run through about how the

council is preparing for it. It might be useful to hear how some of the registered providers

preparing for although I know that that's discussed at the meetings

Thank You Karen

I have one of the question current which is say it can you would outline how the

housing on this man so it would make it easier for resident to make a complaint

I'll give you one example. I might bring in Una, who's on the call, if there's other examples

that she can give. So one example is that at the moment, if you want to take something

to the Ombudsman, there's an eight week period whereby you have to wait until the Council's

dealt with it before it can go to the Ombudsman. That's going to be withdrawn. So you go straight

to the Ombudsman if you're not happy with the stage two complaint from the Council.

Is there anything else Oona? That's actually in place now from the 1st of October.

Yeah, so what happens now is that in the event where a resident is unhappy at the end of the stage 2 complaints process

and they still want further resolution.

Previously, the resident had to wait eight weeks

before they could have it looked at by the ombudsman.

And then they used to go instead to your services members

or to the MP or to tenants panels

and try and gain resolution that way.

But what happens now is even if it's not a stage two,

even if an RP is not responding at the first stage

and following their complaints process.

The tenant can go straight to the ombudsman

and he will give them a nudge and shake them up

to move them along and get them to deal with it.

Because all of the, there's the complaints guidance

and the complaints process, which all RPs have to adhere

with, including ourselves.

And if we're not following it, then, you know,

the weight of the ombudsman will be on us.

Is there any other questions related to that?

I think there's some map of this first one.

Let me make a note on this.

Can you get your microphone off, please?

So the map on the first question is then, I think,

Natalie put it next up.

And then Suzanne.

So you see something?

No, no, it's just that they keep their mics on.

It messes the camera.

It messes it, OK.

So Mahbub, you've got three minutes.

I'll try and be.

So first of all, Karen, thank you for that succinct presentation, really useful.

And yeah, I'm actually on the social housing quality residence panel or whatever it's called.

Yeah, it's a storey for another day.

I think from my kind of reading on it was probably,

Probably some of the things are in terms of the named officers, so the health and safety

lead and the responsible person lead are probably quite crucial as part of this.

And also the interplay it has with the scrutiny committee, so when it comes into being whoever

this person is and their reporting into this committee and their role.

The second thing I think Karen and I would say as an probably didn't factor into the

additional costs, slash additional risks is the whole kind of our floor which is around

kind of dampen mould because last year when that kind of broke the storey broke in

TAH there was a huge spike in dampen mould complaints coming to being and so

therefore to treat or to deal with it requires staffing resourcing and so

that's something that we have to kind of take into consideration because as a

tenant I think even probably about last this time last year I was in one cage

property and I was moving to another THS property and they both have dam so that

I don't mean the one I was in and was damping when I was moving into because

predominantly there the stock is kind of oldest housing stock so I think we just

probably need to factor that element in that in terms of the resourcing cost and

kind of how long it's gonna take to kind of treat a lot of this hasn't stopped

that you know we have

Thank you.

Do you want to come to this?

No, I just wanted to ask, Chair, if there isn't anything specific for me, if I could excuse myself, we have our Director of Housing.

I've got another meeting I need to dash off to.

I'm sure Karen is here to answer on behalf of you.

Thanks for coming, Kabi.

Natalie, can I take your question as well, please?

Sure, I just wanted to say that's a really good point that Mafu makes about the integration

of the named persons with this committee.

So I just had a question about also in relation to the ombudsman's additional responsibilities.

Do we know if there's going to be more funding, more resourcing for the ombudsman?

Because I know they've got huge backlogs, so it might not really solve much.

Just a question.

Thank you. Do you want to answer this?

Una, do you have anything?

Yeah, the Housing Ombudsman is avidly recruiting at the moment.

It's been well -resourced and really well -publicised.

The Housing Ombudsman is actually doing road shows up and down the country,

telling people how they can complain, letting residents know about their rights.

The government has actually launched as well a complaints programme. There's two

actually, there's a brand new website where residents can find out about how

to complain, who to go to, where to go and there's a second one that was launched

beginning of this month, it's called 4 million homes and that's a really really

insightful website where residents again learn their rights, they can view

webinars about their rights and they can actually go to physical training sessions. So it's

kind of, you know, the whole linkage with the housing ombudsman is there for residents.

They're going to really be teed up to get to know their rights and learn how to complain.

So we're getting rid of this whole delays in the process. It's going to be far, far

more instant in terms of reaction from the ombudsman. Thank you, Councillor Bianfe.

I think it is related to the ombudsman, even for myself, I have to research, is it free?

Honestly sometimes as a resident, when they are undergoing a lot of issues, there is also

a fear of going directly to seeking legal help. So when this came up, I was in the office

I wasn't sure if it was really good or if it was making it a bit arm's length,

as in we have to search our way through to get help, as in ombudsman.

So I'm glad to hear that you said there is lots of publicity going on about how to contact the ombudsman,

but that is quite crucial because there are some people who are not assessing internet,

online or, you know, basically we have a resident recently who said,

I've given up, I've got a lot of issues with Tower Hamlets Homes,

I've given up, I've given up, and they won't really tell you what.

And then I kind of asked them to come to the residents' hub,

because these are the people that after calling couldn't get through,

writing couldn't get through, it's like, I'm despondent, you know,

then you're kind of afraid that he's going to kill himself or something.

You know, it's just like that, it's just you need that face to face, you need that space

And basically, I think he was a bit relieved, I said, walk to the residence hub, ask for an appointment

So I think it's an example of how, you know, this whole ombudsman thing

Even for an educated person, we're kind of like, what ombudsman?

You know, so I think if we genuinely want to empower the residents

we have to do something about it.

May I come in please?

Thank you Susanna.

Joanna, come along please, floor is yours.

Sorry Mr Chair, what I was going to say is that we are working on updating our page on our pays

and there'll be a link there on where you go on each of the Tuhofa piece

complaints pages, but it leads them directly onto the complaints process and

there will be contact details there for the ombudsman. So I have their address

details, telephone number and of course their internet contact link as well. So

we aim to publicise that in due course. Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation and the update.

So having kind of sat here for several years now, like bemoaning the state of social housing,

like this is the moment where there's a possibility of at least returning it to something akin

to the way that it used to be, the focus that it used to be on providing good quality housing

to the tenants and treating tenants respectfully as well.

