Decision

The Mayor in Sub-Committee RESOLVED that:

1. Notes the progress made to deliver the Your Voice, Our Action – Safe Homes, Great Services Programme.
2. Agrees to the closure of the Governance workstream following the completion of all deliverables.
3. Agrees to the establishment of two new programme workstreams:

•         Policies and Procedures

•         Resident Engagement

1. Agrees that a review of progress be undertaken, with three pillars: Root-cause Analysis, Self-Assessment, and Programme Review, with findings to be presented to the Cabinet Sub-Committee in September. 

Reasons for the decision

The Your Voice, Our Action: Safe Homes, Great Services programme is the improvement programme for housing management services.

The Your Voice, Our Action: Safe Homes, Great Services programme:

•         Puts tenants and their voice at the heart our services.

•         Ensures our council homes are safe.

•         Brings services together under one roof.

•         Achieves compliance with the Consumer Standards.

At Cabinet in November 2024, we presented our initial draft Regulatory Assurance Action Plan following HQN and Pennington’s reviews.

The programme has been developed from the action plan, incorporating resident feedback, internal and external reviews and engagement with the Regulator of Social Housing.

The lifespan of the programme is between November 2024 and January 2026.

It is expected that the programme will continue to develop through co-production with the Housing Management Cabinet Sub-Committee, the Regulator of Social Housing and Tenants’ Voice.

The programme is designed to enable an agile approach to ensure responsive and planned improvements can be made, that we can adapt to challenges and that a culture of continuous improvement is embedded in our services. 1.8 In reflection of the importance of improvements to our housing management landlord functions, the Housing Management Cabinet Sub-Committee will receive a report each meeting setting out the progress made in delivering the programme.

Alternative options considered

There are no alternative options to delivering the programme; we are committed to improving our housing management services, putting residents and their voice at the heart of our services, ensuring our council homes are safe and meeting the Consumer Standards.

A decision could be taken to not complete a mid-point review, instead continuing to deliver the programme as is and to not identify root-causes for issues identified within the regulatory inspection. However, this is not recommended as it has the risk that problems will reoccur without us addressing the root-causes and that the highest impact deliverables for our residents are not prioritised.