Purpose

The council’s housing service is going through a period of improvement and transition as part of the process of ensuring compliance with the Regulator of Social Housing’s Consumer Standards.
Housemark offers a service that supports councils and other social housing providers with:
•specialist expertise to provide analysis and insight into data.
•Regulatory compliance
•Comparison with over 350 other housing providers across the UK
Housemark is owned by the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation.
Membership of Housemark will provide the council with a range of benchmarking data, monthly pulse reports, data insights, comparison and analysis along with exclusive events, reports and presentations. In addition, there is tailored support and advice in relation to KPI reporting and data analysis and capture and various forums.
The Enterprise membership package offers the highest grade of membership and full access into the Housemark service. The package comes at a cost of £10,185 when purchased as part of a three year membership deal.
It is therefore proposed to purchase the three year deal at a total cost of £30,555 (note that the year two and three price are subject to a CPI uplift).
The membership fee will be funded from existing Housing Revenue Account budgets and the costs is anticipated to be recouped by virtue of the specialist resource it will provide.

Decision

To purchase a membership of Housemark.

Alternative options considered

This arrangement will overlap with LGR and the formation of a new unitary authority for North Essex. The unitary authority will need to make a decision about how the housing stock is to be managed and whether any arrangements such as this one are continued.