And that's something that I think,

like we talk a lot about repairs and individual performance

on individual elements,

but it's the nature of the relationship, I think,

between tenants and their social landlords

that for many tenants has broken down

because of the behaviour of their landlords

and a real change of attitude.

We know that there's a housing crisis

and that there has to be a focus on building new,

but there has to be an equal focus on looking after what they've got right now

and that's what's been missing.

I want to say like it's really good to have an emphasis,

to have a focus on the housing ombudsman as well.

So my experience is that the ombudsman is quite good.

I don't always agree with the ultimate decision,

but I guess that means that it's that kind of,

that proves that it's a good thing because you don't always get your way.

But what I think is really difficult about the ombudsman service already

is that people wait like six months, five months, over a year in some cases to get

a decision back on a complaint that they've already waited three, four, five,

six months with their social landlord and so pushing more complaints down the

direction of the housing ombudsman isn't necessarily the solution they have to be

solved at a local level by the organisation themselves and has to be a

kind of a clear steer from from the regulator about the way that they're

dealt with and some of that's happened and some more of it might happen. So my point

that I really wanted to say about this is I think as an authority, speaking non -politically

if I can, I recognise that we absolutely have to get our own house in order and as a member

of the opposition party now on the council, one of the opposition parties, I recognise

the contribution that we have or haven't made to making Tower Hamlets Homes work and in the past

to making the insourced housing work either. But I think that we also have an obligation collectively

to try to think beyond just what we are directly responsible for and will be even more directly

responsible for when it comes in house because we have to spend a lot of time I think like you have

45 Councillors as well as the Mayor and all of his advisors who can kind of like add value to this process of bringing it in -house

But the same group of people ought to be applying some intellectual capacity with the support of officers to what can be done

outside of what we are immediately responsible for and thinking about those housing associations in the borough who are letting tenants down

especially those who we transferred stock to.

I think that some thought needs to go on about how we get ahead of the curve.

There's going to be a lot of organisations, sorry, a lot of residents associations,

community groups going to the regulator in the first instance and saying,

look at this experience that we're suffering.

You see some examples of that now where media and social media are picking up on particular states,

but it's not just individual states, it's an endemic problem.

And I think this authority does have an obligation especially to those people that we transfer those tenants and leaseholders that we transferred back

in the

2000s to go back to them and say is there something that we can do to support you in?

Holding your organisation to it to account through this new mechanism

And so, you know, I don't think that's something that we that I'm not expecting answers to that now

But I think over the course of the next 12 months in anticipation of this regulation coming into effect

That's something that we should be doing. It's not just about

council housing anymore the majority of social housing in the borough is the housing associations and there are constituents to

Thank you mark for your statement

quite valuable input

Can we slowly move into next item, please?

which is

anti -social behaviour, ASP on housing states,

which is a burning issue on my state,

so I'm not sure the rest of this how they feel.

May I ask Susana on...

loads on online to come along?

I think I've got Nick.

And Nick as well.

And any other person on there?

There's a lot of naming there as well.

Hello, I'm Savannah, I'm actually present. Nick's going to start.

Can you hear me?

Nick is here. You want to take the floor?

Yeah, if I may. So, thank you for inviting us to come and speak tonight.

And we've come mob -handed, as you can see.

And I'm mindful that we could probably talk all day about antisocial behaviour.

and it's such a big issue in the borough and it's really a motive subject.

But the steer we've had for this evening is to kind of talk about how we manage our dissociation

behaviour in our estates and also some examples of best practise.

So we've got Savannah Lloyd from Peabody and Lee Cantrelly Andrews, both from One Housing,

part of Riverside now.

We're going to take sections each and Savannah and the Lees can introduce themselves as we

get to their points in the slides if that's okay.

So probably worth just starting with just, I'm sure we all know, but just a bit of a reminder about what antisocial behaviour actually is.

And in terms of how the legislation that we use to investigate and action the reports of ASB, it's the Antisocial Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014.

And the definition of that is conduct that's caused or is liked to cause harassment, alarm or distress to any person.

Conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person's occupation of residential promises

or conduct capable of causing housing related nuisance or annoyance to any person.

And I also thought it would be useful just to give a few examples of what antisocial behaviour is also defined as.

So I'm not going to go through the whole list but there's things in there like noise, shouting, dumping rubbish, verbal abuse, vandalism, property, damage and graffiti.

But I think it's probably really worth drawing the point now that while these are all examples

of antisocial behaviour and our associations very much spend a lot of time dealing with

this sort of stuff, a huge, huge amount of what we're actually dealing with on a day

in, day out basis is actually of a criminal nature.

And this is kind of like your drug use, your drug dealing, criminal activity to fuel that

on our estate.

So technically that's criminal, so a police matter, but as landlords we find ourselves

more and more drawn into the management of that.

So this is where the partnership working really becomes key between the local authority as well as the police and our own anti -social behaviour teams.

I think just in terms of our approach, generally we try and take a staged approach based on proportionality.

Tennessee sustainment is a key part of ASB.

We don't want to be evicting everyone and then them just presenting homeless at a later date and that kind of self -perpetuates.

So tenancy sustainment is a key key part and it's helped helping that to happen and what one power that's really useful

That land was do have and that that's the ability to enforce a lease or the tenancy agreement

And it's really powerful to be able to yeah

ultimately

someone could lose their home because of the the activity of themselves or the people associated with that property and that that's that's something that

in conjunction with the other tools and powers that the police and the council have as a package that can be really useful.

Generally we'll take a staged approach to enforcement and again the key thing here to remember is proportionality.

And the staged interventions generally start off on a more informal basis and is there something we can resolve by talking with people or offering support via support agencies.

We do a lot of great work with a charity called Streets of Growth who undertake intensive

interventions with younger people and try and steer their life trajectory away from

antisocial behaviour to something more substantially useful in their lives.

It's also kind of, we don't want to criminalise people, we really want to try and avoid that.

So the stage approach is really important. So we'll start off with the ASPE warnings.

these are kind of lower level and they just kind of give people a reminder

about their activity and the impact it's having on that. And then we go

through the full remit up to closure orders, criminal prosecutions,

evictions and it's also worth remembering at this point that ultimately

that needs to be sanctioned by a judge in a court so we have to take evidence

to the court for them to be able to produce these orders or agree to

these orders. Something that we use fairly heavily, certainly at THH is the use of

civil injunction and that kind of says, you know, it's basically an injunction that says

you can or can't do certain things.

