This meeting was scheduled to review Royal Borough of Greenwich's (RBG) performance on housing safety and compliance with the Regulator of Social Housing's consumer standards, as well as to examine the council’s response to the homelessness crisis and the growing demand for Temporary Accommodation (TA). It was also scheduled to note the work programme for the next meeting.

Housing Safety and Compliance

The Panel was scheduled to consider a report on the current situation of building safety and compliance in RBG’s council homes. The report included updates on RBG’s progress towards compliance with the Regulator of Social Housing’s consumer standards, in particular its performance in “the big six” areas of Housing Safety Compliance: fire safety, electrical safety, asbestos management, gas safety, legionella/water safety and lift safety.

The original four consumer standards were introduced by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 but as of the 1st April 2024, new Standards have been introduced as a result of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023.

The report also included details about activity to ensure compliance with the requirements of the Social Housing Ombudsman and the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). The report pack included an update on RBG's response to the issue of damp and mould in its homes.

Over the previous year Royal Borough of Greenwich has had a key focus to improve service provided around damp and mould.

It also included a timeline for reaching compliance in outstanding areas.

As expected, the two areas which are taking the longest to resolve are electrical testing and fire actions.

The Panel was also scheduled to be provided with information about RBG’s activity in connection with the Building Safety Act 2022, and the Building Safety Regulator (BSR). The document pack includes a list of the 67 Higher Risk Buildings (HRBs) that have been registered with the BSR, and an estimate of the 7 HRBs that are likely to be subject to a “call in” of their safety cases during the first year of the BSR’s programme. The Panel was scheduled to be updated about the preparation of Building Safety Cases for each of these buildings.

The report pack included RBG’s performance on each of the 22 Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs). The report pack included a link to the TSM performance report for 2023/4.

Homelessness and at-risk residents

The Panel was scheduled to be provided with a report on the current situation of homelessness and at-risk residents in the borough, as well as the challenges faced in curbing homelessness and preventing residents from becoming at risk. The report pack included details about the four main causes of homelessness in the borough:

• End of private rented tenancy
• Family no longer willing or able to accommodate
• Domestic abuse victim
• Friends no longer willing or able to accommodate

The report pack also included a comparison of RBG’s homelessness prevention performance against other London boroughs, revealing that in the Financial Year 2023/24:

• RBG saw the 11th highest number of initial assessments out of the 30 London Boroughs.
• RBG had the 8th highest number of households owed a prevention or relief duty out of the 30 London Boroughs.
• RBG had the 12th highest prevention or relief duty owed rate out of the 32 London Boroughs.

The Panel was scheduled to discuss the systemic challenges to curbing homelessness across the UK:

• Lack of genuinely affordable properties
• Cost of living crisis
• Lack of financial resilience
• Multiple and complex support needs
• Overcrowded families requiring large properties
• Working with refugees and asylum seekers

The report pack contained details about the systematic approach being taken by the council to prevent homelessness. This included: helping residents to understand their realistic housing options; helping residents to stay with friends and family; helping residents to maintain or find private rented accommodation; and helping residents to find social housing. The report pack contained a description of the Housing Support Finder, a digital tool designed to:

…help residents to see their estimated social housing waiting time and other housing support available.

The document pack also included details about the council’s work with two partner organisations that help source private rented accommodation for homeless households: Prime, a property website; and Beam, an organisation that helps people experiencing homelessness to find work. It also detailed its work with Bridge Housing Solutions, an organisation that helps find social housing placements outside of the borough for homeless households.

The report pack included a summary of the consultation undertaken by the council from October 2023 to January 2024 with residents, staff and partners to understand the holistic picture of homelessness services.

Temporary Accommodation

The Panel was scheduled to be updated on the provision of and residents’ experience in temporary accommodation housing. The report pack included details about the challenges being faced by the council in providing temporary accommodation, particularly the growing demand for it and the suitability and cost of the council’s temporary accommodation stock profile. It showed that the number of households in temporary accommodation has risen from:

… 392 in 2017, to 1999 at the end of September 2024.

The document pack also contained details about the Temporary Accommodation Cost Reduction Programme, a programme set up in September 2023 to tackle the causes and symptoms of the homelessness and temporary accommodation crisis.

It has taken a hypothesis-led, collaborative approach to tackling the causes and symptoms of the homelessness and TA crisis.

The programme has identified three key long-term objectives:

1. A budget-neutral TA stock profile
2. Increase the suitability of the temporary accommodation we place homeless households in including eliminating the use of shared facility bed and breakfast type TA
3. Reduce homeless pressures by supporting more households into settled accommodation

The document pack described how the programme has used 3 “levers” to implement a number of interventions in pursuit of these objectives, including: acquiring 133 new social housing units; supporting more than 200 homeless households into better, more suitable accommodation; increasing the incentives that are paid to private sector landlords; using live pricing data to find the cheapest suitable hotel room; and increasing General Fund and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) temporary accommodation rents. It also included details about the work being undertaken with Creating Ground, a community-led organisation.

Together with Creating Ground, we co-created an information sheet to help TA households improve their internet access.

The report pack included a diagram explaining the temporary accommodation provision journey for residents and staff, and details about the Temporary Accommodation Placement Policy (see Appendix B).

It also contained a breakdown of the proposed interventions that are being considered for the next phase of the programme, and the projected impact of each intervention, as well as a description of the programme delivery risks and their potential impact on the cost reduction and improved service delivery aims of the programme.

The report pack concluded by detailing resident experience in temporary accommodation, including the different challenges faced by those living in Emergency Overnight Accommodation (EOA) and hotels, the types and volume of complaints that have been received, and the support offered to families in hotels. It included a map showing the location of all of the Emergency Overnight Accommodation placements as of 30 September 2024, as well as a map of all of the Travelodge hotel placements as of that date.

Commissioning of Future Reports

The Panel was scheduled to note the work items that are scheduled to be presented at its next meeting, which is due to take place on 12 December 2024. These included reports on: community safety initiatives, including CCTV; the Safer Greenwich Partnership; and Tenant Satisfaction Measures.

This summary describes the topics that were included in the report pack that was provided to attendees of the meeting. It does not describe what was actually discussed, or whether any decisions were actually made.