Wherever possible we do try and tie in something called positive engagements to that and that's

kind of say, in order to comply with this you also have to engage with certain support

services, such as services that will help you with substance misuse.

And if you don't engage, when we come to a later level of enforcement, if necessary,

the judge will take that into account and the people's willingness to kind of engage with us.

And I've touched on Streets of Growth there as well, who are really, really good charity.

In terms of good practise for THH, I mean it's worth, I was going to use the word we are

fortunate, but we do kind of fund a police team and a patrol service provided by Park Guard and

that has kind of been a bit of a game changer in terms of dealing with some of the criminality

on our estates and it's really powerful to be able to stand up in a resident meeting

and say I can task resources to this estate to deal with this problem where previously

it would be report, report, report and with varying degrees of success with that being

resolved. And we very much use an evidence -based way of tasking these resources because it's

great to have the teams but you've actually got to do something with them. So this is

evidence from our residents, it's evidence from our staff, it's evidence from the patrols

themselves, you know caretakers are a great source of information as well and all that

goes into is some targeted tasking to the areas where we're most likely to encounter

the activity happening.

So we can send the patrols, that can deter stuff just by being a presence there, but

part of this, the really important part of this is the engagement with the perpetrators

and find out what they're doing, getting the details, and again taking the appropriate

enforcement as a result of that.

And I've put in here an operation that we ran for a couple of weeks last year, and again

And that was to do with a spike in drug dealing and antisocial behaviour across our estates.

And you'll see some kind of headline figures there around arrests, antisocial behaviour

warnings, stops and searches and the value of cash and drugs seized.

But also the interventions to the kind of drug support and also streets of growth.

And the key thing there is the information we've got from our residents to kind of drive

the targeting of this.

And it's, I'll drop in that both our anti -social behaviour team and the police team both won,

our ASP team won a national housing award for this work and the police team won a Met

Police award for neighbourhood policing on the back of the work they've been doing about

tackling drugs on our estates.

So without that directed resource it would be really challenging to give that level of

service to our residents at the moment and it does come with a cost, we do recharge for

it but at the same time it's making sure that we're visible with providing good

value for money we're getting the results and then our ASB team are

actually going ahead and taking the appropriate tenancy action as a result

of the police enforcement action if that makes sense so I'm gonna pass over to

Savannah at this point and then we'll obviously be happy to take any questions

at the end of the presentation.

So Savannah.

Susanna, can you come along please?

Hello, can you hear me?

You can, absolutely.

Oh, you can hear me, thank you.

I believe, Nick, you're putting up a presentation?

Yeah, I think members have got a copy of the presentation.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Good evening all. My name is Savannah Lloyd. I'm from Peabody Housing Trust.

I understand I'm just going to do a snippet of some of the issues that we do get, which

I know that you've got a copy of it.

So basically, a lot of housing associations at the moment and local authorities are playing

a very much increased role in tackling county lines, cuckooing and exploitation on our states

and within the other patches within the borough.

and they work very much hand in hand.

It's increasingly becoming a more serious problematic issue

with among residents, especially within social housing.

It's requiring a more specialised approach in the way

we as providers and local authorities

process the information received.

It's important that way we are now on the ball

of identifying and picking up key facts

that are being highlighted to us.

whether this is by phone, email, or third -party information.

This in turn makes it a lot easier for us to gather evidence

that can support us in establishing the types of cases

that should be logged and how they should be treated.

For a lot of people tackling with ASB,

it helps them to basically provide the basis

of conducting a further in -depth ASB investigation

and gives us an opportunity

to obtain a better understanding of what's actually occurring.

It also enables us to be in a better position to best support and safeguard those concerned.

Anyone that obviously works within housing or directly communicating with residents plays a major role

in establishing organisational and local authority trust among residents

that we are going to be taking the necessary actions

to try and combat this.

This is mostly demonstrated by the ability

to reassess very quickly and take swift action.

And a lot of that is by listening and giving them hope

that we can keep them safe and provide reassurance

and a solution.

Now what is, you'll probably think,

what is like cuckooing itself?

Well, cuckooing, the term cuckooing,

For those who you don't know, it was a terminology named by the police.

It takes its name from the action of a known cuckoo bird that takes over the nest of other birds.

Drug dealers or gangs will take over somebody's home to use as a base for sexual exploitation,

county lines, drug trafficking, and when a property has been successfully taken over,

it can commonly be referred to as a trap house.

Once they can mix in the community residents,

they then become confident that they are protected for a period of time.

Sorry. Now, some of the red flags that we're having

to enable us to look and see who's being affected, the risk factor.

This is often due to people's dependency upon their need.

It could be their mental health, learning difficulties, disabilities.

Those are the sort of things they tend to home in on, perpetrators.

And where there is a possibility they can be befriended unknowingly without the intentions

to gain someone's trust, they often believe that they're being often provided a lifeline.

the front line.

Most of the people on the front line, they end up being our face -to -face and they are

the ones that go out and on the estates as well as the police and they are the ones that

spot what is potentially going on in the early signs of abuse and exploitation because they

tend to be doing things on a weekly basis and visiting these estates, seeing other residents

building that relationship.

So it's really important that we do continue to build strong relationships within the community

and the most important thing is putting the victim at the heart of actually intervention

itself.

Now some of the red flags that we have, where we're constantly looking, Coo Coo Inn is obviously

recognise to have a significant impact on the surrounding community, but has reportedly

been damaging long -lasting effects on the actual victim itself.

The traumatic effect of such an act is the grooming side of it, the abuse, the risk side

of it, and we tend to have to obviously get in there very early with early intervention.

So some of the things that we, the issues that we end up facing is we have a lot of

ASB occurring where there's reported graffiti, loitering from other tenants reporting certain

things that they will report to the local authority or the housing trust.

So it's about building that picture to piece together what is occurring and what this,

what we tend to do is once we're doing an investigation, we piece certain elements.

So there may be reports on the system that from other residents that said that they've got additional ASB occurring for a particular address.

They've noticed that the regular people come there at different times of the night and day.

And this tends to lead us to investigate it a bit more.

So that could be that we would obviously approach other residents or carry out an ASB survey

which identifies some of the concerns that are going on.

But the issues that are occurring on these estates is costing the local authority and

social housing a lot.

Because if we don't get in there early, we've got gangs or groups of youth going into the

building.

They're destroying communal doors.

they're doing graffiti and once we're clearing this up they then get back into

the building and do the same thing again. So these are the some of the pointers

that we are having to deal with on a regular basis as well as having to move

in certain circumstances the actual resident and a lot of the time it's done

under emergency accommodation with in working in hand with the local authority

to try and get that person to safety and obviously getting a supporting letter

from the police to deem the person that they are high risk but it is very much

about resources and being able to draw from every department in order to

safeguard someone and actually make a difference to the impact to pick to the

residents and also the impact on the community.

Thank you.

Let me take some name first please.

Sorry if Savannah's finished chair I think there's just a need to come in as well.

Sorry, apologies.

Sorry Nick, did you want me to do the case study?

If you're able to briefly talk through the case, that'd be helpful.

Thank you.

Okay.

We've had a particular case, I will refer to the person as basically Miss T, where we

were advised by a number of residents that a property, a particular property had a lot

of people going in.

There was concerns about the welfare of the tenant and that there was many youths going into the property and many people visited

so what we done we carried out a

Obviously investigation in regards to this where we were able to look on our system

To see who should be present at that property

We identified who should be proper there and the vulnerability needs of that person now it lucky for us

we had recorded and received information prior to that suggesting that this person had vulnerability

needs of drug and alcohol and there was a particular issue with her child involved with

drugs. So what we'd done, we carried out a visit to the property where we felt we were

able to see certain activities that we felt uncomfortable with and when we attended the

The address had no furniture in there.

There was about five young people in the property

and there was mattresses all over the floors

which drew us with big concerns.

Now the two young people we saw,

we felt they were under the age of 18.

So what we'd done, we carried out a safeguarding referral

with social services.

We also carried out an adult safeguarding with the tenant

due to her vulnerability needs and we also worked very closely with the police for intelligence

on information. So how that all comes together, we fill out a referral to the community MARAC

whereby we've got all the services present and we can put in a support plan in order

to address what's going on. What actually happened is the tenant was actually being

was exploited and cuckooed by her own son.

The young people that were present had been running county lines and they were missing

children from other boroughs.

So when the police obviously attended the property, they were able to safely get the

children back to their parents.

They were able to take in custody the young person who was actually the head of all this

and the mother who we felt that Miss T was being exploited,

we were able to get her and work with local authority

to get her into emergency accommodation.

So it's just highlighting some of the steps

that we have to go through in order to safeguard everybody.

Thank you.

Lee Counter, you wanna come along next?

Good evening, my name's Lee Counter.

I'm a community safety officer from One Housing.

We're registered social landlords

with properties in Tower Hamlets.

I'm gonna give you, together with my manager, Lee Andrews,

we're gonna give you a brief overview of partnership work

to address anti -social behaviour on estates.

It's gonna be very brief,

hopefully with time for questions at the end.

So the current partnership system, next slide.

Community Safety Officer from One Housing,

who now part of the Riverside Group, are patch -based,

which ensures local knowledge and solid partnerships.

Our teams have strong partnerships in place

with the council community safety team

and the local safe neighbourhoods policing teams.

So our officers will attend

the monthly council partnership problem solving meetings

and have dedicated single points of contact

within the council community teams.

There's established systems in place

where the community safety team officers raise

antisocial behaviour on estates in Tower Hamlets

by submitting form to the council's safety team.

This is then added to the agenda

at the problem solving meeting,

which is the same meeting where we could discuss other items

such as community triggers when there's three or more reports

of antisocial behaviour and a member of the public

is not happy with the way it's dealt with.

So our team, made up of Leanne and Dominico,

who specifically deal with tower homelets only,

They deal with all sorts of behaviour,

anti -social behaviour, noise nuisance, safeguarding,

and also supported by specialists safeguarding

and domestic abuse trained officers.

So their role is predominantly reactive

due to limited resources.

It may involve applying for civil injunctions,

serving notices of seeking possession,

with some small scope for proactive patrol.

They generally rely on council enforcement officers

and park guard and police for support.

They'll often provide evidence to the police for closure notices on problem premises, also

carry out environmental visual audits on housing estates to assess where crime can be designed

out with the use of lighting, CCTV or security updates.

So that's a really brief overview and I can just assure you there is good partnership

work in place with the council.

And now I'm going to hand over to my manager who's going to talk about some previous partnership

work on the Florham Dean estates in Tower Hamlets.

Thanks, Lee. Good evening all. Yeah, as Lisa would introduce me, my name is Lee Andrews.

I'm the One Housing Group, one of the now Riverside Community Safety Manager. Prior

to becoming Community Safety Manager, I was actually a Community Safety Officer at One

Housing, where I was, as I was tasked to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, I'm very

familiar with the issues faced in the borough in respect of anti -social behaviour. So the piece of

work I wanted to talk to you about this evening is in relation to the Flora and Dina state which is

situated in the Spitalfields and Bangalotown ward which is quite unique in so far as its demographic

includes sort of a night -time economy. You have lots of outreach hostels, drug intervention centres

as well as a night time economy and condensed within that is the Flour and Dean Estate which

unfortunately over the years has become a bit of an epicentre for anti -social behaviour

due to the fact that it has public walkways and thoroughfares through the estate that

linked the city onto the doorstep of Louisville Street to Brick Lane. So this particular estate

is historically known for drug dealing, drug misuse and criminal activity due to its geographical

location which is just off of Brick Lane which is a high drug related problem area unfortunately

due to a number of outreach centres and hostels within the borough. As a result of the issues

that were being faced by residents on this particular estate I worked in partnership in

collaboration with London Barrow Tower Hamlets neighbourhood management team, one of the officers

there who had recently been employed as part of a pilot scheme by the borough. We was able

to link in with the local safer neighbourhood team that at the time was stationed at Brick

Lang, which was really, really good to have them on the doorstep of the problem area.

In linking up together, we was able to work with outreach centres and hostels on Wentworth

Street, namely Providence Row and the Delo Centre, because a lot of the issues that were being

reported by residents on the estate were as a result of these hostels. We was able to

meet with representatives and management of these hostels and work together to identify

problem individuals and take proactive action against them. This led to 12 civil injunctions

being obtained as well as a number of other proactive measures and actions being taken

to reduce and really make a dent in antisocial behaviour on the Florindine estate and the wider

community. One of the things that the management of these schemes implemented following our work

was that the individuals that were staying at the hostel

on licences would have to sign

an acceptable behaviour agreement

upon the signup of their licence,

which effectively meant if they was found

to have caused antisocial behaviour in the area,

their licences could be terminated

or there would be a sort of a two strike,

free strike policy in place.

I think implementing this really sort of hammered home

to those that were potentially engaging

in this type of behaviour.

They wouldn't be tolerated.

And if they were to continue to cause problems,

that they would essentially be removed from the hostel.

So following six to 12 months of really, really hard work,

proactive action between one housing the police

and also the local authority,

there was a significant reduction in antisocial behaviour

on the philarindina state and certainly the the wider area

thank you Lee and questions from the floor I think the festival I saw Susan

When I went up so let me take it

I'm gonna take a names for individual first

On this side is mr. Faruq, so not to be done product

Mark, everybody wants questions.

I will say no more than two minutes, please.

Then we can be on time.

Mark, would you like to go along first, please?

First of all, thank you for the presentation to all of you guys.

Nick, thank you for coming along on Monday to RTRA.

We meet again.

I think again, ASPE is kind of very challenging, I think, across the borough on all estates.

I think kind of two things that I would say is one is that I think there needs to be a

serious coordinated approach to dealing with ASPE between kind of the three key partners,

so the police, the council and the respective RP, whether it's THH or anyone, because I think

that's what like for me living on Sydney State it would be kind of huge ASB issues so I think

that's probably needs to kind of be looked into because in my kind of experience that doesn't

happen very well and also secondly as part of it is and I was mentioning to Nick on Monday which

was now that THH is coming back in -house into the council what happened was when we had huge spike

in the ESP last summer and I dread to think what happened again in the summer is that

we wanted an action plan from all three parties and we got an action plan from THH but nothing

from the council and then the officers from the council then said they didn't have the resources

to deal with it and so if it's a resourcing issue then that needs to be addressed so I think there

needs to be a bit more joined up and coordinated approach between all the parties. My second point

and again I'll be really brief, as I think Nick touched on, which is kind of the engagement activities that THH are doing with streets of growth,

and I think that's really important and it's not a political party line, because I'm not part of any political party,

but I think the removal or the reduction of youth service had a huge detrimental impact of engaging the young people within the borough of the last however many years.

So with the announcement yesterday of the re -provision,

re -funding of youth service,

I'm hoping that that helps address some of those things

because a lot of the young people

where perhaps they might have gone to engagement activities

like a boxing class, for example,

to channel their anger and frustrations

instead of that happening,

they were doing that on the street.

So I think those are my kind of two points.

I am really glad you raised that because it is exactly the point.

I am not targeting Nick but the fact that you are Tal Hamlet's home and Weaver's Ward

is where I live. Jonathan, he cannot speak but he has done a lot of work for Weaver's

Ward as chair of the Safer Neighbourhood. I keep hearing everyone saying resources is

to hear from you how you are integrating

with Weavers Ward Safer Neighbourhood Group, number one.

Number two, with the Tower Hamlets coming in house,

any migration plan on how the council enforcement officers

and the Tower Hamlets Homes Park Guards,

how are you all integrating?

I mean, definitely we need people.

It's coming together, like how are you gonna work?

Because I think in the past, we need to understand

whose duty is what.

Sometimes what is in the home is Tower Hamlet's homes.

What is in on the streets is the police.

So even for a resident, we are just we just want to be safe.

You know, we we we just want to see that there's policing.

We see the bills that we pay.

And and sometimes the remark is about don't see.

I don't see anyone coming out here.

And likewise, very worried about summer on the boundary estate.

Nighttime economy is just crazy.

So I think Nick, just very quickly.

Yeah, very quickly. I just want you to just tell me how you plan to work and integrate

You got two minutes to answer please

Thank you. So just just in terms of the integration with a safe neighbourhood board Jonathan apologies

I couldn't make last night's meeting was it the other night Tuesday nights meeting so good

I've got a few this week

So I couldn't I couldn't attend that but we did provide some data some patrol data for Park guards to

to kind of highlight the number of times we come to the estate because I totally get the point that people don't always see the

resources there

We do we part out certainly keep some really good

Data and provide some really good reports on what they do when they turn up to a state what they've been tasked to do what?

They're looking out for so we've got a raft of data around that in terms of integrating with the safe and a brood board

I mean certainly we've made a commitment

For the SP officer who should have been in attendance at previous ones to be attending on a regular basis that diar eyes now

We've also made a commitment to provide certain data at those boards as well.

So that's hopefully that part and answers that part.

In terms of the integration of the police team and the park guard teams, as things stand

now it's really difficult because I actually think that the police, the council, respective

landlords have got quite good information on their websites about how you can report

and who you can report to and things like that.

However, potentially there are two or three avenues to do that and the idea would be one

single reporting line but bearing in mind the police should deal with crime and criminality,

simple as, and a lot of that comes the landlord's ways and absolutely we need to know about

it so that we can actually take the relevant enforcement action on the tenancy or the lease

agreement.

So this is where the partnership and the information sharing is so key and again, fortunately,

Say fortunately, but like town its homes has a really good working relationship with our police team Park

The information sharing there is really strong. We link in really well with the council

so so in terms of that

It's I I think I think boundary estate was a really good example

You mentioned the nighttime economy and things getting worse over the summer, but that was a really good example

Last year in terms of the the partnership approach with both the police park guard the theos

Yeah, asp officers of the council asp officers at thh coming out and kind of just patrolling to the early hours of the morning

Like 3 4 a .m. To kind of deal with that activity

So it does happen

But it has to be targeted due to the due to the probably the resources if they find makes sense

So hopefully answers your questions

That's okay

Next one is asthma, please. Can it be in quick and swift?

So I think like touching on what you both said to be fair to Nick I think this is a wider strategic

oversight that that needs to be looked at so I appreciate the presentation but knowing the

Investment that we've made in the last budget with feels when it comes to the youth service that went through the cabinet yesterday

What we need to do as a committee is in a few months have

Another presentation come here about how all of this is integrated together

Because when you look at ASP and when you look at crime and you know, we're talking about estates. I think what you've done is

Is it like as our ourselves are really important and it's really really helpful

But you've got limitations now that we know the investment is there from the council

It's got to come from the top in and then the branches are the RSL's so it would be good for us to see that

So when it comes to the youth service, how are they partnered up with the RSLs?

When it comes to youth service, the outreach workers, how are they going to be doing the

outreach work within their state when it comes to disputes within neighbours, sometimes post

cold wars, things like that.

Even communication around understanding what ASB is, because sometimes you will get reports

from residents about young people hanging out together,

and actually they're not doing anything wrong.

They're not making noise or making rubbish.

But it's just that perception that just because

there's a bunch of boys together that are hanging around,

that that's seen as ASP, and there's an issue with that.

And then you talked about how we look at criminalising

these sometimes victims, sometimes because there's

no other outlet.

So when the Youth Services Programme opens up,

It is about making sure that all of that is integrated, all that understanding, because

it is all overlapping and there is no point looking at it in silos, we have to look at

it as a bigger programme.

The investment, I know we have gone out looking for more to recruit, but actually when it

comes to homes coming in house, the migration, this is not really Nick's job, but we need

Look at like from the unfortunate the cabinet members not here, but the mayor and the cabinet member

What does the what does that look like because now we've got to have a shared service

the Theos

That are out and you know

They're doing a good job and I got to hear about them that some of their work on Tuesday in our safer neighbourhood meeting

But where there's tower Hamlet's homes estates, especially in weavers where 80 70 or 80 percent of the land is to Hamlet's homes

Park guards don't have the same remit as the Theos do.

So in Weaver's Ward, for instance, we're shortchanged

because the Theos don't go into Tahel Hamlet's homes,

estates, or maybe any other estate for other RSLs.

So having that outlook as well is going to be helpful

because you want to make sure each ward,

each estate is treated evenly.

If we're investing into Theos,

those Theos have to be for all our residents,

not just in places that Park Guards or popular hawkers

ASB team can't go so if we can look at that and we need to actually bring this back to this committee so we can

Have a look at that wider work

That needs to be done and I think that covers both their both their issues

Thank you as much. That's a very valid point for you. There's a very good statement

Knowing there's a lot of fields

gain

advertise to

Employed I'm sure

In the near future will have an impact on ASP and very much you also live in my world

and we have been a similar issue.

Children congregating, not doing anything and report ASP as well as people outside your

home with the prospect park.

People play music till two in the morning.

Come on for God's sake.

I know it's the summer coming up but not in the two, three in the morning.

When you call ASP, nobody is responding to you.

People in the council, no one was sponsoring at that time,

calling the police, waiting time, two, three hours coming.

That time it's seven in the morning, they're already gone.

So I understand where you're coming from,

excited because you live in my ward,

and very big park down there and someone's nearby.

We don't see barbecues last year,

like at three o 'clock, four o 'clock,

five of you coming in, getting to the barbecue.

Three in the morning, coming.

That's not right.

So thank you for your coming.

Next on my line is Natalie. Thank you, chair. I just have a very specific

question around CCDV installation in specifically Tahamut's homes situations, because I feel

like there's maybe a gap between what the resources that are already in place can deliver

and what residents' perception of their safety or how, like residents' perception of what

the agencies are doing. And in the situations that I've come across in my ward, the installation

of ring doorbells or switching on of CCTV in the blocks hasn't been quick enough.

In my opinion it hasn't happened at all.

And that's been really detrimental to the perception of how much work is happening because

the resources just aren't there to go and patrol all the time.

So I just wanted to ask that.

Question of CCTV.

Okay, so in terms of town and its homes, our ASB team have got a small number of cameras

that we deploy for the benefit of evidence gathering and use in our investigations.

And so having a similar conversation on Monday night just in terms of that was part of a

package that we put in along with increased patrols, signage and various other bits and

pieces to try and tackle a particular emerging issue at a particular time.

Okay, so the idea of that purely for the cameras that we use is just to gather evidence for the purpose of our investigations.

The wider picture on whether we should instal CCTV cameras on our estates and...

It's more just when, if and when an ASB issue was reported, kind of what's the threshold for installing it?

So so again, yeah, really good question actually so so we will go through a kind of a proportionality

Kind of assessment as well because there's what residents are telling us. What's our staff telling us?

What our patrols are telling us first and foremost? I mean and CCTV generally we do tend to find out the displaces the issue

Which is good for the people actually

Experienced in the behaviour and this is why we

really like the use of our patrols actually getting there at the time to engage with the people because then we can take names and

addresses and start talking to them about the again using the example of just the people hanging around not really doing anything but either

Perceived to be intimidating or just being a bit raucous

So if we can engage with them find out what they're doing and absolutely mention our youth services earlier

Yeah, and people have to go somewhere and do something and hang out with their mates and all that sort of stuff and we really

Don't want to demonise them

So if we can actually speak with that sort of activity the people who engaged in that we can talk about

The impact that it has on on the local area and the residents of that and that that's usually

You know, that's what we talk about the staged approach to it to enforcement

so that that would be our preferred approach rather than putting CCTV up because ultimately if people are actually up to

No good, the smarter ones of them will actually

Disguise their their looks and their appearances and so we'll see something's happened, but we can't actually do anything about it

I mean as a very quick digression

We actually one of our offices a little car park a car pulled in nicked a load of tools from one of our vehicles

We couldn't really do anything with it because we couldn't really see the registration number. We couldn't really see the

The kind of the people that did it. So while we've got it and it is a good deterrent

It's also not also that useful at times as well. So it's

It's more just in terms of managing residents perceptions, especially where there's maybe excessive reporting of

not that concerning behaviour maybe.

For me it's maybe a way of managing people's expectations about

you know things are happening and

that it feels that residents feel like

you know that something's being done and that

information is being gathered outside of what they report

I guess. I mean, sorry, I mean just to cut in on that, something I didn't mention

in the THH part, certainly what we do is we produce block specific flyers to kind of say

we've been patrolling and doing these interventions for the past two, three months, this is the

impact, this is the outcome, because it comes back to the point of the visibility and we

don't always see the patrols happening. And I could sit here and spout out loads of great

figures about how we're doing this, that and the other, but the reality is if you're still

coming out of your front door and seeing this activity, you think nothing's being done.

So the comms is a key part of this. I mean, it's the communication the partnership work is the physical

Interventions that come into this use of the tools and powers. It is the the diversionary stuff. It's all the stuff

Yeah, counsellor Islam that you kind of mentioned

It's that kind of wider holistic approach that is the key to tackling this year

We can do our bit and the police can do a bit there, but accounts could do their bit, but if it's not joined up

Yeah, it works to an extent but not as successfully as it could do

Thank you, Chair. It's pretty much the same question from everyone. And I totally agree

with almost everyone that this is a serious problem within the borough, and not just within

the borough at the side as well, but we can only talk about the borough. It's not even

summertime but it's already isn't hike and I myself yesterday was in a mess

with this thing and believe me or not this is something about community

safety as well as SB yesterday was a petrol bomb was thrown to someone not

thrown set in one of the resident in my ward unfortunately gonna put the bottle

through the letterbox and it's just left it outside and the front basically

partly is badly damaged it's something very serious on both sides basically the

The thing is this, my question would be like to ourselves that how firm or what

are the actions have you taken by catching these perpetrators as well as

some of the residents that they do have the residency and one of the family

member is a drug dealer or related with these sort of things. What sort of

punishment of you serve, I mean, serve to them,

and or what are the other actions

that you have taken firmly?

This is what I'd like to know.

And what I always believe, to be honest,

is always if you take the action firmly,

and it does matter, and if it's financially,

or if you throw somebody out from their residential,

that it does really work.

So again, my question would be like,

what sort of action have you taken,

and what other firm action can you take?

Thank you.

I think you wanna come along, I don't know who you are.

Thank you, yeah, thank you.

I mean, really awful situation that you've described there.

And ultimately, as a landlord,

the highest sanction that we can take is to evict

and enforce a tenancy agreement or lease agreement.

And often that will be on the back

of the police criminal investigation,

where when they conclude their their their investigations will conclude

whether that amounts to breach of tenancy which is highly likely to do and

then we'll take the that by enforcement action a slightly perhaps lower sanction

could be not sanctioned but an action could be the closure order or the

premises closure order where we can perhaps exclude people from a block or

from a property to try and limit that behaviour but ultimately I think hopefully

all aware that the new tenancy agreement has been kind of updated and I think

goes live as the early June and that's got some strong conditions in there and

it kind of really highlights the fact that if you're part of a gang that

constitutes breach of tenancy and there's a load of kind of bolstered

terms in there as well so I think the key thing is we need to know about it

the key thing is we need to work in conjunction with the council the police

we will and and of the various legal teams and yeah ultimately as I said

before it's the judge that has to kind of sanction the eviction so it's not

something as a lander we can just say right you're out we do have to take it

to court and get there you know take the evidence and you know I'm sure the judge

would look favourably on good evidence being provided and the impact that

person's behaviour is having either on that property or the surrounding area so

hopefully that covers your your question but this is my haka hat rather than my

to hoof that on.

But just to give you an example, a live example

that Pablo Harga's experiencing at the moment,

we've got a next door neighbours.

One of the neighbours has pled guilty to and been sentenced

for threatening the next door neighbour with the machete.

We have got a possession order,

but the court system allows appeal after appeal after appeal

Which means that actually the gentleman who pled guilty is now living back at home

Next door to the family who were threatened with the machete and we are still having to go through the court system

So actually trying to get in

Sooner trying to address things as Nick and the guys have all described to try and stop it from happening

but when it does happen it is not straightforward in terms of trying to,

rightly so, you know we should not be able to just tell people to leave their

homes but when it is that serious it's still not straightforward and it takes,

we've been now two years trying to force this through the court system so it

takes a very long time and it takes a lot of money and a lot of perseverance

And a lot of support for the victims. So yeah, just just to say to all of you guys

Yeah, thank you for your work because it's not an easy area to be working in

Mark you're the last

Thank you, thank you Ted and thank you for the presentation thanks especially to mrs. Spencey for

I'm responding to all of my various queries on behalf of residents in Bo East around Roman Road especially

and I'm conscious sitting here that I'm often demanding resources be

kind of applied in Bo East wards and you know I'm reminded sitting listening to

Councillor Islam, Councillor Faruq and you Chair as well and I know Councillor

Ahmed were for the same as well that there is a tendency in the west of the borough for

the situation to be more severe and for resources to kind of to gravitate in

that direction I guess. Nevertheless obviously we are one borough and you

know there should be equality and parity in terms of the way that those resources

are applied and that's why we argue as strongly as we do for park guards to

come in or the Theos or whatever it might be. So coincidentally I was in

Councillor Mushtaq's ward on Sunday in a block that I used to live in 25 years

ago and when I lived there through no fault of my own I hasten to add there

would just the block was plagued with people taking and doing class -a drugs

heroin and crack cocaine in the stairwells and it was absolutely awful

to the point that lots of residents just ended up walking away leaving they just

couldn't stomach it anymore and for a whole series of interventions that

started with neighbourhood wardens and then moved on to neighbourhood policing

actions by Tower Hamlets Homes which hadn't been taken by a housing

director here previously really good interventions happened so it was really

awful for me to speak to residents on Sunday saying that things are just

pretty much back where they were 20 odd years ago and I think you

know they recognise that that is because there is almost no uniform presence

around or you know if it is deployed on that estate the chances are it will be

you know it's a 10 % chance it will be in their block as opposed to one of the

other ones and you know that it's that shortage is that need for more uniform

presence and I think lies at the heart of this I wanted to say that I want to

say this as well though I like our role is scrutiny and it's really good to

understand the context it's really good to understand the kind of individual

examples of good work and aspirations for the future as well but we're here to

kind of measure performance too and I think like one of the things that it's

useful for us to have is some metrics on this both from Tyler Hamlet's Homes and

what what other partner organisations feel they're able to do for us to give

to us as well so I remember as a former board member I'm pretty certain we had a

measure we were given a measure of satisfaction with response to ASB and I

think I've had that at two housing Association as well as THH so I just

wondered if like finally the final thing for me is if we can have some of that

kind of data that we can see that we can that the next that the committee next

year can look at and probe into and then come back and maybe ask some more

questions as well then thank you I like also like to see because summers here

so next committee meeting when I see each our cell what sort of how many

complaining get an untouchable behaviour that'll give us a benchmark on different

area worst of the bar is what the bar and different ourselves also that'll be

good key information because this is a peak time almost summers we are almost

in May and that would be a good idea. Complaints. So at least we know.

Well a complaint will produce a report easily so we would like to solve it so we can have

a comparison between our set of different barriers where the problem is.

Yeah just very quickly to say you'll have noticed in the TSM's anti -social behaviour

and contributions to neighbourhood for RPs is heavily represented in there.

But also just to say as well that certainly a high number of reports

indicates there are issues on the estate but it also indicates that residents

have got confidence to report those issues. So I think just to qualify the

context of the information that you're asking for that a lot of the times that

people go very quiet is when they get fed up and they don't bother reporting

anymore so yeah just a little bit of balance that higher doesn't necessarily

higher number of reports doesn't necessarily mean poorer performance by

the RP. Last question, Shaleen.

Yeah, just to kind of address what Councillor Francis raised about the ASB question, I remember

we used to ask that question with the old set of KPIs, but it was a lot to do with a

lot of RPs not asking that or getting that data on a quarterly basis. So we used to get

a lot of not applicable, not applicable when we used to get the returns for the KPIs, which

as well, we kind of resulted to asking that question on an annual basis for the KPIs.

I will move into AOB.

Natalie, Farooq, I'll take Natalie.

Thank you, Chair.

I have a couple of AOBs.

The first is we have via email requested a briefing on Maddox House.

I understand that there's probably some kind of an investigation going on so maybe it's not appropriate at this time to have a briefing.

But I just wanted to mention it and ask for it to be on the agenda for when it does become available.

I'm looking at Karen but I'm not sure if it's your remit.

line HMO.

The line A -3 is not right at all.

The shape and the

rest of it is just an 2009 proof of

errors

I think it's still a very housing issue on the madocs.

Can I just say Madoc House is still under police investigation legal and therefore we should not discuss it to jeopardise the inquiry.

So we leave it for them to come conclusion then I'm sure we can discuss it on our board, whatever we need to discuss it.

All right, so we also previously discussed an update on the homelessness backlog and

I believe that's maybe something that you're that Karen you're going to contact me on but

it would be great to have an update.

And then the third thing is the suggestion that we pass a resolution here to request

additional meetings of the housing scrutiny committee.

Think quickly can I just have it all the members who can vote more increased number of meeting

Yeah, so

I think I'd propose I would want four additional meetings

that we request for additional meetings for the housing screening committee in addition to the five meetings that we have already and

and

Pending discussion with resources and the chief executive. Maybe that needs to be brought down

Somewhat we're willing to negotiate but that would I would be what wanting to ask for that

Formerly second councillor being face proposal for four additional meetings of housing scrutiny committee

I'm in the next municipal year, please

need

Now you know a lot of what I'm doesn't say counsellors it

okay, so

For so can make a suggestion to take it to share scrutiny to request for more meeting for

every

Thank you, Natalie.

Okay, Mr. Fald, do you want to come along on the next, please?

Yes, thank you, Chair.

I think I should have asked that question on my last question, timing.

Is it possible that we can propose for, get a closure order for all RSC in one go?

Closing order?

On the state?

Like instead of one state at a time and it takes three months, then these people, they

go on another area and then occupied so instead of in like doing it one it go

all in one go so in like if they if we get a close order in burner state

probably if it's another state and if we get all together in one go then that's

been of there they've got nowhere to go these people you know those rough

sleepers as well as yeah space yeah I think I would come along on that yeah

just simple answer I'm afraid not very they were like we didn't quite I'm

finished we resolved I think by four four members of the committee and there

were no nobody objecting to us having additional meetings so we formally

resolved but now it would be useful to know what's going to happen to that so

if that's if it's possible if it's not possible to explain what's going to

happen to that now then maybe we can have something that a note or something

that's circulated so that we can see how this is formally taken forward obviously

those of us that are on the main O &S committee will make that case as well

obviously it needs to go to the chief executive I think for a decision about

the resources but my recollection is this for this committee to determine or

also for ONS to determine how many meetings it holds,

bearing in mind the resources that are available.

So yeah, if we can have like a formal written note on that,

that we can see how it gets pursued from this point onwards.

Thank you.

I have a question for you.

So I've seen that there's no objection,

but it'd be really good to hear your opinion on this.

Are you supportive of having four extra meetings

for this committee and you've worked through

all these meetings up until this point and you know what what are the things that you're passionate about that we're all passionate about that

Needs to come back and there's never enough time in these meetings and you always want Russia

So be good to know your opinion on this house

Me and that it was a first to ask for extra meeting. So my support is

But what I would like to say is I

take it to the next step how the procedure is going. So we'll see on that.

Okay, that's fine. No problem. Thanks for everybody coming. And this is the,

I'd like to thank you all the officers who did very good jobs presentation coming and

taking your time and so on and so on. Andrea Baker coming in a lot of meeting over the past month as

to everybody, councillors, court members and officers, thank you very much and hope to

see whoever is in charge, maybe Arvind or somebody else, we'll see you next meeting,

which is a couple of months I believe.

Please leave feedback relating to the quality of the webcast (i.e. audio visual elements) only. Comments relating to conduct or contributions of attendees or political statements will be deleted.

Required field

Name

Comments

Need an accessible hCaptcha?
Check available options.
Sign up to hCaptcha or Log in to hChaptcha.

By clicking Send feedback, you agree that Tower Hamlets London Borough Council and Public-i can use the information above to review your feedback and contact you about it. See our Privacy Policy for more details.

Housing & Regeneration Scrutiny Sub Committee - Thursday 27 April 2023, 6:30pm - Tower Hamlets Council webcasts

Housing & Regeneration Scrutiny Sub CommitteeThursday, 27th April 2023 at 6:30pm

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Twitter

Forums

Speakers

Leave a comment on the quality of this webcast

Votes

Housing & Regeneration Scrutiny Sub Committee
Thursday, 27th April 2023 at 6:30pm